>> the whales are either just playing or upset for a second. it was just something that happened. >> this culture of you get back on the horse and you dive back into the water. if you're hurt we've got other people that will replace you. and you came a long way. are you sure you want that? >> tune in tomorrow at 9:00 p.m. eastern and pacific for cnn films "black fish." right after 11:00 stick around for an anderson cooper's special "black fish inside captivity." you'll also hear from one of the filmmakers. thanks for watching. erin burnett "outfront" starts now. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com

"outfront" next the conviction of michael skakel thrown out. and a white house mole un-earthed. >> it's more worrisome to me the president continues to say he's unaware of everything that's going on around him. plus did a 14-year-old boy beat his math teacher to death? >> i think it's insane. i'm completely shocked. i don't think philip would be the type of person to do this. >> let's go "outfront." good evening, everybody. i'm erin burnett. we begin out front tonight with break news. a kennedy family cousin free, his murder conviction overturned. michael skakel, a nephew of robert and ethel kennedy, was convicted in 2002 for the 1975 murder of his teenage neighbor, martha moxley. skakel was sentenced to 20 years

to life in prison. no a judge has overundered it. skakel's attorney failed to represent him adequately in court was the reason given. he'll get a new trial. overturning a conviction from 2002 for a crime that was my math right 38 years old. how often does this happen? >> well, it's shocking. and i can't say it's absolutely unprecedented. sometimes in death penalty cases you see a result like this. but it's really very very rare. almost unheard of. >> which leads me to of course the answer of the question a lot of people have, which is a lot of people think this is special treatment for the kennedys, right? you know, you're looking at this case. two classmates, two of skakel's former classmates when this trial first happened testified that he confessed to them, i'm going to get away with murder. i'm a kennedy. and you look at the kennedy history. patrick kennedy congressman 2006 crashed into a barrier on capitol hill. nothing happened. not prosecuted for driving drunk.

ted kennedy never stood trial of course for the death of mary jo kopechne at chappaquidic. william kennedy smith acquitted of rape. >> i would say with respect to mary jo kopechne the kennedys got special treatment there. that was a different time, back in a different age. the other cases you're talking about, the william kennedy smith case, which was the rape case in florida, one of the first big cases to be televised by the way and i covered it. the evidence in that case was very very weak. i wasn't surprised by the acquittal. let's turn to this shocking case. are they getting special treatment here? >> special treatment or not for michael skakel? >> i don't think so. because the case against michael skakel was always very very weak. remember, he wasn't tried until 27 years after the murder. he was 15 at the time the murder took place. i think in 1975 he was convicted in 2002.

so you can imagine after so many years had passed. in the end the evidence was very shaky. and it consisted of people in a drug rehab program, an alcohol rehab program, saying that he had said certain things that linked him to the murder in the program. they later some of those witnesses recanted that testimony. and the court here said that his attorney, which i guess the public would say was bought with kennedy money, very famous connecticut attorney named mickey sherman, was incompetent. that he in fact didn't properly investigate the case, that he had financial problems of his own that impeded his ability to be a good defense counsel. so the court has reversed, saying he was denied adequate counsel. >> all right. interesting. your take away not getting special treatment for michael skakel. thanks very much to paul callen. or other story tonight the president's own party turning on him. democrats want to delay the penalties, extend the signup period for obama care. senators joe manchin, jean

sheheen, mark pryor and mark bagitch. democrats. we are hearing the reason behind the web site meltdown. according to a contractor, a last-minute decision that required people to create an account online before they were allowed to browse the insurance plans caused the fiasco. that's according to a contractor. the administration still mum. casey by wian s out front. >> reporter: what a difference a day makes. under mounting pressure in washington, white house spokesman jay car arnie said the administration will continue regular briefings on obama care. >> regular briefings at secretary sebelius's instigation that will try to provide as much information as possible. >> reporter: so far answers about the obama care rollout have been hard to come by. >> i would refer you to hhs about what information they have and are able to provide. >> reporter: it's not unusual for the white house spokesman to walk away from reporters as he did tuesday. >> trying to help the situation? >> reporter: when he was still being questioned about obama care, but it is an example of

the tension in washington over scarce information. >> how much is this costing taxpayers money as a long-time washington reporter before you took this job obviously would blankley be something that you felt a right to know. will we get that information from hhs? >> i would address your question to hhs. i don't have that information. and this is an operation being run by hhs. >> reporter: health and hult services secretary kathleen sebelius was quick to recite some numbers in an exclusive interview with cnn' sanjay gupta. >> we've had 19 million people visit the web site, 500,000 accounts created an people are shopping every day. so people are signing up. >> reporter: but creating an account is not the same as signing up. >> how many people have signed up? >> we'll be doing what we've done with every other program, medicare part d, we've done it with chip. we will give monthly enrollment figures. we've said that since the beginning. >> reporter: republicans are seizing on the secrecy. >> we still don't know these

enrollment numbers. and hhs is blocking third party verified traffic data. this is not transparency, and this is adding to the confusion and the fear surrounding the rollout of obama care. >> now, carney the white house spokesman said the daily briefings will help people understand what's going on with efforts to fix the problems associated with obama care. but we still don't know when they'll release the information of how many people have actually signed up, erin. >> that is the key question, casey, thank you. and outfront tonight, democratic congressman henry waxman. thank you so much for take the time, sir. catheline sebelius as you know did an interview with our sanjay gupta. he asked her when the president first found out about these problems with the obama care web site. i want to play for you that exchange. i think the way it went down is important for the question. >> okay. >> do you know when he first knew that there was a problem? >> well, i think it became clear fairly early on, the first couple of days. >> so not before that, though?

>> not before october 1st? >> no. >> keep in mind the web site crashed when a few hundred people tried to access it during one of the tests. around the same time as that crash the president went out to the american people and said tell your friends, classmates, family member to sign up. wasn't it kathleen sebelius's job to note president knew the scale of the problem so he wouldn't go out and say something like that and look at the least clueless? >> i think that they expected the web site would work, and they didn't realize that once they opened it up on october 1 the demand would be so great that it was not able to accommodate it. we've got a glitch. it needs to be fixed. no question about it. but the law is basically a good law, and people will be able to get affordable health insurance, notwithstanding the fact they've had pre-existing medical conditions or in the past couldn't afford it. and insurance companies won't be able to put limits on it and take away your policy once you

get sick. these reforms are already in effect. and what we need to do is to give people the chance to buy the insurance that we promised that will be available to them. >> and final question to you, congressman. according to keiser which obviously as you know is a nonpartisan evaluator of health care, they're saying health plans are spending hundreds of thousands of cancellation letters to people who have bought their own coverage. and the main reason apparently is that those policies don't meet the requirements of the affordable care act. so i guess for example that could mean if you have a plan that doesn't provide maternity care, but a lot of people like their plans and they didn't want maternity care. so is what americans have heard from the president over the past four years true? here's what the president's been saying. >> if you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan. our approach would preserve the right of americans who have insurance to keep their doctor and their plan. if you're one of the more than 250 million americans who already have health insurance,

you will keep your health insurance. >> were the american people misled, congressman? >> well, the american people were told they'd be able to keep their insurance. most people are insured through their jobs. those insurance policies will continue. but in the individual market, when people go to shop they'll be shopping together with the opportunity to choose between different plans. and if people have a private, individual policy, they're often charged a lower price because they're healthy. because those who had pre-existing conditions were excluded. let's get everybody in the same pool. they should have provided for the transition, however, as some of this is hitting people quite abruptly. >> hundreds of thousands of people are being told they're going to lose the plans, a lot of them are saying they like those plans. it's nice the president has this list of ten things every plan has to do. but if you're not like me and pregnant you may not want or need to pay for maternity plans. you might be pretty mad right

now. >> i don't think the issue is that those plans don't cover what will be required under the affordable care act. i think the fact is that a lot of people buy individual insurance, and they should be buying it with everybody else who needs to buy individual insurance. some of those who have it now are healthy. they should have been allowed to keep their insurance, at least until it expired, and then buy the plans through the exchange. but i think that's the mixup. there's a transition issue. and i know it's difficult for a lot of people. i'm sorry about that. >> thank you very much, congressman. it's been a pleasure. i appreciate your taming the time today. >> good. and good luck to you. still to come, a beloved teacher beaten to death and the student that they think did it. plus a white house mole caught. how a government official was able to anonymously criticize the administration, often humorously on twitter, for two years without the nsa having any

clue who it was. and "anchor man 2"s during the holiday season. there is something you need to know about ron burgundy. [ male announcer ] introducing new fast acting advil. with an ultra-thin coating and fast absorbing advil ion core™ technology, it stops pain before it gets worse. nothing works faster. new fast acting advil. look for it in the white box. ♪ hooking up the country whelping business run ♪

♪ build! we're investing big to keep our country in the lead. ♪ load! we keep moving to deliver what you need. and that means growth, lots of cargo going all around the globe. cars and parts, fuel and steel, peas and rice, hey that's nice! ♪ norfolk southern what's your function? ♪ ♪ helping this big country move ahead as one ♪ ♪ norfolk southern how's that function? ♪

help the gulf when we made recover and learn the gulf, bp from what happened so we could be a better, safer energy company. i can tell you - safety is at the heart of everything we do. we've added cutting-edge technology, like a new deepwater well cap and a state-of-the-art monitoring center, where experts watch over all drilling activity twenty-four-seven. and we're sharing what we've learned, so we can all produce energy more safely. our commitment has never been stronger. just by talking to a helmet. it grabbed the patient's record before we even picked him up. it found out the doctor we needed was at st. anne's. wiggle your toes. [ driver ] and it got his okay on treatment from miles away. it even pulled strings with the stoplights. my ambulance talks with smoke alarms and pilots and stadiums. but, of course, it's a good listener too. [ female announcer ] today cisco is connecting the internet of everything. so everything works like never before.

[ female announcer ] today cisco is connecting the internet of everything. stick with innovation. stick with power. stick with technology. get the flexcare platinum. new from philips sonicare.

we are back with tonight's outer circle. we start tonight in london where prison george was christened at st. james pal palace. there were only 23 people there. i asked max foster who made the cut. >> reporter: erin, this was a small and private service. a camera wasn't allowed inside. there were only 23 guests. close family and friends. seven god parents were there, which seems like a lot. but these people really represented different parts of kate and will williams's life. it was clear they take their friendships personally and seriously and that's why those people were there. we caught a glimpse of prince george who's now three months old in his father's arms on the way in and his mother's arms on the way out. there will be more pictures released tomorrow. a fashion photographer took the official pictures, including an iconic image of the queen and her three heirs, all together.

we haven't seen four generations in a shot for more than 100 years. erin. >> key testimony today in the trial of prominent utah doctor martin macneill accused of drugging and drowning his wife measure michelle. an emergency room doctor took the stand and said her skin was was blueish and he thought she was dead. and he says that the doctor said something strange. >> he made an odd request of me, which i still find to be in 15 years of practice unusual and kind of off the wall. >> what was that request? >> he offered me $10,000 to continue my resuscitation and not quit. >> two of mcneil's doctors are expected to testify. to we'll have a special report. matthew cordle who confessed in a viral video to killing a man while driving drunk was sentenced today. you may remember seeing his very

public apology on show. even the prosecutor thought it was sincere. but judge sentenced him to 6 1/2 years in prison. the maximum would have been 8 1/2. to give you some context, the penalty for killing someone while drunk driving varies a lot in the united states. in north dakota you can get life in prison. in other states the penalty could just be a few months. cnn legal analyst danny sevalos tells us the judge gave him a safe sentence that will not likely get overturned. is it possible the girl known as maria may not have been abducted at all? a roma couple in greece has been charged with kidnapping the child. they say they adopted maria from her biological parent. locals say she's the daughter of a bulgarian gypsy who couldn't care for her and gave her up free will. >> a beloved massachusetts teacher has been brutally murdered. 24-year-old michelle ritzer had been reported missing yesterday afternoon. according to police, ritzer was

found after investigators found blood in the second floor bathroom at the school. she was a math teacher there. 14-year-old freshman philip chism has been charged with her murder. and don lemmon is out front in danvers. >> reporter: this is the face of an accused killer. >> your honor, the defendant before the court is 14. >> the fact that he's arraigned in adult court. >> reporter: investigators in massachusetts allege 14-year-old philip chism killed popular 24-year-old math teacher colleen ritzer at danvers high school where she taught and where he was a stewed zbleudent. >> quiet, kept to himself. didn't seem anything bad. nothing out of the ordinary. quiet normal kid. >> reporter: students and family members say ritzer loved being a teacher, at times sending out homework assignments over twitter, facebook and her blog. >> wonderful lady. couldn't say enough about her. she was always the teacher to got extra mile for students.

>> reporter: so why would anyone, let alone a student, want to kill her, allegedly dumping her body in the woods behind her own school? >> i think that their sense of security starts to become shattered. and they all just said this is danvers. it doesn't happen here. >> reporter: the discovery of colleen ritzer's body was a surprise ending to what started tuesday night as a hunt for chism, a high school soccer player who's gone missing. meanwhile, ritzer's family had called police that night to say she was missing, too. >> as a result of that report, danvers police initiated a search and discovered blood in the second floor bathroom in danvers high school. >> reporter: the teen was found in a nearby town on tuesday. according to court documents, investigators learned from an interview with chism and video surveillance at the school that he had assaulted and then murdered ritzer. in an adult criminal court, the teen's attorney argued he should be treated as a juvenile.

>> in this case, the defendant wishes to have services to evaluate him. i think the case speaks for itself. >> reporter: that decision was not made today. he will be held without bail at a county jail facing a murder charge. as a community struggles to answer the question, why? >> that was our don lemmon reporting from danvers. we are told now that the suspect was actually in colleen ritzer's math class and that even though he's 14 years old he is going to be tried as an adult. and now to a white house insider going rogue. a white house staffer out of a job tonight, apologizing for slamming the administration through anonymous tweets. these tweets have been going on for more than two years. national security staffer javi joseph led a double life. criticizing white house policies on twitter, the same policies he was helping develop. and the tweets went even further than that. chris lawrence is outfront with joseph's snarky tweets and why it took the government which so many say is spying on everyone so long to figure this out. >> reporter: these are just some

of the people in obama administration insider targeted via twitter. was juma abedin wearing beer goggles the night she meant anthony weiner? i'm a fan of obama but his continuing reliance and dependence upon a vacuouscipher like valerie jaret concerns me. javi joseph took part in high level talks on iran's nuclear program. he'd worked at the state department and was just weeks away from getting a high level post at the pentagon when he was found out and fired. >> this is an enormous transgression. and it's completely silly to anyone to believe that you can't trace a twitter account. >> reporter: posting @natsecwonk he tweeted "everyone knows all biden does is hyperbole." and" good luck corralling kerry,

a human cannon." >> reporter: that sounds like a partisan jab. unless you realize the administration couldn't figure out who hired joseph. >> he was an employee of the state department on temporary duty here. >> is that correct? >> no. that's not. >> reporter: the white house said he worked for state. state said no, he's yours. >> my colleague jay who i talk to frequently, he at one point without getting into specific personnel matters which i'm not going to do here, i don't think jay did either or should have done. >> reporter: a proud insider, this summer joseph tweeted "growing problem for the administration. too many first term holdovers not getting the hint that it's time to move on and get the bleep out." advice some of the white house may wish joseph himself had followed. >> in other tweets, joseph called some women fat and a whole lot worse. he also said president obama could be a jerk to his staff. then after his firing he apologized, saying all of this

started out as just a parody and ultimately went too far. chris lawrence, cnn, washington. >> wow. still to come, you stay classy, san diego. all the way to the bank. is stil. so my dog and i we're going to go find it. it's out there somewhere spreading the good word about idaho potatoes and raising money for meals on wheels. but we'd really like our truck back, so if you see it, let us know, would you? thanks. what? she's always been able it's just her way.day. but your erectile dysfunction - that could be a question of blood flow. cialis tadalafil for daily use helps you be ready anytime the moment's right. you can be more confident in your ability to be ready. and the same cialis is the only daily ed tablet approved to treat ed and symptoms of bph, like needing to go frequently or urgently.

tell your doctor about all your medical conditions and medications, and ask if your heart is healthy enough for sexual activity. do not take cialis if you take nitrates for chest pain, as this may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. do not drink alcohol in excess with cialis. side effects may include headache, upset stomach, delayed backache or muscle ache. to avoid long-term injury, seek immediate medical help for an erection lasting more than four hours. if you have any sudden decrease or loss in hearing or vision, or if you have any allergic reactions such as rash, hives, swelling of the lips, tongue or throat, or difficulty breathing or swallowing, stop taking cialis and get medical help right away. ask your doctor about cialis for daily use and a 30-tablet free trial.

♪ [ male announcer ] the parking lot helps by letting us know who's coming. the carts keep everyone on the right track. the power tools introduce themselves. all the bits and bulbs keep themselves stocked. and the doors even handle the checkout so we can work on that thing that's stuck in the thing. [ female announcer ] today, cisco is connecting the internet of everything. so everyone goes home happy.

"anchor man 2" is on the way. the latest trailer for the film is online now. it looks like the next installment ron burgundy and the gang is going to leave local news for a fictional cable called gnn. there are a number of cameos. even those film isn't going to hit theaters until december 20th, you would think it was this weekend with all the promotion going on in. addition to the trailer you've probably seen this. will ferrell as ron burgundy is in car commercials and he's been on conan o'brien. there's a ben and jerry's ice cream flavor called scotchy scotch scotch. $90 million is the total worldwide box office for "anchorman" the original. actually not a monster hit.

you say why all this buzz? because of what happened after the first film left theaters. "anchorman" is an ultimate cult classic. fans discovered the movie on dvd in a huge way. they didn't actually begin tracking dvd sales until two years after "anchor man" went on sale. but according to the web site the numbers even then it was pulling in half a million bucks a week. now almost ten years later it regularly appears on amazon's top comedy dvd list. it deserves, to by the way. which is why for the next two months that's going to be all about ron burgundy. i mean, stay classy, san diego. "crossfire" starts now. tonight on "crossfire" he wants you to sign up for health insurance. >> that's why i'm asking you to be a part of team obama care. >> but some people isn't aren't buying. >> got the whole threat of obama care continuing to hang over our economy like a wet blanket. >> on the left, van jones. on the right, newt gingrich.

in the crossfire, howard dean, a doctor and form head of the democratic party. and chris chacola, a former congressman who's a critic of the president. what's the best strategy for selling obama care? is there a plan b? is there a plan b? tonight on "crossfire." -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com ing with to. welcome to "crossfire. in the crossfire tonight howard dean and chris chacola. today the head of almost every major insurance company was summoned to the white house for a closed door meeting with the president's closest advisers. you know, we used to think that ceos of the same industry plotting together could only mean bad things for competition and higher prices for the consumer. now these meetings are actually organized and hosted in the white house. welcome to government-run health care. the achievement has been to take the insurance bureaucrats who we're all mad at and add to them the government bureaucrats so they can now both conspire

against the individual. doesn't that bother you? come on, a secret meeting in the white house like this? >> i tell you, i'm all for transparency but this is fairly low on my list of things to worry about today. i'm glad that the white house is meeting with these executives. i'm glad they're meeting with tech people, trying to solve the problem. if they weren't doing it you'd be mad at them for not trying to solve the problem. i'm glad we have problem solvers to joint show. in the crossfire tonight, former vermont governor and democratic party chairman howard dean, who is a medical doctor. and former indiana republican congressman chris chacola now president of the club for growth. first to you. you know, newt's all upset. i am sure you actually are glad the president is bringing in people to help on this thing. you weren't upset with the bush administration when they met with the oil executives. this is no big deal. you're proud of the president today for getting this meeting going? >> absolutely. >> well, good. >> i am. this isn't really an ideological argument. it's an argument about what government can and cannot do. so i think there's a recognition

that big government really can't implement this and roll out this web site. so they probably should have had this secret meeting a long time ago and people would be in a better position to be able to get on the web site, sign up and get what was promised to them. so government can't do what the private sector can do. so they're going to bring the private sector in to try to help. there's reasons for that. one is because government spends other people's money on other people. and so there's very little incentive to become efficient in spending that money. and there's not much accountability to it, either. and proof of that would be, i don't think anyone ever went to the president and said, mr. president, we might have a problem here before they flipped the switch. and so management 101 says manage to a result, not a time frame. and so someone in the private sector would be a champion of this and say to the president, you know what, the time frame's not going to work. it's better to be late and work. >> i love this kind of wonderful mythology, theology that nothing ever goes wrong in the private sector and only geniuses there.

i think people are making mistakes on both sides. i wonder back to you, mr. speaker, if you would admit and agree with me that they're not geniuses only in the private sector, or or the private sector, geniuses and people make mistakes on both sides. >> i don't think it's purely a question of how smart individuals are. a question what systems are incentivized to do. i want to come back to this whole issue of privacy for a second. back in 2003, governor dean, you were very concerned about vice president cheney having a variety of secret meetings. >> indeed. >> i was struck today. this was supposedly a meeting about solving a technical problem. but they didn't invite in the vice presidents for information technology. they invited in the ceos. and i have to believe that at one level this is part of a general process of getting their stories straight that has nothing to do with problem solving. >> well, as i recall the cheney days we didn't even know the names of the people who entered the meeting. so we're a little ahead of the game. this is somewhat transparent, just the subject matter. i don't disagree with everything

that chris said but i do disagree with the fundamental provise. government is running this. it's the private sector. this is modeled after what mitt romney did in massachusetts that was successful. didn't control costs. we'll have to deal with that. but 98.5% of our people have health insurance. the private sector simply didn't do that. they had 50 years to do it and they didn't do it. that's why there's a government role in here even if just simply to make it easier to buy health insurance. so i think we need to give this thing a chance. did they screw up? yes. is that common in technological rollouts? absolutely yes. when i was governor i did the tax department. my rule for i.t. is it takes twice as long, costs twice as much and often you have to do it twice to get it done. that's true of electronic medical records or university records or whatever you do. the mistake i think that was made was not to have this bill passed which i didn't support but i do think it's going to work because mitt romney showed us it can work. the mistake they made is if

you're going to do this you ought to use another private-public partnership which is the way the armed forces does health care. the country, the 36 states who didn't par take in their own exchange should have been divided up into four or five groups and should have bid this out fourer of five groups at a time and should have had different companies running each exchange so you wouldn't have the whole thing go down at the one time. that's 101 that is something that private sector person should have thought of. >> well, i'd love to hear your response to that. especially because what i like about what the governor is saying is that these things are iterative. it does take awhile. you voted for medicare part d, prescription drug benefit. had a horrible rollout. 12% of the seniors said it was a good idea at the time. but you continued to work. you improved it. obama care improved it even further. now everybody loves it. why can't we have that same process now? >> well, i think that the problem with the web site, i agree with the president that obama care is not just a web site. it's a health care program. and what the governor said is

there is some evolvement of the private sector but 100% mandated by the federal government. so it's not the private sector and the free markets deciding what to offer and consumers freely deciding what to buy and the market working that way. so i think this whole web site debate is temporary. they'll figure it out. they'll get somebody in over time to figure it out. the problem is then you move onto the next problem. the right people aren't going to sign up. the actuarial tables aren't going to line up in a way. >> there can be a number of problems. but don't you agree, you can't both say that it was great for the federal government to get involved with medicare part d which you voted for and turn around and say it's horrible for the government to get involved in health care. you voted for an expansion of the health care system, didn't you? >> that was the biggest mistake i made. >> every senior watching this wants to thank you for that big mistake, sir. >> but the bottom line is that that is in large part a privately-run plan.

there are free market forces. it was designed by a republican congress. it was passed by a republican congress, house and senate. and a republican president signed it. i'm not defending it. but it has exceeded the expectations. and it's the only plan they know of that actually is cheaper than cbo predicted that it would be. >> that's true. i don't think we ought to be partisan about that. i think the democrats were against part d for partisan reasons. and it turned out to work well. so we ought to give you credit for that. >> i'm not asking for credit for that. [ laughter ] >> if you're going to run for office i'll endorse you. then you'll be in trouble. >> i think there's a lot of posturing going on here, as there always is in washington. seems to be worse than most of us could ever remember. but there are some things that are going to work out well. i do think that obama care is going to end up working out fairly well. what we decided to do as a country, which i didn't agree with the majority on this one, is to get to universal health

care using the private sector. that's essentially what we've done. it's not entirely the private sector but it's mostly the private sector. i didn't agree with that. but that's what we're doing. i think we ought to make it work. and mitt romney showed us it does work in massachusetts. >> there's huge differences. i mean, nationally i think the current projection is there'll be at least 30 million uninsured even under this system. >> partly because republican governors refuse to accept medicaid. that's part of that problem. but yes, this is as i said i did not support this bill when it came through. interestingly enough, i agreed with the republicans on the individual mandate. i don't think it was necessary. i think it was politically foolish. but we are where we are. >> let me jump in for a second on that. as you know, senator sheheen has come out and suggested there ought to be real flexibility built, in that they ought to move back the penalties, for example, because you may actually be penalizing people who actually can't sign up. >> i think it's too soon for that, newt. i think it's not an unreasonable solution if we get down to january 15th or whatever the

deadline is and now people really can't obey the law because the web site's not ready. then i think you could have -- right now honestly i looked at the list of people who are supporting that kind of thing. they're all in fairly difficult re-election whether they're in the house or the senate. i like jean sheheen a lot. she was the governor across the river as part of my time as governor. right now this is posturing. let's wait and see, give it another month. let it roll out. >> let me ask you another question, governor. if you had had a mistake this big, 3 1/2 years to repair it, hundreds of millions of dollars, you roll the whole thing out on october 1st without a beta test. it crashes and burns pretty decisively. wouldn't you have held somebody accountable in the government? >> we don't know who's accountable. i certainly wouldn't fire kathleen sebelius if that's where you're going. >> if not her, who would you hold accountable? >> i don't know. because we don't know who made these decisions. they clearly -- two things happened. first of all, the republicans

did put every roadblock they possibly could in the way of it so the kind of tech stuff that needed to get done was not done on time. so that was part of it. but other part was, this is really tough stuff. we don't do tech very well in this country in terms of implementation we're incredibly good at the innovation. but what happens is the nerds talk to the nerds and they never actually talk to the users. so that happens all the time. >> well speaking of nerds, talking to nerds, good nerds around this table will have to keep talk after the break. we've been talking about the problems for a long time. but when we get back i want to talk about some real solutions. we'll talk about that once we get back. la's known definitely for its traffic, congestion, for the smog. but there are a lot of people that do ride the bus. and now that the buses are running on natural gas, they don't throw out as much pollution into the air.

so i feel good. i feel like i'm doing my part to help out the environment. as your life changes, fidelity is there for your personal economy, helping you readjust along the way, refocus as careers change and kids head off to college, and revisit your investments as retirement gets closer. wherever you are today, fidelity's guidance can help you fine-tune your personal economy. start today with a free one-on-one review of your retirement plan.

is what makes us different. we take the time to get to know you and your unique health needs. then we help create a personalized healthcare experience that works for you. and you. and you. with 50 years of know-how, and a dedicated network of doctors, health coaches, and wellness experts, we're a partner you can rely on -- today, and tomorrow. we're going beyond insurance to become your partner in health. humana.

welcome back in the crossfire tonight we've got howard dean and chris chacola. listen, i don't know about you but i am beyond frustrated tonight. i am frustrated that democrats are in this defensive crouch over a crappy web site. i'm frustrated that republicans seem content to just sit back and throw rocks. i think for most americans this whole thing is just ridiculous. america does not want politicians just saying defund obama care like the republicans, they also don't want democrats just saying defend obama care. they want some leaders in both parties to come together to fix obama care, to upgrade it. in fact, right now we could already have a giant bipartisan upgrade obama care coalition if anyone actually wanted to solve the problems. i hope we can talk about that

tonight. so to you, look, i want to show you some headlines and then get your response how we can fix a pretty big problem. here's the headlines they think you might find familiar. health spending rises at blistering pace. rise in health care spending could force many more in the middle class into the ranks of the uninsured. health care plans are dwindling in the united states. these are headlines from 2006 and 2005. before obama was elected, before there was obama care, before the shutdown, before the glitchy web site. this system was in disarray. can you give us a solution that's not a repeal the whole thing because then we're just back in the system we know doesn't work. there is any solution you could lead us on? >> well, speaker gingrich has done a lot of work on health care reform and transformation. read his book would be one of the solutions. >> that's fair. >> the principles of free market capitalism apply to health care by reconnecting the owner of the health care with the user of the health care is where you can

start. when people make rational decisions on how they consume health care. today it's disconnected. so the third party payer system has perverted the system in people's view how much should health care cost and how much they consume. when is the last time you took a rental car to the car wash? you don't. >> see, i disagree with that. i think that's one of the reasons we're at this impasse. free market economics actually doesn't work in health care. what paul ryan should have done instead of transferring the risk of medicare from the payer which is the government to the patient to get this free market supposedly thing he should have transferred it to the people who are making the decisions which is the provider. the way you do that is very simple. you end fee for service medicine. right now in fact the way free market capitalism works in medicine is that we get paid to do as much stuff as we possibly can. the incentives in the system encourage us, physician, to drive costs up as high as we possibly can because that's how we get paid. if you paid us to keep people well we would. >> listen.

currently you have this triangular system where i get care, you're the doctor you give the care, and the insurance company pays. the insurance company resents both of us, okay? >> right. >> and the system is designed to be conflict-ridden. i would argue going in the opposite direction, that in fact if we had price and quality transparency, if i actually knew how much -- the difference in hospital prices, in fact, the california personnel system just went down this road last year. and they now incentivize the workers to go to any of the least expensive hospitals. and the difference between to get a hip replacement in california can be like five times as much money depending on which hospital you go to. >> i think the incentive, those kinds of incentives i think are good. the fundamental problem is, though, that patients and doctors are the worst at this, do not make good decisions in the heat of serious illness. so hsas, for example, health

savings accounts, work, so this is something the con ser have tors wanted to put in and they do work. they save you 100 bucks on not going on an office visit you didn't need. the big money that needs to be saved is the $100,000 coronary artery bypass grab with rehab. the way you do that is instead of paying people, doctors and hospitals to do more of that stuff and mris and cardiac caths you pay the doctor to keep people well. >> you tell me what's wrong with that. when he talks that makes perfectly good sense to me but i bet you don't agree. >> we don't trust people to make good decisions for themselves so we must put a system in place to protect them from themselves. i have great faith. i have a health savings account. i've had it for several years. i had lasik surgery 14 years ago. you can get it done cheaper today than when i paid for it. so free markets work in i think every marketplace, including

health care, but i agree that people that truly need help should get help. there should be some safety net in place for people that need health care that can't get it otherwise. but for people that can provide for themselves, trust them to make decisions. and historically -- >> i've taken care of doctors, chris, and they make awful decision about their own health care. when i had my hip replace add couple of years ago i was telling the orthopedic nurses what to do. i don't know anything about orthopedics. it was the emotional place i was in. >> that maybe a characteristic of doctors. >> characteristic of everybody when under emotional stress from a really serious illness you actually don't make terribly good decisions. it's not like buying a ford when you're not under emotional stress. >> let me use your example because it's too good. my mother-in-law now 81 has had both hips replaced at gunder son lutheran hospital in lacrosse.

she was a compliant patient. she knew she didn't know. this is one of the great challenges with doctors. she knew she didn't know. but let me give you an example. there's a terrific new start up in california, i think it's called thoramus. young woman dropped out of stanford as a sophomore, found a method for doing nano scale laboratories. she's taking a drop of your blood. they can do 1,000 lab tests. they just went online at a local drugstore and have posted all their prices. their company has said they can take 50% out of the cost of medicare and medicaid diagnostics. now, here's the challenge. no laboratory in america will post their prices. they're all trade secrets. all these medical technology companies that want a tax break? none of them will tell you their prices. >> let me just go back to you, chris. you have these kind of innovations. there are some moderate democrats, moderate republicans. if we all got around the table

and we came up with something and then some good republicans said we're going to stand together with part of this upgrade obama care coalition, would you support that or would you primary them? my concern is that there are people who might be able to agree but then they get afraid that a good force like yours, good strong part of the tea party movement might actually primary people with good ideas if they're bipartisan. should i be afraid of that or not? >> good ideas are a matter of your perspective. if it's upgrade obama care, no, we would not support that. >> even these good ideas? upgrade obama care coalition had good ideas? >> obama care is fundamentally flawed. >> so no fix to it. you wouldn't allow any fix. >> government-run health care where people don't have any choice of the type of health care they want or don't want then no, we would not support it. >> can i just say one thing? this business about individual choice and obama care being tooken away is mostly hooey. we have more individual choice when you go on the ex chang and pick one of two or three or six or eight plans than you do right now in an employer-based system.

right now your employer chooses what health care plan you are. under obama care the individual gets to do that. >> a lot of the stuff that's in obama care was proposed by john mccain in 2008 which was to break the -- >> in florida 300,000 people got a letter that said your plan ends as of january 1. you can pick one of these four. and by the way, we can't tell you the price and we can't tell you the deductible. [ overlapping speakers ] >> if florida wanted to make this work they would have a lot more choices. >> you're going to pay for a lot of things you probably don't even want. if people want certain things in policies they should be able to get those. people who don't want that should not pay for them. >> should i pay in my health insurance policy for pregnancy which obviously is not possible? >> if you have a family coverage, yes. if you have a family coverage and there are women in the -- >> this is probably the fundamental i i'd yological difference. i think it's in my best

interests as an american to make sure people get good prenatal care whether they're related to me or not. so now we have this sort of how much community do we believe in and that's what this is really about. >> but you believe in coercing community. >> no. i don't. >> you're saying i'm not going to give you a choice about helping the community. i'm going to take your money. >> taxing is coercive, right? but we all do it. we may disagree on what we spend it on but we all do it. >> thanks to howard dean and chris chacola. now we want you at home to weigh in on today's fire back question. is it okay for the white house to host insurance executives behind closed doors? tweet yes or no using #crossfire. we'll have the results after the break. at a ford dealer with a little q and a for fiona. tell me fiona, who's having a big tire event? your ford dealer. who has 11 major brands to choose from? your ford dealer. who's offering a rebate? your ford dealer. who has the low price tire guarantee, affording peace of mind to anyone who might be in the market for a new set of tires? your ford dealer.

i'm beginning to sense a pattern. get up to $140 in mail-in rebates when you buy four select tires with the ford service credit card. where'd you get that sweater vest? your ford dealer. ...amelia... neil and buzz: for teaching us that you can't create the future... by clinging to the past. and with that: you're history. instead of looking behind... delta is looking beyond. 80 thousand of us investing billions... in everything from the best experiences below... to the finest comforts above. we're not simply saluting history... we're making it. [ babies crying ] surprise -- your house was built on an ancient burial ground. [ ghosts moaning ] surprise -- your car needs a new transmission. [ coyote howls ] how about no more surprises?

now you can get all the online trading tools you need without any surprise fees. ♪ it's not rocket science. it's just common sense. from td ameritrade. it's just common sense. [kevin] paul and i have been [paul] well...forever. [kevin] he's the one person who loves pizza more than i do. [paul] we're obsessed. [kevin] we decided to make our obsession our livelihood. [kevin] business was really good. [kevin] then our sauce supplier told me: "you got to get quickbooks." [kevin]quickbooks manages money, tracks sales and expenses. [paul] we even use it to accept credit cards. [paul] somebody buys a pie with a credit card, boom, all the accounts update. [paul] when we started hiring,we turned on payroll. [kevin] it's like our pizza.you add the toppings you want, leave off the ones you don't. [kevin] now business is in really great shape. [announcer] start using intuit quickbooks for free at quickbooks-dot-com.

welcome back to "crossfire" for you at home you can go to facebook or twitter to weigh in on our fire back question. is it okay for the white house to host insurance executives behind closed doors? right now 33% of you say yes, 67% say no. well, the debate continues online at cnn.com/crossfire as well as on facebook and twitter. from the left i'm van jones. >> from the right, i'm newt gingrich. join us tomorrow for another join us tomorrow for another edition of "crossfire."

-- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com ido more with less with buless energy.

hp is helping ups do just that. soon, the world's most intelligent servers, designed by hp, will give ups over twice the performance, using forty percent less energy. multiply that across over a thousand locations, and they'll provide the same benefit to the environment as over 60,000 trees. that's a trend we can all get behind. "stubborn love" by the lumineers did you i did. email? so what did you think of the house? did you see the school ratings? oh, you're right. hey babe, i got to go. bye daddy! have a good day at school, ok? ...but what about when my parents visit? ok. i just love this one... and it's next to a park. i love it. i love it too. here's our new house... daddy! you're not just looking for a house. you're looking for a place for your life to happen.

this is cnn breaking news. >> this is "pierce morgan live." breaking news from one of the most infamous, high-profile murder cases in. michael skakel is granted a stunning, new trial. the latest on this extraordinary turn of events. i'm going to be talking to the mother of martha moxley. and did this boy kill a beloved math teacher.