Representatives Jason Kander (D) and Tim Flook (r) held a press conference on their ethics reform bill late Monday morning in the House Lounge at the capitol.

Representatives Jason Kander (D)(left) and Tim Flook (r)(right).

Our previous coverage:

Kander (D) and Flook (r): ethics reform legislation in Jefferson City

Kander (D) and Flook (r): ethics reform legislation in Jefferson City, part 2

The transcript of the first half of the media question and answer session:

…Question: Last year, uh, Rex Sinquefield created a number of committees in, in the time that was legal, uh, and, and there were some who suggested that he made those committees so he could get around the existing campaign laws. Does this bill address that in any way?

Representative Tim Flook: Let me answer that. Uh, make sure it’s understood, this bill isn’t about Rex Sinquefield…

…Question: No, I [crosstalk]…

Representative Flook: It’s not…

Question: That’s [inaudible]…

Representative Flook: But I, I will tell you, um, one thing that’s, one thing that, I would frame it this way, uh, Representative Kander point [inaudible]. He and I had this discussion for over a year. That the reality of it is, that, that when you have multiple committees then there’s a temptation from legislators to pick up support here, but not ever admit or talk about it over there. And there’s legal methodologies for doing it. It’s legal. Uh, what Rex Sinquefield, what his, his donations were perfectly legal. Um, but, you know, I believe, and Representative Kander believes with me, that, uh, you should take the donation directly from who you receive support from, the public should be aware of it, and they should be judging you by that.

I support stem cell research. I’ve taken in, in, support from stem cell community. The general public deserves to know that. And if they feel like I, I’m not appropriate elected representative for their area they, they can vote accordingly. Just like my votes are on record. That’s what this is really about.

And one of the, one of the hot topic issues between Democrats and Republicans are campaign finance laws. Um, for, for me, particularly, I voted to remove the limits. I voted to remove them, one, because I believe philosophically you should be able to make whatever donation you want. But at the same time I also felt I would be willing to step up and support legislation like this to eliminate the use of these committees so that whenever you’re taking a large amount of support it’s known, and it’s directly known, and the legislator admits it up front. And, and, you know, for me, If I receive support from a committee I need to be prepared to, to talk about that. And that’s what this is really about. And I think if we eliminate that at, it, it makes the process more straightforward, it makes it more disclosed, and, although there are legal methodologies for donating to committees that can donate to other people, we would like to narrow that down so that we get more direct donations and more disclosure to the public on who and what we’re getting sup, uh, support by.

Representative Jason Kander: And to add to that, to add to that, you know, in essence your question is somewhat about campaign finance limits. Uh, and Representative Flook references it, and I think that is, that really speaks to how bipartisan this bill is. I, I believe that campaign finance limits would be a vital part of ethics reform. Representative Flook and I don’t completely see eye to eye on that issue. And that didn’t stop us from sitting down and saying what can we do to sort of satisfy both sides that, that believe that ethics reform is necessary and get us to the point where maybe we can get, uh, maybe from my side that believes in campaign finance limits, maybe it’ll open more people up on the Republican side to discussing them when we address these issues as well. Uh, I saw in the Independence Examiner I think today Representative Dusenberg said that he’s, he would look favorably now possibly upon a bill, uh, for campaign finance limits. I’m a cosponsor, Representative LeVota’s bill to re-impose campaign finance limits. But I’m not going to allow my advocacy for campaign finance limits to keep representative Flook and myself from getting a lot done this year as well.

Question: Last year we stood here around the same time of year and there was another bipartisan ethics bill, uh, and there was a bipartisan news conference proposing this ethics bill, uh, with some of the same, uh, information. There’s quite a bit different in this bill. What, what’s different, uh, in terms of getting such a bill through the legislature. Last year the ethics bills went nowhere.

Representative Flook: Well, uh, I , are you talking about  Representative Yates and Zimmerman?

Question: Yeah, Yates and Zimmerman.

Representative Flook: Okay, yeah. Well Representative Yates will not be here. He’s taken a job so, uh, which give me opportunity to become involved. Well I’ll tell you what’s, what’s different. Last year we had a lot of priorities we needed to move on. I, what, what has become different is, is that, you know, we’ve had incidents around the state, we have more people asking questions, and we’ve had a year of, frankly, debating these ideas on our own. Um, what, what I would impress upon you as members of the media is to recognize is that just because a bill doesn’t get out to the House floor doesn’t mean we’re not talking about it. Uh, you know, Representative Kander and I have these kind of discussions amongst ourselves and others. We sit around here at night drinking coffee during the, during the, the, the less, uh, sexy pieces of legislation, we sit back in the House lounge and talk to each other. And we talk about common ground. And one of our concerns was is that so much of the time ethics legislation is always turned into campaign politics. And you cannot get anything legitimate off the ground because it’s always being seen as trying to poke the other guy in the eye. You know, my, my philosophical belief and, uh, Representative Kander’s philosophical belief about owning up to who you’re receiving support from has nothing to do with, with anything else going on in the state. It’s a philosophical belief. But, by virtue of, of more questions being asked we see an opportunity to put it back out there and rejuvenate it. We didn’t want the efforts on the part of, of, uh, Representative Yates, Representative Zimmerman that we certainly agreed on, we don’t want to see those die on the vine. And we wanted to make this effort. I mean, we’re in communication with our leadership on both sides of the aisle on this bill. Um, we think it’s a good stepping off point to show that we’re really gonna try to resolve some things. We’ve had incidents in St. Louis, we’ve had incidents in Kansas City, um, you know, we want to make sure that the public understands that there are people down here working together and that, for the most part, we really are trying to do the right thing. The best way to show that is this joining together working on a bill that, uh, that changes the, changes some of the, the laws and close loopholes and help create a little more security and trust in, in our government.

Question: What, what I don’t see here, talk about pay to play, prohibition on the exchange of campaign contributions for legislative action, what I don’t see is specific language that says, uh, no contributions during the session. Uh, you didn’t go there, why not?

Representative Kander: Well, I mean, actually, it’s not a
conversation we’ve had to a great degree but I would speculate in front of everybody, uh, that a lot of it has to do with just, there was a court case that, that had issue with that. And I think what we didn’t want to do was get pretty far down the road and then be faced with a [inaudible] court challenge.

Representative Flook: Yeah, and, and to that point, that, that goes after other things that turns into campaign fodder. And we know we risk that as it is trying to do a legitimate bill. So we, we’re not interested in, in challenging things in the court. We’re not interested in making that kind of noise. What we’d like to do is establish the new laws and get it passed. We want a bill that can build consensus and make it to the House and Senate floor and be passed.

Representative Kander: And to add to that, you mentioned that’s been proposed  in the past, obviously, since there was a court case about it. What we really are focused on in this bill are new ideas. There are people, you know, Tony, you mentioned, uh, Representative Yates, Representative Zimmerman’s bill, Representative Zimmerman is, is more than capable of, of pushing that bill and I’m sure that he will. There’s no need for me to come in and, and retread that. That’s not necessary. There are really capable people with really capable, uh, really great ideas out there. We were not focused on sort of gathering any of those up and pushing them forward.

Question: Representative Flook, what have you heard from Republican leadership about [inaudible] ethics bill or ethics in general?

Representative Flook: Well, you know, I’ll tell you, I, I’m, I believe in my Republican caucus here in the State of Missouri. I think we’ve got a good caucus. And I think we’ve done a good job. And when I, when I approached, uh, uh, our Speaker and members of the caucus and said, you know, I want to work with Representative Kander on, on this bill, you know, they, they obviously had questions about what the bill contained and is this a real serious effort. Um, and, and the answer was yes. You know, so, my, my Republican members are interested in this legislation. There’ll be things they want to tweak or add, uh, just like I’m sure the Democratic caucus, caucus will want to tweak and add things. But, uh, the bottom line is, is that if we have, if we have something we want to improve upon they way to improve upon it is to get people to agree on what a good change is. You don’t start out an effort at teamwork by accusing your team member of being a bad person and telling them that you want them thrown out of office. That doesn’t accomplish anything, in fact, that just guarantees gridlock. Where, as Representative Kander and I realize that we know, we talk to each other all the time in the hallways and in our offices and in the lounge, we know there’s a lot we can agree on. And we know that when a bill I seen as a genuine effort to work together that, that House or Senate members will rally around that bill. And in this particular case this, this bill is gonna make people in my caucus happy, I believe, because it’s gonna answer some of the very things that we’ve talked about amongst ourselves and with the Democrats for years, things we’d like to change.

Question: So, so this legislation would ban a candidate [inaudible] say [inaudible] a candidate committee from receiving money from like a district committee or a political action committee or what, what, what would that part be?

Representative Kander: No, what we do, because going back to the court challenge issue there’s a certain element of the question, whether or not. So, what we do is we simply say that, that district or that individual political action committee, they can’t send money back and forth to one another. If you choose to, uh, you know, an organization, for instance, my wife is on the board of the Greater Kansas City Women’s Political Caucus, they have a political action committee. They obviously have a mutual interest, a reason that they would want to have a political action committee. If they are going to make a contribution to a candidate, obviously they’re making it in the, in the furtherance of their cause. Well, what the Greater Kansas City Women’s Political Caucus does not have is seventeen committees so they can move money back and forth twenty times so that a candidate can come to them and say, hey, I’d really like to take money from this person so that I can do this favor for them and never be caught, so would you just wash the money around until nobody’s really sure where it came from. What we do is we say, if a donor makes a contribution to a committee then that committee turns around and makes a contribution to a candidate then at least, at a minimum in the court of public opinion, when that candidate runs for reelection or runs for election for the first time somebody can make the argument you took money from a, from a committee that, that is funded by this. Instead of, who knows where that, where that committee [inaudible], you know these obscure names, Americans for America and Politicians Who Love Fuzzy Animals, I mean, these kind of joke political action committee names that go back and forth. What we’re trying to do is streamline that process. And furthermore, make it a felony, if you do use the process that exists after our law, to actually obscure the source of [crosstalk]…

Question: How do you approach that, though, if there’s no documentation that says that?

Representative Kander: Same way the Federal government [inaudible]…

Representative Flook: Same way, yeah. It’s the same fight every, every law enforcement officer has, in, in, in mul, different types of cases. Those cases can happen, you, you saw, uh, we saw cases recently in Missouri. You’ll see other types of areas. You know, I think it important to point out, you know, uh, both parties have people out there, um, with committees and those committees handle a lot of money from multiple directions. And to say, to say that it’s one party over another is just simply wrong, it’s simply. You know, you know, Re, Mr. Sinquefield was, was mentioned. Well he’s just one you all wrote about. As far as I’m concerned, I mean, he’s really not a, not a story. The real story is that it goes on all the time everywhere. And for us we just believe one, uh, very simple philosophical principle, and that is, say what you believe in, accept support from those that, that, uh, that support you, accept it openly. All right? You know, I , I support Rex Sinquefields efforts on education reform in the urban core. Absolutely. Check my voting record. I’m probably one of the most consistent ones with him.  [crosstalk] But, you know, I should [crosstalk], I should, like any other issue, if I’m gonna accept support from him and, and work on a [inaudible] he believes in, that’s not illegal. That’s not illegal. But, I should disclose it. It should be known. And if, if you have a lot of support from unions, fine, the public gets to know. If you have a lot of support from lawyers, that’s absolutely fine, but the public deserves to know who’s supporting you. And that keeps you accountable.

Question: But if I’ve got a lot of money, and I’m a reporter so it’s a bad question, but if I’ve got a lot of money [crosstalk]…

Representative Kander: We’ll suspend disbelief.

Question: …and I want to support [inaudible] do you want me to have to give your campaign committee the money directly or will it still be possible for me to give the money also to the Republican State Committee and the Kansas City Area Committee for Do Good Republicans with the, and that money eventually could wind up with you, but the rest of the people in this room may not be able to follow that [inaudible].

Representative Flook: Well I, I think what’ll happen is that this legislation, is that because the intentional hiding of money, you’re involved in intentionally hiding money. And, and an, that’s, I’ll preface it, our law kinda circles around that right now. You already can’t intentionally
launder. We’re just trying to close that circle and make sure that we can close that loophole. And one way to do it is to help eliminate the creation of these other committees. That really closes the circle on it. We’re already almost there. We’re just trying to close it. And, to answer your question, if, if someone wants to make a large donation to the Democrat House Committee, the Republican House Committee they’re still free to do that, all right, they’re still free to do that. And for First Amendment purposes it’d be very difficult to completely eliminate committees. I mean, it just for the, between the court cases and court challenges we couldn’t really do that. Um, and you know honestly, it’s okay to have base donations to the party committees, it’s all fully disclosed. You all can pick that up very quickly. But if we eliminate the number of side committees that are floating around, if we can reduce that number in any kind of significant measure we really start moving down the path further to, to directly, direct line disclosure of where your support comes from. And, honestly, we have to change the conversation to get there, that’s what this joint effort is, we have to begin the dialog and, and create a shift in, in, in the public eye of, of how campaign finance is looked at. And the way you do that is you don’t make it partisan. You don’t make it partisan. I am not here to try and grind a boot heel on some incidents involving Democrats any more than, and Jason Kander is not here to grind a boot heel in on anything or accusations [inaudible] Republicans. This is really about trying to make a cultural shift so that the public says, you know what, these guys are right, we’re gonna support ’em, say what you believe in,  tell us who supports you and be straight up about it.

Question: [inaudible] If I give money to the Kansas City Area Committee Supporting Do Good Republicans the donation should be seen as going to that committee and whatever candidates our causes it chooses to support, not an effort by me to give you more money directly.

Representative Kander: That’s right. And if there’s evidence to the contrary, if there’s evidence that the legislator in question said to you, you know you’re kind of controversial and I don’t want to take your money on record and then you do that and it goes to them, well, then state investigators are going to be interested in that and the prosecutor’s gonna be interested in prosecuting that as a class D felony…

The final portion of the press conference transcript will follow in a subsequent post.

Representatives Jason Kander (D) and Tim Flook (r) held a press conference on their ethics reform bill late yesterday morning in the House Lounge at the capitol.

Our previous coverage: Kander (D) and Flook (r): ethics reform legislation in Jefferson City

Representatives Jason Kander (D)(left) and Tim Flook (r)(right).

The transcript of the opening statements:

Representative Tim Flook: …Good morning. Thank you all for being here. I’m Representative Tim Flook and I’m here with my, uh, friend and Democratic colleague Representative Jason Kander. We’re both of the western side of the city, uh, the state, uh, representing Kansas City, large parts, some other areas. Um, as you know, with virtually every year I’ve been in the Missouri legislature there’s always been a question about ethics and conduct in campaigns. Um, every year that I watched politics as a young man in college all the way until, uh, the time that I was elected I’ve seen the issue come up over and over again. Unfortunately it’s always brought up in the context of partisan efforts to make someone look bad. Um, and unfortunate part of that is, is that it, it creates a lot of distrust among the public for, for the efforts of their elected officials…

…And the fact of the matter is, I can tell you from my experience, um, in my time in the legislature and my time as a, as a citizen dealing with both Republican and Democrat elected officials, it’s been my personal experience that most of the people you deal with are very honest and work very hard to follow the rules. And they are ethical people. But there, there is that few, there is a few that will at times bend the rules. Or, there might be conduct that looks like the, that looks bad even though it doesn’t necessarily violate the rules. Um, and, and those things cast, cast doubt with the public on, on our efforts down here.

And, uh, in the last, in this last summer representative, uh, Jason Kander approached me and asked if I’d be interested in working with him on developing a bipartisan piece of legislation to address some of the, the issues and ethics that have arisen in the last two or three years. And I told him I’d be happy to do it, primarily because, like myself, Representative Kander believes that most people down here are very ethical. And that if we, if we work together we can isolate potential loopholes, we can prevent conduct before it happens, and we can instill some trust in what we’re trying to do down here in Jefferson City. And do so in a way that’s not about campaign, or poking somebody in the eye, or trying to create a, an illusion of an ethical violation when there hasn’t been one, but, but with real direct legislation that actually changes policy for the better.

So, Jason and I, I’ll say Representative Kander, I keep wanting to call him on a first name basis ’cause I consider him a friend, uh, Representative Kander and I began outlining some things, some things that we think that we can get both sides of the aisle to agree upon. And, and to, present those in a bipartisan form. I met with Speaker Ron Richard, um, about these efforts and he supports, he supports this effort. And I, and I, Representative Kander has, has talked to min, Minority Leader Paul LeVota and he’s supporting this effort.

There will be other bills proposed, uh, which will, will have different ideas in addition to those we’re laying out. We’re certainly interested in those ideas and would probably add them to the bill. If they’re good they’re good for everybody.

But I think the main purpose today is, is that we start the ball rolling with legislation that’s bipartisan and, and we let the Missouri public know that the best policy comes from people working together. And the best policies that, creating the best laws result in fairness and aren’t about campaign politics.

So, with that being said I’m gonna let Representative Kander outline specifics of our proposed legislation…

…Representative Jason Kander: Well it’s a pleasure to work with representative Flook. He’s one of the most respected members of this body on either side of the aisle, um, and for good reason. He works hard and he’s very serious about the job. Um, just a few minutes ago most of you were in this room for another press conference with Representative Flook. He’s in high demand bcause he does a good job down here, so it’s an honor having him involved in this issue.

And it’s fitting that this be a bipartisan press conference because we’re trying to create a solution, a bipartisan solution to what is, as representative Flook mentioned, a bipartisan problem. It’s a problem in, in the Missouri system, in our, in Missouri’s laws. This is not an attempt to point fingers at anyone in particular. I’m gonna run through for you some of the major, uh, provisions of the bill and then we’d be happy to take your questions. What we’re doing here is we’re, we’re saying that the, the Jeff City sport of choice, which is speculation about whether the FBI is gonna take action, that needs to not be the sport of choice anymore. We need to do, we need, we need to pass laws that empower state investigators to take action, empower state law enforcement.

First major provision, uh, speaks to the, the practice of money laundering, or the potential for money laundering. Missouri’s anything goes system of campaign finances seems to be built, uh, to encourage, not to deter, the laundering of political contributions. And so that’s why it’s, it’s entirely possible and sometimes common practice for Missouri politicians to wash money back and forth between political action committees and in some cases, possibly, to obscure the original source of, of a, the person giving that money in the first place. This bill will prohibit, uh, party and independent political action committees from washing money back and forth and, furthermore, will make it a felony to transfer political money solely for the purpose of hiding the original donor.

On the subject of disclosure, in order to make it even more difficult to obscure the source, uh, of funds and funnel money through political action committees this bill requires all PACs to file electronically [inaudible] the Ethics Commission, which will make all contributions in the state searchable online for the first time. Now, while the electronic filing change will make it easier to prove potential corruption in the court of public opinion, it doesn’t make it easier to prove corruption in, in the court of law. And so the next provision addresses that.

Uh, this bill will change the law by specifically listing camp, a campaign contribution in, in certain circumstances as a, a potential pay for play situations, potential bribe, which even goes beyond, uh, what’s done in Federal law. It makes it very clear that, given a direct exchange for legislative action or official action, that can, uh, be a, that would be a felony.

Furthermore, on the subject of political money laundering, we say out loud with this bill what is obviously true. That is that there are some people in this state who can act as treasurers in dozens of political action committees at once possibly for the purpose of washing political money. These aren’t treasurers in such cases, they’re bag men. If they do it for that reason that’s what they are. And our bill would prohibit anyone from acting as a treasurer or a deputy treasurer of multiple political action committees at a time.

Also this year we choose to address the issue of conflicts of interest that can be presented in Jefferson City. Now on both sides of the aisle potential conflicts of interest ex
ist and they can occur when those serving in a political campaign role also serve in the office, uh, in the official office of a, of a elected official in the state. Most of the folks who do this, unfortunately, are not currently required to disclose their [inaudible], so as a result there’s potential conflicts of interest but, but the public doesn’t know about it because it may not be the elected member, it could be their staff. And so we simply say that if you want to work for an elected official and be a political consultant at the same time it’s not too much for ask, for us to ask that you publicly disclose your dual roles. This bill makes that change.

Now, outside the walls of this building a bipartisan array of political consultants who  do not hold government positions are free to contract simultaneously both with elected officials and corporations and other organizations that seek to influence the actions of state government. Yet these consultants are not required to register as lobbyists. With this bill we close this sort of stealth lobbyist loophole in state law and we created the category of a de facto lobbyist. And we shed light on these individual’s attempts to influence the course of legislation.

Now, the next part I think is pretty important and it goes into all of these, all of these provisions. If we are to pass new ethics laws this year, or if we just seek to make existing ethics laws mean something more, then we need a state felony provision that applies to anyone who tries to obstruct an ethics investigation. Without an obstruction of justice law we reward politicians who lie to state investigators. This bill includes an obstruction of justice felony modeled upon the Federal statute.

Finally, this bill is truly comprehensive and that it applies these and many existing laws, ethics laws, not just to state government, but to our counties, or cities, our school boards, and various other municipalities.

The proposals put forth by Representative Flook and myself today are among many needed changes and I’m thankful that several of our colleagues have both this year and in the past suggested other ways to stay one step ahead, one step ahead of the small bipartisan minority of individuals who may seek to violate public trust. What we don’t do is stand here today and tell you that these changes are gonna fix the problem permanently. Over time power and influence finds a way to circumvent the law. So it’s our hope, we’ve discussed this, that several years from now two more legislators will reach across the aisle and seek to close any loopholes that may have developed in the legislation passed in twenty-ten, because this is an ever evolving process.

Finally, the reason for that is because fighting public corruption is like fighting the flue, we come up with a vaccine and the flue comes back the next year with a new strain. So, as the flu adapts vac, adapts, a vaccine must evolve with it. Honest governments like healthy societies are the result of eternal vigilance. And so that’s what we’re prepared to do, that’s why we’re trying to do it in a bipartisan manner. And we’d be happy to take your questions…

Transcript(s) of the media Q and A will follow in subsequent posts.

Our previous coverage of the Jefferson City health care reform town hall on Wednesday evening:

Senator Claire McCaskill (D) – health care town hall – Jefferson City

The press conference after the town hall:

….Question:…Well I guess first, what are you hoping that actually comes out of these? A lot of times we see these forums and if, people kind of come with their mind set and don’t leave with, with much changed. Are, do you think that this is making a difference on people that disagree with you.

Senator Claire McCaskill: Well, that’s really not the point. The point is, is this is my job. You know, I work for the people of this state whether they agree with me or disagree with me. And I have an obligation to get out and listen to them and try to answer questions. I think you’re probably right, the vast majority of people who were here probably had their minds made up. But that doesn’t mean it’s not important…

“…there were clearly a lot of people here that were more interested in disrupting and showing their anger than listening or having any kind of discourse…I feel for the people who come that want to listen. They can’t when people start screaming out and, it is bad manners. And by the way, I don’t think it’s particularly persuasive. I don’t think, being the loudest doesn’t make you right. And it generally doesn’t work very well in terms of convincing other people….”

Question:…I think at one point I heard you say quietly up there, “You guys may go down as the most impolite yet.” Did they?

Senator McCaskill: It was close.  Close. You know, they, there were clearly a lot of people here that were more interested in disrupting and showing their anger than listening or having any kind of discourse. But that’s okay. You know, this is, we have this great big giant healthy First Amendment in this country. I just, I feel for the people who come that want to listen. They can’t when people start screaming out and, it is bad manners. And by the way, I don’t think it’s particularly persuasive. I don’t think, being the loudest doesn’t make you right. And it generally doesn’t work very well in terms of convincing other people. So, but they have a right to do it, and I respect their right to do it, and, you know, there were moments of very, did you notice, there were times it was very quiet? I got the sense that maybe people actually were learning some things they didn’t know and even if there are just a couple of those it certainly makes it worth it.

Question: Any of the questions either here or at any of the other forums actually caused you to come to some new policy position in this health care debate yourself?

Senator McCaskill: Well, I, I think that there have been, there has been a lot of information I’ve gotten, particularly from some of the providers about the mix between insured and uninsured, Medicaid, Medicare, and how these hospitals are dealing with it that frankly I didn’t have enough detail on before I began some of these meetings. But, you know, I had a one in Kansas City…where the people that wanted health care reform outnumbered the others by huge numbers. And then others, they’re fifty fifty. So you can’t really judge what the people of Missouri are thinking based on what happens at town hall meetings. I think most Missourians want some form of health care, they just want us to be careful and fiscally responsible and not allow the government to have too much of an intrusion into their lives.

Question: Would that have anything to do with the fact in a city like Kansas City there are a lot of SEIU workers, lot of union people, lot of ACORN people, so they pack the hall, whereas here in mid Missouri we don’t have a lot of folks like that.

Senator McCaskill: No, I gotta tell yah, I mean, there, you know, the same thing was true up in Hannibal…We had a significant, there was significantly more people in favor of reform than against up in Hannibal. I don’t think anybody’s packing anything. I, I spoke out pretty strongly when people in Washington started saying well these people against health care are being manufactured and their being bused in by K Street. I said that was nonsense. What’s really going on here is there are people on the left that are organizing and feel strongly about it and there’s people on the right that are organizing and feel strongly about it. And they’re, they’re showing up at these meetings and I think that’s terrific. But I don’t think, I think some of it may just be that the area in Kansas City is generally considered a fairly more Democratic area than, the last time I checked, Cole County.

Question: Was there any moment of this pre, of this, of this meeting today where you kind of were really, really pushed back by something that was said, or point that was made that really caught you off guard?

Senator McCaskill: No. No, most of the points that have been made have been made over and over and over again. There are some common themes. And there is a lot of common misinformation. That’s why I try to deal with the “death panels” right up front. I mean that is clearly just, you know, just flat wrong and ridiculous. Why would any of us running for office want to, you know, offend the morality of the men and women we love, that are our parents and grandparents, you know, and that this country? So, it is just so silly that we would do something like that and so I think that, you know, I’ve, after doing a number of these you, you get the same thing over and over and over again.

Question: Senator, question on the, on the legislation itself. If you provide a public option and empower millions of people to have health insurance and they start going to doctors and hospitals do you feel that there’s enough medical people or professionals to handle that influx.

Senator McCaskill: Oh, one of the concerns I do have is on primary care doctors. Because one of the goals here is to get people in to preventative care. And to make sure they’re getting their check ups, that they are, you know, doing what they need to do to avoid the onset of diabetes and I don’t think right now we may be as equipped as we need to be with primary care doctors. But that’s, you know, that may be a consequence we have to look at down the road. But I know this, if doctors feel like they can practice medicine and not have to arm wrestle insurance companies all the time, I have to believe more people are gonna be interested in practicing medicine. ‘Cause a lot of doctors right now are very unhappy with how constrained they feel in the way that the payment systems work now.

Question: …Talk about the loss of Ted Kennedy as a, as a big figure in the Senate, not only personally, but how that might change the political landscape of the debate that’s going on.

Senator McCaskill: Well, you know, the, the irony of Ted Kennedy is that he has been billed in this country as kind of the, the leading liberal, the evil liberal, and kind of a, almost a caricature. The truth is that he was probably better at bringing about compromise in negotiation than any other senator. And if you asked the Republican senators what senator they wanted to work with in finding common ground in getting legislation done the vast majority of ’em would say that Ted Kennedy was their favorite. So, I was surprised when I went to the Senate. And I realized that why he may have some positions on issues I disagreed with, what he was really remarkable at doing was finding that compromise, driving that negotiation. And time and time again in his career he’s done it
. That’s why the Republicans have so much respect for him and that’s why he’ll be missed. Because at the end of the day, we only pass things after we compromise and negotiate.

Question: And does his loss, does his loss kind of push forward this health care in a way that it might have not without kind of that moral push behind it?

Senator McCaskill: I hope so. But I don’t know. You know, the Senate, you know the, our founding fathers designed this, this, this Congress, to make the House more efficient and quickly. They designed the Senate for everything to go there and die as it relates to legislation. And so I, I think that it will be hard for us to get it done, just because of Ted Kennedy, but I can assure you that if we get it done it will be called the Kennedy Health Bill.

Staffer:…We can take one more. [crosstalk]

Question: And this, this particular case, this House bill seems to be one causing all the problems. Why not more focus on the Senate version. It seems as so the Senate version is a little more, worded a little bit better, six hundred, you know, fewer pages. So why hasn’t there been more focus on the Senate bill.

Senator McCaskill: Well, I think what happened, honestly, is that the President didn’t want to put a plan out there ’cause he knew it’d be a piñata. So he wanted the, the, the health care legislation to grow organically in Congress. And he when he did that then it allowed that vacuum to be filled with misinformation. And the House bill was the first bill out. So the opponents of health care reform began trying to dissect that bill and got a lot of misinformation out there. And that’s what the Internet kind of focused on and it was the talking points on Fox and so forth, you know, that this was all the stuff in this bill. And then everyone kind of forgot that, first of all, it was one bill out of five and we are a long way from any bill that anybody’s gonna vote on. And they completely ignore the fact that, I’m, I’ve had people like angry at me, “Well, have you read the bill?” And I said, “Well no, I won’t vote on that bill.  I’ll vote on the Senate bill. I’m gonna read the Senate bill.” So I just think it was people not realizing that we were early in the process and that that was just one proposal out of many proposals that we’re gonna be looking at.

Question: …Is this a problem between Democrats? [inaudible] We see Nancy Pelosi [inaudible] saying no public auc..option, we’re not gonna vote for this thing. And yet people on the right like Byron Dorgan saying, “No we’re not gonna have that.” So, how, where, where the Republicans fit into this, it seems as though they’re on the outside looking in and it’s you guys are gonna have to make decisions.

Senator McCaskill: Well, I, I think you’re correct in, first of all, as I’ve talked about in there the republicans have been very involved in drafting this legislation. They just don’t want to claim it after they draft it. But it, I think that you’re right in that people forget that especially in the Senate that moderate Republicans got replaced by moderate Democrats. It wasn’t as if there was a really conservative Republican replaced by a really liberal Democrat. Or, you know, that doesn’t happen. These are all states where there is a lot of moderates and, so their policies are not that different. You look at Ben Nelson and you look at Blanche Lincoln and you look at Evan Bayh, these are moderate, Claire McCaskill, these are moderate Democrats. So that’s what makes it hard, is you have, it used to be harder in the Republican Party, it’s not hard in the Republican Party anymore. I think they have two moderates left. And the only ones left out there are really, really conservative. So that’s why they’re not fighting among themselves as much anymore because the moderate Republicans have all been defeated. Anybody else?

Question: I do have one quick question.

Senator McCaskill: Yeah, sure.

Question: The Medicaid part of it and raising it, the minimum, the one hundred and thirty three percent. What is your take on that? There have been a lot of governors who expressed grave concern about the effect on the budget, some of them Democratic governors. Would you vote for something like that?

Senator McCaskill: I, I, you know, first of all I think it’s gonna be very hard for us to go that high and, and keep the bill deficit neutral in a way that will get enough votes to pass it. So, I would be shocked if it stayed that high. And I would certainly support it ratcheting down slightly. Okay.

Question: Thank you Senator….

[Discussion of tours of health care facilities]

….Question: That’s been a little more useful for you, it sounds like, than the town hall forums as far as actually you, helping to shape your position on the bill.

Senator McCaskill: Well, I’ve learned a lot. You know the health care forums are, you know, are more about the active public participation in a Democracy. And that’s always great, and I’ve, I’ll tell you what I have learned. Let me put it this way, I’ve been reminded that in Missouri we have all different opinions. And a lot of them are held very strongly. Which is good. Which is great.

Our previous coverage of the Warrensburg health care reform town hall on Wednesday morning:

Senator Claire McCaskill (D) – health care town hall – Warrensburg

The press conference was held immediately after the town hall:

….Question: You were very harsh on the Bush administration and Republicans in general in this town hall session. And of the four I’ve heard this is probably some of the most partisan remarks you made about the, the fiscal condition of federal government after the Bush presidency and the Republican majority. Is that any way to get things done?

Senator Claire McCaskill: No, I, I did in this one which I did in Kansas City. I talked about Medicare D. And how Medicare D was passed and how many of the things that are embraced by Medicare D should be very troubling to people who are opposing this health care reform. And I may have mentioned that that happened under that administration, but in every time I’ve mentioned it I’ve said it happened, you know, under the last administration. So, I’ve talked about Medicare D specifically and I think generally that has been the only time I’ve talked in any way partisan and also talkin’ about the amendment process.  [crosstalk] I talked about that]…

…Question: No, no, you were much more spicey today than I’ve [crosstalk]…

Senator McCaskill: You just missed me.

Question: Huh.

Senator McCaskill: I, I [crosstalk]…

Question: No, you know, I was there. I’ve heard Hannibal, I’ve heard Moberly, you did, you weren’t ripping them they way you were today.

Senator McCaskill: I don’t think I ripped anything. I talked about the, the amendment process and how many Republican amendments were offered and accepted. And the fact that none of them voted for it. But, this, you know, and I also talked about the last ten years today. I didn’t just talk about the last eight, I talked about the last ten. We have a deficit problem in this country that didn’t happen yesterday. It happened over a long period of time. It, it doesn’t help to point fingers, it doesn’t help to get wildly partisan, but I think it’s important for Americans to remember that it’s a long, it was a long time in coming that we got here and we’ve got to be more disciplined and move forward. But it is frustrating for me when I have watched Republican members of, of the Senate spend like there’s no tomorrow and all of a sudden they’re trying to whitewash themselves with this – I’m a fiscal conservative. And it’s frustrating and, and there are times that that feeling comes out. Maybe it came out a little bit too much today.

Question: You talked about fear and how people are afraid. And how does fear play into this health car system, the health care plan?

Senator McCaskill: Well, I think people are afraid they’re gonna lose their coverage and if they can’t afford their coverage, but they’re also afraid of the unknown. It’s like that old saying that the devil you know was devil than the devil you don’t know. And I think that what happened, the President wanted these bills to be grown organically in Congress. He wanted Congress to grow them and try to reach compromises. He didn’t start with, “This is my way, or the highway.” And when he did that it created a vacuum. And a lot of misinformation filled that vacuum. The, the opponents got out there with facts that were wildly off the mark, that were just big old whopper lies that were being told. So I think to some extent those who want and need reform were on defense for a little bit. I think now that, that tide has turned again. This is the second health care town hall in a row I’ve had where clearly the people who want reform outnumbered those who didn’t.

Question: Why do you,  why do you think that is? Is that, say, go back and compare with Hillsboro, that, is there a fatigue here? Is there fear fatigue or, I mean, are people just getting tired of, of yelling at, at lawmakers?

Senator McCaskill:  I think, by and large, most Missourians are pretty well mannered. I think, by and large, the proponents of health care reform had been sitting on the sidelines. And then all of a sudden, you know, because it was raucous and conflict and the last time I looked you guys liked that stuff, it got a lot of coverage because it was good visuals and it was different and it was big crowds. So all of a sudden everybody sittin’ at home who wanted health care reform go wait a minute, we, we want health care reform. And I think they’ve woken up now. I think they’re showing up. I think they’re getting more engaged. And I think it, it, I will be surprised if we don’t continue to see, I think there’ll be town halls that’ll be pretty rough, depending on where we are. But, it was interesting to me here in Warrensburg, I wasn’t shocked in Kansas City where you have a, it’s generally a more Democratic area of the state. But, today was, I thought was interesting that, that the proponents outweighed the opponents [crosstalk] [inaudible]…

Question: Well, it seemed more fifty fifty.

[Note: In my observation of the entire event I believe Senator McCaskill’s characterization of the makeup of the crowd was more accurate than the Kansas City television reporter’s.]

Staffer: Senator, [inaudible] take questions from a print reporter as well?

Senator McCaskill:  Yeah.

Question: Okay, I just was wondering whether you felt that the, that any minds are being changed at these forums. Now, you’re talking about people who are coming in with, I think they’ve already got a mindset. But, you feel the forums are doing anything to change minds?

Senator McCaskill:  I don’t know how many minds, I think the vast majority of people who come to these have, feel very strongly one way or the other. I don’t think these are a forum where a lot of undecided voters come. There may be a few. But it’s, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do ’em, because I think I owe the people of the state an opportunity to come out, ask questions, make comments,. I think I need to be respectful of them. So, just because people have already made up their minds I don’t think that’s any excuse not to have these town hall forums all over the state which we have done and will continue to do.

Question: So when you go back to Washington then, knowing that not a lot of minds have been changed coming out here I would guess, and I would think the same in terms of the Senate and the House, what do you think the odds are of actually getting health care legislation passed this year?

Senator McCaskill: I think something will get passed. I think it remains to see, be seen what the details will be. I think there is broad based support for some parts of this health care reform agenda. And I’m confident that some of that will get done. I think what remains to be seen is what, whether or not we get any kind of public option or a, a government sponsored co-op, or not for profit that is part of the equation. That is really one of the most controversial parts of the bill and I think it’s too early to tell yet how that will turn out.

Question: Senator, you’ve been holding several of these forums across the state now. When you do go back to Washington what is the main thing that you’re going to take away, or take back with you? Is there, you know, a specific issue or concern that you’ve heard voiced several times that, you know, just kind of at this stage what you’re taking back?

Senator McCaskill: Well one of the things I’m gonna do, I really am gonna start working on a broad based effort to change the way we write bills so that they’re more easily understood. That’s a really legitimate and valid criticism. People who want to read the bills ought to be
able to understand what they’re reading. And, you know, I, I certainly have learned a lot from doctors. I learned at Children’s Mercy a lot yesterday. I ,I’ve got three or four meetings with doctor’s groups tomorrow. And nurses, I’ve talked to a lot of nurse practitioners about their frustrations. So, you know, these, this is, this, I’m getting good information about where the problems are now and possibly where some of the solutions are. So, it, it’s definitely helpful. Definitely helpful. And I also understand how strongly some people feel about this on both sides. ‘Kay? All right?

Staffer: Thanks everyone….

[Note: Another reporter asked a question and Senator McCaskill stayed to answer.]

…Question: ….the, the tide, tide’s turning at some of these?

Senator McCaskill: I don’t know that the tide is turning. It’s not a tide so much. It’s that it appears to me that a lot of people who felt strongly in favor of health care reform had the attitude at the beginning of this process, “Well we won the election, we control the Senate and the House, this is gonna happen.” And then they realized that there was really strong, strident opposition that [crosstalk] was going to work very hard…

Question: Were they complacent in your mind?

Senator McCaskill: I, I think they may have been more laid back. I don’t think complacent is a word I’d use. I, they just weren’t, they weren’t on the edge of their couch and worried about trying to help and make their opinions shown. We’ve seen a shift in our mail, we’ve seen a little bit of a shift in our phone calls, and we, I’ve seen a little bit of shift in, in the tenor of these meetings. I don’t, they’re not as many people that are willing to interrupt and be rude as there were a week and a half ago…

Our previous coverage:

Live at Senator Claire McCaskill’s health care town hall in Kansas City

A healthcare town hall done right

Senator Claire McCaskill (D): health care town hall in Kansas City – press conference, part 1

….Question: Wouldn’t this battle be a lot easier if you guys would fix the problems with Medicare and Medicaid, the, the fraud and the over expenses and the, the new drug bill? Same thing. Wouldn’t this battle be a lot easier if you fixed the problems that are right before you before you took on something totally new?

Senator Claire McCaskill: Well, this is not totally new. I mean this has been, I’ve said in some of the meetings, it didn’t come up in this one, I can’t remember a political campaign when there weren’t TV ads saying we’re gonna fix health care. And the irony is that even though politicians have been campaigning to fix health care for the last twenty or thirty years nothing’s happened. The status quo has continued. We’re workin’ on bringing to justice the people who commit fraud in the Medicare program. In fact there’s been great improvements made in that because of the ability of us to do better investigations through computers and data matches and those kinds of things. But we’re not gonna fix the health care costs for the Medicare program if we don’t fix the rising health care costs for all of health care ’cause they are interrelated. You can’t fix the, the rising costs in, in the Medicare program and not have an impact across the board. I mean they, they are, they’re kind of interwoven. The hospitals in terms of what they’re charging and, and the doctors and what they’re charging for Medicare. And that’s part of the problem, is you got two or three or four different rates. So, we may end up, you know, who knows what we’ll end up with? We may end up with something very incremental. I don’t know. I can’t tell at this point how much support there’s gonna be [crosstalk]…

…Question: Did, did you say today that you would not support use of reconciliation for a, a bill in the Senate?

Senator McCaskill: I said that I didn’t think it was a good idea. I haven’t ruled it out [crosstalk]…

Question: That was [laughter][crosstalk]…

Senator McCaskill: I haven’t ruled it out because [crosstalk]…

Question: What’s the difference? [laughter]

Senator McCaskill: Well the difference is [crosstalk]…

Question: It’s a good id…bad idea, but you’d vote for it?

Senator McCaskill: Well I don’t think it’s a good idea because it’s very limited what we can do with reconciliation. It’s a very arcane rule.

Question: Right.

Senator McCaskill: And it only relates to the pay fors. It only relates to the budget part of the equation [crosstalk].

Question: Apparently there’s a memo that’s out there that suggests that health care could be done this way. At least the leadership believes that.

Senator McCaskill: Well the, the chairman of the Budget Committee doesn’t. And that’s where reconciliation happens, it’s through the budget process.

Question: Right.

Senator McCaskill: And so, you know, we can’t do some of the things in term, especially the market reforms, the consumer protections [crosstalk]…

Question: But you could do that in a [crosstalk] separate bill [crosstalk]…

Senator McCaskill: They don’t lend themselves [crosstalk]…

Question: I’m just saying [crosstalk]…

Senator McCaskill: …to reconciliation [crosstalk].

Question:…whether you were ruling out reconciliation at all.

Senator McCaskill: I, I don’t want to take it off the table because I if I think we take it completely off the table it removes an incentive to compromise by some of my friends that are Republicans. I mean what we’re trying to do is to get people here to come together and participate. This shouldn’t be about the Republican Party’s success is the failure of health care reform. And [crosstalk]…

Question:  But you do hear a lot, Senator, a lot more Democrats saying we gotta go this alone. You heard that today from some of these people [crosstalk].

Senator McCaskill: Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, I, I get that.

Question:  Senator [crosstalk]…

Senator McCaskill: I hope it doesn’t come to that. I don’t want to go it alone. I want a bipartisan bill.

Question: Since this was a listening forum did you hear anything that surprised you from anyone today or throughout your tour? Anything?

Senator McCaskill: No, I mean I’m hearing many of the same questions. I mean there’s a lot of misinformation out there about, you know, what’s in the bill, what isn’t in the bill. A lot of distrust about government being further involved in people’s  health care. So, no, there wasn’t anything that I heard today at this particular forum that, there, there’s some common themes that are coming up. There are people that are frustrated that want, feel like that Barrack Obama won the election and the Democrats control Congress. Get it done already. And then there’s other people who feel very strongly that Congress needs to back away and do absolutely nothing. And everything in between.

Question: …What has to be in a bill and what, are there drop dead points on either side of it that you will or would not vote for health care reform [inaudible]? What do you have to have in it? What do you not want to have in it? What is it besides [crosstalk]…

Senator McCaskill:  I’m not gonna vote [crosstalk]…

Question: …anything. It mean [garbled][crosstalk]…

Senator McCaskill:  I will not for a bill that’s not deficit neutral. I will not for a bill that’s not paid for. We’re not gonna do anything about health care costs if we continue just to drive up the costs to the government. We’ve got a huge deficit problem that we’ve got to get serious about. So I won’t vote for bill if it’s, if it’s not deficit neutral.

Question: But you’d vote for a bill [crosstalk]…

Question: Does it have to have [crosstalk]…

Question: …tax increases then?

Senator McCaskill: I would vote for a bill [crosstalk]…

Question: Most of the bills out there have tax increases [crosstalk] to make it deficit neutral.

Senator McCaskill: It would depend on which ta.., what, what taxes [crosstalk] and fees there are.

Question: So then you wouldn’t rule out a tax increase?

Senator McCaskill: I’m not gonna rule out, for example, I think the Finance Committee is probably gonna come with a tax on, a premium tax on insurance companies for the gold plated plans. I would not rule that out [crosstalk].

Question: So, so some people are gonna have to pay taxes on their health benefits? [crosstalk] If [garbled] [crosstalk]

Senator McCaskill:  No, no [crosstalk] The insurance companies would have to pay a premium tax. What premiums they received for those plans they would have to pay a tax on those.

Question: You, you don’t think they’d pass that on to the consumers?

Senator McCaskill:  They might. [laugh from questioner] But we’re only talkin’ about on the gold plated plans. It’s maybe one or two percent of the plans out there.

Question: How ’bout cutting Medicare by two hundred and fift
y billion dollars?

Senator McCaskill:  Well, but that’s not cutting the benefits. That would be the Medicare Advantage programs and the Medicare Part D [crosstalk]…

Question: You don’t think they’d pass that on to patients?

Senator McCaskill: …and I’m on board. Oh, well, no. Because Medicare Advantage, we just need to, that program is a ridiculous waste of public money. Ridiculous. I mean we are supplementing the profits of these insurance companies and the government’s got no bargain for it. And neither have the people on Medicare Advantage. And that’s three hundred billion a year right there.

Question: …Out in the rural areas of, of Missouri when you’re talking to these folks who [inaudible] generally against the idea of increasing any kind of state plan, there’s a huge shortage, right, of medical providers? And these people, in small town America you don’t have the access to health care that [garbled] there’s not enough doctors, there’s not enough nurses, there’s just nothing out there. So that you can have, you can be insured from here to kingdom come, it doesn’t really matter. There’s no, no one to provide that care. You increase, put another forty-five million, fifty million people on, on the insurance rolls, do we have the medical staff available to treat all Americans at the same le.., at, give, provide the level of care that we want to provide and what do we do about that if we don’t?

Senator McCaskill: Well, I, you know, I hope that we shift some of the personnel out of emergency rooms into primary care physicians. That would be great. ‘Cause there’s a lot of primary care medicine that’s being practiced in emergency rooms right now.

Question: GPs are, I mean you’ve had a slight increase last year for the first time in fifteen twenty years [crosstalk], right?

Senator McCaskill: I think, I think that’s something will have to happen.

Question: But GPs are way down. How do we, how to encourage people to go, I mean the, these people, these people are leaving school with a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in debt. How do you, do you, do you eliminate medical school costs for people going in to it?

Senator McCaskill: Well, I, I think, you know, we’ve got our plate full right now trying to figure out how we incentivize more visits to, for preventative care, more general practitioner visits, certainly rural health care is a huge part of the problem in terms of access. The costs are even more overbearing for them [crosstalk]…

Question: Interesting.

Senator McCaskill: …than people in the urban areas. And there is, you know, that’s one thing about the Senate, is you’ve got equal representation, very rural communities and very populous communities and that’s why you usually see bills look a lot different in the Senate, ’cause rural interests generally have a pretty big voice in the Senate because of the way [crosstalk] it’s designed.

Question: With, I mean, if you look at Greece. Greece has a surplus of doctors right now. And Greek doctors make about a quarter what American doctors make. What’s, what’s wrong in the equation here? Why don’t we, why do we have people not going into medical school at the rate that we need to provide for the increase in population we’ve got?  Whereas other nations have surpluses of [inaudible], I mean [crosstalk]…

Senator McCaskill: I don’t know.

Question:…Germany has a surplus of doctors. Greece has a surplus of doctors. Italy has a surplus of doctors.

Senator McCaskill: I don’t know. I don’t know what the answer is to that. I don’t know why people, probably because it’s very expensive and it takes a long time. But, it, this is all about hopefully encouraging more people to get into that kind of medicine. I, I don’t [crosstalk]…

Question: But we don’t, is it, none of it, none of the [inaudible] makes any, it doesn’t amount, make any difference, right, as far as the health care of Americans doesn’t increase if we don’t increase the level of, the amount of care we can provide? Especially if we had more people [crosstalk] [inaudible]…

Senator McCaskill: Well, I mean, just, just let me just say this, too, that, you know, we have a, there’s a vast discrepancy between the number of providers per capita in some parts of the country and others. And I think you may see some equalization of that if you start reimbursing, incentivize for good outcomes as opposed for process and procedure. I mean you have, what, you know, a gajillion doctors per person in Florida and you have very few doctors per person in many other areas of the country. So I think you’ve, you know, hopefully you’ll see some kind of shift there in terms of geography and have a more equal distribution across the country. Hopefully. Anybody else?

Question: With regards to public option co-op, at what, kind of , was there ever a point when you were fully for not considering co-op as opposed to now, what is that process been like and are you one way or the other?

Senator McCaskill: Well, I , I , I’m open to considering a co-op, but, you know, the disadvantage we have right now, that’s why it’s important that we’re out here listening, is we don’t know what it’s gonna look like. You know, I’m glad that we didn’t try to rush the finance bill out the door before we left. On the other hand, it would’ve been helpful if we had more information about what they’re proposing to do as it relates to a co-op as opposed to a public option. And, and I don’t think we’ll know until probably October whether or not there’s enough support for a public option versus a co-op.

Question: Think you’ll get a bill this year?

Senator McCaskill: I think we will. It may be incremental, it may not be as much as most people wanted, but I think we’ll get a bill this year.

Question: Following up on the provider question, any plans to get the AMA out of their gatekeeper role, because that’s why we’re short of providers. Because they have controlled who gets into medical school, how many medical schools operate. I spent my first career, before I was a thorn in your side, I was a health care provider, I retired from Research, so.

Senator McCaskill: You know, I don’t know [crosstalk] that’s the…

Question: I’ve watched [crosstalk], I’ve watched it happen.

Senator McCaskill: Yeah. Well, I need to look at that more. I haven’t looked at what the AMA’s role is right now and what, what, I’m thinking about the bill and where in the bill it would impact that, the HELP bill, But, I, I need to look at it and I will. You’re, you’re Blue Girl, aren’t you?

Question: Um, hmm.

Senator McCaskill: I knew it. [Blue Girl laughter] Okay…

Question: What do you think’s made this such an emotional debate.

Senator McCaskill: I think it’s a combination of things. I think we’ve done a lot of big bold things in a very short period of time. We have an economy that was in freefall. And all of a sudden it was TARP, it was stimulus, it was omnibus, it was budget. It felt like a lot of things happening at once, a, a new President. You know, I think that some people who very much didn’t want Barrack Obama to be President began to see this as a vehicle to express some of that. Their opposition to his presidency and, and it just kind of crystallized. And health care’s really important to people. And there’s a fear of the unknown. And I think the man’s point that we haven’t done a very good job of explaining the various proposals and what’s out there. This notion of growing the bill in Congress, that’s good in terms of reaching some kind of consensus. It’s bad in terms of there being a vacuum that misinformation can fill. And I think that vacuum got filled pretty quickly with a lot of misinformation and now we’re kind of trying to wade our way through all that.

Staffer: If we have one more question.

Senator McCaskill: One more. No more? Great, I’m done! [crosstalk] Oh. It’s been a long day.

Staffer: One more.

[laughter]

Question: Sorry. My question has to do with what results have you seen from your town halls? Have you been seeing, have you been able to change peoples’ minds or are people remain polarized with their views?

Senator McCaskill: Well, I’m resigned to several things in Missouri, and that is, it’s usually gonna be a third, a third, and a third. It’s gonna be  a third of the people who feel very strongly about many of the policies and beliefs of the Republican party. A third that feel very strongly in many of the policies and beliefs of the Democratic party. And a third that is open, that wants to hear and, and learn and they’re willing to, to vote either way. I see that on this bill. I think the loudest noises have been made by the opposition so far. But, just because you’re loudest doesn’t mean that you’re the majority and it doesn’t mean you’re right. I think it’s important to, to step back and make sure everybody gets good information. And I think, as I said out there, I think the vast majority of Missourians want to see some kind of reform. Thank you guys very much…

Our previous coverage: Live at Senator Claire McCaskill’s health care town hall in Kansas City

At the conclusion of today’s town hall in Kansas City Senator Claire McCaskill (D) held a press conference. She took questions from a gathering of print reporters, television reporters, and bloggers for approximately twenty minutes:

…Question: …A lot of, what I hear from employers, including insurance companies, is this scenario, I just wanted to have you respond quickly. First of all, that a public plan would eventually be offered to every business, they’re talking about right now just individuals and small businesses. But because of the lower price it would drive the insurers out of business and become a single player plan. At that point the Federal government would heap on more coverage mandates which would increase the cost and eliminate the flexibility employers have to control costs right now by raising the deductible and co-pays. What’s just your general response to that argument?

Senator Claire McCaskill: Well, there can be dire scenarios painted with just about any situation as it relates to health care. It’s a pretty dire situation if we do nothing. Businesses are, have a competitive disadvantage internationally because of the huge health care costs that they are saddled with in this country. And so, I think, doing nothing is a pretty dire situation and I know that there are many people who want to believe, especially the insurance companies, that any kind of public option would make the government an unfair competitor. And, and, it, what I’ve said to some of them is you can’t have it both ways. You can’t say the government is incompetent and delivers an inferior product and then say you can’t compete with them. Especially if it’s a constrained public option. That’s what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about a constrained public option that is not going to be underwritten to the extent that we don’t want to drive all the other private companies out of the market. That’s not the goal here. The goal here is to have a constrained public option. And I think people feel pretty strongly that it remain an option and not be the kind of eight hundred pound gorilla that swallows up all the ability of private insurance companies to compete….

….Question: And what does constrained public option mean?

Senator McCaskill: Well it means that…[crosstalk]

Question: Not Medicare plus five per cent.

Senator McCaskill: Exactly. I mean it means that it would be the same kind of underwriting requirements, that there would be not the kind of subsidies, in fact the subsidies, the, what’s envisioned is the subsidies that somebody could get would apply to any of the companies that are in the exchange. Wouldn’t just apply, you don’t get a subsidy just if you take the public option. You get a subsidy if you take any of the private options that are available. Size, in terms of the, the constraint, you know, how much is underwritten by the government, those are all the kinds of things that are being discussed to make sure that it remains an option and doesn’t end up being the only option.

Question: But how do you stop, some Dem…some Republican senator insists that the public option is just the first step, the intermediate step, to a single payer system or some sort of system in which the private insurers are crowded out of the market? And, you know, five years from now, oh boy, this public option sure workin’ good, maybe we ought to just lower everything, the costs, out of the public option and drive these guys [crosstalk].

Senator McCaskill: Well I guess that you only [crosstalk].

Question: Some Democrats are making that argument. Hey, single payer.

Senator McCaskill: Well, that may be. And I think what the situation will dictate what happens in the future. I can’t predict what future Congresses will support or not support [crosstalk]…

Question: Well isn’t that the problem, though [crosstalk]?

Senator McCaskill:…Or what the public will support or not support. You know, the, the problem right now we’re faced with is trying to reform health insurance in a way that is fair to, to the consumer, consumer protections, and to provide some kind of competitive playing field that brings down costs. I can’t predict what Congress is gonna do ten years, twenty years, thirty years down the line [crosstalk]?

Question: But you still think the public option of some constraint is a good idea?

Senator McCaskill: I do.

Question: Yeah, yeah. What do you think about the reaction out here today? You’ve been to a, done a bunch of these [crosstalk], you’ve [garbled]…

Senator McCaskill: I have [laugh]. I was a little taken aback. This was obviously, it’s certainly the, the most vociferous support I’ve seen for attempts to reform health care so far in the, in the meetings I’ve done [crosstalk].

Question: Of all the town halls you’ve done more supporters here than any other one?

Senator McCaskill: No question about it. There have been some [crosstalk]…

Question: Why do you think that is?

Senator McCaskill: I don’t know. There have been some meetings I’ve had in very small, in smaller places where it’s been very heavily weighted, people who are very distrustful of government, don’t want the government to do anything, even though they don’t want us to touch their Medicare. They don’t want the government to do anything. There have been others, it’s been fifty fifty. This felt like it was a majority of people were supportive of some kind of major health care reform [crosstalk].

Question: Did, was it organized? It looked like a lot of CCO people. Looked like somebody got out there and really organized [crosstalk]. That kind of thing [garbled].

Senator McCaskill: Here’s the thing. I thought it was a really bad mistake to ever say anybody who was showing up at these meetings were somehow bussed in or bought. Sure, the right is organizing and, and other folks on the left are organizing. Everyone is organizing. There’s blog sites that are telling people who disagree with President Obama’s ideas to come to these meetings and these are the things you should say. And the same thing is going on with people who support it. That’s fine. That’s what Democracy’s all about.

Question: It does say something that fifteen hundred people or whatever it was would show up for a meeting about health care. You’ve been in politics for a long time, getting a crowd like this on anything is tough to do.

Senator McCaskill: I mean we had standing room only in Moberly at one o’clock in the afternoon. We had standing room only at, in Hannibal at nine o’clock this morning. Hundreds and hundreds of people showing up in relatively small communities. There is a great deal of interest, and part of the interest I think is that people are, some have made up their minds and they want to come and advocate, but there is still a lot of people that want to know more.

Question: One of the questions that’s often asked at these town halls to everyone from the President on down is, will you, as a member of Congress, or you as part of the administration shift from your great health care plan, one that you have now, to whatever is, is provided by whatever the outcome.

Senator McCaskill: Well, I [crosstalk]…

Question: Haven’t heard a straight answer on that one yet.

Senator McCaskill: Well, I’m certainly, I’ve said it over and over again. I think that the
members of Congress should have the exact same options as any other American as it relates to any gateway or exchange. Whatever is in the gateway or exchange that any individual can go and purchase, that should be the same options that are available to Congress. No better, no gold plated plan. But we should have the same exact options as the people that I visited with here in this state today.

Question: Your colleagues agree with that?

Senator McCaskill: I think most of them do. I think most of them do. I think they understand that it, it, talk about breed cynicism. When you talk outta both sides of your mouth and say well we think this is what’s best for America but it’s not good for us. I think it’s important if we think it’s what’s good for America it oughta be good enough for us….

Missouri Health Care for All, which has 109 endorsing organizations, held a press conference Thursday in St. Louis to raise the voices of its members in support of health care reform. Five community leaders spoke. Two of them in particular made memorable remarks.

Eric Friedman, who owns a small real estate agency, (pictured far left) averred that health care reform is about saving the country’s economy. More than half of those without health care either own small businesses or are employed at one. Small business owners are finding it nearly impossible, in the face of rising health care costs, to insure themselves or their employees because they are forced to pay an average of 18 percent more for the same coverage that big businesses pay. Friedman says that his insurance costs went up 20 percent per employee last year. How crazy is that when you consider that small businesses are the economic engine of this country?

Dr. Edward Lawler (in the right hand picture), Dean of the School of Social Work at Washington University, pointed out that when Medicare passed in 1965, the conventional wisdom was that we would have universal coverage by 1967.

Not quite.

At that rate, it might take another forty years if we don’t get the job done this time around.

During the Q & A, one media person tried several times to get the group to commit itself to what its minimum standards would be for support of the health care legislation, but the panelists weren’t biting. They want affordable care for all Missourians, but weren’t willing to say what the bill had to be.

They must have had their reasons, but I’m not shy. If we don’t get a public option to pull down the costs of health care, we’ll be mandating that people get–increasingly expensive!–health care policies.

Also notable during the Q & A was that a young man (holding the camera in the pic) asked questions critical of the legislation. He started by upbraiding the group for using the term “teabagger”, saying that the term is offensive. I assume that teabaggers found out only after they started identifying themselves as such that the term had a sexual connotation. Whatever. They’ve now decided to be offended by the consequences of their own mistake. I, for one, intend to be politically incorrect on this one. People who use the brownshirt tactics I’ve been seeing this summer do not deserve the consideration of another term, even if they had provided us with one.

Anyway, the man didn’t get to ask much because Amy Blouin, the moderator, specified that, since it was a press conference, she was there to take questions from the media. I’d be less contemptuous of teabaggers if they made a habit of behaving like this man. He didn’t yell or interrupt anyone. He raised his hand and spoke when he was called on. Just like a civilized person. It was refreshing.

From Judd Legum via Twitter:

Old media upset that @nicopitney — who has been working around the clock on the Iranian uprising — was called on. Cry me a river. 11 minutes ago from web

And the founder of the “Great Orange Satan” weighs in, too:

No one could’ve predicted that Nico Pitney would ask a question about the only thing he’s written about in weeks! 21 minutes ago from TweetDeck

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/31508276#31508276

…President Obama: …Since we’re on Iran, uh, I know, uh, Nico Pitney is here from, uh, Huffington Post.

Nico Pitney, Huffington Post: Thank you Mr. President.

President Obama: Nico, I know that, uh, you and all across the Internet, we’ve been seeing a lot of reports coming directly out of Iran. Uh, I know that, uh, there may actually be questions from, uh, people in Iran who are communicating through the Internet. Uh, what, do you have a question?

Nico Pitney: Yeah, I did, I wanted to use this opportunity to ask you a question directly from an Iranian. We solicited questions last night from people who are still courageous enough to be communicating on line and one of them wanted to ask you this:

Uh, under which conditions would you accept the election of Ahmadenijad and if you do accept it without any significant changes in the conditions there isn’t that, uh, a betrayal of the, of what the demonstrators there are working towards?

President Obama: Well look, we didn’t have international observers on the ground. Uh, we can’t say definitively what exactly happened at polling places, uh, throughout the country. Uh, what we know is that a sizable percentage of the Iranian people themselves, spanning Iranian society, consider this election illegitimate. Uh, it’s not an isolated, uh, instance, uh, little grumbling here or there. Uh, there is significant questions about, uh, the legitimacy of the election. Uh, and so ultimately the most important thing for the Iranian government to consider is legitimacy in the eyes of its own people. Uh, not in the eyes of the United States. And that’s why I’ve been very clear, ultimately this is up to the Iranian people, to decide who their leadership is gonna be and the structure of their government. What we can do is to say unequivocally that they’re sets of international norms and principles about violence, about, uh, dealing with the peaceful dissent. Uh, that, uh, that spans cultures, spans borders, uh, and what we’ve been seeing, uh, over the Internet and what we’ve been seeing in news reports violates those norms and violates those principles. Uh, I think it is not too late for the Iranian government to recognize that, uh, that there is a peaceful path that will lead to stability and legitimacy and prosperity for the Iranian people. We hope they take it…

Update – from Peter Daou via Twitter:

Maybe the WH had a sense of what Nico was going to ask because, um, he wrote about it long before the presser? http://tinyurl.com/n8gfsc1 3 minutes ago from web