Kelly Wallace: Patients' bill of rights and Macedonia

Kelly Wallace is a White House correspondent for CNN. She joined the CNN.com chat room from Washington, D.C.

CNN: Good morning Kelly Wallace. Welcome all to the political week in review chat.

WALLACE: Good morning. Good to be with you.

CNN: The patients' bill of rights will come up for a vote in the House next week. What's the president's strategy for getting a bill on his desk that he'll sign?

RESOURCES Message Board: Health care   Message Board: Macedonia

WALLACE: The president appears to be following a two-pronged strategy. One goal is to try to get more Republican support for a bill that Mr. Bush says he can sign, one that is pushed by Rep. Ernie Fletcher (R-KY), which puts more limits on a patient's right to sue his or her HMO than the bill favored by most Democrats. The second approach is to reach out to Rep. Charlie Norwood (R-GA). The president met with Rep. Norwood at the White House Thursday and called him again this morning. Norwood is one of the co-sponsors of a bill that most closely mirrors the bill which passed in the Senate and which Mr. Bush says he would veto. The strategy is to try to reach some compromise with Norwood over liability, the rights to sue in state and federal court, and the amount individuals could recover in damages.

The two sides have not reached a compromise yet, but the White House says the president is encouraged, and House Republicans say they expect the issue to come to the floor next week. So, we'll see what comes out of negotiations which are likely to continue over the weekend and into next week between Hill and White House staffers.

CHAT PARTICIPANT: Mr. Norwood looked pretty determined not to budge in the clips yesterday!

WALLACE: Rep. Norwood has said that he wants to get a patients' bill of rights signed into law this year, and he knows the president has said he can't support the Norwood-Dingell-Ganske bill in its current form. So the Georgia congressman has said that both sides are going to need to compromise some in order to get a bill signed into law. The compromise the White House sent up to the Hill on Thursday included proposals such as allowing a patient to sue in state court, but having federal rules govern damages. This does not appear to be acceptable to many Democrats. So right now, Norwood seems to be playing the role of talking to the White House and communicating what the president will do. Norwood himself has not indicated what compromises he would or would not accept but he clearly wants a bill this year and believes some compromises from both sides will be necessary to get one.

CHAT PARTICIPANT: Do you foresee more showdowns like campaign finance reform that will be pushed back to the end of the year?

WALLACE: Congress is going to recess next week, so that means a number of issues such as campaign finance reform won't be resolved before the break. Supporters of campaign finance say they will bring the issue up again, but it is not clear when that will be. So there could be a showdown on that issue. As for other issues such as energy policy and the president's faith-based agenda, lawmakers will definitely not finish up their work by next week so these issues also will be handled in September to November. Even education reform, which passed both houses of Congress, still has not been resolved in conference committee, so it will be taken up in September as well.

CHAT PARTICIPANT: Kelly Wallace, is there the slightest chance CNN could set aside maybe 5 minutes of air time to discuss the disappearance of the Education Bill and why is has disappeared ?

WALLACE: That is a good question. As I just noted above, the education bill passed in both houses but the differences between the two versions still have not been resolved, and it does not appear those differences will be resolved until lawmakers come back after Labor Day. One key issue is money. The Senate bill allocates more federal funding for education than the House bill. Both sides say they are making this a priority, but there is no chance the differences will be resolved until September.

CHAT PARTICIPANT: What has Bush done in regard to election reform?

WALLACE: The president has talked about the importance of election reform early on in his administration but he really has not spoken too much about it over the past few months. I believe his budget does include some federal money to improve the election process, but I don't have specifics. This is an issue that many states such as Florida have started to tackle. In the Congress, there have been hearings but there still has not been any legislation on the floor to deal with improving voting machines and the registration process. Democrats accuse the president of not making this a priority, while the White House says it is willing to work with Congress to deal with election reform. The bottom line is not much has happened to prevent what happened in Florida from ever happening again.

CHAT PARTICIPANT: Hi Kelly! What's the latest skinny on President Bush's stem cell decision? Why the drama?

WALLACE: The latest skinny is we just don't know when the president will announce this decision. He says he will make the decision when he is ready and that he is talking to all sides of the issue. The drama is because this is an issue that raises moral, ethical and scientific questions, and because even some anti-abortion rights supporters believe the research should go forward. You have supporters saying the research could help lead to new treatments for diseases such as Alzheimer's. Those opposed, including the Catholic Church, say using stem cells from human embryos would mean the embryos would need to be destroyed, and opponents compare this to an act of murder. And while the president says the issue is "way beyond politics," politics does play a role. If he supports federal funding of this research, he could alienate Catholics and conservatives, voters he has been trying to court for 2004. So the conventional wisdom is Bush will strike some sort of compromise, but again it is not clear what he will do or when he will do it.

CHAT PARTICIPANT: There are reports the surplus is dwindling and the military may not get what it needs. Is this true?

WALLACE: Those reports that show the surplus is dwindling are correct. Bush advisers blame this on the economic slowdown which they say started before the president entered office. They believe the president's tax cut will stimulate the economy and prevent the surpluses from decreasing even further, but also say the best way to protect the federal surplus is for Congress to exercise fiscal restraint when it comes to spending. As for the military getting what it needs, it's not clear that the Pentagon won't get the money it needs. But if the surplus continues to decrease, and if the White House holds firm against reaching into the Social Security Surplus to pay for government programs, then there won't be as much money as the White House has originally expected to pay for programs such as prescription drug coverage for seniors, revitalizing the military and building a missile defense shield. Just like the way you balance your checkbook, if there is less money in the bank, there will be less money to pay for programs for all agencies, including the Pentagon.

CNN: What is the administration saying about the safety of Americans in Macedonia?

WALLACE: That's a good question you raise, because on Thursday, the State Department issued a new travel warning, calling on all non-essential personnel at the U.S. Embassy in Skopje to leave, as well as family members of embassy staffers and U.S. citizens travelling throughout Macedonia. Also, a U.S. marine unit was sent in to beef up security around the embassy. The State Department says the situation is dangerous due to an increasing anti-foreign sentiment. This is coming after street protests on Tuesday outside Western embassies, when protesters charged NATO peacekeepers were siding with the ethnic Albanian rebels in their clashes with Macedonian security forces.

As you know, there has been fighting between the rebels and Macedonian security forces for some time. The fighting was severe earlier this week, threatening to destroy a NATO-brokered cease fire. But at this time, the rebels have pulled back to the cease-fire line, and I believe both sides plan to resume political talks on Saturday. So it is a tense situation which the administration is watching closely. A U.S. official said the State Department took these actions because it thought they were prudent based on the situation on the ground.

CNN: Any final thoughts for us today?

WALLACE: Next week should be quite busy. Look for more negotiations on a patients' bill of rights and whether the House takes up the issue and passes a bill the president can sign. Also, the House will be taking up the president's energy policy on the floor so we will see just whether lawmakers support some of the most controversial parts of his plan, including drilling for oil in Alaska's National Wildlife Refuge. Finally, it is possible the president could reveal his decision on stem cell research before he leaves for a four week stay on his ranch in Texas. I stress the word possible there because we don't know when the decision will come. So look for a busy week in Washington as the president and lawmakers try to wrap up work before recessing until after Labor Day.

CNN: Thanks Kelly! Talk to you again next week.

WALLACE: Great to be with you, and thanks for the terrific questions. See you next week.

Kelly Wallace joined the CNN.com chat room by telephone. This is an edited transcript of the interview, which took place on Friday, July 27, 2001.