0 news. look at this. this is so great. look at the headline. >> taylor swift and all five living presidents recite gettysburg address. repeating our top story -- taylor swift and all five living presidents recite the gettysburg address. nothing against taylor swift. i will let you finish. but that headline is the best new thing in the world today. abc news you win you. win, you win. now time for "the last word" with lawrence o'donnell. have a great night. [ laugher ] >> the first enrollment numbers are in for the affordable care act. washington now has to fight over what the numbers mean. >> nobody in this room. nobody in this country believes that republicans want to fix the website. >> another big hearing on capitol hill. >> congressional hearings with the health care rollout. >> we have seen a handful of hearings. >> republicans did most of the grilling obviously. >> you have the fancy title. >> you are the chief information sebelius told reporters since october 1, 106,185 people have enrolled. 79,000 enrolled through state exchanges. and about 27,000 enrolled through that federal exchange. that has the had so many problems. that is about 21% of what the obama administration had expected to enroll before the exchanges were open. another 975,407 people have completed applications for insurance but have not yet made the purchase. many of those people are shopping for family plans. and the administration estimates that is coverage for 1.5 million people. an additional $396,261 people have signed up for medicaid. secretary sebelius insisted today enrollment under the affordable care act is comparable to early days of enrollment under the health care reform law that massachusetts enacted in 2006 under governor romney. >> we can reasonably expect the numbers will grow substantially over the next five months as they did in massachusetts which enrolled only .3%. or 123 people in its first month. we know from experience in the bay state that people tend to research and kid theconsider th options talk things over with their families before making a purchase. >> joining me now, from "the washington post," and professor of economics at mit who worked on the massachusetts health care reform law and -- the affordable care act. okay, professor, it is up to you to tell us how -- the affordable care act is doing, compared to the early days of the massachusetts law. >> the big issue, it is too early to make a strong conclusion. the bottom line is people don't sign up until they have to. >> we are doing better than massachusetts. as secretary sebelius said .3% in massachusetts. 1 1/2% of the federal level. goal of 7 million. that is not a relevant comparison. relevant comparison happen in march. we need new focus on not the week to week and day-to-day, to date. >> professor, quickly, what do you make of roughly all most four times people enrolling in medicaid than -- than purchasing with or without subsidies, the approximately sees from the -- policies from exchanges. >> we had a program that was free, got higher enrollment than the program people had to pay. people soon up for what its free first. once again as the deadline approaches for the mandate. people rush in, healthy people coming in towards the march 31st date. >> e.j.dion, democrats listening to the professor, professor gruber here tonight, democrats in the house are not staying calm about this. >> i thought finally, republicans in disarray had replaced the old democrats in disarray stories. but it looks like we're become to the old story. the president did say what the president said. and there was no, there were no kind of qualifications. he said, period, at the end of then sense t when you do health care reform. you change insurance markets. there was going to be cost shifting here. and some policies, both junk approximately see policies that weren't worth much would go off the market. you have people with premium increases. the question now is how can you fix this, or can you fix this, some sorment t of alternative tk about and a lot of us are anxious to see that. jonathan gruber, the president said this last week in his interview, with chuck todd here on next. that he was looking at some kind of fix to the law. this was before bill clinton made the same kind of suggestion. but, democrats in the house have no idea what that its. what would you suggest to the president and the democrats as a fix for this. >> i would first of all, say there is no easy fix. because this isn't a huge problem. we are talking about a small slice of americans. a political problem more than substantive problem. the most important fix its get the website working. the administration always figured there would be some losers, they figured at this point. there would be so many winners to point to that they could make the overwhelming case for the law. the web site glitches have take any way their best argument against their anecdotes of the losers. we don't have. ultimately, many times as many winners to point to. the best thing they can do is get the website working and get the number of winners up. so that they can have positive stories to point to. >> pre fessofessor, i agree wit. in any economics classroom. this is not a huge problem. as you know in the back room with elected democarts, politically, this its a huge problem. especially for democrats in states like florida, tennessee, others in the house, who are very worried about this. they need, they're saying they need to hear something from the president, something real, or they're going to move and vote with this, some of them vote with the republican bill friday. >> right. and as, the shame of it would be. act in pan rick. act in panic. as a percentage of the whole. we are not talking about a large percentage. you are talking, correct me if i am wrong, professor. there could be in the end, up to 4 million people who will have some real changes in their actually completely real, repeal it. so, professor -- that's the challenge. what i heard jay carney say, they seem to be thinking of something narrowly targeted so it would help some people who have lost their policies and, through some cracks in the law now, can not find something affordable where they live. to replace it. that would be -- an even smaller group than what people are generally talking about here? >> yeah, i think, look, there is no free lunch. as e.j. said. if you are going to reform insurance markets. so that everyone has to pay one fair price for insurance. which is by the way what the majority of americans want. vast majority want fair, nondiscriminatory insurance markets to. do that. that means everyone has to pay the same price. that means some healthy people are going to have to pay more. you can't have a world where no one pays more, some people pay less. that can't happen. some people are going to have to pay more. >> that is the speech that was never made by any democart supporting the affordable care act. that little passage that you said, that you said. some people will have to pay more. >> that's right. now we are in the situation with unhelpful comments by democrats, president clinton. in that situation, the line for president obama is what's the most he can do to be responsive to this population without messing of the goals of the law. something like the upton bill would fundamentally undercut this law with allowing healthy people to stay out of the pool. you will induce insurers to raise the rates in 2015 and jud undercut the find a way, to address the people's concerns. >> e.j. dion, for those of us there, in 1983, 1984. watching president clinton fail to get any legislation brought to a vote in either the house chamber or in the senate. managed to get some forms through committee. but in the clinton bill, none of the people in question, that we are talking about tonight would have been allowed to keep their substandard insurance. >> it didn't work out so well. because of that because there were no warnings. you really have a choice this week of bad policy versus dangerous politics. because to disrupt the markets now, would just be to throw in the towel. that's why -- the upton bill is so clever. because the it sound very reasonable. but it would actually undercut the whole structure of obama care. but you can't let the democrats in vulnerable districts go out there without the cover of some fix that would help at least some people. >> e.j. dion, jonathan river. >> go ahead, jonathan. if i could jump in. one last point. the election is not until november. we didn't have to react. if by march things aren't working well. let's give them coverage. we are overreacting now. >> e.j., jonathan. thank you for joining us. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> coming up, senator elizabeth warren tells the senate something that they do not want to hear. just an amazing performance by elizabeth warren in the senate today. you have got to see this. in the "rewrite" tonight. it is team to welcome conservatives to the crusade against the death penalty. we are on the verge of of a big bre breakthrough in our politics with the death penalty, possible surge of libertarians and conservatives opposing is. a republican politician wants to get into a fight with the pope? with the pope? who would do that? the last words chaplain father james martin will join us. u. i got this. no, i'll get it! no, let me get this. seriously. hey, let 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