John Boehner with more complaints about those republican sprinkles or crumbs or what ever the hell he calls them in the health care bill. I'm sure at this point if the Democrats had allowed the Republicans to just write the entire bill, they still would be voting against it.
CROWLEY: They look as though -- they certainly have the numbers to pass this -- the Democrats.
BOEHNER: Really? Listen, they've got 40 more Democrats in the House than they have Republicans. They've got, you know, 59 -- or they've got 19 more Democrats in the Senate of -- or 18 than they have Republicans. And they can pass this all on their own. The only bipartisanship that's involved in this town right now on -- with regard to health care, is there is bipartisan opposition to what they're attempting to do.
CROWLEY: You don't -- but, do you think -- because you're a pretty good vote counter -- does she have 216, the speaker?
BOEHNER: If she had 216 votes, this bill would be long gone. And remember, they tried to do this in June and July last year. If they had the votes, then it would be law. They tried to pass it in September, October, November, December, January, February. Guess what? They don't have the votes.
The American people don't want to take the step toward government run health insurance. It's a dangerous step, because we do have the best health care system in the world.
CROWLEY: I want to point out that the Democrats clearly have argued and will argue that it's not a government run program. That if you like your insurance, you can keep your insurance.
BOEHNER: Well, that's not true, though.
CROWLEY: Well--
(CROSSTALK)
BOEHNER: It's one of those things that keeps being said, but it's not true, and here's why. First, if -- with the employer mandate, some employer is going to look at this, at the penalty and say, you know I spent a lot more than that providing health care to my employees. And so I'm going to drop it. Forcing -- force-- (CROSSTALK)
CROWLEY: But they'll have a menu of choices to pick out.
(CROSSTALK)
BOEHNER: Forcing you then to go to the health exchange.
CROWLEY: Sure.
BOEHNER: And -- and so, you can't keep it.
CROWLEY: But they will have a menu of choices the way this is set out. Three or four in this exchange where people can look at and then pick something from that. Would you -- you agree with that?
BOEHNER: A government run exchange. That the expectation is you'll have three or four plans as designed by the federal government.
CROWLEY: What's the Republican role now on the House side? What is there left for you all to do?
BOEHNER: I'm doing everything I can to prevent this bill from becoming law. Plain and simple. We have offered our ideas.
CROWLEY: And what do you do?
BOEHNER: We've asked the president to sit down and work with us.
They have refused all the way through the process. And--
CROWLEY: You had the summit.
BOEHNER: Oh, they had the summit. We offered our ideas.
CROWLEY: And he incorporated some, did he not?
BOEHNER: That -- and -- and took a couple of Republican bread crumbs and put them on top of their 2,700 page bill. That's not good enough. And so while -- what I'm doing is working with my colleagues to keep the American people engaged in this fight.
I don't have enough votes on my side of the aisle to stop the bill.
But I, along with a majority of the American people who are opposed to this, can stop this bill. And we're going to do everything we can to make it difficult for them, if not impossible to pass the bill.
