ben nelson's so-called cornhusker kickback on medicaid in nebraska. lot of the things that have made this bill a lot harder -- gwen: public option, nowhere to be seen. >> public option nowhere to be seen. and so this has made it a lot easier for nancy pelosi to go to her caucus, which does not trust the senate on anything, at the moment, and say, look, you guys have already voted for this thing once. if there's any political damage, it's been done. we've got to carry this through to the finish line and convince the american people that we the democrats are capable of governing. >> and going back to that reconciliation point, the reconciliation bill, the second bill, will have all of those fixes you're talking about in it. that's the little vehicle for it. one or thing, the monday announcement did, it put the president's face on this bill. people haven't liked this process when congress has been in charge of it. and i was talking to a veteran aide on the hill who said we've seen professor obama in the seven-hour -- now we're going to have to see presid

john, i was listening to what you said about the ben nelson and the unions. to say that they dropped both, do you think that is fair? ben nelson gets to keep what he got, but everybody else gets it, too, and the unions get to keep what they got because it's up to 27,000. that almost -- i don't think roberts gibbs could have put it any better than you just put it by explaining it that way, john. do you think that's a fair way of explaining it? >> yeah, i do, actually. >> you didn't get rid of the ben nelson deal, john, you just gave the same deal to everyone else. and you didn't -- right, but -- >> and you're not taxing the cadillac plans of the unions. they still get -- they don't go up to 27,000 excludes the unions. so they both get to keep the benefits of the deal making, john. they didn't get rid of those deals. >> yes. but part of the objection, joe, to the deal making is it's special deals for an individual senator, like ben nelson like holding out and saying, if you want my vote, treat my state differently than other states. if you treat all the states

so now it's not just ben nelson and mary landrieu, but every state is going to get this extra mon and everybody is asking, how aregy going -- are we going to pay for that? >> let me certainly say the concern about those provisions was that it was unfair, that nebraska got help in providing health coverage to more citizens and other states didn't, and that was the unfairness of that, was really what the objection was. megyn: but now that it's fair, how do you pay for it? >> well, and this bill will reduce the decifit, and as you know, states are struggling -- >> megyn: i don't hear an answer, how do you pay for it. >> as you know and if you looked at the president's language on this, too, is that they're going to pay for it in half by savings within government, which most americans want us to do, and the rest is paid for through individuals and physicals -- and businesses and wealthiest americans contributing to what is going to really benefit all americans, which is access, meaningful, ongoing health insurance coverage that you can count on. that's going to be true for every american

i think ben nelson in a way that he won't recover. it's over for ben, gentle ben.aska compromise or the nebraska kickback or whatever they call it. isn't it fascinating, people in the state saying, keep the money, we're offend by what you did, and we're going to run you o out of office. and mary landrieu getting emotional on the floor because she and these other moderates under extraordinary measure. >> that's so much what politics is, getting money for local projects, getting money for your people, but $100 million, and folks are saying, no. >> she was bragging it was actually $300 million. >> that's the amazing thing, to go back to your constituents and say, i got this money, and for people in these times say, we don't care about the money, we don't care about that, we're more concerned with the process and more concerned about a deal that got us there. >> we've been talking about conservatives for the past year, mary landrieu, trouble because she voted for the health care bill. ben nelson, trouble, because he voted for the health care bill. evan bayh, in trouble

down to the night before the announcement of the cloture vote and they made their last deal with ben nelson to exempt nebraska from the increases in medicaid cost. this is a word, mr. speaker, that everyone should be alarmed at when they see it show up in any legal document, in perpetuity. exempt nebraska from the increase in medicaid costs in perpetuity that deal, along with lowering the language of the stupak language in the house, the house language, which did a fairly effective job in preventing federal dollars from being used for abortions, should the obamacare pass, the senate version of it and the language negotiated by ben nelson certainly rolled this thing back to where there would be more federal dollars used for abortion because of the language change even though they made the argument that there would be an accounting of those dollars. i would say that the nelson language still sent the -- set the federal government up to be the broker of insurance premium dollars that would be directed to insurance companies that were paying for abortions out of those premiums and to compel the

senator bill nelson, rather like ben nelson, in nebraska, was able to get into the health care bill anin that. most of those who would retain it would be from south florida. so medicare is, though, a powerful program here in florida. i wanted to get back to an earlier point that was made about -- drew was mentioning whether people write into his newspaper about the problems with medicare. we hear much less of that here in florida. probably not surprisingly people crilt sizing the entitlement programs. their criticisms are generally geared more toward spending on other programs. even though george will is fond of noting once you get past social security and medicare and medicaid and the defense budget, everything else is a surrounding error. >> los angeles. linda on the independent line. caller: thank you very much. i think our government needs to learn a few words -- a moritorium on illegal immigration. we still have little, if any, background checks. revoke. they need to revoke social security members of these [unintelligible] babies, because they are being misused. rescind all the sp

i wish the president sounded that way three months ago rather than worshipping at the altar of ben nelson olympia snowe pip take it as a good sign. buried in the budget yesterday was the assumption of $150 million of savings, $150 billion of savings over the next ten years for health care reform. so the president's number crunchers still think it's alive. the people in new hampshire think it's alive. people like michele bachmann and whoever talks to her from the mother ship thinks it's alive. that's a good sign but doesn't mean we're that much closer to getting a deal today than yesterday. but if the president plows ahead with this and goes long or short or whatever he has to do here and gets over the goal line, i think we'll be better off. >> drilling down on that, though, you have been very vocal on the fact that health reform needs presidential leadership, presidential energy in order to pass. it also needs to be lent some of his presidential popularity, i think. how does it help? does it move legislators who are on the fence? does it create the sense among the leadership in either hou

my curiosity is i didn't like it when big drugs met behind closed doors last june we had the ben nelsonthing behind closed doors. any way now we had transparency today. plan b, what do you think the president has in mind? >> nice six hours of transparency. the end of transparency. here's the challenge to the president, they clearly are willing to try to use reconciliation to pass a bill with 50 votes plus the vice president. >> greta: that sounds more like tough luck, i won the election and you're out of luck. >> here's where there is a plan b, i don't think they can get this done. how do they write a bill which gets 50 votes plus the vice president in the senate and 218 votes in the house? >> greta: the congressman who was just here has problems with the senate bill. >> that's my point this is really complicated. people don't realize how very different it is. >> greta: the two bills? >> the house and the senate and the way in which they deal with reality. and the difference kinds of approaches and the tensions. every member of the house is up for reelection. in the poll you were runnin

the one thing they can't do this time is fall back on ben nelson and lieberman to kill it. you can't say you can't lose one democratic vote. you can. you can lose a couple, you can lose up to eight right now. so if that happens, if they're close enough that he can get it, it is going to be hard for them to tell liberals, we just didn't want to try. if you stick to 20, you're still 31 votes away so they have an excuse there. >> go back to your original point about this unspoken terror or spoken terror on the part of the staffers in the senatorial offices. can you narrow down what they're afraid of, be what they're terrified by? >> yeah, the lesson they took from massachusetts, number one, we can't be seen making deals. number two, we need to be seen as being bipartisan. it's what the summit is about. the one thing you can't say about the public option, this is not something the democrats were able to pass into the bill originally. is a bipartisan move. you're going back to the most controversial of the debates, delivering a left cross to the republicans. you're going to have

controversial cornhusker kickback, millions in extra medicaid funding secured by nebraska senator ben nelsonelays taxes on expensive cadillac health insurance plans and it gives the federal government authority to limit excessive insurance premium hikes. >> there you go. >> important reform for this california mother. >> do i go without insurance? does my daughter go without insurance? what are we supposed to do? >> at thursday's meeting, the white house sees the president's plan as the opening bid for bipartisan talks. >> it incorporates democratic and republican ideas and it's a starting point for those discussions. >> and days ahead of the summit, the white house upped the ante, claiming republicans have not come up with a plan of their own. but republicans have declared the white house proposal dead on arrival, and called on the white house to start over. >> we've now had an opportunity to look at the president's summary of where he would like to go on health care and i would say putting a new name on a whole lot more spending is clearly not reform. >> it's time to scrap this bill, to ge

they made decisions with ben nelsons of nebraska. >> rose: well, those are very different decisions. >> i would say they have this which n common. it was about making practical decisions to get that done. what that missed was the outside context. a country incredibly distrustful of washington that would interpret those decisions as business as usual and which would be revolted. i really don't think you can underestimate the importance of what's happening in the country. >> rose: and i want you to talk to that but what is it that's happening in the country you cannot underestimate which is in some way given expression by the tea party. >> right. and beyond that. there are polls that show if you ask people "do you feel positive about the tea party, republicans or democrats," the tea party come out number one. more than the democrats and the republicans. and i've given talks out in t country and now minx the tea party and 20% of the audience gets up and applauds. >> rose: and what is that about? >> well, off country that is distrustful of washington and suddenly they felt washington was

senator ben nelson. >> thank you, mr.man, and let me add my appreciation to you and your families for your distinguished service. i've long been an advocate for benchmarks or measures of progress, and i think we need to progress, and i think we need to continue to@@@@@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ b be forthcoming to our committee, but at least i have yet to see them, and it seems to me one of the most important times to inform the process is at the very onset of any change. and as this mission changes course, so obviously must the way in which we measure efforts, that will change as well. have comprehensive and final benchmarks or measures of progress been developed to reflect this new strategy? and if so, when will these be made to the committees? to the committee? secretary gates? >> i think they have, and i frankly thought that they had already been provide to the committee and i'll check on it after the hearing. >> okay. thank you. could you talk a little bit about some of the areas of measurement that would be in these measures of

when you have conservative democrat ben nelson from nebraska butting heads with a liberal senator, let's say shared brown from ohio, a democrat, it creates friction within the party. democrats do not all think alike on capitol hill. they have a governing majority but they're not an majority in idea logical lock step. so they have to figure out how to bring enough votes together for a piece of legislation. i think in retro spect what we might be able to learn from 2009 and from the bush plrks, president bush tried immigration reform urks it failed. that you want to do things that are smaller and targeted. the democrats tried climate change reform, health care reform so far has failed. do thick that is are smaller. the prescription drug benefit bill was something smaller and targeted. it cost a lot but it was smaller and targeted and everybody could understand it. it wasn't loaded down with a lot of deals that people thought were special and potentially unseemly if not illegal. and i think that's one of the messages. and i think what the caller sees is a lot of dysfunction in washington. n

. >> they were there before ben nelson and mary landrieu and the unions. some of the hospitals. >> keep your friends close. >> right. i think that's right. without going too far into the mafia metaphors, yes. they were there. but psychologically investors didn't see it that way. and they compressed the multiples. >> the multiples got compressed about how long ago, les? ten years? eight years? >> it's been -- it nadered last year in the high single digits. >> it did. >> so we are getting some multiple expansion. and you're seeing these stocks in the transitional mode where they're doing deals and trying to get their acts together in terms of pipeline, and that's what we're seeing. >> are any of them buys for any other reason than valuation and yield? >> we like merck and novartis and bristol meyers. based on pipeline, they all have new drugs coming out. so i'd say they have things we could key off of to say, gee, these are potential blockbusters. at least revenue increases. just one point on reform, i mean, this reform may be dead for the time being, but we

i think the experience harry reid had with ben nelson with the cornhuskers kickback, what everyone calledt it down a little bit, especially if it becomes more controversial. but they know what these projects are going to be at this point. it is still a little unclear when they will conclude that. i've been -- i think they may do it as an amendment because the number of republican budget hawks don't like it. host: carroll on the republican line. caller: i am a republican from the chicago land. but i am ashamed that the republicans are saying chicago land style politics in this area, because there are a lot of different kinds of people and when the box us into -- we respect our officeholders around here and we don't like to be boxed in. i am very " ended at the republicans, that they would use my area to try to make my government look bad and i welcome any jobs -- even a prison in this area. it would welcome jobs. they have to be careful what they are insinuating. host: any thoughts? guest: my family is from chicago. my grandfather was managing editor for "chicago daily news" and my father

senator ben nelson. >> thank you, mr.airman, and let me add my appreciation to you and your families for your distinguished service. i've long been an advocate for benchmarks or measures of progress, and i think we need to continue to do so objectively. so we can gauge our efforts in both afghanistan and pakistan. and i know this administration as well as our nato allies are committed to objective benchmarks for measurement, and we've done so with past strategies and all talked about this many time. most recently in december about both afghanistan and pakistan. during that hearing in december it was noted that measures are progress were being used and evaluated, and i thought at that time that those benchmarks would be forthcoming to our committee, but at least i have yet to see them, and it seems to me one of the most important times to inform the process is at the very onset of any change. and as this mission changes course, so obviously must the way in which we measure efforts, that will change as well. have comprehens

the mental model of -- take ben nelson as your example.m a moderate democrat from a conservative district or state, and i want to vote for what will be perceived as a l%b#@@@ ,h@ @ @ @ d@ @ @ @ @ or my second or my third but somewhere over there in choices or this bill doesn't do the things i wanted to do but probably a good start and a starter home. there's a complete inability on the part of democrats to stand up and say this bill, sure, maybe not where i am butness a great bill. this is the biggest step forward we've had since the great society. this will save countless lives, prevent countless medical bankruptcies. prevent chronic pain and infirmity and anxiety. and to say this is a good bill, on the night of brown's election they just said we are sorry that our candidates decided to repeatedly insult the red sox and mock the concept that you would touch the flesh of a voter. but health care is a very important thing to the people of this country and we're going to move forward. we would not be in this situation. but one thing is if th

the mental amount of lies, take ben nelson as an example. i make moderate democrats in a state and i want to vote on a little bill, how do i do? the answer they gave was i appear very ambivalent on it. this isn't where i want to be. it doesn't have a lot of things i want to do. we need to reduce the deficit more. if you wait a long time doing that, then at the end you do two things. you cut a deal to make it a more moderate bill, and you cut a deal to bring something back to your state or district. then it turned out those things didn't work. what you did during that whole period when you and all of your friends were saying this is a very good bill, you just convince everyone. your constituents didn't know you were playing for numbers. now they don't think it's a very good bill. now they just think, they don't like to go and they also don't like you. this is a problem. so i would strongly strongly, strongly suggest that what is dubbed it is going on tv. this goes for all the liberals and all of them and say, this bill, it's not my first choi

when you have conservative democrat ben nelson from nebraska butting heads with a liberal senator, let'sty. democrats do not all think alike on capitol hill. they have a governing majority but they're not an majority in idea logical lock step. so they have to figure out how to bring enough votes together for a piece of legislation. i think in retro spect what we might be able to learn from 2009 and from the bush plrks, president bush tried immigration reform urks it failed. that you want to do things that are smaller and targeted. the democrats tried climate change reform, health care reform so far has failed. do thick that is are smaller. the prescription drug benefit bill was something smaller and targeted. it cost a lot but it was smaller and targeted and everybody could understand it. it wasn't loaded down with a lot of deals that people thought were special and potentially unseemly if not illegal. and i think that's one of the messages. and i think what the caller sees is a lot of dysfunction in washington. nobody can get everything done and everybody blames everybody else. but you

saw that with the $300 -- $300 million to borland's payout for health care, the center position, ben nelsonay off. other instances, as well. i believe frankly that the best way to limit is insuring that ultimately you organize to vote them out when they are not perform the job you would in vision. and in reducing taxes, any greater liberty, we can change it. i appreciate your point, and my own view personally is i would rather not see career politicians. caller: i drink a suggestion or two first to preface my statement. people would understand basic economic theory, they would be able to put a stop to government intrusion and the cause of the boom-bust cycle we find ourselves in. a book by thomas woods, meltdown, explains economic theory, and they follow up with the crash proof 2.0. as we were able to get off of paper currency and retype it to the gold standard, i think we would be able to stop government intrusion. right now we have the treasury printing a bond, the federal reserve buying it with money they print. this allows for politicians to influence sectors of society in a disproporti

senator ben nelson. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and let me add my appreciation to you and your families for your distinguished service. i've long been an advocate for benchmarks or measures of progress, and i think we need to continue to do so objectively. so we can gauge our efforts in both afghanistan and pakistan. and i know this administration as well as our nato allies are committed to objective benchmarks for measurement, and we've done so with past strategies and all talked about this many time. most recently in december about both afghanistan and pakistan. during that hearing in december it was noted that measures are progress were being used and evaluated, and i thought at that time that those benchmarks would be forthcoming to our committee, but at least i have yet to see them, and it seems to me one of the most important times to inform the process is at the very onset of any change. and as this mission changes course, so obviously must the way in which we measure efforts, that will change as well. have compreh