Ralston tonight interviewed Dina Titus on her Yes health care vote, as follows:
Q: A few days ago you were undecided. What got you off the fence, specifically?
A: Two things: I was waiting for the CBO figures, and they show that this is going to save even more money than anticipated and bring down the deficit. And second, a lot of the things I was concerned about in the Senate bill are fixed by the new compromise. They’ve done away with the special deals for certain states. They’ve adjusted the tax on benefits so it doesn’t kick in to 2018, and the cap is much higher. They’ve spread the reforms to more people, so now they cover everybody who has an insurance policy for things like protections against caps, protections against taking away the policy, protections for pre-existing conditions.
Q: There have been a lot of people who said you were just faking it, that you really were going to vote for it the whole time, that this was all an act. Did you get any last minute arm-twisting?
A: No, absolutely not. People honored my wishes, which was to do my homework and get the information. I did not hear from the President. I did not go see the Speaker. I got a lot of phone calls and those are the people I listened to, not the million dollars’ worth of insurance company ads.
Q: That is interesting, because I think you are going to have a tough time explaining to your constituents how a bill spends $940 billion – and that’s the low end – amd maybe over a trillion to get health care done, yet reduces the deficit and is not going to hurt Medicare. Do you think you can explain that?
A: I do. I think we don’t need to go into all the details, because people don’t want to hear that, and we need take a lesson, to keep it simple. Now, it’s unfortunate that the bill was 2,000 pages long. It should have been 10 pages like the Constitution. When they see the things that go into effect right away, like children staying on their parent’s policies until age 26, small businesses getting those tax cuts right now so they can provide health insurance for their employee, no pre-existing conditions – those are the kinds of things that I think people will feel and will understand and that will make a difference.
Q: It may indeed help small business – I have heard that argument – but there are also provisions in there for larger businesses over 50 employees who get this subsidy from the government, and they can face penalties. That can be disincentive to hiring, no?
A: I don’t think so. Most of the businesses I talk to want to provide insurance for their employees. It’s a great recruiting too. They want to be able to do it; they just can’t afford it. That’s one of the reasons we need this bill, because families can’t sustain it, businesses can’t compete with in the global economy if they don’t have it, and government needs to bring down those costs over time, too, because Medicare, Medicaid, those are very expensive.
Q: You know that was a lot of pages for you to read in between the time you got the bill and you made your decision. You sure this wasn’t just a ruse? You didn’t read all 2,000 pages again did you?
A: I’ll say it one more time, Jon. I wanted to get the bill in front of me. I wanted to do my homework, and its’ not as difficult as you might imagine because a lot of the bill stays the same, it’s the changes that are really important to focus on and study.
Q: You know I might not be the best person to ask this question since I once declared your career over, but the epitaphs for Dina Titus have been pouring in since this, where your friends over at the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee have said, she’s walked the plank, her career’s over. The publisher of a large newspaper here said the voters are going to vote you out of office in November. Is this really an important enough thing to lose your seat over?
A: You know what, I think the election is a long time away, and there are other issues bedsides health care that we’ve been working on, like foreclosures, and we gotta create some jobs, and we gotta create renewable energy — but this isn’t about politics, this is about policy, and I believe there are things more important than re-election, and that’s why I listened to folks in the District, not to these special interests who are running these ads and doing these polls. This is the health care of the American people.
Q: What about the obligation that leaders of a political party have to educate the public? Are you going to take that up yourself, are the Democrats going to be able to do that, to say why this bill is a good thing and change those poll numbers by November? You have to do that, right?
A: Well, I’m doing it right now, Jon. And I’ve been doing it for a year. I’ve always said we need reform. And if you think about it, I’ve done about a dozen Congress on the Corners. I’ve done about a half a dozen telephone town halls. We’ve done public hearings. We’ve answered over 90,000 letters, telephone calls, emails. We are getting that information out. And we are telling people the truth and giving them the facts, not using scare tactics like using death panels and those kinds of emotional things and misguided information like is coming from the other side and the insurance companies.
