oversight at the u.s. department of health and human services. nice to have you all here. a long intro for what your job was. your role was to begin the i am plemtation of aca. in certain ways you got the plum part of the job where you get to cover your young people longer and the end of these insurance mandates in certain ways. but this is the hard part. what should we be looking for? exchanges, if they re implemented correctly, can for the first time give individuals who have had no bargaining power against insurance companies, the same bargaining power that they would have if they worked for a large business. through these exchanges, 16 million people who haven t been in the market before are going to buy insurance, they re required to buy insurance. a majority of them will be subsidized by the federal government. so what a great opportunity that is for insurance companies and the exchanges if they go to insurance companies and say, we ve got this new market for
you re a democrat or a republican, maybe not so sure. it s a good opportunity for you to hear from these candidates in extended form as they offer a presentation, answer some questions. the republican congresswoman, michele bachmann of minnesota is here. the georgia businessman herman cain, the former speaker of the house, newt gingrich. the texas congressman and libertarian ron paul and the former massachusetts governor, mitt romney all appearing at senator demint s at this forum in south carolina. missing, the texas governor, rick perry. at the last minute he decided to go home because of wildfires affecting his state. we ll get straight live to the event in just a moment. first, let s get a preview in a sense of how much this matters in a very busy september. this event here today, three presidential debates. including a tea party debate presented by cnn on october 12th, tampa, florida. yes labor day 2011 but a big impact had month on the presidential race for 2012. let s
the phased i am plemtation, excuse me. yes. the administration to more than 3 million people will have now in total enrolled in obamacare. that led to upbeat stories, maybe a little too positive snoo. perhaps too positive. how so? the administration deserves credit. here s why. the fault was a complete and total disaster. it was like covering a car wreck. that s how it was. the rollout in october, november, december. when you think about these rollout numbers, it was the first time the administration had beat a monthly target it had set for itself. of all of the media outlets that had said in the fall, oh, they re not meeting their monthly targets, isn t this terrible, the administration can t meet expectations, i think it s a fair and sportsman like thing to say things are getting better. at the same time, the press is eager to tell a different story about the rollout. people have health fatigue, congress does, and we re ready to hear a different story. the press was point