made a beeline to the restroom. unphilly unfortunately it was the door to the women s restroom. house speaker paul ryan has been trying to calm nerves by insisting the bill does not gut protections for people with pre-existing conditions. tweeted today, verified, macarthur amendment strengthens. but that is not verified despite ryan s use of the caps off button. his tweet contradicts the findings of really just about everyone who has looked at the bill including the aarp, which one hour after ryan s claim tweeted that it, quote, does not adequately protect patients with pre-existing conditions. citing that fact, michigan republican fred upton, who had previously co-authored obamacare repeal and replace plans came out against the bill today. by nbc news count, there are now 21 house republicans opposed, 18 more who are undecided or not talking. now, republicans can only lose 22 votes and still pass the bill, which they hope to do before the house recess starts on thursday. of course ev
preexisting conditions are actually going to be covered under the new republican health care plan. listen to a claim that the president made about it just this weekend. preexisting conditions are in the bill, and i mandated it. i said it has to be. one of the fixes that discussed preexisting was optional for the states. sure, in one of the fixes, and they re changing aand changing permanent? of course. joining us to discuss all of this, senior economic analyst stephen moore, distinguished visiting fellow at heritage foundation and former senior economic adviser for the trump campaign and jonathan gruber, professor of economics at mit and one of the architects of obamacare. jonathan, let me begin with you. the quote from the president preexisting conditions are in the bill that s his language, he says this amendment, this macarthur amendment guarantees it. is he right? no. he s not. look, it s about the letter of the law versus the sphere of the law. to cover preexisti
related information, you can be held accountable so enter here journalists who either fail to divulge their sources or publish or print articles that divulge national security information. that s how you can punish the media without altering the first amendment. so far all we ve seen from the administration is huffing and puffing threats to press freedom that are only verbal, not actual action. we haven t seen anything done yet. hopefully that s all it becomes. you got an interesting discussion about this brian with a guy who knows a little something about journalism, about official pressure on journalists, carl bernstein, uniformly the washington post now cnn come nateor. let s listen to what carl said. this is part of an attitude regardless of whether they re really going to seek such a change, and the attitude was expressed in trump s speech last night, which is the most venomous speech by an american president that i have heard in more than 50 years of reporting. venomous t
means that you have to not only stop insurers from excluding people, but you also have to stop them from charging people many, many multiples of those without preexisting conditions. the macarthur amendment would insist states continue to cover preexisting conditions but would allow the insurers in the states to charge those preexisting conditions $1 million a month. there s nothing stopping that. so substantively this new macarthur amendment does not include coverage of preexisting conditions. unless you not only mandate it covers them and stop insurers from price discriminating it s toothless. stephen moore your reaction, under this amendment do you deny people with preexisting conditions could see premiums go way up? final bill will cover people with preexisting conditions and there will be affordab ablable premiums. this is the core of the problem with obamacare, you have these
do they have any power? well, talking about with reince priebus saying look at the libel laws i m assuming he read the first amendment a huge road block to any of this. every single state has a different libel law and in order for congress, a body that has authority over federal laws, would have to actually either every state change it or pass a federal libel law. even if they were able to do that the first amendment for the last 50 years in the supreme court there s very clear precedent that says look, especially for a public figure, you have an actual malice standard. very, very hard to prove. it means i had to know it was false and disregard that likelihood. for this to change legally, it has taken monumental efforts to do so, but poppy you re absolutely right. the espionage act is going to be the way that if potus, the president of the united states does do this, he ll have to go through. remember, that says that if you divulge national security