Pod Save America - "Kill Bill Vol. 2."

Episode Date: June 29, 2017

McConnell delays the wealthcare vote after a horrendous CBO score, and the resistance ramps up the pressure on wavering Republican Senators. Then, Jon and Dan talk to Massachusetts Congressman Joe Kennedy III about his views on health care, public service, and the future of the Democratic Party.

Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. I'm in our nation's capital today in D.C. And joining us here in studio is going to be Massachusetts Congressman Joe Kennedy III. Very exciting yet, Dan. I'm very excited for this. This is by popular demand. People ask us all the time if we're going to have Congressman Kennedy on, so I'm very excited. Yeah, so

looking forward to that conversation. Love It or Leave It this week is going to be live in Aspen with Lovett's globalist base, so that's exciting. That should be up Saturday or Friday. I think they're still trying to figure it out. Probably Saturday.

And we're also going to have a healthcare rally bonus episode out at the end of the week that includes the many excellent conversations that Tommy and I had yesterday at the march outside the Capitol. I talked to activists, doctors, patients, senators, congressmen, and many friends of the pod. So look out for that as well. I also want to thank friend of the pod alissa master monaco for absolutely crushing it as a guest host while i was on my honeymoon um i listened to all the pods while i was gone dan and it made me miss you guys all very much and realized that maybe maybe you don't need me after all but that also might be because i received 20 000 tweets saying that

thanks to love it so that was great yeah no i, no, I love it. I wouldn't love it. Miss you, but not need you. Right. No, yeah. Everyone missed me, but they didn't need me. And then on Thursday, they reversed it and said, it's a mess. We do need you. Those are the tweets I got while I was sitting around in Italy. Yeah. My view was after preparing for the pod and going through a lot of logistics to get it right on Thursday, because I was traveling, is I don't know if I missed you, but I definitely needed you. Okay. I'll take that too.

Also, welcome back to America. It's good to be back. Yeah. Things are going great. I don't know. I know you were totally unplugged and not on Twitter or text or anything the whole time. So I'm sure you're just catching up on the news. I felt like I was watching it all through like a glass, but I couldn't speak because every time I tweeted, everyone was like, you're on your honeymoon.

Don't tweet. But I was like reading it. So there's things I wanted to reply to, but I didn't speak because every time I tweeted, everyone was like, you're on your honeymoon. Don't tweet. But I was like reading it. So there's things I wanted to reply to, but I didn't because I didn't want to look like I was too plugged in. But you know, we were just sitting around the pool and relaxing. And so Emily was like, feel free to check Twitter. I don't mind. Oh, marriage. The thing that I think is great is that basically as someone who follows your Twitter account pretty closely is that you're what you were willing. You're like your sacrifice for the honeymoon was that you would write very few of your own tweets, but you would retweet the shit out of other things. That's what I did, yes. Well, it takes less time, I guess.

You figured out what my deal was. Okay, so we came back, and it seems like this healthcare thing is all taken care of. But let's talk about the state of play, known as kill bill volume two uh that was a twitter user that suggested that name which i thought was great yeah at stan the manchan that was great great name kill bill volume two um okay so we'll start with the cbo score because that's that's where we last left off on the monday pod uh on tuesday the non-partisan experts at the congressional budget office which is run by an economist who was handpicked by Donald Trump's Secretary of Health and Human Services,

came out with their analysis of this shitburger. By the way, that was a great title. Same shitburger, different bun. Really love that. Thank you. I workshopped that for a couple days first. Yes. Okay, so we all know the headline by now,

22 million uninsured, 15 million uninsured next year. Dan, what else jumped out at you in the CBO score? I was struck by how similar the House and Senate bill were, because it seemed, everything you read coming in was that McConnell's goal was to make this, quote unquote, less mean, to use Trump's term, than the House bill. And to sort of take as of, because we know how the press and political punditry world works is that if it, oh my God, it only kicks 15 million people off insurance, what a win, right? And they absolutely failed

to do that. And then the thing that I thought was interesting is in the House, you can do pretty well with members of Congress from states that did not expand Medicaid. In the Senate, you need, there are a lot of Republican senators or a decent number of them from states that expanded Medicaid. And so then to make even sharper cuts in Medicaid in the out years, to use one of our favorite terms, I thought was a very strange choice politically, because it makes life harder for Dean Heller, Jeff Flake, Portman, Susan Collins, Murkowski, the people who would be most likely to potentially break and sink this bill. You're making their argument harder than you necessarily have to be, which seems like a political error on their part. Yeah, I was very confused because

during the whole process of the secret process of McConnell writing the bill, I did hear that they were in frequent contact with the CBO. So you'd think that they had some warning or they would have had some warning that they were going to get a score this bad and that they would have changed it accordingly or at least tried to mitigate the damage a little bit. But they did not. What jumped out at me besides the uninsured number was premiums. The same Obamacare policy under wealth care would cost an average of 74% more. That's the premiums that you pay.

74% more. That's the premiums that you pay. And now remember, like the whole argument from Republicans about Obamacare and ACA and why it was failing is premiums are still too high and deductibles and out-of-pocket costs are still too high. So now we have a bill from them where premiums are an average of 74% more if you keep the same policy. The average insurance policy under the Senate bill has a deductible that will double to over $6,000. CBO also said that few low-income people would be able to buy a plan. That's not great. And then they estimated that half the population won't have access to essential benefits like cancer treatment, maternity care, mental health care, doctors, ambulance rides, prescriptions, hospitalization. So not great.

Not great at all. Ambulance rides. Ambulance. Like, just give that one up. So not great. Not great at all. Ambulance rides. Ambulance. Like, just give that one up. Like, people need ambulances. It's like, what are we doing? I mean, there was so much focus on the House bill on pre-existing conditions and protection for pre-existing conditions

that the Senate thought, oh, well, we're going to fix that. We're going to protect pre-existing conditions. And they just didn't give a shit about the essential health benefits, which didn't get as much play during the debate over the house bill. But these essential health benefits are huge. I mean, it's the difference between having decent insurance and really fucking shitty insurance. And that's the kind of insurance that basically any state can elect to have now. Any state can apply for a waiver from these essential health benefits for whatever reason. They don't even need a reason. And the governor can apply for the waiver without even

getting the approval of the legislature in the state. So you get a Republican governor who's sort of crazy, like a Scott Walker or Rick Scott or one of those people, and they can just waive these benefits and then everyone in the state doesn't have them. And that also includes, very importantly, annual and lifetime caps on coverage, which means that if you have an illness that requires a lot of treatment, say you hit your million dollar cap and you've gotten a million dollars worth of treatment that year, all the treatment after that you have to pay out of pocket for.

And employers can also now, an employer anywhere in the country can elect to have a plan that has those coverage caps as well. So the CBO also estimated that 4 million people with employer-sponsored coverage, getting their coverage from their employer, would also lose healthcare under this bill. Remember when I had a slight health scare in the White House, otherwise known as strokes? Now, I was in the most fortunate healthcare situation anyone could possibly be in, working in the White House, having government insurance, et cetera. But my bills, because this was a long-running health situation,

would have come pretty close to the lifetime cap. And there were a lot of important tests that were done that never could have been done under this Republican House bill. And like – so you – like when you get that bill and you look at it, a lot of people have tweeted these bills out. And you see how important insurance is in the worst times of your life and to do all the – to undermine all the things about Obamacare. And this is what I think people forget is you may not be on Obamacare. You may have employer health care, but your insurance is going to be affected by these changes in real and serious ways. Yeah. No, those costs rack up so fast. I mean, my dad was very sick last year and he's

completely fine now. But I remember when they finally got the bills from all the hospital visits and the insurance company made some mistake that then they took care of and it's fine. But originally, suddenly these bills came for like hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. And you just realize how fast you rack up these bills in a short, short period of time, you know. And I just I can't imagine that that reform that would get rid of those caps is something that anyone would want to put back into law. I mean, it's crazy. put back into law. I mean, it's crazy. Now, we know from the efforts to pass the bill that by far the most popular parts of health care reform are the parts that provide what you would call the patient's bill of rights that provide a set of protections for patients against insurance

companies. And this bill will take those away. You know, pre-existing conditions being the most popular, but all the ones you mentioned, lifetime caps, etc., are incredibly popular. And taking them away would, I would guess, politically unpopular. Well, and I'm glad we're spending time on this because as they try to figure out how to put this shitburger back together, there's a lot of talk about taxes and boosting medicaid funding and maybe boosting subsidy funding so you know you don't kick off quite as many people off their health care but the fig leaf that they're trying to give to the conservatives like rand paul and ted cruz and all them is to loosen up the regulations even more and to make the um to loosen up these protections even more from you know what insurance companies can do

and so i think as we get closer to another version of the bill the um the protections could get even worse uh which is a real problem so the cbo score comes out uh heller says no way colin says no way and ran paul says no way because the bill still didn't repeal enough of Obamacare. So McConnell, who can only lose two votes and two Republican senators, you know, decides to delay the vote after the CBO score. So that's where we are now. So what comes next? What does the vote count look like? Where do you see this now? Well, as McConnell is right now furiously trying to put together a new version of the bill that somehow bridges the gaps between the moderates, particularly from Medicaid expansion states, and the conservatives, which includes Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Ron Johnson, and one other I'm forgetting. And his goal is to get something Rand Paul. Rand Paul, yeah.

And his goal is to get something to the CBO by Friday. It should take the CBO two weeks, I think, or so to score it. And to get a score back and then make another run at this when they get back after recess, which is in a week, I think. I think they get back a week from... Get back the 10th. One day, yeah. And there was a report last night from Politico that McConnell was going to put in

$45 billion for opioid funding because that was one of the real problems for Rob Portman of Ohio and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, one of their complaints about the bill. So he's trying to buy them off with this funding, even though that funding is a fraction of what is needed and a fraction of what would be cut if the bill were to go in place. Yeah. So in terms of what a deal would look like, you just mentioned the opioid funding, of course, $2 billion in there now, right? They said $45 billion, they might add. John Kasich, Republican governor from Ohio, said that even the $45 billion is like spitting in a pool in terms of solving the problem. And, you know, interesting that he says that because Rob Portman, the senator from Ohio, is one of the swing votes here. Other people have been saying, you know,

there's $200 billion more in deficit reduction in the Senate bill than in the House bill. So everyone's saying, well, McConnell has that $200 billion basically to use to buy off senators by just, you know just throwing money at the problem here and there. Something that just came out today, just before we recorded, is Bob Corker, a Republican from Tennessee, who's also up in 2018. He said that this huge tax cut that's in the bill for on investment income, which is basically $172 billion to the richest people in the country, that now there's talk of keeping that tax in place and not making the tax cut not giving that tax cut to people

and then using that 172 billion dollars to make the tax credits more generous and that maybe that would be a solution and i don't know i don't know if like enough republicans will go for that if some of the more conservative republicans will go for that pat toomey said he didn't like the idea but some other republicans said they were open to it the problem i have is just like even if you do that even if you make the sub basically what they're doing is as the process moves on they're making the bill look more and more like obamacare but just gut right? Like all the good funding from Obamacare is gutted and all the protections from insurance companies and what they can do, those are gutted.

So it's basically just, it's not repealing or replacing Obamacare, it's just gutting Obamacare. And so I even think that like, say they get rid of this tax cut and they make the subsidies a little more generous. Like you said earlier, if it takes the CBO score from 22 million

uninsured to even 15 million uninsured, that's still too fucking many people. The tax cut thing is interesting because it is perhaps, I mean, every part of this bill is unpopular. We should talk about the poll numbers at some point, but it is the combination. Taking healthcare away from people is unpopular. Giving tax cuts to wealthy people is unpopular. But paying for tax cuts for wealthy people with taking health care away from working class people, that is very unpopular. And in some of the reporting on the meeting that Trump had with Senate Republicans, just as the bill was being delayed, there was – in that meeting, some Republicans expressed political concern about those tax cuts. Now, just one amazing fact, as I understand it about the tax cuts is, is it the whole point of the tax cut, theoretically, is to encourage people to invest more.

Yet it's retroactive. So you will get a tax credit, you will get a tax cut for investments that you already made. So you can go back in time. I mean, the whole thing is so crazy. It is nothing more than an attempt to put money in rich people's pockets, full stop. I mean, look, I think it's, you know, Corker said today that he really thinks that that tax cut in particular would come out of the bill. Now, that's not the only tax cut in the bill. There's a whole bunch of tax cuts.

I think there's $700 billion worth or 800 billion dollars worth but um i we just have to be prepared for if that tax cut comes out of the bill republicans can't say oh well we got rid of the tax cut for the wealthy and now we've made all the subsidies generous and everything is fixed because everything is not fixed and the other thing they're talking about doing is ted cruz some plan where he wants to loosen the protections for pre-existing conditions, meaning you'd be able to every state would be able to sell insurance plans that had protections for pre-existing conditions, but also have the option of, who didn't need the protections for pre-existing conditions, would buy the plan that didn't offer them and they'd be cheaper. And then the plans that protected pre-existing conditions would be really expensive and people wouldn't be able to afford them. And so it would screw up the whole market and screw up the whole insurance pool. I mean, this whole thing is like it's a Frankenstein mix of terrible policy. It's a Frankenstein mix of terrible policy.

And my theory as to why is Republicans' position up until really just a few months ago was repeal Obamacare. That's all they voted for was just repeal the whole thing, make it go away. And then they realized that that was unpopular and taking insurance away people was unpopular. So instead of advocating for the conservative position they actually believe, which is government has no role in providing health care to people, they are basically arguing on the turf of progressives. They are saying we should have universal coverage and people should have access to health care. We just think we can do it better. But they are trying to take conservative positions, add on some policy that seems to suggest that they are more compassionate and progressive than they really are, and sell it as a progressive. They sell it as universal coverage, and it is not. And because they are unwilling to be honest with their own positions, which are incredibly unpopular, they're stuck. They can't argue for their bill because the facts completely collapse every time they talk about it.

Right. No, they are bridging the difference between their rhetoric on the bill and the substance of the bill with lies and just like very blatant lies that are obvious to anyone who can you know read a fucking cbo report or fax or anything like or a newspaper article so you talked about polling we should mention that front page of usa today in hotel rooms across the country uh 12 support for this plan um not very popular uh you also were telling me this morning about um a new york times article about kentucky uh mitch mcconnell state ran paul state where um obviously there are a lot of low income people who uh do not like obamacare or do not like the fact that obamacare still had high deductibles and high premiums in some places but also also absolutely hate this bill. So this is, I don't know that you can get a piece of legislation that's less popular than this. It's amazing. And kudos to the American

people because they are being lied to left and right. Fox News is just running full state run propaganda for this bill. And that's why even though their viewers demographically are the group of people most affected by the bill bill Because it is people in that age bracket Right before Medicaid Right before Medicare, excuse me Whose premiums go up the most Just pretends like nothing is happening here Despite all of that

They know exactly how terrible this bill is We live in a divided nation And we have finally found something That people agree on which is that trump care is a shitty idea it's pretty amazing we should talk about trump too um the man who called the bill who admitted that he called the bill mean in a private meeting he said it to the house he called the house bill mean the senate bill's not much different but the the new york times headline that really set him off yesterday was on senate health bill trump falters and the closers roll

the great deal so one thing we know right now is even if mcconnell passes this thing it will not be because trump was i'm so sick of fucking trump is the master dealmaker thing the guy can anyone name one deal one deal the man has negotiated since becoming president? None. And the reason he can't negotiate these deals is because he doesn't have a grasp on any of the details because he doesn't know anything. He doesn't want to know anything. He doesn't want to learn.

He has all the information in the world at his fingertips. And yet he gets all of his information from Fox News. And Fox News isn't covering the health care debate because they're actually smart enough to know that their viewers won't like it. So therefore, the president of the United States doesn't know anything about the health care bill either. Yeah, I mean, it's it's fairly like no one says Trump has to be in the weeds on the policy. No, that's not a requirement. Yeah. Some President Obama, President Clinton were both pretty wonky and they would get deep

in the weeds. Other presidents less so. And they have people to do that, but they do understand the general contours of the bill. do understand the general contours of the bill. I am 100% sure that if someone stopped Trump on the golf course, I guess it'd be the best place to find him, and said, tell me the difference between Medicaid and Medicare, he would not be able to answer that question. No. I mean, I would say he couldn't explain how Medicare works. He couldn't explain what Medicaid is. I mean, it would be great to hear him talk about this stuff for a little while. Apparently,

a Republican senator in the meeting with trump at the white house left the meeting told the new york times that trump didn't grasp basic elements of the senate plan he didn't even know it included a tax cut and when that was raised he said tax cuts like aren't we we're doing tax reform later yes of course like of course there is this theory going around because people have been saying, trying to press the White House, like Trump very boldly declared, which was a pretty bold declaration for a Republican running for president, that he would not cut Medicaid. Yeah. He said, I will not didn't know the difference. And so now he's stuck to live with this promise forever, which I 100% believe because not touching Medicaid in a Republican primary is a much braver position to take than Medicare. And so I think he just fucked up and now is stuck with this forever and will obviously never admit he was wrong till the day he dies.

I mean, it does seem like he doesn't care a lot about this. He cares about winning, obviously. And so to the extent that he needs a win and doesn't want another loss, he cares about that. But, you know, apparently he also said in that meeting, you know, I think we can do this. I think it's going to pass. But, you know, if they don't want to do it and it's too hard, that's OK. And then, of course, you see his tweets, right? He's like tweeting about Russia and tweeting about he's attacking the media and The Washington Post, the new york times and then this morning we did not make this a big part of this podcast because i'm not going down that road and that route and taking the bait but uh he started attacking joe and mika and mika particularly that was insane he is a pig pig for tweeting that. And I'm not going to even repeat the tweet. It's just gross.

I mean, I just... If any other person... Let's say Kanye West tweeted that. The reaction would be Kanye is off his meds again. But the difference is Kanye cannot launch an intercontinental ballistic

missile strike against North Korea with one push of a button. I mean, it is deeply... It's not just gross, and it is incredibly gross. It is deranged in how it is written. Like, low IQ, psycho. Just the very sad part where it's like, I don't watch this anymore, but let me tell you exactly what was just said on the show. It's so sad. He is a severely disturbed individual, and he happens to be the president of the United States.

This is Pod Save America. Stick around. There's more great show coming your way. You know, the thing that has been hopeful about this whole health care debate to me, aside from what you just pointed out, which is, you know, the American people who it seems like we're divided on everything, have pretty much come to agreement that this bill is awful. You know, we were at this rally yesterday, Tommy and I went on Capitol Hill. And it's like for once this debate really hasn't been about Trump. And everything since he got into office has been about Trump. But like we went we talked a whole bunch of people yesterday barely heard his name at the rally.

Instead, like so many people were talking about like why they believe that their government should guarantee affordable health care to all of its citizens. And it was just it was it was it was much more hopeful, you know, and I people should realize, my takeaway from all this is, Mitch McConnell is making a bet right now. And his bet is that the media will move on to covering Trump's tweets and any other shiny objects. And everyone's going to go home over the 4th of July and they're going to get some rest and they're not going to worry about this.

And then time will pass and then he'll be able to quietly buy off these senators and he'll put a new version of the bill on the floor and it'll sneak right by. And, you know, our job is to make sure that McConnell and Trump and a bunch of lobbyists aren't the only people that Republican senators are hearing from, you know, and that's that's that's our job now. Yeah. We have seen this movie before it. I know we're in the era of short tennis fan, but it literally happened like a month ago. We stopped the bill. We thought it was dead. People moved on, the world moved on. And before we knew it, they passed the bill again. And here we are. And this is like like there is no step after this. Like it's important to note this is not the Senate's going to pass a bill.

The House is going to get together and they're going to wrestle. And maybe the Senate bill won't be able to reconcile with the House Freedom Caucus. No. If McConnell had passed this bill this week, the House was planning to stay in over the weekend to rubber stamp it and send it out. So this is the ab, this is it. This is the difference between access to healthcare for everyone in this country, or a dystopian society where insurance companies can charge whatever they want, people get kicked off health insurance without any regard for the impact on human lives. And that's the difference. And I was super excited. I was unfortunately unable to go to D.C.

I probably would have worn pants to the rally I was addressing, unlike you and Tommy. You didn't like my shorts and my t-shirt that said, repeal and go fuck yourself? You didn't think that was appropriate? Well, the t-shirt's totally cool. The t-shirt was on message. It's hot in D.C., man. It's a fucking swamp here. I know.

I was there last week, and I saw a number of Crooked Media merch as I was wandering around the streets of D.C. and Repeal and Go Fuck Yourself was clearly the most popular shirt. There was quite a few friends of the pod there. It was great. It's exciting. No, look, I totally agree. And look, because we are all pundits now and that's how we view politics and we're guilty of this too, but everything is a prediction. Everything's framed around a prediction. are guilty of this too but like everything is a prediction everything's framed around a prediction you know like is mcconnell a master tactician and is he is he a master negotiator and will he get this through and you know some people are like oh no matter what he's going to get it through and these republicans are going to cave and it's not worth doing anything and then you know on the other side of the spectrum and this was like how things were around the house bill it was oh paul

ryan had to pull the bill and we won and it's victory and it's not going to happen now. And they're too stupid to get it done. And then they got it done. So how do you get out of this? Right. You stop predicting, right? It's not about what might happen or what will happen. It's about focusing on what should happen. Right. And it's about, you know, it's about making those calls and, and, uh, and, and getting out there. Right. Like, did you, I don't know if you saw the story. I was tweeting about this yesterday that I think they're still there. They're these disability advocates.

They went to Cory Gardner, who's a Republican Senator from Colorado to his Denver office. And it was like nine or 10 people. Most of them were used wheelchairs. Couple, you know, one has diabetes. One was on a ventilator or respirator and uh they wanted to meet with cory gardner uh they refused a meeting and so they decided to camp out in his

office um and they decided to sleep in his office and they have been there for the last 48 hours these people most of them like i said in wheelchairs you know hope people have been sending them food and coffee and and water and everything so to keep them going and to support them and um they were there because you know if these medicaid cuts go through uh it severely affects and we heard this at the rally yesterday too it severely affects people with disabilities um who are many of them medicare helps them live independent lives. And, you know, one of the protesters was asked why she'd choose to spend all night in a

hallway. And she said, you know, we'd rather spend the night in a hallway in this building than spend the rest of our lives locked away in an institution. And it's like, you know, you see shit like that.

And you think if those people can sit in that office for 48 hours, like, you know, we can get out there and we can make some phone calls and knock on some doors and keep this pressure up and like not get distracted by all the other bullshit that's on the news. So I think that's important to recognize. for rich people? Does that trickle down to people? Does that provide economic growth? Does that starve the budget? But this is one that is so specific. You can identify the people. You can see them walking down the street to know who would suffer from this bill. And I know that people get so upset about this, but it is a documented fact that there are people who are living today who will

die if this bill goes into effect. And I don't really know how you vote for that. And then in the politics of it, it is the least popular piece of legislation I've ever seen in my life by far. The Affordable Care Act was three times more popular than this when it was passed, and it wasn't that popular. And we think about people like Tom Perriello, who we have on the podcast, who voted for this bill knowing he would lose his seat, but he at least knew that he was voting to give health care to people. I don't know how you vote to risk your political career to take health care away from people. Like it's just, but that the mentality just escapes me. And these are people, some of these people who work for these members are people we know and like, and I just can't possibly understand how you can get up and go to work every day and think that's a good way to spend your life. There are lots of things that we disagree on that

that they work on and they're, you know and maybe they're right, maybe we're wrong. But this one is so – this is such an obviously bad idea on every spectrum. And I just wonder why they do it. And I would say one last thing. Like no one wants political advice on the Republican side from us. Affordable Care Act, David Axelrod and I and Rahm and others, we would go up to that House and Senate caucus and we would make the case that once the bill was passed, it would become more popular. And we believe that. Yeah. We absolutely believe that.

And we were really fucking wrong. This is as popular as it's going to be, people, forever. Like you were at the high watermark. Like, people hate this thing, and not a single person has lost health insurance. Not a single person has woken up and all of a sudden realized that their health insurance does not cover something so highfalutin as an ambulance trip. So if you think that you're going to, that this is not going to have massive political consequences, even if you don't even care about the policy, the idea that this is,

it's only going to get worse from here. So that's, that's my free piece of advice. Republicans, all biases on my side. I mean, look, they,

you asked how they can do this. Like, I think the most charitable explanation is they have convinced themselves that liberals are hysterical and lying and partisan and that we're just you know crying this wolf and saying the sky is falling and and none of this is actually going to come true and they have you know some respected conservative health policy wonks a few avik roy and some of these people who are telling them that that we're wrong and that people aren't going to lose their medicaid and they're all going to get tax credits and be able to buy stuff.

And like, the problem with that is if it was just our word versus their word, it's one thing, but you have the nonpartisan congressional budget office, you have doctors, you have nurses, you have patient advocates. There are no groups,

no experts on their side on this one, right? So like, it don't take, you don't have to take the word of us. You don't have to listen to us. You don't have to take the word of partisan Democrats don't you don't have to listen to us you don't have to take the word of partisan democrats like it's just look at every expert look at every non-partisan person here you know um so you know a lot of people ask well what can we do a lot a lot of these republicans are going to go home over the break and they are not going to hold town halls because they want to hide from their constituents because they realize

they're passing or they're trying to pass a shit burger that's not popular, right? So a couple different people gave us this idea, Ben Wickler, a few others. Republicans may not hold town halls over the 4th, but they'll all be marching in 4th of July parades. So make some signs, wear your best pod t-shirts, go to those parades, find your representatives. If they're against this bill, thank them for being against it. If they're for it them out if they're undecided urge them to do the right thing if you see a television camera get in the shot if not take your own picture send it to us tweet it um the ideal picture of course is the one that that guy got with um paul ryan wearing the repealing go fuck yourself t-shirt that's the holy grail you know you get

something like that that That's great. But you don't have to get that. Just go to these parades and you can find your senators there and it will make a difference. It will get coverage and it will help drive this debate forward for us. Because like I said, if the only person in their ear is Mitch McConnell buying them off with a couple billion here and there, they might do that. But if they go home and there's an overwhelming push from all of us saying, we don't want this bill, this bill's awful, then they just might say no. And it's not guaranteed, but it's certainly worth trying. That's exactly right. We got one shot here. And it's important. Everyone involved here who cares about this bill is responsible. Because we said to everyone, everyone said, we just do everything we can to kick this bill past the recess so they couldn't jam the vote through. who that you and Tommy saw yesterday who gathered at the Capitol. It is the people who are making phone calls over the last few weeks. And we have it now.

So we wanted this week to show people, to show Republicans that there is massive opposition to this bill. So we have the opportunity, and we can't blow it. All right. When we come back, we will be talking about this with Congressman Joe Kennedy, and we'll be asking him a bunch of other stuff, too. So stay with us. This is Pod Save America. Stick around.

There's this great stuff coming. Lots of great stuff. On the pod today, in studio, we have Massachusetts Congressman Joe Kennedy III. Congressman. How are you? Thank you for joining us. This is great. I'm very excited to have you on.

I'm thrilled. Some old Massachusetts roots too, so great to be here. Yes, absolutely. So you gave a pretty compelling speech about healthcare on the floor of the House the other week. How surprised were you when the bill passed the House? And how confident are you that we can stop it in the Senate? I was not surprised that it passed the House. Look, I think, you know, the bottom line of politics, and I haven't been here too long, but when the president,

the speaker, and the Senate Majority Leader want something, they normally find a way to get it. I was, when the details of that House bill first came out, realized how bad that bill was, how many people were going to be hurt by it, the cuts to Medicaid, what it meant for folks suffering from mental illness, what it means for folks that are not able to still get access to health insurance, and the destruction of what health care then means for people. But knowing that, look, I've been in the house minority ever since I've been here and they get to, if they want to roll you, they can roll you, right?

It's just, it's purely a numbers game. And so I was surprised to see that they had as much trouble with it as they did, but ultimately not surprised at all to see that they were able to get it across the finish line. I have, John, I've always thought that the Senate would be able to get something done. If you asked me about it last week, I would have said probably 80-20 that they do get something. I'm more optimistic that whatever product that is ends up being something that is more palatable, albeit not palatable. And we'll see. Susan Collins had some comments just moments ago saying that she was starting to look around for some bipartisan

support which bottom line on this is healthcare is something that most folks don't pay much attention to when you don't need it but when you do it is a critical lifeline for so many families across this country we got to find a way to take the politics out of it and the way

you do that is you chip away at some of these big problems by having folks come together around it. And I would like to think we're getting to that space. Obviously, Majority Leader McConnell had said, threatened members of his caucus saying, if we don't come together around this repeal plan, I'm going to have to work with Democrats as if that would be some sort of terrible threat. The threat of bipartisanship. Right. So, look, it's a scary time. I can't I can't stress enough how concerned I am that whatever product ultimately gets voted on will pass. And what that means for so many people across our country, particularly those who tend to rely on some of the provisions of Medicaid and the neediest and most frail folks with pre-existing conditions, pediatric cancer patients and such, what this is going to mean for them.

How do you think we get back to that point where people are working together on health care from both sides of the aisle? I remember when President Obama was addressing Congress in 2009, one of the ways he ended the speech is, of course, we got that beautiful letter from your great uncle, Ted Kennedy, before he passed away. And Obama was pointing out, you know, he had worked with Orrin Hatch on children's health insurance program. He worked with other Republicans on patient's Bill of Rights and patient reforms. And as a way to try to sort of spur on some bipartisanship. And, of course, it didn't work out for us as much as President Obama tried. And now it seems like we're so far afield from those days.

Like I don't even know how we get back to that point. So I think, look, it's the $800 billion question literally at this point. $800 billion question literally at this point. In my conversations with Republicans behind closed doors, they will say, we ran on this for seven years that we were going to repeal Obamacare. You got to show just from a political purpose that you tried, that we did. there are strong philosophical differences as to the role that the federal government should play in the provision of health care in this country. And that's fine. The question then is, is I think it's the responsibility of folks in office and our elected leaders to say, you might have these philosophical differences. We need to make sure that our system fills the gaps of those differences for folks that need access to care. And I think that's where we can start. I hope this bill goes

down. I hope that there's enough members of the Senate that recognize that the bill as currently constructed is going to be devastating for millions and millions of families across this country. And that if we are able to turn the page, I will concede that the Affordable Care Act is not a perfect bill. There are ways, though, that you can strengthen the exchanges, strengthen the individual market, and with a bipartisan agreement, actually get to a pretty good place. Massachusetts, John, we've got about a 3.6% unemployment rate and a 2.8% uninsured rate. The idea that this bill is somehow a job killer, the idea that you can't somehow implement this effectively is just not true. We've got some challenges with it in Massachusetts.

is just not true. We've got some challenges with it in Massachusetts, cost of small businesses. Some of our Medicaid products is actually so good that some employers are kicking people to our mass health program, which means it's a bigger portion of our state budget than we probably should have. There's ways to get through that, and we're trying to, but you can if there's a commitment to, and we need to get to that spot. Congressman, I think it's interesting you point out that there are philosophical differences about the role of government health care. But what I found interesting about this debate is that's not really the argument the Republicans are making. They're sort of they have sort of seeded the argument that people should be covered. But as you know, CBO tells us, that's obviously not going to happen in your private conversations, Republicans. I guess how do they sort of rationalize the fact that people are obviously going to either, especially their voters in some cases, will pay higher premiums or get kicked off health care?

And do you get a sense that they are worried they're going to be the dog that caught the car here and that it's great to vote for repeal one more time? But if this passes, they could be in real trouble? Dan, look, it's a great question. Candidly, most of my conversations with Republicans around healthcare, this isn't going to surprise you, but it doesn't get into the specifics, right? It gets into, look, we ran on this, we have to do something and we'll vote this out and the Senate will fix it and we'll take it from there. Now, some of these, as you guys both know very well, some of these conservative members come from states that, one, didn't take a Medicaid expansion or, two, where there are challenges with these exchanges in the individual market, but largely driven by an unwillingness to actually implement this law effectively. So I think it's a bit of a disingenuous argument, but the fact of the matter is that when they go to their constituents, their constituents look at this

and say, we've got real access to care problems. And that's Obamacare's fault. Trying to explain to those constituents that, well, actually, I'm not going to deny the fact that you've got challenges, but should with the law implemented correctly, you wouldn't. You're missing that kind of emotional connection, because they've now been told repeatedly that it is. And I think part of what I've been trying to do with Mixed Success, obviously, is to say, listen, okay, I will take it that you have challenges in gaining access to the care that you need. Let's try to find a way to fill those gaps in our system to ensure that you do get access to care. The problem is, is that Republicans at this point have still have sworn to repeal this law, where if you get to the point of saying, okay,

well, let's fill in the holes, they don't want to, they can't fill in the holes yet, because they've promised that they're going to repeal it. So we're not quite at the point where you can start to get a real commitment to even look at filling those holes as long as there's still some promise that this law can get repealed. And look, make no mistake, I think you are seeing buyer's remorse coming out of the Senate at this point, recognizing from some of those Republican senators that they just can't do this. You can't take healthcare away from 23 million people. And for the folks that still have it, you can't destroy what health insurance actually means. You're paying more for a whole lot less and somehow trying to say that it's the same thing. And it's just not. Congressman, if for some reason the Senate bill stalls, would you support Democrats being part

of a bipartisan working group to try to come up with some set of reforms to fix healthcare. I know there's some disagreement within the Democratic Party on whether that's a good idea or not. Absolutely. Look, my pledge to my constituents, to the folks in Massachusetts and everybody across this country is I believe, one, that healthcare is a right and not a privilege in this country, and that every single person deserves access to quality, affordable, accessible healthcare. privilege in this country and that every single person deserves access to quality, affordable, accessible healthcare. And the fact is, is that that's going to look differently in downtown Boston, where you have a number of high end academic medical centers and rural Texas or Alaska or Arkansas or Oklahoma or California for that matter. Part of the stuff is just going to look

different. But the commitment is to say that wherever you are in this country, you should be able to get access to a health system that you can afford and is going to the best of our ability address your illness. And that's not that shouldn't be a Democrat or Republican thing. I mean, my God, if we can get to a place where that's the baseline that we're in agreement on, that's a huge step forward. So yes, by all means, we're going to have to engage with our Republican colleagues on this. And I would love to be able to do so. Out of the house anyway, we're not quite there yet. And I understand that. But part of my job then, I think, is to chip away at pieces of this that I think we can make progress on and try to lay that foundation to work on those larger challenges when we can. So 36 years old, you're one of the younger members of Congress. In the last election, more young adults supported a third party candidate or didn't vote than in 2012. But overall, they skewed more liberal, more progressive. And Trump actually got about the

same share of the youth vote that Romney did. How do we what does the Democratic Party do to get some of these young voters back voting engaged? What do you think about that? Look, I think if I knew the answer to that, I'd be in great shape. So one, it's hard. Two, I think politics, we got to find a way to make it real. And you got to find a way to start addressing people's concerns. I think this is probably true of all three of us at the moment, right? You've got a younger generation that on Sunday morning isn't necessarily engaging or waking up in the morning eager to watch, meet the press. They're having avocado toast and drinking a latte, right?

I have no idea what you're talking about. And you've got you've got a generation now that is extremely engaged in trying to solve problems. And the heartbreaking piece about this for me is that they don't look at their government as a They look at the internet. They look at online communities. They look at new innovations, sharing economy as ways to drive new efficiencies and to solve challenges. But they don't think the government can actually play a role there in part, I think, because of the partisanship that we've seen. And that's campaign finance law and gerrymandered districts and all the rest of it. And there's plenty of issues that we all can point to on this. But those, to an are excuses and we got to find solutions. And so what, look, I think best case we can do and I try to do is go back home, be present, show those, your constituents that you're trying to solve as many of those problems as you possibly can, get bills passed and across the finish line and address those concerns, which while we fight here on a lot of those big issues, I got a bill passed out of the House of Representatives unanimously on the first day of the Trump administration. We got a bill passed to create an over-the-counter category of over-the-counter hearing aids. The hearing aids cost about a couple thousand bucks per one. It's about 2,500 bucks or so per individual and could be about $5,000 per pair. Medicare doesn't cover them.

There's tens of millions of seniors out there that don't get hearing aids because it just costs too much money. It came out of our committee unanimously. And it was me and, if you can believe it, Marsha Blackburn from Tennessee, one of the most conservative members of the House. And her team was great on this. And I give her an awful lot of credit. There's ways that I think we have to be focused on actually addressing those concerns and showing progress on them and not just fighting. And obviously on these big things we're going to fight about because we've got differences on it, but we got to do a much better job of showing those solutions and then engaging with younger voters. And the last thing I'd say on this is, this is a generation that on the whole

is much more cause driven, is willing to get engaged and roll up their sleeves and find solutions, dedicate their money, their time, their efforts, their energy, their innovation, their talent, if they're channeled to do so, and if they're challenged to do so. And I think that is one thing that obviously President Obama did extraordinarily well, was to motivate and challenge a generation to actually roll up their sleeves and get engaged and get in the game. Because if you're not playing, your voice isn't going to be heard. And I think we missed that opportunity in the last election to actually go out there and show a real pathway forward for the largest voting bloc of Americans, which is millennials,

by definition, to say, if you believe in a better, stronger, brighter future and if you want to fight for it and if you're willing to fight for it, which they are overwhelmingly the answer to that is yes, then this is the way to channel that energy and we need your help. interesting challenges when it comes to reaching the youth vote is that a lot of the most prominent faces of our party are older and have been around a long time, particularly the congressional leadership. And as we sort of weirdly sort of missed a generation, we have a lot of people like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Nancy Pelosi, who are the most prominent voices in the party. And then a lot of people in their 30s, like yourself, Jason Kander, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, etc. One, are you concerned? Are you concerned about the fact that the faces of the party are have been around a long time? And, you know, what can we do to raise up, you know, faces, you know, people like yourself and the next generation Democrats to appeal to these younger voters?

So, look, one, the leaders that you pointed to, the folks that have been here for a while, I obviously know some of them are, I consider my mentors. I'm close with Leader Pelosi. I met my wife and Professor Elizabeth Warren's class. She's an amazing teacher, by the way. She's an amazing teacher, by the way. And look, these are folks that have dedicated themselves to public service, know how to get stuff done and know how to fight for our values. And I think you need voices like that here championing the way and helping light the way. I do think there's clearly look from spending some time with, my colleagues in the House and Senate and the Democratic caucus, there's some really talented folks in this caucus. And I think part of the issue that we have to reconcile is no one's stopping you from stepping up, right? Jason Gander, give him an awful lot of credit. He ran a really compelling race for a Senate seat and a seat that wasn't supposed to be competitive.

He almost won it in a state that Donald Trump won by double digits. supposed to be competitive. He almost won it in a state that Donald Trump won by double digits. And just because he lost an election, he didn't say, okay, well, time over. I'll go pack my bags and go home. He's pledged himself to try to make sure that every single person across this country has a voice and is leading a voter registration campaign in the face of what many, including myself, expect is going to be a massive voter suppression tactic coming forward from this administration. So stand up, speak out, and get engaged with it. Pete Buttigieg is a great guy with a really bright future. I met him when he won the New Frontier Award from the JFK Library Foundation a couple of years ago as one of the bright emerging young leaders dedicated to public

service. He's got an extraordinary future in our party, and we need to have folks like Pete that are out there talking about how he solves problems on a daily basis as a mayor. You don't have to ask people's permission to go out there and try to find some new way to solve a problem. You just got to go out there and do it. And so I think it can be a little bit easy to kind of point to some of the leadership and say, hey, you know, we need to have a change. No one is stopping folks from getting out there and trying to make your own case, get on TV, go door to door in other parts of the country, listen to people,

and actually go out there and try to find a way to solve these challenges. You don't need anybody's permission to do that. How do you speak to a lot of the anger that's out there? And anger because Washington's not working, anger because people are left behind by globalization, by automation, right? It seems like Democrats are at a disadvantage a little bit because, you know, Donald Trump runs for president, other Republicans run, and they say, government's awful. The country's being run by politicians who are stupid and corrupt, I can go in there and fix it, right? That could be an easy message for Democrats too,

but in some way, we believe in government. We believe that government can make a difference in people's lives. So there's this tension between, you know, in our nature, we're institutionalists in a way, but it's not in vogue to be an institutionalist these days, and it's much easier politically to just rail against the system. So how do you speak to that anger and still, uh, you know, still reach people.

You talk to the guy that wrote Obama speeches and ask how you speak to it. It'd be the first thing I would do. Um, the next thing I would do, wasn't always easy for him. Next thing I would do is, um, look,

I think you recognize that people are, people are ticked off and they're angry and they've got a right to be angry. Look, I'll give you a quick example on this. There is a, you hear an awful lot now from Democrats and Republicans, and I've been a huge champion of this as well, about the value of vocational training. There are more CEOs in Massachusetts than plumbers. And you know what? It turns out plumbers can make a really good living in Massachusetts. There was a vocational school built up in Fall River, Massachusetts that years ago, that was supposed to be the alternative for high school for folks that might struggle in high school, Diamond Regional Technical Vocational School. Diamond now has more SkillsUSA banners

hanging from its rafters than are hanging from the Boston Celtics and Boston Garden. You walk through that place and it is amazing what those kids are doing. Three of them came down here about two weeks ago and met in my office. They won a NASA competition, high school kids. One of them is now getting an internship in Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, right? Looking at genetics in space. I mean, amazing stuff. High school kids. There is now a wait list to get into that school. You talk about the frustration and failure of government, you sit there and say, hey, you've got a school here that's going to try to build up trades for folks that can't, might traditionally, we'd say, wouldn't be the right fit in high school. Now,

all of a sudden, that school's doing so well that the graduates are going wherever they want. And if they're not going to their wherever they want in college, they're on a pathway to a really solid middle class job that's going to provide for their families. And we can't even fill enough, create enough space so that they can get into the school. They should be upset. They should be raving mad at our system. And so I think it's recognizing that that frustration is real and it is well placed. The question for us is then how do you solve it? And it comes back to a fundamental question that does, I think, separate Democrats and Republicans.

And John, you see it in the heart of this health care bill. It's a philosophy of do you think those challenges are going to be better solved by 330 million Americans pulling for each other and pulling in the right direction? Or is it easier to solve if you're on your own? Right health care bill. Look we talk an awful lot about what this bill does what this bill means is to say at your most vulnerable moment when you are sick when your loved one is sick when you are when you are in need of

of life-saving care Are you on your own? Or you have a system of doctors and professionals and folks that are willing to care for you and roll up their sleeves and throw their lives and their experience and their dedication there to help you out i would rather take the latter than the former that's the difference in the republicans vision of this bill and what democrats stand for what the affordable care act is all about what my of, and I think a progressive vision for our society is, we've got massive challenges around the globe, some of which Donald Trump is bringing on us,

some of which are just there because the world's a complex place. Are we better served by our country coming together and trying to challenge them and roll up your sleeves and dive in? Or by saying, you know what, they're too hard, we're going to build up a wall and go home. There has never been a challenge that is too big and too great for 320 million Americans trying to solve. None. None. And so I think what is incumbent on us is to recognize that frustration, recognize the anger,

and to understand that it comes from a very real place, a very real frustration. But as much as my constituents in the northern part of my district, outside of Boston, Newton and Brookline and Wellesley and Needham and Dover talk about innovation and automation and globalization, most folks out there, their economy is a mortgage,

a paycheck, kids' childcare, and trying to make ends meet. And that bread and butter issues of trying to make sure that we're covering that and we're caring for it. And at that point, look, in this country today, no one should have to worry if their job is going to be able to meet their basic needs. This idea of making sure we are fighting for the economic dignity of every single American, making sure that we recognize that if you need 320 million Americans to solve this problem, we need you on the field because we need your talent, we need your dedication, we need what you're going to bring to the table. And to make sure that every single one of those folks knows that your government's got your back.

I think you did a pretty okay job articulating that. Congressman, thank you so much for joining us. I know you have to go catch some votes, but we really appreciate you coming by. Appreciate it, guys. Thanks so much. Thank you. Thanks again to Congressman Kennedy for joining us. That was a great conversation.

And we'll see you all again on Monday. Happy Fourth of July, everyone. Happy Fourth. Bye, everyone. Happy 4th.