CQ Transcript: Sens. Feinstein, Durbin, Hutchison, Lieberman on NBC's 'Meet the Press'

CQ Transcriptswire

SPEAKERS: DAVID GREGORY, HOST

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN, D-CALIF.

SEN. RICHARD J. DURBIN, D-ILL.

SEN. KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, R-TEXAS

SEN. JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, I-CONN.

[*] GREGORY: First, on a party-line vote, the Senate voted yes last night to allow debate to move forward on the Democrats' health care reform bill.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. HARRY REID, D-NEV., SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: We can see the finish line now, but we're not there. We haven't yet crossed that, and that's an understatement. The road -- road ahead is a long stretch, but we can see the finish line. We're going to get health care reform. The American people need it and they deserve it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREGORY: We are joined now by four senators at the center of the debate: Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas.

Welcome to all of you. A lot to get to this morning.

Let's start with the big news. Senator Durbin, that's health care. What kind of victory does this represent for the president?

DURBIN: It's an amazing victory for the president and Majority Leader Harry Reid to put together all 60 Democrats. We have a lot of different opinions in our side of the caucus, and we came together last night. And it's basically for one reason: Millions of American families cannot avoid this important debate about health care. They face it every single day. The Senate shouldn't avoid this debate.

I hope in the end that some Republicans will cross over and help us to put together a good bill that will serve this nation. Last night we didn't have a Republican vote, it was all Democrats. But we are going to move forward. And after Thanksgiving, everyone will have had a chance to take a close look at this bill on the Internet and we can start this debate. I hope it will be a meaningful one and a positive one, not a filibuster-loaded debate where we really don't get down to the basic issues.

GREGORY: Senator -- Senator Hutchison, is this a (inaudible) for the Democrats, a procedural victory but not ultimate victory on health care reform?

HUTCHISON: Well, I certainly hope not. I think this bill is a disaster for our country. President Obama said that it would be under $900 billion. It is not. President Obama said it would not add to the deficit. It will. President Obama said that no one would lose the health care that they have, and they will. This is a terrible bill. What I would hope is that we could start all over with Republican input, which was not in this bill, and try to do something for the American people that will bring down costs, will not cut Medicare and especially will give more access to people for affordable health care. GREGORY: You -- you said that you would like to see this stop. What would you do to stop this bill?

HUTCHISON: Well, we're -- our only avenue to stop it is to let the American people know that their taxes are going to increase, that their premiums are going to increase, that Medicare's going to be cut, and hope that then the Democrats will bring Republicans to the table and let's do something that will cut costs but not have a massive government takeover of health care.

GREGORY: Senator Feinstein, the issue here is that yes, a vote was cast positively to get the debate started. But there are centrist Democrats, as you know well, who are not on board with this health care bill in terms of cost, in terms of taxes and notably, in terms of the public option. They don't want it, and it's in there. What do you do?

FEINSTEIN: Well, I -- I think what you do is you have the vote and the vote will decide. I think not to vote, not to consider this question -- America's in serious problems with respect to health care. We -- virtually every other developed country has a better system than we do. Ours is costly, in places it's ineffective, it's deeply troubled, and the time has come to really see that people who have no insurance can get insurance.

Now, the good part about this bill is that it is structured so that it is phased in, so that over time we can watch it, we can change it. For example, this next year small business tax credits go in place and $5 billion is available for insurance for those who have been denied because of preconditions. So these people will be able to get insurance right away. Things like the exchange and the public option come online on 2014.

So the bill, in a sense, is incremental. We can watch it, we can change it. The important thing is that we debate it, that there be a flee -- free flow of amendments that some will pass, some will fall. The bill will go to conference, it has to be reconciled with the House bill. So we're at the beginning now of what is a great national and key debate.

GREGORY: All right, but, Senator Lieberman, let me pick up with where the real difficult areas are in getting the votes.

LIEBERMAN: Sure.

GREGORY: Are you a no vote on this bill?

LIEBERMAN: Well, I voted last night, as 59 others did, to go ahead with the debate because I -- I want us to begin not only debating health care reform, but doing something about health care reform. But I don't think anybody feels this bill, as Senator Reid put it down, though he made a lot of progress in blending bills together -- I don't think anybody thinks that this bill will pass as it is.

GREGORY: As written? It's got a public option; you said you would not vote for it as a matter of conscience, that you would even filibuster it if that stays in there. Still the case?

LIEBERMAN: That's right. Just to explain, once the bill is on the floor, the only alternative -- amendments will be offered, but essentially every amendment is subject to a filibuster and will take 60 votes to pass. My only resort, and -- and every other senator -- and there'll be others who feel exactly the way I do about the public option. If the public option is still in there, the only resort we have is to say no at the end to reporting the bill off the floor.

But let me explain very briefly why I feel this way about the public option. And you -- we've got to make choices. We have a health care system that has real troubles. But we have an economic system that is in real crisis. And I don't want to fix the problems in our health care system in a way that creates more of an economic crisis, either short-term to inhibit businesses from hiring more people, creating jobs, or long term to add to the debt.

And I'm convinced that the public option, a government-run insurance company -- basically, people don't understand what it, what it's going to do. It doesn't offer free insurance. It won't get one more poor person insurance. It won't force one insurance company to give insurance to somebody who's got a pre-existing condition. And it won't even lower the cost of health insurance, which the advocates said it originally would, because the Congressional Budget Office has now said to us that the public option in Senator Reid's bill will actually charge more for insurance than the average charge by health insurance companies.

What I -- I can tell you one thing I'm sure it will do. If we create a government insurance company, it's going to run a deficit and it's only the taxpayers who are going to pay for it.

GREGORY: I just want to...

LIEBERMAN: I don't want to do that.

GREGORY: Are you consistent on this matter? If you say you don't like a public option because of how it might influence the debt, will you apply that same standard to escalating the war in Afghanistan?

Should that be deficit-neutral, what we spend on Afghanistan?

LIEBERMAN: Incidentally, over the years, back in the Bush administration, I put forward tax programs to pay for the wars because I -- I don't know of another time in our history when we went to war and didn't pay for it. That's part of why we have the enormous debt that we have now, $12 trillion today, predicted to add $9 trillion in the next 10 years.

GREGORY: All right, so that's the question.

LIEBERMAN: It -- it's going to...

GREGORY: You -- you would pay for escalation in Afghanistan? It would have to be paid for? LIEBERMAN: Absolutely.

GREGORY: Senator, but what do you do to bring Senator Lieberman around? Because as an independent, you have other centrist Democrats who say no way on the public option. Is that negotiable?

DURBIN: I hope we can get to the bottom line here -- and I hope that Joe, my friend Senator Lieberman, agrees -- we need competition, we need choices. We have to put some honesty back into this insurance market. At this moment, private health care companies dominate the markets in most areas. They are exempt from the antitrust laws. They fix prices; they allocate markets; they control it.

And when the American people hear this, they say, "For goodness sakes, at least give us a low cost option." And that's what I'm for. They call it the public option, but it's a not-for-profit company that doesn't have to generate profits for the shareholders or spend a fortune on advertising or administrative costs. I hope we can move to a point where we satisfy Joe Lieberman's concerns that this does not end up being a government debt, but creates a public option.

GREGORY: But let's get to a bottom line, which is, is it negotiable? I've talked to Senate sources who say there is a backup plan, which is that you ultimately scrap the opt-out option, you put in a trigger, which means that somewhere -- there's no public option; down the road, if there's not adequate competition, a public plan gets triggered.

That's how you might get centrist Democrats and my -- it's how you get Senator Snowe as well, potentially. Is that negotiable?

DURBIN: There are many variations on the theme. I am committed to public option. I think we've put together a good bill. We are open because we want to pass this bill. At the end of the day we want insurance to be more affordable, we want to stop the insurance industry abuses, we want to give American people a choice in this decision.

GREGORY: So the public option is negotiable.

DURBIN: They don't have to...

(CROSSTALK)

DURBIN: It has been. Putting in the opt-out was clearly a variation on the theme from the beginning.

GREGORY: All right, Senator Feinstein?

FEINSTEIN: No developed country on earth has the huge for profit medical insurance industry that we have; 480 percent profit in eight years, premiums going sky rocketing. Let me give you an example. Day before yesterday, representatives from five hospitals in California came in, Daughters of Charity Hospitals, 6,000 employees. Their premium had just risen 17.5 percent. The money they got back in provider payment was one-third that -- less than one-third, 5 percent. That premium increase wiped out their entire operating capital for '09.

Now, this is the problem. And I have person after person coming to say, "I can't handle the 20 percent increase in my insurance. So this is the reason for the public option, to put out there some competition that will sober this huge for-profit 800-pound gorilla of medical insurance in this country.

GREGORY: So would you vote for a plan, a bill that did not include the public option?

FEINSTEIN: Well, I would vote for it if it had a rate authority to be able to control the increase in premiums, at least to keep it to medical inflation.

HUTCHISON: The very hospitals that she's talking about I'm sure serve patients who don't pay. Those hospitals are going to be cut in this bill. Every hospital that treats patients that don't pay will be cut.

So what are they going to gain? We don't have to tear down our whole system and the choices that we have and the quality health care we have in order to give more affordable health care. There are two things in this bill that could be modified to do what everyone says we want to do. I agree with what you stated are the goals.

You have in -- in this bill the ability for companies to go on an exchange, but it's more like the Massachusetts plan, which adds cost, instead of the Utah plan, which adds no cost but does have competition, will have transparency so that insurance companies will have to come back down, and secondly, the ability to have small business health plans.

If we took your part of that bill out and just had small business health plans, we would have more affordable options, more people would be insured...

(CROSSTALK)

HUTCHISON: ... and you would have lower costs for everyone.

GREGORY: All right. Let me -- Senator, let me get to a final point on this, which is what are we achieving out of health care reform really? The president said the priority was cutting costs.

LIEBERMAN: Right.

GREGORY: Polling's indicated that most Americans think this will bust the budget, no matter what congressional scorekeepers say. What you have here is an expanded entitlement program and higher taxes.

LIEBERMAN: Right.

GREGORY: Does it really cut health care costs?

LIEBERMAN: Not enough. That's the hope. Look, in the first place, the president and Congress are trying to do two things that are hard to do together. One is to fulfill our moral and governmental responsibilities to enable more people who can't afford insurance now to buy that insurance. That costs money. It's not going to come out of nowhere.

And how do you raise that money, even though we're saying to people we're going to reduce the cost of insurance? You raise it by raising taxes and -- and cutting or reforming Medicare.

A very important question here, and it -- it goes back to what I said before, I want to solve health care problems but I don't want to do it in a way that inhibits our recovery from this terrible economic recession. I want to see what CBO says, Congressional Budget Office says about the effect this will have on premiums.

So this is -- these are all questions.

One last word on the public option. I understand that some who have, who have advocated say we need to have a government insurance company in the market to keep the insurance companies honest. This is a radical departure from the way we've responded to the market in America in the past.

Here's what I mean. We rely first on competition in our market economy. That's brought us a lot of wealth and given people a lot of jobs. But when the competition fails, then what do we do? We regulate or we litigate.

We have never before said, in a given business, we -- we don't trust the companies in it so we're going to have the government go into that business. And irony of all ironies, Congressional Budget Office says, I repeat, the government-run public option company will charge more than the private companies will. That's not going to...

GREGORY: Senator Durbin, does this...

FEINSTEIN: That's counterintuitive, though. There's no way.

GREGORY: Does it get -- does it get passed by the end of this year?

DURBIN: It must. We have to do our job here.

GREGORY: No option?

DURBIN: We have to finish it in the Senate or it's going to be a -- maybe a long lunch break over Christmas. We're going to stick around and get it done.

GREGORY: Are you saying if the vote is put off until the first of the year, an election year, that health care dies?

DURBIN: No, I don't say that. But it becomes more complex, because both the president and the Congress want to shift this in -- from this critically important issue, which is central to our economy to the economy and jobs. We want to -- we want to really get this done. We spent a year at it. But we've got to really focus -- refocus our attention, all of our attention, on getting people back to work. Health care's part of this, make no mistake. But that's why we're anxious to get it done. And unfortunately, our friends at the other side have slowed us down every chance they've had. I hope that changes.

GREGORY: All right. Let me -- I want to move on to some questions about the...

HUTCHISON: But we only saw this bill Thursday. We saw this bill Thursday.

DURBIN: This bill's been there for a year.

HUTCHISON: This -- no. This is not the Finance Committee bill...

DURBIN: It's been through committee after committee.

HUTCHISON: ... and it's not the Health Committee bill.

GREGORY: OK. I want to -- I want to move on, Senators.

HUTCHISON: It's a new bill with new taxes.

GREGORY: I want to move on -- I want to move on to the broader economy, and there was a lot of anxiety and anger that played out on Capitol Hill this week and it was directed at Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

Here was in exchange with the Republican congressman from Texas, Brady, on Capitol Hill this week. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. KEVIN BRADY, R-TEXAS: Conservatives agree that, as point person, you failed. Liberals are growing in that consensus as well. Poll after poll shows the public has lost confidence in this -- in this president's ability to handle the economy.

For the sake of our jobs, will you step down from your post?

SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY TIMOTHY F. GEITHNER: Congressman, I -- it is a great privilege for me to serve this president, and I am very pleased at a chance to address the range of concerns you said.

I -- I agree with almost nothing of what you said, and almost nothing you said represents a fair and accurate perception of where this economy is today. Now, I think it's important to start -- welcome the advice that you're providing after you left the -- you gave this president an economy falling off the cliff, values of American savings cut almost in half, millions of Americans out of work; again, the worst financial crisis we've seen in generations.

BRADY: Remind me -- remind me, Mr. Secretary, what post were you holding when President Bush left office? Just remind me what economic post you were holding.

GEITHNER: I was the president of the Federal Reserve Bank in New York.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GREGORY: Senator Lieberman, should Timothy Geithner keep his job?

LIEBERMAN: Well, that's up to the President Obama, but I -- I'd say he should. In other words, I -- I wouldn't call for his resignation. I think it's too easy to make one person a scapegoat.

The fact is that a lot of the things that have been done -- the economy's not where we want it to be, particularly with unemployment over 10 percent, probably real under and unemployment almost 17.5 percent. That's -- that's horrible. People are really hurting. But a lot of the things that were done beginning in the Bush administration with the TARP program and all the rest and then the Stimulus Act I think are bringing up back. And the stock market is saying that, with the heights it's reached. We've got work to do.

I think the most important thing we can do, for instance, on health care reform, is do no harm. Don't add to the debt. That's the thing I'm -- I'm really worried about. Second, there are some more things we can do without spending a lot of money to stimulate the economy a little more after the first of the year. And then I'd say fiscal regulatory reform.

GREGORY: Right.

LIEBERMAN: Close the gaps that allowed the people on Wall Street and the banks to basically cheat us.

GREGORY: But this is a big debate, Senator Feinstein. What should be the priority right now, more jobs or cutting the debt?

FEINSTEIN: Well, right now it's more jobs, because unemployment -- I've got nearly two and a half million people unemployed. That's bigger than the population of 12 states. It's a real problem, because California is an economic dynamo for the rest of the country and when it's off, it has a repercussion all throughout America. And it is off.

Having said that, I think we need to do some very careful things with respect to some lending for big infrastructure. An interest that I have had for a long time is in high-speed rail, and there are three regional high-speed rail systems being planned in the United States.

I'd like to see an infrastructure bank developed with some of the remaining TARP money that could lend to communities to move those plans forward quicker so that -- because transportation has a billion -- it has 40,000 jobs for a billion dollars spent, and so it's a good investment of funds right now. We have to be concerned with jobs.

I mean, I cannot tell you what it's like when college graduates come and say, "Look, I've sent out 40 resumes. I've been turned down 40 times. I've got a degree. I'm a 4.0 student. What do I do?" -- let alone the person that has worked in a -- in a machine shop who is laid off. It is a real problem in our country.

I think for many of us, we've got to look out there and look for American products candidly and buy American products. I think we have to understand that other countries obviously want to import into our country, export into our country, but I think we have to begin to -- to, sort of, star our own products and say, "Mr. and Mrs. American, buy them."

GREGORY: Senator Hutchison, back to Secretary Geithner. Do you think he should keep his job?

HUTCHISON: Well, I think what Kevin Brady did in, in challenging him and talking about this economy was the right thing to do. But look, it -- a jobless recovery is not a recovery. And you cannot separate this huge debt that we have -- we're hitting the debt ceiling, $12 trillion, at the same time that one in 10 people in this country are jobless.

And to talk about passing a health care bill that is going to add $2.5 trillion in costs, because that's what the real costs are when it starts. The taxes are going to start in six weeks, the taxes that are going to raise the premiums and cause people not to hire people -- job -- we're trying to ask people to create jobs when we're going to put a cost on every business person in this country that will take them away from the goal of adding jobs.

FEINSTEIN: I have this...

HUTCHISON: How can we be talking about more cost, more debt at a time when we're...

GREGORY: Well, hold on. You -- you said Brady did the right thing. I just want to be -- the question I'm asking is, do you think Geithner should keep his job?

HUTCHISON: Look, I think Kevin Brady was right to bring it up. I -- I think that we are going in the wrong direction. I think the president; I think the Congress; I think the secretary of Treasury...

GREGORY: Brady said he should resign.

HUTCHISON: ... are all...

GREGORY: It's a simple question: Do you think he should keep his job?

HUTCHISON: I think they're all -- look, then we shouldn't keep our jobs, either. The president, the Congress and -- and Mr. Geithner are all responsible for going in the wrong direction. This stimulus package is wrong.

GREGORY: All right. Quick -- quick...

(CROSSTALK)

FEINSTEIN: Well, you know...

HUTCHISON: The health care bill is wrong.

FEINSTEIN: I mean, I -- I really differ. You know, the times get tough, so what happens? Somebody has to point a finger. Tim Geithner isn't responsible for the entirety of what's out there today, and it's nonsense to think that he is.

It -- it really makes me very angry, because we always tend -- we've got to find somebody to blame. There are some very deep-seated problems in the economy. What I wanted to correct is I -- I looked at the Republican talking points on the $2.5 billion figure that is the cost...

HUTCHISON: Trillion.

FEINSTEIN: ... trillion figure that's the cost. There's no substantiation for that. But if you go down the column...

HUTCHISON: No, that's not true. That's not true.

FEINSTEIN: ...what it does says is that the deficit...

HUTCHISON: It...

FEINSTEIN: ... saving is $170.

HUTCHISON: No, that's not true.

GREGORY: All right, let me -- I want to move on. We've got to...

HUTCHISON: It is $2.5 trillion, because the...

GREGORY: Well, this is -- wait, hold on a second.

HUTCHISON: ... the CBO study...

GREGORY: This -- this can be debated in different ways, whether that came out of Finance Committee or actually CBO...

HUTCHISON: ... starts before the costs start.

GREGORY: ... and I don't want to get into that -- that level right now. I want to move on to some other topics, including a huge one, which is Afghanistan.

Senator Durbin, when are we going to get a decision from the senator, and has he taken too long to announce the strategy -- the president, we're talking about, of course.

DURBIN: No, I want him to take the time that's necessary. I think the president is trying to reassess the overall strategy, as he should. Many of us believe that we've missed an opportunity in Afghanistan by diverting our attention to Iraq. I was one of 23 who voted against that war. I think that was a serious mistake. It has cost us many lives and great treasure.

But equally important, it has diverted our attention from the task at hand, those responsible for 9/11, Al Qaida and their Taliban allies. I want the president to take the time to get it right, and I think he should. And I don't know when that's coming, but I'm going to defer to the president's decision, working with his secretary of defense, secretary of state and the generals in the field.

GREGORY: Senator Lieberman, Ike Skelton, which is the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, supports General McChrystal's policy of -- of additional forces. He said this about the end game, the exit strategy: "When the area has been stabilized, then it's time to go home."

Is that the obligation for the United States, that Afghanistan must be stabilized before we leave?

LIEBERMAN: Yes. Yes, that's our goal, and -- and it's our goal for good reason. As Senator Durbin just said, we were attacked on 9/11 from Afghanistan. If we leave Afghanistan with less than success as a, as a country that can govern itself and protect itself, it's going to have a terrible destabilizing effect on the rest of the region.

So I don't like it when people say we have no long-term interests in Afghanistan or we're looking for an exit strategy. We -- we have -- we don't want to have a long-term interest in having our military there long term, but we have real long-term interests in this place being stabilized. And...

GREGORY: How long will it take?

LIEBERMAN: I don't know. We didn't know when we adopted the surge in Iraq. But the surge in Iraq, the additional troops following the same strategy that General McChrystal wants to apply here in Afghanistan worked in about a year. I think we have the same potential to turn this tide and set back the Islamist extremists who are our enemies in this war that we're in.

GREGORY: Still on the topic of national security, I want to ask the question, Senator Feinstein, about the decision by the attorney general to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of 9/11, in New York City.

Charles Krauthammer wrote in his column in The Washington Post this on Friday: "What happens if KSM and his co-defendants `do not get convicted?' asked Senate Judiciary Committee member Herb Kohl. `Failure is not an option,' replied Holder, the attorney general. Everyone knows that, whatever the outcome of the trial, KSM will never walk free. He will spend the rest of his natural life in U.S. custody, which makes the proceedings a farcical show trial from the very beginning."

Isn't he right? FEINSTEIN: No, I -- I don't believe he is.

GREGORY: Have you ever heard an attorney general say "failure is not an option" to their prosecutors in the field?

FEINSTEIN: Well, I'm sure some have -- have said that. I haven't heard it, no. Having said that...

GREGORY: Though it's unusual, isn't it?

FEINSTEIN: But what I have seen is the failure of military commissions up close up and personal. And what -- what I have seen is only three people tried in eight years.

GREGORY: But wait. But if you presuppose the outcome...

FEINSTEIN: And those...

GREGORY: ... and you say he'll never...

FEINSTEIN: Let me -- David, let me...

GREGORY: ... he will never be out of custody. Doesn't it make it a show trial?

FEINSTEIN: Look, I don't think this is a show trial. Will the press gravitate to it? Probably, yes. But that's not the point.

The point is to try him in federal court, where a couple of hundred other terrorists have been tried, as opposed to in a military commission whose record is extraordinarily poor; three people tried -- David Hicks, one other, two others -- and very short sentences came out of it. I think they're all out now.

To put him in the second district of New York, which is accomplished at this, with our best judges, our best prosecutors, and prosecute him so the world can see American justice rather than hidden somewhere, and I think -- as in a military commission -- I think it's an important thing to do.

(CROSSTALK)

GREGORY: Senator Durbin, is saying to a prosecutor, "Failure is not an option"...

(CROSSTALK)

GREGORY: ... is that appropriate?

(CROSSTALK)

DURBIN: Well, of course, when I send in my team for a prosecution, I tell them that.

GREGORY: Right. DURBIN: You wouldn't want to say, "Good luck. We -- it may go one way or the other." He said, "Failure is not an option," and then he went on to say -- and I hope that Krauthammer's clear on this -- "the president has the power to keep Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in custody regardless of the verdict in this trial."

But as Senator Feinstein said, since 9/11, we have successfully prosecuted 195 terrorists...

GREGORY: Right.

DURBIN: ... in the courts of America, only three in military tribunals.

GREGORY: But how -- but how is that highlighting the strength...

(CROSSTALK)

GREGORY: ... of the American judicial system if you say, "Well, conviction or no, we'll still hold on to him," but -- and "failure is not an option; do whatever it takes to get convicted"?

HUTCHISON: Well, we shouldn't be bringing these people from Guantanamo Bay, who are enemy combatants, into our court system, giving them the rights of American citizens.

When the World Trade Center bombers were tried in New York City, it was said right then that intelligence-gathering information and people who had gathered intelligence were put in jeopardy. That's what happens in a court of law. They have the right to face their accusers. So we are going to lose intelligence-gathering capabilities because it's going to be revealed.

Number two, on Afghanistan, the president must make a decision. We need to make sure that the world knows we will not back away from Afghanistan. That is in the American interest, it's in every freedom loving country's interest not to have Al Qaida build up, Taliban help them and have them export terrorism all over the world.

And if the president would go to our NATO allies and say, "It's time for you to step up to the plate. America is carrying the heavy burden here, but it is in your interest to give more troops, to give more help in this cause." This is a NATO mission. The -- whether NATO survives or doesn't is going to be determined by whether we stick to it and we do our job and we stop the export of terrorism to America and the rest of the world.

GREGORY: Let me ask both of you. You both have been heavily involved over the years in raising money for breast cancer research, going back to -- to the Stamp Act that you were behind 10 years ago.

Senator Feinstein, I'll start with you. What do you think about these guidelines issued this week?

Do you think that women should continue to have mammograms in their 40s? FEINSTEIN: I think the jury's out. I think women should talk to their physicians. The bill that's now on the floor of the Senate would not do anything to disrupt any preventive mammogram. Those are all still available in this bill. I think there's a conflict in the science. The conflict has to be worked out. The technology of mammograms has to be improved, because this is an old technology now. And I think that a woman should consult her physician and go ahead and have the mammograms. To be candid with you, that's what I would do.

GREGORY: What about -- Senator Hutchison, you said this is the beginning of rationing.

HUTCHISON: I think it is.

GREGORY: Why did you say that?

HUTCHISON: It's because it's whether the insurance and the public option are going to pay for a woman who decides that she wants to have the mammogram before the age of 50 or more than every other year after 50. If the public option doesn't pay for that -- and the task force recommendations are what the public option is going to rely on.

So this task force says, all of a sudden, we're going to change the guidelines that we have had for all these years. And now the public option may not pay for those, and that means the insurance companies are going to follow. The key is that these are covered by insurance so women will not have to decide if they're going to spend $250 to get a mammogram because they and their doctors believe it is right to do so.

GREGORY: All right, I'm going to make that the last word. Thank you all very much.