GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: So how do you do it now? This strategy that a lot of people have talked about getting the House to pass the Senate bill.
Speaker Pelosi yesterday seemed to say that this was kind of a non-starter.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, here’s , here’s one thing I know and I just want to make sure that this is off the table. The Senate certainly shouldn’t try to jam anything through until Scott Brown is seated. People in
STEPHANOPOULOS: Number one…
OBAMA: That, that’s point number one. I think point number two is that it is very important to look at the substance of this package and for the American people to understand that a lot of the fear mongering around this bill isn’t true. I would advise that we try to move quickly to coalesce around those elements of the package that people agree on. We know that we need insurance reform, that the health insurance companies are taking advantage of people. We know that we have to have some form of cost containment because if we don’t, then our budgets are going to blow up and we know that small businesses are going to need help so that they can provide health insurance to their families. Those are the core, some of the core elements of, to this bill.
STEPHANOPOULOS: We’re just about out of time, I just want to wrap up a couple things.
You’re not advocating that the House pickup the Senate bill.
OBAMA: I think it is very important for the House to make its determinations. I think, right now, they’re feeling obviously unsettled and there were a bunch of provisions in the Senate bill that they didn’t
like, and so I can’t force them to do that. Now I will tell you, and I’ve said this before, that the House and the Senate bill overlap about 90 percent.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Right.
OBAMA: And so, it does seem to me that there should be a way of, after all this work and all this pain, there should be a way of taking what’s best in both bills and going ahead and getting that done.
More of my exclusive interview tonight on World News with Diane Sawyer, a special edition of Nightline and of course, tomorrow on Good Morning America.
