On Thursday's Situation Room, CNN's Wolf Blitzer engaged newly-elected Republican Scott Brown on his opposition to ObamaCare, and asked him the same question from the left twice in succession: "What's wrong with giving 30 million-plus more Americans access to health insurance?" He also later added, "What's wrong with spending money...if it's going to give access to 30 million Americans?" [audio clips available here; video clips available here]
Blitzer had the Massachusetts senator on just before the bottom of the 5 pm Eastern hour. The anchor first complimented Brown for driving over to the CNN Washington Bureau in his "nice little truck," and immediately asked his slanted question.
After the senator gave his initial answer, Blitzer, seemingly unsatisfied by the response, pressed further, and added another argument from the left: "I guess I should rephrase the question. What's wrong with spending money- the cost, if it winds up costing money, if it winds up raising taxes on multimillionaires or millionaires, or people even earning more than $250,000 a year- if it's going to give access to 30 million Americans, so they don't have to worry about getting sick- what's wrong with that?"
The transcript of relevant portion of the interview, starting at the 5:27 pm Eastern mark of Thursday's Situation Room:
WOLF BLITZER: If you had to name one Republican who makes Democrats downright nervous right now, it just might be Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts. He single-handedly deprived the President's party of its filibuster-proof super- sixty-seat- majority in the U.S. Senate. Now, what is he doing for an encore?
One thing he's doing, he's here in 'The Situation Room.' Senator, welcome.
SENATOR SCOTT BROWN: Good to be here. Thank you.
BLITZER: I hope you'll be a frequent visitor in 'The Situation Room.' We're not very far from Capitol Hill.
BROWN: Thank you.
BLITZER: And thanks for driving your pickup truck all the way from Congress here.
BROWN: That's how I get around. It's no secret.
BLITZER: Well, it's a nice little truck.
Let's talk about health care right now, priority number one. What's wrong with giving 30 million-plus more Americans access to health insurance?
BROWN: Well, part of the problem is after a year of doing this, it still raises taxes. It cuts Medicare a half a trillion dollars. It cuts TRICARE for military people. It's going to cost a trillion-plus, and while it's certainly important to provide care for those people, I believe that individual states could do it better, and that we can do it better, because all the carve-outs and all the special interest issues that we were talking about. that we all shook our heads about, a lot of those are still in that bill.
BLITZER: But I- but let me- I guess I should rephrase the question. What's wrong with spending money- the cost, if it winds up costing money, if it winds up raising taxes on multimillionaires or millionaires, or people even earning more than $250,000 a year- if it's going to give access to 30 million Americans, so they don't have to worry about getting sick- what's wrong with that?
BROWN: There's nothing wrong with that, but more importantly, it does raise taxes and it does raise taxes for people who are earning less. It's going to affect businesses. It's also- once, as I said before- I had felt, as we did in Massachusetts, we provide almost 98 percent of our people with insurance, and individual states would like to have that right to do the same thing and ask the federal government, how can you help us do that? Can you incentivize us to do it better? Maybe they'll do it better than Massachusetts and get costs in- costs under control. But this one-size-fits-all plan really is hurting businesses and hurting individual citizens right now with all the carve-outs is not appropriate.
