Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by ive been around long enough to recognize the people who are out there owning it. The ones getting involved, staying engaged. They are not afraid to question the path theyre on. Because the one question they never want to ask is, how did i end up here . I started schwab with those people. People who want to take ownership of their investments, like they do in every other aspect of their lives. And the william and flora hewlett foundation, helping people build immeasurably better lives. And with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. And. This program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Woodruff a new report on economic effects of the president S Health Care law struck sparks today. The Congressional Budget Office projected as many as 2. 3 million workers will reduce their hours or drop out of the work force by 2021 as they gain Health Insurance. Jason furman chairs the president s council of economic advisers. Even if the net result of this is a net reduction in labor supply, to the degree its because of peoples choices, well think about it differently than if businesses are cutting jobs. This is not businesses cutting back on jobs, this is people having new choices they didnt use to have. Woodruff furman also argued the report does not take into account a number of economic benefits of the law. But republicans, including Senate Minority leader mitch mcconnell, said in fact, the new estimate proves the law is indeed a job killer. The cbo report is certainly not pretty if youre interested in creating jobs in america. As we all know, they estimate up to two million fewer jobs will be created as a result of obamacare. Honestly, its not a surprising report. All the anecdotes you hear all across the country are that premiums are going up and jobs are being lost. Woodruff the report also lowers the estimate of how many uninsured people will gain coverage this year by 2 million. It blames the early troubles of the governments website, healthcare dot gov. Well explore all of the numbers further, right after the news summary. Separately, the c. B. O now says this years federal budget deficit will drop to 514 billion. Thats down sharply from last year, and is the lowest since president obama took office. The agency attributes the decline to rising tax revenues from the economic recovery, plus reductions in federal spending. Woodruff wall street had some improved numbers of its own today, after mondays big losses. The Dow Jones Industrial average gained 72 points to close at 15,445. The nasdaq rose 34 points to close at 4,031. Woodruff a new, fiveyear farm bill has won final approval in the senate, after more than two years of wrangling. The ultimate compromise will cost 956 billion. It keeps most crop subsidies intact, but cuts 800 Million Dollars a year from food stamps, about 1 . Many republicans had wanted deeper cuts in both areas. Officials and activists from West Virginia are stepping up the pressure for more information on last months chemical spill. They took their frustration today to a Senate Hearing on the spill that tainted the water supply of 300,000 people. West virginias secretary of state, natalie tennant, said people dont know what to believe. First we hear its 7,500 gallons then we hear its 10,000 gallons. One day were told the water is safe, the next day we hear that pregnant women should not drink it. It doesnt add up. Either its safe or its not safe. Quite frankly people are fed up they are angry and they are scared. I have families telling me they are melting snow just to be able to give their children baths. Woodruff democratic and republican senators alike are backing a bill to require inspections every three years at chemical plants that can threaten public water systems. A federal judge in virginia heard arguments today on whether to overturn the states ban on gay marriage. Voters approved it, in 2006, as an amendment to the state constitution. But two samesex couples brought suit, saying the ban violates their rights under the u. S. Constitution. Virginias democratic attorney general mark herring announced last month he would not defend the ban. In afghanistan, the office of President Hamid karzai confirms he has held secret talks with taliban officials in a bid to make peace. That disclosure comes as relations between karzai and the u. S. Have been strained since he refused to sign a Security Agreement. Well delve into what karzai is doing, and why, later in the program. Microsoft has reached within its ranks for a new c. E. O. Satya nadella has been in charge of the Software GiantsCloud Computing business. With todays announcement, he replaces Steve Ballmer who announced last august that hed be leaving the company. In addition, microsoft founder bill gates is stepping down as chairman, but hell serve as a technology adviser. Still to come on the newshour a forecast that the Affordable Care act will cost jobs; whats behind the recent market jitters; the new push to get teens not to smoke; using playtime as a tool for learning; afghan president karzais secret talks with the taliban; plus, ahead of the olympics, confronting russias stance on gay rights. Ifill the Congressional Budget Offices assessment of the economic fallout from the Affordable Care act reignited partisan debate today. The new report focused on the impact the law could have on the labor force, specifically, how it could lead to fewer fulltime workers over the next decade. Julie rovner of n. P. R. Has been covering what was in the analysis, and the reaction all around. Reaction by the republicans, julie, is that this is a job killer. The reaction from the democrats was this was good news. Which is it . Well, i think it was probably neither of those things. The c. B. O. Was very careful in its analysis. Basically what it said was a little more of what it said when it first analyzed the act in 2010 which is that this is the inevitable consequence of when you give people help in buying Health Insurance that youre going to deter work out put. Now, we should point out this is not employers cutting back on workers they hire, this is people not working, either voluntarily dropping out of the work force or cutting back in the number of hours they work. Pelley theres a distinction to be drawn between this affecting job supply and worker supply. This is on the supplyside not the demand side. The c. B. O. Said the estimated reduction stems almost entirely from a net decline in the amount of labors workers choose to supply rather flan a net drop in businesses demand for labor. So these are fewer workers in the work force, not fewer businesses hiring. Ifill the white house was emphasizing that word choose by the way, repeatedly today. So they said its mostly going to be lowwage jobs, lowwage worker who will be affected by this. Why thats right. Because low wage workers are getting hope the buy their Health Insurance so for them every extra hour they work costs them more because if they work more they will be at risk of losing the subsidy or if theyre getting medicaid they would be at risk of losing the medicaid if they earn that much more so they are more sensitive to working more and therefore losing that benefit. Ifill in youre an older worker it provides an incentive to retire sooner . Thats correct. And these were things that were anticipated when the law was passed. Ifill so none of this was an unanticipated or unintended consequence of the law . This is something people saw . Thats right. If youre going to give people money to help them buy Health Insurance youre going to assume these things will happen. As the administration said today, if you took away medicare and Social Security youd have more 95yearolds in the work force, too, they would have to work because they dont have benefits. That might not be what you want but that would happen. Pelley in this report it talks about Health Care Costs as well. Do we have any evidence that the cost of health care is declining what we do know is that the rise in Health Care Spending is lowing. What we dont know is whether its because of the Affordable Care act. Theres a very lively debate among health care economists as to the impact that the law is having. The c. B. O. Very carefully said we dont know, either. So theyre not going to say. Ifill theres also a debate about whether the a. C. A. Is more expensive than originally anticipated. Do we know the answer to that . One thing thatty t head of the c. B. O. Said is that there is no evidence that when they first estimated how much the bill would cost they said that it would reduce deficits because the things that are in the law that raise money are greater than the things that are in the law that spend money, that everything that they have reestimated, nothing has changed that. So this law is still anticipated to reduce the federal deficit over these ten years and i guess the years that follow that. Its not yet spending more than it takes in. Ifill now, every week or so the department of health and human services, someone comes out and says this is the number of people who have registered with the Affordable Care act. Because of the botched rollout, is that number less than what was expected . Well, right now theyre at about the last time they told us it was about three million and they had been aiming for seven million, which was the seven million estimated by the c. B. O. Now the c. B. O. Has rolled that back to six million. Thats just how much they estimate. Theyre also estimating a million fewer on medicaid, it will be eight million instead of nine million. Ifill by when . By the end of this year. However the c. B. O. Is also estimating that those numbers will catch up in future years that even though this year rather than getting seven Million People signed up in the exchange there is will only be six million in 2015 and 2016 theyll catch up to their estimates for those years. Ifill so its not a completely its a mixed bag about whether this is expected or not. One other things which interesting which was referred to in this report today is the risk corridors which explain, first of all, what they are and how what this report says is happening. These are payments made to Insurance Companies from the federal government in case they get too many sick people but if a particular plan gets too many sick people and they dont have enough premiums to cover their expenses these are safety valves, if you will, for the Insurance Companies. Republicans have been talking about repealing some of those because theyre ifill they called it an Insurance Company bailout. Exactly. That would have the impact of probably raising premiumss. However, the c. B. O. Said that, in fact, there will be more money coming from the Insurance Companies to the federal government rather than the other way around so it will raise 8 billion for the federal government. So if republicans want to repeal that, they have to find 8 billion to help pay for that. That could be a problem. Pelley julie rovner, npr. Thank you. Thank you. Woodruff its been a rough couple of weeks for some overseas Financial Markets. That was true again overnight in europe and asia where stocks finished lower. The volatility of late has brought fresh concerns about whats happening in the Global Economy and the connections with the u. S. Jeffrey brown explores whats behind the jitters and its ripple effects. Brown much of the concern surrounds emerging markets in countries that are now nicknamed the fragile five turkey, india, brazil, south africa and indonesia. For its part, the Dow Jones Industrial average is nearing a socalled correction, a drop of 10 . We look at whats happening with eswar prasad is an economics professor at cornell university, a senior fellow at the brookings institution, and author of the new book, the dollar trap how the u. S. Dollar tightened its grip on global finance. And andliz ann sonders, chief investment strategist for Charles Schwab company. For the record, Charles Schwab is one of the newshours funders. Eswar prasad, let me begin with you and lets talk about the emerging market concerns. These have been areas of major growth for some time so generally speaking, whats going on with them . Emerging markets are facing two hits right now first of all, the chinese economy which is a very important trading partner for many of the emerging markets looks like its going down but more importantly the prospect of monitoring, tightening in the u. S. Which could lead to an increase in Interest Rates in the u. S. Is causing investors worldwide to start thinking about whether they want to leave their money in the emerging market which is look a little riskier and which have uncertain prospects. And this is laying on the ability of the emerging markets and the economies you mention have a Common Thread running through them. They have large current account deficits which means they rely on foreign capital to finance some of their domestic consumption and investment, many of them have budget deficits that are quite large and most of them have political turmoil which means they are unable to take the response necessary to put their economies back on the right track. So the confluence of a lot of bad things happening at the same time. Brown liz ann sonders, pick up a little bit on that on that tie to the u. S. , to the fed in particular. Whats the connection . Well, we saw it last start last summer when the fed started to hint they would taper their quantitative easing purchases. What happened prior to that is so much of this liquidity had gone to chase yields, higher yields anywhere in the world. So you saw a lot of money go into emerging market, the currency markets, the bond markets and the equity markets and the fear the fed was pulling the punch bowl away started to unwide these trades. That set us up to not do anything in september and of course they not only hinted but started tapering so you saw a resurgence of the unwinding of what they sometimes call this carry trades. And thats really what youre seeing. So the infection is in the Financial Markets than i think it is at least yet economic contagion into the u. S. Well, let me ask eswar first about the economic fallout in these countries before we get back to the u. S. Were talking about markets, were talking about currencies. Are we seeing their impact on the streets in these countries . Its not as bad as in the Asian Financial crisis in 18998 98 for instance. Those emerging markets have, in fact, learned their lessons. They have more Flexible Exchange which is means theyre not trying to affect the particular level of the currency. They dont have as much external as they used to have a couple decades ago and they have a lot more protection from financial crises. But it is still a very rough road ahold for these emerging markets because foreign capital has stopped coming in and its coming in as the same quantities as before which means they have to tighten up their own domestic policies, especially budget policies or they have to reduce their domestic consumption around investment. At the same time they have emerging markets that continue with high inflation and other problems domestically. So they need to fix a lot before they can get their economies back on the growth trajectory. Brown liz ann sonders, given that, what are the prospects for what we call contagion. All of whats happening there bouncing back to us and getting even worse . I think somewhat limited, at least into the broader economy. Theres no question that there are ripple effects and there is some fear that we are potentially seeing a repeat of the late 1990s, although i would agree differences are important. Notefully difference between pegged Exchange Rates and Flexible Exchange rates so i dont think we have that type of scenario. But margin debt recently hit in an absolute sense an alltime high. So the contagion sometimes happens when a lot of investors who are starting to lose money in many of these Asset Classes get margin calls, they have to sell other assets. So thats where the contagion tends to come into play. I think its the shortlived situation. I think we might be somewhat limited in terms of the correction were going to see. It may have a little bit more to go, but i dont think the bull market is over. But theres a lot of concern that there may be some dead bodies buried kind of like longterm capital in the late 1990s. And until we settle some of those questions we probably is v some more volatility. Brown dead bodies buried in terms of bad investments around the world. What about the u. S. Economy . How whats the interplay now, liz ann sonders, starting with you, as you look at the potential for a correction . Well, a little bit of a double whammy for the markets, the u. S. Markets anyways in the fact that some of the recent Economic Data has been fairly weak. So that a month ago we got a very, very weak jobs number. On the surface, anyway, it seemed it was highly weather related. The problem is the weather hasnt improved so we have another jobs report coming out later this week and if its weak again, even if its cited as weather being one of the