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Grassley: Healthcare 'Nuclear Option' Will Raise Taxes, Deplete Medicare

Democrats will either use the “nuclear option” to enable a vote on healthcare with the support of only 50 senators or accept a compromise bill, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, tells Newsmax.TV.

Ordinarily, 60 votes are needed in the Senate to end a filibuster and begin voting on a bill. But it’s possible to use a legislative procedure known as "budget reconciliation," which requires a simple majority of 50 votes.

That reconciliation has been called the “nuclear option.”

In an interview with Newsmax.TV’s Ashley Martella, Grassley said, “I haven’t heard talk about reconciliation, but I wouldn’t preclude that if they don’t get the 60 votes they need. … It’s a shotgun behind the door.”

See Video: Sen. Chuck Grassley talks about the healthcare “nuclear option” that could cripple U.S. medical care - Click Here Now

Healthcare reform represents President Obama’s most important priority, Grassley points out. “There’s always a great deal of pressure for a president to win on his No. 1 issue, particularly the first year in office.”

As a result, “If they don’t get the 60 votes, I think you either have a nuclear option or you have a compromise,” Grassley told Martella. “The compromise would be anything that allows the president to declare victory, even if it only consists of coverage for H1N1 flu vaccines.”

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Grassley voiced plenty of criticism over the Democrats’ reform plan. Insurance premiums will rise 10 to 13 percent for people on individual rather than group plans, he said.

“They’re taxing Americans $500 billion, and they are taking $464 billion out of Medicare to give subsidies to other people,” Grassley said. “That’s about 7 percent of people who would benefit that the other 93 percent of people are paying for. So you can see when premiums go up for individuals, they tax 93 percent of the people to keep other people’s premiums down, this is really quite a charade.”

And the Medicare cuts are hurtful, Grassley says. “The Medicare trustees already say Medicare will be broke by 2017,” he explains.

“So you have to think about the legitimacy of taking money out of Medicare … and putting it into a brand new program that subsidizes people who don’t have health insurance,” Grassley said.

“Just stop to think of it: if you were 65 to 85 year old and you’ve been paying payroll taxes into the Medicare trust fund, wouldn’t you think it’s a little illegitimate to take money out of a trust fund to set up a program for people who didn’t buy insurance?” Grassley said. “Wouldn’t you expect them to assume their own responsibility for that?”

Many young people will suffer too, with rising premiums, Grassley said. “It’s quite a penalty.”

He’s concerned about $155 billion that will be taken away from hospitals. “We have a hard time keeping hospitals open in rural America, and it’s going to cause some of those hospitals probably to close.”

Grassley’s also opposed to the idea of making people buy insurance. “This is in fact the first time in the 225-year history of our country that anybody said you had to buy anything.” Grassley countered the oft-used argument that states force people to buy car insurance by pointing out that states have far more power under the 10th Amendment than the federal government does.

Grassley also lambasted Democrats for refusing to consider tort reform that would protect doctors, nurses and hospitals from frivolous lawsuits that have crippled the practice of medicine.

“Can you believe it: there are Democrats who are defending no tort reform,” Grassley said. “How can you defend anything when the increased cost of medicine, about 10 percent of the cost of medicine, is just because doctors give you a because they’re afraid you’re going to sue them and they want to protect themselves from lawsuits.”

The math is simple on tort reform, Grassley said: “Ten percent of 2.3 trillion dollars is 230 billion dollars and that’s real money being wasted.”

There is one area where the Iowa senator offered support for Obama: his Afghanistan policy.

Grassley is pleased to see Obama following through on his campaign promise with respect to Afghanistan, though he is disappointed the president took so long to finalize his strategy.

“I think I ought to compliment the president for doing the right thing,” he said.