Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20131109

Various deadlines. New polls are showing president obamas job approval is continuing to slide. We are posing questions to democrats, are you concerned that the Affordable Care act and the issues will hurt the party in the 2014 and 2016 election . That is the question we pose to democrats. We want to hear from you. The phone lines are open. Democrats in the eastern and Central United states can call in at 2025853880. If you are in the mountain or pacific part of the United States, 2025853881. You can also catch us on your favorite social media pages, twitter, facebook, or email us at journal cspan. Org. A good saturday morning to you. We want to begin with this headline from the wall street journal closed quote the wall street journal the Lessons Learned from that accordingone of them, to the wall street journal we are posing our question to democrats this morning, asking if you are concerned about this early start to the Affordable Care act, whether it is going to hurt the party in 2014. As we do that i want to show you a new coal from the pew research foundation, from the pew center for the people and the press. It came out last night. According to the poll, barack obama has had a difficult year since his reelection victory it finds that his second term job ratings has found a similar downward trajectory as his predecessor george w. Bush. You can see their second term job approval numbers in comparison to president reagan and clinton. A little bit more from the pole. From that poll. The wayrity disapprove obama is handling five issues with terrorism. Job ratings on the economy has been more negative than positive. For more than four years. Of the wayprove obama is handling the economy. He also gets negative ratings on health care policy. 59 disapproving in january. With those numbers in mind and soul of the concerns by democratic members of congress we are opening our lines to democrats this morning to get your thoughts. Id concerned about the Affordable Care act and if it is going to hurt the party down the road. We will start with dave from dayton ohio. Thank you for calling in. Good morning, john. I am not worried about the hta the aca because the republicans are going to shoot themselves in the foot again. They are going to shut the government down again. Long as we have the tea alabama,from louisiana, and mississippi calling every day, i know the democrats are in good shape. Host i will ask my question to jerry from washington dc, thank you for calling in. Does it Say Something that the president this past week has had to come out and actually apologize over the rollout of the Affordable Care act . Jerry, are you there . Jerry . Caller can you hear me . Host go ahead. I apologize. Theres a lot of divisiveness. I think the campaign the immigrants have a chance to show the United States that we have come together. Not just as a party. The health care is not about the party but more about the people who need health care. We in the United States of america need health. I think the democrats need to show that. Host doesnt Say Something the president had come out and apologize in this issue apologize on this issue react of on this issue . Did not need to apologize for helping americans. Who told him to apologize for helping americans. These are americans who need health. Health care is very important. Obama is very important for america. I think americans and that americans need to look at this. I think americans need to look at this. Those are things americans need. We cannot afford a job if we do not have good health. Mentioned the president s apology. Here is a little bit from that interview. [video clip] five percent of the population who are in the individual market, they are out there buying Health Insurance on their own, even though it affects only a small amount of the population. It means a lot to them when they get this letter canceled. Itm deeply concerned about and i have assigned my team to see what we can do to close some of the holes and gaps in the law. My intention is to lift up and make sure the insurance the people buy is effective. You have seen the anger that is out there. Much, that, very what we intended to do, which is to make sure that everybody is moving into better plans because they want to, not because theyre forced into it we were not as clear as we needed to be in terms of the changes that were taking place. We canto do everything to make sure that people are finding themselves in a good position, a better position than they were before this law happened. I am sorry they are finding themselves in this situation based on insurance they got for me. We need to make we need to work hard to make sure we hear them make sure they know we hear them. Host on the same issue, it was the subject of an New York Times piece this morning host the story goes on to note we have our phone lines open to democrats only this morning. Are you concerned about this rollout of the Affordable Care act and whether it is going to hurt the party down the road. Roderick is up next from albany, georgia. How are you doing . Im good. I am in a Political Science major. The Congressional Budget Office is looking for ways to fund this. , if not dodging a bullet, he assumes responsibility. He knows theres problems and he will straighten them out. Those are the types of things that will make america stay on the way can. Those in 2014 and 2016, they are going to support whatever is right. Democrats are trying to make it better for everyone. Host at what point do these call to these problems need you start to be concerned about 2014 and 2016 election . The key is to keep in the American People informed. As long as they know theyre probably been taking care of and somebody is walking on the level of the government, i think we can stay on board with the democrats as far as 2014 and 2016 and not panic. , from yearsremember and years back, from the feldman of our constitution from the founding of our constitution host roger from albany georgia this morning and Karen Buchanan says on twitter we go to rodney from indiana. Thank you for calling in. Thank you for cspan. I am not real concerned. I believe the website will get straightened out. Sees i livec in indiana. I am 68 years old. I am on medicare and i have a policy to take up the slack and my premiums actually went down. I think this will be a good thing before the november 14 election. This will be worked out. See thatk people will this is a good thing. Will get some turnaround in the house where we will have not gridlock all the time. Not great locked all the time. Host jim says on twitter next in a different interview, retweets we are taking calls just from democrats this morning. We have a question just for republicans on tomorrows washington journal. Talking tog we are democrats only. Are you concerned about the Affordable Care act and whether it is going to hurt the party in or 2016 . He e has this piece that bill will let Companies Continue to offer insurance plans that would otherwise be canceled under the law. The house will likely be a focal point of the week and a potential embarrassment for obama as several democrats are likely to support that measure. The story goes on to note, Senate Democrats have introduced a similar bill. It is also a sign that these democrats feel vulnerable on 47 ssue three of the of the four Senate Democrats are up for reelection next year. Gerald is in boston massachusetts. The morning. Caller good morning. Go red sox, first of all. Act is notble care going to hurt the democrats at all for the same reason that mcconnell, cantor, and boehner all say the sky is falling. All these republicans saying the sky is falling, they are going to start believing that. Democrats need to hold ground. What does it say to you that there are democratic lawmakers that are starting to oppose bills that delay part of thatffordable care act have extensions on some of these deadlines. Tonne shaheen is going next week andll she is up for reelection in 2014. What do those actions say to you . Caller just like any other color, they say the elections are coming up. I do not believe they are scared and shaky. I believe they are a little scared and shaky. We want to try to minimize the damage that we think these people are saying. We are doing it for the reelection bid that is all they wanted to. Macconnell, boehner, everybody saying the sky is falling am cothe teabags is falling, the teabags some Political Action groups are already running ads on this issue. Here is one from americans for prosperity, hitting red state democrats on the Affordable Care act. [video clip] people think it is Big Government at its worse treated instead she sided with barack obama. If i had the towboat that if i had to vote for the bill again i would vote tomorrow. Now we are paying the price. There is growing frustration among many americans. Some people will have to pay a lot more for Health Insurance. I would vote for it tomorrow. Tell senator landrieu we deserve better than obamacare. Landrieu fromy louisiana, art of what the wall street journals opinion take opinion page refers to as this is the lead editorial in todayss paper. There is a box there listing all the Democratic Senators that are up for reelection that voted for obama care, what they call the decisive vote. These members are right to worry that voters may punish obamacares implementation as they did the passage. They are pulling off no more than a confidence trick that is todays editorial in the wall street journal. We are talking to democrats only this morning. Are you concerned about this issue in 2014 . Gwendolen is from arizona from out west. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you, this is my first time calling. I am not really concerned about the Affordable Care act. There are a lot of critics out that are saying the tea party. Theyre pushing the facts of obama care. The they do not like the fact that obamacare has got to work. That is why theyre pushing so hard with these negative ads to say that the website has something to do with the Affordable Care act. I know here in arizona my insurance went down. Even from my job, compared to 0 when i was working cap when i was working, and now i am more selfemployed. My insurance went down to 147 per month. That to me is affordable. I dont believe it is going to help a lot of people. Six months from now, and of the year, people are going to really like this. Mark is up next from eureka, california. Thank you for joining us on washington journal. Caller good morning. The republicans had a good idea inut how to Fix Health Care all 50 states. A lot of states have not signed onto it. Therell could be a lot but it could be a principal. I think by the end of the year it will be a better bill. The republicans have no idea what to do. They have no plans. Are you confident that the white house has a plan here to fix the problem . From todaysy Washington Post, looking at the number of people who have actually disturbed under the new law in the district of columbia. It notes does that number concern you . Caller it doesnt. It is going to take a while for people to feel out the system. Supposedly when romney had his plan, it took a year for everyone to start signing up and getting coverage. I think Health Coverage should be a right. The republicans that are not letting the medicare expansion going to affect in their states, how about those people he e if we need those people . Pill, itd to broaden a is our responsibility as citizens and civilians, of the United States to do it. I should note that on a story about the d. C. Numbers, they dont reflect the people who signed up for medicare that for medicaid. Signed up for medicaid. In the district that is the story about the d. C. Number of the sea enrollees. President obama made a speech at the port of new orleans. States were urged to expand medicaid under the Affordable Care act. That is the front page of the times and you can see an image were of that x beginning will have more of that an image of that here. We will have more later. Democratsking with only. Are you concerned about it for the care acts rollout and whether it is going to hurt the party in 2013 or 2016 . That is our question for you. If from greensboro, carolina, joseph, what do you think . The rollout is obviously bad. Carebamacare but obama in the longrun is going to be exactly what we wanted when we voted for it. I hear a unanimity of support for the president. We are all supporting the president. It is not going to post president. We would go to surely from stone mountain. Good morning. Caller i think it will help the party rather than hurt it. Chuck grassley is republicans. He does not know what he is talking about. The Affordable Care act is evil. Is for the people. The republicans are for the rich people. Who in the world wants the president ial candidates were all going were all running around the country. It was good until he became the governor. Louisiana is now right under mississippi. Host a few more tweaks on the subject. The gop would like and a different point of view it was shut down what is left over obama care left of obamacare. Beublicans congress will talking about this next week in capitol hill. Heres the schedule according to the hill newspaper we will hear from if from officials who can talk about the issues the website had. And on thursday, a subcommittee of energy and commerce will hold a hearing titled obamacare. The subcommittee of house education and Workforce Committee is going to be meeting obama care is affecting colleges, schools, and universities. This issue will certainly be part of the conversation for members next week and john from Fort Lauderdale florida, the you think it is going to be part of the conversation from the 2014 and 2016 will election . Yes, for the positive for democrats and obama. I will be keeping a scorecard on you. Whatever negative about obama i dont see you ever calling and asking about something positive for the democrats and obama. It is whatever fox news is popping on. That is just my observation. There is a bigger organization in that. You said this is going to be a positive in 2014, explain. Just going to let you know how you guys are acting. It is going to be a positive you are mixing up the rollout on the online site with actual policy. Because the rollout was so bad, theyre making the rollout seem as if it is the policy. That is whats bad. That is what all your democratic callers are 100 positive about this and that about this. 100 positive about this. We are all unified. Host we go to kathy for michigan. Good morning. Caller good morning. I have tried to sign up three times. I will probably try tomorrow or monday. , iing worked in medicine have a sister that works in central scheduling in a hospital. These are the people that should tohad some experience on how sign people up. Able tohould have been do it in person or on the telephone at the very least. Sibeliushink ms. Kathy can do the job. You need people in the medical profession, nurses, doctors, people that work in i. T. Insurance. E many of the students i work with as a substitute teacher, their parents are uninsured. It is just another worry for children. My mom and dad are not have insurance and we do not have any money. If something bad happens then we really wont have any money. Be concerned about congress when congress isnt concerned about me. Ive tried to contact senator leventhal. They are not concerned about me. Why are we focusing on them . This is about the people. This is about the American People. What do you think American People are going to do in 2014 and 2016 election . People something where are motivated enough to go out and vote on these issues . Caller i think they will be motivated if we get this taking care of within the next year. And people actually see a light at the end of the tunnel. I know someone who is married with children and works two jobs. That is an outrage. If it doesnt work, it doesnt are thehat party you part of comment they will move against congress. This is about peoples health. Everybody needs health care. Host we will go to lenny from florida. I think the democrats are jumping the gun. Give us a chance. It is only a website. My young granddaughter just signed up for Affordable Care. Give this a chance. A few emails coming into the washington journal this morning. Nancy from texas writes that the president should hold a press that a press conference and take questions hold a press conference texas. Nancy from this from joy in florida we are taking your calls, e mails, tweets on the subject. Yet another 10 or 15 minutes on it. Ofanted to point out a few the other headlines going on in the papers today. Heres the front page of todays wall street journal that is the front page of the wall street journal clues quote of the wall street journal it has a picture of the Prime Minister meeting with secretary of state john kerry. A few other headlines in the news today. That is the front page of the Financial Times talking about the job numbers. We will be talking more about that subject in the next segment of the washington journal today, going over the job. Umbers and what they mean we have 10 minutes left in this first segment, asking democrats only this morning about are you concerned whether the Affordable Care act will hurt the party in 2014 or 2016 . We will berning talking to just republicans on a question as well. We will go to john from utah. Good morning everybody in the country. The bestoing to be thing for democrats in 2016. Especially when they really start getting into how much the Insurance Companies are robbing us. They have 25 of our premiums how manynt use, people have been hurt in high school playing sports that could never be covered . I can finally get coverage now. I had workers comp. That is all the republicans argument is. We are not giving the Insurance Companies that profit. Runou think democrats can on this issue in 2016. Who do you think will run on this issue . Caller i think hillary is going to run. You never know in politics. Cory booker is sitting in the back right now. Especially with hillary, she tried to Campaign Health care before and was cut down beyond belief, which was ridiculous. Out,the stories come everybody is worried about a website. It is absolutely ridiculous. All of these Insurance Companies come up with crappy plans on so when the law took effect they could cancel it and it will make them look bad. The Insurance Companies purposely gave them substandard itnts at cheap rates so when plays it can have that pr spin. Host john brings up Hillary Clinton as a possibility of 2016. Certainly a front runner in the Democratic Party right now. Here is a story in the Los Angeles Times talking about that supporters called it their duty to encourage the former secretary of state to seek the white house. That is the story in the lost angeles the Los Angeles Times. In october she gave her strongest indication to date that she is considering another white house bid. That is the story in the in the Los Angeles Times. We would go to debbie in washington. Do you think this is something democrat should be concerned about in 2014 . Caller i dont. I was on the individual market. 740 seven dollars per month for Health Insurance. I was upset because the me reallycompany gave crappy options. So i got on the website and i before i had 5,000 in deductibles. They would not pay for anything until i spent 5,000. 747 paying 747,000 per month. 70 of everything. It is 29 per month cheaper. It cutstax rebate and it down 200. Month. Be paying 398 per does it say to you that democrats up for reelection in 2014 are reintroducing legislation to delay parts of the healthcare law . Picture of jeanne shaheen. Why arent people telling the story e there are lots of people like me, im sure, who are on the individual market. I did not think i was going to be able to get a rebate because he made 50,000 per year. I get a rebate and it is going to save me a lot of money. Host debbie is from everett, washington this morning. The story about Jeanne Shaheens bill. A politico story goes on to note herbert is up next from camilla, georgia. Good morning. Democrats misled [indiscernible] it cost more than this health care is. That is all the democrats have to do. That is what they need to compare this to. Care to thehealth misled war republicans put us in and costs and caused 4000 deaths and billions and trillions of dollars. A few other headlines i want to point out to you today. Heres the front page of Washington Post several of the papers raking that from last night. One other story about the navy. This is from the metro section of todays Washington Post that story in the Washington Post. We are talking to democrats as morning on whether or not they are concerned whether the Affordable Care act and the rollout is going to hurt the party in 2014 and 2016. Raymond is from pennsylvania. Good morning. Turn down your tv and go ahead with your comment or question. Caller hello. I feel the American People voted for this law to take effect and everything. I realize it is going to need some work, there is no doubt about it. I also think they need to spend more time on making it work rather than not making it work. There is a lot of people that are hurting the to not have any Health Insurance because of the new law. Anre is going to have to be emergency to straighten it out. The more we work against him the better off were going to be. And cheryl from staten island, new york. You are on washington journal. I believe this is not going to hurt the democrats in 2014 and 2016, because it is going to address the issue of why the republicans would do and why would they tried to keep so many people from having health care when we have to go towards and Everything Else to fight for this country. Our needs and do it with everything we have so we are prepared to protect our country mentally as well as physically. That is our last call for this segment. Amorrow, if rick question for republican viewers. Next we will break down octobers monthly job numbers kurtzleben. E dnofsky willise ra be here to talk about the Affordable Care act. Chuck grassley talking about the Budget Committee in question, health and Human Service secretary kathleen sibelius, and the militarys role in politics. [video clip] your confidence level that healthcare. Gov will be working after november 30 . It wont be. Remember the website itself is a symptom of bigger problems. There are a lot of problems beyond that it even if they do , theye website working are going to find out that theyre not going to get the number of young people that they want. People are going to be turned off from the promise that if you theret you can keep it going to see their premiums go up and although sings are going to be major problems for obamacare. That was best reflected by the fact that this week you had 16 democrats up for reelection. But they did not get much sympathy from the white house. Is so sold one obamacare being the answer to that they are not willing to admit that anything is wrong. All you hear is the president clipping responsibilities but not much admittance that other than computers not working, there is anything wrong with it. There is a long rock there is a lot wrong with it. If it is december the first, what do you when lawmakers do next . We have done a lot through the house of representatives. The house of representatives have passed a law. President , by his own ruling, ignored the law. Mandateshat employer get a year delay. Why not individuals . Since he does not have the authority to do it for lawyer mandates, the house passed a bill to legalize what he did and they do not even bring it up in the United States senate. Up, this stuff piles eventually they are going to have to deal with the United States senate. Washington journal continues. Yesterday the bureau of labor statistics released its monthly jobs report, which shows that the u. S. Economy added a betterthanexpected 2004000 jobs read it also showed the Unemployment Rate ticked up to 7. 3 from a fiveyear low of 7. 2 in september. Here to explain what it all means is danielle kur tzleben. Yesterday on twitter, i believe you referred to this as the weirdest jobs report ever. Why . Guest at least in my tenure doing this, this is the strangest one we have come across just because theyre so much distortion. It is hard to know what is what, it is hard to know exactly to what degree the numbers are perfectly accurate. I think most highly trained economists would say this is something that is not agreed upon. Host it that all because of the a guest Government Shutdown last month . Guest Government Shutdown last month . Guest yes. Both of those are effective but to different degrees. Surveyablishment probably did not pick up that many, if any, of the Government Shutdown in terms of government workers. It did pick up some contractors whose work which stops because of the shutdown. Included ald survey note with the jobs report, people picked up im trend figure out how many were and how many werent. What is the better indication of where the jobs the guest i would say house survey. The Establishment Survey says there are 2004000 jobs last month. That came in 2004000 jobs last month. That came in better than expected. This is well above that. Host and the Obama Administration in a release yesterday, jason fuhr men of the touted this as the 40 here are the months and the job losses going back to 2009. Has been shakynt with a lot of sequestration cuts, a lot of state and local government job cuts. It is good to qualify that. Host we want to get your thoughts on the countrys Employment Situation. We want to hear what it is like in your neighborhood. Our phone lines are open. We are going to do it differently in this segment. If you are employed, give us a call at we will have those numbers on the screen. You can start dialing in now. Howe folks are doing that, often is it that the Unemployment Rate will take up while the job numbers go up in unexpectedly large amounts . That can happen fairly often, especially right now. The Unemployment Rate is calculated as a percentage of the labor force. Whowho are employed arent employed or are looking for a job. People who have essentially given up, they are not counted. As we get more and more people feeling confident about the job search, we might see that Participation Rate ticked upwards and the Unemployment Rate ticked upwards even as the job situation improves massively. Host here is a charge talking about labor force Participation Rates. How concerned should folks be about the way this labor force Participation Rate is going . It is troubling. It is pointed to every single time we have a jobs report. Month, oncehis again the number was thrown off massively by the shutdown. Caveat,there is one which is back in the late 90s and early 2000, that was around when that Participation Rate hit its peak. Part of the reason it hit its peak is because he had so many baby boomers in the labor force. We had just a large share of the population in the labor force. That is a structural reason why that would come down. I dont know if we should look for to go back up to that peak level. It should be above where it is now but i dont think you are going to see it get up to 67 again. Host that is longterm trends. As you look in the short term trends, what were the bright spots that you saw in the economy . Which sectors have gained the most jobs . Retail added 44,000 jobs. Leisure and hospitality also added a few jobs. Those are bright spots in the sense of not only more jobs, but it means people are spending more money. Those are two areas that really reflect consumer spending. Everything. Veat to the caveat to that is those are relatively lowwage jobs. It is a twosided thing to think about. Kurtzleben here to answer your questions. We set up our lines a little bit differently. On our line for those who are employed is brandon from delaware. Good morning to you. I think this is a real good topic. The problem in delaware, the jobs they are given our lowwage jobs. People are still prejudice when it comes to jobs. Judice and a meaning prejudice by meaning they have a certain person or picture they want for their job. I am currently selfemployed. I do my own thing. I was having restrictions so i had to sit down. My job was answering phones at pizza place. Strong could not see a guy like me answering phones. So he told me, no, we are only hiring women. Personalo have a thought of what they want or what they think a job shouldnt tail, that mrs. A lot should entail, that mrs. A lot of people up. That messes a lot of people up. They would not give me the time of day. You see what i am saying . Understand, it understand why but it still makes it wrong. I had to hire a 15yearold boy to come around to cut grass because grown people, they would rather help. Y would rather give a 25 give 25 to a 15yearold to cut the grass than me. Host that job report yesterday on Unemployment Rates. Sevenemployment rate was percent among men the. 6. 4 among adult women. 22. 2 among teenagers. 13. 1 hispanic americans, 9. 1 americans, 13. 1 and hispanic americans, 19 point 9. 1 . The teenage rate bounced around a bit as a function of a margin of error. The teenage jobless rate went up remarkably during the recession. It is interesting to hear the caller mentioned that. Teens are threatening his job prospects. One of the big narratives is the flipside, the reason teens are not working is because teens have lower job experience and people with more experience and who are adults who have been in the labor force a bit longer are willing to take some of those teenage jobs. Therefore teenagers have been pushed out. This is something we are going to be grimy through the system for quite a while. Host brian is in jackson, mississippi. Would like to talk more in terms about the jobless situation for College Graduates. Degreetly got my masters at 26. The job situation is pretty dire in my area. We have one of the highest unEmployment Situations in the. Ountry i think it needs to be targeted there needs to be targeted or young people to put my generation back to work. Situation we need to the man that in this country again. Americanse for young we are asking what is in it for us. People have mastered degrees and still have a tough time getting an interview. I am out there looking every day but we need to continue to have a sustained National Conversation each and every day about the job situation with the. Oung people in america host on young people in the job Market Report doesnt break down people by age to quite the degree that the caller is talking about, recent College Graduates. This is one of the biggest debates around right now in terms of the jobs report and in term of all jobs. Degree,ave a college you tend to be more employable. This is one thing the jobs report does show, people in High School People who have a High School Diploma have a much higher unappointed rate than people who have a College Degree. Goes all the way up and down the education ladders. The question is is the College Degree worth it . You have all of this debt but still are not finding the jobs. One of the big answers i would point out is there was a study that came out of georgetown earlier showed lifetime earnings of someone with a bachelorss degree were around 1 million higher than someone without a bachelors degree. That is pretty telling that the that it is no question finding a job right now is tough for anybody, but this goods c ould speak to the return on investment. Host a question of how these numbers are per together. How does the u. S. Measure who is looking for work . Many people seek work who are not on unemployment. Guest the way they measure the people looking for work they have a lot of different categories, but that is all measured in the household survey. To household to household and they say ok, do you have a job, do you want a job, and why if you want a job and you do not have one, have you been temporarily laid off in the case of government for load workers, how long have you been laid off . That sort of thing. Host do we know sample sizes per month when they do these household surveys . Obviously they are not surveying every civil household in the u. S. Guest right. I cannot tell you the sample size, but it does have a large margin of error. On the household, it is 400,000 either way. That is relatively large, so these numbers can swing. That is something we should think about when we look about the really good Establishment Survey numbers, on which there is a 100,000 a margin of error and the household numbers, which is next month, these could easily shift a bit. Host lets go to leonard from michigan on our line for all others. You were on with Danielle Kurtzleben of u. S. News world report. Caller good morning cspan and all. How are you . Host good, go ahead. Caller within your survey, it shows that jobs are being butted and things of this, would there be a way you can do a survey on how many of the jobs that the administration, the presidency created with the obamacare, and how many of them went outside our own country . I mean, the main Computer Company that is doing it is a canadian company. So we are paying the canadian people to do the american work. Host Danielle Kurtzleben, do we know the numbers yet . Guest this is something that numbers,ith the adp which come out every month just before the jobs report. Adp is a private Payroll Processing firm, and they look at really how much it private employers are paying their employees and really how many employees of those employers have. One thing to look at is the size of the firm and how many people that firm employs. In most month this year, they have not seen much of an impact of the Affordable Care act yet on jobs, meaning that employee cut off that the Affordable Care slow ses with the with the socalled employer mandate, they have not seen the shift because if the Affordable Care act were restraining job growth, you would maybe see some of the smaller firms restraining hiring. This last month, there was a bit of a cut in those firms, however, so it is a frustrating answer, but it is too soon to tell really because that employer mandate to really have not kicked in yet. Host the color brings up president obama, as we said in our last segment of the washington journal, he was at the port of new orleans and he talked jobs numbers and a little bit about that report and the shutdown. I want to play you a little bit of his speech yesterday. [video clip] the Unemployment Rate still picked up. We dont yet know all the data for this final quarter of the year, but it could be down because of what happened in washington. That makes no sense. Dose selfinflicted wounds not have to have endured they should not happen again. We should not be injuring ourselves every few months we should be investing in ourselves. We should be building, not tearing things down. Re fighting the same old battles again and again, we should be fighting to make sure everybody who works hard in america and hard right here in new orleans that they have a chance to get ahead. That is what we should be focused on. [applause] the president in new orleans talking about what congress and the government should be focused on here and here is a response from eric cantor, House Majority leader to the president s speech yesterday. The president refuses to take responsibility for just about anything, including an economy that has failed to live up to its promise for five years. That is eric cantor in a tweet yesterday after those jobs numbers came out. Danielle kurtzleben of u. S. News world report, sort of the politics of the jobs numbers here, what was your take away from the speech yesterday . Guest my take away an part was that this is, i mean, anytime the jobs numbers are good, it is good for the president. You can read it as a reflection positively upon him. There is a point that the Obama Administration really has tended to blame republicans heavily for the shutdown. Ahead of the jobs report this week, the Obama Administration came out with a report saying this is going to cut 120,000 jobs from october payrolls. This is really going to cut into gdp. I would say the subtext there is lets keep this in the minds of American People, so if the jobs numbers are bad and if the shutdown really does hurt the economy, we can perhaps point to the gop. Now, the numbers were good, so perhaps employers just short sort of shrugged and said we are going to hire anyway. Employers may be are becoming desensitized. In onirish writes twitter, students looking for jobs, our son, now 20, has been unable to find a job since age 17 for reasons of this topic this morning. Adults out of work get them first. So on the subject of young people looking for jobs. Brian is up next from kalamazoo, michigan on our line for folks who are employed. Brian, what is the Employment Situation like in kalamazoo . Caller well, my state is a little convoluted, but we actually lived in virginia for a number of years, and i was in real estate. My wife worked on capitol hill. 2000 eight election, went to work for some fortune 500 companies there. Anyway, i have a degree in geology, and it has been a number of years before i used it since i did Engineering Work in the state of illinois. Up. Just gave it all shale than money in i ever had. I am 45, made more money than many years combined of being an employee at the state of illinois. Now we move to kalamazoo, michigan to reduce our cost of living increase or debt decrease significantly leaving the washington region, as you both probably know. I currently work in oklahoma drilling same thing, oil and gas wells in oklahoma. My point being is that i think even when i was in the state of illinois employee, i think those days are gone, most states are broke. And have large deficit. Even being a state employee is not as secure as what it used to be. Government employees probably pretty safe, but it is a new day in america or in you have to go where the jobs are, sometimes that is not a bad thing. As i said, i was making probably 60 some thousand dollars a year in washington beltway, and now i make under 200,000. Host thank you for sharing a story. Brian brings up two points the Energy Sector and state and local government. What are you seeing in those two sectors . He has really served the academy of a couple of things going on. One of the things is working up fracking and then the lady appeared in drilling in oklahoma not just there, but north dakota. Unemployment in north dakota is i believe the lowest in the nation because in part of the jobs created by the Energy Sector. On the flip side, you have state and local government, which has, as i said, really cut into job growth over the course of the recession in part because states are not seeing the tax revenue. People are not making the wages therefore they are not paying is many in taxes, therefore they have to cut jobs. It is a vicious cycle. Host we have about 20 minutes left with Daniel Kurtzleben with Danielle Kurtzleben of u. S. News world report. How long have you been following the employment sector . Guest a little over two and a half years now. Host talk about the wage numbers and the average workweek , two things that are included in each months report. What sort of turns are we seeing recently in those two areas . Guest the best way to describe wages is flat. They really have not been improving quite that much, especially when you look at the real numbers, which is inflationadjusted. When you look over a slightly longer term, say back to pre recession, we are below in terms of annual wages, the median household income, i would say. Below where it was in 2007. Host in october, the average Hourly Earnings was just . 02 last month to about 24. 10 an hour on the workweek. The average work week hours about 34. 4 hours according to reports. Yeah. Right, if wages do not go up that much the good news is right now inflation is pretty low, which is him and the Federal Reserve is keeping their eye on. If the weekly hours tick up enough, people are only going to work so many hours a week. If you start working, going up from 40 to 50 hours we, maybe your process i should hire a new says, io your boss should hire a new worker to pick up that slot. Slack. Host we talked about margin of air or any impact, uncertainty from the Government Shutdown. Twitter asks dont we need a better metric, one that measures folks abandoning work or taking lower wages . We need sector year versus year. Is there a better metric to figure out with the job situation is like right now you . Guest in terms of abandoning higher wage jobs for lower wage jobs, i do not know of a metric that covers that. That would be really interesting and very telling because i am sure that has really picked up. That said, there are plenty of denton different ways at different organizations try to capture jobs data. For reasonable, like i fored, gallup does example, adp, like i mentioned, gallup does a does the job market look good, how to fill that the job i have right now . Lots of places measure that sentiment at the very least. As i said earlier, the white house put out its statement,s taking out its white spots that is all cleared one of the things of the white house talked about was the construction sector talking about an increase of 11,000 jobs last month in the construction sector. If you look at the chart, construction sector, while it had an 11,000 job increase last month, is well off of its peak from 2006. Talk a little bit about the reasons why here. The construction sector has been picking up very slowly but surely. Were going to see sort of this call back to normal in terms of the Housing Market because that is what the construction sector has seen as a proxy for is how is the mark Housing Market doing, how are building how is building going . Once again, it is the question of what normal is pure do we really want to get to those 2006 levels of construction employment . 7. 7 million with the peak there. Guest right. That was prime housing time. As we know now, there was a little bit of exuberant at the time. Maybe we really dont want to get quite up to those highs. Maybe we can only hope for a slightly lower recovery in that sector. Notedwhite house release nonresidential and heavy and Civil Engineering construction has grown slowly and said that is an imported reminder that we should be looking for opportunity to invest in americas roads, bridges, and school houses. That is part of the release from the white house yesterday. Phone calls from all over the country on the subject. We have guidelines set up for those who are employed, unemployed, stopped working and all others o. On our unemployed line is frank from west virginia. The morning. Caller you does ask what i was going to cop talk about. I think the unemployment number is is about useless. You mentioned a metric. I was going to call it a new formula, but i do not think the metric in figure in those that have opt out of the unemployment because there are no jobs. And also, i would like to see a number that does not include government workers because they are paid with tax dollars, and it is more of a drag on the economy ban a real production job. I will just quit at that dirty way i will just quit at that. Thank you. There are some figures in the employment report, they do not make headlines, that do sort of measure the people that are unemployed and are not looking for. Is the employment population ratio, which is the share of americans, of all americans, of any age, of any status, who are working. Right now, that is at 58 point three percent, and that is down from a year ago. A year ago it was 58. 7 . Byt also was maybe affected the shutdown, but that is a reminder that yes, no matter how good the jobs report was, yes, though the Unemployment Rate, the establishment numbers might look fairly positive, still this well, thingsll you are still sort of in the doldrums. Host a couple of questions for you from twitter, do you have numbers from seniors having to work beyond retirement age . Guest i dont off the top of my head. I can tell you that that is most definitely a trend that is happening right now. Coming out allrs the time about the amount to which americans are delaying retirement. That has been going up for quite a while. Host one other twitter question. Ron want to know doesnt europe track employment rather than unemployment . Is there a source for employment numbers . Guest that employment population ratio i was just talking about, which is a little over 58 of americans are working right now. Host bill is up next for our line for folks who have stopped working. Thank you for calling into the washington journal. Why did you stop working and what is the situation for you out there . Caller well, it is dire. What happened is i had a little issue at work. I was a nurse well, actually like a vocational nurse, but out here is call a psychiatric technician third i was working in Mental Health institutions, things like that. The time i graduated, those jobs were pretty much gone hundred state jobs and things like that. I did what i could with it, and i ended up working with developmentally disabled dependent adults. That is kind of the niche i found. As the taxes go down, so will that bunch of money. Which was, i think, quite a bit actually. It helps people go to work. So six them for the day, hours. When that happened, i moved out to banning, i was in costa mesa, california. I was born and raised on the beach. So we always had some kind of work to do. Mothercame out here, my had a kind of a stroke right so i had to help her and i cannot leave her. We have walmart, home depot, albertsons, and food for less. If you get my dressed my drift, there are no momandpop shops, really know jobs with those good a few barbershops and things like that there that is what i see as one of the biggest problems. Host how would bill be whenified in terms of somebody is classified as stopped working or less of the left the labor force . Aest the technical term is discouraged worker, somebody who has been discouraged from looking for a job. Host a question via email to our email address, journal c span. Org, if you want to send women lance asks how many of these jobs are holiday or seasonal jobs . Isst the answer to that this is seasonally adjusted, so takes into account those bombs that we see every year. You dcaa bit of a spike around you do see a bit of a spike around october, november, december. Host can your guests tell me how many of your jobs created in the last 44 months have been in minimum wage jobs, i. E. , retail, hospitality, health care, what used to be called hamburger flipping jobs when a republican was in the white house . Guest that is a good question. Its not something that is mentioned in these numbers. This is something that economists are keeping every close watch on because those weight those lowwage jobs your caller or tweeter is right, retail, hospitality, hotel workers, healthcare, have been free of prime drivers especially in the last year or so. Something that economists have noted is that the middle is falling out. You have lowwage jobs that are growing, high wage jobs that are asng as well, growing well. The middle secretaries, clarcor workers, that sort of things, manufacturing workers, that has gone away, and it is hard to see we are hard pressed to see that much down growth bill there. Host we have about 10 minutes left with Danielle Kurtzleben of u. S. News world report. Answering the questions about jobs numbers. Peter is from new work, delaware on our line for those who are employed. Good morning. Caller good morning. I am employed, i am about to retired in a couple of years. At a large utility company. Of temps, andt they have no benefits. It is seasonal. They keep bringing them on and they lay them off and thyeey hie a couple hundred people. That is common in the industry. I will tell you, they do not want to hire new people because that means benefits. Thingrage the only that is going to hire people is the aging workforce we have, and they have the money and they ied the people, but they want guess some resolution with our government to find out where to go. Affordablewith the Health Care Act and everything. The retirees with in the industry, i know a couple of , retirement, health benefits, they put him on the chin. Good luck with that exchange. Like you said earlier, some people are staying on to work longer because of the fear of what theyre going to get thrown healthr the Affordable Care act. I just see a big mess. Peter is from delaware. Wilbur is from illinois. Q why for calling into the washington journal thank you for calling into the washington journal. Caller i am a retired pharmaceutical representative, over 40 years and pharmaceuticals. The reason im calling is this past employer, i just found this out on the news the other day, is laying off 18 of his sales force. These are very highly educated individuals, ok, and many of them will be unemployed for the first time in their life after a period of maybe 12, 15, even 25 years of service in this highly specialized industry. Some of these separations have begun, will begin next month, and then the biggest attack will occur on the First Quarter of next year. My question is this this is going to have devastating effects on individuals, ok, who have never been unemployed, who have been very highly skilled, ok, and then they are going to be thrown into the same boat as individuals who at one time used to turn your nose up. Have you guys taken any of this into consideration . Host Danielle Kurtzleben cover these issues for u. S. News world report. People who are going to be soon out of work, which is of course very upsetting, one of the things to consider is their age. Older workers, as we have been hearing quite a bit, tend to fall out of work. They sometimes have more trouble than younger workers finding a job in part because they want higher wages. That is one key thing to remember. One of the big things to think it is important once they get out of four to look for a job immediately because the longer you are out of work, the harder it is to find a job again. As we have seen the median duration of unemployment has been creeping slowly upward. Right now, i believe it is 40 weeks in terms of the amount of, the duration of employment, which is really high. That is something to think about. It has been creeping downward, the point being once you are out of work, start to look for a job immediately. Jane is up next on our line for folks who have stopped working. Good morning. Caller good morning. I am a longtime caller to the show. My wife and i both work in the medical field. I was a certified Occupational Therapy assistant, and i worked 22 years and i got laid i got laid off due to the changes in health care. I have not been able to find a job because i am in my early 50s and my wife is an early 40s, and she got told this morning, she is a nurse, an rn with a fouryear degree, and she has been told to stay home. Numerous people at the hospital have been told to stay home. We are not hearing about how obamacare is affecting peoples jobs. Nurses, therapists, physical therapists, nurses aides will host when they told her to stay home, did they say it is because of the changes in the law . There is no work today. Host and it is attributed to caller my wife has been told by other people Indian Administration that it is due to health care changes, reimbursement, im out of people who cannot go to the hospital because they do not have the money to go, so the staff what they are doing is they are hiring more people, theyre not giving any overtime, and what they are doing is more and more people are staying home. They had 10 nurses in the last three months have been told to stay home. My wife had to take a second job, and she is even looking for a third job because even the second jobs a lot of times have no work. Host thank you for calling it. You may want to stick around for our next segment of the washington journal today. We will be talking for the next 45 minutes about the Affordable Care act, some of the issues of the past weekend to look forward to what is coming into the future. , ifdaniel kurtzlebele kurtzlebn there is more a want to add about the Affordable Care act jobs numbers. Speaking more broadly, health care was seen as a prime mover, even during the recession. Jobsine of health care with no interruption, that was recession. During the now we are staying in the last reports about flattening out. Whether that is due to the Affordable Care act is anybodys guess at this point or the other point i would make is that some of the reasons that health care that the caller cited about problems in Health Care May not have to do with the Affordable Care act. People not being able to afford Haircare Health care, not be able to go to the doctor that import has nothing to do with that act. It has to do with an industry that with costs that are rising dramatically, well above the rate of inflation. That is a problem to be sure. Host i want to ask you about Unemployment Rates for veterans in particular, see what the jobs showed. Here is a chart that talks a little but about the Unemployment Rate showing be particularly high unemployment range for veterans as compared to veterans from all other Service Periods the stark lie down here. The redline, postseptember 2001 veterans, and all other Service Veterans here. What are you seeing on the veterans front . Guest in part what i am seeing are programs that place are rolling out to try to help veterans. I know different states, Different Companies are always coming out with new ways to say we really want to give veterans into our workforce. One really hopes that that works. One question i have about that is these are of course the youngest veterans. I wonder if in part what is hurting them in a job search is of course not the fact that they are veterans of all the just the fact that, like you point out, older veterans have slightly lower Unemployment Rates. These younger ones have a higher wondered it could be that they are facing the same problems that a lot of other twentysomethings are facing, which is a really rough market for a younger worker. That number for all other veterans in the 6 range as posted to the 9 for the to thousand one veterans. Stephanie is up next from troy, michigan on our line for folks who are unemployed. Thank you for calling in this morning and tell us about your situation. Caller thank you. I am a recent College Graduate and i have been looking for work since april. I also wanted to talk about the things that danielle mentioned. Excuse me . Host go ahead, you are on. Caller oh, ok. I wanted to talk about what i wanted to talk about what danielle was talking about, and, like, what about freelance numbers. I think they would skew the numbers if they have only been working for, like, a few months or what about the people who have more than one job . You talk a little bit about college right to its. College graduates. I would have to say that the numbers the numbers that you talked about can you hear me . Host we have got you, go ahead. Caller i just wanted to talk about it because the numbers that you mentioned about how College Graduates make 1 million more per lifetime, i would have to say that those numbers are old, and it also goes with the average. And when doing when host all right, i will let Danielle Kurtzleben jump in here. Guest she makes a good point that in the Establishment Survey, if you are a freelancer, the government is not calling you up and asking how your business is in general. However, that should be picked up in the household data. Tomorrow, we suddenly have a wave of new freelancers out there, then that should show up in the unemployment number. If not the establishment number. It would be picked up one way or another. The other . College graduates, she is right that there is an average. If you are an engineering grad or a Computer Science grad, you will make more money than if you are say, in the liberal arts, i believe are some of the lower. Host last call close to charlene from longview, texas on our line for folks who were unemployed here go for it. You were on the washington journal. Caller yes, my thing is i want to know how the government considers how they keep the felony, it ishave hard for you to get a job. If you do not know someone, you cannot get a job. It is hard to get paid. It is like if you do not know somebody here, then you will not get a job. Employed have been for, like, two years, my husband has been on for 7, 8 months, and it is like he has no chance. It is like who you know. A ifave a fellow in you have a felony, i mean guest right, yeah, that problem she talked about it is always know, that is indicative of what is going on right now. It is a shame, but it just shows how tough it is. These calls responding to job announcements online does not work as well as he used to. Employers are being very picky and they can afford to be very picky. It is really pick and choose and really way to decide who they want to hire. And really that is what is hurting workers are now. It is a shame. Host Danielle Kurtzlebens story for u. S. News world report on the job sommers, shows Unemployment Rate of two 7. 3 nerd we appreciate you coming on today to talk about that. Guest thank you. Host up next, wall street policys health reporter, Louise Radnofsky. Later, we will discuss the committed on the persons with disabilities with Eric Buehlmann of the National Disability rights network. I think regardless of where you are in the political spectrum, we feel very fortunate and grateful that we live in the United States of america and it is a very unique place. If america was considered to be a product, and we do try to sell our product overseas, what is our brand . Theink our brand is constitution, the rule of law, and our value system. And under that brand and under that value system, there is that notion of equal under the eyes of the law. Under that brand and value system is the ada and trying to elevate the rights of americans with disabilities. This is a treaty. A treaty is a law. The emotional and political arguments no one can disagree with these arguments. But the question is will the treaty actually have the legal effect that is being proctored by the proposal of the treaty . We do not hear citations to articles of the treaty. We do not hear consideration of the reports, the concluding observations. Kind of legal the analysis that would be appropriate for analyzing the legal impact of this treaty. This weekend on cspan, more than 130 countries have ratified the u. S. Inspired United Nations disabilities treaty, which failed to win Senate Approval in 20 12. This week, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee took up the treaty again. Watch this morning at 10 a clock eastern on cspan identical at eastern. Booktv, Malcolm Gladwell talks about how underdogs can use that to their advantage. On cspan3s American History tv, lynette squeaky fromme pulled the trigger. At 5 30 p. M. Eastern eastern. Washington journal continues. Host the week ended with an unusual apology on the part of president obama. Here to wrap up what happened and what is on tap for next week is Louise Radnofsky of the wall street journal. Lets start with what we are expecting over the next several days. The administration is promising updates to give people enrolled. What are you going to be looking for . Guest this will be another busy week. The biggest number we are expecting from the administration is how many people have signed up for coverage under the law. They have been campaigning to downplay the excitations. They are not going to be what they expect. It is certain that they will be relatively low partly because of the problems that people had logging onto the federal side. Host in terms of that expectation gain, are we hearing anything from the other side, republicans setting expectations as well for this for what is going to be good and bad . Republicansything, are lowering excitations even further. There were letters that came out of the senate on friday, extremely low enrollment numbers on the exchange. What they seem to express expand is that five people enrolled. It depends on what you mean by in rome appeared when you have numbers out there like five, expectations could not really be lower at this point. Are we hearing about the numbers mother states . Guest it is obligated. Completing coverage is not the same thing as an rolling, so we will see a subset of those. They role in the 14 statebased exchanges. They have done better, there are expected to figure out half of the applications and probably a significant chunk of the roman numbers two. Too. Host we are talking with Louise Radnofsky of the wall street journal, she is a Health Policy reporter there. All of our lines are open on the section of the washington journal. Democrats host 202 5853880, republicans 202 5853881, democrats 202 5853882. And,e getting your calls after a busy week of the Affordable Care act covers. , your take awayadnofsky with that, station with abc news. Guest he did apologize. He apologized to people who were misled by him in some way who said if you liked your policy you will keep it. He a promise administrative offenses he also promised administrative fixes. It is not clear exactly what those ways would be. It is not found is that the president was backing legislation such as the bill being offered by republican members. Democratic members are looking at ways to use the regulatory process. Host how could some of those tweaks happen with some of these speculations about what they could do . Guest there were some laws about grandfathering sorry, there were some regulation about grandfathering that defined the types of plans that could be carried over from before 2010 into 2014. What is that if there is a problem, any minor change to a plan rendered it in eligible for this loophole, so the result is lots of people had their policies canceled. Said, the cancellation notices have already gone out. Some relieftion is for people who make too much money to qualify for subsidies toward the cost of new plants, who feel stung by losing their plants partly because they were cheap and find out while they may be richer, theyre not going to get any help to play for them. To pay for them. Headline from earlier this week obama has way to close the health care gap. Is there anything going on in terms of the administration talking to the insurers themselves, the insurers who set out these cancellation notices . Is the demonstration working with them . Is the Administration Working with them . Guest they have met with them at least twice. The second time to discuss the problems. Our impression is the way those conversations when was that the administration was empathizing emphasizing the importance that they had other options. Host other big news this past week was hhs secretary Kathleen Sebelius testifying before the Senate Finance committee. I want to play you a bit of her testimony right now. [video clip] the enrollment numbers, which we will release next week, which will be the first month of enrollments, are likely to be quite low given the struggles that people have had getting access to the site and getting information. Do you expect the numbers to be very high during the month of november and december . Well, i am hoping that with the site improvements we will see more robust numbers, but fullythe site is improved and we have opened up the doors wide to a lot of people, we are going to have i think a struggle getting significant numbers to sign up. Sure. Talkingthleen sebelius about the expectations game. What else was your take away from her testimony this past week . Guest the administration is that for a long time they have always expected that the majority of people would be more motivated by a deadline to sign up so people would not necessarily come in in october. A vet to revive a campaign more dramatically theyve had to revise that campaign dramatically. What we have seen the past week is a lot of supportive groups of the law, the president s Election Campaign are retooling their Campaign Around the theme of the holidays. The holiday dinner is a great opportunity to talk with your loved ones about getting covered. They have a fairly funny ad in which a young guy drives home and had the talk with his parents. Host we showed cap lane civilians we showed a Kathleen Sebelius just there. Several republicans have called resignation. We have a copy of that letter in front of us. How safe is Kathleen Sebelius job right now . Guest the president is confident in her. I came out with the interview with nbc news earlier this week. He pointed out that alternately he expects the buck to stop with him. They have said we recognize there have been issues lower down, we did not know about the problem and maybe we should have. Host senator pat roberts leading that effort along with nine other republican with other republicans. Were taking your calls. All of our own lines are open on the segment of the washington journal. We will start on our republican line. James is waiting from tempe, florida. James, good morning. James, are you there . All right, we will go to our line for democrats. Lionel is waiting from fort worth, texas. Good morning. Caller good morning. Host go ahead. Caller i have a question, and i am just really disappointed with the way the white house is working. Republicans he democrats are so busy fighting that they are not getting together to solve the problems of the nation, and it is frustrating as a taxpayer and citizen. Host ok, lionel, did you have a question . , what are question is they going to do together to solve this problem with the health care . ,ost luis Louise Radnofsky is there any bipartisan action going on . We see some Democratic Leaders going to push legislation for delays, and i believe mark kirk, a republican, has joined with Mary Landrieus everett on that front effort on that front. House amitavite and just Democratic Senators who are trying to wind back portions of the law that they consider to be unworkable already. On the administration side, you have around the clock efforts to get the website fix, a performance manager and chief has finally been tapped to oversee that effort. There are quite reasonable questions about why did not happen sooner. But the Administration Says we acknowledge that but it is happening now and we are looking forward. Theyre trying to get the website fix baird at the same time, there is backandforth about whether republicans are trying to obstruct there is aboutnt about parts whether todd park should be brought in to dozen five. To testify. He was monitoring the rollout of the website, and he was subpoenaed on the hill wednesday morning by the oversight committee. He might have more important things to be doing been doing that. There is a backandforth over that. Host darrell issa, the chairman of the Oversight Government Reform Committee said that in a response, todd parks office of Technology Policy where he stationed indicated that he would eventually appear, but he is trying to fix the problem right now i do not want to appear until december. Guest december is the timeframe they need to put on this. Host what did darrell issa i say in terms of why they needed him there this week . Guest they say he needs to be accountable to congress and congress has to investigate what is going on here and there are more people figuring out what the problems were. Not that essential to the daytoday management of things, so he could really come in and testify now. Host charles is on our line for independents from clearwater this morning. You were on with Louise Radnofsky of the wall street journal. Caller good morning. It is nice to be with you. As an independent and a gentleman who ran for congress in michigan in the 11th district, i know the importance of health care. My simple statement is in a nation as great as ours, it is truly a sorry state of affairs when it is a luxury to become ill. We finally have a chance to bridge the gap, and this Health Care Act were going to have to give a chance. Just because there are some computer problems and so forth and so on, that is not the issue. The issue is reaching out to the country, to the people who do not have health care, and giving them an opportunity to obtain health care. At an affordable cost. Host you are on the independents line, we asked democratic callers on the first segment of the washington journal this morning is a copy the rollout of Affordable Care act was going to hurt democrats in 2014 and 2016. What do you think . Caller i really dont see that. First of all, you go beyond threemonth, and people forget what happened. The main thing is that they get this fixed and that he people can see that it is going to be fair and equitable for all. , you Louise Radnofsky wrote down threemonth there. When of the white house a to get this problem fixed before it starts to become an issue in the 2014 election . Guest the simple fact of the website in the rollout alone have a very narrow time frame. They have got up until about november 30. That is an important deadline because that is the one you need in order for the Enrollment Campaign to proceed pretty much as planned with a rampup up in november and december. You have to have people coming in around the holiday. Aturers are going to look those numbers because theyre going to be starting to set their rates for the next year by february, march. They will be looking a lot at how many people they got in by december. So there were threemonth, but there is also this free week window we are staring down that. If the administration cannot get the website up and running, then maybe the website does not become a story in the rollout it is not clear right now whether that is going to happen. Host lets go to our line for republicans. John is waiting from southampton, pennsylvania. You were on with Louise Radnofsky of the wall street journal. Caller good morning ann thank you for having me and the thank you for cspan. My comment, if you permit me, would be the you know, our financial situation is disastrous. Theputting money Federal Reserve is buying 85 billion of bonds every month at effectively 1 trillion a year. We are running about what, the lowest deficit and 4, 5 years, but still 700 billion . Now, the implications here with respect to the Affordable Act with the Illegal Immigrants, which they are not eligible, apparently, but the democrats and the elites were successful in putting these people on a path to legalization. Once they are legalized, they will be eligible for all of these benefits. Of course, they would be getting subsidies. And the subsidies are enormous. I mean, i have seen the website. The premiums go up substantially for the individuallyinsured people, the people who were not members of large groups. In or missople get subsidies. Consequently, the cost will be astronomical. We have 25 Million People who are without fulltime work and cannot get fulltime work. He talked about this earlier. Cane is such a controverted you talked about this earlier. There is such a contradiction. Id are, retail, restaurant, hotel, the advocates for bringing in these unskilled immigrants to replace our existing people who dont who still need jobs. Host all right, john, i will have Louise Radnofsky jump in here. Guest the legislation that has been floated on the hill, and it does not seem to be going that far, before he got off the ground, what sponsors of the legislation came to an agreement to do is when somebody injured into what is known as provisional status, and other words a pat to legalization, they would not be eligible for subsidies in the exchange. This upset supporters of immigrants and of the health care because they would argue that on the flipside, you need to get Insurance Coverage extended to many more people because the benefits everybody. What supporters of the reforms of immigration legislation said we need to get this passed. So you had a really interesting situation there. A lot of people are wondering. Host Louise Radnofsky is a Health Policy reporter for the wall street journal. Rigorously worked in london for the guardian. She is answering your questions and taking your comments on the Affordable Care act. Morningan email this from steve s. On this subject i was listening to a gentleman last night from Silicon Valley and he said without a doubt the site will need to be totally rebuilt. The healthcare. Gov. The problems run so deep they will not even get close to the november 30 day. Has the wall street journal done any research with the tech gurus addressing the subject and the ramifications . Guest we have done a lot about the woes of the website it even before october 1 and afterwards. There are a couple of different counts. Accounts. There are arguments at the website should have been taken down entirely and revamped from there, rebuilt, essentially, or at least suspended for the time being. The Administration Says at this point theyve got the website they have, they need to patch it , and it is easier to keep it up and running so that they can find new problems, essentially, new problems are being uncovered everyday people who get further and further through the system, so they need the website up and running to continue to fix it. Host we have been talking quite a bit about the individual market and the folks who have lost their insurance. Here is a question from jb in for when, indiana has the inistration publish any likely misleading estimates of the number of employers who were dropped Health Insurance when the employer mandate kicks in . Guest demonstration of often pointed to the people who have offered coverage voluntarily. There are a couple of caveats, mostly that while employers do offer coverage right now, not all of them meet the standard of the law and not every member of the company pick it up. Employers are wondering about what they happen to buy into because of the individual mandate. The journal looks at a lot of employers and the man appeared we have not found yet those who are seriously considering dropping coverage anytime soon partly because employers that are covered for a long time, that is not a decision they make overnight. One of the things employers told us over and over if they wanted to see how the exchanges are going on first. Im sure what is going on right now is not making a villainy more confident that they can go and tip their workers to of the changes. We are seeing employers making other changes in response to the law. Cutting back on voluntary benefits options, deciding who qualifies for coverage, changes like that. Host grace on twitter has a response to our previous caller who was talking about Illegal Immigrants and what happens to them if there is a tattoo citizenship in terms of the aca if people want to truly cut spending, they will support the Affordable Care act, and if Illegal Immigrants get into the system, so what . Then pay. Pam is up next on lake george, new york. Good morning. Pam, are you there . Caller i would like to see c span do a week, perhaps, just concentrating on the states. Nevermind the federal websites, which is a mess because 30 republican governors did not do what was mandated by law and set up their own exchanges. Has been inend who the individual market, self employed, for years and years. Last night, we were talking on the phone, she is here in new york with me, she went on the new york website, no problems whatsoever. She has been paying 403 a month for Insurance Coverage. Under obamacare, she went from the cheapest plan to the platinum plan with a price range rehundred 30 dollars. So she is delighted by what is going to happen, and i think we need to focus on what is happening in the state. Nevermind that stupid website for the time being. How many hundreds of thousands of people across the country are delighted with obamacare . , first ofse radnofsky all, how many states have state running changes . Guest 14 states are entirely running their own exchanges. The performance of those changes has varied, some of them have done very well, kentucky is one that often gets brought to attention. Its not like people are pretty please without new york is operating, too. It sounds like people in new york are please. Exchange is not yet open for business, i dont think. A couple of others have had similar problems that have kept them from getting underway in october. Host you talked earlier about the in romans and the district of columbia. E is a politico story only five in romans completed in the d. C. Obamacare exchange. She said the governors were mandated by law to set up exchanges. That is not exactly how it works. Guest the weighted governors see the lies that states have the options of declining to participate in the exchanges. There was a clear position built in for the federal government to step in and run the exchanges on their behalf. It is true that the Administration Never expected so many governors to sit out. From arkansas on our line for independents, ron, good morning. Caller good morning, how are you today . My question is, i noticed one of your callers talked about the illegal immigration issue on this. As you know, if you are injured and walking to a hospital, a hospital has to serve you. If you are here illegally and are not covered under obamacare, and you walk into an emergency room, they are going to cover you, so everyone that has picked up the bill and being forced to buy insurance is technically paying for this. Why isnt it when an illegal alien is heard, probably working for someone who illegally hired them, how come they are not required to give their information of where they work and the employer who hired them paid the bill instead of passing it on to the American Public as has been done . That is my question. Host Louise Radnofsky, any of these issues built into the new healthcare law . Guest there are a couple of issues. Of legislatione that requires Emergency Rooms to stabilize the condition of anybody who walks in, whether they are an unauthorized immigrant or anybody else who happened to have coverage. Some immigrants do have coverage, including through their employers. That is collocated, and it may change under the law. Individual mandate, which is a requirement that people purchase coverage or pay a penalty, does not apply if you are in the country without authorization. Partly because they are unable to access the exchanges. Not just for subsidize coverage but unable to use exchanges at all. That is again something that supporters of the law who also happen to be strong in the Latino Community in particular are pretty concerned about. They point to the Cost Shifting there as well. Host as we look back to the news as what was a very busy week for the Affordable Care act , explain who tony trickle is and why he stepped down this week from cms. He was a top official at cms who did not directly work at the website but oversaw people who did. He made a move that has generally been attributed to a desire to move into the private sector, the timing of which raised some eyebrows. Management shuffling underneath them in order to try and fill the gap. Certainly there is a lot of thetiny of personnel at centers for medicare and medicaid, which is the chief agency running the health law, but is an agency that is operating the program of medicare, so there are a lot of questions of how they ended up with the possibility of dealing with the president s law. I was not there. Probably something that people at the administration wish that people outside of the administration having person to think about very seriously at the time. The flipside of that if there was not a lot of money for it. There was concerned that an office that was out their charge for doing this with for a much exposed in the event that for example the republicans wanted to cut off funding for the president s signature domestic initiative, which is what we saw happen. Have thoses folks been appeased with his firing or with his leaving cms . Guest his is a name that really only comes up his leaving, certainly there have been no shortage of top officials, officially saying it somebody has to take responsibly, it should be me. Kathleen being be primary, hold near as possible, she is saying that alongside her confidence that the website can be fixed by november 30 and all these problems will go away. Up next on our line for democrats. Good morning. Caller good morning, good morning. Toquestion is in regards conspiracy to obstruct the aca, investigatednyone space, other Insurance Company, theirobably, like, taking juice solely to distract the aca. I am quite sure there is a percentage of people at the state that is going there. So has anyone investigated that art opart of it . Guest i think he is asking about the Insurance Companies and whether they have been obstructing the Affordable Care act. The interesting things about Insurance Company is to remember if they have a lot of states that are working, too. They stand to gain millions of new customers. It is essentially a requirement out there, upheld by the supreme court, that people purchase their product. So the Insurance Companies who are selling on exchanges or even in the individual market, they really do want to see this work at this point heard there are grumbles about various provisions that they did not like. They are still arguing about ways regulations could be tweaked to their advantage, but they stand to gain a lot and they know it. There are some Insurance Companies that are not in the individual market that are watching and waiting to see what happens with the exchanges and whether you want to go in, but again, they pretty much by and large wanted to work for their own self interests. Host what is a reinsurance the exception . Guest think of it like the bellybutton tax because it is an easier way to remember it. It is a levy on every Single Person who is covered on the plan, not just the policyholder, but maybe their spouse and kids, too. It is paid by everybody who offers insurance. I could be a commercial carrier, it can also be a company or a labor union that operates his plan that essentially hires the administrator to work out the rest of the details. Thats what the fee is. The businesses and the labor unions in particular say that they dont want to pay this fee because it goes into a fund that only benefits traditional carriers who are excited to get a Large Population in need a cushion against that risk. They say why should we take into something thats does not help us . Labor in particular has a beef with the administration because it is upset about other , the plantin the law that it offers its members. What we saw this week was a hint Indian Administration in the that lets some narrow group of administrations out of this fee. Host you know about the language on that. You presumably by 2015. Surely is up next on our republican line. Good morning. She is from new castle, pennsylvania. Good morning. I want to make a couple of comments. First, mr. Bewley is when she was being questioned ms. Sebelius when she was being questioned by congress, i realize this lady does not and did not have the qualifications or anything of this magnitude. She should have never been put in charge of anything like this. We have spent millions and millions of dollars here. This fiasco has not and probably will not be settled. What will they do for Insurance Coverage for all of these millions of people who did, in fact, have insurance before this fiasco was put into place . Supporters guest supporters of the secretary would argue that she had experienced to deal with the issues around us. She was a former governor and former state commissioner. There are certainly questions about the management and and how things were handled. And people are asking pointed questions and pointing to her qualifications. Book and by on the exchanges or outside the exchanges. Even before october 1, some insurers were offering options to enroll in never coverage in other coverage without telling them they could enroll. Obviously, the fact that the changes are not working is a bit of a challenge. It is not that there will not be other coverage, but there is a bit of a question about seamless transitions right now. Host we are talking about the Affordable Care act for the next 10 minutes or so. Week, chuckhis. Rassley of iowa joined us i want to play little bit of that. [video clip] what is your confidence level that healthcare. Gov will be working after november 30 . It wont be and the website itself is a symptom of a bigger problem and a kind of obscures these bigger problems. There are a lot of problems beyond that that even if they do get the website working they are going to find out that they are not going to get the number of young people in that they want. Off will find people turned from the promise that if you like it, you can keep it. They will see their premiums go up. All those things will be major problems for obamacare. Week you have 14, 15, 16 democrat up for election go down to the white house to complain to the white house about it. Interviewbit of our host that is a bit of our interview with chuck grassley. You can see the full interview tomorrow. Both supporters and opponents say this is about more than a website. Opponents and people concerned about the risk pools are saying if the website only allows the really committed to consumers to thathrough, those people are sick and know that they need insurance, it could deter young people because it is just too complicated. And if they dont buy end, and there are always a there are already questions about their willingness to buyin, then we wont have enough Healthy People to buyin. Premiums will start to rise and continue to rise because the higher they are, the less likely someone who is healthy will want to buy coverage. There is a technical problem that has real policy implications coming down. Callerse of our questioned Kathleen Sebeliuss qualifications. Bill on twitter comments, no one had the quotations to lead the world out of the Affordable Care act it the Affordable Care act. The market is too complex. Next, you are on. Caller thanks for taking my call. I. T. Arena and have ruled out National Site in the past. Ais type of site is basically site that collects information and is what we call a form site. Recover iormation by searching. There are several good ones out care. Com. Ehealth you can build a site like this for 5 million or less. The cost ofd that this site is well over 600 million and no one is really looking into the fact that Valerie Jarrett rather works for cgi in canada. Valerie jarretts brother works for cgi in canada. Cgi. S just given to they have an incredibly Bad Reputation in canada and elsewhere. No one is looking at why this money went up there with Valerie Jarretts brother being a Vice President in that company. It sure smacks of a lot of the illegal use of american money. Is it a potential conflict of interest . Guest one of the things im concerned about is we are still trying to get a decent number for what has been awarded and what those contracts will pay out going forward. There have not been satisfactory answers on that so far. There have been many people interested, including us. One thing to note about the complexity of the website and why it was not quite like the lynn Health Insurance, what the like building Health Insurance, what the website has verify the identity and income of people signing up for coverage because they are eligible for tax credits because of the coverage and they have to be american citizens oriole legally in the country in order to use this. Countrylegally in the in order to use this. There are a number of different components that make it a little more complex than a regular website. But it certainly has been expensive and complicated and has led to a lot of the problems we have seen here. On the selection of these particular companies to build the website, one person writes, why was in the procurement process that took the cheapest and said the best not being looked at . Guest it was being looked at and is being looked at now. We are doing our best to dig into it. Host and lemur lynn says on twitter, listen, all of this worrying over the website is like pouring what color a bomb is painted. Bill in massachusetts on a line for democrats. Good morning. Caller good morning. Stope one comment will when the president said i have one comment. When the president says, if you like your health care plan, you can keep it. , retirede like myself and Health Insurance. For the 85 of those he said that to that it was true and not a lie, is that true . Thet one of the things administration was at pains to do was that there would not be a distraction for people. That site was worth noting. The main provisions of the health law are designed to target people in the individual Insurance Market who do not have coverage and will be coming in to the market. When the president says only a small number of people are affected him a it is still perhaps the case that one of the things he was talking about is the Insurance Market for the individual. There is a lot of discussion about whether he was telling the truth or not and people are seeing it different ways. What was coming out of the white house leading up to that thursday interview where the white house apologized on that issue. Guest the white house has been working for weeks on how to approach this issue, one was an apology. Another was to go on the road and accuse governors of being obstructionist and call on them to do their part. The it ministration has also tried to argue that the individual Insurance Market is not changing, except in ways that are beneficial. Certainly, the people who held junk plans dont think they had just planned, so that that argument did not end up being very popular. Georgia on then line for republicans. Morning and thank you for having me. I am a Small Business owner and i am now on my second cancellation protocol as an individual policyholder within a three month timeframe frame. Im not a very happy camper oh stop happy camper. Why did we not just address the income, or ther core, instead of turning the medical community on its head . Another thing they could have done was to put tighter restrictions as far as the cost and pricing on Insurance Companies themselves. Now what we have are insurance andanies going awry charging, in some cases, four and five times the amount they were charging prior to all of this being put into place. I dont understand why we could not regulate the Insurance Companies to bring the costs down that way, so that all people who were able to purchase insurance it is not like the lower income who chose not to. Now they will be forced to and i dont see how they will do that. Regulation is there on Insurance Companies and it has had an effect on prices. Premiums is on medical claims and a certain otherain portion on things. Separately, they are required to offer a more generous range of benefits and they had before. That has an impact on the price of the policy. And then some people has seen the price have seen the price of their policy shift quite a bit. Yourre not price on medical risk anymore, but on your age and where you live in the country. It could cost a lot of money or not. For those deemed to be bad risk, it is great for their premiums. They have gone up less than they would, or even down in some cases when the subsidies kick in. For those who would be a good bet, which happened to include a lot of people who are in the individual market am a they are seeing their premiums go up. Those are the people who understandably right now are very angry. Call from twin falls, idaho. Good morning, jordan. Caller good morning. I was wondering how you felt about the Democratic Party backing this socialized medicare , and being a young man in america, what do i have to worry about in the future as far as socializing anything else . What does this mean for the future of the Democratic Party and what they will be trying to push through into law . She reports on these issues for the wall street journal, but if you want to take a stab at that. The impact varies considerably. For folks who become eligible in medicaid for medicaid in get coveragecan that is relatively lowcost or the them and lowcost for the first time. Others can get subsidies for the cost of the premiums, but the premiums might have been higher than they were before because they are getting hit from their age and from their gender. They might see premium increases. People who are past the point of qualifying for subsidies or where they only represent a fraction of the premium, they are seeing their premiums go up. They are being targeted by big Enrollment Campaigns anyway. As for what this means for the Democratic Party, it is worth large group of a young people who support the Democratic Party who may or may not be benefited by this a distillation. This legislation. People are looking at the way they react very closely. We appreciate you coming on this saturday morning. Senate committee on Foreign Relations held a hearing last week to discuss the proposed u. N. Convention on the rights of persons of persons with disability. We will discuss that with Eric Buehlmann. We will be right back. The place is now called the Mercedesbenz Superdome in new orleans. It is where the saints played two years ago, etc. After hurricane katrina, badly damaged. Hosted Football Games again it was a feelgood story and rightly so. But the public paid for all of the repairs. The public is invested in about a billion dollars in the construction of the new Mercedesbenz Superdome. And the man who owns the new Orleans Saints keeps almost all of the revenue generated there. Why dont people rebel against this . The public in probably do not understand this is taking place. The second reason is they feel there is nothing they can do about it, that it is all based on insider deals and it is largely. In miami last year, there was a vote on whether to use public money to renovate the place where the Miami Dolphins plate and the citizens of miami strongly voted against doing that, because they got to vote on it. Gregg easterbrook, sports author, sunday night at 8 p. M. On q a. After becoming first lady, Lady Eisenhower ran a tight ship of the white house. Watch our Program Later today at seven 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan 7 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Known as ary well style icon. Mrs. Kennedy put a lot of thought into her wardrobe when she was representing the country both at the white house and while traveling abroad. She would think about what colors would mean something to the country shes about to visit. For her visit to canada, she chose this red suit by Pierre Cardin as a gesture toward the red in the maple leaf. I admire the thought she put into her wardrobe. She also chose a color or style that would make her stand out in a crowd. Kennedy Lady Jacqueline , monday night at 9 00 eastern on cspan. Washington journal continues. Host in the last segment we will be discussing the United Nations convention on the rights. F people with disabilities it is something that they are currently considering ratifying. We are discussing this with Eric Buehlmann. What does this treaty do . Guest it is a nondiscrimination treaty, a way of setting standards and floors all across the world about what people with disabilities will be facing and making sure they are not discriminate against in this in employment, education, access to services, and saying, this is what every country needs to do and have a minimum floor for what a person with disabilities can expect so that they are not disseminated against. You cannot withhold education or not allow them to be employed or not allow access to public services. America was very involved in writing of this. We are the Gold Standard and they look to our laws, the individuals with disabilities education act, the americans with facilities act. Those were the standards for this. Host for those who do not understand what is . It is a Membership Organization for nationwide network and advocacy and client assistance programs. Our system is set up by congress to provide advocacy for people with disabilities and make sure that they do not have a abuse and neglect and that their rights are protected. We have a protection and Advocacy Program in every state and territory. On thehe Convention Rights of persons with disabilities, what is the history of this . Who originally wrote this . What countries are backing it . Through ais written sort of convention and the countries come together and decide how they are going to write this. In geneva, they write this treaty, and as i said, america was very involved. It was worked on during the 1990s and is put out there for countries to sign and then they have to ratify it to make sure it is enforced. The United States signed it in 2009 on the anniversary of persons with disabilities act. Americans with disabilities act. As you said, the United States is right now considering ratifying this treaty. To talk aboutant this treaty, have questions about it, comment on it, we want to hear your thoughts. For democrats. Republicans 202 7370002. And independence 202 6280205 and we have a special line for disabled americans. Talk about what sort of International Body would be responsible for enforcing this treaty if it eventually did ratify it. Guest theres a committee that come together and will review reports every couple of years as they are produced for every single state. There is not an enforcement mechanism other than peer pressure. And the United Nations looking saying, youries have satisfied the terms of the treaty at this point. It is not like the United Nations, as some have expressed concerns with, will be coming into the United States and saying, you havent done what you are saying and needing to change or laws. We are in compliance with this treating this treaty. We are looking at a body and whether they have met the conditions if you have ratified it. That have comes up for those who oppose the ratification of this treaty, i want to get to that one. One of the voices that has , from republican rick santorum, just this last week, his group sent letters to Congress Asking them to oppose ratification of this treaty. ,0,000 letters have been sent according to a release on this group. In their statement why they oppose the treaty guest we would say that is a little bit of misinformation. There are things called reservations, understandings, and declarations. And what those are the united eight interpretation of the treaty. What was done the United States interpretation of the treaty. What was done last year and what will happen in the senate is reservations and understandings to protect the u. S. Sovereignty. That is part of pretty much every treaty that comes down to the congress and the senate. Our sovereignty is protected. It also recognizes a set of federal laws and a set of state laws and this will only affect the federal laws. A lot of the information being is talking about affecting state law. This treaty is not going to go to missouri, pennsylvania, and say, you have to change or state laws. These reservations and understandings set out how we treat the treaty. I think it is the language of the treaty itself that concerns people. Here is a release from the Home School Legal Defense association some of the language. Saysle 41 e in the treaty this guest and once again, the rudd is what implements the treaty and how we interpret it. And what we are saying in these is we are already in compliance with the individuals education acty and the americans with disabilities act. Those laws on the books do not go to a homeowner and say, your driveway can only be this wide, you need to have this many parking spaces. We feel that the ruds take care of that. But inguage says that, the implementation, congress is saying, we are already in compliance with this treaty. The language in the treaty is the language in the treaty, but how we are going to look at it is that we are already in compliance. And our compliance does not allow the government to go to a federal homeowner and say, your driveway needs to be this wide and you have to have a ramp that leads into the house. That is a little bit of misinformation. Editorial piece on this , buys senator by senator Robert Menendez and john mccain, addressing this for the wall street journal on november 4. They note a number of things in their piece. That is senators menendez and mccain on this issue. We are talking with eric the National Disabilities rights network. He is a Public Policy executive director there. He is taking your questions and comments on this treaty. There was a hearing just this past week on this hearing that we are talking about. Were going to replay that todaysafter washington journal. You will hear that hearing on c span. We are taking comments and questions until then. Had he is up in maryland. Good morning. My house is not safe for me and i need help because i cannot take care of my health my house. Im trying to decide what i can do. Hedy from hyattsville, maryland, talking about this treaty. We are talking with Eric Buehlmann about this treaty. What specifically would be required if we ratify this treaty echo what is the timeline for that happening . Guest the senate needs to pass these reservations, understandings, and declarations. Any treaty needs to be passed by 67 votes. That is a constitutional requirement. We had a hearing last week. We expect one additional. And in trying to address these concerns that have been expressed by other groups, we know that senator menendez is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, along with senator corker, are working on trying to understand reservations, understandings, and declarations. They will not take what there was last year and say this is the be all to end all. They will work with people and say, lets sit down and address that through a reservation, understanding, and declaration. We expect it to be as early as next week, maybe before thanksgiving. It is up to the senate as how they want to move forward. Host what is it looking like . Guest we were short about five votes last time. Host last time being december of last year . Guest december of last year. We are not really sure. Some senators have procedurals concerns. They did not like it should be brought up during a lameduck session. This would be during a normal session of the senate. We had other senators with concerns about how the ruds were and did not feel they were strong enough. We asked them to work with senator corker to address those concerns. I would say we are still in the same boat that we were in before until the votes are taken and the ruds are out there and done. We are sort of where we were before, but if we can address the concerns, we can get the votes to pass it. Marvin on the line from new jersey. Hes on the line was set up for disabled americans. The words are based on freedom. To are we working so hard attain this freedom . The freedom comes within ourselves full stop im disabled the freedom comes within ourselves. Im disabled myself. Why are we arguing so hard their . I appreciate the call this morning. The interesting thing and the tough part about and i have family members with disabilities and i have children with disabilities. The difficulty of being around people with disabilities is a stigma issue. There is a lot of stigma out there that people with disabilities cannot get the kind of education, cannot achieve education, cannot have peopleent with other that are not people with disabilities. They have to be segregated is are earning segregated or earning sub minimum wage. Theres a lot of discrimination out there across the world because we have to deal with the stigma issue. And having this kind of treaty pass is going to say to the that one, america is a leader on this topic, which we have been for many years because of the legislation we have people but also that with disabilities should not be discriminated against based on education will stop they should allow be allowed to seek employment with people who do not have disabilities. The importance to me is not only that it helps reestablish americas viewpoint in that america is the leader on this topic, but it is also going to address some of the stigma issues and overcome that for some people. Host we are talking about a treaty that is ratified by 138 countries. Twitter, one person asks, is disability culturally determined anyway . Really definent disability in the treaty. Through the reservations and understandings and declarations define it as what we have defined it in the americans with his abilities act. There are cultures. The Deaf Community is a singular culture in some respects. There are cultures of disability across the world and how they treat each other and how they together. Ther there are different cultures of disability within those countries. Like the americans, like the french. Overseas and a person with disabilities will describe themselves very differently than they describe themselves here. Every culture is different, and within the his Ability Committee there are individual cultures. Individual an country that ratifies the treaty be able to tweak their own definitions . Guest they all have ruds and i do not know what they have chosen or not chosen. The United States has chosen to define it the way we have already defined it through our legislation. I assume other countries could define it under whatever the laws are. The line froms on ms. Loki midlothian. You already addressed this issue, but i just still wanted to ask this question about why the u. S. Is always so concerned about signing treaties that are about ideals and values that we support. And my real question is it just seems so counterproductive. What groups are fearful of signing these kind of treaties in the United States . Basically, are we . Are we talking about just Political Parties . Not just this treaty, but other treaties, we support all of the basic initiatives behind it, but then not willing to sign. Guest i would say there are some groups that are pretty much opposed to any United Nations treaty. It comes to the world and the viewpoint that they do not want to sign these treaties because they feel it is giving up the wef sovereignty disagree with that view point and say does not give up any of our sovereignty. Concern, anda groups that have this concern that youre giving up u. S. Sovereignty by signing onto United Nations treaties. We think that is counterproductive and that you are pulling yourself back to your own insular world as opposed to looking at exporting United States values. This is great for the United States business, because we are the leader in these kinds of things, in assisted technology and those kinds of things. And having other countries raise their standards up is going to allow u. S. Businesses to export that kind of technology. But i think there are a number of groups and people that think we should just be focused on ourselves and that we are not really part of the world community. Host Eric Buehlmann is the Public Policy Deputy Director of the National Ability National Disability rights. We are talking for about 20 more minutes or so. Andre taking your calls comments. Joe lewis on twitter wants to know how this treaty might impact the americans with disability with disabilities act. Guest it should not have any impact on the ada. To takesically going the values in that and export them across the country. We feel we are in compliance with the crpd through what we have in the americans with disabilities act already. That is one of these expirations, that we are in compliance. One of the declarations, that we are in compliant. From ed is an independent pennsylvania. He is on the line we set up for americans with disabilities. Good morning. Caller good morning. When i was a kid growing up i had a couple of serious accidents. I was in a wheelchair. There were no curb cuts. Now there are requirements for ramps that they build that are quite expensive. I understand that the treaty is really not going to have anything to do with that. Is, is thestion major reason for signing this particular treaty to show other countries that we are in compliance . I guess that is it. I want a Short Description of why it is important for us to sign this treaty. I dont know whatever happened to affirmative action this is an aside for people with disabilities. I see lots of other groups becoming more and more apparent on television, but i have never seen a person with disability on a game show as a contestant, never anybody with crutches or a wheelchair. Aunderstand i have made couple of points, but if you could address a couple, i would appreciate it. Guest thank you for the comments. I would say there are four important reasons. One is for the United States. As i said earlier, this reasserts the United States as a Global Leader on policy. Importantken many steps in this country with the americans with disabilities act that really pushes us forward in terms of integrating and making sure the people of this believes are part of our community. By signing this treaty, we will be able to influence other countries to sign and make sure they are implementing it in the proper way. There are many countries that look to us for leadership on this. If we are not signed on to my they will look to us and say, why should we sign on . For americans, especially americans with disabilities, they travel overseas. Making sure that the standards are raised, so that they have the curb cuts that you talked about, that they have the kinds of Services Available for people with disabilities who are traveling is very important. For our military men and women traveling overseas that may be have children with disabilities, it is important to the standards are raised so that their children with disabilities are treated well and have the services they need overseas. Especially with people with disabilities who own companies. They work for multinational corporations. They want to be able to travel overseas or be able to export their businesses overseas. It is important. Lastly, it is important for the world community. There are one Million People and growing all across the world that are individuals with disabilities. Raising the standards are going is going to mean that there will be less stigma. And you raised an interesting point about television. It is an interesting part of the stigma thing. There are not a lot of people. There are some people with not seeties, but you do it too much. It is part of the stigma that arises. If we can address this and start raising the mobile standards, it will reduce stigma for people with disabilities and they will be part of the community, not only the american comedic community, but the world community. People disabilities have a lot to offer. They can be taxpaying citizens if they are employed. They can overcome the barriers out there. And just make the world a better place if we include people with disabilities. Host laura asked this on twitter. A lot of countries have ratified it, but it is within the first 10 years of this kind of treaty being out there. We are seeing positive changes in some countries where they are making changes and getting rid ,f the restraint and seclusion consistently locking people up with psychiatric disabilities in large contradict hospitals and hospitalsongregate and never letting them out. Going to change things overnight. It has taken of really long time even in the United States to get these kinds of laws passed. We are only 23 years out from the passage of the americans with disabilities act. And we still have accessibility problems on amtrak, in restaurants and things like that. It is a slow process. We have seen positive improvements in countries where it has changed. Deborah is up next from richmond, virginia, a democrat on the line for americans with disabilities. Caller good morning to you. I would like to ask about the prejudices that go on in the medical field. I had an emergency spinal cord operation about 10 years ago because my disk was cutting into my spine. I have a lot of pain. Erve pain i had to take a lot of pills. Year before i died from pain pills, i had hydrocodone, but they stopped because the doctors got scared. They are giving percocet and all of that out to certain people. There is a lot of prejudice going on. Everybodys not a dope addict. I have real pain. Im sick and tired of taking a lot of pills. What is this going to do about the prejudices going on . In a state where one is fighting for marijuana now. Medicalstate has had marijuana since 1979 and we cant get it. Guest the more you can be part of your community, the more you will reduce the stigma that is out there for people with disabilities. Your opinions will be listened to, followed, taking into considerations. That is a problem that we often have, people with disabilities expressed their opinion and people look at them and say policymakers and legislators and say, well, this is a person with a disability and we dont think they have the cognitive ability to think and provide that kind of information, so we will not pay as much attention to it. That kind of stigma is what is holding back a lot of people with disabilities. Signing and ratifying this treaty will show not just in the United States, even though we think we are in compliance right now because of the laws that we have, but it shows the importance and that we are willing to be a leader. And that people with disability have that right and that importance to be an integral and part of the community. An integral part of the community. Look at how long it took us to pass the americans as his abilities act will stop we had the rehab act in the 1970s stop it took until the 1990s for the americans with disabilities act to be passed. It will be a process and will take time. The more we can keep pointing to document and people and say, look, this is why people with disabilities should be included. It keeps reducing the stigma and make things better for people disabilities overall. Host maverick writes this on twitter. I dont know if the treaty so much had an impact on it, but the americans with disabilities act and a variety with flaws, and they just released and a variety of th , and they just released another act yesterday. That there isure an impact on health care. Is there still work to do . We need to make sure doctors offices are excessive accessible for people with disabilities. Theeed to make sure that doctors are accessible with the treated that theyre going to get. As we move forward, it will keep getting better. As a person with a preexisting condition, im ecstatic Health Insurance companies cannot disseminate against that any longer and keep me from getting insurance. Discriminate against that any longer and keep me from getting insurance. It would make it insurance impossible. Steren van susser an writes about this issue, talking about senator bob doles support of this issue. She knows that the bipartisan support of this treaty is long. Both sides of the aisle want to ratify the treaty. One more piece on that story. Guest we have about 20 National Veterans organizations that are supportive of this in addition to a number of religious organizations, and the disability community. We have had a number of veterans organizations be very vocal on this. This is a very important issue. Especially for the younger veterans that are coming back with traumatic rain injury, who have lost limbs traumatic brain injury and have lost limbs and things like that. They would like to travel and go overseas and work for multinational corporations. And having this treaty enacted not only in the United States and allowing us to be a leader with other countries, but it will expand the horizons for people with disabilities, especially younger veterans. Veteran who has spoken out about this is congresswoman tammy duckworth, an iraq war veteran. Here is a piece urging congress to ratify the treaty. That was posted earlier this past week. And she testified. Testified at the tearing of the Foreign Relations committee, which will be shown at 10 a. M. Right here. We have about 10 minutes left to take your calls and comments on this. Sarah is from parkersburg, west virginia, on the line for republicans. Good morning. Caller good morning and thanks for taking my call. Say that our to , the usa takes care of our people. We have things going on all the people. Include disabled we even have employers who are given tax rates and so forth for employing disabled people. Id on think we need a treaty from the United Nations to prompt us to take i dont think we need a treaty from the United Nations to prompt us to take care of our people. I think we do a good job of it on our own. Signing for this treaty now, how many things will they add into it before it is actually ratified and there is something that people can use . It might be Something Like this, and coursing common core thing in the schools. It started out being official, but now they have added things into it that makes it indoctrinated our children to becoming socialist or communist. I think we need to be awfully careful about signing treaties. Guest in this case, this is where the reservations, understandings, and declarations are important. Basically, that what they said last year and that we expect they will save this year is that the u. S. Is in compliance and it does not need to be additional legislation passed. The legislation is already on the books, and as you rightfully say, we do a pretty good job in the u. S. Compared to a lot of other countries taking care of individuals with disabilities. There will not need to be additional legislation that will need to be passed to implement this. I think youre concerned there and i would suggest if you have the opportunity to watch the hearing that will be coming on after this, a lot of these questions are dressed. It will be a good thing to watch and gather more information. In terms of additional legislation, that will not have to happen. In terms of taking care of our own citizens, as i said, we do a very good job of that. But we are not just an insular so lots society. And wef people travel have a lot of military men and women all across the world, and making sure that our kinds of standards and treatments that we do a good job of here in the u. S. , convey to the parts of the world that our people are going to. I have cousins that participated in the deaf olympics for many years. I think they would have enjoyed having these kinds of standards exist in those other countries that they go to for those deaf olympics. Able told be to be convey our standards and get other countries to adopt those standards will be beneficial for other citizens. They will not be here their entire lives and they will be looking worldwide. Host a comment on twitter, we run into problems nationally we try to do a onesizefitsall approach. Doing it internationally will just compound it the issue. Im not sure we do it as a onesizefitsall here in the u. S. What we have are some basic standards under the americans with disabilities act and then people can address how they will do that through a variety of functions. I dont necessarily think we are it is not so specific that you are saying to a country that youve got to do x, y, and z. It is a broad dinner of disability a broad standard of disability. You leave it up to each country to decide how they will pass legislation and implement an meet these goals. I do not think we are necessarily saying there needs to be in a a onesizefits all standard. There was a goal out there that you will not discriminate against children with disabilities in education, not discriminate against people with disabilities with employment. To the is going to be up discussions that occur at the National Level to the states to say, are you reading what these lofty goals are . Host we have a couple of minutes left. We are meeting with Eric Buehlmann. Mary is a republican from loganville, georgia, on our line that we set up for americans with disabilities. Thanks for calling the washington journal this morning. Caller thanks for taking my call. For the last seven years i have defrauded. I have tried to get someone to help me with medical fraud, with insurance fraud, with health securityd, and social would not help me. I finally was declared disabled because ive had seven surgeries , due to an injury. I was told that i needed other surgeries possibly and will have to, probably, in time. But ive gone to my police. I have wrote to washington dc washington, d. C. I have called washington, d. C. I have written three times to the federal trade commission. I have spent more than 80 hours a week trying to get one person to answer just one of my questions. Mary, thanks for sharing your story. Does the treaty say anything about these issues that she is addressing . Guest not directly, but i would suggest that as i mentioned early earlier, our protection and advocacy system is congressionally created. I would suggest reaching out to the Georgia Office because they may provide legal advocacy to address the problems that you are encountering out there. The Eric Buehlmann with National Disability rights network. You can check out his group at ndr. Org. That is going to be our show. On the sunday edition, we will have matt lewis to talk about andgubernatorial elections move ahead to 2014 and 2016. Rob richie will be joining us to talk about the electoral system and voting laws that his groups believe is interesting to gridlock in washington, d. C. And charles koch in, the formal for europeanctor u. S. Rs will talk about surveillance abroad. Thanks for joining us today. You can check out the hearing of the convention on rights with of persons with this ability is coming up right now at 10 00 on cspan. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2013] former New Hampshire hamster senator spoke at ready spoke about relating the economy. Regulating the economy. Next, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee taking up the disability treaty. If ratified, it would extend the disability rights of americans to disabled people in other countries. The u. S. Signed onto the treaty in 2009, but ratification the senate failed in 2012. This hearing is just over 2. 5 hours. The hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will come to order. Let me welcome our panelists and all of our guests who have come here today for this important hearing on the rights of roughly one billion people around the world with disabilities. Let me quickly welcome three