Health-care yes votes explained by Franken at Kos, Klobuchar on Fox

Minnesota’s U.S. senators were explaining their votes for health-care reform right and left Sunday: Amy Klobuchar appeared on Fox News Sunday and Al Franken posted his rationale at Daily Kos. That left a progressive group mulling whether to target Franken in a pressure campaign to fight for a public option.

Franken promised to keep working on better and cheaper health care, but was ready to vote for the Senate bill:

To earn my vote, health insurance reform must improve access to affordable health care for Minnesota families — and this bill clears that bar with room to spare. … Like many of you, I supported a public insurance option to increase competition. I’m disappointed that provision isn’t in this bill. But what is in this bill is a significant step toward our goal of universal coverage.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee was soliciting online input: “Our question to Minnesota voters: Has Sen. Al Franken fought strongly enough for the public option? And would you support pressuring him to be stronger?”

Klobuchar wasn’t the target of such a survey, but she was a target of sorts on Fox News Sunday, where she appeared with fellow Democrat Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota. Said Chris Wallace to Klobuchar at one point, “As you well know, you’re a liberal.”

Wallace asks Conrad to justify sweetheart deals for states with holdout senators like Mary Landrieu of Louisana and Ben Nelson of Nebraska. At the 3:25 mark, Klobuchar speaks up:

KLOBUCHAR: And actually, Minnesota — as a part of an amendment that Sen. Grassley introduced, also because we are a high-quality, low-cost state — got a good deal on that as well. And I’d add one more thing, that medical device tax — remember that? — $40 billion reduced to $20 billion. [Indiana U.S. Sen.] Evan Bayh and I led that effort because it fell on our states — Indiana, Minnesota, Massachusetts. So when you really look at this–

WALLACE: But I thought President Obama was going to change the way business is done in Washington. This sounds like politics as usual.

KLOBUCHAR: I think you would agree with me on the reduction of this tax. It’s better for the country. It’s better for the country that with this burgeoning industry that exports products–

WALLACE: But it wasn’t done for that reason. It was done to get — I mean, it was done in all these cases to get individual senators.

KLOBUCHAR: People fight for their own states. That’s the nature of a democracy.

WALLACE: Isn’t that business as usual?

KLOBUCHAR: I think that that is not the business as usual that Obama was talking about. He was talking about under-the-table deals that people find out about two years later. I’d say this process has been fairly transparent. Like we’re up here talking about it right now.

WALLACE: So we find out about it now instead of two years. All right. Sen. Klobuchar, let me ask you about another aspect of the effort to win over Sen. Nelson. Democrats agreed to further limit abortions in these new public exchanges. In fact, Nebraska or any state can vote to ban any policies being offered on the public exchanges from offering any abortions, even to women who would pay for them privately. As a pro-choice woman, how can you accept that?

KLOBUCHAR: Well, first of all, I preferred the original Senate language, but we had a job here, and that was to get something done for the people of this country with premiums escalating, Medicare going in the red by 2017. We had to get something done.

What this was, was a balance. There was general agreement. You want to keep the Hyde amendment in place. That’s been in place in decades. It says no public funding for abortion. The question was how do you do that when you’re dealing with private exchanges.

And what the compromise said was, basically, if you’re getting subsidies, you can choose, you can have a policy that has abortion in it, you can you have a policy that doesn’t. There always has to have a policy that doesn’t cover abortion. If you’re in one that covers abortion, then you have to have two transactions, basically, for how you pay for that to make sure that no public funding is used for that abortion.

WALLACE: Are you offended by this?

KLOBUCHAR: I am offended that so many people don’t have insurance in this country. I’m offended that kids get sick and their parents are running around trying to get treatment for them because they are kicked off their insurance. I’m offended by that. Would I have preferred the Senate language originally? Of course I would.

WALLACE: Let me ask you, though, as a liberal Democrat, there’s a lot that you have to stomach in this bill. And let’s put it up on the screen. No public option. No Medicare buy-in. No end to the antitrust exemption for insurers. New restrictions on abortion. As you well know, you’re a liberal. There are a lot of other liberals like Howard Dean, like some of the big labor unions, that say it’s a bridge too far, that this is no longer true reform, that it’s a bailout for insurance companies, and the bill should have been voted down.

KLOBUCHAR: My major focus here, Chris — my major focus was always on reducing cost. Minnesota is a medical Mecca. We have high quality, low cost. And I wanted to take that model. And you see all kinds of cost reforms in this bill. So that what’s happening right now is a bunch of our taxpayers’ money [is] getting sucked down to Florida where they don’t have as efficient a health care system. I think the people of Florida should have Mayo [Clinic]–type services. They should be able to have high-quality, low-cost care. That was my major focus.

WALLACE: So what do you say to a liberal like Howard Dean who says kill the bill?

KLOBUCHAR: You know, I disagree with him. I don’t have that ability to just, like, leave my Christmas presents and go home. We had to get something done here.