majority. so do we have it suggesting that the centerpiece is here to stay? we ll see if that position lasts, but maybe there s some movement there at least. sabrina, i think we re seeing that in a lot of races where they re trying to walk that fine line, knowing that people in kentucky like what s going on in kentucky, but still trying to use the mien of, anti-obamacare, but appealing to t base. they have to unify the party around some of these bigger ticket items. whether it s obamacare repeal or the benghazi committee reducing taxes, reducing the size of government, those are issues where the republican party broadly agrees they are, of course, overwhelmingly pro-life. and i think that in november, they have an advantage. they do have an off year elections, a turnout advantage and they know that. the house is, of course, going to remain within the republican s fold and the senate races are being contested in deeply conservative states.
on this? hmm. well, unfortunately, not all democrats are listening to nancy pelosi. not all democrats are on board. and that s not good. allison grimes in kentucky. she s trying to oust longtime republican senator mitch mcconnell. i think she has a pretty good shot. it looks like she ll be running the fix-it obamacare program. after praising the success of kentucky state exchange, her senior campaign adviser said this, which shocked me. the law isn t perfect. and that what we need are commonsense solutions. what allison has always said is democrats and republicans need to come together to fix the l law. what? fix 7.1 million people, fixed themselves when it came to health care. come on now. if there was ever a state to run on obamacare, it would be your state, miss grimes. kentucky.
oh, but we have to fix that. fix what? you could fix every law in washingt washington. every law needs fixing. let s start with campaign finance reform. let me get back to the 7.1 million people. why are the right-wing talkers going absolutely nuts over this number? why are they doing this? here it is. why should anybody believe it? why can t the government prove it? the real question is when have they not lied about obamacare? this is complete bogus. this is a complete bogus fairy tale. this is completely made up. this is nonsensical. just because team obama cooked the books with the promise that you could keep your doctor, keep your plan and you re going to pay less, you wouldn t expect them to lie on this, would you? of course you would. well, now, it s interesting, those three guys, limbaugh, beck, and hannity, are concerned about this number, 7.1 million americans. first of all, they re probably
we ve had a week of critics including the sunday shows questioning whether the 7.1 million, questioning whether it s successful or not, but nobody wants to throw any resources in finding out whether it s the truth or not. gosh, come on. give us a little benghazi work, will you? get your cell phones out. want to know what you think. tonight s question, is the mainstream media being fair to obamacare? text a for yes, b for no to 67622. you can always go to our blog, leave comment there at ed.sin nbc.com. results later on in the show. let me bring in senator bernie sanders of vermont. great to have you with us. your response to republicans trying to smear the enrollment numbers, sir. ed, it s laughable if it were not really pathetic. and if we were not dealing with the lives of tens of millions of people. the united states remains the only country in the industrialized world that
the number of sign-ups, because people haven t paid. what s your response to that? well, you know, it s certainly in the republicans interest to try to knock down this figure anyway they can. they ll talk about the number of people who haven t paid yet. they ll talk about the number of people who were previously insured. all of these things. i think these are all marginal issues. the fact of the matter is that we re going to see 80, maybe more than 90% of the people who enroll in the qualified health plans paying their bills. they re not enrolling just to be deadbeats. we re going to see half, maybe 60%, 70% did not have insurance in the past. when you combine the enrollments on the exchanges with medicaid. these are, as you pointed out this is a big problem for the republican party because their plan a was to knock down and knock out obamacare. now they need a plan b. the nearest they have, there s sort of a plan a-minus right now, but they ve got a long way to go before they com