Constitution. You cant pass qualifications that are unconstitutional or voting late peoples rights under federal protection such as the Voting Rights act. And thats the lawsuits were now is when states have crossed the line and really gone too far in restricting who has ability to vote. Host Jennifer Clark is a ounsel at the Brennan Center for justice. You can find them on twitter brennancenter. Thank you so much for your time this morning. Guest thank you. You to r we invite watch all the oral arguments and programs on this issue spotlight, 2016 election and Voting Rights in their entirety, at our Video Library at cspan. Org. Q a. Uncer sunday night on theres an average, imagine, of one racial lynching a week in it was a and brilliant psychological device if old down a race, because you were black, you were afraid that this could happen to you. Announcer also, Lawrence Leamer talks about his literary career, including his latest the lynching, the epic courtroom battle about the klan, following the 1981 killing of Michael Donald the kkk in mobil, alabama. He was a teenager, trained to be a brick layer, youngest of children. His aunt asks him to get a pack of cigarettes, gives him a in his wallet, goes out and this old buick pulls out him and James Tiger Knowles pulls out his pistol and orders him to get into the back of the car. Pistol, hels out his knows whats happens, a black know. Alabama, you announcer sunday on cspans q a. Announcer at cspan. Org you our Public Affairs and political programming any time convenience. Go to cspan. Org and click on the Video Library search bar. You can type in the name of the speaker, sponsor of a or even event topic. Review the list of Search Program click on the youd like to watch or refine the search. If youre looking for a most and you dont want to search the Video Library, our home page has many for your ograms ready immediate dealing such as todays washington journal or day. Vents we covered that cspan. Org is a Current Service of your cable provider. If youre a cspan watcher, check it out at cspan. Org. Last week, aetna, a major nsurer when it comes to the Affordable Care act exchanges dropping out of operatef 15 states they in. To talk about what that means, our guests are here. Big of a blow is aetnas departure to the Affordable Care act . Guest talking about predictable, i dont think its not e blow, but its exactly news. United healthcare was the first to say they were going to drop out. Humana dropped out in july. Aetna. We have the problem, of course, is why are they dropping out . And the answer is, there are problems with the law. Here a n, when you were few months ago after United Healthcare dropped out, you story much ado about relatively little. Departure a s story thats going to have a much bigger impact . Its much ado about a little more. I dont think its a big deal reason. Following aetna had altogether 911,000 subscribers in the exchange. Theyre going to keep a bunch of those. When you take a look at what they comprise in terms of the of people in he in coverage through the Affordable Care act, its about 6 of the total load in terms of may lose coverage. So it is a problem, but it isnt huge problem. You have to understand, of course, there are a number of still find it quite profitable to participate, and some are expanding coverage. Got groups like cigna, molina, kaiser permanente. They all are participating. While to it worth participate. An interesting question, john, i mark to ask is that burtleini , the president and ceo of aetna, in april, he talked about that it was a good deal and not only was he not intending to contract to reduce participation, he wanted to expand it from 15 states to 20 states. Host he was also looking at a as well, this time correct . Ron absolutely. N july, he wrote a note to the department of justice saying that if it wasnt approved, hed he was going ther to stay in the exchange. Here res more at issue than just aetna feeling that do well in the exchanges. Host do you buy that . Joseph no, first of all, how bad didnt know it was going to be this year when he made that statement. Second of all, it was a statement. He was speaking to washington. He wasnt speaking to his stockholders. This latest move comes on the heels that the revelation that several hundred billion dollar losses that they sustained last year are actually increasing this year. Ron you might take a look at april, er itself in which was not that long ago, he actually talked about why it was deal. D he was talking about the cost of acquiring customers, and he said this was a good deal. You talk about other Insurance Companies are finding this profitable. Didnt United Healthcare find this profitable . Why are some of these larger finding it t profitable to operate in these markets . Ron well, some of the Companies Like united, the individual arketplace is not the marketplace they have excelled in. United, for example, their big line of business is with employersponsored insurance. And some of these larger nsurers, their biggest line of business has not been the individual marketplace. Companies that have done fairly well with respect to the individual marketplace, or medicaid, that are finding staying in the exchange is a thing. So not all companies are best new ped to deal with this marketplace. Host and were opening our phones in this segment if you our discussion about the health of the Affordable Care act in the wake of this news last week that 11na was going to be leaving of the 15 states that they were operating in next year. You receive your insurance through the Affordable Care act, the number for you, 2027488000. If you have employerprovided 2027488001. s if youre uninsured, 2027488002. Are the phone lines. You can start calling in. Ron pollack has been on before talking about the affordable act. Talk about your group. Usa. Is priorities on families usa is a National Organization for healthcare consumers. Weve been around for about 35 years. We actually did push for health time. M for a long our mission is to try to make sure that everybody has access highquality Affordable Health coverage and care. We are supporters of the ffordable care act, no surprise, and we think that isle the Affordable Care act a historic accomplishment, its not perfect. Here are a lot of things that we can improve and its our intention to help make sure that happens. Your areas of expertise at aei . I have worked on Health Policy and im an expert as well and rons proposals are going to the taxpayer an enormous amount of money. Host and well be talking about t about the next 45 minutes this morning having this rounditably on the Affordable Care act. Guess in our first harrison, arkansas. Ets his insurance through his employer. Robert, good morning. Caller yes, i actually get my insurance omaha from arkansas and when this all started, arkansas went together and came they call the private option. And its been successful, now gone through a huge election and democrat governor to a republican governor, they studied it, looked at it and examined it and turned and did it again. E still had the arkansas so we had legislatures that got together and made everything work. Antos have men like mr. Sitting there where, you know, he gets his insurance subis iidii and its amazing he finds himself in the circle for nsurance but other people getting it is socialism. My point is we should be looking thosesurance for all, and that have it should be thinking about why they have it and we give it up. Businesses get expense deductions. It. Ic employees have nonprofits have it. Help the it when you other people it becomes socialism . Thank you very much. Let mr. Antos respond and if you want to talk about your insurance plan, youre certainly welcome to. Joseph ive never said anything like that robert. Youre completely wrong, of course. And i, like most people, think that everybody ought to have access to insurance. With the Affordable Care act is, the word affordable, its not kinddable and its not the of insurance that i think a lot of people like robert thought he was going to get. Coverage he kind of that people with big ompanies im not with a big company but people with Big Companies typically get, because compensation. The made a very important point. Arkansas tried to do something on a bipartisan basis, and they succeeded. There were a good number of conservatives in arkansas who did not like the Affordable Care they found a way to extend coverage, particularly lowincome people. I believe that were going to bipartisanship in the few future. Tant the reason for that lets assume for the moment. Is winning. Ton thats what the polls are saying. Joe and people likeio the others that the Affordable Care act is here to stay. Four to be repealed eight years, probably longer than that, and i think that bipartisanship which as not existed quite a long time and hopefully some of the difficulties that the Affordable Care act that people have people like joe and me and people with different points of view can come together are reasonable fixes to the Affordable Care act that can make it better and historical etty lesson here. When the Social Security act of think its people one of the most extraordinary pieces of legislation in history, and its been heralded as a major accomplishment. However, the 1935 legislation failed to protect over half of workforce, over 2 3 the people of color in the orkforce, and those things got fixed over time and you should take a look at the Affordable Care act in the same way. Historic step in the right direction, but its not can be and will the kind d if we get of bipartisanship that i think will happen. Host joe antos, i want to give a minute to respond, specifically to the point if Hillary Clinton wins the election, does that give political stability to the Affordable Care act . Depends on what she does. The critical thing is she has to be willing to make changes that necessary. Ely i think liberals like ron would even agree on some of the changes. Disagree with ld many of the ones that are absolutely necessary to make a market but im more confident if she wins, that she will actually come to and try to make a reasonable deal with republicans. We will see Something Different since 2010 and republicans say no and the democrats are saying yes. Very little possibility for doing something in between. If you look at what republicans have proposed you will know that even though the first line of every proposal says repeal obamacare all the other lines basically say we are going to start with the structure that there is and we will make reasonable changes. Ofi have heard a lot repeals, not much replace. Had a blogoes running through the House Republicans health plan. Jim has been waiting from leesburg, florida. Good morning. Morning. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. Im 72 years old and in pretty good health. When you have Auto Insurance you are penalized by how you drive. Health insurance should be similar. Better care of yourself i dont go to the doctor very often. I go for my yearly checkup. I stay healthy and even healthy. If Insurance Companies offered that incentive like Health Programs it would be more affordable for everybody. It would take better care of your health you shouldnt be paying the same as people who abuse themselves. Host are their programs that do that to incentivize good health . One of the things the Affordable Care act does is provide Preventive Care predeductible. Different undertake ways of keeping themselves , it does provide health. Big advances of the Affordable Care act was we said we are no longer going to allow the Insurance Companies to discriminate against people who have a preexisting condition. One has asthma or diabetes or high Blood Pressure or a history of cancer were. They are denied insurance in the first place. I dont think jim is suggesting we go back to that. Some of the republicans when they talk about repealing the entire statute we would go back to that. I do think incentivizing good wellior in terms of eating and taking care of oneself and theres lots of room for trying to provide incentives for that. Host dawn in new jersey. Good morning. Caller good morning. It just seems kind of ridiculous amazing to me that a Large Company like aetna is unable to where profit in a market other large corporations are doing fine. It really kind of baubles the imagination to think they should thatthat bad of a company they cant make a profit in a market where everybody else is making money. Feels im sure mark insulted. The reality is most of the Insurance Companies are losing money. None of them thought from the beginning they were going to make money for the first couple of years. The reality is that even the blues are losing money. Look at bob the ship skin. Heis an Insurance Expert and documents how much money the companies are losing. It is true that medicaid typical plans are the ones making money. There is the reason. Have very low cost and very tight networks because they are medicaid plans. If are basically paying medicaid rates. You have united and aetna who go in and they are the highest pairs. You go into a big Health System and you negotiate with whoever is in charge. They have control over that market. Say,u are melina you can we can bring in a lot more customers and pay 10 more. If you are united or aetna can say we will bring more customers and we have to pay you 50 less. Its not a good market. Guest heres one thing to take into account. When you have an aetna or united which really did not specialize in the individual market place theres a learning curve that has to take place. Some of them quite frankly underpriced their premium. That is not an unusual thing. When you start in a market you want to get the largest market share. Most of these companies that didnt have experience in the individual market place were not sure what to charge since usually the name of the game is cap mean market share. Some of them underpriced. Some of them have to make corrections. United thats like had the least experience in the individual markets are the ones that had trouble. Host lets talk about the market next year and what its going to look like. The New York Times column looked at the number of carriers in different counties and states around the country and what that marketplace will look like next year after aetnas departure. States and counties in purple on this map are the ones that will only have one carrier as the option in the aca marketplace. The pink will have two providers. The white color three plus providers. Lets talk about pricing in those markets that have just one provider. One thing that your viewers need to understand is thatsu have one Company Providing coverage it doesnt mean you have only one plan to choose from. Most of the Companies Offer a variety of plans. From a consumer perspective there are two sets of issues that we care about. One, we want to make sure that our provider is in the network of our plan. To fact that there are going be numerous plans offered even by one company should take care of that. The issue you raise is a little more difficult. That relates to price. Because its good to have competition. Competition helps bring prices down. Perspectivesumer the consumer cares mostly about what does he or she pay outofpocket. One of the things your viewers need to understand on the Affordable Care act probably do understand there are significant subsidies provided to people all the way up to 400 of the federal poverty level. Four with income below 97,000. Subsidies are provided on a sliding scale. The lower your income the higher the subsidy. The bottomline for individuals is what do i have to pay outofpocket after the subsidy . I think what you are going to isd getting to your question that the overwhelming majority of people are not going to find a significant change because as the premium goes up so does the subsidy. Host this story in politico. The county that obamacare forgot. This is the one county in arizona that has no Health Care Providers expected to be in the market next year. In the exchange. There will still be blue cross in the nonexchange market. The insurance commissioner is trying to get blue cross which is losing money bigtime in arizona to go into that market. It probably will because that buys them goodwill with the regulator and maybe it will give them a slightly higher increase in the premium. Lets be clear about this. If are speaking as everything is going to be just great and we dont know that. The leading expert on measuring premium increases estimates that right now it looks like its going to be a 24 average increase across all the plants in the exchange market. You are right. There are subsidies. The key thing that we saw last open enrollment, hhs was saying look around and find another plan. The plan you are in is probably going to go way up. People are going to have to work their way down from a plan they may have been happy with to a plan that likely is much harder to deal with. Host todd is waiting to chat with you both in ohio. He gets insurance through his employer. Caller what i find you are all missing although i understand the logic you are all missing the problem is the individual mandate is an intensely evil maneuvering scheme that should be and be thrust upon private citizens. Participate and decide you are going to be subjected to the fine of 600 plus dollars or more which goes up every year then you decide you are not going to pay that you basically had six jeff did yourself subjected yourself to prosecution. People should do the experiment that i did. Most of my personal affairs are in atlanta. You take Cleveland Clinic in cleveland and University Hospital in cleveland 1000 aside and walk through what it would cost you to get a good physical. Get a dentist somewhere and teeth cleanings and your eyes checked. Maybe some additional blood work such as a pregnancy test or std test. Prostate exam. You will find at the end of that 1000 you still have a little bit of money left. You find out everything you need to know if you are an individual who takes relatively good care of themselves through exercise and live a low risk lifestyle and have a low risk job type lifestyle and live in a neighborhood where they dont have to be too concerned. You dont have to be a participant in health care insurance. You will subject yourself to the possibility of something bad happens that you need insurance four. Then you should have to suffer the consequences of that. But if that doesnt happen to you you should not be subjected to a 600 fine. Host let me get a response from ron pollack. Guest the argument that todd is making you hear from a number of young invincibles in particular. Are healthy and exercising and doing all the right things. Why do i need Health Insurance . Reason anyone wants insurance whether it is Homeowners Insurance or any other insurance is because you cant predict the things that are going to happen in your life. God forbid todd has a major accident today or an illness. Hes probably going to impoverish himself in terms of the cost. It is a concern. What the Affordable Care act did was said we are no longer going to allow insurers to deny coverage or charge discriminatory premiums when people are sick. That means that obviously people who have Health Problems are going to go into the marketplace. That is what has happened. If on the other hand you dont have younger and healthier people join the marketplace whats going to happen to the premiums . They are going to go up. Penalty wasof this to make sure that those people who might want to take a free ride and hope they will do ok attracts more people. It is the least popular part of the Affordable Care act to be sure. But it does help to make sure that the marketplace has a greater balance of risk pool. Host i will give you an a in arizona. Guest it doesnt work. Thats the problem. If the mandate really had teeth and it and people were seriously afraid not to buy insurance than we would have had a more balanced risk. Guest you would have wanted a larger find . Guest i would have wanted a more effective approach giving Insurance Companies the ability to sell Insurance Products that people actually want to buy at a price they are willing to pay. It has to be subsidized. Na. T lets hear from an caller good morning. Im
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