In a friendly exchange with Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Matthews Burwell on Tuesday, MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell tried to tee up the Obama administration cabinet official to slam Republican presidential frontrunner Ben Carson on abortion: “...a pediatric neurologist who does not get involved with care for women's reproductive systems....says that life begins with conception, no exceptions for the life of the mother unless someone can persuade him, and no exceptions for rape and incest.”
Burwell avoided wading into 2016 politics, but declared: “You know, the law of the land – this is an emotional issue, an important issue to many people – but the law of the land is that this can occur and can occur in safe ways. And I think that's an important thing to preserve this as a choice between a woman and her own physicians as she makes those choices herself.”
Mitchell followed up by fretting: “Many people thought it was settled law. We’re going back to the early 1970s. Is it surprising to you that this is still being debated as hotly in the 2016 presidential race?”
Burwell tried to change the subject completely:
You know, what I would love to see is us focus on the issues of women's health disparities and the issues that are in front of us today. So many people don't know that the number one killer for women is heart disease. And that's something we can do so many things about. And so what I’d love to see the time and attention focused on is issues like that...
The first half of the interview was focused on ObamaCare, with Mitchell lobbing nothing but open-ended softballs:
> Enrollment for 2016 ObamaCare coverage is now open. The White House has claimed victory for reducing the nation's uninsured rates to record lows. But tens of millions of Americans are still uninsured and premiums are rising for many....Let’s talk about the pluses and the minuses. You’ve got some real victories in terms of the enrollment numbers. What are the challenges still ahead?
> And your message to them [the uninsured] is that, first of all, the computer glitches have been fixed, that it's not that difficult, but what about the premium costs?
> The New York Times had a fascinating map, though, that shows where the uninsured are. And if you look at the map, it's the lower part of the country, it’s the south, and you know, part of the southwest. It's really a division horizontally across this country.
The toughest question Mitchell asked was about continued legal challenges to the controversial law:
Now, you’ve got some legal challenges still ahead. The Supreme Court is not out of this picture because there is a challenge. The Little Sisters of the Poor against you, by name, challenging the health care law, and the Pope himself giving some, you know, weight to that by stopping and visiting with them when he was here in Washington, to show and signal their support for the challenge to the features of the health care law, which do permit coverage for contraception and, you know, other – other things that are opposed by the Church.
Burwell argued: “...what we want to do is make sure that we are respecting people's religious beliefs, and at the same time, making sure that women have the health care and preventive care that they want and need....And so we believe we are meeting that both in terms of respecting religious beliefs as well as providing health care...”
Mitchell failed to follow up on Burwell’s assertion that the administration was “respecting people’s religious beliefs” while forcing nuns to pay for people’s birth control.
While Mitchell vaguely referred to “premiums rising for many” under ObamaCare, she did not challenge Burwell with the actual numbers that were detailed in The Wall Street Journal on Sunday.
Mitchell also ignored that half of the health insurance co-ops set up by ObamaCare had failed. In an op-ed for the Journal on Monday, Nebraska Congressman and House Ways and Means health subcommittee member Adrian Smith warned:
When it passed Congress in 2010, the Affordable Care Act offered substantial financial support to create nonprofit health-insurance plans. Today 11 of the 23 such regional Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans have failed—seven since the beginning of October.
They’ve collapsed despite federal startup loans totaling more than $1.1 billion. These loans will likely never be fully repaid, while insurers and consumers will be on the hook for any unpaid claims left behind by failed insurers....
To date, more than half a million Americans have lost coverage thanks to the failure of these co-ops. The reason? The co-ops took on far too many customers at artificially low premiums, and, as the American Enterprise Institute and the Galen Institute noted earlier this year, are drawing down “unspent loan funds to pay medical claims.”
In an opinion piece for The New York Post on Monday entitled, “ObamaCare’s death spiral, stage one: Denial,” National Review editor Rich Lowry pointed out liberal media unwillingness to acknowledge the law’s problems:
For the press, the debate over ObamaCare is over. There may be a few proverbial Japanese soldiers wandering on isolated islands yammering on about the failure of ObamaCare, but word will eventually filter down to them, too.
This assumption is so deeply embedded that it is impervious to new evidence that ObamaCare is an unwieldy contraption that is sputtering badly. Yes, ObamaCare has covered more people and has especially benefited those with pre-existing conditions (to be credible, Republican replacement plans have to do these things, as well), but the program is so poorly designed that, surely, even a new Democratic president will want to revisit it to try to make it more workable.
Here is a full transcript of Mitchell’s November 3 interview with Burwell:
12:43 PM ET
ANDREA MITCHELL: Enrollment for 2016 ObamaCare coverage is now open. The White House has claimed victory for reducing the nation's uninsured rates to record lows. But tens of millions of Americans are still uninsured and premiums are rising for many. So Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Matthews Burwell joins me now.
Let’s talk about the pluses and the minuses. You’ve got some real victories in terms of the enrollment numbers. What are the challenges still ahead?
SYLVIA MATTHEWS BURWELL: So as we look at the overall, I think the most important thing to focus on is the number of uninsured. And that number has been reduced by 17.6 million in the country and we want to make sure that we keep reducing that number. Right now, open enrollment and the marketplace, an important part of that, and we think there are about 10.5 million folks who are still out there who are eligible and that's who we’re hoping to reach during this open enrollment.
MITCHELL: And your message to them is that, first of all, the computer glitches have been fixed, that it's not that difficult, but what about the premium costs?
BURWELL: So affordability is a very important part of our messaging. And as one talks about the premium costs, understanding that financial assistance is available. And eight out of 10 Americans who are in the marketplace receive that financial assistance. And we know that for folks in the marketplace right now, seven in 10 of those can come back and shop and find a plan with that financial assistance for $75 or less a month in premium payments.
MITCHELL: The New York Times had a fascinating map, though, that shows where the uninsured are. And if you look at the map, it's the lower part of the country, it’s the south, and you know, part of the southwest. It's really a division horizontally across this country.
BURWELL: We know and that's one of the things this year we’re doing, we’re working harder and trying to work smarter, targeting, making sure we know where those folks are. We have five key cities and areas that we're focused on, Houston, Dallas, Miami, northern New Jersey, and Chicago.
MITCHELL: Now, you’ve got some legal challenges still ahead. The Supreme Court is not out of this picture because there is a challenge. The Little Sisters of the Poor against you, by name, challenging the health care law, and the Pope himself giving some, you know, weight to that by stopping and visiting with them when he was here in Washington, to show and signal their support for the challenge to the features of the health care law, which do permit coverage for contraception and, you know, other – other things that are opposed by the Church.
BURWELL: So with regard to the issue, what we want to do is make sure that we are respecting people's religious beliefs, and at the same time, making sure that women have the health care and preventive care that they want and need. And we think we’ve put together an approach that works to do that. So that certain entities don't need to do that. And so we believe we are meeting that both in terms of respecting religious beliefs as well as providing health care and as it goes through the courts, I think we believe we’re in a position where we are meeting the test.
MITCHELL: Now, in this political season, you also have the candidates. Let me show you a little bit off of Meet the Press, where Ben Carson, a doctor, a neurologist, a pediatric neurologist who does not get involved with care for women's reproductive systems, but this was his response to Chuck Todd on Roe v. Wade.
BEN CARSON: Ultimately I would love to see it overturned.
CHUCK TODD: And that means all abortions illegal or is there still an exception that you would have?
CARSON: I'm a reasonable person. And if people can come up with a reasonable explanation of why they would like to kill a baby, I'll listen.
MITCHELL: So he says that life begins with conception, no exceptions for the life of the mother unless someone can persuade him, and no exceptions for rape and incest.
BURWELL: You know, the law of the land – this is an emotional issue, an important issue to many people – but the law of the land is that this can occur and can occur in safe ways. And I think that's an important thing to preserve this as a choice between a woman and her own physicians as she makes those choices herself.
MITCHELL: Many people thought it was settled law. We’re going back to the early 1970s.
BURWELL: That's correct.
MITCHELL: Is it surprising to you that this is still being debated as hotly in the 2016 presidential race?
BURWELL: You know, what I would love to see is us focus on the issues of women's health disparities and the issues that are in front of us today. So many people don't know that the number one killer for women is heart disease. And that's something we can do so many things about. And so what I’d love to see the time and attention focused on is issues like that, where we know we can work on, either through getting women coverage or getting them the knowledge of how they can do things. Whether that's the ABCs, aspirin, blood pressure, cholesterol and smoking cessation, that those are the kinds of things where I think we as a nation can work on our health together.
MITCHELL: If you had one or two things to say to Americans about how to get healthier, would it be diet and exercise? Sleep? I mean, what are the things that concern you most?
BURWELL: So I would start with the coverage. And the issue that we’re focused on here with this open enrollment is making sure that as many Americans as possible have access to health insurance so that they can do both that preventive care and take care of themselves when things go wrong. And then, I think both those issues that you’re focused on, diet and exercise, and I recently did a blog on sleep and the importance of sleep, as that combination of things that can make a difference in terms of prevention or when you do have something that goes wrong, getting you better.
MITCHELL: I’m going to have to read that blog and try to take it to heart, because in my business, sleep is not really very often in the cards. Thank you very much, it’s great to see you again.
BURWELL: Thanks so much for having me. Appreciate it.
