jenna: just before here on the east co, obamacare front and center on on capitol hill today as health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius takes the hot seat. hello, everybody, i m jenna lee. eric: and hello, i m eric shawn in for jon scott. let s take a look at some live pictures from the senate finance committee will secretary sebelius is taking questions on the president s budget request. orrin hatch asked about numerous changes and the delays to the obamacare law. the secretary, well, she pushed back saying the administration just wants to give consumers greater flexibility. we did not extend the open enrollment period beyond the 31st. we are giving people a chance to finish their purchase. we do not anticipate at this point, senator, additional delays. most of the policy issues are out, and what we ve tried to do over the course of the four
message of kind, that we ve turned the corner here and people are enrolling that could be troublesome. there are polls that suggest, that show that there is support for keeping the law and fixing it. a majority support. that there is also high support among republicans for repealing it entirely. what has democrats concerned is that that kind of 30% or so, that support repealing the law entirely are those who are going to turn out in the election year. that s why you re seeing them push all of these other issues on capitol hill. jenna: so again what does that mean, john, for republicans in do they sit back and let the polls be what they are? we heard that from a few republican lawmakers. or do they have to think about strategy as we move closer to november? i think they have to put forward a conservative alternative. what they can say we ll not repeal protections for people with preexisting conditions. there will be some assistance for people at lower income end of the scale but you c
for the democrats in november? well, if the election were held tomorrow, it doesn t, it is not it s looking very grim. there s actually a new poll out today from pew saying that the people who feel the most intensely about the law and are most, you know, motivated to vote are actually people who do not like the way that the law has turned out for them. and that s what people have to remember. it s one thing for the president to get up and say we ve reached this great goal of seven million enrollees by march 31 plus more with the extended deadline, we re covering all these people and all these problems. health care s still personal. so if you re someone who got your insurance policy canceled, those estimates are somewhere between four and nine million, and you re newly insured under the program doesn t mean you re amendment. happy. insurance officials are set to raids prices for 2015. those are going to be announced by mid summer or october. if prices do go up, and it looks
plans. i don t, i do not have data to give you right now in terms of who exactly was previously uninsured. we are collecting that. reporter: critics say five or six million people may have had policies that were sold on the open market that didn t meet the standards, and they say that indicates only a couple million of the new sign-ups are people who were newly insured. jenna: we ll see if we can get some of those hard numbers that can tell us exactly who s part of the 7.5 million. wendell, every day there seems to be a new study about the effects of obamacare, and there s a new one out by rand that s talking about the unexpected increase in people with employer-paid insurance because of the new health care law. walk us true that. why is that significant? reporter: well, that may actually be a bigger success story than the obamacare exchanges. the rand study suggests the affordable care act is prompting a lot more employers to insure
the american people, but also to countries like the baltic states and poland and ukraine who are beginning to bend under putin s pressure. the united states is disarming and putin is moving against eastern ukraine. that is not a good narrative, jenna. jenna: these are really serious topics. general scale, i appreciate when i ask you questions you sort of laugh and smile bit because it makes it easier to take in and think about. more of a friendly way to talk about it. general scales, thank you. serious topics we ll continue to watch it. no end in sight as far as conflict happening between russia and ukraine. thank you, sir. thank you, jenna. eric: that s for sure. today health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius is back testifying on capitol hill. she is defending the president s budget request and obamacare. what does she have to say? we ll fill you in more about that coming up. and prosecutors grilling oscar pistorius once again. we ll have the very latest from that hi