Transcript of Pelosi Conversation at the Washington Ideas Forum

Washington, D.C. – Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi joined James Bennet, Editor-in-Chief of The Atlantic, for a moderated conversation at the Newseum's Annenberg Theater as part of the annual Washington Ideas Forum.  This year marks the 5th year of the Forum, where lawmakers and journalist gather to discuss the critical issues and challenges facing the country.  Below is a transcript of the conversation:

James Bennet.  Good morning, Madam Leader.

Leader Pelosi.  Good morning.

James Bennet.  Thank you very much for joining us.  I'm hoping we're going to cover a lot of ground in 20 minutes, from the prospects for immigration reform to prospects in the 2016 election.  But I think we should start with health care.  And I was hoping you could help us understand, for starters, why we find ourselves where we find ourselves?  Probably nobody worked harder than you for the passage of the Affordable Care Act.  Implementation was obviously always going to be difficult.  The stakes seemed to be incredibly high all the way along.  And the Administration even had the benefit of seeing the botched rollout of Medicare Part D in the last Administration and the opportunity to learn from those mistakes.

Yet we find ourselves in this extremely difficult situation now, with a lot of people losing their insurance.   And they're concerned about what to do about the new policies.  And my question is why?  Does this mean that government simply can't do big things well anymore?  Or did this Administration blow it?  Or is there some other explanation?

Leader Pelosi.  So you got caught in traffic, is that what put you in this mood?

[Laughter]

James Bennet.  Yes.

Leader Pelosi.  Ok.  Good morning everyone.

[Laughter]

Leader Pelosi.  Thank you for your question.  Before I answer it I want to say what an honor it is to be here.  I have participated before and at that time some of you were here.  But I'll say it again: it's always a thrill for me to be here.  Steve has heard me say this so many times, that when I was in high school – now we're going back decades – and in creative writing the teacher said: "You can't write if you don't read, so now you're all going to become subscribers to the Atlantic Monthly," as it was called then.  So I must be the earliest subscriber to the Atlantic Monthly who is here.  So it's a treat to come under those auspices and always a pleasure to be at the museum.

President Duff mentioned that 535 – in case we all had to meet together.  What he didn't say, which is what we talked about on opening day, is that there's no center aisle.  Everybody sits together.  So that's a good thing I think as well.  Freedom of the press is really the protector of all of the other freedoms in the First Amendment.  So for all of you at this museum and paying tribute to the First Amendment, I always like to say: "Every other freedom is protected if you have freedom of the press."  That's why I'm so honored to be here.

Where are we today?  Well here's where we are today: a few years ago the Congress passed the Affordable Care Act, which I think stands there as a cornerstone –  Social Security, Medicare, affordable health care for all Americans.  For all.  Not as a privilege for a few, but accessible, affordable and quality for all.

But there's that.  It withstood challenges in the courts, all the way up to the Supreme Court.  It was declared constitutional – as I always knew it would be – and for the following year and plus, a rollout that really went very smoothly, in terms of children with pre-existing medical conditions not having that as an obstacle of them having care.  Eighteen to 26 year olds on their parents' policy, a big rollout for seniors and what that meant for extending the life of Medicare, free wellness examinations, lower cost for prescriptions.

Everything rolled out without incident and to the benefit of the American people, until we came to this technological more-than-a-glitch.  And that is a problem because it's not just technological and time.  It's an obstacle not just to the enrollment, but the transfer of some these people that you talked about from those individual polices onto – because half of them will be eligible for subsidy – the exchanges.

Coming from Northern California, we all believe in technology and believe that this will be fixed, in relatively short order.  I would say short order but it's already too late for that.  And then things will go smoothly.

The fuss that is being made about those people in individual markets – "If you like your policy you can keep your policy" – that's a promise that the President made in terms of the Affordable Care Act, which does enable people to keep their policy.  But that doesn't mean that if the insurance company cancels your policy, you can keep it, or if they raise the rates to a point that you can't afford it, that you would have it.  But nonetheless, the bill does not call for the actions that we're taking.  That's neither here nor there at this time.

I think that a fix could be to just honor the Affordable Care Act.  But people want more than that.  So I think what you'll see in the next 24 or 36 hours is something to the effect of "how do we accommodate those people?"  Because this is all about the people.  It's about the seniors, about the children, about being a woman no longer being a pre-existing medical condition.  It's about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  As we talk about the First Amendment, let's go back even further than that: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  A healthier life.  The liberty to pursue your happiness so that you're not job-locked because you have a pre-existing condition or your child does.  But you are free – the liberty to pursue your passion whether you want to be a writer, a photographer, be self-employed, start a business, change jobs.  This is a very transformative initiative, one that is a very valued initiative and we will make sure that it works.

I can't answer for the technology.  I just believe that it will.  Technology will fix technology.  And you know, again, this is a big deal.  And there are people close to it who are anti-government ideologues that just did not want a public role in this, and for other reasons just want it to stop.  And that's what the initiative that's before the House tomorrow really looks like – something that's a fix, but it isn't.  What we have to do for a fix is like a needle.  What they're doing tomorrow for a fix is unraveling the whole fabric.  It's just not necessary unless you want, for the 46th time, a vote on eliminating the Affordable Care Act.

If you were there to write it, and everybody participated, we take great pride in it.  We wanted it to roll out better – there's no question about that.  Nobody wanted that more than the President of the United States.  But it didn't.  And now we'll fix it, and we'll move on from there.  But if you didn't have much to do with it, sometimes we have to explain to people what the legislation that is on the floor actually does.  Because the way it's promoted sounds a lot better than what it is.  But I'm confident about it.  It's big, it's transformative, it's important for our country, it's a pillar of health and economic security for families and we will overcome this.

James Bennet.  Just to follow up quickly on the question of the fix, do you imagine it will be a legislative fix in the end?  And are you concerned there will be a lot – I believe there are two Democrats that are cosponsoring the legislation tomorrow – do you anticipate much Democratic support?

Leader Pelosi.  With all due respect to those two Democrats, they did not vote for the health care bill.  So it's consistent for them to vote for a bill to eliminate it.

I think it can be done administratively.  The President will offer a proposal today, is my understanding.  And we have our own proposal, which we think is really good.  But we'll see.  But it has to be done in the next little period, because again, it all comes back to the people.  Ninety-million of the people who are covered by health care already in our country before this bill – 95 percent of them are covered by employer insurance, Medicare, Medicaid or Veterans' Administration.  The large chunk of the private side of it is all employer-based.

This five percent – which is a large number, it's about 11 million people – of those 11 million people, one million of them right away will go into Medicaid because they qualify.  Then, of the 10 remaining, five million of them are eligible for subsidies.  And that's why this would all be much smoother if that were functioning and it will be soon.

And the remaining five million – some of them can't afford the increases in prices just because insurance companies raise the rates.  And so now, this new increase they may not be able to afford.  So we have to figure out how to address that.  And then the last two-and-a-half-million probably can afford it and should be able to continue it.  But that is not to say that that's not a large number, because every individual case is important to us.  Because that's the health of an American family.  So we take it all very personally in that regard.

So again, stay tuned and just see what.  It could be an administrative fix, it could be a legislative fix.  I would rather it be done administratively because that can be done much more quickly without accompanying agendas.

James Bennet.  Let me shift to another ongoing source of difficulty, which is the effort to create a federal budget.  You said before that you think a deal could be struck before Thanksgiving, which is now two weeks away.  I'm wondering how likely you think that is and what a deal might look like?

Leader Pelosi.  What I said was a deal should be struck by Thanksgiving.  And really, everybody knows what the choices are.  So let's just make them and at least in a small way.  It won't be a grand bargain of any kind unfortunately.  But in a small way, we can say to the American people, "We've gotten past this, let's move on."

Because it was totally unconscionable, unnecessary and irresponsible – to name a few adjectives – for government to be shutdown – totally unnecessary.  Before the shutdown I would have said to the Speaker: "We'll give you 100 percent of the Democrats' votes to avoid the shutdown.  One-hundred percent of our votes.  We don't like the bill.  It's your bill.  It's the House Republican budget bill – their number.   We don't like the bill.  Even your Chairman – the Republican Chairman of Appropriations – has said it doesn't enable us to meet our responsibilities to the American people.  We don't like it, but we will give you 100 percent of our votes in order to avoid a shutdown."

The Senate accepted their number.  Senator Reid accepted their number.  The White House accepted their number.  We accepted their number.  The only people who didn't accept the Republican House budget number were the Republican House Members.  They didn't accept, so therefore, we had a shutdown.  It was their own number, which we said we'd take even though we think it's totally inadequate.  So they didn't accept it, therefore we shut down: 16 days, $25 billion – according to Standard & Poor's – loss to our economy, 0.6 percent cut in the growth of our economy of that time – reckless.  Their tantrum was a luxury our country can't afford, and it can't happen again.  So we have to go to the table and we have to come to an agreement – whatever that agreement is – that is fair, so that we can invest in jobs, early learning for children (which is a jobs initiative in the long term).  We have to reduce the deficit and we have to get rid of sequestration, which, as the Republican Chairman said, does not enable us to meet our duties to the American people.

Now, mind you, when the vote came, over 60 percent of the Republicans voted against their own number.  Over 60 percent voted to keep government shut down and default on the full faith and credit of the United States of America.  We have some differences of opinion in the House on these subjects.  Debate on the budget is always negotiable – everything is debatable.  But whether you keep government open and honor the full faith and credit – that was a tactic that was used and, hopefully, I don't think it will be used again.

But again, why don't we just get it done and remove all doubt?  Shopping season, consumer confidence, a year end market confidence – that's really important to our economy.  We shouldn't have to go through December with any doubt about whether, by January 15th,  we're going to come to an agreement that we could come to by the end of November.

James Bennet.  So on a scale of "really don't worry at all" to "you should be really worried," how worried should we be as we go into the holiday season about the prospects of another shutdown?

Leader Pelosi.  Well, I don't think there will be another shutdown.  But as I said I don't think some of the Republicans in the House thought there would be a shutdown.  What happened there was they were up to their usual stuff and then a Senator came in and grabbed the gavel.  Senator Cruz grabbed the Speaker's gavel and changed the whole dynamic, as the Speaker said, and got away from it.

James Bennet.  Can I ask you about the prospects for action on some other big questions in the course of the rest of the year and blowing into next year?  The list of items would include immigration reform – is there any chance that we'll see that move forward in the House?  Background checks, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act – I'd love to hear you on the subject of any or all of those.

Leader Pelosi.  Well, all of those, the three that you mentioned, are really an important part of our agenda that we have the votes for.  If the Speaker would bring these bills to the floor, the votes are there for immigration reform.  They are there.

James Bennet.  The Senate bill?

Leader Pelosi.  Well, we have a bill that is similar to the Senate bill but it's a bipartisan product.  We took the Senate bill that passed out of committee, we subtracted the amendment that was added in there on the floor and we substituted a bipartisan bill that came out of the Homeland Security Committee in the House, led by Republicans of course, unanimously.

So, we substituted our order bill that came out of the House Committee for what came off the Senate floor.  So it's all bipartisan, everything in the bill that we have is bipartisan.  That was its criteria.  You couldn't get it in the bill unless there had been bipartisan support in committee or on the floor for it so that there's no question of it being there.  People have wish-lists, they wish it had this, they wish it had that.  We wish we could pass a bill.

And so, it has an overwhelming number of cosponsors.  We have enough cosponsors that it, we say 95 of the Democrats – 95 percent of the Democrats all we need are 10 percent of the Republicans.  Now, I'm not saying we won't get the other 10 percent of the Democrats, but until you bring up the bill, so all we need and at least that number, would be like 23 – that have professed that they would support comprehensive immigration reform.

So, all they need to do is bring it up, go to conference with the Senate, done.  Or, they could bring up the Senate bill which the Speaker says he doesn't want to do.  So I said: "Do it anyway you want, singularly, jointly, separately, individual bills.  I don't care how you do it, but just bring something up so that we can pass this because this is really who we are as a people, a nation by and large of immigrants with all the love and respect for our Native American brothers and sisters, we have to do this."  Eleven million people would each have a path to citizenship; 1,100 people are deported every day.  This is urgent, we need to do it.

In terms of the ENDA, ending discrimination in the workplace, employment discrimination, the votes are there.  I worked over this over the break just to confirm, confirm, confirm, what I say.  We have over 95 percent of the Democrats committed to vote for it, there's just three people I haven't spoken to yet.  I don't know where they'll be but that means all we need are, again 10 percent.  It's the same number, about 10 percent of the Republicans, to take us to pass that.  There must be 23 Republicans who don't want discrimination in the workplace, right?  You would think.  Well they say.  I'm just saying, they say, ok?

Same thing, we have 185, I think by this morning, maybe 186, on background checks.  Yesterday, we observed – I hesitate because I'm losing track of days.  But yesterday, we observed the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Brady Law.  Now, we have the Brady Background Check bill, we have 185 cosponsors, more people will vote for it then who have cosponsored it because when it comes to the floor if they're going to take grief back home they might as well do it in a time closer to the time of the vote.  One hundred and eighty-five, that's a huge number of people for a gun bill.

So, all we need again are 10 percent of the Republicans to pass immigration reform, to pass ENDA, we can pass background checks.  Ninety percent of the American people, 90 percent of the American people.  President Lincoln said: "Public sentiment is everything."  Ninety percent of the American people support background checks, whether they're NRA, any party, no party, whatever it is.  So there's no reason, except that they just won't bring it to the floor and have Congress work its will.  And so our push for immigration, for ENDA, and for background checks is just bring up the bill.  Let the vote, let's vote, let's vote.  These are not partisan, it's not controversial in the public, it shouldn't be in Congress.

James Bennet.  Madame Leader, with great regret I have to let you go.  But before I do, I just want to check to make sure if you'd like to take this opportunity to endorse Hillary Clinton for President?

[Laughter]

Leader Pelosi.  Wouldn't it be great, wouldn't it be great that she would be one of the best qualified people to enter the White House and she just happens to be a woman?  Her qualifications speak for themselves, it would be great if she would go but that's her decision to make.  And when she does, I'm sure she will have a tremendous amount of support.  But before that, we have the elections of 2014 which we are very proud of our candidates for that and the contrast that you will see the budget will be the contrast that you will see in the campaigns.  It's about jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, ENDA, Medicare, and other things, but how we do a budget to promote growth and create jobs is really what the debate is about and you'll see that in the next few weeks and over the next year.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here, enjoy the rest of your day.  Is it another half a day to go?  By the time you get out of here, we may have presidential announcement on the health care bill.  But I'm not sure that we will have an announcement from the Speaker that we're going to take up immigration, ENDA, or background checks but let's be hopeful and as we were – as President Duff said: "Let's pray over it."