From the July 24 edition of MSNBC Live with Ali Velshi:
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ALI VELSHI (HOST) That's unfair. You could actually have hearings about this and consult all these groups, what President Trump called special interest groups and one party. Why not have hearings and then come up with a bill rather than throw a bill out there and hope people like it?
LANHEE CHEN: Well Ali, we've been having hearings for the last seven years about replacement --
VELSHI: Well that's not true. Well that's just not true Lanhee. The Republicans have not moved to a single hearing. A public hearing on health care? Not been done.
CHEN: No, no no, we've had lots of hearings in the last seven years --
VELSHI: With whom?
CHEN: -- In the House Ways and means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee about all of the different types of provisions that you see contained in the senate bill.
VELSHI: But no one has had a public hearing at all on this bill. I mean that's a fact.
CHEN: But the policy that goes into it, we've had tons of public hearings on that for the last seven years. That's the point people are trying to make.
VELSHI: People would really like a hearing. I mean I have had the American Cancer Society on this show. I've had the Diabetes Association the show. I've got the American Heart Association on this show, I've had the Alzheimer's Society on the show. AARP on this show. I had every single one of them, the Nurses Association, all of them saying “Can we please have a hearing? ”Can we have a meeting with Mitch McConnell?" And guess what he says to every single one of them -- big fat goose eggs. So let's not go down this road and suggest there have been hearings, Lanhee. There here very zero hearings.
CHEN: No there have been hearings and all those groups Al have been represented at those hearing over the last several years. I don’t disagree with you a better process is good. These issues have been discussed.
VELSHI: I'm wearing a big Santa Claus hat right now. That's about as honest as what you just said, but that’s how we're gonna end the show. I'm wearing a Santa Claus hat and there have been hearings about Obamacare.
