WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell appeared on CNN’s ‘State of the Union’ this morning. The following are excerpts from the program:

On a bipartisan approach to health care reform:
“We'd like to start over with a genuine bipartisan approach, and let me give you the kinds of things we ought to be able to do. We know that we're losing billions of dollars every year in junk lawsuits against doctors and hospitals. We don't see any kind of legal-abuse reform in any of these proposals. Everybody's excited about prevention. We've seen the example of the Safeway company where the CEO there has incentivized his employees to target their own decisions: quit smoking, fight obesity, check your cholesterol, your high blood pressure, exercise. They've actually incentivized their employees to engage in that kind of behavior and brought down the cost of their health insurance. In addition to that, we know we have an access problem because of the rising costs; cost and access are the two big problems. Equalize the tax code, make it possible for an individual who purchased insurance to deduct that cost just like a corporation can in providing health insurance. Those are the kinds of things that would dramatically move us in the right direction.”

“I don't know a single member of my conference in the Senate, not one, who doesn't want to pass health care reform…what I think is right for Senate Republicans to be doing is to try to get health care fixed, to do it the right way for the American people and let the politics take care of itself next year.”

On bipartisan opposition to partisan health care proposals:
“Let's look at the plans actually out there, John. the House bill and Senate HELP Committee bill. They pay for it by cutting doctors, cutting hospitals, and raising taxes on small business—those are very difficult pay-fors and they're having a hard time selling it to their own members. The only thing bipartisan about the measures so far, is the opposition to them.”

On a government-run health care plan:
“I think I can pretty safely say there aren't any Senate Republicans who think a government plan is a good idea… and, you know, it's interesting, the Democrats are having a hard time selling it to their own members, as well.”
“They can't sell it to their own members. As I said a minute ago, the only thing bipartisan so far is the opposition to it. At some point they understand that in order to comfort their own members and to have broad support among the American people, it will need to be bipartisan. So far, they have produced a measure that they cannot sell even to their own members.

On Stimulus and its resulting debt:
“I think the stimulus was a big mistake, I think we can fairly safely declare it now a failure. It was sold to us as something that was going to jolt the economy, that was going to hold unemployment to 8 percent; unemployment's going over 10 percent.”

“The deficit this year's going to be $1.8 trillion. To put that in context, we're going to have a bigger deficit this year than the last five years together. The budget that they passed looking to the future doubles the national debt in five and triples it in 10. I think the administration's off on the wrong foot. I’d like to see him come back to the political middle, meet us there, and solve these problems for the American people.”