RCP: How crazy is it on the Hill right now?

McCollum: It's crazy but it's starting to be crazy with an air of excitement that wasn't there two days ago.

RCP: When I was trying to reach you the other day, I had a hard time getting through to your congressional office because the phones were jammed. What is the ratio of calls for-to-against healthcare legislation?

McCollum: We know a lot of people are calling from other states who aren't in my district. But the people from my district, it's overwhelming support.

RCP: You hold the title Senior Whip. How many Democratic whips are there in the House?

McCollum: I don't know. I'm not the head whip, so so I don't know how many baby whips there are.

RCP: The vote is set for Sunday. Do you think that date would move if you can't get quite enough votes in time?

McCollum: Oh no, we'll vote on Sunday.

RCP: According to the last estimate I saw of prospective yes votes, pro-healthcare forces are down by at least 10, if not 15. Where do you find the remaining votes?

McCollum: Well this is what the Republicans and Democrats are doing right now. Republicans are seeing if they can find enough votes to bring healthcare down and we're confident that we'll find enough votes to bring healthcare up.

People are still going through the bill and people are very much engaged in actually reading through the bill. We've had caucuses where we've had committee staff explain things. People are really getting into the weeds on this. People are very thoughtful in making up their minds and making sure that their questions are answered. I'm confident that on whole the basis of this bill is really good – it's about getting rid of insurance abuses – and that people will be voting for it.

RCP: Worst case scenario, if it doesn't pass...

McCollum: Oh it's going to pass.

RCP: OK but if it doesn't the because pro-life Democrats stick to their guns, what will the fallout look like?

McCollum: It's going to pass because this is a prolife bill. There are a lot of people who know that there are so many Americans who are dying because they don't have access to insurance: needless suffering because people don't get to a doctor, people not having access to insurance policies to even purchase them in the first place because of preexisting conditions; people on their way into operating rooms being told “Whoops, we've changed our minds. You can't have the surgery”; people being capped on chemotherapy. We deal with people like that every day in our office who call and ask us for help. This is a pro-life bill.

RCP: The first House bill included a “public option” – that is, a government run and subsidized insurance plan that would compete with private companies. That's gone now and a lot of progressives are upset about that. What's the logic behind the House now backing a different bill that arguably gives a huge handout to the insurance companies by forcing all Americans to purchase insurance?

McCollum: I wouldn't call it a huge handout to insurance companies. We're telling insurance companies that if we are going to make sure that everyone has insurance coverage, we want to make sure that everyone has insurance coverage that's usable. So there is a quid pro quo in that.

I don't use the term government run. The government's going to set up the rules and the rules are going to be that consumers are going to have access to care when they need it when they purchase policies. The public option was going to be a way in which we had a standard benefit set very similar to to Minnesota Care. The state of Minnesota doesn't run Minnesota Care. It administers it and it makes sure that there's a basic quality level healthcare that Minnesota citizens will receive if they are using that policy.

RCP: Were you surprised to see Dennis Kucinich flip from a no vote to a yes vote this week?

McCollum: There are a lot of people who don't have what they want in this bill. And there is a lot of angst to make sure that they know, to the best of their ability, what's in the bill. But at the end of the day, with any bill – whether it's a bill on climate change or taxes or the environment – you have to weigh the pros and cons of a bill. Dennis realized – I spoke to him that evening at a dinner – that it wasn't a perfect bill, but he wasn't be wasn't going to let the perfect get in the way of doing what's good for so many people who don't have access to insurance.

A lot of people, that's what they're weighing right now. And the more that they think about it, a no vote to defeat this bill would be a setback to so many Americans who don't have insurance or who have insurance policies that they find out are worthless at times.

RCP: What are your thoughts on the “deem and pass” controversy?

McCollum: This is rules. And we have rules that have been used in this institution for hundreds of years. We have rules that both sides use. This is typical politics. When you think you might not get the vote, you want to change the rules. The Republicans want to change the rules.

RCP: Why doesn't the House just pass the Senate bill and send that to the White House?

McCollum: Trust me, no matter which of the different procedures that are available, at some point the Senate bill is in front of us. I don't think for a minute – for a minute! – that I'm not going to have an opponent that says I somehow didn't vote for the Senate bill. Of course they're going to say we voted for the Senate bill. The Senate bill is part of the reconciliation process, absolutely. Not one thinks that a fast one – I haven't spoken to one Democrat that doesn't think that they aren't going to get accused of voting for the Senate bill because it's part of the package.

RCP: Let me read you the text of a constitutional amendment that was proposed in the House last January. “Health care, including care to prevent and treat illness, is the right of all citizens of the United States and necessary to ensure the strength of the Nation.” Why did you introduce that amendment?

McCollum: I introduced that amendment because it is important to our country to not have some of the worst outcomes from maternal child health of all the industrial nations. I would like to see people vote for that because we have a country in which people have access to healthcare but they have access to healthcare through ERs, which is a more expensive way to receive healthcare. I wanted to be honest about what we are about as Americans. As Americans, if someone is injured, if someone is severely hurt, if someone needs emergency help, we as Americans reach out and help them. We see that as a moral responsibility.

We also know that we have a system in this country in which we don't get as good care as many industrialized nations have, and we have a system in which our businesses are unfairly burdened with the cost of providing healthcare. That makes us not as competitive as we should be globally. And I believed we need to have a conversation about that. But first and foremost in that conversation is, Whose interest should we be talking about in Congress? Should we be worried about the pharmaceutical companies, should we be worried about the insurance companies, or should we be worried about our fellow citizens? And that constitutional amendment goes to the heart, saying our fellow citizens should come first in any discussion.

RCP: Does that constitutional amendment have any cosponsors?

McCollum: I haven't looked at it lately because we've been moving forward on this. When this was moving down down the track, this is the train I got on.

RCP: Madame Speaker called a meeting of the female Democratic lawmakers Wednesday...

McCollum: Women. We call ourselves women. (Laughs.)

RCP: OK, what was that about?

McCollum: It was to get together because one of the biggest things that this bill is going: it's going to get rid of gender discrimination. This is huge.

RCP: How is it going to do that?

McCollum: Think of your mother, your grandmother, or sister and aunt, women you went to college with, people who are friends of yours now. Right now, insurance companies can charge women a higher rate.

Insurance companies can call pregnancy a preexisting condition. A woman who has filled out a police report because she might have been assaulted on a campus, or maybe assaulted by a partner, can be denied insurance because the insurance companies – and I have the facts to prove this up – will say, “You're more likely to wind up in the ER. You might cost me more money. You've been a victim of  domestic violence. We won't insure you.” We're putting an end to that and we were together to celebrate the fact that this puts an end to gender discrimination. I'm very very excited about it for my daughter and for all of the women in this country.

RCP: When you ran for office, a big deal was made of the fact that you were only the second woman elected to Congress from Minnesota. Now you have not only Amy Klobuchar but Michelle Bachman as well. What's it like to have not only more women in your delegation but also a greater diversity of views?

McCollum: Isn't that great! I mean voters speak and there's Amy and there's Michelle and there's myself and I think it goes to show that women are independent spirits the same way men are.