'Meet the Press' transcript for June 28, 2009

MR. GREGORY:  Because that does mean managed care in some way.  That means if you're consumer, you cannot get everything you want from your doctor...

MR. BROOKS:  Right.  It means saying no.

MR. GREGORY:  ...and have it paid for.

MR. BROOKS:  And, and here's my fear.  I think they're great at passing legislation.  They will do whatever it takes to pass legislation, and I never count them out.  But I'm afraid their policies are designed to pass legislation, not always to solve the problem.  And I think that's, that was the stimulus...

MR. GREGORY:  You know, that's interesting, though.  Before you get to the, the substance of health care, E.J., it is interesting.  Is this pragmatism and the art of compromise on the part of this president, or is it weakness?  I mean, what should be championed, what should be criticized?

MR. DIONNE:  I think it's his strategy, and at some points he's right not to intervene too hard in the congressional process.  I mean, imagine if that global warming bill had been down, had gone down this week.  This whole panel would be about the death of the Obama presidency.  The Democrats can't pass legislation.  That was a huge deal.  There were other times when he needs to intervene.  And I think you're getting to the point in health care where he will.

I love hearing the Republicans talk about Wyden-Bennett now.  They could have passed that when they controlled the Congress.  Now you've got a series of proposals where people are really trying to find some common ground, and now they're going back to Wyden-Bennett.  I think it's a blocking action.

In terms of the public plan, the public plan is a good idea and the president actually gave a good defense of it when he said, look, if the insurance companies, the private insurance companies are so great and so efficient, why are they so afraid of this public plan?  I think the issue now is, do you have a real public plan in a bill, or if you give it away do you get significant insurance reform that will have a decent--one of--that that insurance exchange that they're talking about, will it have good rules around it so people can get health coverage?

MS. MYERS:  But I always find it curios that, you know, there's criticism of the White House for not taking the healthcare bill and writing it.  We tried that...

MR. GREGORY:  Right.  Right.

MS. MYERS:  ...in 1993, it was a catastrophe.  You know, ended up with a 1,300-page bill.

MR. MURPHY:  It was a bad bill.

MS. MYERS:  Well, but it...

MR. MURPHY:  It was single payer.  Nobody wanted it.

MS. MYERS:  But it's--you're, you're destined to write a bad bill when you do it, I think, removed from the legislative process.

MR. GREGORY:  Well, the...

MS. MYERS:  You--how do you get 60--a bill that will be acceptable to 60 senators without working with the Congress and letting them take the lead on it?  I don't think that's possible.

MR. MURPHY:  No, that's reality.  But the tragedy of Obama is no president's been elected with as much political power as he has in a long, long time, and he's wasting it on more special interest legislation when he could ram through the tough real reform stuff.  We couldn't get Wyden-Bennett done.  I've always been for Wyden-Bennett.  But we could get it done now in a big bipartisan way, because this guy has the power to do it and he does believe in healthcare reform.  Obama could really go right up the middle and force some tough reforms through.  Instead we're getting the same stuff.  A cap and trade bill that the Democratic super environmental left doesn't like; there's no nuclear power in it, which is an obvious CO2 solution.  I think he's failing to reach the potential he has with his great amount of power, and that's the tragedy.

MR. BROOKS:  It--I was thinking about what, what I've been doing wrong as a, as a journalist.  I think I've spent way too much time thinking about Obama, because he does the, he sells the policies.  The decisions are actually being made on Capitol Hill by the chairmen.

MR. MURPHY:  Exactly.

MR. BROOKS:  They give a lot of power away to Capitol Hill for reasons that mystify me.  Because, as Mike says...

MR. MURPHY:  He's the...(unintelligible).

MR. BROOKS:  ...he has--potentially has a lot more power than he uses.

MR. DIONNE:  But all, all of this depends--you know, this is a nice conversation about, oh, gee, Obama could find the middle.  But where are the Republicans on this?  Most Republicans have decided, and it may be a smart political strategy, that they just want to block Obama's proposals.

MR. GREGORY:  Mm-hmm.  Right, right.

MR. DIONNE:  The number of Republicans actually willing to work with him is very, very small.

MR. GREGORY:  But we should also point out that this was an area on the stimulus, too, where the White House acknowledged and conceded it was a problem, turning over too much power to Congress to allow them to write the stimulus bill.

MR. DIONNE:  Well, except that the stimulus bill the House produced was closer to Obama than the compromise that came out.  And again, on global warming and bipartisanship, there were two Republicans in the House who voted for the president's bill.

MR. GREGORY:  Right.

MR. DIONNE:  One was Mark Kirk, the other was Mike Castle.  Both want to run for the U.S. Senate next time.  Maybe they're potential candidates.

MR. GREGORY:  OK.  All right, we're going to have to leave it there.  A lot more to talk about, but we're out of time.  Thanks very much to all of you. And we'll be right back.

(Announcements)

MR. GREGORY:  That's all for today.  We will be off the air next Sunday due to NBC's coverage of the Wimbledon tennis finals, so we will be back here in two weeks.  If it's Sunday, it's MEET THE PRESS.

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