Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 10132020 20240712

Announcer coming up in an hour, rovnerhealth news julie discusses the future of health care, including legal challenges to the Affordable Care act. Judge Amy Coney Barrett begins two days of questions from senators in the review of her nomination to the highest court. Journal andgton good morning. The second day of hearings begins at 9 00 a. M. , but we would like to hear from you about what you saw yesterday and what you expect today. If you support the nomination, the line to call in is 202 7488000. If you oppose the nomination, 202 7488001. If you are undecided, 202 7488002. You can also send us a text 202 7488003 the line to use and include your name and where you are from. cspanwj ande are on facebook at cspan. Wednesday and thursday as well our coverage plans. We will show you some of the sights and sounds as members come in. 9 00 a. M. Eastern here on cspan, cspan radio, and streaming live at cspan. The reporting yesterday on the first day of hearings, the Opening Statements, ope the Washington Post democrats focus on Affordable Care act will republicans accuse them of trying to turn court into an arm of legislature. One of the authors on that is Brent Kendall and he published a piece this morning previewing today and the headline is Amy Coney Barrett to phase lawmakers questions. They will have 30 minutes each to question her on day two of her Supreme Court confirmation hearing. Will get, lawmakers their chances to ask questions. President trumps choice to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 48 years old sat through nearly five hours monday with republicans and democrats clashing about the propriety of considering her nomination so close to the election, as well as what a future Justice Barrett might need for a Supreme Court that could have a durable conservative majority. We are now three weeks from election day. This is what the chair of the committee, senator Lindsey Graham, had to say. [video clip] this is an Election Year. We are confirming the judge in an Election Year after the voting has occurred. That myl happen is democratic colleagues will say, this has never been done and they are right in this regard. Confirmed ever been in an Election Year past july. The bottom line is Justice Ginsburg, when asked about this years ago, said a president serves four years, not three. There is nothing unconstitutional about this process. This is a vacancy that has occurred through a great woman and we are going to fill that vacancy with another great woman. Bottom line is that the senate is doing its duty constitutionally. Garland, the with thethat appeared passing of judge scalia the process had just started and we can talk about history here is the history as i understand it. There has never been a situation where you had a president of one party and the son of another where the replacement was made in an Election Year. I think there have been 19 vacancies filled in an Election Year and 17 of the 19 were confirmed when the party of the president and senate were the same. Timing, the hearing is starting 16 days after nomination. More than half of all Supreme Court hearings have have been held within 16 days. Berger 13, burge blackmon, 13. Respect them all. They will have their chance to have their say, but most importantly i hope we will know more about how the law works, checks and balances, what the Supreme Court is all about when this hearing is over. Host before we get to your calls on the nominee early voting underway in georgia. This is the atlanta journalconstitution, heavy turnout, georgia voters overloaded polling places, many lining up before doors open to make sure ballots were counted. Long waits, some exceeding eight hours. Computer glitches including huge voting locations inside state farm arena only heightened delays. Let us get your calls. If you support the nominee, the line to use is 202 7488000. Those who oppose the nomination 202 7488001 and all others 202 7488002. Yvonne is opposed from milwaukee. Caller i oppose the nomination because of the fact we were promised, we were told, that i extend there was an opening we would wait until another president came in in order to fill it. Mitch mcconnell and Lindsey Graham broke their word. That means they cannot be trusted. I hope kentucky and i hope South Carolina are listening and i hope they vote them out because they told a lie and if they are going to lie about this, they are going to lie about something else. If she is confirmed i am in support of packing the court, we need to have balance. Views, to have liberal conservative views. We do not need one or the other. I am for packing the court. Sure we or 13 to make have an even playing field. Host a quick headline from the journal sentinel. Judge denied gop effort to an mandate. mask jim from california supports the nomination. Caller thank you. I think what is very important like the late Justice Scalia this nominee is constructionist on the constitution and that, to me, is critically important. I think it important justices be than theionist rather constitutioning that changes the meaning. I think the constitution needs to be taken the way it was written. Appointment iss very important and i strongly support her. Host jeff is in detroit, undecided about the nominee. Good morning. Caller good morning. I am undecided. There is no chance of me opposing her, but i could remain undecided. So reason is i am very much against abortion at all stages and frankly, i am not sure she has the political will to overturn roe v. Wade. I think she needs to have it because a lot of people in harvesting aborted fetuses to live forever and this needs to be stopped. Host North Carolina, mike supports the nomination. Go ahead. Caller good morning. We are all over the place this morning as we always are on these opinions. One of the prior callers tioned about her fealty and as she stated yesterday her fealty to scalia. I follow Supreme Court like people follow baseball teams and other professional sports teams. Have and heity i was by far the most profound justice in his writings and Everything Else in my lifetime. That and wer for have got to get away from iibing in the media way, butis apt in one conservative judges, liberal know, if a judge adheres to the constitution as written, that does not make them conservative. If that is what they are supposed to do, they are not supposed to be political animals. As someone said yesterday i cannot remember they should not have a red short or blue shirt under their robes. Their loyalty is to the law and to the constitution. There is a method. Our Founding Fathers put a method in the constitution to amend it, to allow for changes in societal norms and in an everchanging society and that is the amendment process. We have done 18 times since the original bill of rights. That process is there, ok . It is difficult. There is no doubt about it. They did not make it easy for a reason, but i supporter. The American Bar Association supports are in the democrats are going to have a tough time making a case against her. Even the process i would like to say one thing that. There is nothing being done illegally. Nothing is being done on constitutional. It was harry reid when he was majority leader in the senate who got rid of the 60 vote threshold on judicial nominees. They were warned. I think they were warned by the republicans if you get rid of day, you might through the you did that rue the day you did that and that is what we have. Republicans are not breaking any laws by taking advantage of what the democrats handed them. God bless her. I pray for her and our president and our country every day. I hope she will be a wonderful judge for the next 30 or 40 years. Host thank you. This is what people are saying online. Amy should recuse yourself. They areexas, legal under the constitution. What is unconstitutional is trying to apply a religious test. The truth is, just because you do not like the person or politics, if they are qualified, they are qualified. Watch. Aring, painful to their disregard for the American People. Barbie says, shes perfect for the job. Lizzie says, no one is giving up health care. People are not falling for that. Preexisting illnesses safe. Jj in ohio who opposes the nominee. Good morning. Caller yes, i am opposed to Amy Coney Barretts nomination because i am a the aca. Im a 63yearold widow and the is 840 andmedicine without this insurance i cannot take the medicine. Abortion. Against prolife means respect for all stages of life from the womb to the tomb. Thank you very much. Les senator chris coons questions today and make his Opening Statement yesterday. He talked about the term of disis. Are [video clip] principles overturn that protect fundamental rights for all americans. What might this mean . Cases like griswold versus connecticut that established married couples have the right to use contraceptives in their own home and they be struck down. Roe v. Wade which protects a womans right to make her own Critical Health care decisions may be on the line. Equality is the law of the land and it could be overruled. Just one day after we celebrated coming out day nationally, stripping individuals of what Justice Kennedy called equal dignity in the eyes of the law. This is what i believe is at stake with this nomination. Judge barrett, you will be deciding cases that have daily impacts on the lives of millions of americans. They deserve to understand why President Trump nominated you and what consequences your decisions may have on them and their life. Host margarita joins us next from hollywood, florida supporting judge barrett. Caller good morning. Democrat, but i do respect her as a person, not about party. Lady as ahis dignitary and she will work her way up. I see that she has empathy. She adopted children from haiti. It shows she loves all people. However, i am open that she does not vote down obamacare and the roe v. Wade. Im hoping she does not do that. She is going to vote according to her conscience, but not because of a party. I am democrat, but i do agree she should vote right. President trump gets the opportunity. We are going to use opportunity. That is what life is about. That is what he did. I wouldve done the same thing. Host cj opposes the nomination for minnesota. Caller good morning, america and god bless us all. The reason i oppose it is if it was not for Mitch Mcconnell and his cronies denying obama the right to do the same thing it would not be a problem, but they opened the door for this. It would not be a problem. Problem andthis that people have a right to say, listen, it does not fit so dont force it. Host cj mentioned Mitch Mcconnell. Last night in a debate against his democratic rival, amy mcgrath was asked whether the senate should be holding a vote on the nominee right now. [video clip] no. That is the short answer. Nobody should be voting on the nominee right now. Four years ago senator mcconnell said, by the mcconnel role, during an Election Year we do not vote on a nominee. Let the people decide. Right now with 22 days to the election we should let the people decide. What is really important is that we should be focusing on aid for kentucky and not a Supreme Court nominee. Let us be clear about what this is about. Senator mcconnell, for a decade, tried to undermanned and get rid of the Affordable Care act undermine and get rid of the Affordable Care act. Now he is trying to do it in the courts. The first case the Supreme Court is going to hear after the election is about the Affordable Care act. That is something we really cannot half in kentucky because the Affordable Care act did a lot of good for many many kentuckians. I do not want to throw it away. Time is up. Senator mcconnell. Nobody believes the court is going to strike down the Affordable Care act. Theyre trying to change the subject t away from this extraordinary nominee. Outstanding woman, marvelous family, seven children, two of them adopted, one with special needs. An absolute legal allstar. The Judiciary Committee wants to talk about anything other than the nominee. This is the progressive position. Said she is the most progressive person in kentucky. What is that mean . They want to add numbers so they can get the outcome they like. She wants to make the District Of Columbia estate, puerto rico a state. There is no difference between my opponent and all the National Democrats that you have watched. If you give them control of the government, that is what they will do. Lieutenant colonel mcgrath, any additional response . I want to do what is right for kentucky, always. After 36 years in washington this is what you get. A man who basically his word means nothing. Integrity means nothing. Does one thing four years ago and then changes his mind and makes up an excuse. It is what everybody hates about washington. Folks, we cannot change washington until we change the people we send there. Host heres what they are reading in louisville. Mcconnel a mcgrath bar on the Supreme Court. Our topic this morning, as it will be much of the week, is the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. Rick is undecided calling from boston. Caller i want to say a couple of things. Theyre going to do what they are going to do. They say one thing and do another. I have a couple of predictions about the selection. Election. Ande gets in there they think she is going to overturn roe v. Wade. That is not necessarily true. The health care thing, you know what i am saying . I said november 3 he is going to be out of there. It is going to take two or three hereand everybody out thinks hes going to get reelected. They are going to get this clown out of here. These people stand around like they are mannequins. They need to put a mask on their face. Host brian in connecticut supports the nominee. Caller good morning. I support amy barrett because we the people who are going to uphold the constitution and keep the constitution. Thank you. Host sarah in florida is also a supporter. Caller yes, sir. I am very proud of this nominee. Listening to the other callers i got a little sidetracked because i thought it was about the trump or Mitch Mcconnell. Confused as to what i was wanting to say about the woman isan very qualified and yesterday it was shown that her quietness, her ability to speak to those that were downgrading her so bad. That themazes me in on onell call subject and cspan allows them to ring in on Everything Else just like with steve scully. I am so sorry cspan is like some of the other channels to support the democratic party. Cspan is a more democratic channel like cnn, msnbc. Host i will let you go. The issue of steve scully, that is not true. His twitter account was hacked. It is being looked into by federal authorities. If you look into the range of what steve scully has done over the 30 plus years he has been here, he has been nonpartisan as can be. The events he has covered, the people he has interviewed. Of otherago like a lot College Students who came to this town he was an intern for joe biden in the senate and briefly for senator kennedy. That internship, like anybody elses, does not indicate what he will do with his life. Steve scully is a fair and equally treats his guests and the topics in the same way. Hims unfair to call supportive of the democrats or anybody else. Louisiana who supports judge barrett. Good morning. Caller good morning. How are you doing . Host doing fine. Caller i think she has worked hard for where she is at and she deserves it. As for being catholic, biden professes to be catholic, but he is for abortion. You cannot be a catholic and not be prolife. I think she would make a wonderful judge. Host on that this is the hill reporting a story from let yesterday. Faith should not be a nomination decision. Joe biden said her religious beliefs should not be part of her confirmation hearings. I do not think there should be any questions about her faith. Republicans have repeatedly accused democrats of attacking her catholic beliefs, but senators have largely into criticism at policy concerns an objection to the timing of her nomination and the final weeks before the president ial election. Biden referred to when he and obama were running against mitt romney in the 2012 election. He said, i got in trouble. We were running against romney who was a mormon. I took him on and nobodys faith should be question. On social media, judge barrett was weak. We will get more answers over the next days. Scott on facebook, theyre not playing by the rules. More. Divide is even dana on facebook, i oppose the confirmation but we should go quickly to a vote. Let us move on. Carolyn says, if she had true ethics or values, she would not have accepted this rush nomination by senators who will do anything to win and that is anything. This is from libby, amy barrett should be embarrassed that the president picked her for a political agenda. Joni ernst who sits on the panel says, women were given the right to vote and today we are considering adding another woman to the highest court in the land. Of the Opening Statement of judge barrett yesterday. [video clip] have a vital responsibility to the rule of law which is critical to a free society. But courts are not designed to solve every problem or right every wrong in our public life. The policy decisions and value judgments of government must be made by the political branches, elected by and accountable to, the people. The public should not expect courts to do so and courts should not try. That is the approach i have strived to follow as a judge on the seventh circuit. In every case, i have carefully considered the arguments presented by the parties, discussed the issues with my colleagues on the courts, and done my utmost to reach the result required by the law, whatever my own preferences might be. I try to remain mindful that while my Court Decides thousands of cases a year each case is the most important one to those involved. After all, cases are not like statutes which are often named for their authors. Cases are named for the parties who stand to gain or lose in the real world, often through liberty or livelihood. Host the second day of the hearings getting underway this morning at 9 00 a. M. Eastern. Erica is up in san diego opposing the nomination. Good morning. Caller good morning. I do not have much to say. [indiscernible] host steve supports her nomination. Caller good morning. Theou think about it, democrats are being hypocritical here. If you remember back to obamacare, the past that through as law by making it a tax. It did not go through the throughrealm of going house and making it a law. They used it, as obama said, he wanted to fundamentally change and that a fundamental way to do it. If you think about it also, the argument is hypocritical because they are saying they do not want politics to be part of it. Ifdys political views you look back to Ruth Bader Ginsburg when she was questioned for her office to take Supreme Court judge, she would not talk about abortion. When she would not talk about abortion because she said she has to remain impartial. It is really interesting. She had conservative thoughts she spoke of also where she said judges have to give up some of soir Constitutional Rights they remain impartial. She said she was worried about judges becoming too i forget but it wassed friendship outside the court. You appear that you are not impartial, but the problem of as anrg was she is known activist judge and that is why the people on the left like her. Say she is acles progressive icon and a feminist pioneer. The court is not supposed to be opinions are supposed to be to what the law says. Framelet me ask you, you Justice Ginsburg as an activist judge and you refer to a conservative judge and judge barrett. Is it equal on both sides . You have some in activist judge perhaps reflecting the wills or opinions of other likeminded people. Is the same drug conservative side . And earlier caller said a judge should not be conservative or liberal. Caller here the difference. Conservative means to conserve what is there. A progressive means that they go beyond what is there. To look atmple way it. Any compromise the problem never goes away because there is no definite in a compromise. If you have a compromise between good,nd evil or bad and bad will always win. We have taken the constitution as the living document. When it becomes a living document then it becomes an opinion. We are in the troubles we are in the United States right now with our legal system and how people adjust the laws and what is going on in the big cities. Terror. Has become host let me ask you about conserving what is there. Courts have not overturned what is not conserved. Ending slavery for example, or overturning Plessy V Ferguson and the brown v. Board of education landmark decisions. Would you call those activist decisions, conservative decisions, where do they fall . Caller heres the difference. The difference is the cases are brought to the court to decide on existing laws. Was ery host it was in the constitution. Caller it was brought against from the very beginning. Interpretation of the wrong way or outside with the constitution is because they try to redefine what citizens are and they did that with women, too. The court made the decision on the law not making the law joe biden came to ginsberg and that judges need to be leading in the way of social change and she disagreed. Host i appreciate the conversation. The junior democrat on the committee is the Vice President ial candidate senator kamala harris. Hears her Opening Statement. [video clip] this hearing has brought toether more than 60 people fit inside a closed door room while our nation is facing a virus. This committee has ignored commonsense requests to keep people safe, including not requiring testing from members. Despite an outbreak among senators of this very committee. Response to the recent outbreak the leaders postpone business on the senate floor this week to protect the health and safety of senators and staff. Mr. Chairman, for the same reason, this hearing should have been postponed. The decision to have this now is reckless and places these workers, aids, and Capitol Police at risk. Not to mention that will tens of millions of americans are struggling to pay their bills the senate should be prioritizing Coronavirus Relief and providing Financial Support to those families. Host one of the other members testify remotely was thom tillis of North Carolina. Politico tweeting this saying he releases his letter from a physician clearing him to participate in the Supreme Court hearing today and he is enrolled in an antibody study that will soon join a North Carolina study in covid19. I want to show you a photo from our crew. Wherere getting ready judge barrett will sit this morning. They are getting set for day two. Coverage getting underway at 9 00 a. M. Eastern and maybe a little earlier than that. Radio, cspan, cspan and cspan. Org. Next up is georgetown, South Carolina. Angel, good morning. Caller good morning. Because ing to oppose feel like the president and Lindsey Graham are doing this to get reelected and i feel like they should wait after the election to let the people vote. Let the new president appoint someone. People who vote. That is why im opposing. I really feel that is not right. Let us vote. Let the new president appoint somebody. Host marion is in lafayette, tennessee. Go ahead. I may have lost you. There you are. Caller yes. I fully support Donald Trumps decision with amy barrett. Education exemplary and i feel that she is a woman, and mother, who will support everything women need in their choices. Make their own other than this i feel she will uphold the constitution and what we have stood by and what all americans have fought for, lived for, and people of other countries dream of. Host some questions about her experience on twitter. This one says, i think my only problem is she only has three years on the bench and i do not think that is enough experience. She was confirmed by the senate to the seventh District Court of appeals three years ago. This one says, does she have any trial experience . She will have many cases to work on beyond agendas of making abortion more difficult and stealing access to Affordable Health insurance to a low and middle class. Nothing else . Only a judge for three years . This is the front page of the new york times. Yesterday,ine about party hearings put election stakes in focus. In the marathon day of Opening Statements, democrats assailed judge barrett is an ideologue who would overturn the Affordable Care act and abortion rights and whose nomination resulted in an illegitimate power grab by a president in the last days before election. Ofublicans steered clear addressing her affect on the court instead promoting her qualifications and accusing democrats unjustly attacking her because of her catholic faith. Though they made no mention of it. Judge barrett, a former notre dame law professor and mother of seven, sat in silence most of the day. Her expressions were unreadable by a black mask she donned in accordance with protocol. When it was her turn to speak she tried to avoid being pulled into the political fray. Barbara in texas supports the nomination. Tell us why. Caller yes, i think she is very wellqualified. I think trump has the Constitutional Authority to do this. Go theys the democrats have not really talked about her qualifications or why she should not be a judge. They talked about policy and Everything Else. I watched the hearings yesterday. Explaining what our Judicial Branch is about and how they go about doing their job mike lee give the best explanation of anybody in that whole room yesterday. If the democrats think the aca or roe v. Wade is constitutional, what are they worried about . A judge should go by the constitution. If it is found unconstitutional, it is up to the legislative branch to either change the constitution or pass a law that is constitutional. Why if they know think it is constitutional, why they are so worried about barrett going in as a judge and changing something. Things have been overturned before because we do have activist judges on the Supreme Court. That is not with the Supreme Court is about. It is upholding the law. Thank you. Host annie in sugar grove, North Carolina opposing the nomination. Caller good morning. Thank you for cspan. Line is more of an observation although i do oppose the woman. When the democrats were giving their examples of children that need medical care for their defects,fe, heart kidney defects that kind of thing, it was found when the mother was carrying the baby. Those mothers did not abort those babies, ok republicans . It is interesting because now these babies are growing up in the medical attention and hundreds of thousands of dollars in surgeries and medication and the republicans want to take away the aca. Ironic that the democrats examples were mothers that decided not to abort. One more thought. Everybody is always saying things about Ruth Bader Ginsburg and how she made everything so great for women. Upl, people need to look weinberger versus wiesenthal. She represented a man whose wife died hours after childbirth and was unable to get survivors benefits to raise the baby. She did this before she was a Supreme Court justice. Reed v. Reid read versu which allowed people to get credit cards and other peoples name. My mother could not get a credit card in the 60s and 70s. Look at those cases. Look what ginsburg did before she was ever a Supreme Court justice. They make it sound she worked for the farleft. Menshe started representing in front of men to show how illequipped the system was. Please, republicans, do a little research. Thank you so much for cspan. Host President Trump back on the campaign trail after his doctor had cleared him. He talked about his covid diagnosis and the Supreme Court nomination at the rally last night in florida. [video clip] biden refuses to answer questions on the packing of the Supreme Court. Nobody thought of that for many, many decades and that is what they want to do. They cannot get there legitimately so they say, that is ok. We will just pack the court. We will have a whole different country. Not going to happen. We are not going to let it happen that way. You have to get out and vote. [cheering and applause] people set i was elected because of the Supreme Court because i said i was going to put conservative judges on the Supreme Court. I do not know if it is true. [cheering] it is more true now than it was four years ago and you have to vote because they are going to destroy our country and they are going to destroy our Supreme Court and we cannot let that happen. We love you trump. Thought we areve on number three. Others have never had any. We are at three already. [cheering and applause] i will say this, it is driving them crazy. [laughter] fantastic, a great intellect and scholar. I think she is going to be a fantastic Supreme Court justice. Host it is three weeks until election day. More Campaign Coverage today on the cspan network. Joe biden will be in florida talking about his policy proposals for senior citizens. 2 25coverage coming up at p. M. Eastern on cspan2 and streaming live at cspan. Org or other radio app. President trump will be in johnstown, pennsylvania this evening. Check cspan that work our coverage plans. Journal, twoet clear themes sharpened bidens pitch. Donald trump was elected because he understood things about the countrys mood. In similar fashion, joe biden leads in 2020 because he has two broad themes the countries ready to unify and the coronavirus is, as he might say, a really big deal. California, tom is undecided. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. As as the religious far as her being catholic the first candidate i can remember that was brought up was president kennedy. I dont really know anything about her. She has only been on the court for three years. We do not know much about her. But what is going to happen is going to happen. A question about the constitution, maybe we can make an amendment. Comes open during the beginning of an Election Year, it cannot be filled and the next president has the right to make the nominee. That would solve the entire problem. That is what they need to do. I do not know why they are doing this. Activeate should be in discussion about what the American People need right now which is relief to the virus and all these people who are out of work. They should not be doing this anyway. Thank you for taking my call. Arizonae in phoenix, opposing the nomination. You are on the air. And i amy name is jo in phoenix, arizona. Nomination because trump has made it eminently clear he is only going to appoint people that have his point of view on issues that i disagree with. Sometimes we get surprised. Sometimes people that the president thinks is going to be conservative or liberal or vote this way were that way, sometimes they really do look at the constitution, what is the precedent, and do what they are supposed to do. With trumps announcements over and over these are the only people he is going to appoint, it just is not right. Person who is not prejudiced. Host sheldon, senator whitehouse yesterday on the Opening Statement. , what could happen if judge barrett is confirmed to the court . Hears what he said. [video clip] look at the Supreme Court calendar. One week after the election on november 10 the Supreme Court is going to hear california v texas. Challenge bylast one vote. If the new challenge succeeds with a new justice, the case will tear out the aca, the law and which over 20 million americans rely for Health Insurance, 17 million americans axis medicaid, 129 million americans get preexisting conditions covered in millions of seniors enjoy lower drug costs. Gone. Make no mistake, this nomine signals on the aca is clear. Clear enough to move her to the top of the big donors list. Chiefyears ago wrote Justice Roberts pushed the beyond its plausible meaning to save the statue. Decisis she wrote stare is not a hard and fact rule in the courts constitutional cases. Likelyignals that are why shes before this committee now. Roanoke,go to doug in virginia. Caller good morning. I would like to say i support the woman and i would also like to ask, you would probably know, is it not in the constitution the house and senate have term limits . If we are going to go by the constitution, we need to go by all of it, not just part of it. Host charles is in South Carolina charlston, South Carolina two steve. Caller im a little on the bench. I lean toward her confirmation, but let me say brief word. It is bothering me that people are getting on steve scully. Watchingen washington journal for years. Steve to be found nothing but fair and impartial. Let me get that out of the way. I think you may agree with that. Miss barrett seems to be mature for her age, but her youth bothers me. She may be able to separate church and state. And hern in her heart Spiritual Life would dictate that she opposes abortion. I go to church and im trying to relate. We do not preach politics and im a baptist. My preacher is very careful. He can preach on issues like abortion or spousal abuse or any kind of abuse or things like that because they are biblical. But it will fracture the congregation and he knows that. Religion andyour separated from the policy you are involved with. I think she can do that, i hope she can do that. She may be able to uphold current law and maybe rule a new laws before the Court Without passion or prejudice and go by what is in the constitution. I am concerned a little bit by the youth. I am an independent and im one of those guys that says, hey, that is the way it fell. I would say the same for a democratic president. I just say, suck it up. That is the way it is. Those are my thoughts and i hope bashed toont get much today. Yesterday was a trump bashing campaign and Ruth Bader Ginsburg opened the door for women. Im sure the republicans are saying, except for republican women. It has been strange. She is young, that i think she may be able to do the job. Host when independent south carolinian view of the South Carolina senator, Lindsey Graham, leading this . Jamie harrison has got a lot of mone guest coming in on the national level. This is the strongest showing a since theas made senator. I think Lindsey Graham is scared. The democratic folks the demographics are changing rapidly on the coast. They are voting blue. I do not understand that. They will get themselves into the same situation. When you get to the upper states above charlston prolife is big. I am prolife by the way, but even the president , he will take charlston county. Joe cunningham will win again over nancy hayes. On the coast, they are blue. Host check back with us after the election and we will see how you did. We go to taylor in virginia who supports judge barrett. Yes, i have two things to say. The first one is it is not Ruth Bader Ginsburgs seat it is the peoples seat. Even though she sat there forever, it is the peoples seat. The second thing i have to say is the Affordable Care act is not affordable. Ford to pay over 200 suppositories because the Affordable Care act would not pay for it. There you go with the Affordable Care act. For 200. 14 of them host we will start to see video within the hour from the sunday hearing room on capitol hill. The outset of the hearing room is a story in the Washington Post, senators arriving monday morning to preside over the first day of confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett. First and to pass the drawn outside. Demonstrators booing by the prospect of President Trumps appointing another justice waving signs and danced as protesters, anchored by the nomination, staged a sit in at was 21 people were handcuffed and arrested by u. S. Capitol police. Protesters on both sides painted a bleak and desperate picture of what would happen if the other side got its way. Jasmine is and norfolk, virginia. Go ahead. Caller hi. I was just calling to see what you thought, or if there were any thoughts, you had on her stance on global poverty and if we are doing enough to help those in poverty around the world. Host listen in today. She gets questions begin at 9 00 a. M. This morning. Michael is in washington, d. C. Caller i have been in washington, d. C. 40 years. The state of the nation right now is ridiculous. It feels like two separate countries. I am opposed to the confirmation of the judge because i think this is the same process for years ago we stated as a country we said we should be Going Forward until people decided who the president is. What has changed in those years to make us say different . Other than the fact republican agenda is being pushed. This wein regards by see the dues and the donts and we see the handshakes and the good old boy clubs. What i feel is that we are not taking this as ethically as we should and we are trying to push the agenda of one party through with disregard for the other party, and negating the fact what people have said should rappen or should not happen fou years ago, what has changed . Supporting the nominee in new hampshire. Caller good morning. Im tired of hearing people say let the people decide. 2016 that decided in if hillary had one, they would be doing the same thing. A president is a president until the end of his term. That is all i have got to say. Im tired of hearing people say that. Thank you. Host more of your calls ahead. We talk next to julie rovner with Kaiser Health news and focus in on what the democrats main points work and their concern over the Affordable Care act. We talk about the political and Court Challenges to the Affordable Care act. Julie rovner here next on washington journal. U. S. Supreme court began its new term hearing oral arguments via conference call. Listen to them live at cspan. Org supremecourt. Listen live to two cases. , followedidated cases by the city of chicago v fulton. Two thursday, they have two more cases. Listen to the cases live or ondemand at cspan. Org supremecourt. The contenders, about the man who ran for the presidency and lost, but change political history. Tonight, lawyer and businessman, wendell wilkie. At 8 00 p. M. Rs, eastern on American History tv. The president s available in paperback, hardcover, and ebook presents biographies of every president inspired by conversations with noted historians about the leadership skills that make for a successful presidency. As americans go to the polls to decide who should lead our country, this collection offers perspective perspective in the events that forged each president s legal styles. To learn more visit cspan. Org thepresident s. Order your copy wherever books are sold. Washington journal continues. Joined by julie rovner. We will dive right into it by a headline from the washington times. Democrats fear for obamacare, senators turn hearing into a health care referendum. It was their line of focus not surprisingly yesterday. Tell us what they are not looking forward to in terms of the case that will come before the Supreme Court the week after the election. Guest i think the democrats did not plan it this way, but it is playing into their Campaign Theme for this year. In 2018, they ran on the republicans efforts to undo the Affordable Care act and a democrats did incredibly well. Now we have this case that was filed in early 2018, partly with the intent to gin up republican votes. This was a number of republican attorneys general from 20 states who charged that because the 2017 tax bill passed by the republicans in congress eliminated the penalty for not having insurance, the most unpopular piece of the Affordable Care act that said if you do not have insurance, you have to pay a tax penalty, they zeroed that out and they could not make it go away, but they just at the penalty to zero. Now the law says you have to have Health Insurance or you have to pay a penalty of zero dollars. And, the republican attorneys general argued that because in 2012 when the Supreme Court upheld the law, they did it based on the use of congresss taxing power. If there is no tax anymore the rest of the laws unconstitutional and must fall, and a federal District Court judge in texas agreed with them in december of 2018. And then, an Appeals Court, sort of agreed with that and they set the case back to the lower court saying that really does the whole law have to go away, or just the things connected directly to the tax penalty . Rather than wait another year or so for the lower court judge to make a decision and the Appeals Court to make another decision, democratic attorneys generals appealed to the Supreme Court. They wanted this settled this past spring, back in the winter that they appealed. They hoped the court would take it up and resolve it this past june. Instead the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case in the term that started a couple of weeks ago, and the date that they set for the argument is november 10, a week after the election. Host when the court takes us up , a lot of people have written that they may that they are likely not to declare it unconstitutional, but they could mortally wounded by invalidating wound it by invalidating the mandate, correct . Guest they could do a couple of things. They could do what the Trump Administration was arguing, that the mandate is no longer constitutional, so it does not have a tax penalty attached to it. The things immediately connected to that including the popular things like requiring insurers to sell to people with preexisting conditions and not costing them more. It is possible that that would have to go and that would be unpopular. It is possible they would say the whole law has to fall, even though it is enormous and most of it is unconnected to the penalty for having insurance. Or they could say, what many academics on both sides of the Affordable Care act think, which is that this is not a strong lawsuit and they can make the thing go away. That is what the democratic attorneys general had in mind when they asked the Supreme Court to weigh in early. At that point, it was four level liberals and chief Justice Roberts. There was every sort of confidence that the four liberals and chief justice would make five and it would not matter what the other four conservatives wanted to do if judge merrick becomes just disparate and was on the court judge barrett becomes Justice Barrett, it would not matter because there would only be three liberals left in the five conservatives can determine what happens. Host julie is julie is with us until the hearing that gets underway at 9 00 eastern. We would love to hear your comments and questions. If you are on the Affordable Care act the line is 2027488000. If you get employer insurance, 2027488001. If you are uninsured, 2027488002. And all others, 2027488003. We will get to your calls and comments momentarily. You wrote a piece, and it is at khn. Org. This was just after Justice Ginsburg died and the headline, without ginsburg, judicial threats to the aca and reproductive rights tightens. You wrote this before the announcement of the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett. She has been on the bench of the seventh circuit three years. What else do we know about her rulings and decisions about Womens Health care, on the Affordable Care act, and reproductive rights. Guest we know that she has been an antiabortion activist and that is likely to come up in the questioning because even more than having written that she does not believe in abortion and she does not believe that roe v. Wade was decided correctly, she has been part of advocacy efforts. That is unusual for someone considered to be a justice. On health care she has written that she thought that chief Justice Roberts stretched the reasoning too far in the original 2012 case that upheld the Affordable Care act. Obviously, we do not know how she will rule, and it is safe to say that she is not going to say how she would rule, because senators always ask, and they do not answer because that is part of how this is done. Reasonere is certainly if you are supportive of womens reproductive rights and in support of the Affordable Care act, there is reason for concern. The converse is that we know that the president promised when he was running for the first time in 2016 that he would only appoint justices who were committed to overturning roe v. Wade, so one would assume that the president would not have appointed somebody that he was not confident would be an antiabortion vote. I should point out, that has been true of the previous two. Host we have the aca case that we mentioned. What about abortion cases. Are there any coming this time . On a we are waiting mississippi abortion case, a 15 week ban. The Supreme Court has been making abortion cases go away the last couple of months. They did decide a big case in june louisiana. Louisiana was similar to a texas case that had been struck down a few years ago, and the chief justice joined the liberals to many peoples surprise. He said we would strike down this law because it is too close to the law that we just struck down four years ago, that does not mean that i will necessarily go along with a us with other restrictions. He both displeased the antiabortion forces by striking down the louisiana law, but he warned that it is not that he has gone soft, and now supports abortion rights, it is just that there was some technicalities to that case that made him roll the way he did. He was clear about that in his decision. We have a variety of Reproductive Health cases in the pipeline, if you will. There are ones that would clearly seek to have roe struck down, things that would obviously not allowed to stand like the heartbeat ban laws that almostan abortion immediately upon discovering a woman is pregnant or before a that isen knows, requiring a striking down of roe v. Wade. There are a number of restrictions that can be upheld without striking down roe. Bans on specific procedures. There are number of states that have been trying to ban the most common procedure in second trimester abortions. There are a couple of states that have bands in cases where the fetus is found to have down gender, thatuse of some parents do not want to have a girl, but they want to have a girl a boy, and the converse. Those have not been allowed or found to be consistent with roe, but a conservative antiabortion court could uphold those. Ri number of ways that these laws could be up there are a number of ways that these laws could be upheld. Host a question from bobby on twitter who asks how is the tax penalty tied to the requirement that insurers cover people with preexisting conditions . Guest what the deal was when they passed the informed the Affordable Care act they said if you would agree to take people with preexisting conditions and not charge them more, the people more likely to want insurance. Hadnt,ons insurers they were afraid that they would get broke. They said they would that there would be a penalty to make sure Healthy People signed up too. If you doy said even not think you should be sick, you should buy Health Insurance. As it turns out, that is not the piece of the law that is having the impact of making people buy Health Insurance. It turns out there is another piece, the subsidies in the law that people who do not earn a lot of money can get a lot of financial help to pay for their insurance. Hasmber, the tax penalty been gone since the beginning of 2019, almost two years into not having a penalty. Despite that and the best efforts of the Trump Administration to a discourage people from buying Affordable Care act insurance, the exchanges are doing so well that we are seeing more insurers come back in and selling insurance on the exchanges. The law is standing surprisingly well without the tax penalty. But, the argument is that because without the tax penalty it is not in not fair to the insurers because they would only get sick people, and that was the Trump Administrations original original argument. You just have to strike the pieces that are so closely entwined with the tax penalty. The Trump Administration changed its mind after the lower court ruled that the entire court had to go and decided to support that. Host how many people are covered under the aca . Guest everybody. The aca aca does a lot more than just offer people insurance. There is roughly 20 million and their immediate coverage is tied to the aca, they buy their own insurance or the or in the expanded medicaid programs. Everyone with an porter provided employerprovided insurance is affected. There is an enormous amount of public health, Many Public Health provisions in the law, it is a wideranging law, and literally every american is affected by some piece of it. Host pam, tennessee. You are on the air. Caller good morning. Say, and i know that President Trump is using his constitutional right. , obama and biden were the ones who created the cares act. Quiet,en is sitting biden is not speaking out about even giveden will not his nominees of who he would pick or who he would not have picked. It does not make sense to me that the man who was in charge of this, and got it approved under his administration with , and thesitting quiet democrats are up they are going crazy. I want to rip this woman up they want to rip this woman apart. Biden,pecifically on joe has he said what he would do with the Affordable Care act in addition to preserving it . Guest he talks about it almost every chance he gets, i cannot remember a time i have watched and speak where he has not brought this up. This is a major piece of the campaign. Senator harris brings it up also. It is something that Vice President biden is proud of. He has a rather lengthy proposal for what he would do to expand the Affordable Care act. It was not a perfect law, they knew that when it passed. They had no republican support, they had to get all democrats to pass it, and there was a lot of compromising and a lot of trying to bring it in under budget. One of the ways they did that was that they limited how much you could earn and still get help to buy your insurance, and as a result there are a lot of people who cannot afford insurance. One of the first things he would do is expand those subsidies and make people who earn just a little bit more money eligible to get government help so that they can buy insurance. He has a number of other ways he would like to expand the Affordable Care act. He is proposing a public option, a government run plan that people could buy instead of private insurance on the exchange or if they have employer insurance that they do not like or cannot afford. They can buy the public option. There was an effort to do it in the Affordable Care act and they could not get the vote. It is unclear if they could get it now. And he was running in the democratic primary, Vice President biden was derided for not supporting medicare for all where there would be no private insurance and everybody would have a government plan. There is a big chunk of the party that still wants that. Even though it is popular among democrats, just getting the lesser part of that group will be an uphill battle. Host if you get your insurance by your employer, 2027488000. If you are under the aca, 2027488001 get if you get insurance by your employer it is 2027488001 and if you get it under the aca it is 2027488000. Caller good morning, i just got out of work, and i watch it every day. I like this lady right now speaking. I am ahave seen, 54yearold man who has gone through some things, trials and tribulations in my life where i almost died because i had an ulcer. I am sorry, i do not like what trump is doing, and i am not a democrat or republican. I am independent. He has lied about a lot of things that he has done. When you take away from babies and kids, you take away from right. Number one. Number two, what i have been seeing, and what i have seen i am notrs against republicans and i am not a hater but at the same time we have to take care of our people. That isa given, something that cannot be taken away from us. As it goes, i paid many a taxes, i have done my due, i have served my country. And host do you find that the Affordable Care act, your insurance under the aca, is affordable . Caller it is very affordable. I had to pay outofpocket. 7,000 outofpocket, no big deal. But the way i look at it, the way trump won said. He wants it to either be ray you have the rich he wants it to be where you have the rich and the poor, but no middle class. Interesting, a lot of people are happy with Affordable Care act coverage, but a lot of people are having trouble with outofpocket costs. The caller is not atypical. Also in the biden plan he would tie coverage to the more comprehensive plan where you can buy a more polite a more or less comprehensive plan. It would be easier for people to make their outofpocket costs, but out of pocket costs are a big problem that both parties recognize and President Trump very hard oning Prescription Drug prices because that is something that a lot of people see. Most people are not sick so they do not feel how much Health Care Costs until they really need it, what a lot of people take Prescription Drugs and go to the pharmacy counter and see how much things cost. That is also a big issue. It is coverage and cost, and i spent my whole career watching politicians try and grapple with those two things. Host let me ask you about a potential plan under a second Trump Administration. You and your colleague published this piece at the end of ecember, promises kept . Monumental promises do not add up. This tweet from President Trump. Republicans will be providing Better Health care at lower costs and always protect people of preexisting conditions. What do we know about any potential republican or white house lead Health Care Plan. President had a big unveiling and made a spinach speech in North Carolina about his plan and basically it is a press release that says all of the things that i have done, and he has done interesting things. There has been a kidney care initiative, there has been a lot of work on opioid addiction, and then he said he issued an executive order that said it is the policy of the United States with people with that people with preexisting conditions will be protected, but there is no force of law or details about how they would do it. Republicans in the house and senate have introduced bills that say insurers you have to sell to people with preexisting conditions but do not put any limits on how much they can charge which goes back to the preAffordable Care act days that said yes, you will sell to everybody even if they have ailments, but what insurers could do is say, we will sell to you but charged 10 times more, or we will sell to you but not cover the preexisting condition. That is common, we will cover everything except what you need coverage for. It is tricky, how you do it, and the republicans know that it is popular so they say they will protect people, but we have not say seen a lot of evidence to extendare willing those protections as far. Host some of those that julius talking about, julie is talking about, you can find it at whitehouse. Gov. Let us hear from gate dave in florida who gets his insurance from his employer. Hello. Caller thank you. Thank you for having me on. So, basically, i watched the entire hearing yesterday and thought it was a waste of time, it was a bunch of people grandstanding, and grilling isrett over a case that already being heard, which you are not supposed to do anyway. I think there focus on the aca is a dishonest way to go about attacking her. The aca, my experience , because when obama passed it, and i grew up under it, my family did not have employer Health Insurance because my dad did not had have the job we have now yet. My mom was able to afford the aca. She played for the Health Insurance of all her employees and she was able to pay for our own Health Insurance, and under the aca we lost that. Our Health Insurance because of the premiums going up and about and deductibles went up. We could not pay for it anymore. I had bad experiences with that because i had medical issues around that time that we had to pay for outofpocket and that was painful. Think, in general, the government interference in Health Care Made it expensive in the first place. And, also, if the aca is so great, and all these senators want to defendant, then why dont they or their families use it, or they have exemptions for Big Companies like mcdonalds and microsoft, none of those people use it for their employees. Host several observations. Your thoughts. Guest this is the most common thing i hear about, if it is so great then why does congress not have it . Congress does because the republican said if you pass this, you will live on it. Congress had to give up its federal employee insurance, and buy federal Affordable Care act. This is an issue that has a whole another story. The fact that Congress Gets to buy it and they get some subsidies because they were given up giving up employer insurance. It is not exemptions for Large Companies. With the law says Large Companies have to provide insurance, and most of them already dead, so that is not a big problem. The reason to create the reason to create the Affordable Care act exchanges was to allow people who did not have employer insurance to get it. Prior to the aca it was difficult to buy your own experience. It was expensive and did not cover a lot of things, as i mentioned earlier, mostly the people who thought they would need it were once he wanted to buy it, hence that was the origin of the penalty for not having insurance, basically the effort was to make the individual Insurance Market work better. There was also a chunk of the Affordable Care act aimed at Small Businesses, there is a Small Business tax credit and a Small Business exchange, but what happened was that when it launched the individual market part of it did not launch successfully, and all of the effort that went into fixing the individual market came away from working on the Small Business market. Hole and ithole, looks like your family fell into it. Insurance is getting more expensive because health care is getting more expensive. It has been difficult for Small Businesses to continue to afford to cover their employees, and that is something that still needs to be addressed. There was a lot of work left undone, that it wasnt that Large Companies were given an exemption, it was not aimed at Large Companies beyond telling them yes, you need to provide your employees insurance, which most of them were already doing. Host can you give us a couple of examples how the pandemic has stressed that Health Care System, in particular those under the Affordable Care act . Guest yes, it has stressed mostly the provider community. Particularly hospitals, and doctors. When everybody was staying home, nobody wants to go to the doctor or the hospital because they were afraid of coming into contact with sunday with covid19. In the places that were hard hit, everything got canceled. There were nor more no more elective surgeries and we saw a lot of statistics about people who probably shouldve gone to the hospital with ailments but did not, those are the excess steps we keep hearing about. All of the things that basically keep doctors and hospitals in business were not happening. There were literally for a while, going broke because they did not have they had Covid Patients but not their regular patients, and there was a big problem and there was a lot of money that went out in march, although some of that is still being distributed. Hospitals got the money quickly, but a lot of other Health Care Providers including a lot of clinics and medicaid providers did not get that money. Some of them are waiting for it now. It has really been hard. Host has some of the aftereffect with people not going to their doctors, has it been that doctors are now jammed, you cannot get an appointment and or stressed with patients . Guest yes. Right now people seem to be going back, and with this lingering concern that things will get bad again in the winter, i think people are rushing to get in what health care they can before they feel like they are going to need to walk down again, either voluntarily or mandatorily when it gets colder. So yes, things are really busy. I talked to friends and health care, and a lot of the pens up demandthat did pent up that did not happen in the summer is happening now. Caller john host john, new jersey. Caller good morning, i want to ask julie if the United States is if the United States health care is based on it is based on privilege, we pay through the nose for health care what would be in the way of the United States viewing health care as a right of its citizens, and thank you very much. Guest half the country. We will get extremely divided, and that is basically, one of the callers mentioned earlier, half theld Health Care System is government and have his private and we are undecided, the republicans would like to have less private. Really will be stuck in this push and pull for a couple of generations now. In the meantime, because we do not regulate our Health Care System is type tightly has many other countries, prices have gone up because they can. We are paying more, and the republicans would like to say if we would just get the government out and let the market work prices would come down. We have not necessarily seen that, but this is everybody disagrees rather vehemently on which direction the country should go, so we are balancing along in the middle and no one is very happy right now. That half the countrys public health, government run health care, and half of it is private health care. Age 65, howut post much of that is government provided . Guest all of that. Once you reach 65 you are eligible for medicare. Medicare is not all government. There is a lot a private insurance and medicare, there is medicare advantage. One third are enrolled in private plans that get paid for by the government to provide health care to beneficiaries. There also private medigap, where you can buy supplemental insurance. That i should point out is similar to what happens in a lot of other countries that have Government Insurance so the government will provide a floor of insurance, and you can buy private insurance implemented if you want to. Supplemented if you want to. Even medicare itself, which is the socialist health plan is now very much involved in private insurance as well. Withaid too, for people low incomes, there are a number of private insurance ensures that provide care to medicaid patients. There is private insurance in these government programs. We really are this very much mixed system, but what i meant when i said when the caller asked what would stand in the wasof the country, i talking about public opinion. Host the line for the uninsured is 2027488002. And charmaine is in new york. Caller thank you for taking my call. I would like to make a statement, because i am uninsured. My husband is a vet, he gets benefits through the v. A. And he gets and he is also being charged for medicare. And, because of that i cannot afford insurance. Doctor, io go to the would get some benefits from the v. A. , being his wife, but the cost is ridiculous. My point is that because there are people who are uninsured, i am concerned about the women who care normally be getting for their female issues, whether it is abortion, birth control, or anything like that that this is going to create some major chaos if insurance is not made available to all. Now, it is like we look at the president , and the president just had a flight over to a military base and had free care. Is like, if it is good for the president , then it should be good for all. My family right now makes too much money for me for toe qualify under under for me to qualify under under insurances. We are getting double dipped, taxwise. Caller this is a prop guest this is a problem for a lot of people. Our insurance is in silos and they do not connect well with each other. Benefits,e v. A. Tricare, and employer insurance, and this happens with medicare with couples where one half of the couple usually, the man is older than the spouse, and when the older half of a couple turned 65 and gets medicare, then how does the spouse get coverage, and with the Affordable Care act, the spouse can buy coverage on the exchanges, but if you earn too much to get a subsidy, it can be too expensive. That a recognized problem people end up falling through the cracks, which is why we have almost 30 Million People who do not have insurance including many who would like it and would be willing to buy it if they could have insurance they could afford. Host we are sitting seeing video of capitol hill of judge barrett arriving for her hearings. Questioning by senators beginning today. The hearing getting underway at 9 00 eastern. Two days of questioning of judge barrett, and our live coverage is here on cspan, just before 9 00 it will take we will take united well take you live. We are joined by julie rovner. Acs aca0 for enrollees. 2027488001 if you get employer insurance. Uninsured, 2027488002. A question from barbara in issouri, if the aca overturned with no replacement law, will insurers be able to drop certain insured people . Guest it depends. Not, in allihood likelihood they would have to maintain the insurance to the end of the plan year, but subsidies would go away in that case, people will have to pay itir amount in premiums and will not be something that they can afford to do. There is no question that if the insurance did not immediately end on the day that the Supreme Court declared the law on const to chanel, they would be major they unconstitutional, would be major chaos. That is the one word that everybody uses. Brenda host brenda, from new jersey. Caller good morning, i have a quick question. I just tuned into your program and enjoy it very much. I am on medicare and, i wanted to know if by any chance i have my secondary, United Health care. Would i be able to keep that . Guest if the aca were to go away . Probably would not affect it is unlikely that it would be affected. It would be one of the few things that would be unaffected by striking down the Affordable Care act. Host diane, from california. You are on the air, go ahead. What i wanted to say is that it seems like, to me, there is a lot of lying going on as far as trump going to these rallies and telling people about some kind of health plan that he has come up with, or whatever, but there is no evidence of it. So, i have lupus and diabetes. So, i need my insurance. There are people, if they get rid of it, they will not have anything, and it seems like it trump is always taking care of the big business, pharmaceuticals, and the hospitals and stuff like that, making sure that they get their money, and taking away from us. It is almost like they want us thee destitute, because other thing he was trying to do was he wanted to say you do not want have to pay the payroll tax. What that would do was take away Social Security, which he wants to do. He wants to take away Social Security and medicare. Hard, trying to swim through all of the lies to find a little kernel of truth. I do not know, it just seems like it is not america anymore. It is not about the people. The people do not even matter, it is about the money. Host ok. Julie, any thoughts . Guest this president does keep promising a Health Care Plan that he has not delivered. We have yet to see it, and we did a story at khn where he promised this year alone 20 times to have a Health Care Plan that we have not seen. I will point out that while the Trump Administration has the republican administrations tended to be, cozy with the so arecare industry a, the democrats, but President Trump is not helping the pharmaceutical industry at the moment, at least not in much and most of his policy pronouncements. The difficulty in doing something about drug prices is that the republicans on capitol hill are resisting the things that the president would like to do. Had the pandemic not happened, there was some thought that that would be a deal struck between democrats and the president on drug prices than it was unclear about how that would get through the senate. Host if republicans on the hill are uncertain, do the republicans running for the house, does Kevin Mccarthy have a Health Care Plan that they would take up . Guest the republicans in the house have had various health plans over the years, but they do not have anything lately. Senator mcconnell and the senate at thether decidedly beginning of this past term in 2018 that he intended to work on other Health Issues and not have a republican plan to overhaul the Health Care System because he knew that he was not going to have the vote in the narrowly divided senate. They were preferring to things things like drug prices and surprise medical bills. Those were the two big Health Issues that republicans were working on before the pandemic derailed most of the legislative agenda. Host have executive actions by the president been able to lower drug prices . Guest the president says that they have. We have done a lot of work that has suggests that have there has been a leveling out, but it is unclear if it is anything that the president has done. The president has tried to do a number of things that have been blocked and propose things that have not happened yet. The big one is trying to tie the prices of drugs to the marital care program to the price control prices and european countries. The drug industry is not happy about that, and it has not happened yet. When it does they are likely to that theit is unlikely president has the authority to do that. To do things likes that need to be done by congress and he says they have done them and people sue and the court says this really would take legislation. Host from South Carolina. Hello. Caller hello. Question comment. Is it more essential to have insurance, because i pay healthy auto insurance, or have mandated Health Insurance . Everybody is complaining about Health Insurance being mandated, and yet we pay lots of money for auto insurance, not to say that we should not have auto insurance. However, our health is just as important, or essential, and to mandated should not be a problem. This was the argument when the Affordable Care act was being passed, and the response for people who opposed it was you can choose not to drive but you cannot choose not to breathe. The mandate for Health Insurance was more courier save coercive then auto insurance. In practice, it is not optional. In theory driving a car is more optional than just existing. And that was one of the arguments that the Supreme Court looked at. That was something that was brought up many times. Host matthew from florida on the uninsured line. Go ahead. Caller hello, i like your work. I would like to say that i was uninsured for a decade leading i to the passing of the aca was also told that i did not make enough for the low income subsidies, so there is something to be said about that. I just wanted to invite your comments on that. That you do not have low enough income to qualify. There are three levels of subsidies if you are very low income, in many states, this was made optional, but now in most states you can get medicaid. If you earn too much to get medicaid and it is still under 138 of poverty, you can only you can get help with your premiums and outofpocket costs. If you are above 138 of poverty there are subsidies to help with your premiums, those are the levels. People hit the cliffs and it is hard. As i mentioned conga i mentioned, congress knew that when they were passing it, it was no means perfect and people get caught in financial squeezes that were unintentional. There had been efforts to fix it, and then President Trump got elected to try and make it go away. In 2014 as it was taking effect, the republicans took back the senate, and they had no interest in fixing any of the problems with the Affordable Care act. For things difficult that normally would have been done. When you pass a law as big as the Affordable Care act, you have a series of technical corrections, some of which are actually technical or things were worded wrong. Wherehem swear problems that were cropped up. That never happened. Republicans took over the house in 2010 after the bill was passed. There has never been a democratic president and congress with an interest in fixing the problems of the Affordable Care act. And that is why they continue to exist. Host on twitter, some observations on the issues. With the from mark, aca we had two choices of small, Regional Health care groups. If you travel to another state you had to have supplemental insurance. Medicare needs to reimburse of higher rates reimburse at higher rates because doctors are opting out. Guest that is a whole lot. Medicare does set prices. It is a government run plan. The care is provided by private doctors and hospitals and other health care professionals, the prices and they are lower than private places. Some people say that they are too high. He can be difficult for doctors for patients to find doctors that take medicare, that i think over 95 of doctors take medicare. A lot of doctors cannot opt out because it is too much of their patient panels. They would not be able and they would not have any patients left if they opted out. The argument is that if it will be a public option will they pay medicare rates and one point five times medicare rates . Medicaid rates are lower. The whole issue when you get into Government Health care, you get into how much you will pay, is it enough, is it too much . , armies ofeople people for whom this is their entire career, figuring out how much should be paid for health care. Host let us go back to the november 10 case coming up before the Supreme Court on the Affordable Care act. Today saidfor usa liberals misread baritone obamacare, and he right writes that it is highly callely that they will obamacare as unconstitutional. It is more likely the court accepted the case to put an end to the legal cloud over the program resulting from lower courts cases and actions. He says that congress will not have the authority to order people to buy different programs. Basically, the court looks at two things, as the mandate intrinsic to the program, and would congress have enacted the program without it . Guest yes. That is entirely possible and likely. There has been a lot of chatter about Justice Kavanaugh and some other cases. Congress used to put inseparability clauses that say if any portion of this law is unconstitutional, the rest of the law should go on. Some people have said that that is an indication invitation to the court. Congress has mostly stopped doing that and then comes the question if there is no severability clause, with the congress intended to operate with intend it to operate without base. At the time, people assumed that without the mandate, the exchange couldnt work. We are seeing the opposite, the exchanges are working without the mandate. Now congress would clearly say, i guess we do not need this. This is what the court will have to grapple with. Is it entirely possible that even the conservatives will say, yes the mandate without the taxes unconstitutional but Everything Else can stay . That is possible. It is also possible that they said without the mandate preexisting conditions would have to go, but the rest of the law could stay, or could or they could say the whole law has to go. It is in the pantheon of things likely. Im saying the whole law has to be struck down is the least likely. Have a few more minutes with julie. We go to jackie in pennsylvania. Nk you for waiting period thank you for waiting period. Caller this is on the aca tax. Even though i am on medicare now i was previously on the aca and followed it closely. It is my understanding that there is a tax for income over and000 for individuals 250,000 for couples, i believe it is 2. 5 . It was my understanding that the ,ax was to help pay for the aca specifically the subsidies. So, i am wondering why the argument is that it is no longer a tax if the taxes still in place . Thet i think the argument mandate was constitutional because they were using the taxing power. The caller is right there. There are a lot of taxes because the democrats were trying hard to pay for the entire thing, so there are taxes on wealthy people, income tax surcharge, there were a lot of taxes on health care industries, many of which have been repealed under duress, things like medical device tax, they were supposed very the cadillac tax on generous employer plans. Congress repealed those a couple of years ago, so most of the provider taxes have gone away. But yes taxes on higher income people are still there, which is another irony if the Affordable Care act world would be struck down. Host philip in ohio who gets his insurance through his employer. Caller yes, hello . Host you are on the air. Caller my late wife worked at the tsa, and she had blue cross anthem federal, and they got theirs to the federal government, which pays 100 of all medical procedures. When they say that congress was on the same thing, they are not. Everyone else gets anthem blue cross, but federal employees have their card marked federal. How does that core inside coincide with everybody else on this Affordable Care act . Guest the federal government has its own employees Health Care Plan. That is what congress used to be on. They had it the same as the other 9 million employees, but Congress Took itself and its staff out of the federal employees Health Care Plan and required people to buy through the Affordable Care act. Every other federal employee gets federal Health Insurance except for congress and its staff. Host im pretty sure you are a baseball fan so i will ask you about a tweet this morning knocking dr. Anthony founds pitching faucis pitching ability. Is far his pitching arm better than his trump was right, we saved 2 million usa lives. Of the you make increasingly divisive nature of the relationship between dr. Fauci and mr. President trump. Guest dr. Fauci pointed out that the rose Garden Events to announce Amy Coney Barretts nomination was a super spreader event. I think scientifically it is hard to dispute that. There have been a couple of dozen people at the event and it was not entirely outside, there were events inside as well. We have seen a couple of dozen people test positive. I am sure that did not make the president happy, and there was comments outok his of context and he has asked the campaign to take the ad down. I am not surprised that the president is not very happy with dr. Fauci who did throw out the first pitch at the nationals when early in the season and it might have been the opening game. Host and he had his mask on. Guest it was not a great pitch. He hadci pointed out been busy doing other things. Host let us get one more call. Thomas in san francisco. Good morning. Caller i just want to thank cspan for your service to the public, and i enjoy your program. Host go ahead with your comment. Caller i think the aca is what we are talking about . Host we are. Caller my concern is that i am on the aca, i have been since that was passed during his presidency. I have not really experienced anything that would be unusual with me not being on the aca, thatse it is not true preexisting conditions would be taken away because i do not think that anybody in their right mind would want anybody not to be protected with preexisting conditions. I do not have preexisting conditions, but i could not imagine what it would be like not being protected. Host i will let you go there, things are about to be underway. What will you be listening for in terms of responses from judge barrett . Guest any hand as what she might hint at to what she might as to what she might think. Justices do their very best not to pin themselves down. So, i will be interested in how she handles herself and what kind of questions get asked. And, just watching with open ears. Host julie rovner reporting at chiefws on twitter and washington correspondent for Kaiser Health news. Thank you for being with us. Host that will wrap it up for the program this morning and we will join the hearing getting underway probably in five minutes at 9 00 eastern. We are back on washington journal at 7 00 eastern. Thank you for joining us. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [indistinct chatter]