Republican Congressman Anh Cao, U.S. Representive of Louisiana, Discusses Health-Care Reform

(Music)

Mark Masselli: This is conversations on healthcare. I am Mark Masselli.

Margaret Flinter: And I am Margaret Flinter.

Mark Masselli: Margaret, I should not have been surprised that the day
after our show with Jennie Chin Hansen President of AARP I received
another AARP invitation to join up. They really want me to join. Do you
think it was the interview?

Margaret Flinter: No, I think you really qualify for membership and I am
hoping you will take them up on it but seriously AARP doesn’t miss to be.
The bigger news was the next day they came out in support of President
Obama’s healthcare reform initiative.

Mark Masselli: But remember the order from their lips to our listeners’
ears then to the president. By the way Margaret, when are we going to
have the president in our show?

Margaret Flinter: Not to worry, I will be sure and let you know and I am
working on it.

Mark Masselli: Speaking of guests who have had their president’s year,
today we are going to hear from Congressman Joseph Cao who spent a
lot of time this weekend talking with their president as he was the lone
republican who voted for the a ! ordable healthcare for America Act.

Margaret Flinter: It was a memorable moment on Saturday night
watching on C-SPAN when that one lone republican I-vote went up on the
score cards. It was really a courageous act by the congressman and he is
an amazing individual and we are looking to learning more about him
today.

Mark Masselli: We will hear a little bit about his remarkable journey from
being born in Vietnam to becoming congressman for the district that
represents New Orleans.

Margaret Flinter: We are also going to hear excerpts from the floor of the
House of Representatives it was a night when the voice of the people
really put some wind into the sale of health reform and we are going to
bring that to you today.

Mark Masselli: What an amazing event, I know why because it was on my
Facebook sharing the news as I listened on the iPhone to this historic
event.

Margaret Flinter: And knowing that you are a TV free household I was
busy emailing you trying to say get the kids to a television so they can
watch this historic event.

Mark Masselli: We did stay connected.

Margaret Flinter: And speaking of trying to stay connected let's hear
from a listener last week who commented on our Greenhouse Project.
Terry Daniher wrote in “I really enjoyed today’s program. I know the
show is being geared to our policy makers but today’s information hit
home for me. I am beginning to think about living situations in my elder
years and it was conferring to you know that there are situations being
developed that challenge that traditional convalescent home.

Mark Masselli: Thanks Terry it hit home for a lot of us who are thinking
about better ways to care for the aging of an American population.

Margaret Flinter: And just a reminder to those who can't listen to the
entire show, we have added a website it can be found at CHCRadio.com.
Click to hear all of our shows and get transcripts as well.

Mark Masselli: And if you want to give us some feedback on our show
email us at [email protected] . Now let's get an update on
healthcare headlines.

In this week’s headline news when HR 3962 reached the threshold of 218
votes on Saturday night a chair went up and congress was ready to move
on to the next battle in this year’s campaign for significant health reform.
The all members present, all gallery seats filled on Saturday night was
testimony to the historic nature of the house vote as the week began the
democrats around the o ! ensive. Former president Bill Clinton addressed
democrats in the senate at their weekly caucus meeting to tell them they
must pass healthcare legislation as soon as possible to salvage the
economy. He said healthcare reform is an economic imperative.
Meanwhile Senate Majority Leader Harry Read is waiting to get a cost
estimate for his healthcare bill from the congressional budget o " ce
before publicly unavailing it. He may bring the bills to the floor as early
as next week. While the senate has yet to even see the bill it will debate.
Democrats are already concerned the debate will be held up by issues like

the inclusion of a public option as well as abortion language in the bill.
The Stupak Amendment that was passed by the house Saturday night
prohibited the use of federal funds for abortion and it was critical to HR
3962 passage. Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska made it clear that the
senate health reform bill will face the same challenge and he said if it
doesn’t make clear that it does not fund abortion with government
money you can be sure I will vote against the bill.

Mark Masselli: This week’s news maker interview was with Congressmen
Joseph Cao who represents the second congressional district in Louisiana
but first here is a background report on Congressman Cao.

Margaret Flinter: When Congressman Joseph Cao cast his electronic iVote
for HR 3962 late Saturday night. He suddenly went from relative
unknown to perhaps the most talked about republican in America. Unlike
Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine who has kept both parties guessing
about her final decisions on the Senate Health Reform Bill, Congressman
Cao had not stated publicly that he would be voting in favor of the bill.
On Saturday night after the house passed the amendment prohibiting
federal support for abortion under the public option and after his party
leaders had given rousing condemnations of the bill he cast his iVote. He
had been clear that Public Funding for abortion would guarantee his No
Vote saying I have to live with myself. Now at 42-years-old he was born
at the high of the Vietnam War 1967 in Saigon now H ồ Chí Minh City.
That makes him the first Vietnamese born, Vietnamese American to serve
in the House of Representatives. His first foray into politics weren’t
successful. He lost a run for Louisiana House of Representative seat but
later was appointed by Governor Jindal to a seat on the Orleans Parish
Board of Election Supervisors. Clearly Hurricane Katrina was a pivotal
experience for him. In the period after Katrina he became an activist on
behalf of the victims of Katrina often going head to head with the FEMA
o " ce in New Orleans. When he got to Congress he quickly grabbed
headlines announcing that his sta ! was investigating the FEMA o " ce and
accusing them of widespread discrimination, cronyism and nepotism.
When he was elected in 2008 to represent Louisiana Second District, he
was the fist republican to represent that heavily democratic district in
over a hundred years. He defeated 9-term Democrat William Anderson
who was under indictment during the campaign and Congress’
Committee assignments or Homeland Security and Transportation and
Infrastructure. Well others in Congress have come from poor
backgrounds and made their own fortunes in the world. Congressman
Cao is cited is one of the poorest members of Congress. Congressman
Cao came to the United States as an 8-year-old refugee. His father an

o " cer in the South Vietnamese army was a Prisoner of War who
ultimately rejoined his family in America years later. Cao’s family settled
in Houston and Congressman Cao went on to distinguish himself
academically with degrees in physics, law and philosophy. He is devout
Catholic, who spends several years as a Jesuit seminarian before deciding
that the priesthood was not his vocation. And although, he distinguished
himself as an advocate for people with his work on immigration issues
particularly the Boat People of Vietnam. It was Hurricane Katrina that
seems to have given him the spark for his political ambitions and his first
month as a Congressman he was greeted warmly by the Republican
Leadership, House Minority Leader John Boehner reportedly wrote a
memo, “The Future is Cao“ but that was all before Cao’s Saturday night
vote which wasn’t so significant in terms of outcome, the democrats
already had 218 I-votes needed to assure victory, but for what it
represented the sole republican vote on an issue for which house
republican leaders have said earlier that day, not a single republican will
vote for this bill. So why did he do it? Perhaps it was a combination of
voting his conscience representing the will of his constituents and
practical politics, there was no shortage of opinion on this following his
vote. Congressman Cao represents an extremely democratic district that
went all out for President Obama in 2008. Voting against the President’s
agenda would have made for a tough reelection in his district next year.
The economists point to the changing nature of Vietnamese American
politics as another reason, saying a candidate has to appeal to the other
minority groups as well, Latino or African-American within their districts.
The Hu " ngton Post said President Obama basically bought him o ! by
promising to address problems in Cao’s district. And The Hill's Molly
Hooper reports that Cao waited to cast his vote until the moment when it
no longer mattered how he voted making it just symbolic, whatever the
reason it looks like it came as a surprise to the republican leadership and
is likely to make him one of the most watched members of Congress and
perhaps the most analyzed Louisiana politician since Huey Long for
sometime.

Mark Masselli: Joining us by phone is Congressman Joseph Cao who
represents the Second Congressional District in Louisiana. Congressman,
thank you for speaking with us today.

Congressman Joseph Cao: Thank you for having me on this show.

Margaret Flinter: Welcome Congressman. Now you are the only
republican to vote for the HR 3962 an act to provide a ! ordable quality
healthcare for all-Americans that took some courage. You have said it

was the right thing for your constituents. Tell us a little bit about what
you mean by that?

Congressman Joseph Cao: My district in the southern part of Louisiana
which comprises mainly of New Orleans and the surrounding areas. It’s a
very poor area with a lot of people who are uninsured and I believe that
we need to provide healthcare insurance for them and this bill I believe
would be able to do that. Along with that, I thought the prohibitions
against the preexisting exclusions and the other provisions on bill at
least will be a very beneficial for the people out here.

Mark Masselli: Congressman you held many town meetings with your
constituents to talk about Healthcare Reform, tell us what you heard from
them?

Congressman Joseph Cao: Mainly people convey the desire to have
Healthcare Reform after there were a few number of people who were
angry and afraid and rightly so because it’s a very complex bill. But
overall I wanted say between 60 and 70 people wanted the Healthcare
Reform and I informed them that, I was leaning towards supporting it as
long as we fixed the abortion language on the bill and I was able to push
that along with the complex _______10.25 shift and other pro-life
members of the US Congress to push for pro-life language on the bill and
once that was successful, I was able to support the Healthcare Reform
Bill.

Mark Masselli: And Congressman you have had the opportunity to talk
with President Obama. Tell us how receptive he has been to the concerns
that you have asked him to consider about the needs of your district and
your constituents?

Congressman Joseph Cao: The administration and we have had a very
strong working relationship. We have worked well together in the past
nine months to address many issues of recovery, for example just in
FEMA alone, we have been able to push out over one billion dollars in
recovery money. So I was talking to the President to encourage him to
continue working with him in the areas of the recovery. I expressed
specifically the needs of the Louisiana with the FMAP-6 with the
situations concerning Charity and Methodist as well as the issue of
community disaster loans, so he is fully aware of those issues that are of
priority for us down here.

Mark Masselli: The President has said he wants a bipartisan bill, but so
far all he has on the Republican side is yourself and Senator Snowe. Do
you have any advice for the President on the ways to further
bipartisanship on this all important Health Reform Bill?

Congressman Joseph Cao: I believe that the administration has to
encourage the Democrat leadership to involve more Republican members
in the discussions, in the debate. We have been pretty much shut out of
the conversation and I hope that the administration will encourage the
Democrat leadership to encourage the Republicans to the conversation.

Mark Masselli: This is Conversations on the Healthcare. We are speaking
with Congressman Joseph Cao, who represents the Second Congressional
District in Louisiana. Congressman Cao was the lone Republican vote as
the House of Representatives took a historic step forward in passing
healthcare legislation.

Margaret Flinter: And you know, I think one thing that everybody does
agree on is that the HR 3962 to provide a ! ordable quality healthcare for
all-Americans is a long bill, about 2000 pages and that’s not really
surprising, it covers a lot of territory. But we will be interested in hearing
what elements of the legislation stand out for you as the most important?

Congressman Joseph Cao: I thought it was important that we have the
individual mandate requiring everyone to have healthcare I believe that.
We as a country have to provide healthcare for our people and for those
that cannot a ! ord it, so we should be able to help them to subsidize
some of the expenses. I believe that the provision preventing preexisting
exclusion was an employment provision because often times, many
insurance companies try to not provide coverage for people who are sick
or at least not pay for some of the extreme expenses for them to do so,
so that I believe that provision was also very important and then the
provision, for example, allowing at least providing incentives for people
to go into the medical field because eventually we will need more medical
providers not just nurses so and so forth. Those incentives were
extremely important. So there are good things as well as there are some
things that concern me, but overall I thought, I need to just support the
bill.

Mark Masselli: Congressman, you were born in Vietnam in Saigon, now
known as Ho Chi Minh City, you have had a remarkable journey from
there to representing the Second Congressional District, which

encompasses the City of New Orleans. Can you tell our listeners a little
bit about your life journey?

Congressman Joseph Cao: Oh, yes I came over from Vietnam, when I was
8 years old with an older sister and a younger brother. I was eventually
raised by an uncle. My father was the military o " cer. He was imprisoned
after the Vietnam War for about seven years in the Reeducation Camp.
My mother stayed back in Vietnam to raise five of my sisters. I spent the
first four years of my life in Goshen, Indiana and then moved out to
Mississippi for one year and then grew up spending my middle school
and high school years in Houston. I went to college afterward joined the
Society of Jesus to become a catholic priest. I didn’t quite make it best
six years in the society in which I received my motivation to enter in the
religious life. Afterwards I left that society in 1996 and went to Virginia
for a year to teach middle school. I went to Capitol Hill to lobby for
refugee issues. I went to law school, got my own law practice, got
married have a family and decided to run for Congress.

Mark Masselli: And you are still very young, you’ve done a lot.

Joseph Cao: I am only 42, even though for a last couple of days, I feel
like 70.

Margaret Flinter: Well congratulations on all of that. And as you say, you
are a first-term congressman and certainly casting such a major and
dissenting vote from your party that’s di " cult at any phase. You have
got some good presidents in history, congressmen and women from both
sides who went against the party vote, but maintained successful careers
in the House of the Senate. What did you see most in government and in
governing, what are the key issues in addition to healthcare that you are
tracking?

Congressman Joseph Cao: The main issue in healthcare, obviously we are
down here, we need tremendous help with respect to shared
_______16:25. But overall, I believe that as a congressional member as
well as being a representative of this district, I hope to continue to be
able to give required service to this area to bring the necessary federal
funding to help rebuild this area, that has been my main focus when I
came to o " ce nine months ago and it will continue to be my main focus
for the future. So I hope to be able to give my contributions to the
people of second district and I hope that I will continue to represent them
well.

Mark Masselli: Congressman the images of Katrina are seared in our
minds. We have all read about the experiences of doctors and nurses and
patients of charity hospital and also how much of the healthcare
workforce and infrastructure was lost and may not fully return, can you
share with us your attitude towards healthcare and the needs for health
reform and how that was shaped by your Katrina experience?

Congressman Joseph Cao: Well after Katrina, obviously the big charity
system down here was destroyed. The hospitals down here were pretty
much over extended. There is a lack of community health centers and
there is a lack of medical doctors and medical nurses. This particular bill
will provide incentives for medical homes, more community-based
medical clinics, which I believe should move towards the future because
often times people show up in our emergency rooms and essentially
making medical care much more expensive than if they were to go to
community medical clinics to get minor issues addressed. So I believe
that the healthcare reform debate at least just healthcare reform bill will
provide incentives for medical homes, for community medical clinics, for
more medical providers to provide people with access to medical care
because after Katrina many people of my district did not have access to
medical care and I believe that this bill will provide at least a pathway to
get that done.

Mark Masselli: Congressman Cao, thanks so much for speaking with us
today.

Margaret Flinter: Thank you congressman.

Joseph Cao: Thank you very much.

Mark Masselli: We just heard from Congressman Cao, the most talked
about politician since he broke with his party and voted with the
democrats on Saturday night for healthcare reform.

Margaret Flinter: There were strong and eloquent voices before and
against the bill on Saturday night, we are going to hear some of those
voices and let's start with the republicans, we will hear from Minority
Leader John Boehner of Ohio and then Minority Whip Eric Cantor of
Virginia.

John Boehner: I rise in opposition to this bill. One of the issues in this
bill that is of concern to members on both sides of aisle has to do with
the sanctity of life.

Eric Cantor: There are times in this body, when we real can't tell the
di ! erence between us Republicans and you Democrats, and this is
certainly one of them. The Democrats’ solution is a 1990 page trillion
dollar overhaul of a healthcare system we know. A sweeping new
entitlement that raises taxes, cuts benefits to seniors, it spends over a
trillion dollars that we don’t have.

Mark Masselli: The republican certainly had passion in their rhetoric, but
their health proposal was ill-conceived as we hear from Representative
John Dingell who struck the gavel in the House, when it approved
Medicare in 1965.

John Dingell: I won’t begin by spending much time on the bill o ! ered by
my Republican colleagues. It is really no exception truth for HR 3962.
According to The New York Times and I think this su " ciently disposes to
the matter. The Republican amendment does almost nothing to reduce
the scandalously high number of Americans who have no interest and it
makes only a token stab at slowing the relentlessly rising costs of
medical care. Interestingly enough, under the Republic amendment
individuals would pay up to $8,821 more and families would pay $8,188
more under the Republican plan when compared with HR 3962. It's not
in the public interest that we should do that. But first is what was the
problem when my dad introduced the first legislation in 1943 that there
are now some 47 million Americans without healthcare. This will give
many of them adequate healthcare and a decent choice of what they will
have before them at the best possible price through an exchange which
will make it possible for them to choose without having to worry about
understanding the language of Philadelphia lawyers and really define
print that can only be read with a magnifying glass. Today, it’s maybe
tough vote, but it was in 1935 when we passed social security. I hear my
colleagues tell us of the economy, jobs in the financial system overhaul
desperately needed. True, but that was the case in ’35 when we pass the
social security act.

Margaret Flinter: Representative John Dingell really gave us that historical
perspective. And now the last two speakers before the vote was taken
Majority Leader is Steny Hoyer and Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Steny Hoyer: Because I want to say it to every Americans, Americans
facing down illness. Never again, never again will you be denied
coverage because you have diabetes or asthma or some other disease or
because you are pregnant or because you have anything else your insurer

decides is a preexisting condition. Never again will your coverage run
out. Never will you find that coverages all you paid for was actually not
there at all. And never again can insurance companies drive out
competition and set premiums as high as they like because there will be a
public insurance option and a transparent marketplace to keep them
honest, to keep them competitive, to bring prices down.

Nancy Pelosi: There is a cap on what you pay in, but there is no cap on
the benefits that you receive. It works for seniors, closing the doughnut
hole, o ! ering better primary care and strengthening Medicare for years to
come. It works for women presenting insurance companies for charging
women more than men for the same coverage. No longer will women,
being a woman be a preexisting medical condition.

Mark Masselli: Each week Conversations highlights a bright idea about
how to make wellness a part of our communities and everyday lives.

This week Bright Ideas looks at dance and the powerful connection
between dance, community, and health. Throughout the ages, dance has
been a pleasurable and an important community event whether around
the tribal fire, in an outdoor meadow or in a formal ballroom. In England,
the Community Dance Foundation puts dance at the forefront of its
health and well-being initiative recognizing the benefit of dance, dance
artists and practitioners work across the health sector in key ways
managing illness, health education and community development. In fact,
the National Health Services has key initiatives underway, at looking at
ways dance can prevent falls in the elderly, tackle obesity, and reduce
heart disease. The Foundation for Community Dance has a vision
statement, a world where dance is part of everyone’s life and engagement
with dance part of every community. In our own community, we have
seen the power of dance and getting people out of their houses, o ! their
couches and into smoke and alcohol free environments where they can
boogie the night away. We call it Vinnie’s Jump and Jive and it's right
here on main street Middletown. Well, it’s salsa, swing, tango or hip-
hop, it's fun, it's healthy and you cannot help and engage with some new
people. And for the kids, Vinnie has a program to bring community
dance teachers into the school, Recess Rocks. For more ideas and
starting your own dance, go to www.communitydance.org.uk or to
www.vinniesjumpandjive.com . Fun, active, engaging community dance.
Now that’s the bright idea.

Margaret Flinter: This is Conversations on Healthcare. I am Margaret
Flinter.

Mark Masselli: And I am Mark Masselli, peace and health.

Conversations on Healthcare. Broadcast from the campus of Wesleyan
University at WESU. Extremely live at www.wesufm.org and brought to
you by the Community Health Center.