>> coming up on espnews, as a player michael jordan is in a class by himself. friday he was at the head of a very special class. plus tiger in the driver's seat at the b.m.w. championship. he's joined by an old friend riding shotgun. this is espnews. >> hi, and welcome to espnews. speaking of old friends riding shotgun, john, j.w. stewart. 72 years hall of famer lou gehrig hit the all-time hits record. >> and you just knew it would be a matter of time when he was number two. and number two leapfrogging the iron horse. we're on the derek jeter watch. dog something historic, getting his 2,722 hit as a yankee. that is number one for any yankee ever. here's a pretty illustrious list. not a bad list that i know cliewdz lou gehrig, babe ruth, mickey mantle, bernie williams, joe dimaggio and oh, yeah, derek jeter. mother nature's raining and the baltimore orioles might rain on the yankees' parade as well. trying to. full highlights of this game as soon as it's done. but the news here is derek jeter. we will hear from him. special news conference. and he will talk about becoming the pinstripers all-time hit king. that's coming up right after the game here on espnews. >> and there is eight ball to be played. the giants are four and a half games out of the playoff picture. hoping a three-game set against the dodgers and this is not a good start for the giants at this point. they're down 2-1 in the bottom of the third inning. james moanny a two-run double. that coming in the first inning. now has at least one rib in four straight games. the dodgers here, interestingly, if they don't get a win in this game, they will not stay above .500 post all-star break. o their great record, they got nit the first of the season. they've struggled since the all-star break. the rockies are taking advantage of the struggles. they lead the wild card. but trailing right now on the road in san diego, down 1-0 in the fourth inning. rockies on a seven-game win streak. as soon as this game goes final we'll have highlights here on espnews. >> the marlins trying to stay relevant, taking on the washington nationals. brian zimmerman, if he gets all that it might leave the yard. he got all that and it does leave the yard. that was a big swat. as the nationals win it 5-3. adam dunn had a home run as well. take a look at what the playoff chase looks like as they all sprint towards october. the dodgers with a two-game spread in the national league west. making it really interesting. dodgers the top. the marlins, that was a painful loss, losing 5-3. trying to stay relevant. time running out for the marlins and giants. >> the basketball hall of fame's class of 2009 might be the best ever. michael jordan, david robinson and john stockton are three of the 50 greatest players of all time. they were on the greatest time ever assembled, the 1992 dream team. they combined for eight nba titles in six m.v.p.es, although most of those belong to jordan. m.j. says the hall may not be his final call. >> although i'm recognized with this tremendous honor of being in the basketball hall of fame, i don't look at this moment as a defining end to my relationship with the game of basketball. it's simply a continuation of something i started a long time ago. one day you might look up and see meme playing the game at 50. [laughter] >> oh, don't laugh. never say never. because limits like fears are often just an illusion. thank you very much. >> playing his entire career in an santonio, david robinson led the spurs to a pair of nba titles while winning an m.v.p. award. he won two olympic gold medals. john stockton spent his entire time with the utah jazz. the tall and short of it in springfield, mass. >>at i'm a small kid from spoka, washington, that was mooching nil la wafers off my neighbors who are here today and wallowing around in big shorts and now i'm being inducted into the hall of fame in short shorts. [laughter] >> i do know i played 30 years competitively, three at salt al waishes, four at gonzaga prep, at gonzaga university, and never was i the best player on my team. >> it's a great on -- honor, it's an incredible honor and i don't think it really hit me until tonight. i came hear, hear and saw all of these gays that have marked my basketball career from beginning to end and just enjoy that everyone's brought me and the love and it's -- it's really just hitting me. and i thank you for that honor. >> also inducted were jerry sloan and c. vivian stringer. sloan's 21 seasons of the jazz is the longest reign by one coach for one team in nba history. and string sr. the only coach to lead three teams to the final four. >> an idea of what you should watch on saturday, something ohio state fans haven't been able to watch or maybe they're peeking through their fingers. they're meeting at u.s.c. was a horror flick. what say we dig into this thing with a pair of reports and start with lisa. >> jim tressel says there will be more pressure on his quarterback than on u.s.c. matt barkley. about barkley, trestle says, if u.s.c. has success running the ball he'll be the luckiest freshman alive. he'll hand off the ball and be fine. but for pry your, he says terrell will be carrying the weight of an entire young buckeye team on his shoulders. will he be nervous? tressel asks and answered his own question, absolutely. >> for all the attention focused on the inexperience of matt barkley, jim tressel pointed out his quarterback is not yet a veteran. on his radio show he heard a caller attempt to compare terrell pry your to vince young. but as tressel pointed out, vince young wasn't dominant nor a difference maker until he was a fourth year junior. pry your has seven new starters around him on offense. >> u.s.c. is going to look to win its tenth straight against the big 10. they have won the previous nine. won by over 23 points per game. this is college. the droa jans have also won six straight versus buckeyes. their last lost to the scarlet gray, january 1, 1974. dr. lieu, he has some kind words, some healing words for the buckeyes. ♪ the doctor is out >> dr. lou, i understand you're out. so coach holtz, what would you say to the buckeyes? >> coach tressel, this is what i would say. man, i'm excited. we're going to play the university of spoiled children better known as u.s.c. we have a tradition of winning here at ohio state. but that tradition has been tarnished recently and we bought five straight games. i'm not going to documenting our disappointing performance but that has to change. the one thing we cannot do is be intimidated whether it be in football or in life. i learn that had from woody hayes. we're playing southern cal in the rose bowl for the national championship. they had a back named o.j. simpson. i coached a defensive back, he better not score a touchdown. in the second quarter o.j. takes the hand-off on their own 20-yard-line. goes 80 yards for a touchdown. i'm up in the press box, woody hayes on the sidelines. i go in the locker room at halftime, the first thing that happened he came running up to me, strategically played his left hand on my jugular vein and squeezed about that big. he really meant me no physical harm. he just wanted to be sure he had my undivided attention and hollered why did o.j. go 80 yards? that's all he needed. the ball was on the 10, he would have gone 90. we were down 10-0. we were not be indim at a timed we came back to win the national championship 27-16. a man that refused to be blocked cannot be blocked. justin borden and i could hold any plan down the twof of us. if you're going to stay on the side it takes seven attendants to put a wild man in a straitjacket. i'm not a great mathematician, they need 77 people on offense in order to block us. you have to ask yourself, it's not me who. if not here where? if not now when? you've got to persevere. we all know about abraham lincoln and the trials and tribulations he overcame. and we all know about ben franklin and how he refused to lose. and you ask me what about victor mcmann? who's he? he's the guy who quit. that's why nobody heard of him. let's go. >> going to go. >> i'm ready to go. >> coming on espnews, cog hill is a public golf course. why it might as well be tiger's private track. antwon hasn't had a practice since august 25. since august 25. what is the i'm racing cross country in this small sidecar, but i've still got room for the internet. with my new netbook from at&t. with its built-in 3g network, it's fast and small, so it goes places other laptops can't. i'm bill kurtis, and i've got plenty of room for the internet. and the nation's fastest 3g network. gun it, mick. (announcer) sign up today and get a netbook for $199.99 after mail-in rebate. with built-in access to the nation's fastest 3g network. only from at&t. play the game millions have won. everything from prius cars to beaches vacations, cash and live nation vip access. play scrabble at subway... where winners eat. ♪ >> playoff pictures, the p.g.a. playoff stop is the b.m.w. championship at cog hill. here comes tiger. he would bogey the first hole. par five straight. seven he bogeys again. birdie eight. then on nine, that's his third shot on a par five. pretty darn close to an eagle. he could drive his fisher price putter and drop that for birdie. after five more parse in a row, here he is on 17. tiger's approach knocking it within five feet. six under par. he'd replace his divot stick and you know when tiger is staring he's liking. firn at seven under and be tied for the lead. not the only golfer in this tournament. phil mickelson is also there. using a putter on the green. rolling, rolling, rolling. gets the birdie here on the ninth. that's his 18th. he's five off the lead. padraig harrington, didn't have a single bogey on the 18th round, then he knocked it into somebody's yard. looking in the bushes n the driveway. aren't there trespassing laws in illinois? his fourth shot goes within an 18 feet of the cup. what do you know? that's one heck of a bogey save. he's just one back of your leader. mark wilson, not the former b.y.u. quarterback, mark wilson tied with dwoodz and these two guys have a history. they're going to be playing as a twosome for the first time since their championship match in the 1992 u.s. junior amateur in massachusetts. >> wow. >> and by the way, tiger won. >> a.l. central leading tigers a four-game series against the bluejays. top of the seventh, randy ruiz a two-run home run. his seventh of the year. the jays win it 6-4. the problems continue for the tigers. they've lost four in a row. >> gentlemen, started your en jis. the wild eyed southern boys in richmond saturday night. last chance to make the sprint cup chase. qualifying friday and mark martin had the heaviest foot grabbing his sixth pole of the season and 47th of his career. he's one of 11 drivers duking it out for the final eight spots. the coverage of the short track coverage you can go on abc tomorrow night. that will be at 7:00 eastern saturday night. that's in -- once the checker drops back here for a post-race conference. >> fridayin night under the ligs at richmond. lap 203. the first 200 were boring. hamlin and harvick exchanging some paint. hamlin's car smoking. seems a little bit ticked off. he would have to pit three laps later. carl edwards, bad wheel and all, that would be the human wheel. broken foot and allha that. he takes the lead as hamlin pits and goes on to take the checkered flag. hamlin would end up finishing 17th. >> here's something completely different for denver bronco backs. rookie moreno feels better and should be able to go on saturday. he has a tweaked knee. it's not 100% but it's close. john clayton diagnosing the rest of the national football league's ills. >> antwan boden is listed as questionable with his hamstring injury and i think there's a decent chance he's going to miss the opener. he has not had a practice since august 25. i think he sits out this one. matt castle is going to be a game-time decision to see if he's going to be able to play with that m.c.l. injury. it's going to go down to the wire. they need him. i think he's still going to be able to play. so at least not count on him but i think there's a chance. as far as mark moleger, looks as probable. the pinkie is going to be painful but he's going to try against seattle. kyle horton is also going to play. the index finger is not good. i think there are probably ligament problems. it could affect his long throwing but i think orton is going to be able to play against denver for cincinnati. >> battery in fulsom prison, the linebacker brutally assaulted the former reality star. the he said she said will remain that. the district attorney dismissed the claims determining there is insufficient evidence to get a conviction and prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a conviction was committed. merriman says he was just trying to prevent a friend from driving drunk. >> this is a huge game. richard seymour is a raider yet he's not a raider. the former all pro put the silver and black over his pads? the clock is (announcer) gentlemen, this is vodka. there was a time when standing for something stood for something. when men refused to drink whatever the world just happened to pour in their glass. there was a time when men were men. it was last night. inspired by 300 years of tradition. ketel one please drink responsibly. but put a ring of cheese in the crust and...jackpot! (anouncer) introducing pizza hut's new stuff crust pan pizza. your favorite pan piz with a jackpot of melted cheese in the crut. a large one toppinis just $10.99. >> saturday night at 7:00 eastern on espn2, it's south carolina at number 21 georgia in the sec opener for both schools. season opener against tennessee state. but the bulldogs lost their at o.k. state. we have a preview. >> i'm heather cox in athens, georgia, where the rampant rumor has been that quarterback joe cox will not start because of injury and logan gray will get the nod instead. i did confirm with the head coach that joe cox will start despite battling a sore shoulder. now, the issue in that throwing arm is nerve damage that's caused some muscle atrophy. joe cox did tell me it doesn't affect his velocity but don't forget he's battling the flu all week and down nine pounds. so overall strength certainly an issue. meanwhile for south carolina, they are coming off a win but not at all content with the way they played. steve spurrier blamed himself telling me i did not have a good night coaching. steve spurrier has also vowed to be much more aggressive offensively and will do a lot more play calling against georgia. >> as the head coach of the florida gators, steve spur your mode routs to the bulldogs routine. however, south carolina he's gone just 1-3 against the dogs racking up 38 points total in four games. >> well, here's a doozy to watch for saturday. notre dame-michigan. the top two winning percentages in college history. one program will feel as if they're rekindling the fire. both 1-0sprks both looking for impressive games. >> i'm holy rowe in ann arbor. welcome to the big house where they are expecting 110,000 people who they've asked to maze out this stadium so when notre dame arrives it is a sea of yellow. the fighting irish have struggled the last few years and i spoke with armando allen this week. he said it's just time to show people we can compete. we've got a lot of talent and there comes a time when you just have to say, enough is enough to the losing. for michigan, they will be without their starting wide receiver junior hemingway. he's out with an ankle injury. but the return of tailback brandon minor is a big help. he will play but likely not start. and freshman quarterback pate forcier will get the start again. i asked him friday, are you nervous to play against notre dame? he said i just don't get nervous. i know what i'm capable of, i'm surrounded by great athletes and i just have to remind myself, get them the ball. >> this is a program right here for college football. >> not just because kordell stewart and -- those are good reasons to watch it, but a lot of great games. there's going to be live look arounds the country, from sea to shining satisfaction espnews. it's college football "college l overdrive." vanderbilt-lsu. >> vikings defensive tackles kevin and pat williams will be able to play this season. a federal appeals court ruling friday they can sue the nfl in minnesota state court. since the case won't go to trial until after the season, they don't have to serve a four-game suspension at this time. the nfl wants to suspend the williams for use ago banned over-the-counter supplement last year. but the players say the league's testing practices violate minnesota law. >> richard seymour has until tuesday to report to the raiders or face a season-long suspension. the nfl players union is looking into each party's rights. the patriots traded the five-time bro bowler to oakland on sunday for a first round pick in 2011. >> michael jordan's now in the hall of fai. coming up he'll be in your living room. exclusive sitdown with michael coming you could win $100,000 with scrabble at subway. play the game millions have won. everything from prius cars to beaches vacations, cash and live nation vip access. play scrabble at subway... where winners eat. ♪ >> once again, michael jordan was enshrined in the basketball hall of fame in springfield, mass. jordan cried at the beginning of his speech before entertaining the crowd with his stories. m.j. sat down with our mike will bon for this exclusive interview. >> we all think of the hall of fame as the greatest honor imaginable. but you did not embrace this initially. how do you feel about it now? >> well, it's not that i -- you know, i didn't embrace it as an opportunity and as an accomplishment, as a privilege. i just didn't think i was ready for it now, you know. i think that, you know, for me it's like -- i don't mean nit a bad way, like you're going out in the pasture and just going to graze until you basically die. >> you mentioned magic and i want to mention a couple of your peers, because magic and charles, most notably charles barkley, they have found a second career that fulfills them nearly as much, not as much but nearly as much as their playing days. do you worry about finding or not finding that second thing that consumes your passions like those guys have? >> nothing is going to equal basketball. and if they say what they do now equals what they did playing the game of basketball, then, you know, i beg to differ about those two individuals and their competitive nature. for me, i feel like i'm the most fierce competitor there is. i don't think i'm ever going to find something equal the game of basketball for me. golf comes close. but even then, i mean, you know, it's not a mastery for me in that game as basketball was. so am i worried? no. because i -- i come to understand that i'm never going to find something that drives me as much as basketball did, you know. >> how important is the dream team to your life? >> i never had a chance to see how these other all-stars prepare themselves for a game or practice or compete against each and every day, what was their desire, what was their hunger, what drove them to eat, what drove them to play. so me, it was -- it was being a part of them and seeing them socially and then taking that on the basketball court and competing. and at the same time representing the country. i mean, that to me was why i played in the 1992 dream team. >> kareem abdul jabbar may be the all-time leading scorer but no player has averaged more points per game than michael jordan. >> coming up on espnews, as a player michael jordan was in a class by himself. friday he was at the head of a very special class. plus tiger in the driver's seat of the b.m.w. championship and he's joined by an old friend riding shotgun. >> hi, and welcome to espnews. always available in h.d. along with john, i'm j.w. stewart. for 72 years lou gehrig hit the all-time yankees hit record. >> 72 years. >> now a guy who wears number 2 on his back look to go leapfrog him and be number one. the derek jeter watch was on again against the baltimore orioles. and here jeter got hit number 2,722. his first at-bat he went down on strikes. second at-bat was typical jeter. taking that outside pitch down the first-base line. shooting it into the corner. the orioles and mother nature trying to rain on his parade as the o.'s have a 7-4 lead. that now in the top of the seventh inning. but this is all about derek jeter. look at the names on this list. lou gehrig, babe ruth, mickey mantle, joe dimaggio. i'm sure derick derek jeter's class raring to go. bernie williams on the list as well. derek jeter has plenty of good years seemingly left in his bod di. jerk jeter, not the most comfortable guy in front of the mic. he'd rather not do that. not going to have a choice on this night. cameras and microphones all set newspaper a back room and he's going to talk about the whole thing. becoming the yankees' all time hit king and you'll see that live here on espnews. >> season finish line is quickly approaching for the giants. four and a half games out of the playoff picture and they're taking on the dodgers. right now they're looking up at the dodgers. james loney two-run double in the first inning still stands. matt cain on the bump. he's 0-6 with a .397e.r.a. against the dodgers. that e.r.a. tells you he's witched pitched well. not getting the run support. >> rockies lead the wild card but began the night only two games behind the dodgers in the n.l. west. however, trailing in san diego right now 1-0. the only run in this game came back in the first inning on a bases loaded walk. rockies on a seven-game win streak trying to make it eight in a row. highlights of this game when it goes final. >> marlins have won seven of eight to create playoff conversation. five games behind the phillies. playing the nationals. royce zimmerman had one hit and that was it. that made him cooler than a polar bear's toe nails. puts a cramp in the marlins' playoff hones. looking at the playoff picture, dodgers led by two on the rocks. giants six and a half back. september 30 is creeping up, isn't it? the wild card, marlins with the loss, five and a half behind the rockies. and the giants four and a half behind the rockies. it's the playoff push and those are the two big races right now. >> the basketball hall of fame's class of 2009 might be the best ever. michael jordan, david robinson, and john stockton are three of the 50 greatest players of all time. they were on the greatest team ever assembled, the 1992 dream team. they combine for eight nba tielts and six m.v.p.es although most i don't think to jordan. m.j. says the hall might not be his final call. >> although i'm recognized with this tremendous honor of being in the basketball hall of fame, i don't look at this moment as a defining end to my relationship with the game of basketball. it's simply a continuation of something that i started a long time ago. one day you might look up and see me playing a game at 50. [laughter] >> don't laugh. never say never. because limits like fears are often just an illusion. thank you very much. [cheers and applause] >> playing his entire career this san antonio, david robinson led the spurs to a pair of nba tielts while winning an m.v.p. award. the admiral won two olympic gold awards. john stockton spent his entire career with the utah jazz. he is the all-time leader in assists and steals. the tall and short of it in springfield, mass. >> i'm a small kid from spokane, washington, that was mooching nil la wafers off my neighbors who are here today and wallowing around in big shorts and now being inducted into the hall of name in short shorts. [laughter] >> so something is amiss. >> i played 30 years competitive ly and all those years, not once, never, was i the best player on my team. >> know, i -- this is a great honor. it's an incredible honor. and i don't even think it really hit me until tonight. i saw all these faces that marked my basketball career from beginning to ends and just all the joy everyone has brought me and the love and it's -- it's really just hit me. and i -- i thank you for this honor. >> also inducted were jerry sloan and c. vivian stringer. sloan's 21 seasons of the jazz is the longest reign by one coach for one team in nba history. and stringer is the only coach to lead three different schools to the women's final four. >> an idea of what you should watch on saturday, something ohio state fans haven't been able to watch or maybe they're peeking through their fingers like they're watching a horror pic. that's what the meeting was last year with u.s.c. time to dig into the rematch with a pair of reports. >> jim tressel says there will be more pressure on his quarterback than on u.s.c. matt barkley. about barkley tressel says if u.s.c. has success running the ball he'll be the luckiest freshman alive. he'll just hand off the ball and be fine. but for pryor, he says terrell will be carrying the weight of an entire young buckeye team on his shoulders. will he be nervous? tressel asks and answered his own question, absolutely. >> for all the attention focused on the inexperience of matt barkley, jim tressel pointed out his quarterback is not yet a veteran. on his radio show he heard a caller attempt to compare terrell pryor to vince young. but as tressel pointed out, vince young wasn't dominant nor a difference maker until he was a fourth year junior. compared with the 2008 buckeyes pry or has seven new starters around him on offense. >> u.s.c. is going to look to >> u.s.c. is going to look to ^ they're winning by average margins of 23 points a game. six straight against the buckeyes. their last loss against the ohio state university is on new year's day 1974. >> coming up on espnews, cog hill is a public golf course. why it might as well be tiger's private track. plus an dwon bolden heanlt had a full practice since august 25. what are the chances the cardinals will have him on sunday. sunday. johyou don't see all the 5000 quality tests we put the nissan altima through. but you can see the result. the nissan altima. ranked highest midsize car in initial quality by j.d. power and associates. right now lease a new nissan altima for just $199 a month or get $1500 cash back. look closer. nissan delivers. n, or get $1500 cash back. this is vodka. some men believe substance is style. some men refuse to drink their vodka out of delicately painted perfume bottles. inspired by three-hundred years of tradition. ketel one please drink responsibly. but put a ring of cheese in the crust and...jackpot! (anouncer) introducing pizza hut's new stuff crust pan pizza. your favorite pan piz with a jackpot of melted cheese in the crut. a large one toppinis just $10.99. >> patience is a virtue. now we're going to test yours. the derek jeter news conference is being pushed back because mother nature has decided to push back the field. the tarp is out on the field. the orioles up 10-4. it's an official game, it's in the top of the seventh inning. once the call is made play or not to play we'll bring you the full highlights once the game is official. once that happens, derek jeter will talk and we'll bring that news conference to you live on espnews no matter what time of the day or night it may be. >> playoff stop at cog hill. here comes tiger. after a bogey on one and five straight parse you get the bird on seven to go to four under. then birdie eight. here he is on nine. 615-yard par five. that's his third shot and nearly jars that. taps its in with his fisher price play putter. goes to birdie and is five under. now on 11, also par five. life's a beach for him. third shot out of the bunker rolls within three feet. kick that in for bird. goes to six under. that's his fourth birdie in five holes. five straight parse to follow that. here he is on the 17th hole. apparently he coats his golf ball in molasses. five feet from the cup. knocks it in. seven under par. tie ford the lead. phil mickelson also playing. use ago flat stick straightforward straight on the cup. two under 69. he's five back. paddy harrington was tied at the lead at seven under and then came the 18th. no bogeys and then he hits this into the brady's house. looks in the bushes. tramping around the driveway. disobeying all trespassing rules. fourth shot gets to there and knocked one heck of a bogey save. his lone boge of the day. as much as a bummer as the driver was on the 18th hole, he's got to feel good about the way he finished. now just one shot behind mark wilson and dwoodz. those two guys actually played in a twosome in a 1992 u.s. junior amateur massachusetts where the 16-year-old tiger woods rallied from two down to win on the 18th hole. >> from tyingtor the a.l. central leading tigers open ago four-game series against the bluejays. top seven, randy ruiz, a two-run home run. his seventh of the year. the jays win 6-4. the tigers have lost four in a row. a's and twins, the a's came in with the fewest home runs in the american league. they hit a season high five home runs on friday night. it's a three-run home run for mark ellis. his eighth of the year and the a's take it 12-5. >> gentlemen, start your engines. put the ped toll the metal saturday night which is the last chance to make the sprint cup race. qualifying was on friday. mark martin had the heaviest foot grabbing his sixth pole of the season. 47th of his career. he's one of 11 duking it out for the final eight spossments coverage of the short track racing will be on abc at 7:00 eastern. that's 3:00 in alaska. once the checker drops tune in here on espnews for all the post-race coverage. >> the nationwide drivers were doing that on friday night under the lights at richmond. and denny hamlin and kevin harvick were rubbing and racing on lap 203. hamlin's car smoking. and this would be the definition ofon smoking. he would have to go in the pit. edwards the beneficiary. he broken foot and all takes the checkered t flag. he would not do the back fit. kyle busch finished third. >> here's something completely different for denver bronco runningbacks. here's good news actually. rookie moreno says he should be able to go against cincinnati. he adds the tweaked knee from the first preseason game is not 100% but it's close. as for more of the nfl ills, we have a record. >> anquan boldin is listed as questionable with his hamstring injury. the problem is he's not had a full practice since august 25 and even though the hamstring is getting better it's slowly getting better. i think he sits out there one. matt castle is going to be a game time decision to see if he can play with that m.c.l. injury. they need him. i think he's going to be able to play. at least not count on him but a chance. as far as mark, listed as possible. that pinkie is going to be baneful, but bulger is going to try to play against seattle. kyle orton is also going to be able to play. the index fing sr. not good. i think there's probably some ligament problems in there. it could affect his long throwing but i think orton is going to be able to play for denver against cincinnati. >> tinchts la tequila accused shawne merriman of battery and false imprisonment. merriman denies both claims. the he said she said will remain just that. the district attorney dismissed tequila's claims after determining there's insufficient evidence to get a conviction. doubted beyond reasonable doubt that a crime was committed. merriman maintains he was only trying to prevent a friend from driving drunk. >> coming up, well over 100,000 backers will cross their big house. fighting irish stands to do the same. it's a huge game. richard seymour is a raider yet he's not a raider. will he pull the silver and black over his pads? that's coming up on >> sat night at 7:00 eastern on espn2, it's south carolina at georgia in the sec opener for both schools. the gamecocks won their season opener against nc state. but the bulldogs lost theirs at o.k. state and the bulldog vs. other issues. >> i'm heather cox in athens, georgia wrrks the rampant rumor has been that quarterback joe cox will not start because of injury and backup logan gray will get the nod instead. i did confirm with head coach mark rick that joe cox will start despite battling a sore shoulder. now the issue in that throwing arm is nerve damage that's caused some muscle atrophy. joe cox did tell me it doesn't affect his velocity but don't forget he's been battling the flu all week and he's down nine pounds since opening kick-off weekend. so overall strength certainly an issue. meanwhile, for south carolina they are coming offer a win but not at all content with the way they played. steve spurrier blamed himself telling me did i not have a good night coaching. steve spurrier has also vowed to be much more aggressive offensively and will do a lot more play calling against georgia. >> as the head coach of the florida gators, steve spurrier made routs of the bulldogs routine as he racked up 11 wince in 12 games against them and his team averaged over 36 points a game. however at south carolina he's gone 1-3 against the dogs racking up 38 points total in the four games. >> colorado and toledo at the glass bowl. first quarter, the rockets off to a fast start. aaron to eric paige. yeah, you might want to get a hand on him. 70-yard untouched. 13-0. they were just getting warmed up. second quarter, calls his own number. dive into the end zone and right now rockets up by 20 early in the fourth. >> here's a doozy to watch on saturday. notre dame and michigan. the top two winning percentages in college football history but those seem a distant memory. one program will feel as if they're rekindling the fire. both are 1-0 and coming off impressive efforts from a week ago. holly rowe was in the big house. >> i'm holly rowe in ann arbor. welcome to the big house where they are expecting 110,000 people who they've asked to maze out this stadium. so when notre dame arrives it is a sea of yellow. now, the fighting irish have struggled the last couple o years and i talked with armando allen this week. he said you know, it's just time to show people that we can compete. we've got a lot of talent and there comes a time when you just have to say, enough is enough to the losing. for michigan, they will be without their starting wide receiver junior hemingway. he's out with an ankle injury. but the return of tailback brandon minor is a big help. he will play but likely not start. and freshman quarterback tate forcier will get the start. i asked him friday, are you nervous to play against notre dame? he said i just don't get nervous. i know what i'm capable of, i'm surrounded by great athletes and i just have to remind myself, get them the ball. >> it's all a part of another great college football saturday and you can catch it all on "college football overdrive." darian, kordell stewart, good people. a couple games you can watch on espnu. t.c.u. against virginia. and vanderbilt against l.s.u. who's home after that long trip. >> vikings defensive tackles kevin and pat williams will be able to play this season. a federal appeals court ruling friday they can sue the nfl in minnesota state court. since the case won't go to trial until after the season they don't have to serve a four-game suspension at this time. the nfl wants to suspend the williams for use ago banned over-the-counter supplement last year but the players say the league's testing practices violate minnesota law. richard seymour has until tuesday to report to the raiders or face a season-long suspension. the nfl players union is looking into each party's rights. the patriots traded the five-time pro-bowler to oakland on sunday for a first round pick in 2011. >> rain wiped out all the matches at the u.s. open friday, so the semi-final match between serena williams and kim clijsters will be played saturday scheduled to start at 8:00 p.m. eastern. however, more rain is expected in new york on saturday. >> here's a look at the upcoming u.s. open action on espn2. at noon on sunday it will be the first men's singles semi-final which will most likely pit federer against djokovic. at 9:00 p.m. it will be the women's singles final, and then at 1:00 p.m. on monday, espn2 will carry the women's doubles finals. >> we all knew it was going to happen and it happened friday night. michael jordan was officially inducted into the basketball hall of fame. we'll get to hear from the new hall of famer in a moment. if you remember the last time ohio state beat u.s.c. you probably have gray i'm here on this tiny little plane, and guess what... i've still got room for the internet. with my new netbook from at&t. with its built-in 3g network, it's fast and small, so it goes places other laptops can't. anything before takeoff mr. kurtis? prime rib, medium rare. i'm bill kurtis, and i've got plenty of room for the internet. and the nation's fastest 3g network. (announcer) sign up today and get a netbook for $199.99 after mail-in rebate. with built-in access to the nation's fastest 3g network. only from at&t. a sanctuary. a command center. ( both revving ) a sophisticated sedan. a sports car. together. nissan maxima, the four-door sports car. now get a new nissan maxima for 0% apr financing for 60 months. >> once again, michael jordan was enshrined in the basketball hall of fame in springfield mass on friday night. he cried at the beginning of the speech before entertaining the crowd with his stories. he sat down with michael for this exclusive story. >> we think of the hall of fame as the greatest honor imaginable but you did not embrace this initially. how do you feel about it now? >> well, it's not that i -- you know, i didn't embrace it as an opportunity and as an accomplishment, as a privilege. i just didn't think i was ready for it now, you know. i think that, you know, for me it's like -- i don't mean it in a bad way, like you're going out in the pasture and just going to graze until you basically die. >> you mentioned magic and i want to mention a couple of your peers, because magic and probably charles, most notably charles barkley, they have found sort of the second career that fulfills them nearly as much, not as much but nearly as much as their playing days. do you worry about finding or not finding that second thing that consumes your passions like those guys have? >> nothing is going to equal basketball. and if they say what they do now equals what they did playing the game of basketball, then, you know, i beg to differ about those two individuals and their competitive nature. for me, i feel like i'm the most fierce competitor there is. i don't think i'm ever going to find something equal the game of basketball for me. you know, golf comes close. but even then, i mean, you know, it's not a mastery for me in that game as basketball was. so am i worried? no. because i -- i come to understand that i'm never going to find something, you know, that drives me as much as basketball did, you know. >> how important is the dream team to your life? >> i never had a chance to see how these other all-stars prepare themselves for a game or practice or compete against each and every day, what was their desire, what was their hunger, what drove them to eat, what drove them to play. so me, it was -- it was being a part of them and seeing them socially and then taking that on the basketball court and competing. and at the same time representing the country. i mean, that to me was why i played in the 1992 dream team. >> kareem abdul jabbar may be the all-time leading scorer but no player has averaged more points per game than michael jordan. mmentd jmentd aed 30.12 points for his career compared to wilt chamberlain's 30.07 points per game. >> coming up on espnews, as a player michael jordan was in a class by himself, friday he was at the head of a very special class. plus tyinger in the dreier's seat at the b.m.w. championship and joined by an old friend riding shotgun. >> that game is being delayed by rain. once the game is over we'll hear from jeter. there are notable names if you've got another base hit. hall of fame, hall of fame, hall of fame, bernie williams on there as well, illustrious names on that list, derek jeter tops them all. once this game ends, whenever that may be, whether they get back on the field or whether they just call the game, who knows, we'll have the news conference and bring it to you live on espnews. give you jete's thoughts. something he doesn't like to do, pound himself on the chest. he won't have much of a choice. we'll have it here on espnews. >> giants 4 1/2 games out of the playoff picture opening a three game set against archrivals the dodgers and it's l.a. up in this one 4-1. james loney a two-run double in the first. casey blake's fourth home run against the giants this season -- his most against any team and all of it coming off matt cain who came in with 13 wins which ties his career high. >> marlins have won 7-8, five games behind philly, playing the nationals and then they do this. andrew miller gives up the jack to ryan zimmerman in the top of the seventh. zimmerman's lone hit in the game. painful for the marlins. helps the nationals win 5-3. the marlins fall six games behind the rockies in the national league wild card. the big races in the national league -- the dodgers two games clear of the rockies. >> the basketball hall of fame's class of 2009 might be the best ever -- michael jordan, david robinson and john stockton are three of the 50 greatest players of all time. they were on the greatest team ever assembled -- the 1992 dream team. they combined for eight nba titles and six m.v.p.'s, although most of those belong to jordan. m.j. says the hall may not be his final call. >> although i'm recognized with this immense honor of being in the basketball hall of fame, i don't look at this moment as a defining end to my relationship with the game of basketball. it's simply a continuation of something that i start a long time ago. one day, you might look up and see me playing the game at 50. oh, don't laugh. never say never, because limits, like fears, are often just an illusion. thank you very much. >> playing his entire career in san antonio, david robinson led the spurs to a pair of nba titles while winning an m.v.p. award. the admir all won two olympic gold medal, in 1992 and 1996. john stockton spent his entire career with the utah jazz -- point guard of the nba's all time leader in assists and steals. >> i'm a small kid from spokane, washington who was mooching off my neighbors who are here today and waddling around in big shorts and now i'm being inducted into the hall of fame in short shorts -- so something's amiss. i do know that i played 30 years competitively, three at st. aloysius, four at gonzaga prep, four at gonzaga university and all those years not once, never was i the best player on my team. >> this is a great honor. it's an incredible, incredible honor. and i don't even think it really hit me until tonight. i came in here and i saw all these faces that have marked my basketball career from beginning to end, and just the joy that everyone's brought me, and the love, and it's really just hit me, and i thank you for this honor. >> also inducted were jerry sloan and c. vivian stringer. sloan's 21 seasons as coach of the jazz is the longest reign by one coach for one team in nba history, and stringer is the only coach to lead three different schools to the women's final four. >> here is an idea of what you should drop for saturday -- something that ohio state fans haven't been able to watch. their meeting at u.s.c. was last year was the trojan horse trampling the scarlet and gray 35-3 and it wasn't that close, our reports start with lisa salters. >> lisa salters in columbus where jim tressel says there will be more pressure on his starting terrelle pryor than matt barkley. if he has success running the ball he will be the luckiest freshman alive, he will hand off the ball and he will be fine but for pryor he says terrell will be carrying the entire weight of the buckeyes team on his shoulders. he asked and answered his own question, absolutely. >> for all the attention on the experience of matt barkley, jim tressel pointed out his quarterback is not yet a veteran. on his radio show in columbus tressel heard a caller attempt to compare pryor to vince young but as tress will pointed out vings young wasn't dominant nor a difference maker until he was a fourth-year junior. compared with the 2008 buckeyes, pryor has seven new starters around him on offense. >> u.s.c. going after their 10th straight win against big ten foes and they have dominated the previous nine winning by an average of 23 points per game. trojans have also won six straight against the buckeyes. last time the buckeyes beat u.s.c., skylab was still in orbit, and ucla's historic 88-game winning streak was snapped 18 days later. >> wow. >> coming up on espnews. cog hill is a public golf course. why it might as well be tiger's private track. plus, anquan boldin hasn't had a full practice since august 25. what are the chances the cardinals will have him on sunday? you don't see all the 5000 quality tests we put the nissan altima through. but you can see the result. the nissan altima. ranked highest midsize car in initial quality by j.d. power and associates. right now lease a new nissan altima for just $199 a month or get $1500 cash back. look closer. nissan delivers. but i've still got room for the internet. with my new netbook from at&t. with its built-in 3g network, it's fast and small, so it goes places other laptops can't. i'm bill kurtis, and i've got plenty of room for the internet. and the nation's fastest 3g network. gun it, mick. (announcer) sign up today and get a netbook for $199.99 after mail-in rebate. with built-in access to the nation's fastest 3g network. only from at&t. be. >> play >> playoff picture, pga playoffs stop at cog hill, the b.m.w. championship, tiger after a bogey on one and five straight pars the bird on seven to go to four under, he would birdie eight. on nine, 615-yard par 5, his third shot. nearly jars that -- taps it in with his fisher-price play putter, goes to birdie and five under. now on 11, also par 5, life's a beach for him. third shot out of the bunker, rolls within three feet. kick that in for bird. goes to six under. his fourth birdie in five holes. five straight pars would follow that. here he is on the 17th hole. apparently he coats his golf balls in molasses. that sticks five feet from the cup. knocks it in. seven under par. he's tied for the lead. phil mickelson also playing. using the flat stick on the green -- that's a good club and that was a good stroke. straightforward, straight down on the cup, shoots a two-under 69 be but he's five back. padraig harrington tied lead at seven under. then came the 18th hole. didn't have a single square on the scorecard, no bogeys then he hits it into the bradys house, looks in the bushes, around the driveway, disobeying trespassing rules, he knocks in, one heck of a bogey save, his lone bogey of the day. he's one shot back. as much of a bummer as the driver was on the 18th, he's got to feel good about the way he finished -- one shot behind mark wilson and tiger woods -- these two guys played in a twosome. in the 1992 u.s. junior amateur in massachusetts where the 16-year-old tiger woods rallied from two down to win on the 18th hole. from tiger to the a.l. central leading tigers opening a four-game series against the blue jays, top seven, randy ruiz a two-run home run, his senth of the year. jays win 6-4. the tigers have lost four in a row. a's and twins. the a's came in with the fewest home runs in the american league. they hit a season-high five home runs on friday night. this is a three-run home run from mark ellis -- his eighth of the year, and the a's take it 12-5. >> gentlemen, start your engines. "what 2 watch 4"? here is the answer. wild-eyed southern boys putting the pedal to the metal in richmond last chance to make the sprint cup chase. qualifying friday. mark martin grabbing the 47th pole of his career. >> the phrase, if you ain't rubbing you ain't racing, nationwide drivers doing that under the lights at richmond and denny hamlin and kevin harvick were rubbing and racing on lap 203. hamlin's car smoking. and this would be the definition of smoking. he would have to go in the pits three laps later. carl edwards the beneficiary as he takes the lead while hamlin's in the pits. edwards broke his foot and all. takes the checkered flag. he would not do the backflip although that would have been very kerri struggish had he. rookie knowshon moreno says he's feeling better -- he should be able to go against cincinnati sunday. the tweaked knee from the preseason game is not 100% but it's close. john clayton -- the professor -- has a diagnosis of the rest of the national football league ills. >> anquan boldin is listed as questionable with his hamstring injury and i think there is a decent chance he's going to miss the opener. the problem is he has not had a full practice since august 25 and even though the hamstring is getting better, it's slel getting better. i think he sits out this one. matt cassel is going to be a game-time decision to see if he's going to be able to play with the m.c.l. injury. it's going to go right down to the wire. they need him. i think he's still going to be able to play, so not to count on him but i think there is a chance. marc bulger listed as probable. looks like the pinkie is going to be a nuisance, it's going to be painful but bulger is going to try to play in the game against seattle. kyle orton is going to be able to play. the index finger is not good, i think there are probably ligament problems that could affect his long but overall i think orton is going to be able to play for denver against cincinnati. >> tela tequila accused shawne merriman of assault. merriman denies claims. the he said, she said will remain just that -- the district attorney dismissed tequila's claims after determining there is insufficient evidence to get a conviction and doubted being able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime was committed. merriman claimed he was trying to prevent a friend from driving drunk. coming up, well over 100,000 maize and blue backers will pack the big house and cross their fingers it's a time for changes. richard seymour's a raider yet he's not a raider. silver and black over his pads? (announcer) don't go unnoticed don't blend in don't be ordinary, boring or bland in other words don't be so mayo we are our unique one of a kind flavor we are miracle whip and we will not tone it down a sanctuary. a command center. ( both revving ) a sophisticated sedan. a sports car. together. nissan maxima, the four-door sports car. now get a new nissan maxima for 0% apr financing for 60 months. >> the bulldogs have other issues as well. through two actors named harry and louise. then we have dean speed, the then chief health adviser to senator frist when he was the senator majority leader. whenichols i think y were the chief health pocy adviser at omb back in the good old days and continues to tuille in these in years then finally, jim who is also on the hill back then spendome time at a wendi and has been talking about these issues for a long, long time. with that let me turn it over t bob and continue. >> tnk you joe. first of all, let me say that i agree with joe's basic premise which is it's very hard to talk in any kind of specificity about that which we don't have the specifics to look at and the most important things we need to know are the impacts of this on the economy on people, on the distribution and the ways in which we might have government and private entidies administer the changes that we have. i thought it might be useful if i quickly went through as a context for the remarks of others what's different now and what's the same and the extent to which these factors will either make this task harder or mo difficult, and i have eigh areas in which i think the chelation a quite iffent now from how it was before on a couple that are quite similar. first there's the budget context and if you recall back and 93, we had just ected the omnus budget reconciliation act in the summer of '93 and that was the deficit on a path that w wanted to adhere to and the task for health reformers is don't screw that up, but the bget in a sense wasn't a big focuser now we are in an environment in which we are told the budget problem is the growth of health careost problem, and we are not going to deal with our understandable fiscal pass on less we can devise a health refo tover the long run at least willower not just federal costs, health care costs but also costs in the consensus, we have a consensus as the prident suggests that i think could be reached if w had 300, $600 billion to throw but we dot. and so the risk here in my mind is nothat does this look like over the next ten years. is it deficit neutral, do we pay for every penny that we spend, but looki at e ninth and tenth year is the new spending less than the savings, and is that gap growing? if the answer to that is no i think that we have failed in the fundamental objectiveone of the two fundamental objectives of this whole effort. secondrea in which things are considerably different is the economic context. when we took this up in ', '94 we were two and a half years bend the trough of the recession. and the anand when the rate peaked at 7.8% in the summer of 1992 and was slowly falling. peaked at 7.8% by theime this was introduced. it was 6.5% by the time and died it was 6%. sopeople were not happy. the economy was and jogging, b it was improving. where are we now win the thing was on failed or the effort was initiated when the economy was in free fall, unemployment still rising. we are on the brink of a worldwide financial meltdown. the government took extraordinary actions which clearly made the americaneople weary about the role ich governnt is now pleading in the economies life. no one is asking what is the counterfactual if it hadn't come if the fed hadn't pred money into the system where would we be now? the answer is clearly we d't know but i think most of us would say a whole lot worse off than we are right now. but this has created a situation and economic context which makes this challenge much harder to succeed. i don't need to say anything about the political context. it was very partisan. the budget debate back and 93 was passed without a single, but it'sard to look at the end versus now and say it's a lot more contentious now. i think it certainly is, and we have far fewer moderates, far fewer legislative giants like bo dole or chafee or george mitcll or people willing to go beyond their party's narrow political interest to try to work out deal. the media environment is cleay more inhospitable to a major policy change, particurly issues like health reform which are very, very easy to demagogue. we got our news back in through the three netuork channel people still rd newspapers back then. there was no widespread cable lk-show hts that, you know, had no brains of responsibility placed on them. >> other than-span, we want to mention c-span. okay. that is a positive -- [laughter] unfortunately, the viewers of this will be a tiny fraction of those watching any of the shouting shows. >> [inaudible] [laughter] >> we are waiting for you, len. [laughter] th difference which i think makes things a bit easier, we have the ability to understand and measure ality and risk to a deee that we didn't back then. and when you think of putting together a sensible health reform plan, one that will work i thi this is terribly important. we are not whe we should on this. we are aware we will be in five years but we are moving quite rapidldown a road to get the kind of information and ability to adjt payments that len and i would have given a were right arm to have back i 1993. another area of diffence is the perception of the u.s. health care system relative to th of the rest of the world. back in '93 we were pretty smug and wead no problem sayinyou know, we might pay more than everybody else, and we might leave ten or 12% of population on insured but the health care in america is the best in the world for those who are getting it a lot of studies have ought into question now. and while certaly for some people isome circumstances that is still true the evidence gathered by the commonwealth fund and others show we he fallen pretty far behind a number of western european countries on all sorts of measures of quality even ones we used to pride ourselvesn which is how fast can i get a doctor's appointment or can i get a doctor's appointment on t weekends, and so that, i don't think that seeped into the nati's consciousness yet. but that is a factor that should help reform event tickets -- advocates. the seventh is our consciousness about the geographical differences and cost of care and lack of relationship bween costs and quality-of-care. we know that for same income, composition, seem insurance policy wl cost twice as much in miamis a will cost in minneapolis. and this is an important set of knowledge we have now, but it makes reform infinitely harder in political stem that is geographally based because what this means is for standard policies, either the subsidy level for low-income persons have to be very different in their geographic areas of the country or t burden placed on th family for insurance has to be very different. and this is an issue people haven't focused on yet because as joe said the detail isn't out there. the eighth and last area of difference is the consensus that exists among stakeholders now provider group, suppliers, insurance, what ever that will form is inevitae. the question is not whether we are going to have it. it is whennd how. and so at least at a superfial level we have a lot more agreement now than we had back and which makes at least the first steps of this a lot easier. what is the same? one thing that strikes me as the same is the american people and many of their leadersemain woefully confused and misinformed about health. and they don't understand who is footin the bill. is it to the impleader or the worker? they don't fully appreciate what the insurance they are receiving for an employer costs. they think they areremiums are outrageous even though they are playing a rather small fraction of the total. they are sure they could have the same thg but a whole lot cheaper their must be somebody t ere screwing them. if the insurer is the drug company, providers of one sort or another. they don't want to look in the mirror and say i might be a part of this. i want and mri forhings which other countries people don't ge and our mri and the value for better health care is of marginal importance. it's very hard to change something in a rational way which people don't understand. and that is what we have been trying to do. an i feel a huge education tk was before us whether we are successful in this round or not last, something that's the same is ability to estimate th any confidence theonsequences of various health reform bills is quite limited and this is a condition of somebody who spent a good part of his life doing this, and it's not for a lack of trying. cbo, various independent organizations, the urban institute for one, mathematics and others, have devoted a lot of resources, but it is an unbelievably devilish uncomplicated task, and we don't real have fundamental data base one would want to have to try and develop model which you had a lot of confidence in. would you ideally would want is longitudinal database of individuals where the socio-economic characteristics, relationships to other people and family or insurance uni characteristics of their employe years of the insurance they could have available to them under different circumstances and than the ability to see how all of this change r significant changes in policy for estimating models based on small changes in policy and were talking about a rather large changes in policy, and so we don't know how wl employers respond when the whole situation changes. will there be tipping points where many bailout or not? how old will pviders think about changing the way they organize themselveand deliver care? these are questions we are making good educated guesses about. but there is a huge range of uncertainty surrounding those estimates. >> thanks, bob. the past two quick questions. on the last point about the limited ability to analyze complicated proposals, do you think the ability has improved or has just become -- we can do more in ... but it's not necessarily better analysis. ishe data betterare the methods better, are the studies that have taken place over the la 15 years something you can rely on? >> i think they are better, modestly better. i don't think they are gnificantly bette so where i'm getting my retirement on this i wouldn't place a bigger bet. of course i don't have the retirement i had back then. [laughter] >> well, that is a great source of comfort. [laughter] you're point about politicians being misinformedbout basically how health care works is certainly right, but this is and when to be so much as a question as a statement. it raises a real issue it seems and how youet a political consensus over and individual personal decision when it comes tohe use of health care, the mri for example. and we economists say we need to put financial incentives in er but at is probably not completely it. that is sothing we ought to talk about later in the panel. >> i thinkasically the american people and certainly politica leade don have a realistic view of the rafge of viable options are for the long run because they are politically difficult to swallow. and it is easy for all of us to prescribe systems r society a whole but when my kid is sick, you know, i'm not se i want to go along with that. >> i am sorry about your tirement but the public will benefit if you leave for even longer. laughter comes over 80% of the public had somkind of health insurance back during the days the clinton plan was being considered as well as now, the views of the plic are not key to success or failure of health care legistion and they do vote. can for the estimated 96% of those who voted in 2006 had health insurance poll after poll, that is 1993 of 94 and now indicate people want po keep what they have andhe name change they want to pay less for it. the assuances you can keep what you have and not pay more i think are insufcient to give reassurance to people who are obously concerned about what these plans mean to them and what they an to their family. it is difficult to be specific -- it is difficult to be as specific as i would like t be about that because there is a specific plan i could point to. but what if yo have a policy that isn't offed through the exchange? what if you have a very high deductible, individual health insurance plan which isn't uncommon among the farmers and ranchers and tho policies in effect are n called maybe none of the plans are permitted into the individual market wl peit it 10,000 over deductible as an example. with your insurer increases, and this is probably most important specific i can raise now what if you're injure increes your premiums to try to make up for the new excise tasks talked about being imposed upon the insurance companies? i think can pretty mu sum up what i think we knew then by quoting bredesen's law if you don't mind ich goes back 50 or 20 years, which was sply health reform will be decided not by speeches or television ads, but over the kitchen table less families discussow it will affect them which of course is the word harriet loue notion came from. interestingly, bac those days when i was having the health insurance aociationf america we did soiething a little bit unusual which was we did a daily national tracking poll of support for health insurance reform, and i recall very specifically that the high point was that the president's -- at the time of president clinton's speech which i felt was one of the best speeches i ever heard a presidento get in my lifetime. what happened afterwards, and we picked this up in data that support started to slow dramatically. the line with a dn and t longer the plan s out there it appeared the less support there was at the time. i think what happened is the more the public knew about the plan and the less they liked it, were in a sense to know it wasn't all of it. when i was serving in the house, my great mentor was barbara who is our ranking member on the ways and means committee. there were some really g bills we had before us. i voted for and he voted against. i think it was t and i remember saying why did you vote against that? he said bill, referring to somethg, dhere is something in there for everybody to hate and i think this is something to keep in mi if a bilis rust through tooast thermay be thin in there that once they become public can cause some real concern among of the body politics. something to think about joe asked what do we need to know now? i think theuestion is what american families need to know now, a i think the most important thing is just the specifics, specific plan or even two or three alternative plans. it has been puzzling to me over the last month or so to hea people arguing for or against the plan when there isn't a plan before or against at this point of te. for heroo much of what has passed for public discourse has been faced as much on the lack of information probably more the lack of information as it has been on misinformation. i've been especially interested how information is disseminated in particularly the role of a trade association and membership groups because that is what i usedo do back in that period. i think interest ober to play a key role in this process not to buy a general statements of supporor opposition, but by telling their constituents just wh this plan or that will mean for them, their policolders or insurance company or pay and members of the association. for example, the aarp for which i have a very high regar appears to b supporting the use of very large savgs from medicare as a major source of financing expanded coverage. should we be surprised many medicare beneficiaries who pay dues to aarp would prefer such savings besed to bolster the admittedly shaky financing status of medicare? is this -- it isn't being discussed very much. i think that is kind curious. insurers with whom i was assoated back in those days quite properly said pre-existing conditions will no longer be a barrier to coverage. of course assumes universal coverage or somethingery close to it. question. will there be adequate funding to avoid a premium death spiral duringhe transition to nearly universal coverage? you've got to face tse tngs and and i not saying there's beeno discussion, this could take a lot of money to make that thing work because the sicker people are thenes likely to sign up once the policies become generally available and pres come down. i focused on insurers since reform of insurance regulation is getting a lot of @ttention. it's almost become a centerpiece of the last month or two. insurers who currently obviously played a key role in providing health insurance at this t unlike 1993 and '94 be offered a seat at t table. i assure you we were on back then. andhey are on the universal coverage bandwagon whichs great. they'rgreat reward for coming the table is hearing a public plan is needed to keep health insurance honest. i heard again from senator reid as i was driving to work this morning. have they been dishonest? of dishonest people bed been invited to the table? had insurers been violating current state surance regulations? perhaps demonizing insurae will help insurers will help sell reform but at what price? the long-tm implications of the current debates extend well beyond health insurance and i am not hearing any date about this. should there be government options and other parts of the economy? whereeople are unhappy with what is going on? are there other industries that are honest? should we havgovernment illegal companies or government pharmautical companies or government banks or government real-estate appraisers? that might be pretty popular right now. auter] on thehort list of what we need to know, and this is my major sstantive point is where is the capitol going to come from to finance coverage for tens of millions of additional people? in my view, there was almost no discussion of this point in 1993 and '94. regardless of whether insurers are for-profit, not-for-profit, mutual, or co-ops, the need capital and the need to or a profit. criticizing insurers were earning profits is not very constructive. if there is to be private-sector role, capital can only come from investing profits or borrowing or stock issuances based upon evidence of likely future profitability and co-ops are no different. and they do ist in the health care field and some parts of the country right now. they genally rely on reinvested profits to finance expansion. and sometimes they run into conflicts between using profits for growth versus using profits to expand nefits or reduce premiums. while the new co-ops being discussed have implied federal guarantees on their debt on feeney and freddie will the co-ops be permitted to fail if they exhaust their resources or will they be bailed out? with existing health co-ops or not for profit mutual insurance companies be treated the same? as the co-ops? i think these points are worth discussing. filli nt to say a word about financin i wish there were at least some discussion how the financing of health reform relates to other priorities. i have already mentioned what i think is a relationship to the solvency of e medicare program. but aong the same lines, what and committing let's say increase marginal income-tax rates to health reform make it harder in the future to reduce the deficit? or to reform the tax system which are also worthy goals and how i can marginal rates go without slowing economic growth, which at the end of the day is the essential to pay not only for health reform but all government programs, federal, state and local. i beeve the congress will act this year. of course i thought the clinton plan would pass, too. and i did. for what it is worth, my personal preference is in current law refo and by partisanship which should be no surprise because the was the approach during my years in but i acknowledge that was then and this is now. and irementalism which was a four-letter word in 1993 and 1994 is once again a four-letter word i 2009. >> thank you, bill. dean? >> thank you very much. and thk you for including me. i ha a slightly different list from bob's, but i have tried to focus on about seven this that are the scene and seven things that are different and there is overlap, so why think you will hear some very similar to things belli slightly different perspective, and i want to focus a little bit more also on some ofhe intersection between the politics and the substance because i thinkou can extract th. door having a debate about politics, ideology and substance that's all completed and i think will determine the outcome. so, start with similarities first. you have a young idealistic democratic president who stad his political forte on health care as ariority. that's the same. number two, large democratic majorities in both the house and senate and i went back and looked. i don't know how many of you remember, bill probably does, in the house of representatives we know that even though kennedy's passed bills back in '93 and '94 that health reform didn't come to a vote on the house of the floor. they had a larger majority in the house in the and they do now. the senate is a little different. that is the ke difference. 60 is a big difference. but in the house it was the same. a lot has been made in the president's right about the kennedys moving forward. this is anotherimilarity. but at the time, you also have committees in congress, major committees produced bills, the senate, finance committee and what was then leader kennedy under sator kennedy both pruceills. so again, similarities. you had in and have now and bob refer to this, a very determined an energized minority in congress among republicans. again, versimilar to what you have now. i mentioned this befor but this mix of ideological, politica all these major issues you feel like you'vgoe under control and the the other one pops up. another similarity, but also a difference i think is at the time at least it was my recollection health ca reform dominated the ns coverage. throughout that to your period there was a lot going on with the economy but in terms of following the congress, it emed to dominate news coverage although the news outlets were very different, and it also i think for those who were there at least my recollection domited most of the timend energy and oxygen both in terms of estimating and committee time. sheila burke you limit for time in the senate and taking that up, so it was a dominant date just as it is now an crowds out other major priorities both in terms of congressional focus and in terms of time. and i think finally, on e sort of big picture simarities, this is an extensi and expensive proposition, and i remember reading the cbo report at the time as a much younger and certainly more junior staff person and just remembering the reaction of some of the members of congress that was just devastating to them how g and costly this was. i think the same i obviously true now although folks seem to have wrestled witthat difference. there's also some really big differences and i think again bob touched on these. i have got a slightly different list, but want to expand on a couple of these. we haven't touched on it today much except and joe's comments, but i think the timing of reform and the decision the presidt made, the admistration made early on to go forward with reform this year is really key. you know, if you recall in 1993i think there was an explicit decision made we were going to deal with the economy first, going to try to deal very painfully through tax increases with sending signals to markets that were going to deal with our deficit and now the president has clearly made the argument from the start and the get go that health reform is inextricably linked with the omy and a means to be done at the same me we a dealing with economic conditions and needso be done now and actually i think that one piece if i had to pull out of ours and i underand why he didt as a political matter i thi it will be one of the things that comes back to calls him and others great difficulty as they try to sell the plan forome of the reasons bob stated on the substance whichs a very difficult thing to do when he looked at the alysis and what it says of the bills we have is the costs are going to go up as a result, at least theills proded in the house by the senate so far. but the ting is key and i am going to come back to that. it makes sense politically to try to do it. talko pollsters and comre the polling at this time e president i think clearly made the gamble that he was more popular at the outsethen he will be later o that is probably the case. we have certainly seen his popurity fall, that i think a lot of us, some of us any way who are increment lists at heart, bill and probably myself, that the situation and say my gosh, we are dealing with afghanistan, iraq, the economy, why would you want to take baouts and take this on, too? but i think the president has made the calculation not just substantively but also politically i think that americans who are concerned about their job and aut the economy will be more willing to accept big change early on and that is another reason that he's pushing for it now. the other big difference,nd bill obviously as the representave of is, is to me the sort of interest of having stakeholder groups at the table. you know, i sort of jokwhen the republicans did that it's called drafting bills and secrets with special-interest but when the president does it and democrats do it it's having stakeholders at the table. [laughter] but it is interesting if a pharmaceutical industry got a health insurance indtry and others, and i think the calculation was made that those are the folks that an organized opposition some of them last time helped to defeat health re reform and keeping them at the table,alking made sense so tt is a big change. bob talked about this earlier but i think this is to me playing out in the senate and if you will see over the next co of weeks this lack of members -- numbers. interesting watching the news coverage and having the press ll chuck grassley or mike enzi a moderate republican. it's ieresting when you think about the daysf cioffi or casseaux, or others. but i think if you look at it, and this is why i think it is so challenging in the senate and to fire out beyond the three republicans and a group of six that are at the table and maybe one or two others there are not the centrists out there and you look at folks in the republican party in the senate willing to cross the ogle and wor on major reforms with democrats, you think about people like, you know, george voinovich and people like senator grassley. you think about people lhke judd gregg or john mccain and a lot of those people when you go down the list also happen to be economic conservatives, budget hawks and others so i think is going to be dficult to find more than one or two or three perhaps republicans in e senate willing to do this, so it makes it politically necessary for it toe a democratic only enterprise in a way i don't think was quite a there at t start in '93 and '94, and also i think frankly crease is the political opportunities and risks for the democratic party this time around. another big change for me and this has to do i think with the change in the media is the strength and the passion awe talked aut the effor of the president to try to tkp down on organized opposition, but i think this organic oppositn that developed and we saw a plea of in august and some of it i'm sure was further by astrf and people getting out there but only me possible by the internet and only made possible by the kind of media we have now of people saying i want to know what it means for my family and i am going to show up and for me any way fm the folks i talto in some of the town halls seem to be very organic and organized that i think wouldn't have been possible 15 years ago given the state of communication. the president again, another difference iemember thinking at the time when president clinton gave his address to congress and pulled out his pen and said if you send me a bill that fails to achieve universal coverage i am going to veto that was essentially the end of reform because i didn't see how congress could do it at the time. now this president has retain flexibility and that is one of the reasons all of us dending whe we sit and stand heard a little dferent message earlier this week and i think that was quite ientional. we can debate and i am sure we will laterhen he was trying to speak to and energized but i think that e deference to congress and flexibility at least on the details is going to be the key difference. bob touched on this so i don't want a long time but i have two other differences and then will end. the substantive debate at that time was also quite different. and i think it was in several ways. there was a lot more effort in '93, '94 i think arod but i ink was called at the time market reform. there was great faith and maged competition and the dominance or growing dominance of private insurers. there was a feeling some of those reforms could be adopted thatould help slow cost over all and we are already starting to see some evidence in the early days of managed care and frankly that is what brought a lot of folks in the republican party to theable because even though they were willing to spend some of the money they solve a hopwe could have a more organized and reformed system and negative keep your less of that now. you hear more of a quaty debate but i think a lot of it unfortunely for those focus on substance and not o politics s been obscured by this ideological sort of know when debate about the publiclan. it seems to me if you ok of the genealogy created by a political scientist and it seems to me to be political and not substantive fact exercise but as a result we haven had a lot of debate about the issues bill started to raise. what it means and cost going at this level and the chact of the debate has been different and it's been diminished in part becae we have had ch a dominant discussion of the public plan. and then iill just come to my last difference and ended their and i think the final difference fore is going to be the outcome, and i agree with bill and i will kind of go orecord and say i think the difference this time as congress is going to pass the bill. i think f the democrats to have 60 votes in the senate and t pass the bill would be legislative malpractice for them given how much this president staked politically on reform. he is way out there. he raised and spent more money than any other presidential candidate in history. if you believe the press reports mething like0-75% of his advertising dollars in the campaign were about his health care plan and about the down sides of the john mccain health care plan. so i do not think finale i an option, and i think in the senate even go eight reconciliation routt, and even if you don't get all of the centrist democratsn the senate to vote for the final bill you can get them to vote for procedural motions on 60 budget points of order and other things to move forward and in my experience recently with the presiption drug bill that in fact is what happened. in fact it was a great relie for people lik senator gregg and senapor lott and others 51 republicans and 49 democrats to be able to go home and say they voted against a prescription drug bill that wasn't paid for but they did vote with the president and leadership on e key procedural motions which got than 60 votes. so i think the outcoma this time will be different. time will be different. the question for me is not whether a bill will pass, but what will become of it in the minds of the american people? maybe not i the next election, but in the election when the president runs three years from now. i ask this questio at a dinner last night, but i'll ask it again. the question is whether this >> i'm not saying it will be repealed. but i think that those questions that the american people have and they seem to be asking in august, is how is this going to affect me? which even with a very detaid plan, i don't think can be answered. i'll close my comments like this. i heard our host on the radio, and i was on npr, and i was driving into work. i was thrilled to hr joe get a question where a women in michigan, and i thought it was a great question, her essential has been she was paying premiums. they were $1,000 to cover herself and her family. she got a letter saying her premiums were going to go up by 33%. the rational that she was given by the insurance company was there was some change in the regulation tt required more preexisting conditioned to be covered. i'm not sure if that's right or wrong. she was concerned how is this going to affect me? and it occurred to me as i listened to that, i think there's millis of questions that we can't answer that. you can't answer that after you pass a bill. i don't think as a result of the any bills bore congress 1300 page bill that's passed in the energy and commerce committee. whether that's 33% is going to ay there, whether it's going to be 20% next year, but it wod have been 30%. and think this is where the economic argument ultimately the president began on is going to hurt him. because i think most people's definition of reform, particularly those people who vote, particularly those people are insurances that i'm going to payless and get more. my accesis going to go up, but i'm going to save money. and i think the best argumen that fol who support the legislation is going to be able to make is your premiums didn't go up as quickly as they would have gone up otherwise. i think that's a very different politicalrgument on top of the imementation and other issues. so i will end there. and i look forward to the comments of my other colleagues. >> thas. i'm sure bob shares my astonishment that people don't think in deviations of the baseline terms in daily lives. but they will bthinking about that, i guess, inhe future. i was going to raise a question with you, dean. i kw i had this passed. my jok subplanted my real comment. it'll come back. go ahead. len, go ahead. >> well, joe, thanks f having me. i can't think of a more funay to spend a rainy friday morning than reliving 1993, '94. i'llry to be brief. i do think there are some important things we know now that we didn't know then. and i think they have relevant to everything we're talking abou one is we didn't know that 18,000 americans die every year from not having health insurance. which is what the substitute of medicine has taught us. if you do the math, by the way that was in 2000, it's probably 20,000 a year more. we stopped debating the clinton plan in august of '94. it's been 15 years. that's 300,000 people who have died from lack of access to timely care, which they would have had if they had normal not cadiac health insurance. we didn't know that then. i suspect if we had, we might have debated it at least a week er or at least thought aut it. second back tn premiums were about 8% of the median family income, today it's 18 headed toward 35 if you take out just ten years current trend of growthnd premium, and growth in median income. whicof course has been stagnated quite a bit by the economic excitement. third, while we knew it, only the wons talked about it. that is the single most important stress is medicare cost growth. and we knew because we were taught algebra that the baby boomers will actually retire. and they are coming. they are going to come on this president's watch, i arantee it. when they do, medicare costs are ing to increase going forward. we know we have to solve this program. we have a lot more knowledge of the system, that is to say the delivery syste we had a decent sense that there was geographic variation because of the lonely work check winnberg was doing. bu now he's got more funding and we're doi more with it. and i must say to civilians, a simple country health economist like myself, when you loo at the variation in medical practice and spending around the country, it i stunning, scary, and also full of promise. because it turns out one of the thin we've learned is it there's sompart ofs of our country that a doing this stuff right. there are some parts that are delivering very high quality care and very low cost and no one seems to mind, also no one seems to know about it. anay, we know a lot more about how do stu right. i uld say there's also, i would say, y know, a differce is there's been a growing and maybe even finally comple consensus. that excluding people from insurance because they happen to have a health condition is immor mall. and it shouldn't be continued. i agree w bill. it's not tt insurance executives are immoral. the rule forced them to play the game. so you have to change the rules. what's interesting to me is paul ryan now supported guarantee ise. this is progress in civilization. i would say. because, you know, he doesn't have a mandate of course. it's not really a serious proposal. he does agree, you have to say in public now that you are opposed to preexistinf conditions. so thiss progrs. then i would say we are equally aware of the obsolete business model of fee for service. we know now fee for service really does encourage volume, not value. and when you compare us to other countries, one pt ofur country to another, e see we're pretty good at engendering volume. afother different in the thing we know that harry and louise are now democrats. turns out harry had a cancer problem. but the point is they had a run with the way the real world works once you get sick, and they were self-employed actors and have insurance. so that's kind of intriguing. i would s some of the things that are the same, the president's job is impossible. you know, i wonder what madison could think if were designing it today. on the one had we had an ambitious president. remember, we thought he was our cket because we couldalk to bubba. clton could do all of that. and he designed a plan, actually it was a in hotel room for, you know, six months with that's where sara won't write it. and it was designed to be a perfectly lical construct, which at some level it was. it was not however a very effective political document. so this president said i got a majority in the senate and house, up can't talk to bubba, but i can talk to lots of people. and a i'm going to let congress do it because they told mef i do it then they'll complain about it. so i'm going tletongress do it. well, you know, with all do respect to the critiques of my colleagues congress did pretty well. they had tee committees in the house agree, now think about this, agree to do this in tandem. and theyot i out of all committees. in one summer. hell in two months. so is you got aill. it's not perfect. i would agree to tha and in the senate you had a chairman who was dying of cancer. but his staff, course, had pretty clear instructions. and dodd came in and took other. and you got a bill out of the health committee. the finance committee is clearly stuck. but i think it's fair to say they are going to produce something of a eni think congress did its job. the difficulty is congress didn't do its job in time for there to be more than a one pager in august, and so one similarity in n and then is that explaining complexit when people are scared is really hard. and i'm not sure anybody could do it. what i observe from the way these things have gone in various places, once you get past the shouting,hich indeed after some effort you can, when you talk to people about wha it's really about and you see the members do that or the see the people with the members do that andou see the pple talk among themselves, people can be calmed down. ther is a broad recognition that the system now is broken. people are very worried about the health care cost increases. they see no way to stop it. 80%f workers said th wondered how the health care will be paid in fhve years. and they are covered. so i think there is some hope from. the difficulty of not having moderates in the republican party is a proem. i would observe twohings. the modates are still in congress, ty are just democrats now. they are 53 blue dogs. there ain't going to be a bill that a critical mass of them dot ree with. similarity, the 15 or sod moderate democrats in the senate are in states that voted for mccain. that's some margin of consequenceá there's not going to be a bill they are going tagree to either. the difference is there's very w moderates in the republican party. i wod say there's atruggle for the soul of the republican party that is played out in some ways in the heart of chuck grassley. you got the party of linco on one hand, and you got the party of strom thurman. so there's no way they are going to reconle anything. what's left is the party o lincoln thinking about whether it's smarter to try to make this thing moderate and workable and join and make it hapn or ether it's better t go sing the song of socialism and government take over and rationing. we all agree, i believe, that if we don't get the medicare cost growth trajectory under control, the chinese wl eventually take thr money home. the good new is they can't take it really fas because they got a big old pile of dollars. and they have to people them. this ain't no place to put their money in 10 or 15 years. and then they will te it home. so we have to do this. if wha you do is scream rationing every time anybody talking about trying to save money in the sysm, you are making it impossible. just imagine closing doors and making it impsible to talk about medicare reform in a serious way in adult fashion. so i will close with this, what i call difference in the past and similarity which i think is a common vision we might actually share in this room anyway. in the past the steak holders opposed reform for all kinds of ry reasonable, self-interest reasons. what's striking to m as a would be observers is how the streak hoers are actually still at the table. and trust me, it's partly about the little deals rom is cutting in the white house it's mostly about a very hard headed perceptn about what will happen if we do nothing. what will happen iwe do nothing? is it the micare cost problem will continue to exacerbate? and since we've closed all the doors of addressing this in any serious adult way, therefore, sports fan, when the chinese starts to get nervous about interest rates we're going to put on price controls. beuse that'll work in the short run to hit a budget target and satisfy our chinese debtors, creditors. the peoe who really run health systems who understand everything'm talking about they know that. they do not want that. and that's why they keep telling the few moderates willing to deal with this, get back in there and soft this problem. let me tell you a secret, right now 2/3 of hospitals lose mon on medicare. now, 1/34 don't. therefore, you could argue that medicare doesn't underpay. we have a bunch of inefficient hospits. okay. now let's agree it's going to be hard to do reform. let's just assume we do nothing. then we still g the medicare problem. then we are going to go and do what? take money from them vithout covering people. good luck with that. really, good luck with that. there's only one way to do this sports fan. and that is together. you have got to figure out that it isa moral question, it is let's be frank a bribe. it is a bribe by time so that our hospitals can become as efficient as we need them to be. because that is the only way we are going to bend that cost curve. you're not going to gethat time or inefficiency and covering the uninsured is a big part of that. what's interesng to me, and in fact, the best part of the president's speech the other night om my point of view was the linkage between his commitment to he said spending, he means coverage expansion, the linkage of that too realize savings. now we caf argue all day about whether and how to do that. but he just said he was for linking them. that's the only way we can do th. you have to get congress on th line committed to covering people so they will get serious enough about cost control to stick with it. and you have to get hospitals enough juice to get over it so they can get with the program and become as efficient as we need them to be. i know enough people now, this is my last shot, and i prompts my wife christmas 2010,'m done. i won't coach high school football. i know enoug ceo that run the systems. the main thing they have taught me is just giving the tricking rules and give m the incentives and get out of t way. and we'll do this. because we'd rather do it than have price controls. and they will show the country how. thank you. >> thank you, len. your lastomment here makes me realize the contradiction in the, at least theouse bl, the only bill that articulate enough to understand what the contradiction is. they are going to pay for most of health coverage expansion by cutting reimbursements rates to hospitals but medicare providers; right? >> they deal with mosy tes. >> okay. 49% will be coming out of medicare, and whatever it is, it doesn't imagine, it's a huge amount of money it probably $400 billion. and so we're going to take that money up front, even though the white house and the bill refers it this as efficiency improvement, the way it really works is that in the traditional medicare fashion we take the money. and if you hospital can find an efficiency, od luck, but i you can't, we still took the money. and agree with you that putting some pressure on providers isn't such a terrible thing. the question iny mind is how ch how fast? and how honest? but then we're going to turn around nd give the money back. that's what this is really about; right? it's like a skill or fla >> be clear. most of the money in the house bill is medicare advantage. which medpac estimates we overpay them 14 to 18 presidents, that's the single biggest chunk. the second biggest chunk is the drug price change which forces the medicaid prices the medicare program that's a relatively small piece. i'm talking about buying time for them to become equipped it deal with the incentive structures that will also in everybody's proposals. >> i disagree with you that the 150 or 200 billion taken out is somehow not going to effect providers. but let's move on to jim. >> thanks, joe. thanks to all. i'm glad to be here. sorry to have to hold you up just a little bit longer before we get to questions. i'll try to be brief. lots have alrdy been said here. i think the -- start with the observation that the process we're observing this year is intentional, and it's a reflection of what happened in '93 and '94. and, you know, i think the way to understand it is just to observ what took place in the july in the committee that len was lewding to. i think he thinks they were very successful. my impression of the process is not quite like that. basically what transpired was that there was some sense of what theillsere going t look like. there was a lotf back room to negotiations with various steak holders for what would be involved in the bills. they were unvailed july 14th, and at the same time they unless then unvailed sort of let lose cbo to provide to the public their analysis of what was in those bills. and it was their intention to have it passed o of the house by july 31st. so you don't have to be a genius to see the legislative tactic involved here was to try to truncate the amount of time between analysis and votes. and, y know, that was their clear intention. and i think the fact that they re trying to jam it thrgh the process that fast without enough people getting a sense of what's going on here, what's in these bills, what does it mean? i think that contributed very substantiallto the public then saying in august, whoa. let's have more discussion. the fact is they did get it out of three committees. i'm not quite sur the process producing something that is going to with the final verdict on all of thi in any event, i do think that it's intentional that they don't want as much analys donen this as it was done last time. and, you know, one reason why i would argue that we do need a lot more time to lk at thhs is that even in the speech two ds ago the president made three very important assertions about the final product that i think are highly questionable. and need to be verified. they are the sort of says who kind of factor to this. who's going to verify that these assertions are actually taking place and the bill is is being written. some mutual party needs to say yes or in. and they are prettymportant questions. he sort of said three things. this wil not increase the definite now or in the future. by the way it used be solve the problem, set that aside. now it's just it won't increase the deficit noweady not future. this has not been anything presented by anyone that comes close to meeting that test. not by a long shot. the basic structure of what's taking place in the house iso crte a new health care entitlemento get people into theoverage, very predictably cbo and others, anybody looking is going to expect that that's going to grown at roughly the same rate as medicare and medicaid. and the offsets for it, you know, perhaps covered for ten year perd but more than will grow at 5%. you don't have to be a financial genius to see this is a probm. that you have to discoect. and it's ing to make the problem much worse, not better. and not by a little bit. by like lea and bounce. so you have this gigantic disconnect thdre. i think that's a huge issue that has to be resolved ve clearly before they vote on anythg. but someone, not the president himself just making an asseion. someone has to take a look and say yes or no or probably not. when dr. reischauer was running the cbo, you don't need a yes or no but probably yes or probably no. let's talk about senator baucus. it's not -- it's very clearly not. it doesn't come blose. now, the other contention the president made was that the bills would lower costs for everyone. families, businesses, and government. again, this is anssertion that is flies directdy in the face of any whatever analysise do have of the bills emerging say essentially the exact opposite. that cost will go up for businesses, cost will go up for the government. and i'll talk about now the one analysis that just came out the over day from the luwen group, ther are some stimulations models. he has one, and his think tank has another, and tre are some out in academias and universities. and so they did do an analysis of the house bill. and it's -- it brings outome interesting facts about what's really operative. one is that to get coverage under the bills, they do one thing. they make people buy insurance. that's basically what it is. an individual mandate that says for the vast majority of in employers who know haveo offer them something, they have to take it. so it's going toost them more money. and it's basically going to come out of their wages. everyone does the analysis, and it shows of course, predictly, but no one said this yet, on average the uner? -- uninsured would pay $1400 more. it's not going to be handed out. it's going to be oughted of their pockets. at least people should understand what the financial implications are. and this is not something that is subject to at love dispute. if you have an individual mandate for the vastajorit of people who going to get coverage are lower wage or moderat wage who now have to offer and you make them take it and not go under the exchange, they are going to end up paying a lot more money for their coverage. that's how it's designed. now that hasn't been said by anything else, as far as i can tell so far. here we are in september. and it certainly kind of leads one to question whher or not this is going to lower cost for everyone, families, businesses, or government. >> i guess let me move on to t point that joe was raising. which i think is at heart of the contradiction of what's goingn here which is the president sd also he asqerted that he's going to be able to pay for most of this, the $900 blion that will cost in the end through efficiency and medicare and medicaid. official si and waste and medicare and medicaid. and there's been a lot of talk about that. i agree that gur biggest long-term issue is how do we deal with our entitlement programs. fundamentally, what's it work? and the bill is to pushore people into fee for service medicare, open up potentially, dependingn how the public option is settl more people in the working age population in something that could very well resemble it, and finally to lever pric controls through hospital paynt, fees that are imposed, pharmaceutical companies and labs. it's essentially a price control system across the board cutting of the providers community. did it raise money for coverage? this is how we'veone it, always actually. this is how we've done deficit reduions in t past. this is nothing new. and the politics drive you to this. the easiest thing to do is to try to do fees on providers and assume that's going to cut out waist and inefficiency. -- waste and inefficiency. there is not one shred of evidce that would occur if the bill passed. all this stuff they talked about on the gund changes, and all of the tgh stuff is in the bills but in aay tt gives no one confidence that it will emerge in any kind of robust became it certainly is not the driving portion behind the savings. and so the political process we're observing is producing exactly the kinds of cuts, fees, taxes, that people all be moan and say just make t testimony worse not better because they ar arbitrary. there's no sense of quality. every hospital will g the same cut regardless of how well or badly they patient their patients. it's just a cut. that's how they are payg for this. moreover, if you -- say what you will about medicare advantage. but it seems to be the only cap stated program that has the -- something ha cod be built upon to move toward more delivery system reform. instead of that, they're going to move potenally mls of seors, single different millions of seniors out o medicare advantage, probabl with wrap-around coverage. they are going to be a total f for service environment. i'm not shower what that -- sure whathat gets on. you know, i think the then and now comparison is,ou know, that yes, we've taken a different tax this year to try to get to a different prediction of legislative passage. and maybe thatcc as being predicted. i have my doubts. but i'll leave that to othebs that are betr at that stuff. i think what we're suffering from is a businessic analysis of what's going on here. so the peoe have said, you know, you d't have to have every number on everything. you need a lite business more. i think the public needs a little bit more about who exactly is going to pay for this, and what theikely trajectory going forward. the idea that bidl is goine to produce on groun efficiency changes that's going to transform how medical care is delivered. it's not there. it's not in these bills. and to say it is is an inseion, not fact. >> ts, jim. i think i heard both of you say manage care shouldn't be a dirty word. isn't that right? >> i think we have to have coordinated care. you can call ithat you'd like. >> and i'm lived in the past. we used to call it managed care. >> yes, we did. but we moved beyond that. >> i'm sure my colleagues would like to dispute some of the outrageous statements that many of us made. woul anybody le do make a comment at this pnt? >> i'll just make a comment on jim's characterization of the timeline in sort of what's happened more as a conspiracy as sort of this is the way o system works. you know, i think genuinely the various committees had very ambitious schedules in which they wanted to get bills through a lot sooner than it turned out to be. and that's because they knew the summer recession was going to come, and if they weren't at a certain point they knew the momentum would begin to ebb. it wasn't let's get this out at the last moment, rush it through before we have the kinds of information we need to do sensible votes. then there was the hope. they tried and they weren't suessful. and so the reported out bills sort of in july when they had hod to do this in may or june. and, you know, while i agree withim that, you know, it's really essential before we go down one of these paths that we have a full array of analyses to exam. the legislative process is such that you have many bites at the apple. and there are just going to be, they knew a very differt bill from the senate comes out the senate that would come out of the house. the real place that this will be written hf it's written will be in congress. and at that point one would hope that we would have a whole lot more information from cbo from other outside entities. i don't think it was as trible as y portrayed it to be. >> if i cou dense myself for a minute. i wasn't trying to s that is is -- everybody maps out -- every white house mapped out a legislative strategy. 's not a -- they have to do that. the practicalalpractice if they didn't. >> the amazing thing is they believe it. >> yeah. >> notwithstanding evidence to the contrary. >> if you listen to the statement that are being made, that's exactly what the point is. if you gett past the first vote, at which point it becomes a certain momentum builds toward passage. if you start having votes, people start committing. the fact tha information can come in at the 11th hour and 50th minute that said wait a second, this is having effects. it's too late. we have to pass this thing. and i think, you know, i really think that's sort of what's at work here. >> i think that time was not a friend of the clinton plan and myeelection was the president said y have a plan in 100 , and he didn't. because of this 100-day pledge, the media, some of the media developed skills assigned to very abl people who had not been looking at health care before but were up to speed by the time the plan was actually out there. one the striking things at the ti, and this is amazed me, and i know it's a different world of media. but there was not single network th has as many of one pern assigned to cover healtcare. but some the newspapers did and they counted for more than "l.a. times" "new york times," i'm noture how many more, people could take a look, write the pro and con, and then there was time to sit back and take a look. so i think that was really challenge -- if i were trying to manage this, i would get it through just as fast as possible. if problems arise later, once the text is out there, just say we're gking to clean tha up next year or after the next election. >> you know, for that matter, at least if the house bill is any indication, a lot ofhings congress probably be wilng to make a call on, dhe most obvious is their fiveines op the benefits, and there's a committee that will deliberate on this specifics in mysterious fashion. and so it's not just we'll fix it next year, we'll f it over the next five or tenears. >> i would like t say you can't please people who don't want to solve the problem. clinton had a committee work on a detailed benefit package that was were detailed of anything i've ever seen with the exception of blueprints after submarine. you put it to a committee, and it's a trick to get it through. if you canlmost solve the problem, we can't solve the problem. that's what you have. you have people that don't want the bill to @ass. peop who do. our job, roughly, is to shed some analytical light and to try to push the vail back of i guess ornswer. i thk it's fair to say one thing needs to be said here. th bill if it does pass ain't going to be perfect. it is alro not going to be our last st a making changes to the health care system. we are not trying, no one is trying, some peop are trying to claim thiss what's being tried, no one is trying to remake the entire health care syem. the whole point of you can keep what you got if you like it is to change every human being's relationship to their health insurance. even if you had big firm out there on your own. i think let's all take a deep breath. and let's realize it's a process. it's not one model you build and it flies or it doesn't, it's a process. >> you're absoluty right. let's see if the audience can bring some new insight to at leas the panel. when you, let's see, iope somebody isut there with a microphone. are you? step right up. we have some questions here in the front. please comeuickly. the tv audience is getting restless. come on. okay. go ahead. and please identify yourself and actually ask yr question. susan friedman, as the process moves to a conclusion, can you comment on what the impact of not having senator kennedy in the room could be? thank you. >> i would certainly i'm sure everybody has an opinion here. i would say the impact of his illnessas already been seriously felt because i know r a fact senator hatch and senator -- and his illness prevented that from being possible opinion and what you got is what you got. an unfornately that had the spillover effect of taking that frustration and sadness and hurt into the finance committee where it was even harder to deal with. so he's already, his illness was gely impactful in preventing what i would call a decent chance at bipartisanship very early on. so. >> the traditional aie fiddle with the microphone. it never makes them any betr. >> in rei '93 and '94 there was a group of workers who worked in the mid. one doesn't have the sense and there also was a deal to be had at that point that some folks rejected. one doesn't have the sense now that there are democts as well republican, there aren't enough moderate democrats willing t buck their leadership and moderate republican willing maybe to buck their leadership to create that center that compromise plan that is the 75 or 80! that we quote unquote all agree with. >> i guess i would say, i think that, while that is true in number, i think that process too an extent this time while it's not a perfect analogyas been taking place inside the gang at six. i think those guys in the finance committee, in part the difference last time was that you in the senator if you think about t mainstream group in '93 and '94. they were -- the chairman of the finance committee was not involved. i'll leave it at that. and so i think there is, and i thk when you talk to those members. and, you know, despite some of the accusations that maybe some of the replicans don't really want to deal. i think those guys are having serious discussions frkm what i can tell. i think that is the closest thing in the debate. i think what's changed is that in part that you're right. there are fewer of those folks on both sides who are republican and democrat who are willing to create something in the middle that might work. having said that, you know, it didn't work in '93 and '94. my view maybe a littl bit different than lens. i think if that president would have sent a signal like this president that he was flexible, it might have worked. but it didn't in '93 and '94. i think the democrats have decided from a political stand point, it is a smart move that they are going to take the majorities in the house and senate and they are going to try to do something which is more or ss, while it'sot everything that the party would want, it is closer to what the democrats would pass rather than something in the middle. but i do think there has been honest givand take. >> one of the striking differents is the numr, the mber of congresses who have immersed themselves in details of hea issues. and i think don't think that's a surprise. after 1993 and 1994 there was re profitable, maybe that's not wrong word, but more aas where you can get bette results thaneah care. it was taken off the table for a long time. as i think about the republican side, and i don't mean to leave names out, but the people who were involved really were immersed in this. it wasn't something they got involved with. i think the list is pretty shgrt now. which i don't mean that as a negative thing. health care is extremely complicated. and i know i'm a slow learner. and i was immersed. honest to god, i didn't tnk i had a fuel for the latiship. i was really into it for four or five years. so i don't know what impact that has one way or the other on what we're talking about today. bu i think it is worthwhile seeing that one of the impacts of what happened in '93 and ' was to see a lot of congressional energies channeled in other directions. >> i woulded to get back to art' question about therosa bipartisan conversation. the white/bnett team that had the account lieberman there was. it had a decent bipartan coalition. after the election, and a couple of retirements. there are 15 now. but that process never really stopped. and that keeps some. and then there is the conversation going. then this is the 13r so moderate democrats that have the group cochaired by carpe lincoln and -- and the blue dogs in the house will exert. it would be better if we can get republicans to participate i flea that' process is finance that's sincere. there are people outside that ar sincere. >> anybody that wts it ask a question, keep your hands up. okay. i st of have it, go ahead. >> hi, i'm tom merrill. i have a question for len. i suspect you have a lot of headaches. i wanted to bring one up aut the public option. as a lot of people know there are several different versions of what the public option might mean. i think one of the ambiguities ishich one was he talking about. one is nonprofit regular insurae company that happens to have the words u.s. government. the other is much more robust medicare style thing. and you get the sense that a lot of people in the house are going to say no unless they get that second thing. i know you've thought a lot about this. ju one question, two questions, one where do we stand? and two, is it going to blow up the process? >> well, that's a great question. i would go back to dean's point earlier. this issue has gotten a ridiculous amount of attention. i would say frankly the reason it's gotten so much attention is 's a convenient device for the far left andar right to drive the bipartisan conversation away. what the left wanted when they saw the majorities was a democrat only bill that they could get most of what they want, which some of the left do want government run health care. not a majority, but it is a critical mass. the right because of the unioj started emphasissing this, right after the election, suddenly that was the big iue. heritage is smart enoh to figure out, boy, thank you very much. you just gave me the perfect issue. see, i told y they wanto do government to stop it from really gainingraction. so you have the left and right saying the public option is what it's all abut. what the president said wednesday nht by my lights was public option is important to me. i think it could add value. it's not first order importance. and he for the first time at least in my watching of advertise tea leaves opened the door to olympia snowe's idea that is to say like in the drug bill where the provision was if we don't have enough competition in every market in the country then we could allow a public provision of the medicare drug. as it turned out, of course, as a lot of us would have predict. that's not a bad way to frame. because it gives the left something to say if the market isn't working. there are a lots of mkets let'be clear. if it's not working then we will have it. but if it is working what's the point? a lot of what we've done is teach democrats. it's atruggle. but you can. you can'tay medicare rates, because you'rgoing to kill the hospitals that are losing money. blue dogs had an amendment to push it up to market rates. and in fact you probably are not going to add competitive value in marketsik denver or seattle whe they haveobust mpetition. you have a much greater aware ness at the president did was en the door to the prosect that he's not going to say. >> can i add one thing on the public plan even though i said we debated it too much. one thing in response to the medicare thing which ateast, i think that the problem with the publ plan was it was a compromise between two wings of the democrat party, one who wanted single player and on wanted it build. it was a come promize. but it made itery, very diffict t reach bipartisan becausth ses ft like they had giv on it. i think one thing that's different, and i hear this a lot. i think it's worth responding thatou think the medicare pretty drug was different in at leastwo or three different ways. one was at t time there was not a standard alone, you know, risk bearing insuran product that covered only drugs. and so i think there was a legitimate question among the policymakers to whether this would haen even with all the rules in place. to have an entitlent program where you wante to have some way of the benefits that were livered h think was more of a request. where as now you do have insurer who arelaying by some of the kinds of rules secondit was triggered in the different region. it wasn't a national plan. and third, i and i think, you know, one of the mor important distinctionr is the government wasn't going to come many and at a point negotia. it was goi to be, if it were ever triggered, was going to be essentially pbms. the government would bare the risk. because wt it would show is there weren'tore than two plans. they were going to go o and negotiate their own rates. it wasn't going to be the kin of i think more robust government plan. i think at least to me that's a distinction worth highlight being of what theisk of my view o the public plan has been that it's been a stalking horse. and that the general idea that the more attention that's been given to it, the queasier it will be once it is off the table to okay we got rid of that. now you request support the rest of the bill. >> that's just one aspect to have a public plan or not to have a public plan which people haven't focused on. that is under some constructs it saves money. and if youon't have it, you got to come up with some other form of paying for this. and what we spent the summer doing is crossing all of o pay fors off the list. and, you know, you can argue that for or agast the public plan. but you have to remember it has a cost component to it toto. >> this is a good point. in essce,t either worked or it doesn't. and of course we don't actually know. let's see, there was auestion back there often times as the bias against seeing the people back. the person right back there. >> hi, peter levin, jim has raised some major isss tt would impact on any plan, and i wonder what len and bob think about that. we are going to be forcing more people into the f for service world. we have no idea how to control or improve quality. 're goi to halmer hospitals without respect to whether they are efficnt r inefficient. and this will happen if you put more money out there in the insurance system. i wish i could say something good about trying to save medicare advantage. but at least it was an attempt at having a structure to do this. and the crazy ia about having a medical home and paying $3 a month or somethingo manage the care kf people is just plain whacky they don't want to do it in the first place. that's not going to motivate them. what do we dobout pumng more money into the fee for service whether there is a shortage of family med cane and primary care. >> well, it' a great question. i would say two things. one let's be careful about medicare advan. some of it is indeed delivering high quality coordinated car at wld not be the private fee for service piece o it. which is basically juct a sheer overpayment for no good reason. other than ideology. ich is expensi. so what i would say is you could go to a system like i believe ll be the final proposal out of theinance committee. and i think therefore it will win in conferenc and that was the competition bidding. where you allow them to bid, they bid market -- they bid what they bid. and they offer services, ande actually have a market. what a concept? and you allow them to go forward. you try to do competitive bidding in the90s and jon kyl killed it. it was impressive. bob remembers all of this. because he didn't want competition in their town. they preferred to be overpaid by formula. i would too. it's a good deal. but it doesn't promote competition. you have to agree you have to have competition. second you are connect we d not have a payment formula that's going to alter the incentives to delir high quality care tomorrow. i do not believe we're going to create one in baltimore. i do believe we have a prett good sense of payment structures thate want to move forward. they include integrated health systems, whateveyou want to call it. i will call it where you literally would pay a full global fee. we used to say capitation. and they take actability and th show. there are very good systems doing very well. also, you could do bundling where you go across hospital, physician, and create incentives to coordinate. and there are lots of places without integrated systems, the concrete example that i've written above where they achieve outstanding results at very low cost just by sharing information and building incentives gn their own at the moment. and then you could do some kind of bundling whi is after all how we spend most of the money. yes, some versions make no sense. but having a common shred if you will incentive structure between primary care clinicians who shou be managing, speciasts and hostal ocsionallyaving a shared savings kind of bundle might be a smart way. there are a lot of private ensurers what ihink weave is a system where you wt to, as joe said, get someavings up front from taking away from private fee for service and making everybody else bid, rationalize some of the more egregious pces distortion likes of what we do for in office equipment. and build incentive, if you will, experiments, pilots, whatever you want to call them. and i would predict if you do the incentives and you make it clr that we are going to me fee for service as it is less profitable o you, then moving in a world where it's far more accountability and coordination and care, i predict most providers will go there. and there's a lot of them who are ready to teach the rest of them how. >> i'd like to comment just on the context on which i see the recent part of our discussion. when medicare and medicaid went on the books, there was an inflation of health care cost. i worry what happens now isn't that the uniured are getting no care. but they would certainly get more care and should get than they have been getting. which in itself would-be could be an significant ilationary elemen beyond that a lot of the fund raising payment systems are increasing cost for the providers. they are going to try to pass thosengs on. i can't eat them. which is sarate inflationary impactn aition to just having more people ableoay the bill. i think in fact things that are being discussed have great promise longer term for producing savings. but don't think the necessary should be thought of in terms of where we have been the last few yearsut aught to be tught of in a context of howo you deal with a substantial increase in the inflation rate beyond what we've had a recent years. i think that's scary, but a real possibit >> just a commentn the language that's been used, which is we'reoing to force people into fee for service. what we do right now is bribe them to participate in medicare advantage which we have no substantial evidence that the quality of care is significantly better than those in unmanaged fee for service. in the long run what we want to do is play for performance here. and have the pay for performance across tree -- three fd groups. those who are in fee for service or something like