TRANSCRIPT: ABC News/Facebook/WMUR Republicans Debate

GIBSON: We have an expression in television: We get in the weeds. We're in the weeds now on this.

(CROSSTALK)

GIBSON: Let me just -- one point. Yes or no, in your national plan, would you mandate people to get insurance?

ROMNEY: I think my plan is a good plan that should be adopted by other states. I wouldn't tell every state...

GIBSON: In your plan, would you mandate...

ROMNEY: I would not mandate at the federal level that every state do what we do. But what I would say at the federal level is, "We'll keep giving you these special payments we make if you adopt plans that get everybody insured." I want to get everybody insured.

GIBSON: OK.

ROMNEY: In Governor Schwarzenegger's state, he's got a different plan to get people insured. I wouldn't tell him he has to do it my way.

But I'd say each state needs to get busy on the job of getting all our citizens insured. It does not cost more money.

GIBSON: I want to give Governor Huckabee a little time. Then we've got to go.

HUCKABEE: OK.

I think it's important to realize that the issue is not just insurance. The issue is that the whole model of our health-care system is upside down.

We really don't have a health-care system. We have a disease- care system. And the insurance model that we use, we act like that if we insured everybody, we've fixed it.

We haven't. Because the real problem is that our model, both in the insurance model and the health-care model, waits until people are catastrophically ill before it intervenes.

HUCKABEE: And we really have to change the concept to a preventive focus rather than an intervention focus.

And that means the entire system starts working on health and wellness, because 80 percent of the $2 trillion that we spend on health care goes to chronic disease.

We could prevent it or we could cure it, but we don't. So it's not an issue of there's not enough money to cover people.

But if a real health care system exists, it has three components: It has affordability, it has quality, and it has accessibility.

And if it doesn't have those elements, it's not a system; it's a maze. And what we have in America is a health care maze. It's built on the idea that we wait until people are so desperately ill that the cost to try to fix them is catastrophic and out of control.

And no wonder we have a system that needs major, major attention.

And by the way, just out of due respect, you said $1,000 for a repair.

HUCKABEE: It's about $1,000 for a Kleenex at a hospital anymore.

(LAUGHTER)

And that's why we need to have a totally different system that keeps you from going to the hospital in the first place.

(CROSSTALK)

GIULIANI: Charlie, a health savings account actually helps to accomplish what the governor is talking about.

If somebody can put aside -- and the plans that we've been talking about include a health savings account. You'd have an exemption up to $15,000. If you could find a policy for $11,000, you can have a $4,000 health savings account.

You would be able to buy some of your health care and your prevention yourself. It gives you an incentive over a lifetime to deal with wellness.

GIBSON: And I've got to go.

But Senator McCain has talked a lot about controlling costs, and you bring up the issue in controlling costs. And all the experts say to me, Look, if you're going to control costs, you got to do three things. You're going to limit access to technology, you're going to limit, in some way, change the reimbursement system for doctors and hospitals, or you're going to have to limit the amount of treatments. That's the only way we can bring costs down.

And that's the third rail of health care. Which of you is going to touch any of that?

HUCKABEE: Charlie, that's not at all the way it is. The fact is, if you had...

(CROSSTALK)

GIBSON: Yes, it was directed to you.

(LAUGHTER)

MCCAIN: I think that there's additional choice here: a choice of having outcome-based treatment.

MCCAIN: There are five major diseases that consume 75 percent of health care costs in America. If someone has diabetes, we should give the health care provider a certain amount of money and say, "Care for that patient. And if, at the end of that period of time, and that patient is well, we'll give you a reward." Rather than every test, every procedure, every MRI.

And we need walk-in clinics, and we need community health care, and we need incentives for home health care as opposed to long-term care.

In my state of Arizona, we adopted a proposal which incentivizes health care providers to keep people in home health care settings -- dramatically less expensive than long-term care.

In Arizona, we have one-half the number, per capita, of people in long-term care facilities as the state of Pennsylvania.

Incentives to keep costs down, Charlie. There are no incentives in the system today.

Could I just mention one other thing? Both the attorney general of South Carolina -- I don't know why I mention South Carolina...

GIBSON: Because there's a primary there.

(LAUGHTER)

MCCAIN: ... and the attorney general of Iowa -- and I don't -- well, anyway...

GIBSON: That's too late.

MCCAIN: ... have sued the pharmaceutical companies because of overcharging of millions of dollars of Medicaid costs to their patients.

MCCAIN: How could that happen? How could pharmaceutical companies be able to cover up the cost to the point where nobody knows? Why shouldn't we be able to reimport drugs from Canada?

It's because of the power of the pharmaceutical companies. We should have pharmaceutical companies competing to take care of our Medicare and Medicaid patients.

ROMNEY: OK, don't leave me. Don't send the pharmaceutical companies into the big bad guys.

MCCAIN: Well, they are.

ROMNEY: No, actually they're trying to create products to make us well and make us better, and they're doing the work of the free market.

And are there excesses? I'm sure there are, and we should go after excesses. But they're an important industry to this country.

But let me note something else, and that is the market will work. And the reason health care isn't working like a market right now is you have 47 million people that are saying, "I'm not going to play. I'm just going to get free care paid for by everybody else." That doesn't work.

Number two, the buyer doesn't have information about what the cost or quality is, or different choices they could have. If you take the government out of it to a much greater extent, you'd get it to work like a market and it will rein in cost.

GIBSON: I've got to call a halt. We're going to take a commercial break. We'll come back. I'm going to be joined by Scott Spradling from WMUR, and we're going to go to some more direct questions.

Stay with us: The Republican debate continues from Manchester.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

GIBSON: For the second 45 minutes of this debate, I'm going to be joined by Scott Spradling, who is political director of our station, WMUR, here in Manchester, New Hampshire.

And I would say, during that three-minute break, that all of the candidates headed for the wings, and I thought it might just be the two of us here for the last 45 minutes.

(LAUGHTER)

And I'm so relieved...

(LAUGHTER)

... to say that they all came back: Senator McCain, Senator Thompson, Congressman Paul, Governor Romney, Governor Huckabee, Mayor Giuliani, it's good to have all of you with us.

We're going to do some more direct questions. We've got tally lights this time. We're going to limit you in the length of your answers. And if you want to respond, in these first questions, you're certainly welcome to do so.

Why don't you start, Scott?

SPRADLING: Senator McCain, good evening.

MCCAIN: Good evening, Scott.

SPRADLING: I'm struck by the fact that we're on the St. Anselm campus. And a few months, you took some hits in a debate that you had here with your fellow Republicans on the issue of illegal immigration and your views.

Since that debate...

MCCAIN: I shouldn't have come back.

(LAUGHTER)

SPRADLING: Since that debate, sir, you've told voters, "I hear you." You've acknowledged some of these complaints.

And there's more talk, I know, from you, about stronger borders. That's a big focus in this debate.

But fundamentally, I'm wondering, don't you still have the same plan for a path to citizenship that you fundamentally held months ago?

MCCAIN: Sure. But the fact is that the American people have lost trust and confidence in government, and we have to secure the borders first.

MCCAIN: I come from a border state. I've very aware of the challenges we face and the impact of illegal immigration. So, we will secure the borders first. As president, I will have the border state governors certify that those borders are secure.

And, of course, in the course of our debates and discussions and -- with Secretary Chertoff, he said that there's 2 million people who are in this country illegally who have committed crimes. Those people have to be deported immediately.

And I do believe we need a temporary worker program. One with an employee -- employment -- electronic employment verification system and tamper-proof biometric documents, so that the only document and that system (inaudible) can an employer legally hire somebody, and any employer who employs someone in any other way will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

MCCAIN: Now, I want to say again, this is a national security issue. We have to secure our borders.

But I want to say again, these are God's children. We have to address it in as humane and compassionate an issue as possible. But we have to respect our nation's security requirements.

So I think that it's time Republican and Democrat sat down together and resolved this issue. Because if you've got broken borders, and if you have 12 million people here illegally, then, obviously, you have de facto amnesty.

It is a federal responsibility. The federal government must act. I will act as president.

GIBSON: We got the tally lights this time.

Governor?

MCCAIN: Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Charlie.

GIBSON: That's all right.

ROMNEY: I disagree fundamentally with the idea that the 12 million people who've come here illegally should all be allowed to remain in the United States permanently, potentially some of them applying for citizenship and becoming citizens, others just staying permanently.

I think that is a form of amnesty, and that it's not appropriate. We're a nation of laws.

(CROSSTALK)

ROMNEY: Our liberty is based upon being a nation of laws. I would welcome those people to get in line with everybody else who wants to come here permanently.

ROMNEY: But there should be no special pathway to permanent residency or citizenship for those that have come here illegally.

I welcome legal immigration. Of course we need to secure the border. We need to have an employment verification system with a card to identify who's here legally and not legally. We need to have employer sanctions that hire people that then don't have the legal card.

But with regards to those already here, it is simply not right and unfair to say they're going to all get to stay, where there are people around the world who've been waiting in line to come to this country. They should have the first chance.

(CROSSTALK)

MCCAIN: Scott, can I respond to that?

SPRADLING: I have a question for both you and the mayor, and I'd like to give it to the mayor first.

Mayor Giuliani, a point of specificity here. Do you believe that the illegals that have been identified in the U.S. need to leave the United States and reapply for citizenship to come back into the country? And if so, for how long?

GIULIANI: What I believe should happen is we should stop illegal immigration at the border, and we should begin doing it now.

GIULIANI: We should erect a fence. We should erect a technological fence. We should expand the Border Patrol. We should have a BorderStat system. We should have a rule that you cannot come into the United States without identifying yourself, which, after all, is the rule in every other country just about.

And then we should operate that for two, three, four years, change behavior. And then we should take that system, with a tamper- proof I.D. card, which would be used for people coming into this country, and what we should do with the people that are here.

First of all, right now, our priorities should be -- since you can't throw out all 12 million people, whether Governor Romney would like to do that or not or anybody else would, you just can't do it. It's not physically possible to do.

I would focus on the illegal immigrants that are here who have committed crimes. They should be given priority. That's a number we can deal with. That's a number we can throw out.

GIULIANI: Then what I would do with the people that are here, when you had a good system in place -- and I believe my plan is the best plan for doing that, and these are the kinds of things I achieved in the other jobs that I've had in my life, as mayor and associate attorney general -- I think what you would do then is, you would say to the 12 million people that are here, come forward, get a tamper- proof I.D. card, get fingerprinted, get photographed.

If they don't come forward, then you throw them out of the country. The ones who do come forward would have to pay taxes. They'd have to pay fines.

If you pay fines, it is not amnesty. They would not get ahead of anybody else. They'd be at the back of the line. But then they could eventually become citizens, so long as they could read English, write English and speak English.

SPRADLING: Thank you.

MCCAIN: Let me just say, I've never supported amnesty.

A few nights ago, Joe Lieberman and I had a town hall meeting together. It was a rather unusual event. The issue came up. Joe Lieberman said, John McCain has never supported amnesty, and anybody says that he does is a liar, is lying.

Now, no better authority than Governor Romney believed that it's not amnesty because two years ago, he was asked, and he said that my plan was, quote, "reasonable, and was not amnesty."

It's a matter of record.

SPRADLING: Governor, you want to explain your ad?

ROMNEY: Yes, absolutely, which is what he describes is technically true, which is his plan does not provide amnesty because he charges people $5,000 to be able to stay.

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ROMNEY: And that, technically...

MCCAIN: That's not true. That's not complete response to it.

And, Governor Romney, it was explained to you and you said it was reasonable and not amnesty. You can look it up.

(CROSSTALK)

ROMNEY: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Let me have a chance.

(CROSSTALK)

ROMNEY: Rudy, let me have a chance to finish, OK? Then you'll get your chance.

I saw your plan, along with Senator Cornyn's plan and the Bush plan; I said they were all reasonable. And I said I would study them and decide which one to endorse, and I endorsed none of them, as you know, Senator.

Number two, your plan, I said, is not technically amnesty because it provides for a penalty for people to be able to stay...

MCCAIN: It provides for more than a penalty.

ROMNEY: OK. Would you describe what else it has, besides a penalty?

MCCAIN: Sure. Fine, learn English, back of the line behind everybody else -- pretty much what Rudy just described.

ROMNEY: OK, great. So it has a...

MCCAIN: So that we can address the issue.

ROMNEY: Fine. Unless you pay $5,000...

MCCAIN: It's not amnesty. And for you to describe it as you do in the attack ads, my friend, you can spend your whole fortune on these attack ads, but it will won't be true.

(UNKNOWN): May I...

ROMNEY: No, no, no, no. I get a chance to respond to this.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

GIBSON: (inaudible)

ROMNEY: I don't describe your plan as amnesty in my ad. I don't call it amnesty.

What I say is -- and you just described what most people would say is a form of amnesty. Yes, they pay $5,000, their background is checked, they have to learn English.

But your view is everybody who's come here illegally today, other than criminals, would be allowed -- when they speak English and get $5,000 payment and they get a background check, they're allowed to stay forever.

MCCAIN: Look, I don't...

ROMNEY: That's your plan, and that plan, in my view, is not appropriate.

Those people should be invited to get in line outside the country with everybody else who wants to come here, but they should not be given a special right to stay here...

MCCAIN: There is no special right associated with my plan.

ROMNEY: ... for the rest of their lives.

MCCAIN: I said should they should not be in any way rewarded for illegal behavior.

ROMNEY: Are they sent home?

MCCAIN: They have to get in line behind everybody else.

ROMNEY: Are they sent home? Are they sent home?

MCCAIN: Some of them are, some of them are not depending on their situation.

ROMNEY: The last bill you put forward...

MCCAIN: If a woman who has been here for eight years...

ROMNEY: I'm sorry -- the last bill...

MCCAIN: ... and has a son fighting in Iraq...

ROMNEY: Senator, the last bill you put forward...

MCCAIN: ... I'm not interesting in calling her up, calling up her son and telling I'm deporting his grandmother.

This has to be...

(CROSSTALK)

THOMPSON: Didn't you say Republicans were making a terrible mistake if they were separating themselves with President Bush on the illegal immigration issue?

ROMNEY: No, that was quoted in A.P. It happened to be wrong.

Let me -- let me -- let me...

(LAUGHTER)

MCCAIN: You're always misquoted.

ROMNEY: It was -- that does happen from time to time. But let me -- it does actually.

MCCAIN: When you change issues -- positions on issues from time to time, you will get misquoted.

(LAUGHTER)

ROMNEY: Senator, is there a way to have this about issues and not about personal attacks? I hope so, because I think we have some differences in issues.

MCCAIN: I do, too. I do, too.

ROMNEY: And let me tell you, the issue that's at stake here is, do the people who come here illegally, the 12 million -- are they allowed to stay in this country the rest of their life?

And the final bill you put forward in the United States Senate was...

MCCAIN: The answer is...

(CROSSTALK)

ROMNEY: Can I complete?

MCCAIN: The answer is, we were still negotiating, we were debating, we were saying that some people have to go back to the country that they came from before they came here...

ROMNEY: I'm sorry, there was a Z visa. The Z visa was given to everybody...

(CROSSTALK)

MCCAIN: ... that some people have to go back.

First, as Rudy said, we have to round up the 2 million who have committed crimes and deport them immediately.

ROMNEY: Let's not divert.

MCCAIN: And that is not amnesty for anyone.

GIBSON: Well, I don't want to divert. Let me come back to your plan.

(CROSSTALK)

GIBSON: Is it practical to take 12 million people and send them out of the country? Is it practical?

ROMNEY: The answer is no. The answer is no.

So, here's how my plan works.

One, it says to those 12 million people, they do not have the right, as they would under the final Senate plan, to receive a Z visa, which was renewable indefinitely. That meant these people could stay in the country forever. That was what the plan did, and that's why talk radio and the American people went nuts.

MCCAIN: (inaudible) that's not the plan.

ROMNEY: Senator, you look up your Z visa, it is renewable indefinitely. Every legal -- every illegal alien got to stay in the country forever, other than those that committed crimes.

GIBSON: Go ahead.

GIULIANI: Charlie, if Ronald Reagan were here, who we all invoke, who would grab the microphone, say, "It's my microphone, I paid for it."

GIULIANI: And Ronald Reagan did amnesty. He actually did amnesty. I think he'd be in one of Mitt's negative commercials.

(LAUGHTER)

And he is the hero of our party.

None of us, none of us has a perfect record on immigration because this is a very complicated problem. The thing that we have to do is we have to decide who has the best plan among all of us for fixing illegal immigration.

You got to stop it at the border. You got to stop it cold at the border. And then you have to have a rational system.

It is not amnesty. If you charge -- I did this more in my life than I did politics, meaning law enforcement -- if you charge fines, if you have impositions of conditions, it is not amnesty.

Ronald Reagan gave amnesty, saying they have to pay a fine, have to get on the back of the line, have a whole bunch of conditions...

(CROSSTALK)

ROMNEY: I thought you said that wasn't amnesty.

GIULIANI: That is not amnesty. That is not amnesty.

If you have a fine, if you have conditions, if you have a whole bunch of steps that people have to go through, it is not amnesty.

Ronald Reagan gave amnesty, straight-out amnesty.

THOMPSON: The question is, are you rewarded for your illegal behavior in any way?

If the answer is yes, it's amnesty.

GIULIANI: But if you have to pay a penalty for it, it is not. For example...

THOMPSON: Do you get allowed to -- but you can still stay in the country?

GIULIANI: Pay money, have to follow...

THOMPSON: But you can still stay in the country?

GIULIANI: Well, but you have to pay penalties.

THOMPSON: But you can still stay in the country?

GIULIANI: There are all different kinds of penalties.

GIBSON: What would you do, Senator?

GIULIANI: Someone gets amnesty from a crime...

THOMPSON: You can have -- you can have -- you can have enforcement by attrition if you obey the law and you enforce the law that's on the books today.

If we started securing the border, as we are supposed to do -- and we're all in agreement that it must be done now.

THOMPSON: I mean, we arrest thousands, over the years, of people from countries that are state sponsors of terrorism. I mean, it's essentially a national security issue, as well as an issue of fairness, as well as a social issue with regard to what states and communities have to face nowadays, and workers who are in competition with this.

If we enforced the borders so people couldn't go back and forth, if we assisted employers with a system that we now have on the books that 20,000, 30,000 employers now are using, a verification system so you could essentially punch a button, the Homeland Security folks will tell you whether or not this person is illegal on the front end, and if we stop sanctuary cities where we're telling local people that you can't cooperate with federal authorities, and stop inducing people to come here with employment and protection under sanctuary cities, as Mayor Giuliani did when he was mayor of New York, then we would have -- we would have attrition of these numbers and start reversing...

(CROSSTALK)

GIULIANI: I have to answer...

(CROSSTALK)

GIBSON: Our process of limiting these answers is going just to Hades.

GIULIANI: I have to answer that -- I have to answer that question. New York City was not a sanctuary city. New York City turned in the names of every single person who committed a crime or was suspected of a crime.

THOMPSON: What about just being illegal?

GIULIANI: Well, New York City turned in the names of all people that were illegal, with only three exceptions. One exception was for children that were going to school. We had 70,000 children of illegals. I was not going to leave them on the street. I am proud that I continued that policy. It would have been inhumane to do anything else.

THOMPSON: We passed a bill in 1996...

GIULIANI: Let me finish. Let me finish.

Second, we said, "If you come into a hospital and you need treatment for an emergency, you'll be treated." It would have been inhumane to do anything else.

And we said, "If you report crimes, we will take those reports." And we wanted those reports of crimes because they helped us to reduce crime...

(CROSSTALK)

THOMPSON: All right. Go back and look at the record. In 1996, Congress -- the United States Congress, when I was there, when I was in the Senate, we passed a bill outlawing illegal amnesty.

THOMPSON: I'm serious. Rudy went to court and sued to overturn what we'd passed in legislation. We weren't trying to throw children out on the street either. I think if you...

GIULIANI: Those are the three narrow categories that I was objecting to. They all had to do with humane conditions. It was a policy that was...

THOMPSON: We were (inaudible) inhumane conditions.

(CROSSTALK)

GIBSON: Governor Huckabee is sitting here with a quiet smile, just thinking, "OK, let them fight; I'm going to stay out of this."

So I want to bring you in quickly, and then Congressman Paul, then we will move on.

HUCKABEE: As Abraham Lincoln said, "If it weren't for the honor of it, I'd just as soon pass," when he was run out of town on a rail. But let me join in on this.

(LAUGHTER)

The fact is, Americans are upset about this issue because they feel like we've violated the rule of law. Every one of us I think agree that you have to secure the border and until that's done, nothing makes sense.

That ought to be done. It ought to be done with American workers, with American products, and it ought to be done immediately. Eighteen months ought to be the outside length of time.

If the Empire State Building can be built in 14 months, if some of the great works of this country can be built in a record period of time, I'm convinced we can secure our borders.

And I agree with Senator Thompson, it's an issue of national security, more than it is anything else. But it's a matter of sealing the borders of our nation in a responsible way.

HUCKABEE: I think we ought to have a period of time in which people then return to their home country and get in the back of the line.

Now, the reason I've come to that conclusion is for a variety of focus, but here's part of it: When people live in the United States, they ought to have their head up. They ought to not live in fear. Every time they see a police car, they shouldn't run and hide. Nobody ought to live like that in this country.

And the only way we're going to fix that is that people do it right. And in order to do it right, they're going to have to go back and get in the back of the line.

It's not an inhumane way; I think it's the only way that makes sense.

And I want to make final point that I think ought to happen: When we say, "Well, we can't round these people up and take them home," we don't have to, Charlie.

You give them the option: If you don't do it the right way and then we catch you, you would be subject to deportation. But if you do it the right way, then you're going to be able to live with your head up and live free in this country, properly. And it won't be that we have this huge problem and the resentment that goes with it.

HUCKABEE: And the final reason that's important -- I know you want me to finish, and I'm doing it.

The reason that we've got to do that is that when people say we can't get a -- we don't have to, for this simple principle: The government didn't escort them over the border in the first place, so the government doesn't have to take them back. They got here on their own. And people can go back and start the process legally, for their benefit and for everyone else's benefit.

GIBSON: Congressman Paul?

PAUL: I think there is two points I'd like to make.

One, I get a little bit worried when we talk about the tamper- proof I.D. for illegals or immigrants, because how do you do that? Anybody that is an immigrant or looks like an immigrant would have to have an I.D. And then, you can't discriminate, so everybody's going to have the I.D.

I think it's opening the door for the national I.D., and we should be very, careful about that.

But one thing that we haven't talked about here is about the economics of illegal immigration. You can't solve this problem as long as you have the runaway welfare state and excessive spending and the wiping out of the middle class through inflation, because that's what directs the hostility, is people are hurting.

And then, when we have all these mandates on the hospitals and on our schools. And, no wonder. The incentives are there. There's an incentive for a lot of our people not to work, because they can get welfare. And then there's a lot of incentive because they know they're going to get amnesty. We gave it to the illegals in the '80s.

And then, we put mandates on the states to compel them to have medical care. And you say, well, that's compassionate. But what happens if the hospital closes and then the people here in this country don't get medical care?

So you can't divorce it from the economics. You've got to get rid of the incentives. No amnesty. And no forced benefits. Because, obviously, they'll bring their families.

And it just won't work if you try to see this in a vacuum. And you have to deal with it as a whole, as an economic issue as well.

ROMNEY: Charlie, can we just underscore, we're talking about illegal immigration?

GIBSON: Yes.

ROMNEY: And I think every person on this stage wants the community to understand that legal immigration, we value. It's great for the country. We welcome legal immigration, every single one of us. No difference on that.

We get twisted on this outside.

GIBSON: So noted. So noted. So noted.

ROMNEY: We are very much in favor of legal immigration. It's a great source of vitality for our country.

SPRADLING: Governor Romney, I'm going to stay with you. In Charlie's health care dialogue in the first half, you mentioned Hillary-care. This group has aimed a lot of partisan firepower at Hillary Clinton. But I'd like, if you don't mind, to adjust the outcome for a minute and walk down this road with me.

Let's say that Barack Obama is the nominee. He won the Iowa caucus. We have a WMUR poll out just tonight that shows it's tied here in New Hampshire, 33-33. And I'd like to know from you why, against you as the nominee down the line, why not vote for Barack Obama, and not just because he's a Democrat. You're not allowed to say that.