i'll be back with you at the top of the hour with more live news. right now, let me hand it over to the good doctor. hi, there, i'm dr. sanjay gupta. this morning, they very important yet complicated stories that we want to make sure you understand by the end of this half hour. america's health system is changing. that means your insurance coverage is changing as well. why the supreme court is now getting involved. then, using stem cells to fix the damage from a heart attack. the surprising new evidence. and what's behind a critical shortage of cancer drugs? plus, rapper fat joe drops some

pound pounds. we begin with big news out of washington, the supreme court says they will decide a challenge to the sweeping health care law that president obama signed last year. a lot of people have been paying attention to this. the main issue is that everyone be required by insurance. starting by 2014 if you don't have insurance through a job or medicare or medicaid, you have to buy it yourself. while there are subsidies for those who can't afford it, this specific mandate has been unpopular. the majority of americans may now be in favor of it overall. joining me from new york is andrew rubin, he has been on the show before host of "health care connect" on sirius xm radio. did this surprise you at all, that the supreme court is taking this on? >> no, we knew this would happen. it's the best way to get to the finish line on whether health care reform will survive.

it's been going back and forth in the courts far too long. >> if the supreme court overturns health care reform what does that mean for health care? what does it mean for this whole plan? this whole bill overall? >> okay. you have to remember, health care reform has two parts. one is health insurance reform. that's really what this individual mandate is all about. now, if the individual mandate is overturned by the supreme court, then it really throws into question the entire health care reform bill and law at this point, which is really restructuring the entire health care system. >> andrew, don't know if you have done this recently, i did open enrollment, a lot of companies have these to figure out their health insurance. there are some big changes for next year. i think one message is clear, you shouldn't assume your coverage for next year will be the same as it was for this year. do you have any advice? based on everything you know, what you're seeing, for people filling out their open enrollment in terms of changes coming down? >> big changes this year. in fact, insurance premiums for

employers went up 10% last year. for the average employee, it's $10,000 across the united states. it's a really big number. so, last year about 20% of employees offered these high deductible, consumer-directed plans. this year the number is 32%. the problem is with the high deductible, consumer-directed plan, they look similar to older plans. if you're not reading the fine print you could be surprised to see you have a 2,000 or $2,500 deductible, last year the same insurance came with a 1,000 deductible. the message is make sure you read your benefit plan and you understand what you are buying before you enroll in it. >> when you are giving advice, manage in a big provider network, is there some basic advice to make sure people get the best coverage and best insurance overall and protect themselves from big bills? >> i do. i've been saying this a lot lately, it's a hard concept for a lot of americans to

understand. an hmo or an epo, which is like an hmo but doesn't require a referral, can be a cost-effective insurance plan for people to choose. you don't typically have deductibles and there are no co-insurance amounts. but you have to stay in network. so you are turning your health care over to a controlled network of doctors. if you are willing to make that compromise, you can save yourself a lot of money. heretofo heretofore americans didn't like that restrictive behavior, so they went to ppo plans where they had out of network benefits, those are becoming increasingly more expensive for employees, because the more you go out of network employers are making you pick up a bigger chuc chunk of the cost. >> i have a feeling you and i will be talking quite a bit over the next few years. >> absolutely, many years. >> thanks for joining us, andrew

rubin. prevention is key in keeping people healthy and controlling medical costs, but we also need new treatments. this week, we saw some exciting new results, some things that were fascinating from two studies that were treating people with stem cells taken from their own hearts. joining me from washington is dennis buxton, who oversees stem cell research for the stem cell lung and heart research. some announcements revealed adult stem cells, not embryonic stem cells which have been controversial. the first one you sponsored from cedar sinai giving stem cells to patients just having a heart attack. their art function went down. what did they find when they injected the stem cells? >> what they found was the

patient's scar tissue, the part of the heart that was damaged was reformed this should help the patients hearts to function better in the future. >> the first part about growing new tissue. the scar grows in response to damage, a heart attack. scar tissue went down and new tissue took its place. is that a first? >> i think this is the first time that we've seen a significant decrease in scar volume and it's replaced by what appears to be functional heart tissue. this is potentially very exciting. >> there was another study as well that gave stem cells to patients with severe heart failure due to heart attacks a long time ago. they didn't measure heart tissue, but what did they find? >> they did also look at scar

tissue, they found a decrease in the scar tissue in the heart. the most exciting thing they found was an increase in the pumping capacity of the heart. so after six months, they saw basically a six-point increase. after 12 months, this was then a 12-point increase in heart function. this is larger than has been seen in over studies using different types of cells. while this is a small patient population, it's potentially very exciting. >> if you can, because you talk about taking stem cells and injecting them into the heart. can you briefly describe exactly how does that work? what is the process for someone watching this and saying maybe i will be a candidate for this some day. >> so, they took tissue from the heart, either using a biopsy -- either taking a little bite of the heart through a catheter, or during bypass surgery, and they grew this up in the -- in

basically a dish to create millions of stem cells. and then they inject the cells into the heart. they thread a catheter, basically a tube into the heart, and inject the cells into the coronary artery while they stopped flow in the artery. the cells then migrate to the heart tissue and provide this functional improvement. >> again, that can take some time to actually see the increase in performance. that's part of why i found this so fascinating. appreciate you bringing this to us. thank you. coming up, what's behind a shortage of life-saving cancer drugs? stay with us. we'll explain. you name it.

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for a body in motion. it's good. honey, i love you... oh my gosh, oh my gosh.. look at these big pieces of potato. ♪ what's that? big piece of potato. [ male announcer ] progresso. you gotta taste this soup. right now in hospitals around the country patients are being told the drugs they need to treat their illness simply aren't available. shelves are empty and doctors are forced to use second-best alternatives to treat their patients or delay treatment altogether. this week the american medical association weighed in and declared this a national public health emergency. hundreds of drugs in short supply. three of the anti-seizure medications i regularly prescribe are in short decline. drugs to treat cancers,

infections, cardio vas yvascula disease have taken the biggest hit. 550,000 cancer patients this year have been told those prescriptions are not available to them. one of them is this woman, her doctor can't get medication for her right now. renee and her oncologist are joining me. thank you for joining us. first, how are you doing? >> i just started a clinical trial. my cancer has recurred. it was in remission twice for two and a half years each time. and this time i was only able to get one chemo drug. i could not get the doxil. my cancer recurred while i was taking chemotherapy. >> is it because you -- is the thinking it recurred because you couldn't get this other medication? >> well, i took two chemo drugs each time before, and went into remission. this time i was only able to

take one, so just to to draw a conclusion about that. >> you know, seems like we have a certain expectation, doctor. you prescribe a medication, your medication will get it. has that -- it's a faulty assumption now. what do you think is going on? this is a huge growing crisis where we are actually having to ration drugs. this is something that's unbelievable in this country. >> did you have to tell renee this? >> i did, yes. we had one course, then the doxil was unavailable and we had to go with single agent. >> what was your reaction when you hear this? >> well, you feel like you're in a fight with one hand tied behind your back. we, at the time, said let's go with what we have and see what happens. the cancer pretty rapidly recurred. >> there -- a lot of these drugs are made by a single company. so if the company has trouble

with their manufacturing in any capacity, they may have sto shu down the drugs altogether. that's just the reality. what do we do? >> we stockpile the drugs when we knows there a looming crisis. that can't be done everywhere. we need a contingency plan. the ama has addressed that in their legislation. i'm not sure the pending legislation will fix all the problems. >> president obama talked about asking drug companies to flag a problem prior to the problem occurring or trying to anticipate it. if they're going to discontinue production, they have to notify the fda, but sometimes, in this case it was a production problem that was noted on fda inspection and the company voluntarily shut down. so we don't have a contingency plan there. there's no other company in the world that makes this drug. >> you are getting some very

good care, renee, you were talking about that and how effective it has been in the past. you said we will go with this one drug. did you say there is something else we must be able do here? do i have to look overseas? were there any other options for you? >> no i put my trust in the doctor in the hope that the single agent drug worked. it didn't. since then we turned to other alternatives. >> other medications that are available. >> other medications -- not chemo medications. i'm in a clinical trial now, trying some other drugs, hopefully that will put me back into remission. >> is there something else going on here? i'm sure you talk about it with your colleagues. it's not a novel problem. we heard about this sort of thing before. it seems to be getting worse, the ama calling it an emergency. is there a peek behind the curtain in terms of what you're seeing? >> it's probably a perfect storm. we have very few drug companies

manufacturing these, these are out-sourced to companies. even common drugs used in breast cancer and ovarian cancer are in short supply this is a problem. we get a list of drugs on a monthly basis that will be on a short supply and we have to make alternatives and alternative plans. we have a committee in our hospital that decides this, decides which drugs will be substituted. >> it's hard for me to ask this almost, you are both here, but, i mean, you wanted to prescribe a different medication, that was not available for renee. so you went to plan b. plan "a" is what you wanted to do excuse me for asking, but is that inferior care or is it less than standard or optimal care foreign n renee? >> it's clearly not what we wanted to do. the response would have been

better with the other drugs, but we could not get that drug. >> how long will this last? >> we do not know. the fda inspected this plant. they voluntarily shut down in may. we were told by two months. we were hoping by the third or fourth cycle that renee could get back on, but that process has not been resolved so we're sort of in limbo. there's no contingency plan. >> this problem, while complicated, hopefully we can do something about. >> i hope so. >> and for lots of other people like you. i hope a lot of people are listening to this. thank you both very much. >> thank you. still ahead, taking a turn here, rapper "fat joe" comes clean about the changes he's made to try to save his own life. >> i guess what happened with me is, like, they say a crack head or drug addict just hits rock bottom. i just hit rock bottom to where

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♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ rapper fat joe there. he's huge in the rap world. but he's not quite as big in person anymore. after losing half a dozen friends to heart attacks, last year, he decided it was time to get his own weight under control. >> lean back ♪ you know, i was talking my trainer yesterday, and i realized that he said when was the last time you were slim? i swear to god i think when i was a month or two months old. that was it. i was fat joe ever since. >> fat joe, joey crack, joseph

antonio krartejena. he grew up in public housing and was taught that food equals love. so when joe hit the big time, he felt he deserved all the good food his lavish lifestyle could afford. >> i'm rich now. i can go to mr. chow's and eat me all the lobster and steak i want. >> then in 2000. joe's friend and fellow rap star suffered a fatal heart attack. >> i think i weighed 450, 460 at my heaviest. i always took pride in being fat. that's why my name was fat joe. i always represented the big people, but i realized at a certain point all my big people were dying. >> last year alone, six of joe's friends died of heart attacks. most were younger than him. but just about the same size. >> i couldn't see a clearer picture of me being -- what's

the difference of me being in a casket and my daughter running around the funeral home and she doesn't have a dad no more? >> so joe's eating healthier food in smaller portions, more frequently throughout the day. even when he's on the road. he's lost 100 pounds and counting. >> this is breaking news, sanjay. this is like my best, best, best friend on the earth don't even know this. but i was diabetic for 16 years, since i was 14. being that i lost weight, no more diabetes. ♪ push mu >> when he's not work these days, chances are you'll find him at the gym. even though he's dropped the pound, fat joe has no intention of dropping the name. >> i got so much response to the story. the song was rapping faster. he definitely said he's got more

energy on stage. his rapping might be just the same. if you're potentially trying to drop a body i, we're kicking off our fit nation triathalon challenge. hopefully you've heard about this. i've committed to racing in the 2012 nautica race. >> that's right, you have hey buddy. >> are you going to join me too? >> fiek will mmichael phelps, iy gupta. >> see you later. he'll be joining us as well. you can train with me, he's going to train with me. make a video about why you should be picked to join the six pack. if selected, we'll give you a bike, wetsuit, six months of intense training and three all expense paid training trips. if you're still not convinced look at how much fun this year's six pack had on their journey.

>> we're the six pack. whoo! >> ready to go? >> we better be getting busy. >> definitely feels better than i did when i first started. >> a year ago, could you have imagined yourself doing this sm. >> no. >> any information about the challenge, submit your own video that will change your life. log on to cnn.com/sanjay and share your story with us. a sneak peek at my latest plo correct called the next list. it's up next stay with us.

people who smell like everyone else disgust me. so says the man on profiling this weekend on the next list. it's an exciting new program i'm working on where we'll spend time in innovators in all fields. forward thinking people like this new york city cab driver turned a war winning maker of perfumes. >> all of the fragrances that i do here, you know, in the library, burning leaves, the tomato leaves, they mean very specific things to me. they are very -- they're my memories. i mean to a degree they are me. but when another person smells them, they're having a very, very different experience. >> he wants to convey a feeling th