White House Wants to Set Record Straight on Health Care Debate; Senator Grassley's Critical Role in Health Reform
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, rage and resentment with a twist. Health care protesters now have New targets and a New theme. Stand by. They both were number two on a presidential ticket, but guess what else Sarah Palin and Dan Quayle have in common? And it's not necessarily all that good for Sarah Palin. It's what virtually no politician would want. And hardened prisoners, including convicted killers, become enraged, so they riot, igniting fires, trashing rooms, and causing stab wounds. You're going to see the first glimpse of the prison riot. One official says it's likely to have been among the worst ever. I'm Wolf Blitzer in CNN's command center for breaking news, politics, and extraordinary reports from around the world. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM. Show them the money and don't break the bank. That's the latest argument emerging in this make-or-break debate over health care reform. Protesters are now turning their attention to dollars, cents, and common sense, confronting lawmakers to ask who will pay for expensive health care reform and what makes the most sense. Listen to this exchange in Maryland.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The question is, under your and the Congress' involvement in our lives, you've racked up $12 trillion of debt.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. You're adding it to now. Structurally -- the "USA Today" report put this out -- we're $99 trillion in debt. How are you going to look at my children, in their eyes, and tell them they're going to have a better future with $99 trillion? Say it with me, $99 trillion that you did and your cohorts up there on Capitol Hill. How are you going to look at my children?</s>SEN. BEN CARDIN (D), MARYLAND: I think this is a very important question. I think it's -- first of all, as far as -- I think it's an important question. I think it's an important question as to the debt. If we don't get health care costs under control, our national debt will continue to grow. Health care reform that brings down the growth rate of health care costs will help our children and grandchildren in affording health care and having less debt. I said before, and I'll repeat again, I am not going to vote for any bill that adds to the national debt.</s>BLITZER: Democratic Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland. In terms of what makes sense, some protesters now question if the estimated 46 million uninsured Americans should get universal health care. This exchange from Iowa.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Like I said, I'm a dumb southern Iowa redneck, and I see nowhere in the Constitution where health care is a right.</s>SEN. CHARLES GRASSLEY (R), IOWA: We would have a bill through the United States Senate. Probably not one I would not have voted for. So, if anybody is criticizing me for negotiating, you've got six weeks to look at a bill that you wouldn't otherwise have, and I don't think that you would have -- I'd have 150 people at my town meeting or maybe 300 people here at my town meeting.</s>BLITZER: One clarification. Of the 46 million people in the United States without health insurance, not all of them are Americans. Some of them are undocumented or illegal immigrants in the United States. Exactly how many, that's a subject for debate, but it does go into the millions. Talk of death panels, government takeover of health care. Those and other things have been mentioned amid the debate, but how do you know what's true and what's not? The White House wants to set the record straight. Let's go to our White House correspondent, Dan Lothian. He's working this part of the story. Lots of fury out there, lots of claims, and everyone's trying to keep their cool.</s>DAN LOTHIAN, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right. A lot of fury out there. And the White House is spending a lot of time trying to clean up the health care reform message, because now, after more than a half-dozen town hall meetings across the country, some Americans are still skeptical.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You don't know. You don't know.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You don't know.</s>SEN. ARLEN SPECTER (D), PENNSYLVANIA: Nobody 74 is going to be written off because they have cancer.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why don't they take the health care being forced down our throats?</s>SEN. CLAIRE MCCASKILL (D), MISSOURI: You don't trust me?</s>LOTHIAN (voice-over): There's a lot of noise in the health care debate, some of which the White House is calling misinformation that could muddle the message. (on camera): Is there any concern at all that if this misinformation machine continues, and the record can't be corrected as the White House would like it to be, that it could potentially make it more difficult to get health care reform across?</s>ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Well, look, if the debate is dominated by something that's not true, of course.</s>LOTHIAN (voice-over): But White House spokesman Robert Gibbs hopes public support for health care reform will hinge on the facts.</s>GIBBS: I don't think the president, believes, though, that when all is said and done, that most people will make their decisions on something that is false and something that has been said as false.</s>LOTHIAN: But even as the president was trying to set the record straight at a town hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Tuesday, his own facts were fuzzy. This is what he said about the AARP...</s>BARACK H. OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: AARP would not be endorsing a bill if it was undermining Medicare. OK? So, I just want seniors to be clear about this.</s>LOTHIAN: While the AARP agrees it would never support a bill that undermines Medicare, in a statement, its chief operating officer called any suggestion of an endorsement "inaccurate." Gibbs cleaned it up this way...</s>GIBBS: I don't think the president meant to imply anything untoward.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He just misspoke?</s>GIBBS: Right.</s>LOTHIAN: Now, the White House says that these town halls that the president has been hosting around the country are valuable, a way for him to provide information, and also knock down what they see as false information about health care reform. So, to that end, the president hits the road again for this weekend, for two town hall meetings, first on Friday in Bozeman, Montana, then Saturday in Grand Junction, Colorado -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: He's going to be busy at both of those meetings and other stops, as well. Thanks very much, Dan Lothian, for that. Let's check in with Jack Cafferty right now. He's got "The Cafferty File" -- Jack.</s>JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: There is another view of all this, of course. When it comes to these town hall meetings on health care reform, the Democrats might want to rethink their strategy. Democratic Senators Arlen Specter and Claire McCaskill are among the latest to be drowned out by increasingly angry protesters. One woman in Missouri told Senator McCaskill, "If they don't let us vent our frustrations out, they will have a revolution." McCaskill's saying she's seeing a lot of mistrust of government and a lot of cynicism. Protesters at Arlen Specter's meeting said they think the Obama administration is going too far with health care reform. One woman shouted out, "This is about dismantling this country!" Specter said he thinks the people proetsdsing are "not necessarily representative of America," but he thinks they should be heard. President Obama and the Democrats seem to face an increasingly uphill battle with selling health care reform to a skeptical public. People don't know what's in these bills because the Democrats haven't done a good job of explaining that to us. For his part, the president's urging people to ignore those who are trying to scare and mislead the public. Obama says what's truly scary is if we do nothing, but the public is pretty split on this, and there are a few more nays than yeas. A new Gallup poll shows more Americans disapprove than approve of the way the president's handling health care reform by a margin of 49 percent to 43 percent. And what's interesting here is these numbers are virtually unchanged from three weeks ago, before the administration stepped up its effort to win support and before all the anger boiled over at these town hall meetings. So, here's the question: Are the town hall meetings helping or hurting health care reform? Go to CNN.com/caffertyfile. You can post a comment on my blog.</s>BLITZER: One of the problems, Jack, and I don't know if you agree, is that there are so many different versions out there. There are five different versions in the House, another version floating around the Senate, some compromises out there. The president hasn't come forward with a specific piece of legislation that he likes. As a result, people are just sort of picking and choosing legislation that's never going to get anywhere. There's going to be a deal down the road. So, that complicates and confuses a lot of folks out there.</s>CAFFERTY: Well, we talked yesterday about the fact that when you have a vacuum, dirt tends to fill the space. And these bills are, what, 1,000 pages long? The people drafting them, it's doubtful any of them have read them, let alone the average citizen who's trying to get questions answered about what kind of health care is going to be available to him in the event that he needs it. So, the administration, I think, made a critical error in not being very clear from the get-go, this is what we want to do, this is what we're not going to do, this is what it will cost, and then maybe you have a debate on how to pay for it. But I think the first three things they dropped the ball pretty badly on.</s>BLITZER: Yes. A lot of people are agreeing with you, Jack. Thank you. CNN could be coming to a place near you. Our Ali Velshi is driving around the country to get your thoughts on health care reform. You're going to find out if he's in your neighborhood and what people like you are saying. And U.S. Marines versus the Taliban militants. There's a dramatic new operation under way in Afghanistan right now. We're learning the details. It involves a daring new tactic by those U.S. Marines. And how could a ship weighing thousands of pounds simply vanish? There's a frantic search for a vessel after its crew members reported they were hijacked. I should say thousands of tons. Stay with us. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.