RACHEL MADDOW: Joining us now, just out of the finance committee hearing room is the senior senator from the state of New York, Charles Schumer.

Senator Schumer, thank you so much for helping us break this story.

Thanks for joining us.

SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: Good evening, Rachel.

MADDOW: What‘s going to happen tomorrow in your committee with these public option amendments?

SCHUMER: Well, tomorrow is really the first day of the fight. It won‘t be the last. We are going to offer-Senator Rockefeller and myself two public option amendments, and have a finance committee vote. Your viewers should know that this is the beginning of the fight, because the finance committee is more conservative than the Senate as a whole, the finance Democrats tend to come from rural and redder states.

We‘ll then move to the floor of the Senate, where the public option has a better chance than in the finance committee, and then we‘ll move to conference committee with the House where it has a better chance still, because the House has been very strong.

And my prediction is that, at the end of the day, we will have some form of public option and a good form of public option in the final bill. Tomorrow‘s fight-to be honest with you-is uphill, given the membership of the finance committee, but we want to start the debate, because the more the public hears what the public option really is, the more they like it.

MADDOW: Why do you think that getting senators in the finance committee on the record, starting tomorrow, on the public option is a first step toward getting one in the final bill? Do you think that people voting right now is the best strategy?

SCHUMER: Well, we do, because the way the public option is snuffed, we all know the insurance industry doesn‘t like it. It brings real competition to them in a way that no one else does. Right now, in most markets, you have two or three insurance companies, and nobody else. And the public option, not having to make a profit, that‘s about 10 percent, 12 percent of the income. Not having to do all this advertising and merchandising, that‘s another 10 percent to 20 percent of the income. We‘ll have a real advantage.

But the public doesn‘t know it-or propaganda from the right and from the insurance industries has convinced people they‘re going to be forced to get rid of their present health care and go to, quote, "a government plan." It‘s an option. And you have the option to go to a public option. Even if you stay in a private insurance, and you prefer that, the public option will make it better, because it will force the insurance companies to bring the cost down.

And so, by having this discussion with the nation‘s eyes focused on the finance committee and on the debate, we‘re going to win this fight. If we were just doing one vote at the end of the day, the insurance industry would probably be able to snuff it out. But you keep doing it, building up support-we have a good chance of winning.

MADDOW: Your public option bill and Senator Rockefeller‘s public option bill are different. They‘re both for the public option. But they have different approaches.

SCHUMER: Yes.

MADDOW: Will you vote for both amendments?

SCHUMER: Yes. I will.

Senator Rockefeller‘s is stronger, it‘s more like Medicare. I would prefer it, frankly. But my amendment called the "level playing field" option is the one that probably has the chance of winning tomorrow in the finance committee and elsewhere. And if we were to get a public option in the finance committee-as I said, it‘s an uphill but hardly a forlorn or lost fight-that would guarantee that there be a public option in the final bill, because of the five committees that have dealt with health care, four have put public options in their bill.

MADDOW: So, it‘s-since you‘re the senator from New York, I can make this lame joke, but if it can make it there, it can make it anywhere.

(LAUGHTER)

SCHUMER: You betcha.

MADDOW: One last question for you, if, we tend at the end of the day, what does get voted on, what you‘re voting on with the full Senate is a health reform bill that doesn‘t contain a public option, will you say now that you vote against that? That would do a lot to add pressure to the-to the forces that want a-that want a public option in the bill.

SCHUMER: Right. Well, those of us who are in the lead on health care have decided we‘re not going to draw a line in the sand, but we‘re certainly not going to say we will vote for a bill without a public option. We‘re fighting hard for the public option.

Obviously, you have to look at the overall bill. What are the affordability provisions, how does it treat middle class workers, how does it treat the states with Medicaid? How does it treat children? And make an overall judgment.

But public option will be very important to me in deciding whether to vote for final passage.

MADDOW: We‘ll know a lot more about whether that‘s going to happen based on what starts tomorrow.

Senator Chuck Schumer, thank you for your time tonight. I know you‘re busy right now. Cheers!

SCHUMER: Good to talk to you. Thanks. Bye-bye.