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NOONAN: ... into that. I -- I wonder. There is much to be gained if she becomes part of something that is good, but it is hard to believe a really good bill is going to come out of this.

GILLESPIE: Yes, let me just say, I think -- I have to say, I think they've been a little bit ham-handed, frankly, in their handling of Senator Snowe. I think they've been...

STEPHANOPOULOS: She's still in the game, no?

GILLESPIE: Absolutely, she's still in the game. I think others are still in the game, as well, by the way, Senators Voinovich...

STEPHANOPOULOS: Other Republicans?

GILLESPIE: Absolutely. Republicans would like to get something done on health care. They're for reform. They're just not for the reform that is coming from the left. And I think it'll be interesting to watch this bill as it moves through the committee. I suspect it moves further and further actually to the left. And we're going to...

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, it has to at this point, doesn't it? GILLESPIE: I suspect it does. And I think that brings us to a point, George -- I think it makes it very tough for Olympia Snowe at that point to try to stay with it. She has said in the past that she will not be the sole Republican to support legislation.

But let me just say, they seem to be heading toward the -- the so-called nuclear option, going to the floor and trying to jam it through in the reconciliation process. I think that is a huge threat to this president and his greatest attribute politically, which is this still aura of post-partisanship. He will become at that point a very partisan Democrat.

STEPHANOPOULOS: It's not just the...

(CROSSTALK)

NOONAN: It would be a catastrophic...

GILLESPIE: Catastrophic, I agree.

BRAZILE: But -- but let me just say this. Bipartisanship was always the goal. When you accept Republican amendments in the House and the Senate and try to bring Republicans aboard, as Chairman Baucus has tried to do, look, he took out the public option to gain Republican support. He -- he gave them interstate marketability.

GILLESPIE: A little bit.

BRAZILE: He's doing everything to try to bring Republicans along, but the Republicans don't want to come along.

REICH: You know, Mitch -- Mitch McConnell continues to say to the Republicans, "Don't go along at all." Olympia Snowe is very, very important to give cover to some of the more conservative Democrats, both in the House and the Senate.

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: ... get Democrats.

REICH: Because -- because it's -- you know, her being there basically allows them to say, well, there are some Republicans there.

George, can I just respond to the deficit point? Because there -- the third most powerful person in this town besides the president and Ben Bernanke is Doug Elmendorf, who chairs or who runs the Congressional Budget Office. And he has found the Baucus bill actually, after 10 years, has a surplus. I mean -- and he also has found that -- and he doesn't count the public insurance option at all in being...

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: But, Bob, I can see the question of George before (ph). If you -- if you -- and it might be the right thing to do, but if -- if these provisions that Jay Rockefeller and others are calling for to add money back into the bill come through, then Doug Elmendorf is going to have to make another judgment. And will he still find that the bill is deficit neutral?

REICH: No, I don't think so. I think he will -- there will have to be further cuts somewhere along the line. I wish -- and this is why I bring it up -- because the CBO in scoring, this town is filled with the arcane notions of scoring and projections and also what's on the Byrd bill and what's not. Doug Elmendorf and his crew is going to decide whether and to what extent a public insurance option or anything by -- that looks like it can be scored in terms of savings, in terms of competition...

WILL: On -- on the basis...

REICH: ... and they will find nothing, because there's no analogy.

WILL: On the basis of what experience -- and you've had a lot of Washington experience -- do you believe Congress is going to cut Medicare? REICH: I think Congress is going to not cut Medicare...

WILL: Thank you.

REICH: ... but -- wait a minute -- but it's going to put some damper on the increases in Medicare spending over time. It's going to cut...

STEPHANOPOULOS: It has to.

REICH: ... it's going to get that cost curve under control. It has to. It has to.

GILLESPIE: You know, there's a lot of focus on the Medicare aspect of this, George, but there's a big Medicaid aspect of it, too, that I think is lying in the weeds on this. And -- and the governors themselves, who are in cash crunches all across the country, this shift of a huge chunk of the federal Medicaid burden to the states, I think, is going to be one of the hidden things here that -- where people stand up and say, "Wait, we can't do that," and it's going to lead to a lot of problems in terms of that deficit number.

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