Fast. It doesnt matter whether youre going to the hospital, the pharmacy, youre seeing rising prices. Yeah. Prices have been rising dramatically for many, many years. We dont see an end to that. Most patients have insurance traditionally. They havent been exposed to the full price of care. Just a fraction of what it actually costs. Providers keep raising the costs and passing it on to the employers. The patients have to know it hits their pocketbook. It pays for them to shop around. You can get a good price in health care. Not everyone charges a whole lot. You have to shop around. Gerri of course. Weve talked about bending the cost curve. I think its been bent by breaking our wallet. Its really tragic. I want to talk about good rx here for a second because this is an exciting new proposition for folks out there. Tell us how it works. Sure. Good rx basically takes Prescription Drug prices at pharmacies across america as well as all forms of discounts that consumers can easily do and brings them together in a website or mobile app. Gerri we want to show folks exactly what this looks like. Take a look at this. Most people have no idea that drug prices vary. The exact same drug 10 here is 150 at this pharmacy. I had no idea. Its crazy. But heres how to fix that. Good rx finds prices and discounts on every prescription. Go to good rx. Put the drug name. Instantly find savings at virtually pharmacy in america. Gerri thats a proposition youll save people on Prescription Drugs. I have to tell you, i thought. Hmm. Heres what happened to me. I take five allergy names. Its about 140 bucks. I plugged in my zip code. The drug i wanted. I came up with a price of 149. 90 pief. I jus149. 95. I went to a different pharmacy. Why is there a difference between pharmacies that might be a few miles away from each other . Yeah, consumers assume theres a guy in a white coat who has a list. All pharmacies are the same. The reality is whether you have insurance or you dont. Pharmacy prices vary dramatically. Especially with generic drugstores. With a little bit of research. Going from pharmacy a to pharmacy b, you can save 50 or more. Gerri jeff. I want to go back to you. Your company, all it does is does the same thing, but in a broader arena with hospital costs. Major costs for testing. I want to show folks a comparison of a patient on a ventilator in washington, dc. Washington University Charges 115,000. Providence hospital, 53,000. Is there a big difference in care here . Whats going on behind these numbers . Yeah, typically theres not any difference in the quality of care that any patient or doctor could measure. Its just raw price variation. As you mentioned one example. A more garden variety example, if a patient needed an mri or colonoscopy. Just down the street it might be 3,000 or more and 500 in another building. Its the same thing for Traditional HealthCare Services as medication. Surgeries, imaging. Cardiac testing. They have three times to five times higher prices at one building versus another. It pays to shop around. Gerri im wondering, my big fear, i was going to have to foot the bill for all my allergy meds this one drug, selloff for my health care plan. Should i still use your site if i have coverage . Yeah. I mean, the amazing thing is that especially with 2015, more and more americans are on High Deductible Health plans. Theyre on the hook for most of the their Health Care Costs throughout the year. Thats when a product like ours helps. When you can use a product like ours, you can be in control. As opposed to being a victim of whatever prices a pharmacy charges. Gerri we feel like were the victim of whatever price they want to charge us. Is it on our shoulders, jeff, to do the smart shopping, make sure were making the comparisons. It seems its a diy world. Patients will benefit themselves. The Health Care System is incredibly complex, and its not fair. And thats unfortunate. And, once again, if you can get the exact same thing for 500 at one place and 3,000 at another, certainly worth it to do the diy, do your homework when youre scheduling for your care, ask how much its going to cost. Make sure its not more than the fair price. If its way higher, call around. Like you did for your own allergy med, try a different provider, you can often save significant amounts, half or more is very, very common. Gerri the good news here is a site like good rx is preventing people from doing Dangerous Things like cutting down their prescription to save money. Thanks for coming on. Good to see you. And now we want to know what you think. Heres our question. Are drug prices artificially high . Log on to gerriwillis. Com. Vote on the righthand of the screen. Ill share the results. And in the 11th hour last night, the house passed a 1. 1 trillion spending bill to avert a Government Shutdown. It lies in the senates court with a vote that could happen at any moment. Guy benson. Guy, good to see you. Thanks for coming in. What do you make of this bill . 1. 1 trillion. Sure is big. Should this thing move along. Get it done. First, ill say happy friday and merry christmas. Great to see you. Start on a happy note in this segment. Look, this bill is not perfect. Lets put it that way. I dont know anyone who is really super enthusiastic about the bill. People on both sides of the aisle, very unhappy with some of the elements of the comprise. This funds the federal government almost all the federal government through the end of the fiscal year. About the next ten months with one narrow exception will come to fruition or come to a head in early 2015, which republicans can use as leverage to defund or block some of this executive immigration action the president has taken. I dont think anyone is looking at the crom ni nibus is what theyre calling it. Its a flawed piece of legislation. Gerri just to fill in the details on what might matter to consumers. Obamacare is funded. No pullback on funding the Big Health Care bill that was the president s signature legislation. A little bit of nibbling around the edges. Of course, they want to agree to a spending bill that defunds the entirety of obamacare. Thats why we had the Government Shutdown last year. But republicans have managed to nibble away and cut back on some elements of obamacare spending within this particular bill. For example, they cut funding for the rationing board, known as ipab. And blocked funding for these socalled bailouts or risk corridors for obamacare. They sort of were able to draw some blood on obamacare, but theyre unable for a a number of reasons to go for the kill in this piece of legislation. Gerri and ipab is panel that makes decisions on what gets fund and what doesnt. Those are important obamacare pieces. I know theres conversations about the piece of legislation that goes to the banking. Senator Elizabeth Warren was active on that. What was the last word on that, guy . Well, it stayed in. There are a couple of things. Conservatives will be happy that republicans were able to extract some spending cuts to the epa. Significant cuts to the irs budget. A few wins for conservatives. The biggest win in there for democrats that republicans are unhappy about is the Democratic Party gets a serious say in the level of funding for the federal government for ten months. They just got kicked out of office. Heres sort of the level that will be spent at the federal level, it was set last year with the Paul Ryan Patty comprise. Some conservatives who have argued. Hey, we should start afresh in 2015. And set a new baseline for spending because the democrats were defeated at the polls. Gerri doesnt this rebound negatively to republicans. No matter who was in the wrong, if things dont get done, it seems like the general public blames the republicans. Certainly if you look at polling in regard to a shutdown that looks to be averted, that generally does hurt republicans, even if its not really you can make an argument its not their fault. If we have a similar fight sometime next year, youll at least have a United Republican Congress up against the president who will be potentially vetoing bills and that sort of thing. Its a cleaner method to go down route. Elizabeth warren, she was hopping mad about what she said is sort of gutting a provision of doddfrank she was behind. She was threatening to play sort of the democrats version of ted cruz this time around. She just couldnt get the vote. Gerri that was fascinating. Well hear from woman again. Guy, thank you for coming on the show. Have a great weekend. Still a lot more to come this hour, including your voice. Your voice is important to us. Thats why during the show, we want you to facebook me or tweet me gerriwillisfbn. Send me an email at gerri willis. One north dakota congressman is warning obamas war on coal could leave us in the dark. You could face higher prices because of the president s energy policies. Youre going to want to hear this. Stay with us. How could switchgrass in argentina, change engineering in dubai, aluminum production in south africa, and the Aerospace Industry in the u. S. . At t. Rowe price, we understand the connections of a complex, global economy. Its just one reason over 70 of our mutual funds beat their 10year lipper average. T. Rowe price. Invest with confidence. Request a prospectus or summary prospectus with investment information, risks, fees and expenses to read and consider carefully before investing. You dont need to think about the energy that makes our lives possible. Because we do. Were exxonmobil and powering the world responsibly is our job. Because boiling an egg. Isnt as simple as just boiling an egg. Life takes energy. Energy lives here. Thanks. [ male announcer ] fedex® has solutions to able Global Commerce that can help your company grow steadily and quickly. Great job. mandarin cut it out. See you tomorrow. Hard it can be. How. To breathe with copd . It can feel like this. Copd includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema. Spiriva is a oncedaily inhaled. Copd maintenance treatment. That helps open my airways for a full 24 hours. You know, spiriva helps me breathe easier. Spiriva handihaler tiotropium bromide inhalation powder does not replace rescue inhalers for sudden symptoms. Tell your doctor if you have kidney problems, glaucoma, trouble urinating, or an enlarged prostate. These may worsen with spiriva. Discuss all medicines you take, even eye drops. Stop taking spiriva and seek immediate medical help if your breathing suddenly worsens, your throat or tongue swells,. You can get hives, vision changes or eye pain, or problems passing urine. Other side effects include dry mouth and constipation. Nothing can reverse copd. Spiriva helps me breathe better. Sfx blowing sound. Does breathing with copd. Weigh you down . Dont wait ask your doctor about spiriva handihaler. Gerri criticism is mounting against obamas war on coal. Our next guest published an alarming oped detailing how epas energy push will slam consumers bottom line. Republican congressman kevin cramer of north dakota. Hes a member of the House Committee on natural resources. Congressman, welcome to the show. I have to warn you, im the coal miners granddaughter. Tell us specifically what it is about obamas plan that is harming americans bottom line. Well, there are a lot of things. Thanks for the opportunity. Im the son of an electric lineman. I understand electricity from the consumer side. A lot of people do not. We, i think, in our country have gotten in a situation when it comes to the war on coal where were all fighting the war on one side or the other. My oped in the journal talks about is not be the coal mining jobs as important as they are. Or the low price of electricity as a result of this wonderful fuel source or the incredible global advantage we get. Its about the system of, you know, power and moving power through our grid. And a lot of people maybe dont know how close last winter and what yall call the polar vortex what we call a winter. How close it was to collapsing because theres not enough base, you know, load power produced by reliable coal to maintain the grid. So people are having to shed voluntarily and sometimes the utilities themselves are having to shed electricity or demand. And demand, high demand is the sign of a strong economy. We shouldnt be apologizing for it. Gerri absolutely right. At the heart of obamas proposal here, he wants to reduce our Carbon Emissions by 30 . This is an aggressive goal, and, frankly, my belief is, if you want to make some impact on emissions, you should go to china or one of the third world countries producing a lot of this. Whats the actual impact of making that if we were actually to cut these emissions by 30 , what happens . Well, first of all, i think its an arbitrary number. We had a hearing on the Science Behind this plan. Its called the green power plan. It affects existing power plants. To replace the loss of the coal power, they have ideas like, were going to have one and a half efficiency gains for the next year. We dont know if thats possible. Replace it with natural gas. I like natural gas. Its a low cost abundant fuel in america. Theres not a system to deliver the natural gas. Gerri we have a problem with that in the northeast, getting it here. Yeah. You have to deliver them by pipelines. Gerri right. Exactly. I want to tell folks, if you want to know whats going on with this economy, north dakota has the worlds lowest unemployment rate. 79 of their energy is generated from coal. Tell me what happens to this winter, sir, if we continue down this road. Are we at a danger of spiked prices and low availability. We have a danger of both. Coal is a base code, as a fuel source is reliable. The price hasnt gone up as decades. The price of natural gas goes up and down. If you have to buy, for example, on the spot market, you have to pay whatever the market price is at that time. Its a very high volatile price. You look at all the other things it affects, i mean, low cost electricity is one of the top ten every year of characters i characteristicsn where a ceo will put its next plant. It has a lot of impact on our competitiveness in the global marketplace. Gerri you have to tell us whether you voted for the budget bill last night. I voted for the omnibus bill last night for all the reasons your previous guests talked about. Nobody loved it. Everybody found something to like and want to like. Thats sort of the art of comprise in divided government. I look forward to a clean slate when the republicans come in. Gerri come back to the show. Were eager to hear. Thank you. I love the opportunity. Thank you. Gerri the latest development to a story weve been aggressively following, nhtsa has tried and failed. Aaa tried. But takata is sticking with its plan for a regional recall when it comes to the deadly exploding air bags. Automakers taking things into their own hands. According to the Detroit Detroit Free press, representatives from the Ten Companies impacted by these recalls including honda, mazda, toyota met in a Michigan Hotel room. Theyre trying to convince takata to issue a nationwide recall. In a joint statement, the automakers said several more meetings will likely happen before any action is taken. Wow. That story just goes on and on. Well update you. We wrap up our week long in financial moves. Is it legal, what options do sony employees have in the wake of this hack attack. Can they win . Our legal panel weighs in coming up. You get sick, you cant breathe through your nose suddenly, youre a mouth breather. A mouth breather well, put on a breathe right strip and shut your mouth. Cold medicines open your nose over time, but add a breathe right strip and pow, it opens your nose up to 38 more. So you can breathe and do the one thing you want to do, sleep. Add breathe right to your Cold Medicine shut your mouth and sleep right. Breathe right. 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If youve had to become your own investment expert, maybe its time for bny mellon, a different kind of wealth manager. And black swans are unpredictable. You never jim jam shabriver flab dry ris. O is, bliss pounds hazy dray . Drywall shboop leaver murray. Hey, big bog panorama corn salabaty . Dude, squibble bits. Mareyayzee. Mormal snap jebby rolban jebby deetle flosh. [laughter] eh. Nows the time to get in the loop. Just look for our fall tv picks with xfinity on demand. Huh. Quickly find the seasons hottest shows, huh. Quickly find the seasons hottest shows, with a handpicked collection all in one place. Only from xfinity. Gerri after last months massive Sony Pictures hack attack, comprised employees Sensitive Data including salaries, Social Security numbers, birth dates, could sony employees sue . Fox news analyst bob massey. And legal analyst wendy patrick. Wendy, ill start with you. Do employees have grounds to sue here . Absolutely, gerri. A number of different theories. Everything from the basic breach of contract theory. We expect our employers will protect the information we give them. Two, personal tort actions. We have classaction lawsuits on the one hand all the way to individual suing to things like negative things like emotional distress. Intentional emotional distress. The list goes on. Lots of lawsuits. Gerri bob, do you agree . Not 1