E-mail a friendRep. Baron Hill
airdate August 12, 2009
First elected to Congress in '98, Rep. Baron Hill serves on the Energy and Commerce and Joint Economic Committees and is the Blue Dog Coalition's policy co-chair. He authored legislation that raised vehicle fuel efficiency standards and introduced property tax relief legislation. The Indiana native previously served in the state's House of Representatives. He was also executive director of the Student Assistance Commission. In the private sector, Hill ran an insurance and real estate business and worked as a financial analyst.
Indiana rep comments on the explosive town hall meetings taking place in the U.S. on proposed healthcare reform. (1:39)
Full interview. (9:38)
Rep. Baron Hill
Tavis: Congressman Baron Hill of Indiana is a co-chair of an influential group of moderate to conservative Democrats on the Hill known as the Blue Dog coalition. The group will play a key role, we suspect, in any healthcare reform package that comes out of Congress, and in a state that craves basketball it's worth noting that he's also a member of the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame, inducted back in 2000 in a class that included some guy named Larry Byrd. Congressman Hill joins us tonight from Louisville. Congressman, nice to have you on the program, sir.
Rep. Baron Hill: It's good to be with you, Tavis. I'm living proof that short people can play the game of basketball as well.
Tavis: (Laughs) And I'm glad to have you on the program, and as a Hoosier myself, it's always good to talk to you. Let me start by asking whether or not you have, during the recess back in Indiana, conducted any town hall meetings. And I ask that, of course, against the backdrop of everybody else having these town hall meetings. And I don't know what's happened here, but every day we seem to be leading the news with Americans yelling and screaming and pointing and name-calling members of Congress about this healthcare debate.
I saw the front page of "The New York Times" today with Arlen Specter with a finger in his face, and we've seen other members of Congress. So what's happening back in Indiana, in your district? Are you conducting town hall meetings, and are you getting thrashed as well?
Hill: Well, I'm getting - I'm having meetings with the chamber of commerce, I'm meeting with hospital boards, talking to doctors, nurses, people who'll be affected by this legislation, speaking to rotary clubs and that sort of thing. I've not done town hall meetings. I hope it will get to a point where we can have one.
But I don't want to set up a venue for these groups that all they want to do is come in and blow up a meeting. I want to have meaningful dialogue, and if we can create that environment maybe in smaller groups, to invite the public in to do a town hall in small groups, that's kind of what we're looking at.
Tavis: Are you hearing from your citizens that they want to have a town hall meeting and that they're troubled by the fact that you haven't called one yet in the district?
Hill: I'm hearing from those who are shouting the loudest, demanding a town hall meeting. But as I said, I don't want to create a venue for those folks just to come in and blow up a meeting. I want to have a serious discussion about a very serious issue, and I think people have some misunderstandings about this bill, and it's really very unfortunate that the ones who shout the loudest are drowning out the others who really want to find out something about this bill.
Tavis: I wonder whether or not you believe or think that the contentious nature of the way these town hall meetings are taking place around the country - it's not just Senator Specter and other members of Congress; indeed, President Obama, we all saw a few weeks ago, had some fingers in his face at a town hall meeting.
What does the raucous nature of these town hall meetings say about this issue of healthcare in America?
Hill: Well, I'm not a psychologist. I'm puzzled by the behavior of some of these folks and their contact. Everybody deserves a little respect, including them, if they'll just calm down. I don't know what it is about this healthcare bill that scares everybody. This is a bill that's going to help people. This is a bill that no matter what kind of illness that you might have, you're going to be able to get insurance.
This is a bill that is going to make it affordable for you to buy insurance. This is a bill that's going to include insurance for 47 million Americans. It's going to be portable and mobile. If you're working a job now that you don't like, you'll be able to take it with you if you move on to another job.
So there's a lot of good features about this bill that the American people want to hear about, but unfortunately their voices are being drowned out.
Tavis: For those who say that this bill is a quintessential example of socialism, you say what?
Hill: I say they're full of baloney. This is not socialism. If they want socialism, they can go on Medicare. But this is not Medicare. This is a bill designed to keep what you presently have. If you're employed and have insurance, nothing changes - you get to keep that insurance. But if you're somebody who does not have health insurance and you want health insurance, you'll be able to get it.
You'll be able to move from job to job with it, and you won't be denied coverage because you got diabetes or another chronic disease.
Tavis: I'm trying to juxtapose what you're saying tonight, which sounds like you're in support of this bill, with your earlier words where you suggested to the president directly that he was moving too fast on this issue.
Hill: Yeah, well, I did advise the president that I thought he was moving too fast on it, but I have a lot of confidence in President Obama and I know he's trying to do the right thing and keep a campaign promise.
I do believe that we need to create an atmosphere where people can actually look at this bill to see what's really in it. Unfortunately, my request to delay the vote on the bill has met with all this extreme opposition. I think we can still get through it. We still have three or four weeks left before we go back to Congress to go to work on it, and hopefully in that time some of these unruly people will give everybody a chance to see what's really in the bill.
Tavis: But it could get worse.
Hill: It could get worse. Hopefully it'll get better. We're working at it.
Tavis: Tell me where the Blue Dogs are concerned. The read that most of us have taken on this, as I suggested a couple of times earlier in the introduction of this conversation, that any deal would have to be brokered in part by the Blue Dogs.
So as an entity, as a group of conservative Democrats, what's the group's take on this issue, never mind your own?
Tavis: Well, the Blue Dogs are a fiscally conservative group of people. There's 52 of us in the House, and I'm one of them. There are seven Blue Dogs on the committee.
I want to make it unequivocal that Blue Dogs want a healthcare bill. They don't want to stop this thing and they don't want to block it. To some of my more liberal friends, I think it's important for them to understand that.
Now having said that, the Blue Dogs want to make sure that this healthcare bill is paid for, that we don't go into debt, that we make sure that we don't do that, but we also want reforms. The costs of healthcare keep on going up every year, some as high as 28 to 30 percent, and we want to stop that. And the only way we can do that is through reforms, and so we need to change the way that medicine is administered and paid for, and the only way we can do that is through some strong reforms.
Now, this bill has some reforms in it. It probably needs some more. But if it doesn't have reforms, then Blue Dogs will not be able to vote for the bill. But I do believe that we're going to get this bill in a shape where everybody can vote for it, and we'll have healthcare.
We've been talking about this, Tavis, for 60 years. We're on the verge of actually getting it done. I hope we can get it done.
Tavis: Is it your sense that it is going to happen this fall?
Hill: Well, it's supposed to happen this fall. If we need to take more time to get it done and make it more palatable to the American people, then let's do it. But I don't want to give the voices of opposition too much room to keep on doing what they're doing.
I just came out of a meeting about an hour ago with some folks who are starting to believe some of the rhetoric, like people are going to be forced to die instead of get coverage. Nothing could be farther from the truth, of course, but that stuff is out there. And we've got to put a stop to it and we've got to tell people what it's all about.
Now, not having town hall meetings makes my job more difficult, but there are a group of people that are bent on getting this thing beaten no matter what, and so they're using a lot of negative tactics to do it. But hopefully, we'll win the day.
Tavis: How's it going to get paid for?
Hill: Well, one of the ways it gets paid for is through these reforms. The reforms, in some estimates, can save up to $2 trillion. That's an estimate that was put out by the Congressional Budget Office.
I don't really think that we can save $2 trillion; if that was the case, we wouldn't have to do anything, tax-wise. But where the rubber meets the road is how we're going to pay for it, and that's still to be determined. The proposal out there right now I think is a proposal that most people buy into, and that's a tax on people who make more than $350,000 a year.
Tavis: Let me ask a philosophical question. Part of the reason, it seems to me, at least, Congressman, while we're in this debate is that to your point we've been debating this for 60 years. We've been a country, obviously, much longer than that, and a right to access - the right to access to quality healthcare is not as yet a basic, fundamental human right in this country.
There are other countries where right to healthcare is a basic, fundamental human right, and it's written as such into the law. Citizens of these various countries are treated in that way. We know that is not the case in this country. Should it be?
Hill: Well, it's not written into the law in this bill, but the effect of the bill if it gets passed is that everybody's going to have access to health insurance. And so they indirectly will have access to healthcare by the very nature of the bill.
Look, if you're sick, you've got diabetes, or even if you've got cancer, this bill passes, you'll be able to get insurance and you'll be able to get it at a cost that you can afford.
Tavis: And the debate about the public option, is that dead?
Hill: No, not dead at all. The public option is one feature of the bill that we passed out of Energy and Commerce, and it is there to be voted upon by the House in September or October.
Tavis: And what about those who say that if the president, your president, as in the leader of your party, the titular head, if the president doesn't get this through, there are those who say he is toast if he cannot get healthcare reform passed. Your thoughts on that notion?
Hill: Well, I believe that we're going to get healthcare. I'm going to remain eternally optimistic about this. I want to help the president get a healthcare bill that he can sign into law. The president won't be toast if he doesn't get it this year, and I think eventually we'll get it. I'm hoping that we can get it this year, and I think it's a smart political move if we start to act on it this year. But we'll eventually get it, and I want to help the president be successful in his efforts.
Tavis: One of the Blue Dog Democrats, he's out of Indiana. His name is Baron Hill. Congressman Hill, nice to have you on the program. All the best to you, sir.
Hill: Thank you, Tavis. Come back to Indiana.
Tavis: As often as I can.
Hill: All right.
Tavis: Especially to see my mama, who's watching right now - hi, Mom.
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