stupak folks about what went down and what happens next and the cry of baby killer to racist tea party rants, why was hateful speech such a big part of the health care fight this weekend and why do republicans and tea party leaders refuse to renounce their racist members? and behind the numbers of this chinese sand storm. it starts right now. good afternoon to you in america today you know this, the health care debate that has dragged on for more than a year is still dragging after an historical and emotional vote in the house, they got a hold your nose yes but a yes the same and a first step forward toward real health reform in this country. republicans are trying to repeal the whole thing.

the emotion boiling over last night as republican minority leader john boehner addressed his colleagues. >> look at how this bill was written. can you say it was done openly? with transparency and accountability? without backroom deals and struck behind closed doors? hidden from the people. hell no you can't. >> you can say that about everyone in washington. he was fighting a losing battle on the political front at least yesterday. in a rare display of unity democrats joined arms and forces marching to the capitol where they would cast their votes for the bill. this despite dramatic displays from tea party protesters who shouted racial and anti-gay slurs at members of congress. house later, nancy pelosi pounding the gavel. this afternoon she signed the bill and sent it to the

president riding high on last night's historic vote. >> the bill is passed. >> while it is clearly historic for this country, even the president admits his hallmark initiative falls short of fixing everything that's wrong with our health care system. >> so this isn't radical reform but it is major reform. this legislation will not fix everything that ails our health care system but it moves us decisively in the right direction. this is what change looks like. >> our first guest, congressman michael burgess, republican from congress and chair of the health care caucus. representative, given your drothers, would you prefer to try to amend this bill and improve it to create an international exchange, more freedom, more choice, all of the things we've talked about for years or repeal it all-together

and why do you choose the answer do you? >> it could be difficult to repeal this bill number one. there aren't the votes in the house to do that until november. if we were to get those votes in the next congress, the president and the white house would probably have a different set of ideals that he's following and so a veto would result. if we pick up a majority, we won't pick up a veto proof majority so the short-term answer is you have to try to fix some of the things that are just wrong with this bill and realistically as we've gone through this past year, there's been no shortage of targeted fixes that many of us have talked about. the question is now can we apply those targeted fixes to what is basically a big problem for the american people. >> what would be at the top of your stack of amendments? >> top of the stack of amendments would be how about if we treat everybody equally. medicare doesn't mean a different benefit in different parts of the country. another might be do we need an individual mandate to sell

insurance products? how about if we incentivize people to buy insurance rather than mandate they buy insurance. does anyone believe prices will come down on insurance prices when insurance companies have a mandate you have to buy their product or the irs comes calling? what incentive does the insurance company have to hold down rate and rate increases? the congressional budget office themselves said there will be a $2,100 increase on premiums under this bill. >> isn't the rationale amendment to make the exchanges up open to everyone in america so there's honest competition for health insurance and introduce a public option to keep insurance companies honest or at the very least create a voucher system or tax credit for people so you basically further empower customers. right now you have the government creating customers by law but you have the seller of the product in the form of the health insurance companies protected by the government from competition through a wide variety of mechanisms.

can we amend away the false protections for that industry and force them to compete on a level playing field like every other business in america? >> that remains to be seen. i think there is probably some parts of that statement i would agree with. there are parts i would disagree with. this is the senate bill that we passed. a lot of us over on the house side were very familiar with the house pass products even though i didn't support them, i was very familiar with them. we're much less familiar with the senate bill because remember that was passed the night before christmas and we all thought it was going to a conference report. we all thought there would be a different bill that would come out of the senate ultimately and now we've got what the senate passed on christmas eve so it's a very different product than anything we had been dealing with on the house side. mandates are a bad idea. they have no place in a free society. they say the senate bill has no public option, but it does have a public option because now we have 37 states who say we want to exempt ourselves from the exchanges and the office of personnel management is now

under the senate bill empowered to set up exchanges in those states that won't set up their own. so this is a terribly difficult process. it's likely to get more ugly before it gets better. >> i don't disagree with that. i disagree on the mandate because every person in america is drawing health care and for those who don't want to pay for it and later expect to get it -- it's like car insurance. you understand risk pooling as well as i do. >> car insurance is a state mandate. it's not a national mandate. this is the first time in the history of this country we required the purchase of something as a condition for being born in america. that's a vastly different direction than we've ever gone before. you don't have to drive on the roads. the states do -- some states don't have mandate. if the state wants to put health insurance mandate out there and they can do that with their good citizens re-electing them, good on them. that's what they should do.

>> we can go back and forth with this. lets move to a couple other things. john boehner attacked this bill right up to the bitter end. here's the final part of his speech last night. >> shame on us. shame on this body. shame on each and every one of you who substitutes your will and your desires above those of your fellow countrymen. >> where do republicans go from here? at what point -- how much longer can the republicans basically be obstructionists? this bill could be better than it is. could you debate single pair. you can debate vouchers. we know the current version is way, way less than perfect. you see a conserve ative writer talking here. we're going for all of the

marbles. is now the time for the republicans to come back and actually come up with an improvement opposed to an obstacle? >> couple things. first off, i'm not in leadership. i don't make decisions that leadership makes. i did reach my hand across the aisle right after the election with the transition team and chairman of my committee and got rebuffed both times. there was never really an interest to working with republicans. we weren't obstructing anything. >> everybody is pointing fingers at everybody. we got one bill basically half baked and another bill that was not even a bill as opposed to getting one bill half baked and opposition party that was working on how to actually improve that bill in athat was catering to the american people. it feels as if the political process is one political party kind of coming up with what they can come up with while accommodating special interests and the other party trying to take the first party down which doesn't do anything for the

american people in a two-party system. >> why not bring both the house and senate bills to a conference committee and do it the old fashioned way which in my opinion would have been the right way. put republicans on that conference and let us have a voice as this thing works through. >> when will republicans stop complaining about what they didn't get or stop whining about what didn't happen -- >> when you stop asking us. >> paul ryan came out with a rationale plan. it had a lot of signature parts of ron wyden's healthy american act. instead of the republican party rallying around congressman ryan saying this is rationale. this makes sense. this can actually improve the quality of what the democrats are proposing and getting behind paul ryan, republican leadership and i know you're not it, i'm not trying to give you specifically a hard time, but i'm telling you how i look at it. refused to get behind an opportunity to improve it and in favor went with trying to take down the democrats and it leaves

the american people with a couple half baked pieces of legislation in my opinion. >> i don't disagree that paul ryan has excellent ideas. the problem with paul's bill is we just have been through a tough presidential election where the american people had essentially voted against that concept. i gave paul ryan's bill the only hearing it had on capitol hill. >> the american people did not vote against a legitimate opposition party trying to hold the ruling party's feet to the fire and not by trying to destroy it but improve the legislation. >> again, i gave paul ryan's bill the only hearing it had on capitol hill in my health caucus. he has good ideas. i think ron wyden has good ideas. one day i wondered if ron wyden wouldn't be the compromise product at the end. we parted ways. the who is to say what will happen in the future. >> i suspect you and i are on the same page on a lot of different things.

if you like ron wyden and paul ryan and you like freedom and choice and you like a free market. congressman, thank you. >> i want the doctor to be in charge of the patient. >> i wouldn't mind that myself as a patient. thank you so much. i do want to welcome the democrat from california. co-chair of the progressive caucus. in terms of distance this bill goes, before we get into how you would amend it to improve, what is your view of the events as they stand this afternoon? >> big step forward, dylan. no way can we amend something if we don't have a base bill to amend in the first place. i'm very pleased with the historic vote yesterday. >> what's at the top of your list of amendments? >> top of my list will be to -- i will introduce a robust public option. on the very day the president

signs the health care legislation bill into law. >> is it the same thing? >> no, it isn't. his is medicare for all. which is very good. mine is the government choice in the exchanges so that everybody that goes into the exchange will have the choice of a government plan, one that will have less overhead and we're assuming because the cost will be less that they will have a better plan with much greater benefits. >> you and i both know there are many great things in this piece of legislation that it does more than anything expand coverage. it reduces the number of people that will die because they do not have health care and it dances with a couple of things that are clearly attractive whether it's the exchanges or some of the tort reform. there's little things, right? at the same time we know there are tremendous accommodations for the health insurance

companies without forcing them to compete with public options you referenced and tremendous options for the drug companies. we all know that narrative. if you were to look at those who will fight most aggressively at the improvements that are necessary to actually make this bill not only cover more people as it does but really cost less as opposed to now just transferring more money to special interest in the form of drug companies and insurers, what's the fastest way to stop the money suck that's going on to the drug companies and health insurers because of their accommodations in our congress? >> we need to step up legislation immediately to ensure that we can negotiate with the drug companies for medicare and for seniors and the disabled and then that would go into our exchange and we would have those negotiations.

am i frustrated that's not part of this base bill? absolutely. we must have it and actually congresswoman slaughter is talking about that being her first bill. >> do you think this stuff happens, these amendments actually go through? >> i think that these amendments will be pieces of legislation. i think that they will have hearings. i believe they will be taken very seriously. every single member that i have mentioned that i'm going to reintroduce the robust public option has said sign me on. >> all right. congresswoman, thank you so much for your time this afternoon and your analysis. thank you. coming up on "the dylan ratigan show," what happens next on health care? what is the process? even this week, when will the president sign it? possible roadblocks in the senate? lawsuits against the bill as to its constitutionality already in the works. first, too much hate speech on capitol hill. you tell me what racial and anti-gay slurs tell us about the

far right fringe in the tea party movement and the tea party leadership's refusal to renounce those individuals. first, the votes on chris dodd's financial reform bill if you want to call it that. will lawmakers do what it takes to fix wall street or give us another half baked solution? we'll be right back. going hear? going hear? so is campbell's healthy request soup. low in fat and cholesterol, heart healthy levels of sodium, and taste you'll love. girl: this is good for my heart? chef: you noticed. [cheering]

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health care, hate speech over the weekend. how did that happen? a first vote on financial reform. everything is making it easier

on the banks. let them keep the money and do some minor alterations. we'll see where the bill ends up. we begin with racial and anti-gay slurs being hurled at democratic leaders on the hill. this during a debate about health care in america. tea party protesters heckling anyone within ear shot even spitting on american lawmakers and flipping middle fingers to greet them. some lawmakers called the n word including georgia congressman john lewis. a leader of the civil right movement. house speaker nancy pelosi harassed on sunday while walking alongside lewis and other caucus members. congresswoman sheila jackson lee talking about the attacks on the house floor. >> over the last two days human beings who happen to be members of congress have been called the n word, have been spat on, and just recently someone asked me why my braids were so tight.

>> also saturday a protester yelling a slur at an openly guy congressman. you may know him. barney frank runs house financial services. gop leaders criticizing the attacks but downplayed their significance. >> there were isolated incidents on the hill yesterday that were reprehensible and should not have happened. >> what you had out there yesterday were a handful of people who just got stupid and said very ignorant things. >> you use tactics and people begin to act crazy. >> here to mix it up is our panel, jane and jordan. nice to see you both. jane, i'll begin with you. why if you were running any political party in this country, no matter how progressive, liberal, conservative or ideological it may be, why would you not at the very outset openly renounce racism and that

type of behavior if only to protect the integrity of your message which may have validity if it doesn't get clouded in that stupidity. >> it was the ugly side of populism. as someone who was an anti-war activist when the iraq war broke out, i was upset when they would take one or two pictures of people saying out of line things and paint the entire movement with it. this actually really scares me. i wonder if we have not underestimated the rage that is going to spill over in really ugly ways because we're mandating people to pay 8% of their income into a product that they don't want to a company they don't trust or face 2.5% of their income being seized by the irs in fines. i think we'll have serious problems with it on down the line. >> that's one of those problems that's fairly easily resolved if

you actually create a public option or create choice but forcing people -- like forcing people to watch this tv show by law, they would probably all move to canada. jordan, if you were to look at the politics of this, i'm talking about racism and naziism and the rest of it on the fringes, how much does it hurt the republican party, which is already seen as largely obstructionist as opposed to constructive and now willing to accept the support of this type of rhetoric. with that said i applaud those we saw on "meet the press" for renouncing it the way they did and it would be nice to see more of that. >> those were the leaders of the party. leader of the house and leader of the republican party both denouncing a few of these incidents but as jane said, one, the american people don't like this bill. she's a progressive. i'm a conservative. she's talking about rage. number two, i don't like this mentality that because of a few people and a few incidents that everyone who is part of the tea party is suddenly a racist or a

nazi. >> isn't that the tea party's responsibility? if i was running the tea party -- >> it's not the republican party. >> i'm saying isn't it the tea party's responsibility to make it clear to the membership that if they are in favor of constitutional right affectively and freedoms, that that is a very admirable and understandable cause and you would get support of people like jane, too, but if you want to blur that with racist or nazi commentary and not differentiate that at the leadership level and not at the republican level but tea party, doesn't the tea party do itself a disservice? >> the tea party is true grassroots. there isn't a leadership structure like the republican party. i have seen denouncements already. they have said what they did is wrong. it hurts the movement. i think this is still a strategy. larger strategy by liberals to try to scare american people from joining up with this movement and taking a stand. if you tell people you take a

stand or show up at a tea party, you're a gnnazi, it scarce peop away. if jane wants to talk about the rage of the american people, she's joining with that rage. i saw her post today on the website. she doesn't like this bill either. at the end of the day i don't like the government or government leaders trying to scare people from being part of the stands. >> no one is disputing that. any political party that doesn't renounce racist or nazi commentary in any size should change its leadership. let's move on here in just a few minutes the senate banking committee will begin formal debate on the financial reform bill proposed by democratic senator chris dodd. a party line vote is expected late tonight or earlier tomorrow. sending the bill to the full senate where it could be either delayed or derailed by threat of a republican filibuster. that's bad news for anyone hoping for not only strong consumer protection but this bill in general is honestly bad news for anybody who doesn't

want another financial crisis. if you want the derivatives the banks were using to high risk reform or wanted the fed opened up so they couldn't continue to just warehouse toxic assets and hide them on behalf of the banks while banks gamble wildly with your money, this bill does none of those things. if you want the ratings agency not to rubber stamp what banks wanted, that hasn't been changed either. this seems like one of those where once again those in favor of real reform will look at this bill and call it a joke and those who are against reform will call it a joke and those who have come up with half baked solution lick this health care bill will be left to fight for the tepid middle. how do you end up with a more coherent financial reform bill than the sort of mixed health care bill we're dealing with? >> the problem with the financial reform is not going to be answered by consumer protection. the problem with our financial community is that it is run by psychopaths. 20% of the country's net worth

disappeared in a giant ponzi scheme. these people have not been held to account. somebody needs to go to jail. is dick going to be investigated? what does tgeithner know about capitalism? is lloyd going to be investigated? we've been massively robbed and slapping a band-aid on it is dissatisfying and we have two parties who are arguing over the donation money of wall street about who gets that in exchange for covering for these people making sure they don't get investigated. >> do you want to host this show? >> i take you as my model. >> i couldn't have said it better myself. jordan, how do the republicans avoid appearing to be in favor of the banks? >> i think exactly what you said. it's a bad bill. a lot like health care. the american people want reform more. they don't like the proposals that have been made and they

don't understand the proposals and you have a situation where if the senate banking committee does vote tonight, it will be a strictly partisan vote. the people have not been explained. the american people don't understand what the reforms are. you talked about derivative trading and rules and restrictions, people need that explained. if it's not it won't be a political hit for republicans. at the end of the day progressives will be upset, liberals will be supset it doesn't go far enough. i don't know if there will be 41 republicans willing to stand in the way of the bill. >> the difference with this one that's understood is banks effectively were lending money they did not have and then keeping that secret and then hiding that fact by having hank paulson and others stick that risk at the american government while allowing executives to keep money and go without being investigated. quite simply, if we eliminate the capacity for banks to keep secrets and if we eliminate the capacity for banks to secretly move risk off their books, you

won't have these problems. this one is as easy as transparency and accountability. i can tell you that the house bill doesn't come close to doing what i just described and neither does the draft version of senator dodd's bill but thankfully we do have you, jordan and jane, and so many others everyone knows if you keep secrets and hide things, even if you're 5 years old, that's bad. it's a great way to steal money but not a great way to run an economy. >> we need real reform. >> no more secrets. this one is easy. just ahead, a sand storm sweeping through chainina. incredible weather on the other side of the earth here. today's by the numbers on this chinese sand storm and new york governor david paterson helping to spend $800,000 on double wide trailers to allow for visits for new york state prisoners. that's not a joke.

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♪ remember when that's allstate's stand. are you in good hands? ♪ a sond sand storm blanketed beijing. entire buildings are disappearing from sight. the storms are a consequence of pollution, deforestation and unchecked urban development in that country. the trees that are supposed to shield the country from these storms have been wiped out as a result of their harvesting. the desert is growing more every year as a result of the extraction in china. researchers say the desert is growing by 950 square miles each year. beijing's air quality index sits at level four. level five is the most dangerous level. the bigger that number, the more trouble you're in. reached on saturday when the storm broke causing pollution levels to hit record highs.

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welcome back. we learned who yelled baby killer while congressman stupak stood on the house floor yesterday. >> those who were shouting out are out of order. >> baby killer. >> republican congressman randy

neugebauer calling the outburst inappropriate saying it was at stupak himself. it came on the heels of the abortion compromise led by bart stupak. the deal sealed the bill's fate and made stupak a hero to some and a villain to others. joining us now, democratic congressman nick rahall from west virginia. he along with congressman bart stupak decided to vote yes on the house bill after the president's promise of an executive order on abortion. what is your response to the decorum first off? >> most unfortunate.

it only served to polarize the american people and to polarize congress. these charges against representative stupak are unfair. several members of congress voted for this legislation and have been pro life our entire congressional careers and i think it's important to recognize this is one of the most pro-life votes we could have cast in my congressional career because we protected unborn, the uninsured and underinsured. >> for those that look at this and wonder what exactly changed with the executive order from the president relative to the stupak amendment which was the original sort of mark, if you will, can you explain to us why you were no and the executive order makes you a yes. >> the executive order puts you into effect the hyde language

that was passed by democrat and republican congresses in a bipartisan fashion and ininstrucinstructs all agencies under control of the united states to make sure the language is in effect and especially when it comes to new community health centers. important for my home state of west virginia. the additional funding that will accrue there under will be implemented with the full law and force of the language. that's what this executive order does. would i have liked to see statutory language, yes but the votes were not there in the other body not even a majority of the other body had supported the stupak language so this is reality. it's the second best we could get. and in this legislative process for all yeef seen this year, this was a victory. >> when i look at a couple of comments from around this debate, obviously there's perhaps nothing more polarizing than this debate in this country

at least for many people. planned parenthood saying we regret that a pro-choice president of a pro-choice nation signed an order that goes with the anti-choice language. was it appropriate to use the health care debate as an occasion to inject abortion debate at the same time? >> appropriate or not, the abortion debate being as emotional as it is and i can understand that, happens to come up on just about every issue that the congress considers anymore. i hope we can reach the day where it is resolved once and for all and that is a current law put into statutory language. failing that, this was an issue we knew would come down to the final wire before the passage of health care. unfortunate or fortunate for whatever way you want to describe it. we should not have penalized 3,200 americans and kept them

from receiving adequate health care. this issue is too important. as i say, we reached middle ground that we need to find more of in this country. common ground using common sense to bring us together. >> you made a very compelling point which is in this particular debate which is about a combination of abusive industry practices because they have the benefit of government protections and uninsured who suffer because they don't have access to that system, which profits through abusive practices and into that this issue and many other issues get injected. isn't that fundamentally reflective of why the legislative process in this country yields such suboptimal results on a regular basis because you get so many distracting issues if you will. however critically important they may be themselves. people attach them to larger debates and it makes them harder to solve the umbrella problem whether it is health care or anything else. >> you have described it

accurately. cannot describe it more accurately than you have. we may not be the perfect democracy but we're the best in the world and because of the rules that they have been for well over 200 years and the other body and in the house of representatives, it just makes it such that in our give and take legislative process when you often have to muddle through when you have to compromise and when you often cannot achieve perfect, then you have to see this process and with today's technologies and 24/7 talk shows such as they are and as good as they are, this process is more open than it's been in our history. it does help feed the nature of the beast. >> no question. interesting to see whether we get to the day where the opposition party whoever it is stops trying to take down the ruling party and stops trying to outdo them. >> thank you for calling me

radigan. i like it. here's what you can expect. on the health care bill over the next 24, 48, 72 hours, this is what to expect. the president will sign the bill voted on yesterday into law. immediately following that signature, the senate will begin to work on so-called fixes to the bill, changes such as the removal of that cornhusker kickback, one of the bribes cut along the way in this bill. also, delays on the timing at which the cadillac tax, the tax on high priced health insurance plans like those that the unions negotiated for themselves, that tax gets delayed. senate minority leader mitch mcconnell indicating democrats could be in for a tough fight on some of what i just described. >> as if the bill wasn't bad enough, now they want to make it

worse. that's what will happen in the senate. that's what's going happen in the senate this week. >> assuming the senate actually passes their so-called fixes, the president will sign that second piece of legislation into law shortly after it is drafted and passed. if that comes to pass. this comes of course before the big november sell. >> to influence members of congress, the insurance companies hired 2,049 lobbyists to try to get their way. $86 million was spent on misleading ads to try to kill reform. >> the health insurance companies did phenomenally well in this legislation as did drug companies. that's one of the problems. pro-health groups have began a campaign thanking vulnerable house democrats who voted for the legislation and there may be legal challenges to the bill. the virginia attorney general will file a lawsuit challenging

the constitutionalitiy of the health care bill as soon as it is adopted. >> because the health care bill is unconstitutional, once the president signs it into law, virginia will proceed with a lawsuit to address the overreach of federal power under the constitution. >> very just one of 12 states charging congress with overstepping its constitutional authority and moving to block health care from moving into law. long story short the debate over health care in this country as you might have suspected may just be beginning and it is most certainly far from over. coming up here, why give your people income tax refunds when you can buy sex trailers for prisoners instead? can't make it up. you can maybe get a sex trailer if you're in prison in new york. that's if governor david patersson has his way. plus, if you spent your 54-year political career fighting for health care reform,

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lucky prison inmates. in his 2010/11 budget, he included funding for two double wide trailers in upstate new york at the correctional facility. the purpose of the trailers conjugal and family visits. price tag just short of 1 million bucks. facing a $9 billion deficit and one of the highest tax loads in our country especially when you add in new york city and the rest of this nonsense to try to dig his state out of the hole, paterson proposed cutting aid to schools and hospitals and closing state parks, ending restocking of nature conservatories and delaying income tax refunds for new york residents who work and pay taxes but we'll get double wides for the prisoners to have sex. apparently a new set of budget priorities has taken over our state here in new york. republican congressman steve king who last night had trouble distinguishing between political friends and enemies after the health care vote king walked

outside to pose for pictures with tea party activists with those opposing the bill on the hill. today he posted this tweet. last protesters put up a great cheer. i stood with them for for photos and then learned they were for obamacare. oops. we have scoured the web looking for those photos with the obamacare supporters. no such luck. if you find them, send them to us. one more for you here. almost as good as the first one. a drug suspect went with a classic response. it should be if it's not. i'm sorry, officer, i have no idea how that cocaine got in my pants. a florida woman offered up that very response after police allegedly found a bag of cocaine in her jeans pocket. according to a recently released affidavit, the woman first stated she borrowed the pants from somebody.

that didn't seem to be working well. late r at the jail house she insisted she bought them at walmart and the cocaine was prestocked in the jeans at walmart. you know the defense. the old walmart put drugs in my trousers defense. works every time. someone call johnnie cochran. straight ahead, the longest serving member of the house, john dingell, joins us to share his thoughts on a health care bill that he's been pushing for 27 terms and how the one that passed shakes up compared to the one he had been looking for. we'll tell you about his gift to nancy pelosi last night that cements his place in american health care industry and then on "hardball," the issue that threatened to derail the entire thing. congressman bart stupak taking chris inside the last-minute deal with the white house that flipped him and his colleagues from a no to a yes. "hardball" straight ahead here on msnbc. hey!

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>> i'm carrying this gavel that was just given to me -- correction, lent to me by chairman dingell. >> emotions running high on capitol hill and in our town square today. that of course speaker of the house nancy pelosi announcing she used a gavel on loan from 27-term congressman john dingell to pass the health care reform bill. it's been a mission of congressman dingell during all his years in congress. he's proposed health care reform at the start of every session and last night his yes vote helped send legislation to the president's desk for later this week something no congress has

been able to do for over a half century. mr. dingell, back with us this afternoon. describe your emotions. >> it was great. my dad would be proud. i am delighted. my colleagues are happy and the interesting thing is we have done a great good for the people of the united states and solved a massive humanitarian, social and a massive economic problem that is destroying the american economy. >> for those who look at this as a tremendous start as setting a new mark for the debate where you have expansion of coverage but they believe there's messengerful opportuni meaningful opportunity, what do you say? >> i say yes. this will be a tremendous stride forward. 95% of americans will be covered by health insurance. that's something that's never been obtained before. insurance companies are compelled to good behavior. no more cancellation of a policy

without reason and that reason only one being allowed is nonpayment of bills. it is going to see to it that ordinary citizens can get health insurance without worry about pre-existing conditions. it's going to mean that there will be reasonable controls on behavior of insurance and on price. it's going to indicate something else. and that is that ordinary citizens are going to be able to get insurance in exchanges and understand what it is. and what it means without having a philadelphia lawyer. this is going to be a piece of the legislation which is going straight to medicare which is going to give additional benefits to medicare recipients, which is going to see to it that the medicare trust fund is extended for nine months. there are a lot of other benefits too numerous to mention. >> what do you say to those who say without the public option

you haven't really offered real choice to many people who simply even on an exchange will not be able to afford the health care coverage that they're going to be mandated to purchase? >> remember, i was well to the left of that. i want a single payer system but we didn't get it. the exchanges will enforce a strong measure of good behavior by the insurance companies. they're going to ensure that there is honest choice and there will be a measure of fair competition and that the individual may keep the insurance policy he wishes or get a different insurance policy if he feels that that is in his interest. >> congressman, a pleasure. congratulations on the vote and on the accomplishment after all these decades. it must feel incredible to see the transition. >> thank you. my dad would be very proud i'm thinking. >> i'm sure. congressman, thank you again. that will do it for us. i am dylan ratigan. up next, chris matthews kicks

things into the evening most notably with the interview with bart stupak. "hardball" coming to you right here and right now on msnbc.