tea party and similar groups across colorado are saddened to hear of threats made upon democratic lawmakers in response to the passing of the health reform legislation. those sentments were echoed by tea party groups all around the country. will the democrats in their latest attempt to distract, you the american voter, from their disastrous health care legislation, women it be successful? joining me charles gasparino and from project 21 deneen borelli is with us. this is a total distraction. will it be successful? they probably wish it will be. they need to look in the mirror liberal democrats. thanks to them, they are the ones who have propelled the emotional state of the american people. they ve rammed all kinds of things down our throat. health care, next is probably cap and trade which is going to be a job killer. we are getting rolled, plain
so it s a powerful step in the right direction. very rarely do i think that legislation represents giant leaps. but the health reform legislation does represent a giant leap. why did the urban league decide to take a closer look at the hispanic disparities in hispanic achievements? it s a great question. and over the last six or seven years as we ve done this report, each and every year the question of the status of the nation s hispanic and latino communities has come up. and we decided this year that we needed to answer that question. so we ve added the hispanic index, and it s going to be a permanent part of our report every year. and what needs to be done to help close these gaps for the minority communities? i think what s most important right now is for the congress and the president to get behind a very robust jobs bill. something significant. something that will put 1 million to 1.5 million people to
americans. so you ve got the disproportionatety. and the tough side of it is that combined with the housing crisis and the foreclosure crisis, it threatens to really erode many of the gains that were made in the 1990s, the 1980s, and the 1970s. and on health insurance in particular, not only in the jobs area, but health insurance and housing as well, you see real we re elated, joyous, celebratory because of the passage of the health reform legislation and the president s signature yesterday. i had a chance to be at the department of the interior with everyone who was there. because what it does is it s a giant leap towards closing this health insurance gap. 20% or so of african-americans without health insurance. 10%, maybe 12% of whites. no doubt, this bill is going to go a long way to close that gap.
reduction. you re talking now about medicare in this budget saying it will cut about $100 billion in medicare over the next ten years? the net impact of the health reform legislation is to reduce the deficit by more than $100 billion. is that medicare or other stuff? that includes all in, the legislation as a whol. the question is, i guess, if you think that it is a reasonable proposal to cut $500 billion in medicare costs projected over the next ten years, why wait to get a new health care bill? why not just do it now and start reducing the deficit? oh, because this is part of an overall package that balances various considerations. remember where those savings are coming from. they re coming from, for example, reducing overpayments to medicare advantage plans, part of a coherence whole where you re not only getting the medicare savings, but also doing other things to help put the
let s get back to the topostory. the president unveils his budget proposals. let s talk to peter orszag, joining us from washington. thanks very much for coming in. good to be with you, wolf. let s talk about medicare for a moment. in the senate version of the health care bill, there s a proposal to cut over the next ten years about 500 billion in medicare. is that right? that s about right, yes, sir. isn t this budget today, do you include that cut? what we do is take the average of the house and senate bills and include that as a placeholder in this budget. how much does that come to? it averages deficit reduction a little north of $100 billion. there s been some discussion of this, so let me point out we have more than $1.2 trillion in deficit reduction included in the budget. even if you exclude the health reform legislation, we re still over a trillion in deficit