he had to go back and sell it to the american people after the bill was passed. and then when it was signed, remember when we were all talking about how vice president biden said this is a big deal? that brought a lot of attention to it. but the communication on this landmark legacy piece for this president just didn t make it over to the american publics ears for them to grasp and take in. then you have this confusion about this extension for those who did not complete the process at the very beginning when there was the crush, the crash of the system, i guess you would say. they have another two weeks if you were already in the system and did not finish. you have that two-week extension for those in the system at the very beginning. but for those of you who don t have insurance, you ve got to do it before midnight tomorrow night. also, this is what s going to make people realize that you have to have it. the fact that there will be penalties come next filing year for taxes. if you d
health reasons. four years and seven days since president obama signed the affordable care act into law. there are 6 million more people with stories like those americans who have signed up for insurance through the affordable care act exchanges ahead of tomorrow night s deadline, proving we ve come a long way from glitches and snags in a very rocky website rollout. just this month, 70,000 people enrolled every day. and in a final weekend push, supporters held more than 500 grassroots events across the country. now, how did republicans mark this final month of sign-ups? you guessed it, with a 54th vote to dismantle the law, proving that the right strategy for the 2014 midterms will still consist of dismantling or repealing a law that s given millions of americans access to health care. with increasing numbers of voters sharing their stories of coverage, it s time for democrats to go on offense on the affordable care act. it s time to own it.
and a lot of these states are already putting some of their own money into fuel subsidies. this is more complicated by the fact that the fuel subsidies were cut as well in this congress. what astonishes me is the incredible hypocrisy of a group of people who are all for states rights until the states do something they disagree with. right. and they re almost proud to stick it to children and poor people. i mean, rick perry, running around talking about jobs in texas, a fifth of his children have no health insurance. a quarter of all adults have no insurance. the average wage in texas is lower than it is in the state of vermont. i m astonished by these people. i don t think beating up on poor people gets you to win elections. i think this is one of the reasons republicans are having such trouble winning presidential elections. you make a good point. it struck me as well when they talk about states rights and let s leave it to the states and
it s time to run on it and not away from it. joining me today are april ryan, white house correspondent for american urban radio network, and jonathan cohn, a senior editor for the new republic. thanks for joining me. so april, i want to start with you. you know, it was a pretty big announcement for the white house, i think it was thursday, that they were able to announce 6 million sign-ups with days to go. we ve still got, what, until midnight tomorrow might. this is a good sign for the democrats and for the president. yeah, it s a great sign. i ve got new numbers for you, karen. they reached the 6-million mark, but i ve got new numbers. they re saying that they have exceeded 6.3 million now. so that s from my sources close to aca. and not only that, the numbers of those that crush that s coming in, in the last couple days, it s been like 100,000 people enrolling friday, saturday, and even into today. the numbers are coming, the crush is coming for this effort, for this aca market
and the republican governor vetoed it because people don t necessarily agree with allowing businesses to discriminate against an entire subset of people. somehow, hobby lobby has changed the discussion here to say, oh, we re not discriminating against our 26,000 employees who won t get the same benefits as the rest of the country. we re just a mom and pop christian organization trying not to pay for contraceptives. i think they ve done a great job trying to change the conversation. and just changing the conversation a little bit, one of the things i keep wondering about, laura, we re also not really talking much about how insurance companies pay for things like viagra or pumps. other types of instruments. so it s perfectly all right to do those kinds of things. yet, when it comes to contraception for women, which as we know many women use contraception not necessarily for family planning. for some it s migraines. there s a range of health reasons that a woman might do so. and yet, th