0 to obama care. today the department of health and human services released a report finding that the aca will lower premiums by an average of 20%. but one man's affordable care is another man's train wreck. locomotive pile-up is the latest craze for house republicans. locomotive pile-up fueled by a zeal to repeal. and this week -- this week was no exception. >> the law isn't wonderful. it is a train wreck. and you know it, i he know it and the american people know it. even the president knows it. >> a democrat senator recently referred to the president's health care law as a train wreck. but what many of us don't understand is why he would allow big businesses to exit the train safely and leave individuals and small businesses on the train for the crash. >> american people need a full repeal of this train wreck legislation. >> i think what we're seeing is they're finally admitting this is a train wreck and it is not ready for prime time. >> a train wreck not ready for prime time. joining me today, distinguished senior fellow at demo, bob herbert. "the washington post's" ezra klein, bloomberg view's megan mccarten and "newsweek" correspondent john green. joining us from the front lawn of the white house, communications director jennifer palmieri. thank you for bearing with the heat, not just rhetorically but the physical heat. >> it's all right out here. happy to be here. >> jennifer, this narrative that republicans have spent years crafting, the anti-aca narrative, we may laugh at the train wreck metaphor but there is talk out there that the law is a mess. i know a huge part of this is convincing young people and specifically young people of color in certain states to sign up for the affordable care act. as the cbo reports, if 7 million people sign up, 2.7 million have to be younger and healthier people. are you confident right now 76 days before this thing rolls out that you can get those numbers? >> we are. it is 75 days. we all have calendars in our office -- >> even fewer. even fewer. >> even fewer but we feel ready for it. what you saw the president today today is talk about some of the benefits that are already in place and in terms of holding insurance companies accountable, obviously as you noted, rates -- insurance rates in new york are going down. we want people to understand while a lot of the law needs to be implemented, of much is already happening and it is going well and it is already providing health help for real people. in terms of implementation, the president has always said this is not likely to be the one enterprise in human history that doesn't encounter problems. it is a big undertaking and we understand -- that's why we're taking it not just seriously but smartly, we think, in terms of when we encounter problems, pausing, trying to deal with them. one example is when we had an original application applied to be part of the health care exchange, it was 17 pages. that it was too long so we trimmed it down to three pages. but in terms of reaching out to the youth, this is something that thankfully the obama world, if you will, has a lot of experience in and does pretty well. we have a big challenge ahead of us but we feel we've done a lot of research and statistical work on who to reach and how you reach them. it is a lot of young people and we have plans to do that but you won't be surprised but will be interested to know that probably the best way to reach these young people is through their mothers. even through young adults it is not surprising to learn they'll probably listen to their moms if their mom tell them to sign up for insurance. so we also have a plan in how to include moms and women in that outreach as well sglp in terms point the republicans are standing in the way of making sure that their constituents are able to get affordable coverage. that's for the republicans to worry about and our job is to do it as best as we can. with the employer mandate what we found there is you know, 96% of businesses already provide insurance for their employees and people are concerned that the reporting requirements for big employers is a complicated business of business. the decision didn't affect people actually getting coverage. it is just about reporting on it so we thought it was wise to take a year, to work with businesses to get it right. that's what we're trying to do to show that when we encounter a problem we address concerns and it is important that we bring everyone along in this process. i know a lot of the republicans yesterday were talking about this being a train wreck and i note that today senator baucus who a democrat who had had some early concerns about implementation wrote an op-ed today where he said that he had a lot of faith and confidence in our rollout and that we were going to be able to do this. so people have concerns, we want to address them. whether it is members of congress or businesses, understand that we got a plan to get this in place and we're going to stick at it. >> the white house communications director, jen palmie palmieri, thank you as always. we will be hoping to hear more from you in the next 74 days. ezra, you have an incredibly thorough piece in the "washington post." >> it is very thorough. >> there is so much misinformation and confusion about exactly what is going on with the aca, how screwed it is, whether or not there is a train wreck at the end of the line, whether or not this thing is actually well on track. i think what's great about your piece is you examine it -- there are a number of different criteria that you look at but the piece is titled "obama's last campaign." i thought that was really apt title insofar as the campaign infrastructure that obama used in 2008, 2012 to get to the white house, microtargeting, understanding consumer behavioral patterns, how people make choices, where they go for information and specifically targeted young people is all going to come in to play with the aca and getting those young people to sign up. that said, there seem to be a lot of incentives. i think 98% of people under 30 -- or 96% of people 21 to 27 will get income subsidies if they choose to sign up. >> it is of the people we think will be in the marketplace. what's important is to back up here and say that the key thing is that they actually have a pretty clear plan. there is this big meme about obama care. it is not that complex. but they know what they're doing. in order to get these insurance marketplaces to have premiums reasonably low, of the 7 million "conservative are fooling themselves if they are expecting a backlash driven by problems around implementation. the infrastructure is in place to make it clear to a critical mass. snafus will be real enough but broadly speaking the rollout is going to be a huge success. i think certain parts of this seem clearly to be working. as ezra ponts oints out in his , the white house didn't build in the resistance from red states, from states not setting up exchanges, from governor who did not want to expand the medicaid rules. there is resistance there that they are now having to deal with sort of as this thing is getting rolled out. >> i think a lot of the republican opposition is essentially faith based. their strategy instead of putting forward a positive strategy to draw a wider audience they've seized on obama care and said polls show this is unpopular. one of the things that comes through is that the obama administration doesn't know how a voluntary program. the problem is some seniors got too many subsidies. some didn't get enough. but it was a voluntary program and it wasn't this big. it wasn't nearly this complicated and working up the subsidies, it's $37 a month. this is not the same as, oh, i just found out that i have to pay $700 a month for insurance instead of the for example someone i know out in california, their policy's getting canceled and they'll have to pay more because they had a catastrophic policy before. so they're getting more coverage but they didn't want more coverage. they wanted not to be paying $700 a month. so these sorts of things, it is just different. the proof is going to be in the puddi pudding. we're going to find out and obviously the administration is going to say this is going to be awesome and everyone is going to love it and republicans are going to say this is going to be the worst thing ever. we'll know in 75 days. will we know? new york, california you are seeing premiums drop. the h had hs report says you'll see 20% average drop in insurance premiums. what i worry about is because red state governors have been so reluctant to embracing this by either setting up exchanges or expanding medicaid rules, what if you have a situation where the aca is great in red states, bad in blue states. >> we have no idea how the rollout is ultimately going to fare but this is a complicated program with different situations in different states. i thought that the story about the premiums dropping in new york was factually accurate but gave the impression there is a real drop in premiums. that's not the case. i think it will be hard to sign up a lot of these young people. one, they aren't interested in getting health insurance. they're not interested in taking on additional expenses and there is no real penalty, if i understand it correctly. if they don't do it. >> well, there is a penalty. there is also the incentive of -- well, there are incentives. >> will they be able to enforce the penalty is the question. i've been talking to young people about employment and the problem which i guess we'll be talking about later in the show, the problem of the college debt that they are dealing with. the question of whether the government is going to track them down, actually impose and enforce a penalty for not having gone on and bought health insurance i think is problematic. >> they won't do that. just for the record. way the law is structured, the irs can't come and find you and take away your wages. that said, in massachusetts, people pay the penalty. the one place disagree with bob, we know a lot about how young adults feel about insurance. they want it very, very, very badly. that doesn't mean they want to pay all that much for it and you get into kwefsquestion of affordability. when they get offered, it is 65% take it. it is not that much more than older workers. people go to jobs where they can get insurance. i think we probably overvalue health insurance a little bit in the country but nevertheless, people want it. if it is affordable they are going to get it. >>fy could push back against this, sure, if you have a job where they are offering health had insurance you will take the health insurance. >> you want a job first. >> it is only a little more than half of four-year college graduates from 2006, 2007 who even have full-time jobs now. then you have all these kids who are not college graduates, who are not working who don't have money and the number one health insurance, purchase of health insurance is not one of their top priorities. >> but it is still something -- there's a lot of polling on this. they want it. the question is, is it affordable. >> do they want to pay $200 to $300 for it which is what a lot of people are -- >> or pay a penalty that where you get nothing. right? >> that's the other trade-off. >> the massachusetts example is you pay this money, you get nothing or you pay more money and you debt -- >> in massachusetts young adult insurance went down. >> in 1966, as medicare was just about to launch, nobody knew whether the new program would provide benefits to millions or fail completely. what will happen then on that summer day when the federally insured system of paying hospital bills becomes a reality, a "new york times" reporter wondered in the story at the time? there will be folks in lines at hospitals with no rooms to put them in? future tense is something that's been with us for a very long time as far as big social programs and their rollouts. let's just take a page from the no-drama obama speech that we just heard and be easy. after the break, many up. and coming shag gee haired teen has graced the cover of "rolling stone" but only has been a suspected terrorist. we'll discussion the outrage over the dzhokhar tsarnaev cover and the examination of exploitation next. 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