This is a rush transcript from "Your World," August 21, 2013. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
NEIL CAVUTO, HOST: Meanwhile, opposition mounting to the president's health care law, but is there really no alternative, as Democrats say?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: At least they used to say, well, we're going to replace it with something better. There's not even a pretense now that they're going to replace it with something better.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAVUTO: Not so, because my next guest says, come again?
Congressman Tom Price has been pitching his plan way before we even had ObamaCare as a dream.
The congressman joins me now.
But that's the rap, as you know, Congressman, that Republicans are good at tearing down, offering nothing in return. You have had this out there. You have been ignored. Tell us what happened and where your proposal stands.
REP. TOM PRICE, R-GA.: Well, thanks, Neil.
It's really so sad because the president knows. We have explained to his administration and others. The president knows that there are other alternatives out there, alternatives that put patients and families and doctors in charge, not Washington, D.C.
Our proposal, HR-2300, is a comprehensive piece of legislation that would get folks covered with insurance that they want to buy for themselves, not that the government forces them to buy, solves insurance challenges, like portability and preexisting, and saves hundreds of billions of dollars, does all of that without raising your taxes a penny and doesn't put Washington in charge of a thing.
There are wonderful, positive alternatives. To have the president continue to say that is just not true, and he knows it's disingenuous when he says it.
CAVUTO: All right. Now, I don't know if he's referring to your plan or not evening discussing your plan, Congressman, but he says that Republicans are perfectly fine with going back to the days when the uninsured had no option.
Does your plan provide options for the uninsured?
PRICE: Absolutely.
In fact, I think with our plan, HR-2300, we would get more folks covered, in fact, we believe every single American, as opposed to the president's plan, which won't.
But the fact of the that is, even when the president's plan, ObamaCare, was passed, Republicans had a positive alternative that we put on the floor of the House that would have covered more individuals and would have saved resources for this nation.
And the president ignores that as well. This phony argument that there are no alternatives, that you have to put Washington in charge of our health care just isn't so. And the president knows it isn't so.
So, it's time for him to knock it off. It's time for him to recognize, as he has with fully a third of his piece of legislation already, that he himself has already delayed or provided waivers for. It's time to delay the rest of it. And then let's get together and come up with a positive, patient-centered alternative.
CAVUTO: In the meantime, as I'm sure you're aware, sir, there's a movement on the part of some Republicans, particularly in the Senate, Ted Cruz among them leading the effort, to defund the president's health care law, maybe even risk shutting the government down to force the point.
How do you feel about that?
PRICE: Well, I think the goal that we ought to have is to make certain that the American people never have to live under this law.
Now, whether that's in the continuing resolution and defunding it, whether it's in the budget, the debt ceiling debate and defunding it there or delaying for it a year, whether it's in a sole piece of legislation by itself, it doesn't make any difference to me what the tactic is as long as we get to the goal.
And the goal ought to be that the American people ought not have to live under this law, because it's a bad law, yes, but it's going to harm -- as a physician, I can tell you it's going to harm the quality of health care in our country. I'm not willing to stand by and let that happen.
CAVUTO: But you seem to be drawing a line at pushing this to shutting down the government to force the point.
PRICE: I don't think you -- I don't think you necessarily need to do that.
If that's all that we had in our armamentarium, then sure, I'm there. But that's not all we have. In fact, I'm a plan A, plan B, plan C, plan D guy. You have got to have alternatives. And I believe that the administration is going to recognize, once they see that the rollout of these exchanges on October 1 isn't going to work well, I believe that it's very possible that the administration will say, look, why don't we delay this a year?
And we would say that sounds like a good idea to us. It's what we have been calling for. And we may actually be able to do this in a bipartisan way, which certainly would be welcome to the American people.
CAVUTO: Congressman, Doctor, thank you very, very much.
PRICE: Thanks, Neil.
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