No-Confidence Vote: Why Americans Don't Think Congress Understands the Health Care Bill

This is a rush transcript from "On the Record," October 1, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: This just in. You have a very low opinion of Congress. Now, according to a new poll, only 22 percent of voters think members of Congress will understand what's in the new health care reform bill before they vote on it. Is that why support for health care reform is slipping, because voters don't think Congress knows what is going on?

Joining us live is Dick Morris, author of the book "Catastrophe." Dick, wow! Those numbers -- those are sort of bleak, don't you think, for Congress, rather bleak that no one thinks they're -- I mean, a huge portion of the country thinks they won't understand the bill?

DICK MORRIS, DICKMORRIS.COM: I like the other stat, which said that you would do just as well picking the members of Congress out of a phone book...

(LAUGHTER)

MORRIS: ... as with electing them.

VAN SUSTEREN: Yes, 42 percent -- I picked up that one, too, and marked it on a card -- 42 percent of voters say a group of people randomly selected from the phone book would be a better -- would do a better job than the current Congress.

MORRIS: That's how they did it in ancient Greece. There weren't elections. It was like serving on a jury, and they changed the Congress every year. Maybe we should do that!

VAN SUSTEREN: But you know, it's sort of interesting when you look at these numbers, is that if they're not going to read the bill at all, then how in the world do they know that they're making an informed or good decision (INAUDIBLE) they're just guessing? And are we really sending them to Washington to just guess? Now, Governor Huckabee's going to be up in a second, but these numbers are appalling, I think, what the American people think of Congress.

MORRIS: They are, and they're basically right. I mean, you couldn't read the stimulus bill. It was a thousand pages long and millions of projects. In the health care bill, there's stuff buried in it all the time. I just recently focused on the fact that he's going to take -- Obama's going to take 10 million old people who now get a program called Medicare Advantage, where they get chronic care and preventive care and hearing aids and dental and visual, and he's going to eliminate them. And he's going to force them to go into Medigap coverage, and Medigap costs them $100 a month than Medicare Advantage does.

And you know why he's doing it? Because the AARP doesn't offer Medicare Advantage, but they do sell Medigap and they want to force people into Medigap so AARP can make money. That one's buried so deeply in the bill, it took me a week or two to find it.

VAN SUSTEREN: Well, you know what's sort of curious is that there are people who have taken sides on this in Congress, and of course, out among the people, and of course, nobody's even seen the bill. I mean, we haven't seen the Senate bill. It doesn't even exist, I'm told. We're sort of, like, debating and taking sides on things that...

MORRIS: Right.

VAN SUSTEREN: ... doesn't even exist, which is sort of an interesting phenomenon. But with -- at least for the health care reform bill, the poll that was taken, 41 percent favor, 56 oppose.

MORRIS: Right.

VAN SUSTEREN: How in the world can a member of Congress vote for a bill with those stunning numbers, if 56 percent oppose it?

MORRIS: And Greta, it's worse among the elderly -- 33 support, 59 oppose. And half of all medical services go to the elderly, so their opinion ought to count for something.

But you know what I think is going on here, Greta? It's a different trend. It's a new trend. And it's actually something that we predicted in the book "Catastrophe." The electorate is moving to the right. Abortion is 10 points more conservative than it was last year. The Republican Party is 5 percent stronger than it was at election time, the generic ballot, the percent of people say they're concerned about big government.

But while that's happening, Obama is moving to the left. He's moving to the left on all kinds of issues, and in particular, hunkering down within the Senate for a left-wing program on health insurance. So why is he doing that? Why is he moving to the left, when the country is moving to the right? And I think the answer, which we write about, is that as the country turns him down, as Republicans and independents say, I don't approve of him, I'm not going to support him, he becomes more and more dependent on every last Democrat. And as a result, he ends up moving to the left to satisfy his party because he's more or less given up satisfying the country.

VAN SUSTEREN: But -- but...

MORRIS: He has a favorability rating now of 47. He got 52 percent of the vote. So everybody who voted against him is against him still, and he's kind of given up appealing to them and is hunkering down on the left in his party, just like Clinton did in '93 and '94. And it was predictable.

VAN SUSTEREN: Well, if he's moving to the left, why has he sort of, like -- he's got two problems, I mean, two -- he's got a lot issues on his plate, but I mean political problems. One is the "Don't ask, don't tell," which was promised to many people in the military. That hasn't happened, and now we're into October. And that was one of the sort of the things that he'd promised in the beginning. Another thing is that he was going to close Gitmo by January of this coming -- of this coming year. And maybe it'll happen, but I -- they're already starting to backpedal and sort of warn the base that that's not going to happen, his base.

MORRIS: Yes, but...

VAN SUSTEREN: So you know, is he -- is he truly going to the left? Because those two issues are important to the left.

MORRIS: Yes, but he's doubled the size of the deficit, more than doubled the size of the deficit. He's driven up the national debt enormously. He's just about to spend $35 billion -- I don't know if you can believe this or not -- on new subprime loans. He's going to go back to the people that have defaulted and say, Hey, I know you can't put any down payment down, but here's a below-market loan anyway. And it'll set up the same catastrophe -- to coin a phrase! -- that we had going into this recession.

All of his programs are -- the health reform program, where he's basically taking money away from Medicare and spending it on a whole range of new social services by the government. It's -- it's -- it's really a left-wing presidency in much the same way that Bill Clinton moved to the left in '93 and '94 because he was unable to get traction on the center and on the right.

VAN SUSTEREN: Well, that must...

MORRIS: And look at his -- look at his failure to attack ACORN. Look at his saying on ACORN, I'm not following that debate. I mean, come on.

VAN SUSTEREN: But -- but that must -- must really have some Democrats on the Hill who have to face midterm elections quite nervous because that - - you know, a lot of those things are unappealing. There -- you know, there does seem to be a groundswell of people who, whether they support ACORN or not, they certainly are suspicious it ought to be looked at.

MORRIS: Well...

VAN SUSTEREN: And to align yourself with ACORN, you know, is not, you know, a particularly strong political position at this point.

MORRIS: Well, a lot of those Democrats, Greta, are more fearful of primary fights from the left than Republican challengers from the right. Let me give you an example, Gillibrand, the appointed senator from New York who took Hillary Clinton's place. New York's going to be a Democratic state. It doesn't look like the Democrats will lose that seat. But Gillibrand could have a primary from the left that could defeat her, and in a primary, you need ACORN because they're going to be the ground troops.

VAN SUSTEREN: We only have 30 seconds left. But what about, you know, Senator Bill Nelson down in Florida, with a very senior population who probably don't like this health care bill? I mean, doesn't that -- doesn't the opposite problem down there put him at risk?

MORRIS: Well, he ought to be at risk, but he hasn't deviated one iota from supporting this bill and the Medicare cuts. He hasn't deviated from supporting the $500 billion in Medicare cuts. We're going to be -- the group called the League of American Voters is going to be running a 10- second ad in Florida saying, Senator Nelson, don't cut Medicare by $500 billion. I need my Medicare.

You can go to DickMorris.com and you can give money to that group to run those ads. We have to do that because he is betraying the elderly, who are a quarter of his electorate.

VAN SUSTEREN: Well, we'll have to see how he votes on this one, but he's got some -- some talking to do down -- down south. Anyway, Dick, thank you.

MORRIS: Thank you, Greta.

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