STEVE INSKEEP, Host:
Lawmakers reworking health care know they're tiptoeing through a minefield. A few months ago on MORNING EDITION, we heard from Stan Greenberg, President Clinton's pollster during the failed health-care effort of the 1990s.
M: The public is more skeptical about health care than any other issue I look at. They're not sure government won't muck it up. They're not sure the special interests won't come in there as well.
INSKEEP: And even though many people favor change of some kind, that public concern creates openings for the opposition today. NPR news analyst Juan Williams has been looking at the politics of health care for Republicans. Hi, Juan.
JUAN WILLIAMS: Good morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: Now, Juan, in the '90s, Republicans famously took the argument that health care is basically fine. It's good care. Most people had it. Some people didn't have insurance, but we didn't need big, risky change. Are they trying that same line of argument again?
WILLIAMS: Well, basically that's right. And with the support, if you'll recall, in the '90s of the insurance companies, doctors and the like, they were able to hold the line and say, we can just do small things, sort of incremental change around the edges. But this time, they're having a little more trouble. But basically, the same argument: Why risk whole-scale change?
INSKEEP: Why are they having a little more trouble this time?
WILLIAMS: Well, I think, clearly, what you've just heard from Stan Greenberg is that despite their concerns, there is broad popular support for the idea of health-care change because if you look at what's going on in emergency rooms, if you look at the possibility of high costs for catastrophic care or someone who has to deal with long-term care, people fear that it's going to bankrupt them and potentially, if you look at the economy, bankrupt many American companies.
INSKEEP: Of course, then, Republicans are warning that change - the wrong kind of change could make things worse. And let's listen a little bit to an argument by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
INSKEEP: What they don't want is a Washington takeover of health care along the lines of what we've already seen with banks, insurance companies and the auto industry.
INSKEEP: Sounds like the same thing Stan Greenberg was mentioning there, that he's trying to play on the fears of the public, that the government is going to muck this up. How far can Republicans get with that argument?
WILLIAMS: And just recently this week, there was a big boost for the Republican argument when the Congressional Budget Office did a scorecard on one draft of a proposal and said it's going to, in fact, cause some people to lose their insurance coverage, and it won't cover everybody in the country. So immediately, that allowed the Republicans to say, this is problematic. It's not what the president is saying.
INSKEEP: Now just about everything that you have quoted Republicans as saying there, of course, is being disputed by Democrats as being distorted or overblown or just plain wrong. But of course, we're talking about the politics here and how things work.
WILLIAMS: Right.
INSKEEP: And yesterday here on MORNING EDITION, we talked about that public plan you mentioned. Republicans have said it will grow into nationalized health insurance. And Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told it - that that has been the hardest thing for the administration to explain.
INSKEEP: I think that the whole idea of the public option has been difficult in part because I think some of the opposition has described it as a potential for a draconian scenario that was never part of the discussion in the first place.
INSKEEP: That's Kathleen Sebelius yesterday. Juan, has the White House found any effective way to prove a negative here, to say this is not going to become creeping socialism?
WILLIAMS: Well, what you're hearing from President Obama himself is the status quo is not acceptable. Let's not forget what's going on with the high number of uninsured in the country. Let's not forget what's going on in the emergency rooms. President Obama mentions his own mother's other struggles with dying and having to argue with insurance companies. And he's on a PR offensive, Steve. He'll be all over ABC next week, prime time, making the case for changing the health-care system.
INSKEEP: Juan, thanks very much.
WILLIAMS: You're welcome, Steve.
INSKEEP: That's NPR's senior news analyst Juan Williams. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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