Reporter the white house defending the governments response. The federal response has been anything but slow. In fact, theres been an unprecedented push through of billions of dollars of federal assistance. Reporter but the president has spent the last three days tweeting repeatedly about nfl players who kneel during the national anthem. Mr. Trump, continuing to fan the flames on twitter monday night. Sources tell cnn that the president appears pleased with the firestorm he has created, telling a private dinner of conservative leaders its really caught on. I said what millions of americans were thinking. Administration officials tell cnn that Chief Of Staff john kelly is not happy with the public feud but the retired military general, who lost a son in the afghanistan war, agrees with the president on the substance of the debate. Meanwhile, nfl teams continue to show solidarity against President Trumps comments. The entire Dallas Cowboys team and team owner, jerry jones, taking a knee before the anthem at last nights game, then
voted for donald trump. Theres nothing been like puerto rico to the same degree. Partly because, unfortunately, these folks are not Trump Supporters and they are not top of mind. Im not talking about fema, just to be clear. Fema is on the ground there. He has to please his bosses as well. They are there in earnest. Its a very difficult situation. The president , im saying the president gave a speech to the u. N. Talking about sovereignty. These are americans on that island. They are without power almost a week. Combined damage total may be more than harvey and irma combined. Everybody is concerned but the president is tweeting more about nfl and Hillary Clinton than he is about the island and when he is, he seems to be dising the infrastructure. Is maria Donald Trumps katrina . Abby, when the president did finally tweet about puerto rico, he obviously focused more on their economic crisis, failing
infrastructure, which are true, but tone deaf. Wildly tone deaf while 3. 5 million americans are in dire straits down there. And wasnt that what john kelly was going to crack down on, making the message more pala palatab palatable . How do tweets like that, so roundly criticized as being insensitive, how do those sneak out . I think john kelly has not successfully cracked down on anything on the president s twitter account for over a week now. I guess you could argue over eight months now. The president is doing what he wants on social media and revealing his true feelings about the situation. I agree with john. Its really asounding that instead of a show of solidarity or sympathy for the people who are actually genuinely suffering right at this moment, the president sent 2 1 2 tweets
about the failures of the puerto rican government and the debt owed to wall street. Thats really not anywhere near what was happening at the federal level when it came to the other storms. Maybe the president has storm fatigue, but one of the challenges of leadership at this moment is that he has to kind of continue on. When there are all of these natural disasters happening at the same time, yeah, he has to focus on all of them with the same degree of intensity. It also doesnt help that, i think, over the weekend with all this focus on the nfl, you know, the president is feeling pretty combative right now, as you can see from his twitter feed and the comments he made at dinner last night with conservatives. Hes feel iing in a fighting mo. He has a great foe, chris, if
he wants to fight, right . Maria just about destroyed something that is under his responsibility as president of the United States. Yep. He could have thrown on his khakis, got on a military transport, jumped into puerto rico and ridden around like Teddy Roosevelt if he wanted to. He could own that situation. He could fight that need. He could fight that distress and show i am the builder. p. I will show you how its done in a time of need. And he seems to have all but ignored it. What was his twitter feed full of during hurricanes irma and harvey . Where did he go visit . He was quick to go to those places. He sent out lots and lots of tweets about those places. Thats the issue here. John makes this point. Theres clearly a difference in the way he approached those two storms. Which, by the way, in our polling he got very high marks for. Twothirds of people said he handled it quite well than the
way hes handling this. When abby was talking, the thing i remember when it comes to trump, the twitter feed is him. Right . Everything else that comes out of the white house is sort of the form Al Mechanisms of government. His people, his aides. Twitter feed is him. During hurricanes irma and harvey tons of tweets about those hurricanes, very focused on it clearly. It was taking up his mind space. Now nfl, Luther Strange, that vote being today in alabama. Nothing on the hurricane until last night. Lets be honest. Donald trump is a consumer of television. The criticism of him was starting to ramp up and so out came a tweet that was to counteract that. If you look at his tweets up until last night, there were 14 or so about the nfl and zero
about puerto rico. That tells you what you need to know. There was also criticism on twitter. People reacting to his tone deaf tweets. Marc anthony, famous singer, j. Los ex. Mr. President shut the blank up about nfl. Do something about the people in need in puerto rico. And then hey President Trump you cant wait that long. There will be a lot of american deaths if you wait that long. He was talking about the presidency measure, that it might not happen until october. 10,000 federal fema employees helping out. There are 3. 5 Million People without power who need help. Right. Still without power. An airport is basically shut down with people trying to get out. Massive devastation at a scale greater than harvey and irma. Its this problem that it doesnt seem real to folks. And it does require theres the opportunity for leadership, as chris expressed. Be the builder. This is a new yorker, who should understand instinctively that Pewter Reekians are fellow americans. Its great that the federal government is there. More needs to be done. He has been distracted by these other things speaks, as chris said, where his head is at. And, abby, he has a great year for cultural divide. Whey wooi do you think he dived is it dove or dived . Dove. Dove into the situation . The lack of understanding as to why he did this. This is a no brainer. He loves the culture war. He always has. Of course hes going to look at this nfl and say this is easy, especially with the Luther Strange situation going on. I will take care of that right now with the nfl. It has to be working for him. I was in the crowd in alabama friday when the president gave that speech and he was right. They really ate it up. They loved it. It tells you everything you need to know about why the president did it. He was in a mostly white crowd acres state that has a long history of racial tensions where he knew that a message like this would resonate and would resonate loudly. It all teed up to this moment in which he went really farther than he has ever gone before with the rhetoric on this issue. The president is in situation
where he needs to shore up his base. He talked about this as a candidate. He talked about Colin Kaepernick needs to find a new country if he doesnt want to stand for the national anthem. He has talked about all of this stuff. Cultural wars were part of this campaign. He was delivering on that promise friday night and at a time when health care is stalling, when he the wall is not built. There was a build the wall chant at that rally in alabama. Frankly, it was kind of awkward, because the wall is not built. And the president needs to deliver for his base in one way or another. And this is a really easy way for him to do it and do it quite effectively. Go ahead, john. Look, the president has an instinct politically for the divisive, for the culturewar theme. He knows it. He goes after t the execution, the followthrough almost always
theres major blowback. This will blow back in ways he hasnt expected with the base and with other folks. This was a fairly isolated protest that didnt have an enormous amount of sympathy. Lets be honest with that. With the president weighing in, attacking individuals and statements of conscience all of a sudden you have a Broad Coalition of players, owners and people who care about the nfl that say theyre identifying with the kneel and elevating this issue. The blowback will be something he doesnt expect. I also think very quickly, to add to johns point, look, abby is completely right about the point scoring. He looks at the nfl and sees things. Rich, in his mind, entitled, and mostly black. So, in the culture wars, thats a Hanging Curveball to hit. The problem is, if, as president , you are primarily focused on dividing the country
via issues yes, you can do it. Yes, it will work for some people. It will be motivational for a group of people. The problem is, youre the president of the United States. Your job is not to find ways in which to divide the country. It is, theoretically, to find ways in which to unite the country. Sara sanders, the head shaking moment for her yesterday was this is not about what hes against. This is about what hes for. Straight faced when she said it. I dont know how a reasonable mind can come to that conclusion. Im not saying hes not right on the issue. When the polls come out, when you ask the American People thats not the point. But thats all hes thinking about, chris. Of course. Thats where his head is. People will say, yeah, you should stand and thats good enough for him. Its been very telling that the white house has not been able to find any nuance whatsoever in the protests at the nfl, whereas there was all the nuance to be found after
charlottesville. Stick around till 7 30 eastern time, everybody. You will hear our latest Trump Voter Panel weighin on all of these things. They all voted for President Trump and, to a person, they are upset with him talking about this with the nfl. So youll hear their rationale. I was surprised by that. I thought we would see camerota take off the heels and be chased around. Its just a question. But its a little counterintuitive today. Worth the watch. Big day this was supposed to be do you know what this week was supposed to be about, right . Health care. Remember, the window is closing for the republicans to get through a bill with just a simple majority, but nothing is simple now. Is it dead, this Health Care Bill . If so, will the battle go somewhere from here . We have answers, ahead. When i look
in the mirror everyday. When i look in the mirror everyday. Everyday, i think how fortunate i am. I think is today going to be the day, that we find a cure . I think how much i can do to help change peoples lives. I may not benefit from those breakthroughs, but im sure going to. Im bringing forward a treatment for alzheimers disease, yes, in my lifetime, i will make sure. Can i get some help. Watch his head. Im so happy. Whatever they went through, they went through together. Welcome guys. Life well planned. See what a Raymond JamesFinancial Advisor can do for you. About to see progressives new home quote explorer. Where you can compare multiple Quote Options online and choose whats right for you. Woah. Flo and jamie here to see hqx. Flo and jamie request entry. Slovakia. Triceratops. Tapioca. Racquetball. Staccato. Me llamo jamie. Pumpernickel. Pudding. Employee hey, guys home quote explorer. Its Home Insurance made easy. Password was hey guys. For it. Do you know what the most Popular HealthInsurance Program in america is . Its not the private insurance industry. It is medicare. Medicare, yeah. My good friend, bernie, obamacare is a place holder for bernie care. Bernie care is socialism full born. He is a nice man. If you want medicare for all, youre going to wind up with medicare for nobody. Youll have a card without a real choice. A lot to discuss. Lets bring in our Political Panel back. Chris cillizza, abby and john avla. I could watch them debate all night long. It was nice to see people with very different ideas, they do not agree fundamentally. I got that. But how they disagreed is how democracy thats how it should work. Theres no youre crazy. Get out of my face. Youre crazy but i kind of like you. It was about ideas and let people digest it with their own argument. It was refreshing. It really was. Thats not the way the washington, d. C. Has been working. That was a good moment. Deeply disagree on the issues. Nobody called an s. O. B. Who would have thunk it . Will there be a vote on gr Graham Cassidy . Im not sure that Mitch Mcconnell will want to put something up for a vote that doesnt have the support. Based on the folks who are a no and the options that are available to them to mullify both sides. If they do anything to Target Collins and murkowski at this point, rand paul will be even more staunchly a no. Then you might lose folks like ted cruz and mike lee. I dont think the cards are
there. Frankly, you know, President Trump has been, for two days now basically, been saying ive moved on. Lets get on to tax reform. One more beat on how they disagreed last night, how they voiced descent. John mccain has, once again he has been a big nail in the balloon for this, okay . And this was very tough for Lindsey Graham to take. Listen to how Lindsey Graham discussed john mccains descent on this bill. Dear friend. He is one of my dearest friends in the world and john mccain can do whatever damn he wants to. He has earned that right. [ applause ] john, if youre listening, if we fall short well try to have a better process. Nobody respects you more than i do. So to any american who has a problem with john mccains vote, all i can tell you is that john mccain was willing to die for this country and he can vote any way he wants to. And it Doesnt Matter to me. [ applause ] thats touching. Yes. Look, it was real. It was human. And also, cillizza, please, tell me if im wrong. Who would come out and bash mccain for his vote . Right. The president of the United States is going to come out and bash him for his vote. It does seem were in a weird space where people dont want to take trump on directly. They dont want to take the beating and the backlash. Trump is an active enemy. It was a huge and stark contrast we saw from the men and women on that stage versus what were seeing out of the white house. But this, again, goes to sort of the one way he has one speed. He just does. His speed is full forward and attack, whether its the nfl, whether its crooked hillary, whether its john mccain, jeff flake. We only have show is only three hours long so im not going to list everybody. But that is what he does. Its what he feels most comfortable doing. And he doesnt seem to grasp the
difference. Again, i feel like we could talk about this every day. Theres a difference between being a candidate for president and being president. We saw that very clearly in charlottesville, that it was, well, on many sides and then unwillingness to admit that he was wrong. We see it again, in my opinion, with the nfl versus the puerto rico disaster. He is focused on something he believes can score him political points. What will he focus on tomorrow if his chosen candidate doesnt win . He will almost in alabama . He will almost certainly attack Mitch Mcconnell and Senate Republicans because also, by the way, they are not going to get health care done. Abby was nice about it. Ill be less nice. It seems i would be stunned if somehow 50 votes came out of this thing, that these people are against it and theyre going to stay against it. Theyre already sharpening the knives to go after mcconnell inside the white house. Yep. And lets be real about this, though. The president rails against people when health care fails. When its a critical period hes off talking about anything else. This is someone who makes Richard Nixon look like a uniter not a divider. Lindsey graham, ability to disagree. That is lacking. The white house is without moral leadership and the president doesnt seem interested to try to play in that space. Last point . The president also seems to keep attacking people that he needs to vote for his policy, attacking john mccain, susan collins, lisa murkowski, rand paul, whoever it is, is not going to work. Frankly, thats the one thing that he keeps doing that is very counterproductive in this process. Lets talk about something astonishing. You were just going to spit it out there. You realized how much trouble
that would have given us. It needs a qualifier. Six white house advisers to the president , some before the president got into the white house, some current, have been using private email accounts to do government business. They include ivanka trump, steve bannon, reince priebus, gary cohn. And jared kushner. Here is the pushback. Well jump to the chase. Sure. No server. To give it more context, Hillary Clinton, obviously, was the poster child for this issue of what was disclosed and not disclosed. She spoke about this, right . Do we have sound from her on this . Here it is. And the hypocrisy of this administration, who knew there was no real scandal, who knew that there was no, you know, basis for all their hyperventilating. And now were finding, as with
the latest revelations, that they didnt mean any of it. Right. Its just the height of hypocrisy. First, admit, you were about to huff and puff on me about the server thing but when Hillary Clinton comes on and says it, it takes the wind out of you. When Hillary Clinton comes out and says it wasnt a big deal when i did it. Its going to reinforce all the people who believe it was so bad. But whats the difference between what clinton did and these six people . Because there actually should be some continuity. Right . Situational ethics is killing our politics. Server or no server, there were emails. I dont care what he said. There were emails. This is something, imagine people close to the president would have some internal check to say, you know what . Lets not use the private email, server no, server. This will resonate as hypocrisy even if Hillary Clinton doesnt help in the overall situation. It would normally be a huge deal. In the context of the selfinflicted scandals its going to seem small. If it was about bad judgment for Hillary Clinton. Thats right. Do we learn nothing . How can they be no. Using private emails . The reason that the Hillary Clinton email thing hit so hard it reinforced this idea that the clintons, broadly speaking, didnt think that the rules applied to them. So, i mean you know, this would suggest another well particularly ivanka and jared kushner, welltodo family. Theyre going to do whatever they want to do. Thats hugely problematic. As a substantive matter its important because there are ongoing investigations right now. These emails just become a whole new Treasure Trove for mueller and his team to play in, for the congression investigators to play in. The revelations about these private emails were probably the most important thing that
happened in the last week. Its a pandoras box. We dont know whats in them. Investigators are going to want to find out and that could pose a lot of problems going down the road in the same way it did for Hillary Clinton. It opens up a doe door that is very hard to close. It may be a practical problem. Politically, being able to lean back on clinton destroyed the emails, with the hammer and the bleach, thats going to get political cover. The president doesnt agree with me. What he has chosen to tweet about oh, please. Piping hot. Crooked hillary. With everything thats going on in puerto rico and health care. What does he tweet about . Nfl ratings are way down except before game starts when people turned in to see whether or not country will be disrespected. Thats great, nfl and ratings. Its a twofer. Its what he cares about. Remember, the twitter feed is him. He cares overwhelmingly in the last 72 or 96 hours about the
nfl and ratings. And i think a lot of that has to do with the fact that he is placating a base. Rich, entitled, primarily black. Those are three things you cant change. Those are three things that will get people angry and resentful. Twitter trump is the real trump. We all know that. Its nice to know whats going across the brain waves of the president this early in the morning. He retweeted a fake Missile Launch from iran, a guy who has access to all the intelligence in the world. Thats not even near the top of the stack of things to talk about. In any other administration, that would be a scandal to talk about. He hes tweeting fake dangerous news. Thats right. Bloodshed at the border between israel and the west bank. We have details about what happened. These situations are always a concern as being a flash point for more conflict. The news, next. Who knew that phones would start doing everything . Entertaining us, getting us back on track, and finding us dates. Phones really have changed. So why hasnt the way we pay for them . Introducing xfinity mobile. You only pay for data and can easily switch between pay per gig and unlimited. No one else lets you do that. See how much you can save. Choose by the gig or unlimited. Xfinity mobile. A new kind of network designed to save you money. Call, visit or go to xfinitymobile. Com. Following Breaking News out of israel. Theres been a shooting at the
crossing between israel and the west bank. A 37yearold Palestinian Man Opened Fire at the back gate of an israeli settlement that is opened every morning to allow palestinians to enter israel for work. This is a very big security controversy. Police say the shooter was also killed. North korea is beefing up its east coast defenses after claiming that President Trump declared war on them. The white house calls north koreas claim absurd. President trumps tweet warned north korean lawyers they, quote, wont be around much longer. North korea says that gives them the right to retaliate to shoot down u. S. Fighter jets in selfdefense. Jets flew along the coast in a show of force this weekend. Irans claim that it tested a new Ballistic Missile last weekend appears to be false. U. S. Intelligence Radar Systems and centers picked up no indication of a launch. Yet President Trump actually tweeted about the suspected launch right after the iranians
released footage saturday. Its not known if the president was briefed before tweeting. A spokesperson for the National Security council declined to comment. The president did tweet that iran launched a missile. As far as u. S. Intelligence is concerned, they did not. I know thats confusing but thats the reality. President trump facing intense criticism for tweeting about puerto ricos financial and infrastructure problems as the island is facing a growing humanitarian crisis because of hurricane maria. Millions of americans there still have no power. Cnns bill weir is live in san juan, Peter Reuerto rico for us. Tell us what youve been seeing. Reporter alisyn, weve taken a 20mile, as the crow flies, Excursion South into the
country. This island is experiencing potentially the biggest crisis in a century. Maria absolutely wrecked puerto rico. It looks like bombs went off in these mountain valleys. Every tree laying on its side. Homes sliding off of the hillside. Mudslides, a big concern there. Mostly its the humanitarian crisis. Even if someones familys house stood. The official death toll is about 16. It will go much higher than that as they continue to do Search And Rescue. Its the basic necessities that do not exist. Food, water, power, obviously, but also movement and information. People cut off. And so many folks stateside, wondering how people here are doing. So many people wanting them to know theyre doing okay. That will be impossible. This Antequated Grid System here is completely shot. Downed power lines. Huge high towers that came down crashing. You cant fix those with a
bucket truck and a couple of guys. Its going to take engineers and helicopters. What theyre worried about most right now after talking to the governor is security, as people get more anxious and more angry as that relentless tropical sun beats down and people wait six hours to run a generator. Theyre going to get desperate. Theyve only been able to find 15 of the drivers they need to bring the diesel up into the country, into the interior. And most of the other 85 , either theyre dealing with their own crisis at home or dont want to ride without a security guard, without a policeman with them. It is a complex, perfect storm of human misery down here. It is so complex. Chris and i were talking about how hard it is to get aid there. Ships cant arrive. Airplanes cant land with all the needed supplies. Are folks there aware that fema
and federal officials trying, or do they feel abandoned . Whats the situation about when theyll be able to get the aid they need . Reporter well, they dont know. Nobody knows. The mayor has been given a satellite phone. Ive heard stories that village also gather together waiting for news and sometimes there is none. What happens when youre in those dire straits, your mind goes to the worst places. Weve met many people who are incredibly warm, gracious, tough. The puerto rican people, theyre used to hardship, austerity. They put a brave face on it. Its a matter of days and weeks before that turns. It is human nature. They would love any information, anything to get them through to the next day. Bill, it is so important to have you and the team down there. You let us know what angles to pursue, what needs to be told
and well get you back on and get the information out as soon as possible. Thank you for being there. Look, its not easy to be where jen rivera, alisyns producer is down there. Theyre going to live in those same conditions. You also have a volume issue. U. S. Virgin islands got beat up and others, bad. But the Population Density is unique in Pewter Reuerto rico. So you have 3. 5 Million People there also in dense, but also spread out. Youll have every kind of problem. 1,000 miles away. You cant get around. Not great infrastructure of roads and stuff. The power grid cant be jumped the way we do in the United States because you cant take the power surge. Months, according to best sources, before you get back to a basic standard of living. Months. And Transmission Lines are down. They have to rebuild their what was a failing power grid already. They have to rebuild. I think we were mentioning
Something Like 10,000 fema officials already there on the ground. Thats good. But they need a million. They need hundreds of thousands. They need so much more help because people are in remote areas and havent had any help there. Theyre without medication. It goes on and on. You are spot on. Thats why the need for leadership is so great. People must be reassured that there will be an end. That whats being done can be done. We have carl levin custom and jim colston, fema battalion chief. Let me start with you. Give people here an understanding of why we need to be focused on puerto rico. Well, i think puerto rico right now is an isolated disaster area, and thats one of the reasons why we are here and assisting with the local government in the puerto rican Search And Rescue team to make
sure we can get out and get a Fair Assessment of the needs as well as to any quick rescues and provide information for the longterm recovery. Carl, as a Task Force Leader from california, you go into situations, you understand Search And Rescue. How big is the challenge on the ground there . Well, we actually had an advantage, over 270 of our personnel were here post irma. We kept our assets here when maria spun up. We hunkered down with the community here. So we had great Ground Troops even though puerto rico did not receive the kind of damage that the u. S. Virgin islands did in irma, We Preplanned puerto rico and used that information to really be aggressive, literally as soon as the storm broke and began Rescue Operations immediately. We had to cut our way out of the hotel we were in. We affected and immediately went
after the areas. The only problem was that central eoc and the information we normally get from all the other regions in the area, this place got hit so hard, there was no contact. So, literally, weve been working feverishly to get out to these areas, get contact, get information back home to the families to let them know that we are here. We have been here and we are here to get them that information and take care of the people here in puerto rico. Not knowing. 3. 5 Million People there, so many of them tied to the United States. Obviously, theyre a commonwealth. They have Citizens Rights but they have family here. What are you finding, jim, in terms of that need to communicate . People here not knowing if their family is still well, family there wanting to communicate it back. How big of a deal is that . Its almost a tremendous deal. Right now with over 90 of the cellular communication down throughout the island, communication outside of the island is extremely difficult. I know our troops on the ground
getting out into not only the major communities but in the smaller areas are able to meet with local officials there to provide them some information as well as, you know, do some spot checks on hightarget hazards. And then also provide them some information so we can go back and try to make some of those connections for them, since theyre not currently able to do so. Whats your best sense, carl jim, of how long it will be until the basics are in place for most of that population . Well, we have different layers of support that fema is providing. The group were responsible to and work with is the fema Search And Rescue program. Were actively removing people from hazardous conditions, that are ill, that cant move on their own. And these are areas that are
very hard, inaccessible to get to. Nonstop since the storm. Theyre continuing until we can get to those areas. Our footprint, we have a huge, huge effort of people that are connected to this country. Being here and how well weve been taken care of people that have lost everything. You have to know that we are doing Everything Possible and we will not stop until we get that information and try to reassure everyone back home that were doing everything we can to get to the people who are cut off, get them information. If they need to be removed, taken care of medically or rescued from those environments, thats what were doing. We are hearing you say it go ahead and finish your point. The infrastructure, its going to take a long time to get power and communication back up throughout the island. So, were seeing some recovery now but to answer your question for the long term of what weve
seen in our disaster experience, unfortunately the puerto rican people have a long road ahead of them. We want them to make sure they know theyre not alone in that recovery process. Jim, carl, youre there to do the work. Theres nobody better than the First Responders that america puts on the ground in these situations. Thank you for what youre doing. We will echo that urgency every chance we get. You let us know what information, what needs the American People back home can help the Puerto Ricans with there. Let us know. Be well and be safe. Alisyn . Chris, now to health care. Now that the Graham Cassidy bill appears that it will fail, is there any way that congress can fix the Nations Health care crisis . Ezekiel emmanuel will join us next. If hed taken tylenol, hed be stopping for more pills right now. Only aleve has the strength to stop tough pain for up to 12 hours with just one pill. Aleve. All day strong. When we love someone, we want to do right by them. What is this . chuckling but habits are hard to break. Honey, where are the habaneros . And then there are things we cant control, like snoring. loud snoring now the answer is right under your nose. Introducing theravent antisnore strips, clinically shown to reduce snoring with the power of your own breathing. Nice try there are always things that are hard to let go of. Now snoring isnt one of them. Theravent. The answer is right under your nose. Ahh. The new guy. Whoa, he looks he looks exactly like me. No. Separated at birth much . We should switch name tags, and no one would know who was who. Jamie, you seriously think you look like him . Uh, im pretty good with comparisons. Like how progressive helps people save money by comparing rates, even if were not the lowest. Even if were not the lowest. Whoa wow. I mean, the outfit helps, but pretty great. Look at us. Does he go forward or admit defeat . They dont seem to have the votes to pass it, even with a simple majority, 50 plus one, because three republicans have come out against him. Lets discuss with dr. Ezekiel emmanuel, one of the architects of obamacare. Zeke, let me put it right to you and what we hear as a defender of Graham Cassidy. There are people not the majority but about 7 of this country who gets insurance through the individual market, who believes that the mandate and paying for all of the weak are rocketing their costs. The big premiums have gone up for them. The deductibility has gone up for them, in terms of what they have to pay out of pocket. And Something LikeGraham Cassidy, that releases the ownness, the responsibility of having to have my insurance be a function of everybody elses will lower their costs and they like this idea. What do you say to that group of people . Well, typically, there were a
group of people who, before the Affordable Care act and if you repeal the mandate and exchanges in the Affordable Care act would be better off. They tend to be people who are healthy, young and fairly well off. So, actually, making a good income. Their insurance premiums would go down because we do whats called Experience Rating there. They pay based on what their anticipated costs are. But the whole point of insurance is to pool a big group of people and lower everyones costs because its more predictable and you know what the costs are, chris. And the best thing is not to do what Graham Cassidy tried to do, which was to slice up the pool, the group of people you insure, but to people putt as many people as possible into one pool, healthy, young, and older and sicker. And that will actually lower, on average, the costs for people. But, you know, it also goes to a larger point. Health care costs have moderated. We heard that last night. You, being one of the architects, obviously, of obamacare, i wonder what your reaction was as you hear this one audience member talk about how much theyve been hurt as obamacare and how it was not as it was billed. Can you tell my daughter tonight how you plan to absolutely guarantee her that she will never be subject to exorbitant premiums . Obamacare was a huge lie to the American People. If Medicaid Expansion is cut what dying from addiction would continue to have coverage for treatment . Considering the marketplace
options in my state, what would you do for Health Insurance if you were me . Zeke, hold on a second. That was not the one i was hoping for. The one from the woman that said obamacare was a big lie. She goes on to talk about how it was misrepresented. Maybe we have that one. Listen to this. Obamacare was a huge lie to the American People. Our insurance premiums did not go down. We did not get to keep our insurance plans. We did not get to keep our doctors and our taxes did not go down. Have you taken the time to listen to us, who are trying so hard to convey our message . We can no longer afford to pay so much so that so many can pay so little. Doc, what do you say to her about all those broken promises . First of all, about all those broken promises are accurate. The Affordable Care act has done some remarkable things for people. First of all, it limited total
outofpocket costs that people would have to pay. Those are high limits but it does prevent people from going bankrupt and that is, i think, an important protection. And thats true for everyone. The second thing i would say is, look, one of the problems of the affordable that has emerged after we passed the Affordable Care act, we needed some fixes. We recognized we needed to fix some things in the marketplace and the exchanges to bring premiums down and costsharing subsidies to have reassurance so if an Insurance Company had super high expensive people it wouldnt affect everyones premiums and get more Insurance Companies in rural areas and uncovered counties by reducing their taxes from the Affordable Care act. There are a lot of fixes that can be done. Unfortunately, we could not do that because republicans would not pass some fixes. Everyone hurts for people who are paying super high premiums and we need to keep health care
costs, doctor costs down to actually reduce those premiums. Those are essential elements. Hopefully, we can now focus on the very practical measures to actually save money and that will reduce premiums and address that ladys concerns. If Graham Cassidy fails, its up to congress to fix the things that are broken. My worry is weve got to move on now. We cant do health care. We need to do something bipartisan and not rush it. Do it behind close doors the way Mitch Mcconnell did. Five hours of hearings by the republicans. Democrats had many more. We can actually work this out if we try to work in good faith. I hope that senator alexander and murray actually make progress on shoring up exchanges and bringing premiums down. They have some ideas and they should push forward now