Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20131021

To hear your experience as youve dealt with those online exchanges. The phone lines are open. You can also catch up with us on all your favorite social media sites, on twitter, on facebook and on email. The story of the president s address and the problems the ongoing problems with the healthcare exchanges. Of thea front page atlanta journalconstitution. Over to the denver post. The front page of usa today calls for help for healthcare websites. That store noting that the white house yesterday signaled a shift in its tone in acknowledging the problems with the launch of the Affordable Care act. The front page of the i will readpost you a little bit of that post by amy goldstein. The front page of todays Washington Post. The speech is expected to take place at 11 25 today and you will be able to watch it here on cspan. We are taking your calls. What you want to hear the president say . What do you want to hear from that speech . Already getting a few comments on our Facebook Page already. This from alan. This release last night from the government blog. The initial Consumer Experience of health care. Gov has not lived up to the expectations of the American People. We are committed to doing better. Night from hhs, the president talking today at about 11 20 five. What you want to hear . John is up first from annapolis, maryland on a line for republicans. John, good morning to you. Caller hello . High. That the website is not up and running anywhere near what it needs to be. It was good to hear the president , i do want to say concede, but at least put on suspension if you will until he can get up and running and be able to handle all the very Sensitive Information that is being collected to look at a program for people to use. Side it is a kind upcoming, but the elections may see a third party emerge. I think the American People have not been heard through the whole of the i guess you could call it the funding by the republicans to put this in play. So it is a little premature. I think some things need to be looked at hard, but i do think the president ought to hold somebody accountable for the waste of money that went into this website creation. Host john talked about putting this website on suspension. This usa today story talks about the website being down for maintenance between 1 a. M. And 5 a. M. Daily this week. From houston,t texas on a line for independents. Betty, good morning. Would you want to hear from the president today . Caller i want to thank him because there are a lot of people here in texas that are not insured. I got on there and i appreciated the feedback i got from fromce insurance different insurance giving me their fees. It gave me time to find insurance on my own. It is a good thing. Everyone should have an opportunity to qualify to get on there. Cathy on a line for democrats. Good morning. Caller i tell you, im on c span and im a traumatic brain injury survivor. In a delphi, maryland working for dod when i left working for two star general. Chair, had an a 65 grand maul seizure. I am today fully disabled as a result of that injury. When i flipped to the channel and i see the federal cspan subject, i think cspan needs to hear about me. Kathy, what has a new Health Insurance law done for you. Has affected your coverage in any way . Hasnt done much for me. I am traumatically injured. Im fully disabled today. I pay a lot of money as a disabled woman for supplemental insurance. It is hard. I am 391 a month for fullemental medical on a medical disability in case you need to go back into brain surgery at gw hospital. Host that is kathy from laurel maryland. We will be talking a little bit more on a third segment of the washington journal today about what is actually being offered on this Health Insurance exchanges. Of your actual Insurance Coverage, that is with her segment with Kaiser Health news. In this morning were talking about the president s speech is happening at 11 25 today. We want to hear what you think the president needs to say about the problems with health care. Gov ahead of the thernments ahead of president speech. Jack lew was on meet the press yesterday and he wanted to address the glitches with the Affordable Care act website. Here he is. First, let me say that the huge outpouring of interest shows how important it is that we get this right. There are millions of americans who want Health Insurance. It is important for our economy for them to have Health Insurance. I think that there is no one more frustrated than the president at the difficulty in the website. I can tell you most people around me have been working fulltime on solving the more immediate challenges with getting the government open and dealing with the with making sure that we didnt default. There are people working 24 hours a day around the clock and the hhs has said that is going to putting out information on a monthly basis. Hhs has cut plans to fix it and it has to fix it and it has to be done right. That is treasury secretary jack lew. He is talking about the interest of his been shown in the website since it opened up. Obama demonstration has been touting some of those numbers as of saturday, this according to the Washington Post. 19 Million People had looked at the exchanges since it opened on october 1, that compares with about 8. 6 million who visited the site in its first three and a half days. Coming in on this subject of what the president needs to say today in that address from the rose garden. Red on twitter says john mccain offered a different take from jack lew. Here he is. Look, it has been a fiasco. Plane out to silicon valley, Principe Blodget are washington and fixes problem. It has been ridiculous and Everybody Knows that. Do think that somebody who needs to take the fall . That kathleen sibelius, some have suggested should resign . Lets have congressional hearings, lets find out whos or for this fiasco and then take the appropriate action. In my view. This is just the beginning of the problems associated with a massive restructuring of 1 5 of our economy. Theres going to be a whole lot more problems associated with this before it is done. That is why we republicans have to keep up the fight, but we have to rifle shot it rather than go at it with a meat ax which cannot succeed. Was john mccain yesterday. Some of the criticism of hhs head catherine sibelius. She has been asked to testify at a hearing on october 24. According to a press release from the committee, the administration has rejected the committees invitation to participate in publicly answer questions, including asking the secretary to come to that hearing. Heres a quote from the chairman of that committee, fred upton, a republican of michigan. It is well past time for the administration to be straight and transparent with the American People. Officialstion repeatedly testified, but brought technological failures revealed that is not the case. Youre the administration was not ready for launch or was not up to the job. The president and top officials were quick to boast a number of visitors to the health care. Gov, but theyve since gone silent, refusing to release basic enrollment figures. Those Administration Officials responsible have indicated they will not be available to testify next week. That is a release from late last the healthhe head of energy and commerce committee. We are taking your calls and comments. Neil is up next from darby, pennsylvania on the line for republicans. Newcomer what you want to hear from the president in this rose garden address today . Caller i want to hear him explain to people why is he in wontmocratic Congress Change obamacare. Hes a man. He should stand up for his own plan. Notes can says on twitter, maybe the president says he will not compromise with the website and appear to be holding his Affordable Care act hostage. Jean is up next from strongsville, ohio on our line for independents. Jean, good morning. Caller i just want to make a comment that my computer is 11 years old and i have trouble even getting on facebook, so part of the problem could be the computers that the people are using. That is all i have to say. Host thanks, jeanne. This morning political has a story. Were kind of thinking this is a tech surge in hhs official told politico. The person leading the tech surge is chief u. S. Technology officer todd park. This from bloomberg today. Getting a little background about todd park, about the u. S. Technology chief who is cofounder of the medical athena healthpany inc. And gaslight health inc. The efforts to fix website are members of the White House Program innovation fellows. That Program Brings leaders from the private sector and academia and nonprofits to temporary work on government projects with difficult histories, including computer and data systems and disaster response. If you of those folks who will be leading that tech surge as it is being called. Bill is up next from oldline, connecticut on the line for democrats. Bill, good morning. Caller good morning. I am a selfemployed guy who had cancer and ive been unable to get health care, so here in connecticut we have our own exchange and first data couldnt get on it, second it worked perfectly. I was surprised at how affordable the stuff is and it is really terrific. I think the states that have republican governors that have went to this federal ones which are having more problems and check the other places that are doing pretty well. Who called before from pittsburgh or someplace in pennsylvania, he said that the politicians and the whatnot were not involved in obamacare, but that is something they keep saying but it is not true. They are part of it. They have to be. Bill from oldline this morning brings up the difference between federally run exchanges and staterun exchanges. Heres a map to show you what those are courtesy of the wall street journal today. The blue states have federally run Health Exchanges and the orange states are state run exchanges. The green have a joint federal and state run exchanges. That is in todays wall street journal. Will explain the differences between state run an federally run exchanges later in our segment. Angelicao first to from edgewater, maryland on our line for republicans. Angelica, good morning. Justr good morning, wanted to say that i hope the president will talk about who he is going to hold accountable ,hat the system does not work with the account creation in particular. I may Health Insurance broker and i tried for myself to set up an account and was not able to do that for about 12 days. I have a customer for example who was able to set up an account, but what happened in she and her husband do not have any dependents. Theyre making 46 or 48,000 theyre making about 46,000 or 48,000. She was eligible in the system for medicaid which obviously is a huge mistake. The system is not working. The problem that i have its not really a problem, but this is what im dealing with, all my customers about insurance from 2010, they allof have to switch. Even now, im not doing with signing up new customers, im dealing with my existing book of business sorting through who cannot keep their coverage into next year and what that means is there are of course a lot of people that are getting these notices from blue cross, blue shield and other insurance carriers and they have to switch and i think that creates more backlog as well, because he notion that everybody who has insurance can keep it, thats not really 100 correct because they cant. They all have to either buy insurance on the exchange in maryland or off the exchange. That is all i wanted to say. Other than that i do have to say there are some good things about the new health care a lot that i definitely support. I do have customers that to qualify for that subsidy and im not saying that this law is all bad. There is room for improvement and i do hope that our Dysfunctional Congress in washington dc will be able to sit down with our president and better make the system host . Angela talking about some of the problems she had in signing customers up. Some of the problems are highlighted in todays New York Times. Some of the major problem solving those repairs is that the senators the centers for medicaid and Medicare Services is responsible for making sure that the separately designed databases and pieces of software from 55 contractors work together. If not, for a federal agency to assume that role and numerous people involved in the project to the agency did not have the expertise to do the job and did not fully understand what it entailed. The story goes on to note that a part of the system hidden from users i think id really want to see tell us when we [indiscernible] all they have to do is continue to improve and i hope they will again be honest. We are working it and were going to get it done. Thank you. Host a caller from bladensburg, maryland on the line. Good morning. Good morning. Have a quick comment i actually love the idea of the Affordable Care act. I just want to say that we just need to be patient. Things like this happen all the time. Has beendable care act debated extensively during the election and after that it was law not anow it is a bill. I dont know what republicans trying to sayp crazy things about hitler and nazis. Line for cant wait in Michael Jordan shoes if people can wait in line for Michael Jordan shoes or for movie tickets for hours and days and months, why cant they be patient with this. It happens all the time. I want people to be careful about what they say about a law that is law already and that is not really as bad as they try to make it seem. At that rose garden speech today, the hill newspaper mentions that obama will be joined by enrollees, consumers, Small Business owners and farmers who have already enrolled in obamacare online according to a story this hillg from the newspaper. Jan is from ted field, indiana on a line for republicans. Good morning, jan. Caller i think what i heard on sunday from every news reporting station is that this is a disaster. I think that is what the American People feel has been thrown on us. When the president came in he was going to give us jobs. He never rolled up his sleeves to get us jobs. Has given us another entitlement within 20 years we are not going to have Social Security. Heres no money within 10 years theres no Social Security and now another government program. Is going to be run just like everything else. Theres not going to be any box to put the money into. It is going to be spent. The problem is there is no security. Youre going to give all your Health Information to the irs who is not running anything and then the thing is that it is going to be able to be used by criminals internationally because they are a secureet into this location when you sign on. Im just asking the people to hasize that even the news said that the republicans were right. They should have waited. All they wanted to do was not shut down the government, the republicans in the tea party wanted everybody to wait because as you know, nancy pelosi said no one read the Insurance Plan of the obamacare plan. Before they approved it. Now maybe people will start to read it and realize that is going to cost us more to ensure 50 million americans that want that dont want to be insured. They want to do it privately. Some of theings up issues of who has access to the information. That is something we will get into it in hour later segment today with Kaiser Health news talking about insurance exchanges. That is coming up in our third segment of the washington journal today. We are talking about the president s speech today in the rose garden and we are getting your questions and comments. Some of the criticisms coming from texas republican senator ted cruz. That story quotes cruise on abcs this week. I will do anything and i will continue to do anything to stop the train wreck that is obamacare. Within 10 to do standing with the American People to work to stop obamacare because it isnt working. Caller thanks for cspan. I hope that president obama postpones the individual mandate for at least one year. I think all the problems that youre seeing right now are indicative of much worse of thes and probably most concern to me would be the security. Have how many people involved, how Many Companies and people involved tobacco the thingstion that so many can go wrong. We are party postponed it for the same kind of reasons for major companies, i think would be fair to do it for the people also. I guess that is pretty much what im thinking about host that was dave this morning. We will go to bethesda, maryland on a line for democrats. Heartened byreally some of the comments that im hearing from all side. To be verystarting thoughtful about the problems here. Anybody who has dealt with Verizon Wireless Customer Support knows that when you have a huge organization trying to deal and help with a lot of people there are going to be glitches. It is a huge undertaking that they are doing. Theyre dealing with different kinds of code, it is like people coming into a room and everyone speaking a different language. Anyone who knows about i. T. Knows that this is an i. T. Problem. I wanted to Say Something about the way cspan handled the shrill and craziness that was going on in the last few weeks before the buildup to the debt ceiling and all of that. There was one day when you had republicans a republican and a democrat talking to one another, people who are called in were talking to another online. Said actuallyan start doing Something Like this so that instead of talking at each other and being so shrill and saying such negative things, what if we could actually talk to one another in a conversation style . Would cspan ever consider doing Something Like that so stop being so nasty to another . Thank you. Host i appreciate the suggestion this morning. I want to show some other headlines from around the country today. We will continue talking about the subject of the president s address today. Heres the front page of the wall street journal about the settlement is on the table for j. P. Morgan chase and company, a story that is leading several of the papers today. That deal was reached with the government. It is a tentative deal. They have to pay about 13 billion to and a number of civil investigations into the sale of Mortgage Securities before the 2008 financial crisis. A separate and more at serious criminal probe into the bank and its executives will continue, lhe wall street journa notes. That story also leads to the lead editorial in todays wall street journal. Is calling the deal the morgan shakedown. It is being called a landmark that shows how much politicians now control u. S. Finance. Justice,eval we are focusing with you for the next 15 minutes or so on this president ial address today on the problems with the obamacare website, health care. Gov. Heres a piece by Michael Scherer in time magazine. Number apologies, why obama has to get mad about broken obamacare website. Here is a piece by michael share. We want to get your thoughts. Which of the president s day . To get mad and speech today . Someone from verona caller , mississippi on a line for republicans. I have a couple things to say. I heard people saying things about george bush. Get down, youre not going to get there. Host were, talking about the health care. Gov websites this morning. Heavy had a had experience with that . Caller that is what im getting at. I think he needs to stand up and tell us that we are the no that we are held hostage good i think he needs to step down. I think he should tell us, hey, im out of here. Cant fix this. Didnt intend it to start with. Ok . Hes not going to do anything for us. Is up next from massachusetts on online for independents. Sandra, good morning. Hayek, good morning. 24 billion spent on wasted ideas , wasted nothing and yet take a look at massachusetts. Romney. Thing go through with democrats running it. Wake up, people. This will too. Wait, it will be fixed. Thank you. They got up at the knuckle and do something right. From andrea this morning massachusetts. Carol says on twitter that known in this administration is ever held accountable. We dont need another empty speech from obama. Blah, blah, blah. Heres a piece in todays Washington Times. Mr. Obama has resisted calls to hold ms. Sibelius or anyone else accountable for the failure. Sandy is up next from how 10, south dakota on caller the line. Good morning. A couple things i wanted to say. I just think obama should tell people that these quizzes will be fixed. All these people that are talking about changing insurance, havent they ever work for an employer that suddenly changed insurance . I have done that three or four times and ive been working. That isnt anything great. If your employer decides to change insurance you change to. If they have to change insurance , that is not that bad. Sandy this morning from south dakota. Teresa is from haymarket, virginia on a line for independents. Teresa, good morning. I think people should stop criticizing things have not tried yet. [indiscernible] anybody that Knows Technology knows that it will have a glitch. People should start being patient. Thank you. Oft theresa on the subject who might be held accountable. Here is a little more from that Washington Times piece. Jay carney was careful to say last week the president obama was focus right now on making sure the hhs fixes the program, leaving open speculation that ms. Sibelius or other officials would be removed from the post. That story quoting White House Press secretary jay carney. This is the l. A. Times. The headline no way to run a health exchange. That piece goes on to note that happily for the public, the federal government has plenty of time left to address the problems. The site does not perfect, it just has to deliver Accurate Information reliably to consumers and insurers in time for covers to begin on january 1. If they cant even that within a few weeks however the Administration May have no choice but to take it offline and stick to enrolling people by hand or by phone. Brian is up next on this question of what president obama needs to say in his rose garden address. His speech will be broadcast on on cspan at 11 25. Brian good morning. Is, dont fireng sibelius. Shes probably one of the better secretaries we have had. What shes saying is look, guys. Be patient. We expect the roll out to be difficult and it has been difficult. People working for america, but these purple one working for america, they have been saboteurs. Saboteurs always claim victory, but we still have a concept in the process goes on. Thats it, thanks a lot. Is up next on illinois for a line for republicans. John, good morning. My comment is i think the president should be firing himself. For someone who is so concerned about creating american jobs, why did he go outside the country and get a Canadian Company to put this Health Care System together if it does not work . I think you should be looking in the mirror and that is my comment. This, the week ahead according to the Washington Post. The game of Economic Data catchup is about to begin on tuesday this week the Labor Department is going to release its september unemployment data. That happens at about 8 30 a. M. That report is going to be closely watched by the Federal Reserve and Global Markets for signs of whether the economy is improving. Analysts expect the jobless rate remained steady at 7. 3 . The number of jobs added is reported to be four hundred 80,000, up from hundred 69,000 in august. One other delayed report according to that schedule is happening on wednesday. That is septembers import price index. That according to todays Washington Post. Ioking ahead, another story want to point you to in the post is a yard sale unlike any other as u. S. Pullout speeds up. Talking about what is getting left behind as the u. S. Pullout begins in afghanistan. That story notes that every week that the u. S. Troop drawdown accelerates United States is to 14 millionlion pounds of equipment on the afghan market. Returning accurate to United States from a landlocked country halfway around the world would be prohibitively expensive according to u. S. Officials. Instead, theyre leaving behind 7 billion worth of supplies. It would be boon to the fragile afghan economy. But theres one catch the equipment is being destroyed before its offer to the Afghan Peopleto ensure the treadmills, airconditioning units and other rudimentary appliance are not used to make roadside bombs. That policy has produced more scrap metal in afghanistan has ever seen. You can see two pictures in the Washington Post today of that scrap pile in the scrap is being left behind. That is a vehicle leaving one of the scrap yards with items from the air base in eastern afghanistan. Another picture of a helicopter flying over one of those scrap piles. Same subject of the u. S. Drawdown in afghanistan, the lead editorial in todays New York Times talks about that subject and the big issues that are still on the table. One of the major sticking points is a legal jurisdiction over American Forces who could be assigned to afghanistan after next year 151,000 troops there have to depart. Administration thought the issue had been resolved that is one of the big issue still being worked out at the as the u. S. Drawdown continues. We have a few more minutes to talk about the president s address today in the rose garden. 11 25 you can see it here on c span. Richard is up from lake placid, florida on our line for independents. Richard, good morning. I have no confidence that president obama will say anything significant to fixes program. Secrecy. Ssed in most of congress did not read it. It was sent to the Supreme Court. They ruled that it was unconstitutional, you have to remember, and then they changed it at the Supreme Court instead of doing what the constitution said. They did not do that. The Supreme Court Justice Roberts at his lawyers changed from a healthcare bill to a tax bill. That is what it is, a tax bill. Hired notice, obama 18,000 irs agents to implement and force the program. He didnt hire healthcare people , he hired iris people. When they come out to you, is going to be just like any other time. Theyre going to freeze your accounts, theyre going to take whatever assets you have and then theyre going to throw you in jail if they have to. This is the way centralized governments work. This is what we are dealing with. Richard from florida. Johnny on our line for democrats. I think the president should reassure the people what he is doing and what others are doing to make sure the system functions the way it should. We need to be clear that while the president and the democrats have been working extremely hard to find a system that will work, the republicans have been working equally hard to make sure that they sabotage the system. Ive never seen anything like this before, where one party just openly rebels against a law that is artie been passed instead of trying to fix it. It is just deplorable what the republicans are doing and they need to be held accountable for it. That is johnny this morning from mississippi. Our d. C. Line for democrats. This rollout has been less than a month, not years, but less than a month. People need to be patient and those individuals without insurance should not have to for thether year rollout. What was we need to be a lot more patient. Problems of people encounter could be operator error. You need to follow all the prompts. I went on the system initially to see if i could get on. My interested not change. We need to be a little more patient. That is all i wanted to say. Subjectrlesque on the goes to anthony also from here in washington dc on our line for independents. Anthony, good morning. I wonder if people remember the operating system vista. It was a total disaster. Microsoft scrap the system and went to windows 7. That is the technology. Anytime you have anything you rollout this big, most people and technology understand that. It is time to scrap health care. Gov . Caller caller any rollout this larger going to have this type of problem its that simple. They will work it out. It is not that big a deal. The guy who called earlier to companies,canadian yes there is a federal division which they employ a lot of people here in this country and in the city. Host we will get into more about the Health Care Changes in Insurance Plans that are offered on those exchanges coming up in one of her later segments this morning as we talk about the Affordable Care act with a report from Kaiser Health news. Will be joined by democratic strategist Steve Mcmahon and republican strategist fran walsh to wrap up the shutdown showdown and look ahead to looming political battles. We will be right back. 200yearold clock stops ticking. Time stand still. We are standing just a few feet away from the main entrance to the United States Senate Chamber in the north extension of the capital. The clock by me here is the oldest clock in the United States capital. It was commissioned for the United States senate in the year 1815, ordered from a philosophic clock maker named thomas lloyd. A Video Library is amazing. You can view and share cspan programming any time. It is easy. Heres how. Go to cspan. Org and go to the Video Library. To watch the news library good onto the most recent cap, flipped onto what you want to watch and clutch play. It also serves to Video Library for a specific topic or keyword. A person, just type in the name, its urgent go to people. Go to their bio page and scroll down to their appearances. They also share what you are watching and make a clip. His is set but nor handle tools. At a title and description and then click share and send by e mail, facebook, twitter or google plus. Cspan Video Library, searchable, easy and free. Created by cable tv industry and funded by your local cable or satellite provider. This is Eleanor Roosevelts typewriter. It was on this typewriter that ms. World of eight that ms. Roosevelt type term i did a column. Is actually ms. Roosevelts first my day column. She is talking about here about the comings and goings in the white house about their regular schedule after the holiday season. Fromclick thing is november 6, 1940. Election day. She talks about how at midnight a larger crowd than usual came in from hyde park with a band and torches and wonderful placards. The president went out to greet them. This is a tradition on election night. The roosevelt would come to the park, gather family around and wait for the election results. The president would come out and greet them. Eleanor lady, roosevelt. Tonight, live on eastern. Washington journal continues. Host we are now part is removed from the third longest Government Shutdown in american history. We are joined by democratic andtegist Steve Mcmahon republican strategist brian walsh. Brian, lets begin with you. What are republicans taking away, what are the right lessons whate shutdown and also, are the wrong lessons that republicans take away from this . Is my hope we will have some selfevaluation here. Politically, this is a tremendous mistake and is one that couldve been avoided. Werelad that the elections 13 months away and not three months away because republicans have a great opportunity to win back control of the senate. I think we shot ourselves in the foot on that one. The Silver Lining on that one is we are still on offense and a range of states around the country and the obamacare rollout has been by all accounts a disaster. Democrats are going to be held accountable for that. Host were going to get into the map and with the field looks like an 2014, but as you hear your collects and then Republican Party talk about this come are the wrong lessons that youre hearing as well from folks . Shutdowns are not the answer. It is not a conservative policy to give federal workers a two week vacation. I think cooler heads are going to prevail. Im hoping they will, moving forward, but we live in a world where some compromises going to be necessary. Really control one half of one branch of congress. We need to be focused on the longerterm goal of winning back the white house in 2016, winning back the senate next year. That is where we need to be focused on. What has really changed for democrats as of today . In the end, Congress Passed a budget and cr that was below a Congressional Democrats in the white house originally wanted. The sequester has not been turned off which democrats have been pushing for, and we are still seeing a divided congress. So let us change for democrats today. Guest one thing that has changed is the democratic ballot is the generic ballot which now favors democrats by nine points. Isan is right, the election 13 months away, but to give you some perspective, the democrats picked up 54 seats. They had a nine point generic ballot advantage and that is what they have today. The election is long way away and theres plenty of time for things to change, but the republicans have put themselves in a hole in the think brians analysis of what theyre facing right now in his Health Inspection is going on is right. The house of representatives this the same house of representatives that it was last dok ted cruz said he will anything including shut the government down again to get his way. I think we will see if cooler heads prevail. Certainly if brian moss and r mainstream republicans it is as bad as some folks are saying . This is not the first time we hearties this in both in politics. Having been on the frontlines for the senate race last two cycles and watching republicans effectively give away five senate seats because of that general election nominees, it guest ern me senators like mary landrieu, kay hagan, are all up for reelection next year in red states. Theyre going to have their hands full trying to explain why premiums are going up, people are losing their Health Insurance and these problems are continuing. Steve mcmahon, i will give you chance to respond. The Washington Times put it. If the Republican Party loses the 2016 election, they will go the way of the whigs. The challenge of course is that not that much has changed. The people show up in primaries on the republican side of the people who produce these nominees. Theyre the people are going to show up and primaries in colorado and some of the other states. There are six republican incumbent senators right now who are facing tea Party Challenges. People vote in those primaries are more likely to be tea party type people than the mainstream, rational republicans that like brian and Mitch Mcconnell that is what the Republican Party has to face. A democrat now goes into president ial election, you can dispute whether the numbers to 42 or 256, but any democrat now enters a president ial election contest with about 242 electoral votes that are pretty much guaranteed. Maybe it is 200 38, but they dont need many more to get to 270. Republicans start with about 170. Theres a structural disadvantage that republican aminees have greater there is tea Party Division in the party that is making it worse. Every time the mainstream republicans like brian get behind a candidate, that sends a signal to the tea party crazies that it is time for to come out because establishment is trying to put us down. Castle inike delaware, guy who probably wouldve easily won the senate seat but he was beaten by a which. When the national Republican Party committees came to his aid, that just turned up the turnout for the other side for the which. Standpoint this is great to watch, great theater , but the country needs a functioning effective Republican Party in order to get policies passed in congress. As long as the tea party is running the house of representatives we dont have that. Were talking with steve. Cmahon, democratic strategist he has been a Strategic Advisor to democratic candidates. With a folksy of work for . I came to town when i worked for senator ted kennedy a long time ago and i worked campaigns all over the country. For their work for dicta part to my work for howard dean. I work for a number of folks who have heard of and many more that you probably havent heard of, senators and congressmen. Ast brian walsh is republican. He used to work at the and rsc and a few other numbers. On the house side for another seven or eight. It is been a long time now working for a handful of different members. Any questionsave for these to come our phone lines are open. We will start with jeff in texas on our line for republicans. Caller i want to make one statement. I am a conservative. I agreed with what tea party or say, but what i understand is that as a conservative to have to sit back and watch a republican friends pass a 70 billion sign the bill when we all know that all of us take the 17 billion. That is moderate republicans folding to the democratic party. This is the stuff that is happening. I was one of the people that was surveyed and said i was disappointed with the Republican Party over the shutdown because i seldom folding month ago. My thing is lets not shut the government down next time, but lets not raise the debt ceiling. Is 20 billion a month, we bring in 250 billion a month. If he cannot live on 230 billion a month, that we are way over budget and we should not be doing it. What you say about folks like jeff that believe the Republican Party folded . Under this administration the debt has increased by almost 60 . We brought sick regard to billion dollars. The faulting of the debt would be disastrous for the economy. There are ways, that is why republicans have been successful to sequestration and other efforts to cut back spending, that is also part of the problem. What happened here, when orublicans decided to go all nothing in this comic is a strategy, we really lost her leverage to negotiate a better deal. The irony is we actually ended up with a worse deal than we could have if republicans had pursued a more pragmatic strategy here. Host lets talk about obamacare. It is a subject that we talked about with you in the first 45 minutes of the show. The president is having speeches morning in a row starting at 11 25 to talk about the problems with health care. Gov. Republican strategy when it came to focusing on obamacare, this is something that jeb bush, former Florida Governor talked about yesterday on one of [video clip] obamacare does not work. Have a little bit of self restraint. It might actually be politically a better approach to see the massive dissent dysfunction. We do not even hear about that, republicans need to take a step back and allow show self restraint and let this happen organically. Host brainwash, republican strategist with singer bonjean. The republicans misplay the rollout of obamacare . It was a met guest it was a missed opportunity. I got a letter in the mail last week that my plan was being canceled. I will have to reenroll in a higher plan. Millions of people around the country, particularly in the middle class, i hearing the same thing. We stepped on that message, that is where the focus should have been. It was a missed opportunity. We had a long way to go. It is ironic that the president is making another speech. A couple weeks ago, he was comparing healthcare. Gov to amazon, they overplay their hand. Host we asked viewers what the president needs to say today. What do you think he needs to say . Byst he needs to start apologizing and say i am sorry this does not work and were going to fix it. That is the elephant in the room. Everyone wants it to work. It to work andt they think that people will decide it is not something they want. Democrats believe that when it works the way it is supposed to work, people will decide they need a. Need it. The president needs to say we screw this up, we are aware of that, people have been trying to get on and get coverage and we are going to fix it. The site is going to go down for toours a day now for them make repairs. They should have rolled out statebystate, done Something Differently instead of a date great big reveal. The president is a pretty smart guy. They have the capability, you saw from the campaign, to put up a digital operation that is unrivaled in political history. Kayak. Com or amazon. Com is something that came up, it had a period where few people knew about it. This was a great big reveal, that was a technical mistake. I dont think the underlying law is going to be impacted or how it performs is going to be impacted by how effectively the website works the first few days. This will take time to fix and time to demonstrate what democrats believe is the case for the first time, people with preexisting conditions can get insurance. People who love graduated from College Without a job can stay on their parents plan. Women cannot be discriminated against because they are pregnant. There are some great things that people are going to be able to see when they are actually able to see through the glitches and t the law. Ohost a political roundtable talking about the shutdown showdown, obamacare, the Affordable Care act. We will get into immigration as the next steps are for the white house and for members of congress. I want to bring in joel from texas on our line for democrats. You are on with Steve Mcmahon and brian walsh. Guest caller the president play the republicans like a fiddle. A longterm deal on the shutdown of the debt limit, the republicans said no. February 5,nd nobody is going to get nothing, that is when people are going to file tax returns. Hundreds of millions of people would be down in washington and throwing it in the potomac. The president hit them over the head with a hammer. Thank you. Host from texas. Brian walsh, talk about some of the frustration we have seen in polling numbers. What do you think that will translate to in the 2014 election . People are angry at both parties. I referenced the president s poll numbers dropping. People expect both parties to make tough decisions in washington. The president these to show more leadership on entitlement, for example. That is one thing we are not talking about Social Security and medicare will run out of money in the next 20 years. We need reforms to both of those. A requires both of those from the white house. That is something we have not seen. Host Steve Mcmahon, where do you think the leadership will go . We have heard talk of the immigration debate restarting on capitol hill. Guest the white house is going to let the joint committee, the Conference Committee chaired by ryan and murray. Paul ryan from the house of representatives, patty murray, a my hope issenator that they star were john boehner and obama left off in 2011. Entitlement reform has to be part of the conversation. Be allment reform cannot of the conversation. Discretionary spending cannot be all of the conversation. Everything has to be on the table. I presume that paul ryan is going to make sure that some of those things are on the table. Patty murray is going to talk about what we can do with the tax code to generate more revenue, that does not necessarily mean raising individual rights. Rates. Corporate rate might need to change. Things need to come into balance. The one thing that everyone agrees on is that the country spends too much relative to how much it takes in. There will have to be some change in that balance, whether more less spending or revenue or both. The white house is interested in immigration reform. There is a case to be made that republicans who are thoughtful understand the need for immigration reform. They recognize the clinical reality that if the republican the political reality that if the Republican Party continues to be against reasonable reform, it will get 29 of the hispanic vote at the polls. There is a good reason to do it on policy grounds, also a good reason on political grounds. That thesure republicans in the house of representatives understand either of those facts. Do you thinkalsh, that could happen when you see statements like this from congressman labrador . I think it would be crazy for the Republican Leadership to enter into negotiations on immigration. He is trying to destroy the Republican Party, anything that we do with the president on immigration will be with that same goal in mind to destroy the Republican Party and not a good policy. Guest i would respectfully disagree with that. The good news is i happen to believe strongly in immigration reform. It is good policy. Conservative senators like marco rubio have supported this effort. My view is that if House Republicans see an opportunity to improve on a senate bill, lets do that. Lets not let this pass. President bush tried to do this six years later, they can has been kicked down the road. Speaker john boehner and majority leader eric cantor understand that, i think they are going to move forward. Guest do you think they can explain it congressman Mike Labrador who think that if you opening a conversation, the borders will be overrun . Shown marco rubio has real leadership on this. I agree that it is a little tough right now. Hopefully, the last few weeks have been a learning moment for some of the Republican Party. You look ahead not just 2014, i think this is less of an issue in 2014. Republicans are in a great position to pick up senate seats. I am looking at 2016. Mitt romney, if the election had been held in 2004, he would have won. The electorate has shifted against the Republican Party. We need to look long term. Calls andng your comments. Frank from pensacola, florida, our line for independents. My first question is is it true that senator cruz was born in canada and not in the u. S. . I think everybody keeps saying we need to fix Social Security. Nobody talks about if you took the congress and executive branch and made everybody that paid over 130,000 to pay into to Social Security, how much more with that add . Lets make sure everybody is participating at the same level, what hundred percent. Not once you get rich, only a 40 or 10 . Host brian walsh, i will give it to you. Guest two points. He was born in canada, but i dont think theres any question he is an american. Tost he produced his bridge his birth certificate. Moot point. Is a guest barack obama was born in this country, republicans will give him credit will not give him credit. Guest i hope the joint Conference Committee with murray and ryan can produce something i can pass both chambers. President bush tried to tackle Social Security reform, democrats blocked that. That was a missed opportunity. Ope we do not keep eating kicking the can down the road. Guest one of the suggestions that the caller made is that you should lift the cap so that the wealthy, who do stop paying Social Security at about 118,000 a year, so that they would continue. That seems to be fair. I think republicans would block that. The going back to Affordable Care act. A tweet from boringfileclerk. Does somebody need to be fired over the problems we have seen . They have been called glitches, much worse. Guest i think someone needs to be held accountable, whether is i think Kathleen Sebelius is a good mark for the republicans. I am guessing she was not very involved in the technical rollout and as occasions of and specifications of this problem system. Names probably the only people are aware of. I am guessing the folks who are really responsible for this entry should be held accountable are pretty far down the food chain. They will be held accountable. Guest there is a good story in the Washington Times it talks about looking at the scandals and this administration, the white house does not hold anybody accountable. From benghazi to the iris to the gunrunning to this one today. You are hard pressed to find the members of theng administration accountable. Republicans have a right to be angry, all americans do. Guest that is all we need, more anger. Maybe they can shut on the government. Host naomi from florida. Walsh. Mr. Good morning. I am only speaking to you. Conservativeh woman of color. Before the host cut me off let me make a couple points. When i watch you set up their against the other government and is saying to what he they have talking points. They are trying to destroy us. Up, let them stand know that this is awful, this socialized medical plan. It is going to tell us. I have got my first enrollment from my company that i retired from working 30 years. I never had to pay anything except enroll and stay with my company. I only had to pay a small copay. Policye asking me for a Premium Payment now. They want to kick us so we will go live on the system. All of our privacys are getting out there, people milling about our privacy host seeing republicans react last week could i admire, i wish i shake mr. Cruzs hand. They are liberals, socialists. They have no spine. Host naomi started by addressing you, brian walsh. I am someone who lost their Health Insurance plan. I am angry about this plan. Policy is bye winning elections, that is what we need to focus on. Winning back the senate and the white house in 2016. The problem is it is very toy for certain senators tell people what they want to hear. Leaders tell people what they need to hear. Have done anything in terms of defunding obamacare, it was a failed strategy with a predetermined outcome. We only have 45 seats in the senate. We would have needed 22 democrats to override a president ial veto, it was not going to happen. It is unfortunate that a lot of conservatives were misled by a few members of congress, in particular outside groups to raise money off of this. Elections ton change policy. Guest at the risk of not seeming combative, i agree. If republicans want to change policy, the weight to do it is not to have a temper tantrum. To do it is to elect some leaders. 6st the map and 2014 will be seats for republicans to take the senate and 17 for democrats to take back the house. The house is seen as the tougher climb to take over. Can democrats take back the house in 2014 . Weeks ago it 2 would be tough. After what just happened, americans are saying do we really want to give these guys more power . Do we want to continue and extend their ability to shut down the government . Do we want to reward the behavior that we have seen over the last 2 weeks . These are the questions that voters are asking themselves, even in republican districts. Steve rothman reports would say the same thing. Waseks ago, the house difficult for democrats. Now, looking at the number of seats in play, by his estimation, 24 are in play, up from 12 2 weeks ago. Take the house. Especially if they shut down the government again. If they do notes lose any seats in the next election. Do you think the house is in play in 2014 . Guest many experts agree that it is very open to democrats to take back the house given the way a lot of these districts are drawn. There is a great opportunity for republicans to win back the senate. There is a great story and politico about the democrats right now. Do they stand with the president and say everything is ok with this law or do they speak out against the against it . There is going to be a referendum, folks running the red states like mary landrieu, mark prior, kay hagan, theyre going to have their hands full trying to explain why they voted for this. Are all very astute politicians, they got themselves elected. Numbers,ok at the poll these are people who do not think obamacare was the best idea. They would prefer to fix it and to repeal it. There are many people who think obamacare was a good idea it did not go far enough toward singlepayer. Theyre going to say it is a good program and we need to give it time to work. The Medicare Prescription Drug program was passed, a lot of democrats do not like it until they discover that senior knowing one of the things is that people are going to find that it is more like what the democrats told him it would be. They will not be screaming for were killed. It does not mean there will be things we need to fix. Host Steve Mcmahon and brian walsh for our political roundtab le. Sean, pennsylvania, democrats. Questions. Ave two i want to know what the republicans will do when Hillary Clinton runs . Guest theyre going to lose. Caller that will even out the white vote. Some of the white people in the red districts will vote for hillary. I am a proud liberal. Democratsat the should stand up for. With being a wrong liberal and sharing with your fellow americans. Host brian walsh, the headline from National Journal over the weekend, Hillary Clinton welcome to the white house. The Republican Party is no longer a credible opposition force. Might the Vice President take issue with that. It has not been ruled out that he might run. We dontlong way away, know who is going to run on the republican side. I think Chris Christie has provided a great model for republicans on how to win in blue states. Chris christie stands to win reelection overwhelmingly in a few weeks. He has provided a good model. To the second point, there is a great story in the wall street at divisionsing within the democratic party. That is not something to ignore, it has been under the surface. Hopefully as we move forward on entitlement, there are some dangers for democrats to have splits within the party. To rainwash, respond brian walsh, respond to this on twitter. I do think it was a mistake for republicans last cycle. We rely too heavily on opposing obamacare. We need to go back to what republicans are for, getting the economy back on track, growing jobs, keeping the economy moving forward. As we get closer to the election you will see more of that. Individual candidates in states around the country, we have great candidates. Arkansas, alaska, North Carolina, south dakota. They are going to run on a positive agenda. Recitation of what the Republican Party stands for. It was a trip down memory lane. Ronald reagan would not be welcome in this Republican Party. He could not get nominated, he did not meet the tea party litmus test. The challenge for the republicans is that it is not the party of Ronald Reagan anymore. States in 198049 four. It is the party of rand paul and ted cruz. Forrepublican frontrunner today is ted cruz. I dont think that will last, but it will last long enough to keep this conversation and civil war going through the nominating contest. That will produce a nominee who cannot appeal to the middle and voters and purple states who will decide the election. Guest when you look at the senate race, two republicans won. Democrats tried to make contact lee competitive try to make kentucky competitive, rand paul one. Veryresidents agenda is unpopular there. They have a big problem in red states. Guest the big question, you sat through this, what do these tea Party Challenges due to the 6 do to the six incumbent republican senators . Mitch mcconnell did something difficult with respect to his primary. There was an article talking about the tea party and extreme republicans who voted in the primaries in republican in kentucky. Has decidedguy who that Mitch Mcconnell, who is very conservative, is not conservative enough. The tea party crowd in kentucky about theining sellout that Mitch Mcconnell has become. This is a guy who did the tough thing it was difficult for him to do he did the right thing and he is going to be punished for it. Host you seem to be praising him. Guest it is illustrative of the problem. Here is what is going to happen. It is like my grandma says, if it does not kill you it will make you stronger. The challenge will make him look more centrist, that has the him more to make attractive to a swing voter in kentucky. The existence of a primary and the energy it drains from his base makes him a weaker general election candidate. The democrats have a great candidate in kentucky. That is a possible democratic pickup. Of the problems ch mcconnell is have an having. Host you are on with Steve Mcmahon and brian walsh. About mitchmment mcconnell yes, we Tea Party Members have got a hit out on Mitch Mcconnell. To take the kick outs kickbacks to sign a bill is the most disgusting thing. That is why you like Mitch Mcconnell. When a democrat praises Mitch Mcconnell, that has a lot to do with why we dont like him. That cake that was disgusting. As far as ted cruz, ted cruz is the best thing that has ever happened to the tea party. He is a man of honor. He ran on his word and said he was going to try to stop obamacare, and he did. We are tired of the corruption, the backroom deals. What theyld boys get want. Ted cruz is what this party should be about. Walsh, teresa was talking about a kickback for Mitch Mcconnell. Can you explain . Guest there was no kickback. You are talking about a project to keep commerce flowing on the ohio river. It would save taxpayers in the long term. Two senators put in the bill, neither of them were Mitch Mcconnell. It has no basis in fact. Host how tough is his election right now . What is tougher, the primary or the general election . Guest i do not think either will be a problem for him. When i look at the two republican senators who lost in cycles, they did not take their campaigns as seriously as they should have. As we learned in delaware. A lot of problems with Christine Odonnell. There were not talked about in the primary. Guest how do you attack her for being a witch . Guest there are a lot of problems with Christine Odonnell beyond being conservative. That did not get brought up. Mcconnell taking the primary and the general seriously, as he should. Any politician that takes their reelection or candidacy for granted is making a mistake. Democrats have spent years ral iling against senator mcconnell for being too conservative. You will have a hard time convincing kentucky he is not conservative. Conservative. Oo i hope Allison Grimes wins. It is because she is a democrat and she would vote for harry reid instead of Mitch Mcconnell. She would support fixing the president S Health Care program and not repealing it. Mitch mcconnell did the right thing last week, i hope it does not hurt him way democrats as this. He should be praised for that. Thet it did undercut central premise of the campaign. Opponents she has been calling him dr. Gridlock, saying he is responsible for the dysfunction in washington. He has been a conservative leader and prevented our country from going over the cliff. Host we will continue to watch the kentucky race in 2014. Glen cove, new york, republican line. Caller good morning. Y for taking my call. Thank you. Mr. Walsh said something about no leverage. The republicans had the leverage in the negotiations by just shutting down the government. That was the leverage. You could have rub their nose in it, made them look like a problem with the debt. They have got to cut the spending, create the jobs, get people back to work. That was the leverage. I do not know. These are ideally people. Ivy league. If everybody is worried about an election, nothing is going to get done. People are going to stay unemployed, this will be the norm, they will enact the social medical plan that nobody can afford. This is crazy. Host brian walsh, did republicans fumble the leverage . Guest he did. It is unfortunate. We could have achieved some oneyearictories, a delay in the individual mandate, we could have repealed the medical device tax which is costing thousands of jobs in states like michigan. We could have achieved smaller victories. The idea that we were ever going obamacaredefunding it was move forward anyway. You have to repeal the law to get rid of it. Defunding it did nothing to do with the mandates or some of the egregious aspects of the bill. To get rid of it, you have to win the senate and the white house. It did not stop obamacare from moving forward. Host donna writes in on twitter. Her tweet brings me to this piece in politico. Putting New York Times executive quoting New York Times executive editor. Such coverage was on display throughout the Government Shutdown despite the fact that no one won. Steve mcmahon, talk about the horse race coverage. Is that a fact of life . Guest joel a rims and is a great journalist, she should be looking at her own jill abram journalist, she should be looking at her own newspaper. Most people in washington know that ted cruz was tilting at a windmill. Obamacare was the law of the land. 90 of the funding was already built into the law, there was no way to defund it. You had to pull it out root and all. Knew from the beginning that there was no chance it would be successful. Even if it were successful, the republicans even if the senate had joined them in passing a defunding bill, 90 of it was already baked in. Cruz was the guy who was selling the shiny object. The shiny object did not actually exist. That is one of the reasons why ted cruz is the most unpopular senator in the Republican Congress republican caucus. He said he did not come here to make friends, it is a good and because he has not made one. The horse race coverage was it fair for republicans . Guest it was generally fair. We shot ourselves in the foot. Beenrepublicans have warning that this was a strategy with a predetermined outcome. We could have achieved smaller victories. Unfortunately, you have a few folks in congress and outside conservative groups who made a thisf money in pushing failed strategy. That is what is unfortunate. Conservatives around the country were misled. Washington,ks in for those looking to run for president on the republican side, the Manchester Union leader spoke out against this and called it a mistake. There are conservative leaders around the country who have been warning about this. They went unheeded. Host one more caller, line for independents. Caller biggie for taking my call think you for making my call. I look at the big picture and not worry about what the parties think. In history, reagan worked with oneill very well. Clinton work with english very gingrich very well. Presently, obama and john boehner are not working well. The leader of the country is the president. One of thead few things i remember about harry truman was the plan the buck the placard stops here. I cannot remember when obama has taken the blame for everything. Whether benghazi, the irs, the hutdown, he the s blames someone else. To see who he is going to blame this morning for the 3 years of wasted time that they could not get obamacare going. Host that speech is happening at 11 25 a. M. Guest brian wants him to fire someone, the caller wants him to take the blame himself. I expect table take the blunt himself today. I expect he will take the blame himself. Guest there are opportunities. We passed welfare reform because the clinton and republicans came together. There is opportunity for some reforms. I hope we will see president ial leadership. Guest tip oneill could deliver a vote, so could newt gingrich. John boehner in 2011, he could not deliver it to congress, that is a big difference. Mcmahon, attorney and cofounder of Purple Strategies llc. Walsh of bunching strategies. I appreciate you joining us. Up next, a look at the Health Insurance coverage under the Affordable Care act with jenny gold of Kaiser Health news. Later, wall street journals talking about sequestration and the fbi. A news update first. A. M. 5 ahead of the president s remarks this morning about health care, the Republican National committee has sent a request to the centers for medicare and medicaid services. Requesting information on the number of americans who has enrolled in Health Insurance through the website healthcare. Gov. Weeks since the website went live, the Obama Administration has refused to release numbers. We will hear from the president at 1125 a. M. Eastern time. The president introduced his nominee to head homeland security, former pentagon lawyer jeh johnson. President obama said he is the right person to continue the includingtions work, steps taken to make sure our immigration system reflects our values. Republican senator Jeff Sessions said that immigration will be a factor in the confirmation of the new dhs chief. A new study by the opportunity Nation Coalition raising concerns over millions of young people who are neither in school or working a job. The Group Reports nearly 6 million young people, about 15 yearsse aged 16 to 24 old, are idle. 45 states have seen house called household median incomes fall. Those are some of the latest headlines on cspan radio. Since 1998,kend booktv has shown over 40,000 hours of programming with top nonfiction authors. That is thewow, answer. If there were more women in power around the world, things would change. Book. Oing to write it all of us are suggested to punitive taxes, being ignored by getting anydia, not kind of special interests in washington. We are all in that same vote, no matter what color we are. The only National Television network devoted to nonfiction books. We are marking 15 years of booktv on cspan2. Washington journal continues. This on mondays in segment, we have been taking a look at the implementation of the Affordable Care act with the help of reporters from Kaiser Health news. We are joined by jenny gold, khn correspondent. We have been talking about the president s speech at 11 25 a. M. From the rose garden. Bring us up to speed on what we are expected to hear. Guest so far, the rollout of healthcare. Gov has not been smooth. The president has already said he is not happy with the way it is going. People have been having trouble enrolling, a lot of technical glitches. We are thinking that the president will talk a little about that. He will talk about something they are calling three tech will bring outside consultants to fix those problems and get people enrolled. He will be joined by some folks who say they have been able to enroll in the exchanges. This will be highlighting the potential successes of the Affordable Care act. Host do you expect him to say i am sorry . Do. T i he owns this, this is his signature piece of legislation. The fact that the rollout has not been smooth is not good for him. He knows that. Upt a question that came with our viewers as we were talking about this is who is responsibility whose responsibility are these glitches . How much is the responsibility of the federal government and how much is the contractors who have been employed . Guest the federal Government Employees those contracts, they need to be careful about who they are giving them too. Hhs has taken on the role of quarterback, they have been coordinating those pieces of the health care website. If it is not working, it falls in large part on hhs and their efforts to get the structural, technical things going. To be fair, just because the websites are not working, that does not mean the entire premise of the Affordable Care act is flawed. This is the first year of open enrollment, there are 6 months to do it in. We do not know exactly what it will look like. The white house has been tallying 19 million visitors to healthcare. Gov since it opened. For those folks who may have trouble getting into healthcare. Gov, talk about what theyre going to find. What are the policies that they are going to find on those exchanges, what will they include . What you find on healthcare. Gov for your states exchange will differ based on your stated. Areas, policies offered by only one insurer. In others, you might have a range of choices. One thing you know you will get is the essential health benefits. It will be required to be provided in all of the plants inpatient care, outpatient care, drug coverage, preventive care. Consumers will see a range of options. From the cheaper plan, the upnze plans, all the way through platinum. What you pay is what you get. If you pay more, you have less cost sharing. You may end up paying more out of pocket if you have a lot of Health Care Expenses in the coming year if you pay less. Host we will be talking with jenny gold of Kaiser Health news about what is in those plans. We want to hear from you. We are splitting up our lines differently. Those who are insured and have questions can call in at 202 5853880. If you are uninsured, 202 585 3881. Questions answer your about how those exchanges work. We want to hear your stories if you have tried to get onto healthcare. Gov whether you have been successful. Give us a call. Jenny gold, we should this not earlier. Map earlier. Federally run and state run exchanges. The blue are the federally run, the orange are the state run, the green our joint exchanges. When you talk about the essential items in every plan, does that apply to both state and federal plants . Guest that is all the plans. You are getting the same thing, it all depends on how you get it , what the website looks like, how much money the state has to implement it. Host how did the states choose whether they were going to go to a federally run plan or their own . Guest i think Congress Expected every state to run their own, that was the expectation. States decided to run their own exchange. The rest are doing a partnership or defaulting to the federal government. The states that are running their own exchanges have had many fewer technical glitches. People are enrolling in states like california and washington. It is really the federal site that has been having the level of technical problems that has so frustrated consumers. Host what do we know about the state enrollment numbers . Are certain states doing better . Guest i mentioned washington state, they are doing quite well. Host the white house has released that 19 million folks have visited healthcare. Gov, but we do not know on actual enrollment numbers. Guest the government says they will not release enrollment numbers until november. That is a problem. They are trying to hedge what has been a lack of enrollment so far. It is not because people are not trying. They have had a lot of unique visitors to the site. What they did say over the weekend is that they have had 476,000 applications filed. Before we get excited, that does not mean they have actually enrolled in coverage, that means they have gone through of the early part of the process where they have said what their income is in their name, Social Security is. If you have questions about what you are going to find in those plans, if you have stories about going onto healthcare. Gov, give us a ring. We are taking your calls and comments with jenny gold of Kaiser Health news. Travis from South Carolina on our line for folks who are uninsured. Caller i was wanting to make a comment. They are acting like it is a success because so many people have tried to apply on the web. We are being forced to be done. We have to pay a fine or do it. We are going to have to get on, it is going to look like a success even though it is not a success. We say we live in a democratic society, but get insurance or we will put a gun to your head. I am self employed, i made 70,000 last year. 17,000 last year. The system is broke. Everyone is thinking about obama phones. Somebody has got to pay for the government paying for this. Caller brings up the penalties that one could be hit with. The first year, penalties are 95 for an individual. In later years, it goes up to about 2. 5 of your income. For this man, he said he makes 000 a year, he will qualify for a subsidy to buy coverage. His plan may be cheap. Host from falls church, virginia on our line for folks who are uninsured. Caller i want to say that i am the father of two children. 27yearsold. We have not done anything yet to get started. Seems like there is plenty of time, it seems like a great deal. It is time for people to be responsible. I cannot imagine my children Walking Around without Health Insurance, it is difficult ridiculous. The studies the information i have looked at it seems like with their income levels, a danc musician, they will get a better deal. I would think parents would push their kids into it. I had employerprovided insurance, i got income subsidies from the government. That is all i have to say. Callerenny gold, the talks about trying to find insurance for his children. Specific groups and what they can find in the Insurance Coverage on the exchanges what can young adults find out the exchanges . Guest his kids are too old to stay on their parents plan. You cannot stay on beyond the age of 26 years old. You should be able to find a timesf you make under 4 the federal poverty level, about 46 thousand dollars for an individual, you will get a subsidy. If you make more like 14,000 and you live in a state that has elected to expand medicaid, you can be eligible. Young people will still pay less. Older people will pay less than in the past. Young people will still end up paying less. They may pay more than what they are paying currently for their catastrophic land, that tends to be pretty little. They will be able to get more robust coverage what it might pay a little more. If they are Walking Around, they will be covered for things like emergency visits or preventive care. Ont from antioch, illinois our line for those who are insured. Caller yes. Thank you for cspan. Have a 500is we deductible on our present insurance. We are paying pretty high for that quality insurance. With this offer an opportunity for us to have savings . From our retirement, it is pretty high. Paying our deductible at 500. It sounds like you have a fairly loaded optical plan but you are paying a high premium level. You will be able to select what kind of plan you want to buy. If you want a lowered adoptable and higher premium, you can go for one of the gold or platinum plants. If you think you are not going to have a lot of health expenses, look at one of the bronze or silver plants with a higher deductible but a lower premium. You will probably have options. Look and see which one fits the best for you. If you have a dr. You really like or a hospital you like, make sure that the plan you select has them in the network. Host talking with jenny gold of a nonprofith news, news service. It is editorially independent from the Kaiser Family foundation. It has been helping us as we talk about the implementation of the Affordable Care act. Their reporters are here to answer your questions about the insurance exchanges, about the act and the law. Answer any questions you have about the implementation. From georgia on our line for uninsured. Caller good morning. I have a couple questions. Ms. Gold, i am interested in the obamacare how much it is going to lower the total number of uninsured in the u. S. My first question is, since the law was signed in spring 2010, there has been a decline in the number of uninsured. How much of that decline can be attributed to the obamacare healthcare law . My second question is there has been a lot of talk on obamacares effect on the 2014 midterms. Year whening to be a we are scheduled to have some of the biggest reduction in the total number of uninsured. Are we going to have reports coming out from before the election from the government or private sector about how many of the uninsured has gone down in 2014 . I will hang up. We have seen about 3 million young people stay on their parents plan. That is part of the decline. That is the only provision that has really kicked in. New coverage does not even start under the health care exchanges, medicaid expansions, until january 1. We do not know what the numbers are going to look like. The Obama Administration has said that they hope that 7 Million People will enroll in the exchanges, you might see a decline from that. We should know more down the line. In november, the government says they are going to put out numbers for how many people have been able to enroll on the exchange. That is when we will start seeing what kind of impact this is going to have on a number of uninsured people. In terms of the 2014 election, hopefully we will have that information so voters can make decisions about what they think is working or is not. Democrats will have to own this. If it is not working, they may suffer the consequence. They voted for it, this is their legislation. Host you said that november we will see some numbers. S that one to be a number is that going to be a monthly report like the jobs numbers in the 2012 election . Guest that is possible. I believe it is going to be a monthly number. I am sure there is going to be a lot of scrutiny. It is likely that the november numbers are not going to be particularly high, with as many problems as we have seen with consumers and rolling. It is hard to believe that that many people have actually successfully gone through the process. On are seeing more success the state run exchanges. I have a colleague who had to try 63 times to set up an application on healthcare. Gov. That gets you a sense of how difficult it has been. In our firstncern segment about who has access and who controls the information that the wouldbe consumers put in to healthcare. Gov. How secure candies si how secure can these sites be . Guest i am not a technical expert. I would be aware that they could e could be an hack. Ous the government has promised that peoples information will be secure. Who really knows, it is hard to say. Host what agencies have access to the information that. In . That folks put the irs . Verifies your income, but i dont think they will have access to your Actual Health care information. Oregon, on our in short line. Our insured line. Caller good morning. I am in oregon. D am already in short insure or my employer. I logged onto our state website to see what options are, gives me more options as far as my job searches. Takelike to mention the politics out of this. Difficulttically very to ask the American People to contribute what they can for the Overall Health of their country. Politics is hurting this. I asked republicans to stick with their individual responsibility mandate or beliefs. I have to go. Host he had to go. His employer insurance and looking around on the exchanges to see if something might be better. On the exchanges offering Something Different than what employers can offer . Most part, people with employer coverage will not on the exchanges. Unless the plan that their employers are offering is really really expensive. In those cases, they might be able to enter that information about their employer plan on the website and find out that maybe they really can qualify for a subsidy. Iserwise, if their employer making a contribution, they may be better off sticking with that plan than buying on the exchange, where they will not qualify for a subsidy if they already get employer coverage. One thing this gentleman mentioned was that it may feel tied tohe may feel less his employer. That is something that the administration touted, people feel that they have to stick with their employer and their job, they cannot be entrepreneurial because they are worried about keeping Health Insurance. If this man wants to start his own company, this might give him a chance to get affordable coverage but go out on his own. Host he talked about some of the essential parts of every plan on the exchange. If one of those employer plans is skimpy, what employers have to meete their plans qualifications of plans on the exchanges . Of theright now, many employer plans are grandfather ed. If they want to make any changes, they lose the grandfather status and have to meet requirements part of obamacare. Host frederick, maryland, on our line for those who are uninsured. Caller i was doing some reading about the Oklahoma Federal Court decision. It appears as though the orney general in oklahoma any place where there is a federal exchange, there will be no subsidies provided to anyone. The case deals with the fact that the Affordable Care act stated that subsidies would only be provided to stay creative exchanges. Statechecked created exchanges. They are challenging the irs regulation that tried to change that. They have passed the first hurdle the Obama Administration tried to get it dismissed, the judge said no. Wondering if you are aware that there is a potential but and 33 states we may not get subsidies . Guest there is going to be no end of lawsuits against this law. This has already been judged by the Supreme Court. What we see is what we are going to get. Yes, i do know that there is a federal lawsuit. My sense is that it will not end up being the case. The subsidies probably will stay. We are seeing that being an active as we speak. This thing is moving forward, it whether the Obama Administration needs a new i amation from the irs, not sure. This is going to get smoothed over and you will see the Affordable Care act looking a lot like it looks right now. Host the wall street journal talking about that. Federal that today a district judge will consider a motion to temporarily block. Irs regulation. A similar hearing is scheduled for october 31 in richmond. Dave from california on our line for those who are insured. Good morning. Morning, i am good curious who the contractor is responsible for the federal website . Got the largest part of the grant for the contract or work for the federal healthcare. Gov website, and believe me, they are taking a lot of heat for it. The code looks pretty sloppy and it is not working so well. Caller not associated with a wellknown defense contractor, are they . Guest i dont know, but i am not sure. I think they got somewhere somewhere upwards of 90 million to as part of a 400 million website. From jacksonville, florida. Caller real quick, i myself am uninsured. I am 35 years old. My income falls within a level that most people would say this is a great plan for you. I have absolutely zero interest in getting this Affordable Care obamacare. I really dont feel it is appropriate or even justified to for choosing not to purchase a product. It does not make any sense to me. We are in america and we are being forced to purchase a product. Guest why dont you want Health Insurance . Host caller i am 35, i am very healthy and i have help Life Insurance if anything goes catastrophically wrong. A few years down the road i can goahead and look at insurance. But right now with the medicare my state inon in the florida and florida not being extended, this plan what will actually cost quite a bit more money than the other plans would have. Even had i considered insurance at this point, now the fine is going to be way easier to pay, even at three years for my given situation. And i am not the only one. There are a lot of people in several states who are going to have the same issue. One of this young man is these people that everyone likes to call the young invincible guest this young man is one of these people that everyone likes to call the young invincible spirit i would say you never know what happens to you, but you make and up in a car accident tomorrow. That is the argument for carrying Health Insurance. Most people, including republicans, has been a proponent of the idea of Health Insurance in general. I will tell you about the young invincible, we dont know how many are out there. According to polls, most young people who dont have coverage dont have it not because they dont want it but because it is too expensive. We will see what happens. I agree, the fine is quite low in the first year in particular. It is only 95. Probably less you end up being in coverage. But i think it really is going to come down to, when you think about your health and you think about what risk you are willing to take, do you want to buy coverage or not . And also, does your mother or girlfriend or whoever else may be want you to have coverage. I think a lot of people are saying that mothers, spouses, maybe the ones who convince young men in particular to end up buying coverage. Host a viewer writes in an e mail to us today on the next hurdles. He asks guest those are a lot of questions. Help, probably the one that will help you is your insurance company. Once you buy the product, they can help you locate a area that is taking their coverage. There are certainly questions about whether there is going to be enough providers to handle the new load of insurance patients. We are not sure yet what that is going to look like. Her many years, folks have been saying there is going to be a shortage of primary care practitioners in particular. You have lowerlevel providers stepping up into some of those roles. But in terms of what the doctor shortage will mean with those with new Insurance Coverage, it remains to be seen. I would also point out this raises an important issue, which is, many of the plans that are being offered on the exchanges look like you have quite narrow networks. That means there are not actually that many doctors or hospitals that will be accepting that plan. So, they may have to really look on their insurers website or give their insurer a call to find out who is still taking new patients. Mail from johne m. Says. Host my deductible is 4000 a comment calendar year. With Health Exchanges offer a better alternative . Guest very likely. That is a high deductible. If he wants a lower one, he may want to pick one of the planes i did not catch that, did he have employer coverage . Employer it is 4000 a year and his the adaptable is 4000. Guest if he already has employer coverage it is probably good enough at this point so he will not all of five for a subsidy so he may want to stick with what his employer is giving him. Thosethe phone line for who are insured. West palm beach, florida. Youre on with jenny gold from Kaiser Health news. Caller i am watching the program right now. I watch a lot of it. Ed 60ey also watch minutes last night and listening to what dick cheney said about his Health Problems as Vice President. I wonder how much he had to pay and how much us as taxpayers had to pick up. And the other thing is, is that it is easy to get these people to sign up. If the hospital dont have to ike you when you get sick tell you what, a lot of people are going to sign up. The other thing, billionaires. They dont buy hospitalization. They can go in and pay anything. Is, when theyrt dont want anybody to have it, that is when the problem comes in. Quite catch not tly the question host he was talking about dick cheney and was asking about how much taxpayers pick up for dick cheneys Health Problems. Guest i dont know the exact number. Host if you can talk about the vitter amendment that was a bit of a fight in the shutdown that went down. That had to do with members and staffers on capitol hill. If you can explain. Guest basically the federal government is an employer, so like many private employers, they provide some contribution to their employees Health Insurance. What vitter wanted, my understanding, he wanted the federal government not to offer that contribution for employees of the federal government that had to buy on the exchanges. Now, that is a rule as part of the health law that members of congress and their immediate staff have to buy on the federal exchange. That would mean they probably arent too much to get a subsidy, so they would not get any employer contribution. They would be paying the whole thing. Unlike if you worked for coca cola and you got an employer contribution. Host this is senator david vader, republican of louisiana. What happens to his amendment , republicandvitter of louisiana. Guest i think the federal government will pay some kind of contribution to the employer plans as in the past. Yes, it is taxpayer dollars but, as they said, it is the federal government acting as an employer and providing the coverage in order to be competitive with private employers. Host columbus, ohio, on our line set up for those who are uninsured. Good morning. Caller good morning. Guest good morning. Caller i just want to ask a question and some comments. About the previous caller. Old. Id he is 35 years i just want to ask, do you have to be young not to have insurance, or do you have to be young to have insurance . Who are these people . The only thing i will have to this obama hair obamacare gift of god for poor people. We love it. Republicans, back off. Put your politics where it is supposed to be. Lease, any my answer. Please, i need my answer. I moved to ohio. I have been working for 27 years and wind up with a heart attack there a heart attack. When i went through this heart attack, i had no insurance. I was in philadelphia. I went through the operation. I had no insurance. I was tied with these medical bills. And i came back to ohio. Later on through my treatment i have been visiting hospital upon hospital. I am poor. Contributed a lot of money to the system. But i know what i am receiving right now the money i am receiving from the government or the medical treatment i am receiving from the government i prefer to have obamacare than what i am receiving right now. Host columbus, ohio, offering his story. David is up next from gulf shores, alabama, onehour live for those who are insured. Good morning. Caller good morning. Guest good morning. Caller i just wanted to relate what has happened with my private insurance. I actually move. From minnesota, so i have blue crossblue shield of minnesota coverage. My premium notice that i received about 10 days ago indicated that my premium as of january 1 will be 63. 5 higher than it was. [indiscernible] policy. Thead cancer a year ago and tab ran around 300,000. Blue cross said that did not cause premiums to increase. They dont use claims as a basis past claims as a basis for the premium. That is because the state law. But it sure seems to me that they are trying to get rid of me. My question is, is there anyway that ifamacare statute somebody is being driven off of. Heir policy i am a risk now i had insurance continuously since i was 18 years old, that i purchased myself. And i just want to know, who is looking out to make sure that the Insurance Companies are not just dumping or high risk dole,es onto the public so to speak . Guest one of the most important parts of the new Health Care Legislation is that preexisting conditions can no longer be considered a knock against you. Everyone is going to be charged the same amount, regardless of their health. If you be charged more are older, but in terms of your previous help experience, that cant help count against you. You will pay the same amount as have anyho didnt health issues. That is a really important piece of legislation, to know that folks that have had Previous Health ailments, that they are going to be ok, that they are going to be able to get affordable coverage as well. Host a viewer asks on twitter. Needed toification is sign up for coverage and how did they verify income . Guest there was a new piece of legislation as part of the debt ceiling bill that does sort of change in little bit maybe the Income Verification thing, although democrats are saying it just repeated the language that is already in the law. They are going to verify the income through the irs, your w 2s or whatever you file. When you go on to apply for coverage on healthcare. Gov, you are going to want to bring obviously your name, address, income information, and your Social Security number, as well as any information about a plan being offered currently by your employer. Host one more call in this segment from david from florida on the line for the uninsured. Ill echo how are you doing . Kind of funny talking on tv caller howre you doing . Kind of funny talking on tv. I do not know how to use a computer so i called 800 number and the lady says the next thing to do would be to have an application mail to me, so i gave her my address and everything. Out correctlyl it to send it back to the address that they give me i am just wondering, dont know if anybody else knows about this is that a legitimate way to do it . The reason why i wanted to get it done was because there is a deadline, right . I dont want to be fined for that because of the computer glitches. That is about all i have. Guest there are a few different ways you can apply. One of them is a paper application. That is definitely legitimate. If you prefer to sit down with someone and have them help you through the computer process, if you dont know how to use a computer, you can find someone called a navigator. Those are the in pertinent in person assistance. You can go to a community clinic. You can call the call center and ask them to help you find someone who can help you walk through the process. You are right that you have to have coverage. You have to sign up by march 31. But you have a little bit of time to do that. You are not in a huge rush. As long as you sign up by december 15, you will have coverage beginning january 1. To haveou were looking Insurance Coverage, if it is something important to you, you are going to have to sign up by december 15. Host jenny gold is with the Kaiser Health news. Appreciate you guys coming on to help explain the different aspects of the Affordable Care act. Up next, we will be talking about fbi operations and budget cuts under sequestration with Devlin Barrett of the wall street journal. But first, a news update from c span radio. France summoned the u. S. Ambassador today to protest allegations the nsa spied on french citizens. Agency wasat the collecting tens of thousands of french telephone records broke just as secretary of state john kerry arrived in paris for the start of a European Tour over syria. He newspaper le monde published the report. Stick their Data Collection roles on the agenda today at a meeting of European Union lawmakers stricter data condition. They plan to vote on legislation designed to strengthen Online Privacy and help invent spying, this in the wake of revelations about u. S. Government surveillance. The draft measure received stringent privacy reduction instead find that that have significant implications for u. S. Internet companies. On wall street this money, stock futures are up ahead of corporate earnings reports and the september unemployment report which comes out tomorrow. This after being delayed by the Government Shutdown. I head of the opening bell, dow futures are up around four point. And those are some of the latest headlines on cspan radio. Spans student cam video competition asks what is the most important Issue Congress should consider in 2014 . Minutefive to seven documentary showing different point of view and be sure to include cspan video. The competition is open to all middle and high school students. For the grand prize of 5,000. This year we doubled the number of winners in total prizes. Entries are due by january 20, 20. Need more information . Visit the cam. Org. Student cam. Org. Affairs eventblic from washington directly to you, putting you in the room at congressional hearings, white house events, briefings and conferences, and offering complete gavel to gavel coverage of the u. S. House, all as a Public Service of private industry. Cspan created by the cable industry 34 years ago and funded by your local cable or satellite provider. Now you can watch us in hd. Continues. Journal each week host each week in this segment we look at how your money is at work in a different government program. The time we are looking at the acrosstheboard budget cuts known as sequestration and concentrating on how they have impacted the federal bureau of investigations. To do that, we are joined by wall street Journal Justice Department reporter Devlin Barrett. Top line numbers show fiscal on a 13 under sequestration the fbi budget was cut from 8. 1 billion to about 7. 5 billion. What has it meant for agents on the ground and in the field . Guest what the fbi director is telling people, john, is there is essentially a whole issue where they think they are going to have to furlough people. They think they will have to give roughly 10 workdays of furloughs two agents up and down the entire bureau. That includes dance last year they had a similar issue of sequester and they were able to, in the directors words look in the couch cushions and find enough money to move around. This year the director said we turned the couch cushions upside down and there is no money to move around and we will have to put people out of their jobs for some days during the year. Host 10 days was the announcement of possible furloughs. Some other impacts that have been announced hiring freeze would vacate around 2275 positions by the end of the year. Elimination or reduction of some joint task forces and the reduced services such as gun background checks. I want to go through some of these things, starting with the gun background checks. The last one up there. Why is that going to impact why is that being impacted by these cuts . There is a specific timeline these checks up to take place in . Guest there is a required timeline. The checks have to be done a normal customer come by a gun in the normal course of business. The reason why that is being affected is because essentially every part of the bureau they believe every part of the bureau will be affected by these cuts. The gun background check is an a specificthere is mechanical task you have to perform. They have to perform it all the time. So, you are going to see what we are told is it is entirely possible you will see some form that system. Now, they are on a clock. They have to get it done in a certain period of time. But what we are being told is essentially everything is going to take a hit. Host we are learning about impacts of sequestration based on a report last month by fbi agents. Voices from the field report. Anonymous fbi agents but how they see the impact. Everything from not having enough gas in their cars to not being able to provide money to pay for informants. Talk about some of the things that were surprising. Guest i think the gas one is interesting because it speaks to one of the most basic functions of work, because investigators drive around a lot and the interview witnesses. Agents are saying in this report and frankly in thatrsations elsewhere is the bosses are tightening up so much of the gas money that they are having to rethink this particular witness do i really need to go out and see them, or can i just call them . Investigators will tell you nothing is more valuable than a facetoface interview. But to be fair to the bureau, what a bunch of folks at headquarters tell me is that our directions are not to stop investigating or to be less investigating. Our directions are essentially you guys are going to have to carpool when you go to and from home to the job. That sort of thing. Explicitly telling people, dont cut corners on investigations. But the trick is and this is what you hear from the field look, if you have a field office, the boss at the field office has to hit a budget number. If the only way he can think what the best way you can think you hit the number is to cut the gas, the gas will get cut. Host here is one of the quotes from the report here is how it will affect my slice of the bureau. Host what was the management reaction to this union report . Interesting. I dont think management will agree with the specifics. They will say, look, we are doing everything we can to put money up for gas for investigations. But what is interesting about the sequester fight in the bureau is it is one of the instances where management and labor are pretty much in agreement on the issue, which is they really think they need to do whatever it can to stop or at least diminish the effects of the of sequester because the cumulative effect worker cases and work. Host we are talking to wall street journal justice reporter Devlin Barrett. If you want to talk about the fbi impacts of sequestration, give us a call, our phone lines are open host a question for you, Devlin Barrett, on the subject of possible furloughs in the next fiscal year. You said there are going to be 10 furlough days. How does an agency like the like the fbi schedule furlough crimes orthe terrorist actions take place . Guest you heard a number of solutions bandied about. One person that maybe we should all be gone for a weekend that would make the point that this is a really dangerous thing to do. No one really things that is going to be the way they do this. Much more likely is they will start implementing a situation where maybe on a friday or a monday, a whole bunch of people are just gone from the bureau. , for a lack ofe a better term, and the base, just before or after a weekend, where there are not as many people around the responses to. What are director says, if it comes down to it, if there is an attack somewhere and some of our people are furlough, i dont care of the law, these people are coming in and they will work. No onetuation wants an attack in which the bureau itself, the lead agency for that kind of thing, just scrambling to get up and running. You. Host are there members of congress trying to lessen the impact of sequester for the fbi . Obviously the union folks and the fbi brass on the same page in this. We have seen some agencies that members of congress have been able to change the impact of sequestration. Is the fbi one of those agencies that may all and that . Guest yes, but it cant get with the bureau because remember, the bureau is a National Intelligence agency. Them of the budget comes at a different and expect the chunk. There are gimmicks going on in the hill right now do we protect or try to restore some of the civilian agency cuts or do we protect defense and . Ational security cuts the bureau sits astride a lot of this. They are not sure and their own mind lets say they, with a plan to save a certain chunk of dollars for these issues, they are not really sure what the piece of that might actually be. Of the short answer is, yes, there are a lot of lawmakers who probably if you look at the events of the last month, no good reason to assume congress will somehow come together all of a sudden figure it out. Host to the members leading the push of agency . Seen thingsave expressed, for example, by barbara mikulski, democratic senator from maryland. Patrick leahy certainly has been open to it, the Senate Judiciary committee as well. Has criticalothing mass. Also a Critical Mass what congress is very good at it shopping things from being implemented. Congress is not nearly as good at undoing things already implemented. That is what they will have to do. Host our phone lines are set up to take your calls on the subject of the sequestrations impacts on the federal bureau of investigation. Devlin barrett is a report of the wall street journal. Robert is up first from california on the line for democrats. Caller good morning. Thank you. Good morning, america. Mr. Barrett. Security three defense associations that remain nameless. A counterterrorism summit one of your colleagues attended. Interagency bilateral cooperation. Do you or see a bipartisan solution to ending sequestration . Guest i think it is difficult. A heavy right now like lift. I think what you are seeing, though, is a lot of agencies are getting their voices heard on the hill. And lawmakers are starting to Pay Attention to this number shutdown is over. I do think what you saw from the shutdown is there is not a lot of agreement on anything related to budget issues. So it is still hard for me to see exactly what the big solution politically might be on sequestration. Host the next call him a robert from indiana on our line for independence. Robert, good morning. You are on with Devlin Barrett from the wall street journal. Caller good morning. For a longspan time, and i appreciate it. Host we are here. Caller yes, i watched cspan for a long time and really appreciate it. Government agencies have been incentivized for years and years to spend all of their budgets because they had a fear of their budgets being cut next year. Led to a big problem in the deficit and the debt, and is this what were facing now . Guest i think robert makes an excellent point, but i would characterize it slightly differently. One thing you see among agencies in general among government is at the end of a budget year there is often some money sitting around him and what tends to happen, generally speaking, is people find ways to use the money at the end of the year ago they know it might not exist after that. That is one think of the sort of institutional onan behavior pulls government but budgets that go on. But i also think in terms of sequester, it sets out some pretty intense cuts for we basically everyone. Remember, the whole idea of sequester was, if you make these cuts so painful to everyone, that congress will have to come up with a better solution. What actually happened is they did not, with a better solution but just made painful cuts to everyone. So, now we are seeing the results of that decision or lack will one. Host some stats on these proposed cuts of fiscal 2014. About 82314 budget billion eight point 3 billion, 2013, 7 point 6 billion. If sequester cuts implemented in 2014 it would bring the 8. 3 billion number from 214 down to 7. 6 billion . Guest basically an 800 million hit is what they think they will be taking. What the director has said is it is tougher for us because what they did last year to deal with the sequester cuts, which were smaller, was they moved some money around from different programs particularly technology and a few other things. Look,is year they say, 60 of her cost is personal. If you are going to give us roughly 10 cut in our entire budget, there is no way to accommodate that without cutting personnel. Mathematically, pretty much impossible. That is where they are now. Theyare at a point where have to take it out to some bothe on people, and a lot from Senior Management and lower ranks really resent that. Host in the past year, director comey replaced former directormueller at the fbi. Has he taken a different approach . Interesting. In fact, when director mueller was asked specifically what is the biggest problem you are leaving for your successor and this is a guy who oversight oversaw the response to 9 11 and a lot of issues after that. He said the biggest problem i am waiting for is the sequester because i dont see how i can see the numbers work in a way to keep the agency fully effective. So, on this, they seem to be in agreement and when comey came and he basically said this is a nightmare, i had no idea the sequester itself will be this difficult. So, now he is faced with ive got this job, i am starting out and what i have to do is not anything new managers like to do very much, which is probably hurt his own people. Line force on our republicans. She is here in washington, d. C. Good morning to you. Caller thank you for taking my call. My name is grace washington. My view is we need our fbi, we need our cia, and we need our military strength and. We need our borders to be prepared for anything. I think we need to send our children to military school and the man immigrants and foreigners who want to come in our country to do a select service into military which would prove their loyalty to our country. Grace, with a comment from washington, d. C. The fbi, talk about their efforts along the borders, and whether it is being impacted from some of the sequester cuts. A primary fbi is not Law Enforcement agency on border issues, but they certainly contribute to the general enforcement of the laws and investigations in that area. One of the pieces you read out earlier from the agent we dont really know what the agent is based points to sort of what the bureau does another part of the country, Pacific League on indian reservations. They are the Law Enforcement officers on indian reservations, and that has always been a difficult task. I think what you will probably see in sequester cuts coming into effect is more sparsely populated the smaller your fbi offices they have things called regional offices that can be pretty small shops, and along the border. Those places will be particularly hit hard because you will end up with essentially one or two agents responsible for work handled by 3, 4, five people. And that is a much harder thing to do for those people. Host when the director talks about joint task force is being impacted, some of that border work is part of the joint task force . Guest joint task force, the one people know most commonly is the joint Terrorism Task force, because major cities have this big amalgamation where the fbi runs it and a lot of Law Enforcement agents local police, federal agencies, investigate terrorism cases. There are other forces, things that address guns, gangs, violent crime. In the bureau works on a lot of those. And third bank robbery although the bureau still cares quite a bit of a bit about bank robbery. Second and third tiered task forces are going to be hollowed out maybe that is to shawnee word, but expectations those will be weakened quite a bit by this. That means less interagency cooperation. What agents like to talk about is how interagency cooperation is what makes cases, and what they are arguing as a result of sequester or, we will just be left in general. Host bob is from duluth, minnesota, on the line for democrats. Good morning, you are on with Devlin Barrett. Caller thank you for taking my call. Ishink the sequestration just another example of the tea party willing to Compromise National Security for political reasons. And i think that the majority of people voted for certain politicians so that it would probably protect Social Security give us the Affordable Health care act. And the tea party is willing to the people, will of the majority of the people, to get their own way in any way that they can. I think they are willing to put our country at risk. I am wondering what you think it is going to take to stop this. Terms of the fbi, i think what you hear sort of whispered quietly as they discuss this is god forbid something happens while this is going on, are we going to engage in a degree of fingerpointing about did budget cuts make it harder to stop this attack . That is a pretty severe scenario, frankly. But look, there is finger pointing after almost every attack at that the fbi fails to stop. It is not that inconceivable that, god forbid, there is another situation like boston north or that sort of thing, part of the after process would be trying to figure out that we missed something because we had less people up and looking. Is unknowable, and it may be essentially a form of crying wolf at this point because were trying to guess the future. Host let me show you some stats earlier about what a hiring freeze would mean by the fbi by the end of the year. It would take out the best vacate around 2275 positions by the end of the year. The story, Huffington Post talk about the future of the fbi. If the pipeline being filled with agents right now question mark guest that is a really interesting part of this. Because there is arguably a unmeasurable loss from sequester which is, what kind of people are you pulling in and what kind of people are you losing . I was at a function this weekend, and someone in a Government Agency said to me, you know, the problem with sequester is what you are basically telling agencies is you are going to lose a lot of the best april and you are not going to be placed those people. Going to and you are replace them. Whatever programmatic things you are accomplishing you are just making things work a little less well, because you will have a talent drain of people going out the door because they dont want to deal with things like not getting paid x many days in a year, and you have problem you spoke of, the issue of training, because theres no training going on. Training is also affected and lots of other ways. During the shutdown, for example, that was a big glass of Law Enforcement personnel from all around the country and world that showed up, unfortunately for them, on the monday of the beginning of shutdown. They showed up when the ready for a 10week course, kind of a famous course, kind of a status thing to do and to be trained by the fbi. Host other agencies . Guest a lieutenant from the San Francisco Police Department, for example, an investigator from the saudi arabia and police, lets say. They all come together and take the course. The gust they happened to arrive at the shutdown, they all showed up and basically sat around for two days to wait for something to cap in to happen. When it became clear the sit down with keep going the all caps sent home on different flights much ahead of schedule and theyre trying to figure out now, do we have any capability to restart this . Do we have the capability to bring these people back in . Up on as not show Balance Sheet somewhere. But what Law Enforcement agencies will argue is it definitely shows up in the long run in terms of their effectiveness. Host neil irwin writes in the Washington Post on the subject in a recent piece. As it turnse out, slashing Discretionary Spending 5. 6 does not cause massive immediate camera ready dislocations are how the government works. When such effexor did arise, mainly mainly in long delays at airports, converse tweak the law to fix it. While congress attributes sluggish Economic Growth this year in significant part of the sequester cuts, that impact has hardly occupied the publics attention. He goes on to say the new report from the fbi Agent Association is a reminder of the smaller, less visible effects that cuts have across the country. Any Large Organization can and or budget cuts like that in the short run. Harder,work a little less urgent projects shifted to the back burner, m. D. Positions go unfilled, and so on. The longer the scrimping goes on, the less of those tricks can fill the gap. The recent piece in the Washington Post by neil irwin. We are talking to Devlin Barrett. We are bringing in james from massachusetts on the line for independence. Guest i was by the was employed division when i was in college in washington. I know timing is everything, particularly in that field. One day can mean the difference between somebody who is on a wanted list getting away or being put back into prison. Was in massachusetts at a time we had to cut budgets. One of the things suggested was sequestration. On the different departments and municipal government, the town that i was in, and i found that you cant do it across the board. Heavy ande are employees, some are heavy and occupant operational costs, and some would be effectively shut down. I think sequestration is an irresponsible thing to suggest, and i guess as equally irresponsible to let it succeeding go ahead. Something has to be done to have a more rational basis for cutting costs, which we did in our town. What would be your recommendation on a National Level . Complete discretion. If you are going to cut a certain amount from a department, it should be based on something other than the total budget. Its got to reflect the impact both on employees which is very significant. I listened to the thing on training. On those departments that are heavy and operations, youve got to look at it that way and youve got to have different percentages for the different departments depending on how important they are to the day to day life of the people in this country. Guest i think james raises an interesting point, but it also points to the political difficulty of doing much about sequestration. A lot of the people in the bureau are basically saying, importanto pretty work. We are protecting the country, protecting american lives. That should not just the meat cleavered like this. The problem becomes politically, once you open the door for one agency or one mission within the government, we have obligations to open the door for a whole bunch of others . I think it is difficult for the political elements the way they are right now to come up with goingsus on, if you are to do budget cuts, we should take the hit and who should take less of a hit . That is, frankly, why we have sequestration in the first place, because they cannot come to a decision. The political difficulty genes is talking about is just lacking a plan of what to cut. The answer has been to cut everything. And we will start to see the affects of this as a goes forward. Host you talk about some of the history at the fbi. A viewer on twitter writes we had them at ei hiring freeze in the early 1990s. The country seems to function just fine. Uest right and look, a lot of the stuff is completely arguable and red measurable. I would say if you look back in the 1990s, one of the things the bureau really suffered from was their technology was horribly outdated. When 9 11 happened, there were still a lot of field offices that had virtually no ability to communicate electronically effectively the way a normal person or a normal company would understand that phrase. One of the things the last director bob mueller spent years working on was just getting their Computer Systems up to snuff. One of the things they worry about is, as a sequester goes into place and they start, for lack of a better word, robbing peter to pay paul, that kind of thing, that their technology is going to slip and get very slow again. Now, the caller is absolutely twitterer was absolutely right, you could not make a correlation between a hiring freeze in the 1990s and cases being missed or lost or just not made during that same period. Dont think you can make that correlation i think it would be very hard to make the correlation at all for anything. Host a lot concerned about the revelations about monitoring efforts by the government. Max smith writes in on twitter can the guest comment, will the sequester slow the fbi effort monitor and suppress legal dissent . Guest and interestingly phrased question. Is, willf the question it slow the fbis ability to track, do largescale tracking or indepth tracking, i think it probably will. I was told by people in the system, if these go into affect putting people out of a job so many days a year will slow would. The technology affect of not updating or improving the technology that they have, that will slow it. Argument, ifthe you hate those programs, that that is a good thing because there will be less surveillance of americans. They would argue they are not breaking the rules and all of their programs are designed to protect equal. The lets go back to folks. Rick is in monticello, indiana, on the line for republicans. You are on with Devlin Barrett of the wall street journal. Caller thank you very much. I hear obama all the time talking about sequestration is hurting the country. He is the one that came up with the idea. Can you explain how this really got put into effect . Guest absolutely. What hasack to happened as a result of the 2010 Congressional Elections and sort of renewed interest in getting the budget under control and cutting the budget. Createdpened was, they this weird sort of creature because they could not get a deal out of congress where they were going to have a supercommittee of people who would come up with the smartest and best ways to cut the budget. And to give them a stick to make the tough choices, they said and if the supercommittee fail to reach an agreement, we are going to have something called sequestration, which is euros of just broad, for lack of a better term, meat cleavertake cuts across the board. On both defense spending and Discretionary Spending. Interestingly enough, not really touching a tight entitlements. Always meant was to be the alternative that is so much worse that they will come up with something better. But in the political environment we have right now, the two sides are simply couldnt come up with an agreement, and now we have sequester. Host james asks a question is the budget actually cut or are the planned increases in spending just reduce question my guest it is fair to say it is a little bit of both. What congress has been going on for a long time is what is called continuing resolution, which are not big growth but usually some degree of growth or holding to past spending amounts. What congress has generally been doing is some version of what is called crs for a while. What you see in the sequester is not just a reduction of the rate of growth, which is what budget hawks always complain about. It is not a cut of all you are doing is reducing if all you are doing is reducing the rate of growth. With the sequester you see both. You see an actual cut in spending. That is what has the people working at these agencies concerned. Charles from taxes on the democrats line. That a lot can be done by cutting wasteful spending, period. With the fbi, the military. Given toion people who really needed. If you talk about nutrition programs, meals on wheels. Why would you cut Something Like that . The same as you having financial problems but you have a trip you take to hawaii every year and a trip to switzerland every year. You are still doing that but then you cant eat and your electricity and power is cut off. It doesnt make any sense. Cut the things you are wasting money on. 9 billion was missing over in the iraq war. What happened to that . Guest well, right, and his point gets to the core argument here and why this is so difficult. One persons waste is another persons necessity. There arent a lot of good reason to argue you should not cut nutrition programs, there are a lot of good reasons to argue should not cut nutrition the grant because theyre for cutdren, also not for counterterrorism programs. That is the argument and that is the issue that no one seems to be able to resolve. Host if we are talking about waste versus necessity at the fbi, where do you think spending on drones fit in . A recent Associated Press story fbi spending on drones topped 3 million. Guest it is interesting. In the greater scheme of the fbi budget, it is a drop in the bucket, but it is an incredibly interesting issue how is the bureau going to use this new technology in Law Enforcement and counterterrorism . That is why it gets so much attention. Been used . Ave they guest we dont know specific instances, but for example, there is a fairly widely reported hostagetaking of a little boy in the south about a year ago, and they used a drone in that instance to sort of keep an eye in the sky on the area around that scene as they were working in that hostage situation. Host the bunker in alabama . Guest exactly. So, that is the type of scenario where they have been starting to deploy drones. One thing fbi officials admitted they dont really have a terrific Legal Framework to sort of explain the dos and donts. And what we say drones computer obviously unmanned, essentially eyes in the sky. These are things with cameras. They dont shoot anything or take any action other than taking a picture. But a lot of people still find it very alarming and worrisome, especially for the reason that theres not of what a lot of people would say is a real Legal Framework on how or when these things should be used. Host that story notes the fbi since 2006 has been more than 3 Million Dollars on unmanned aircraft. It goes on to note note and Inspector General report that found that the fbi awarded about to atint 26 million least seven Police Department and nonprofits around the country for drones as well. Phones. Go back to the roger is waiting in des moines, iowa, on our line for independents. Caller good morning. I just want to bring up what somebody that was the president s sequester. Number two. , but thendependent republicans offered the president a deal that would give him discretion on what is to be. Ut instead of using a cleaver, use a scalpel. The president was offered that, and he turned it down. Fbi far as what the look at the private sector. We used to have 63 of people employed in this country. Now we have 58 . Private industry for the last five years has cut people, still maintain a profit, still are getting sales. Meant it is how good a job by the people doing who are working. Host roger from des moines. Guest roger raises an interesting dynamic that has shifted the last two years in all the budget conversations. It used to be that government work is nice and stable, but just as not pay as well as the private sector but it is stable and you have job security and you will have a decent pension when you leave. It is a nice, safe job to have. And the private sector was viewed as, you get paid more but there is more uncertainty. You never know what could happen, depending on the fortunes of your company. I think what is interesting in the last five years is that a little bit of that insecurity of the private sector has bled into the government sector where it does not really show itself very often. Think a lot of the political arguments that come why should government workers be more safe or secure and your average citizen who works in the private sector . Affects peoples political interpretations of whether sequester is good or bad. I dont know if it has any real impact on how the agencies themselves operate out of sequester. The standpoint of the agents, how is there more rally from the 2013 sequester cuts and then looking ahead at possibly 10 furlough days and more cuts in 2014 . Guest remember, sequester, the wait is written, it goes on for years. Not just a oneor twoyear issue. One of the things you see in the agencies, given the shutdown among government workers, whether the fbi or others, a lot throw their hands up and say, who knows what congress will do next month, let alone next year or beyond. I think the issue of more row will really only become truly ,nowable as this year plays out how bad or not bad the situation becomes inside the bureau. But i do think that it introduces a level of uncertainty. Some of the people in government work i think the danger becomes, from the fbi point of view, those folks who were on the fence about staying or going, might go. He also are not getting the people union. We are talking to Devlin Barrett, the wall Street Department ande you spent eight years at the Associated Press poll for that . Guest yes, i work in new york and washington. From we have built woodstock, georgia, on the line for democrats. Caller good morning. And thank you for your show. Excuse me. Anything that the democrats are for, they are against. Him lookbound to make bad on everything that he suggests. The Health Care System, these computers, it is being sabotaged by the right wing republicans and the Koch Brothers and insurance host we are talking about the sequester cut and how it is impacting the fbi. Are you concerned about that . Caller yes. Absolutely. Host goahead. Caller what it is designed to is to make the quest president look bad so we cant protect the country. Thats all i got to say. Host bill from woodstock, georgia. Guest it speaks to the whole political split on the issue, there is a view that says the two sides are so politicized on even issues of how the government to function that they cant see beyond the fight of the moment or the fight of the week. I take it the caller certainly feels that way about the republicans. Host on the republican line, william from texas. Caller hello . With the Devlin Barrett. Caller hello . Host what is your question . Caller the only comment i want sequester, the president signed it, did the house and senate pass it . Doesnt make it a law . Guest yes, it is law. Absolutely. From terry is waiting indianapolis, indiana, on the line for independents. Good morning. Turn your tv down and go ahead with it, no question. Terrry, go ahead. Ill echo im here. Im turning the tv down. Yeah, this is terry. I dont know why the world aint figured out thats really not the government, or all of them all of the governors and mayors, if they start, and landlords, sending some of the money they are giving away back and using that you know, after theyve got it going, to make sure our defense is good everywhere fbi, police, and all of that. You figure most people are paying rent, 400 a month only use it as a basis, we should at 400 right back, they can work wherever they need it. Host before we let you go, we talked about possible impacts on andt Terrorism Task force some crime, what about White Collar Crime . How are we seeing impacts in the shutdown and sequestration on the fbis whitecollar efforts . Part of the challenge here is no one in the bureau wants to say, well, we had to let joe smith go because we just didnt have the budget to pursue him. But i think with whitecollar crime, the thing about White Collar Crime is most of these cases are fairly labor intensive. Intensive. They usually require a lot of document work and a lot of Forensic Accounting work. Dangerrt of thing the is the more complex the cases, the more difficult it is to do a complex case with more limited resources. Host Devlin Barrett, the wall street Journal Justice Department reporter. I1 want to1 remind you at 25, the president i want to , thed you that 11 25 president will deliver comments on the rose garden and you can see it here, come back tomorrow at 7 00 a. M. For tomorrows washington journal. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] a reminder that president obama will address the nation later today to talk about the rollout of the Affordable Care act. He will be speaking from the rose garden this morning at 1125 eastern. We will have three marks for your life great you also open our phone lines afterward for your reaction. Later, comments from North Carolina governor pat murray. He will speak at the heritage foundation. Politico reporting today that tim griffin has decided to not seek reelection in 2014. He wants to spend more time with his family. He told the top business arkansas publication that this is agonizing. He confirmed his plans with politico today. This is Eleanor Roosevelt potts typewriter