out the u.s. indirectly paid warlords. there is an article in the newspaper about how money is peing funneled in afghanistan. here are the phone lines. we are also online at c- span.org. and you can find us on twitter at twitter.com/cspanwj and here is this story in the washington post. the u.s. is funding a massive protection racket in afghanistan, and directly paying tens of millions of dollars to warlords. the security arrangements are part of a $2.16 billion transport contract and violate laws on the use of private contractors as well as a defense department regulations. military officials on the ground are focused on getting supplies were needed, and have virtually no addition of health security is actually provided for the convoys that transport goods throughout the country. a democrat from massachusetts says the findings of this report range from severing too shocking. he wrote that in introduction to the report. so, that is what we will talk about during this firs
[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] host: we are going to spend the first hour talking about the fate of health care legislation on capitol hill. joining us for this first segment from national journal, marilyn werber serafini. thank you for being here early. i want to show you the front page of the new york times talking about the senate finance committee. they write that the fate of health care overhaul largely rests on the shoulders of six senators who since june 17 have gathered, often twice a day, for many hours at a stretch, in a conference room with burnt sienna walls with conference chairman max baucus. some of the key players, including senator max baucus. senator conrad is here. not in this picture is jeff bingaman. in the back is olympia snowe. why is so much attention focused on the senate committee? guest: out on capitol hill there are five committees working on health reform for th