to lead the presentation and essentially will have a reaction by our other panelists. i want to make you aware of who is participating in this program. at the end of the program, there'll be time for questions from the audience and will make sure we cart or time to a certain extent to make sure that happens. jim o'connor. we welcome jim and doug in earl pomeroy as well. jim is a principal at consulting actuary with milliman. he has considerable experience consulting an individual small group insurance markets in this. i'll give assessing the potential impact of health care reform and the various provisions of the affordable

care act. so it's very relevant to the conversation this morning. he's provided in that regard to the implementation of the affordable care act to the association of commissioners and the massachusetts society of actuaries among others. we welcome you to our program this morning. and we have douglas holtz-eakin with us. that serves as president of the american action arm, having previously served as chief economist of the president's council of economic advisers. he was a fixed director of the nonpartisan congressional budget office and also served as director of domestic economic policy of john mccain's effort to become president. welcome to the program this morning. then we have earl pomeroy joining us. former member of congress currently serves as senior old at allston and heard, brings 26 years of regulatory experience to today's panel, proof perfect

in their information as we don't know. this might turn former member i did not know served as north dakota insurance commissioner and was president of the national association of insurance commissioners. so girl, welcome this morning. jim, i will turn the presentation to you now. jim o'connor. [applause] >> thank you. >> the affordable care act of coors would've heard a lot about it and what its potential impact

can be and what milliman has done is on behalf of center forward, and it came to us to look at six specific states as to what those impacts may eat. this states that we looked at were arizona, florida, illinois, new jersey, ohio and then. so each of those states presents its own type of care to race to experience one of the things when we talk about change, going from 2013 to 2014 is the regulatory environment, the current regulatory environment of each state right now. each of these states vary somewhat in their current regulatory environment. in particular, new jersey has regulations different than the

other five states that i mention in that many of the reforms that are being required through the aca, the affordable care act are already in effect in states like new jersey. so that is one of the reasons we chose a state like that so we could see the contrast between states that avert his past a lot of d's underrating regulations compared to those that have not yet passed as and there significant differences, certainly in what was the best impacts. so our analysis included bookie not the minimum benefit coverage, essential benefits required under the aca. the maximum is specified,

sharing are the actuarial values. premium rating restrictions regarding age, gender, the fact you are no longer going to be able to rate my health status and some other insured care mistakes. the fact that coverage is now guaranteed issue, that obviously is a big impact in the states that currently allow medical underrating in the federal subsidies. what is the impact after all is said and done, insurers come out with premiums, but we also have federal premium subsidies that are going to be provided for people who have household incomes under 400% of federal poverty level. so they look at that as well because that is what the consumer will feel dizzy after subsidy premium and those effect

people in different ways clearly. finally, the aca introduces new taxes, assessments and fees to insurers that will get past through in terms of premiums, so there's also a premiums. those are some of the key driving forces that affect premiums. we concentrated our studies mainly on the individual market because the individual market is the one most affected by changes and at the same time, the individual market today represents about 5% of the population. we expect that to grow considerably over the next several years because of the aca and we think it will at least

double. so there is a lot of focus on the individual market for those two reasons. number one, it is most affect a aca. number two, it is expected to grow as well. we also looked at the small group market and i'll have some comments on the small group market as well in terms of how it gets affect did and while the effect is not on average as great as we might hang for the individual market, their search the effects on small employers and i have some comments on that. if we talk about the individual market, the key observations we made is that certainly, before aca new jersey, the state allowed medical underrating as i

mentioned. they allowed carriers to very premium rates based on characteristics of the applicants who are coming to them. so they did very rates based on health status. they vary rates based on age and gender, geographic location, those things. with aca, we are no longer going to be able to very rates for health status or her in our age reading will be compressed. so with that of having premium rate for the rate for a 64-year-old is five times as great as the rate of the 25-year-old, aca compresses that 23 to one, so they can't be more than three to one. in the individual market because carriers are able to leave for health status another day at

five to one can actually get expanded quite a bit because of the premium add-ons for health status. so we can see a much greater than five to one in today's market and that's all three to one. so that affects a lot of people and we illustrate that in our report as to what those effects are. as i mentioned, does depend on the care restates of each person. so that sort money is one of the findings we illustrate. the other thing that is evident is that participated in the individual market because they are paying all the premium out

of their pockets. they are not getting any help from their employer. they tend to choose lower-cost policies that have much higher cost sharing. so, aca has a new requirement that the cost sharing, the percentage of benefits that the health plan has to pay has to be at least 60%. today's individual market in a lot of states, the averages less than 60%. what has to happen is the person who is today and shared with the policy of less than 60, let's say 50% have to upgrade their coverage, so they have to move from the 50% level to at least the 60% level and that is going to get reflected in premiums as

well. so they will bear the cost of getting this extra benefit. they do get extra benefits attack, but of course it will cost them more, so they will see that in their premiums. those people who have plans that are about 60% level, they are not going to be affect did, so they won't see that increase that will be coming through. so what we have done in our studies here is we've looked at to sample plans in 23rd team. so we looked to see popular plans being sold and from those plants, we chose to rate each state. one of those plans was a popular plan ahead and actuarial value less than 60% and the other had an actual value greater than 60%

because we want to illustrate the impact of just that factor itself. so when you look at the detail of our presentation, you will see obviously the total rate changes for those who have plans less than 60% are greater than those who already have a plan that pays more than 60%. so, new jersey was a little different because new jersey are the past a lot of these requirements such as guaranteed issue in the individual market, such as unisex, the changes have new jersey are far less than what we see in those other states. new jersey also has standardized plans that are required in the individual markets.

so that also reduces the actuarial value of the type in that state. so we see a new jersey that people can certainly get reductions in their rate, even before the subsidies. so the thing in new jersey as they have two different types of standardized plans. one is basic and essential, when a standard plans. the basic and essential are little bit less regulated, westbridge plans. those will get more impact new jersey then the standard plan. even in new jersey, we see people, depending where they are and what plans they have today, dan impacted differently than people who have the standard plans.

some of the ratings care to restates where preparations are different for those standard plans and that gets reflected in new jersey race. finally, we look at the federal tax credit yet those are the premium subsidies. those premium subsidies can be very significant for people who qualify for them. people who love how sullivan come under 400% of poverty will qualify for them. what does that mean? for a family of four, we talk about a household income of about $95,000. so people below that threshold in a family of four are going to qualify for some consideration or premium subsidy. now, some of the things we have

noted that the premium subsidies is while they can be very, very generous to people at the lowest levels of an come and in fact, they are so generous that because premium subsidies are based on what is called the silver plan, that is a plan with a 70% actuarial value. if someone chooses to purchase a bronze plan, a plan was 60%, some of those people can get their coverage for zero premium after subsidy. so we have a full spectrum over the premium changes are going to be after subsidy all the way down to zero for a bronze plan some people and people above 400% of poverty, they get no subsidy relief and so they will

see that rented the other changes that we have studied and our reporter. there are also some people, particularly younger people, who even after subsidy qualify for very little subsidy as it turns out it matters because of the way to subsidy formula is based on how sullivan comes. whether you are 27 or 57, if you're at the same household and come with the same size family coming up at the same subsidy. premiums are much higher for older people than younger people, some of those younger people are premium rates are less than -- less than what the

threshold for their subsidy. so they end up not getting subsidies. that tends to happen somewhere above 300% of poverty. so it varies by agent terms of who really gets a subsidy. it's not quite the 400% level. that's what we start looking on it, but in effect, for younger people and a lot of situation it is 300 or more. so those were some of the key things we looked at. the findings that we have basically in the five states other than wisconsin, before subsidy, the changes we see are some way or in the area of 15% up to 60% on average. so the fire the range of

potential changes in high increase. when we are talking about these increases we did this study looking at the impact of aca on premium rates. in addition to the user that normal changes due to the annual increase the cost of care. so we refer to as trend. so in addition to these, we will also be adding to these and various state by state, plan by plan, the range is somewhere from 5% to 9% they are expecting this year. so those will be some additional impacts people will feel as well. now, one of the things we did

was we looked at 2014 plans. so bsm those plans would have the same type of provider not work and managed care features the plan people were coming from. what is happening in the 2014 mark a in order to keep rates as low as possible, houseplants are introducing new plans that have alternative provider networks. you may have heard the term narrow network plans. a number of plans for lunch or dues plans which can help drive down costs because they are able to negotiate lower rates with providers if those providers want to be in this narrow

network. i think we have seen that has been the case in every released by california last week that a lot of those plans have been able to support lower premiums than what we otherwise would have expected. our study did not want to look what effect that might have and that might be a 10% or 15% lower rate than what might otherwise be affected. that counters for people who opt those types of plans, counters the trend increase i just mention it may be a little bit harder than that. so we see increases on average between 15% and 60%. new jersey on the other hand we see their average is somewhere between minus 25% and 0%.

that's for the sample plans we looked at. there could be other results, he married have current plans out they are that will effect people. of those pieces, a good chunk is due to the fact that people need to upgrade to 60% of all. and our report, we give an indication and it tends to be somewhere in the 10% to 25% range. finally, we look at the subsidies and as i mentioned they can be anywhere from 0% to 100%. so the subsidies can vary quite a bit. what i encourage you to do is read the reports.

the center forward website don't just read the reporter. read the appendices because it is in the appendices are the real detail is. india panax, we look at the effect both before and after subsidy, based on sample at ages. so they look at ages 27, 37 to 47, 62 for males and females. different health status levels, so people who are very healthy all the way to people quite sick in getting large writeups on their premium rates and we look at different income levels. based on all those combinations, you can see in our pen sees how those rate changes might be expected to come out for a

person in a given situation with their care or six. that's the real value of the study as it gives you the details that you can get a good sense that is true that there are winners and losers in minutes and that illustrates to those people may be in terms of who is going to pay more, who is going to less. finally, i want to talk about this small group arcade. we see that most states, there will be increases. one of the things is to very rates for small groups based on its composite health status. that's gone away. so we took the luck of what the

distribution of those is and based on that, we are able to take a look at what impact that house. that was our key focus in the small group market is what impact, that one single change will have. it averaged somewhere around 6% to 12% for each of the states. what is real key is that it's just an average and if we look at who are -- what percentage of groups will have increases versus what% had decreases, we see typically somewhere firm 70% to 80% of the groups will get some increase for that and this

increases will vary. the average in our studies turn out to be somewhere between 10% and 25%. new jersey had the least increase of all those. included in those increases is the addition of the taxes and fees that are also going to impact those that may tend to be around 3% to 5%. another percentage of the small groups is going to see decreases. those decreases tend to be somewhere in the range of 10% to 15%. actually, ohio is in excess of 16%. so, small groups also see differences based on their care to mistakes. but we didn't factor into our

study is small groups will also be hit by the age changes and unisex requirements because an employer group can differ in the makeup in terms of age and john are. you really couldn't look at that into much detail, but certainly, groups that are made of younger males will tend to have higher rate increases than those groups that are on house the were comprised mainly of older people. so the age gender impact also plays a role here, too. so those are the main findings and with that, i think we are ready to open our discussion. >> we are ready to begin our panel discussion and we'll start with you.

>> first of all, thanks for the chance to be here today. this is obviously a very important show. i've worked with jim in the past and have a lot of regard for his efforts and i worked for earl of the budget committee and i still live in fear of him. i've loved this work and are a number of reasons. first, of course it's everyone's intuition about what some of the features of the affordable care to have to produce in terms of premium changes and when you put in the age dan and so you can charge higher premiums to the older compared to the number, we expect to see increases in the old come straight through this analysis and certainly ought to

have a differential impact whether you have those regulations in place. given that has so much speculation about how the affordable care act will play out, it is nice to see a study that the men's everyone's intuition about the pattern of increases in the level of increase is likely to prevail. the second reason i love this work as it gets the same answers i work on. so what could be better? in january, the american action foreign put out a survey, which is a survey of insurers and asked them a similar question. not identical, but did you have a 27-year-old health e-mail in chicago, illinois? this is a policy right now and we had these hbm can guarantee issue and other regulatory restrictions on insurers. what happens to the premium we

got answers like the appendix jim recommended you read. so there will be very different in packs depending who you are. averages are not going to tell the story. young and healthy see big increases in some cases, our surveys had 100%, very close. these are sharp premium increases. look at relative decreases as part of the regulatory framework. we just don't want to rely on average. there isn't a single number that will tell you about the aca implementation. some people will get quite a bit of an act and others less. that is important and raises a couple of wildcards that deserves some further work. we did a second survey, which was put up were recently surveyed young american who have insurance and we actually took

the time to find out their monthly premiums as a result be able to turn into dollars what happens at premiums go up 10% to 20% or 30%, which based on all the work that's been done, including today's another crazy possibilities under the aca and the answers are quite striking. in a group that basically looks at the life that i like some of it, i don't like part of it, it's not political or partisan calculations. it is a consumer pricing decision. at a certain price point they say we are done. it goes to 100% of the people down to 83%. they go pay the penalty. raise the payment to 20% and 30% is down to 55%. those are quite striking results about the responsiveness of the

young folks who are an important part of the pool that are going to be on the state-based exchanges and that leads me to the final point, which is this is going to depend a lot on many. the way you solve that problem is easy. you throw money on it. either having subsidies and this raises the importance of subsidies that jim talked about. said another subsidies to a smaller increase and they stay in the pools. that is one way to solve the problem. the regional other ways of subsidizing and i think how that plays out i don't know the answer to and merits a lot more consideration that's at the heart of having an effect does

functioning expansion and insurance for americans. last piece i want to emphasize this something that i'm latching pension, which is there is a big difference, often most of the public debate between health insurance coverage and health care and the choices and care that people receive and we are seeing this innovation called the type that work or care choices are far more limited than with the care people receive will be hit by these coverage regulations that have been imposed by the aca. that's a second think we don't know yet how it will play out that is important and merits watching of other states go through the process of picking up the insurers by aliens for the nature of that. and how much is broad and open

networks and whether to keep the coverage price is at reasonable levels. the short version here is i want to applaud and the fact we have the events to talk about it and to encourage everyone that one of the key takeaways is there isn't a single answer comment is that they will a nuanced policy issue and it has been my sad experience that nuance is not easily conveyed in the public debate. thank you. >> thank you so much. girl. >> thank you had in place to be on this panel. i do think that it should be commended for the level of detail that gets into showing the nuances that just mentioning terms of the picture.

douglas holtz-eakin is someone at known and respected for -- at least 15 years and someone that's been very engaged in the political debate and now the intellectual integrity is intact, which is no small, so congratulations on that it's good to be with you this morning. i have an interesting perspective on all of this from a background of insurance commissioners of the bill was voted for the bill in a good reason i'm in private sector today. [laughter] -- a lot. i'm finding the debate on rate increases to be as partisan and disappointing as much of the debate about the whole bill. on the republican side this scouring of every rate filing an uptick in a proposal coming

weeks shocked the bills of failure. democrats conversely looking whether race or not impact due to severely and they pound not as absolute proof you can expand coverage to those. you can limit breeding surcharge to those in much higher premiums and it's all free. there is no consequence whatsoever. obviously, either side is continuing the melodrama approach and it is important we understand and context by the situation will involve some great increases, but what are the trade of policy benefits achieved? when i was insurance commissioner 85 to 92, kind of the last. overly serious efforts by the insurance industry in my view to contain medical costs to keep

the premiums affordable. in the end, the increases of medical cause of the business of health insurance change became much more the business of identifying red and either excluding it from the pool or her surcharge he meant as a way of keeping premiums affordable. they were grading schemes we've addressed as regulators trying to keep that from getting in a really out-of-town. as a business is segmenting high risk in a legitimate approach of a business standpoint, as a social standpoint, this is not an acceptable foundation for health insurance for america and in the 21st century and the affordable care i added score tries to address that. basically says it you have been excluded from coverage because of a health condition, we will

assure rules that keep you out are changed and you are now able to access coverage. if you have been surcharged to an unacceptable degree, unacceptable as defined in the statute, three to one, for example, are much lower than presently existed. you will not be charged over that amount. in the event the cost consequences of this clobber you amateur income levels you can afford coverage. you don't get coverage outwork, coming to the insurance exchange to buy your individual coverage and there will be premium subsidies in order to keep it affordable. it is a hugely complicated piece of work with an awful lot of decisions taken from the market place and decided as a matter social policy.

coverage that jim mentioned, for example. the loss ratio imposed upon insurance companies reaching into this brave new world, all very severely limited and frankly what we are seeing underway at the insurance companies is the most complicated rating challenge i've ever seen, looking uninsurance reading almost 30 years now because it involves the grade on. new systems and market structures and behavior responses from the population of the impossible to predict. so i think that the political debate about whether or not the race will be with us or whether there should be no great consequence is that it's a real disservice to the difficult time the market is in getting the coverage extended and the price that are for this year.

the way i like to think of this is mere shifting years. we are moving from a system that has excluded race to a system that and we shift to greater coverage certainly a more extensive coverage available and we subsidize those that the moderate end of the wage scale. of course jim mentions 95, 96 the dollars. i think a lot about the premium subsidies, the small group market place or portions of the health insurance market plays

are giving way under the old system. the most dramatic restructuring the market plays and basically the $64,000 question as they used to say though ultimately determine rates in these new individual health insurance exchanges is who signs up. one can expect a behavioral response, for example, from people with health conditions that have excluded them from coverage and not look at coverage. they understand very acutely as a financial risk their family of not having coverage to pay the medical bills that are much more likely to be incurring. on the other hand, you might make a case about their subsidies available and people self insuring the risk that have an accident and breakaway can

have to see an emergency room doctor. now they will have subsidies they cannot coverage available and will they respond, won't they respond, with the understand how it works and it's extremely complicated bill? politics again is weighing in on this one. i think we've taken outskirts of voter suppression and moved him right over to a first of enrollment we have not found that information, getting information out to let people know who may be subsidy eligible. you've got a new shot coverage. second life, we've seen with health and human services reduced shaking at 10 cup, panhandling for some

contributions because the congress would appropriate money for sign-up to try and raise privately money to assist the nonprofit and been accused of something as dastardly like the iran contra type of violation in the administration. what is this about? during the first of all discourage the contributor universe and any of the station efforts to raise privately what they could not get funded publicly to the end that we don't want people to know about these exchanges because we don't want them in the pool. ..

5% relates to no improvement in the policy at all and the insurance fees and taxes newly created under the bill. this happened in the senate. [laughter] >> you can't -- the insurers are faced with new fees and guess what, they can't deduct them. i think there were some on capitol hill but were going to show them they can't deduct these.

they pay the premiums because the cost is passed on and priced out in the cost of coverage. and so that premium driver that doesn't contribute to anything in enhanced coverage of the policyholder. who will, how much? the have conditions what is your gender, where you live, some states have made this shift already, not that much impact on, hold obviously if you are younger you will lose this rating. finally, coverage i also will very substantially in the rating impact on the premium or not. i don't think we have ice

acceptable health insurance system. one that put its best to either keep you out of coverage if you needed the coverage and did nothing to respond to those that couldn't record coverage of all. that was a system where and away we all losers. we have a stronger health insurance system as a result. thank you. >> terrific comment. jim, before we go to the audience for some question committee want to further discuss or react to the panel discussion? >> certainly that is the point that they both made are very valid health. one of the key is that we need to understand is that both.

the rates are different in different states right now. so, earl mentioned where you live is deemed important. when we talk about a state like new jersey, when we look at a state like new york, where a lot of these reforms have already been put in place, we look at the premiums today and they are quite a bit higher than the premiums and these other states we've looked at that haven't passed those reforms. second is a good indication as to what direction we think premiums for the individual market will probably move over time as the new requirements get put into place. so, we do need to be cognizant of all of that. and again, as i've mentioned everybody gets affected differently, and i really

encourage you to look at that type of detail and not just look at averages because that's really where it is important. >> now if we could have questions in the audience and a bear with us we will need to get a microphone to you and for you to state who you are and who you represent. >> jim, haven't had a chance to read the full report, but how and why you have selected these six states, i would assume you've probably looked at all 50 states and selected these based on some criteria. and just to follow-up on that, to give us an idea about the geographical impact, how many states would you say are like new jersey and new york and massachusetts that already have a lot of these reforms in place? and thus their residents may not seem large increases and how many states are like the other side without as many reforms.

one, we were getting data from certain carriers and somewhat. we could get good data the states as i mentioned were the regulatory environment for someone different. so, new jersey obviously stood out as one with more restrictive regulatory environment. arizona was a stage, and ohio was a state where there was far less regulatory requirements than other states her, and finally the other states like illinois and florida and somewhere in between, though

most of those states in the middle tend to be somewhere towards the least restrictive and those with most restrictive because they do allow for the rate of variations as well as underwriting and the ability to decline. so in terms of the numbers of states, pretty much the ratio that we have in our study is the same as what we would see if we looked at all 50 states. so, the states that have already passed a lot of these is maybe five or six states i would put into the bucket. and then the least restrictive and kind of the middle restrictive, certainly the other

40 to 45 states are falling into that category. and within that there is a spectrum to where the regulation is and it would defer -- it makes a difference as to the regulatory environment not only for the individual, but, which we kind of concentrated on the small group market. some states that are more liberal than the individual market are not necessarily all liberal in the small group market. so that makes a difference, too in terms of trace is that employers will make going forward because tomorrow when the regulatory environment is basically no different than the employers will make it. >> we need the microphone.

>> sorry. >> would it be fair than to assume that about five of the states will not see sycophant increases under health care reform and 45 will see the residence face bigger increases and everything else being equal? >> i think that is a fair statement that certainly not only will those five or six states not see increases. quite possibly from quite a few of the members will actually see decreases in the rates provided that the inflow of new members are healthy. as we have to get a healthy and flow of new members in order to bring down average health status in the risk pool. because right now in those states because there isn't a

mandate, a lot of healthy people choose to stay out of the market simply because the premium rates in the markets are a lot higher than they are in the other markets. we definitely need that inflow of new healthy lives as well as those that be expecting to get the are of less healthy. we need the proper mix of riss. >> one thing, as you look at most people and their coverage and jim mentioned this in his opening remarks, the large employer group and that part across the 50 states received much less premium impact. we are talking to the smaller portion of the market, the individual market. >> question back here. >> i work for the representative. just as a clarifying question from something that you said in a previous about who responded

to the study. i just wanted to confirm in the state's that are studied here, the company's covered that as comprehensive. so, are there companies that do not respond or? >> what we did is solicited information from blue cross and national carriers. we looked to every carrier in the state. >> question down here. >> bertoni with mcclatchy newspapers. i wanted to ask you -- your estimated 5% of the injured market is in the individual market. i wanted to find out what percentage is covered through the small group market.

and of the five or six states that had the requirements already in place, you mentioned new jersey and new york, but i was hoping you could find ifill in the blanks on the other three or four. and i was hoping somebody could address whether the availability of the catastrophic coverage that typically has the lower premiums is that not a viable option for the young healthy people that would face higher premiums. >> the other states that we are talking about that in terms of what the new jersey, new york, massachusetts, vermont. we may consider washington, oregon, those types of states. a lot of them have lost so then the first several mentioned.

what was the second question their? >> [inaudible] >> the small group market i don't have the numbers there but it would roughly be about ten or 12% i think of the population. and that's three -- when we talk about small groups, we are talking about companies with 50 or fewer employees. >> and in the catastrophic coverage. >> the catastrophic coverage certainly, you know, plans will be out there for young people or people who find other coverage unaffordable. you know, to purchase at a lower cost. so, i mean there is volubility certainly to that plan. i don't think it is the type of

plan that is going to be attractive to everybody who qualifies for that plan, but certainly having that plan at least does give another choice to people. >> on the small group of you are a group of 25 or fewer, there is a tax credit and a premium and 50% the first two years of coverage. the rationale behind the 50% for the first two years as you rearrange your pricing and cost structure. so therefore, you work your way into the employer coverage for the smaller employers, 25, again that may not have had it so that is a significant tax credit and it is not mentioned in the of report.

>> we need a microphone for you, sorry. >> i guess if you put a small group in the individual market we are looking at 15 to 17% of the market out there. is that a relatively small -- is that a relatively small slice of the total market that would be affected by this? >> clearly i think, you know, most people will not directly feel the impact at least immediately because it is supported here. because most people are employed by large employers who are not subject to the essential benefits and are not subject to the minimum value of 60%. they are not subject to these rate requirements. so they won't feel the type of impact that we are talking about

for the heather 20% or siobhan. they will feel some impact because the large employers are going to be subject to the new taxes and fees. so they will see some of the premiums passed on to them in the way of the premium and so i think it's right that certainly a majority of the population is not going to be as impact as greatly as the people in the small group and individual markets will be. >> i think it's a importance is beyond the people in it and here's why. first, to the extent that employers change their coverage and no longer grandfather, they are going to get into an entire

regulatory web. second, anyone that is the air arithmetics recognizes that for any employer up to about 30% of the poverty line it is quite clear the employer and the and we each have a shared interest to stop providing insurance. the lost exchanges, take the subsidy and buy coverage that is as good or better than they had before. and the employer on the same transaction can give them a raise, stop paying health insurance and come out ahead. get a penalty and come out ahead. the only big loser is the american taxpayer i would point out to get sick, an open question which will be resolved only by dhaka course of history is just how these exchanges involved. will they remain an age commodity or will it be the case that there is large-scale by the employer sponsored market, and if it is as large as the arithmetics suggest, as the majority of the product will be

conveyed through the exchanges and america's future. that is a big deal. how this plays out is important out of proportion to exactly the initial startup. the start of matters in the following way as a voice my concern earlier we know the bad risks will stepup. those people will be hand escorted to these exchanges, i promise you. they will be there. and the question is well the healthiest show up if they face severe premium shocks and the impact is the well and they are not subsidized and they are not impervious, they will say goodbye and very expensive pool that goes in to invest the kind we have experienced that is an open concern and then these things go away. on the other hand, they can show

up and if they do, the exchange's survive for later the employer to enter into this and so the ultimate outcome of all of this i think is highly unclear and it's going to defer as we pointed out ages and incomes and health status, but the implications are enormous for the future of american health insurance, and the importance is not as measured by the factor of people in these individual markets. >> i want to just echo a word of agreement to express that situation. these exchanges -- a couple things. most employer groups will hold tax incentives and supporting the employer health insurance remained the importance of health insurance as part of your employment relationships.

it is paramount everything about employer health insurance continue. i don't think that is going to blow away overnight. on the letterhead, these exchanges -- this is a marketplace idea. the reforms in exchanges which the republican alternative forward. it is a marketplace concept. there is a lot to be concerned about whether things are going to work perfectly or not under the affordable care act and i wish we were at a point in our political discourse where the parties for collaborating to make this market place this more efficient marketplace where consumers can compare apples to apples and get a better deals

with their coverage this is perfect as it is and we miss the old days. >> can i add one questioned? we agree on a lot of things but one of the key features of this is going to be does it work when you flip bus which on january 1 for actual operations, will it work? open question in my view lots of reasons to be concerned. they have a difficulty signing up or they show up on generators and the subsidies don't show up. there are lots of startup risks associated with how the exchange is played out even if you agree on that sort of notion of the exchange as an abstract concept. so, the next year is going to be

an interesting period of science >> one thing i was pointing out in terms of your question. the small group expands to 100 employers and employees. so that increases then the percentage of people who are going to be affected by this. so again in 2016 we see at least in the small group market, you know, the resurgence of some of these questions and issues as that market expands. >> one last question from the audience. >> i don't see a hand. is it possible considering the detail that has to be discussed and where we are right now to give general advice to those folks that are listening saying with a question on their mind how do i avoid a large increase

in my insurance premium? is that an servile? >> yes, yes. i think one of the things some people aren't going to be able to avoid it whatsoever to and with the characteristics are. will this provide some of these in terms of the premium rates that will be charged based on what they had mentioned earlier the through the plan designs and network designs that will help keep down costs. those are the options for people who would be given an ever larger increase in opting for those plans. >> i would offer the industry has been evaluating how to prevent an array of options in the marketplace that will get

plenty of choice to people come evaluating the very question you posed. sometimes the regulatory call on whether the ideas would be acceptable or not in in the new environment, they might have been turned down. i think it is the time we ought to have flexibility in a trice. we are making a very important market shift your. i would encourage the administration to have an open mind about alternatives and flexibility going into the portable care act. it's going to be available of the state's for some states are opting for an option of purchasing for their exchanges where they go out and actually decide in a regulatory fashion what kind of policies are of available. if you want to solve certain kinds we will see who buys it. the latter will be preferable in the environment where there is going to have to be a lot of the

response to just the reality of the regulatory shift and the reality of the tax and fee shift that's all one on avoidable, is a nationwide position on the health insurance, no way around it. so you have to maneuver in that. the more you maneuver, the better. >> thank you. on behalf of the center for the unfortunately i have to end the program now and i want to thank the board and the stakeholders to support center for, the staff as well. he panelists, jim, doug, earl, thank you very much for the presentation this morning. this is a perfect example of how we try to offer timely information to the general public from a general public that is awfully cynical about what is going on here in washington d.c.. maybe now the insurance industry is viewed with more favorability than those in the house and the senate but it's still a world out there that's going to have to go through a lot sorting

through, so we think you for offering all of the information that you have offered today and thank you for coming. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

>> when you first arrived four years ago, i'm sure that you never imagined that at the end of that there would be a lady behind the party talking to you with a funny accent. it's been in my system and in 1980i met henry kissinger don't ever worry about your accent you can never underestimate the advantages of the incomprehensible.

on facebook we are asking what advice would you give the class of 2013 the social security and medicare trustees today released a report on the fiscal health of the two programs. the secretaries of the treasury and health and human services serve as trustees. the report of the medicare trust fund will be exhausted and 2026, two years later than previously thought. and social security will run out

of money by 2033. here is a few minutes of the treasury secretary jack lew talking about the report. >> the social security medicare board of trustees met this morning so we could complete annual financial review of the program then transmit the report to congress. they represent a fundamental obligation that we have as a country to provide income and health care security for our fellow citizens. this obligation is passed down from one generation to the next and has a perception of the war and most of all the will continue to meet their commitments in the years ahead. yet as the trustees reports have been indicating for a while now, the programs in this year's report for social security are essentially on change from last year and those from medicare and proved modestly. as reported last year when considered on the combined basis social security retirement and disability programs dedicated funds sufficient to cover since

2033. it's expected ongoing flows of tax income will be financed about three-quarters of scheduled benefits. the medicare report demonstrates once again the importance of the affordable care act which is strength in the finances buy rating of health care cost. the health care law also helped extend the hospital and insurance trust fund and overall the hospital entrance trust fund will have resources sufficient to cover benefits until 2026, two years longer than was projected in last year's report. but more must be done. the president recognizes how essential reform is and is determined to work on a bipartisan basis to put social security and medicare on a strong footing. for social security the president is ready to address future shortfalls and put forward a sense of principles to reform. these principles underscore the need to find common ground to extend the life of the program while making it clear changes to social security that involved deep benefit cuts in the privatization will be

unacceptable the president also has a plan to strengthen medicare. he wants to shrink the cost of health care spending and reduce the excessive subsidies to prescription drug companies and ask seniors to contribute more. this plan will not only make medicare a stronger but will lower the future budget deficits.

more than 800,000 americans participate in short-term auto rentals also known as cost sharing. the commonwealth club of california recently hosted a discussion of alternative traditional car ownership and the environmental and economic benefits. this is just over an hour. >> a lot of conversation about s economyironment to understand any of them you have to understand. them all.a w today we are discussing a new means of personal mobility. m a firstob decade ago. out you open the smart fun at theno kitchen and find a ride across discs thecross the country. we will discuss the transportation piece of thece

of shared economy with a live audience of the commonwealthere club in san francisco.ith we are pleased to have peopleree with us at the forefront of the innovations. the ceo of cost share, the ceo ite car from u.c. an shaheen berkeley. we have the head of public policy. please welcome them. [applause] i would like to start briefly by asking how you got into this sharing economy and car sharing? susan, you've been doing this a long time. tell us briefly how you got into his new area quite some time ago. >> i've been researching these car sharing systems for 17 years.

i thought it made tremendous sense after i saw a presentation . out pressuring systems i heard the lecture and i said this is my dissertation topic. i was challenged by my committee who said there is no way americans will give up their cars. i thought there might be a chance. i never looked back. >> so you wanted to prove your committee wrong. ok. >> yes. > you were an investor and you had an incarnation with another company -- tell us you got into the sharing economy and the ride sharing? >> actually, my story begins back in 1997, believe it or not. i just mosted to san francisco.

me and my wife had one car between us. one day as i was waiting to be epiphany. i had an i thought i had an idea, i need another car. but some day my phone will know where i'm at. i started thinking, some day we're going to rethink transportation around this idea. it led me to work through the ideas. ran into the founders of city car share. here's another example of rethinking transportation. i was on the baurd of city car share for a number of years. taught at the university. the students created get around. we have a law passed in

california of car sharing. my interest in this category has been around for a long time. i think ride sharing, which is what side car does. we're able to expand this rapidly and aggressively around the world. >> rick, how did you get into this space of ride sharing? you're non-profit. >> ride sharing was started back in the late 1990's. we're about 12 years old. i'm a reformed banker. i made my way out here, did a couple of start-ups and ran into people like sunil who was doing amazing things in the environmental space and around innovation and technology. city car share lost its executive director and after a

little dance, i decided to join and the rest is history. it has been seven years. >> we'll get more into ride sharing. how did you come to the ride sharing and car sharing? >> i was outside council to naurm of the high-flying companies. i also represented other companies. in 2010, i was working with a company and grew close earn close we are the founders. i saw the vision. in what they were doing over last couple of years. i came on full time three months ago for legal and public policy matters. >> great. et's get the bask terms --

basic. can you outline for us ride sharing, car sharing and then we can get how it is changing the way people get around the world. >> it is fairly simple. it is the shared use of a vehicle. >> we need to put your mic on. >> it is a shared vehicle by a group of members. they frequently pay an annual fee, monthly fee and pay by the hour and in some case, by mileage. there's a couple of new flavors of car sharing that you heard mentioned. one is the peer-to-peer concept. that is the idea of people putting their own personal vehicles into this car sharing. we're seeing a new form called one-way. operatinglike bmw are here in the city.

that's a one-way model. in rick's model, which is more classic, individuals go into and out of the same location for their access to the vehicle. with one way, you actually can pick the vehicle from one location to another. so there's a lot of tremendous innovation in the car sharing space right now. there's a lot of confusion about definitions and impacts. it's causing some flurry of activity here, actually in san francisco. in terms of ride sharing, there's a couple of different flavors of that. starts with the simple, a family sharing a vehicle, taking children to and from school, maybe with the neighbors. it also moves into more of a classic car pooling situation where people are sharing a vehicle that they car pool in for work trips or more regular trips. there's longer incidents tants

trips. we're starting to see a tremendous amount of innovation in, which is represented in -- by my colleagues here which is the ride sharing. very dynamic and instant. so what we're seeing, in my opinion, is the growth and development of the shared usele mobility space. we don't know how it is going to shake out. we have a lot of work ahead in the public policy arena. >> so the concepts have been around for a long time. you go into the airport, share a van. why is this happening now? is it technology, hard economic times? what is driving it? >> i think there's three things that have changed. i actually looked at doing something like this in 1999. i decided not to for three

reasons, all of which has changed. technology, that is changed. smartphones, there's been smartphones for a long time. what has changed is you can have access to them without convincing a big, huge company to cooperate with you. you can publish it to the itunes more are coming. there's interest on the part of every day people in new forms of transportation. i think this is -- we have more willingness to experiment with transportation than any time since world war ii. since that time we accepted that is going be the mobile of the rare. >> owning the automobile. >> yes, the car that you own. because of climate change, things like energying suggest --

security, there's a willingness to try new things. third thing is there's political will to try new things, for the same thing of climate change and energy security. there's a political will to experiment. i mean, a quick andy dote. when i was advocating for the company, i was sent into a republican's office, i shouldn't . y publicly why i was sent in >> would that change the way insurance is handled? >> the insurance companies could have killed this bill. i was told with a single phone call. i was told these republicans were, you know, very minimal to the interests of the insurance companies. i met with a staffer, i was prepared for all my arguments

and the first words out of her mouth, this is the future and the insurance companies need to get on board. to me, there's an indication there is a willingness to try new things in transportation, there's a willingness to accept the smartphone and technology is the wave of the future. we are going to reorganize our entire society around this and transportation is one of those things. we've done it with media, shopping, eastern things. transportation is the next big category to be transformed. one person at google, in five years your car will be your smartphone. does what does that mean? does that mean self-driving cars? more displays in the car? what does that mean? >> when we say that we're talking about today, when you want to do anything in modern life, if you want food from the

grocery store, get to work, you want to go out of an date, everything is mediated by the automobile. now, everything is going to be mediated by your smartphone. you can get the mobility that you need, whether it is going grocery shopping, going out on dates, getting to work, all of that will be possible through your smartphone. >> let's talk about the size of this market. do we know how big this market is? there's lots of companies, that are pretty small. do we know how big it is? >> yes. this is what i do. [laughter] i track these numbers for the industry. me.'s why you invited i have not shared this with the media yet. we did our data collection for january 2013.

north america has surpassed the million mark for car sharing members, that includes mexico, quite small, one program and canada and u.s. he u.s. is about 820,000 members. >> car sharing our car riding? >> car sharing. >> that is tremendous growth, right? >> it has been growing. since we've started our tracking efforts in the late 1990's, we've never seen a decline. we've seen ongoing growth. i do think this product or service could scale much bigger than what with see today. my concern is how do we look at this from a public policy stand foint grow those numbers bigger? i'm very interested in the question of scale ability now i used to be interested in how is

this going to impact society and environment? >> who are those people? are they people who live in urban areas, people under 40 who live in urban air zpwhrass >> those are the common demographics. i think there's chances to grow beyond that in the business models and changes in the overall approach. i think everyone on this panel represents that change. >> then what are the impacts of that change on existing businesses, car company, we talked about insurance companies? are the car companies going to sell fewer cars? >> they could sell more cars if they put them into car sharing systems. we see a number of automakers who are interested in providing these services. bmw, they are

putting electric vehicles throughout. they could be a service provider as well as a vehicle provider. there's an opportunity for them to develop a new core competency in their business. ultimately, there might be an impact on the total size of vehicles. we're looking at a changing world where people are moving into urban areas. there is limited space. we're facing climate change and energy issues that are going to impact the future. i think the role of the automobile is changing. >> bill was here from ford company and he said car sharing is going to happen whether we ike it or not. is this going to reduce vehicle miles traveled?

or people are going to be moving around more because it is easier to do? >> that is an excellent question. i think there is this potential paradox as you make things more efficient people use them more. we'rehink in case of what doing, specifically with ride sharing, there's an opportunity to reduce emissions and reduce congestion. it has to do with the way that we do it. passengers must enter their destination and drivers can see what that destination is. we like to say the good of the nation requires destination. conveying asically if you can make the ride shared then you can have reductions in emissions, you can have reductions in congestion. if you can't have that kind of

sharing you're not going to get those benefits. >> is this someone commuting from san francisco to the east bay? is this the daily routine? if this is someone going down the 101 and wants to get into the car pool lane? >> we have a number of different people. we have a platform so people can indicate here is where i am and this is where i want to go. drivers can see where the pick up and destination is. if that is convent for them they will accept it. we have a guy in our system named nick, he works in mountain view, he lives in the city. he turns on the app in the morning, he looks for somebody going south and they drop him off and he goes on to his job. that is one case. there are other times people turn it on to get out of the house and give rides to people

because they like meeting people and it is a way to make extra money to offset their car costs. >> i take that as motivation for distinctive ve the banner -- >> the car stashs. >> is it the extra money that is a big motivater? >> i think there are a number of motivaters. one is the opportunity to make a little extra to offset your car costs. i think people believe in the long-term vision of the company, hich would have an effect in miles traveled and greenhouse gas and emission reduction as well. >> how does that work? if i hop in and that car might be sitting in the garage, i might have taken a taxi and the taxi would be out there driving around.

it could increase the greenhouse. >> that's a great question. this is something we've talked a lot about with susan in the past. i believe, officially with car sharing that was the problem. you had vehicles available to people who were did not have vehicles available. you are putting more cars on the road but which n the long term, you're having an overall positive benefit. that is our long-term vision as well. >> would that happen, susan? >> yes. a lot of times the early adopters of car sharing in a city are people who never had access to a car. it is not surprising tow see an increase in miles traveled. the real gain is reduction for the miles traveled is to get people to sell cars or postpone car purchases. revealed thatdies

one car sharing vehicle takes nine to 13 vehicles off the road six uses people to vehicles. that is where we're seeing the net effect. the total net effect is actual positive towards the environment. this study showed about 43% eduction in co2 emissions from those postponed and those car purchases. >> you also have data on the impact and what it displaces in carbon and vehicles and miles traveled. >> in the bay area, we're ground central for car sharing, peer-to-peer sharing. there's more companies offering

services to allow people not to have to own a car, or to get rid of a car. we've been experiencing that for years. 2/3 of our members say they have sold the car or delayed buying a car once they join us. study done back in the early longitude the only study that i know of and it shows cars take off the road. it showed that a greener ride could have an impact on greenhouse gas emissions. based on the report and work that susan shaheen has done, we saved about 80 million pounds of

co2 emissions. 80,000 fewer miles are driven on bay area roads. you asked a question about growth. there has been tremendous growth. when i joined in 2005, i had a number of 3205. last year, we issued number 40,000. there's been tremendous growth in car sharing. every single one those members is likely to have gotten rid of a car, not buying a car, or is thinking about getting rid of another car. you have reduction in greenhouse gas emissions but in all the co2 that is released in the production of those vehicles that would have been purchased. >> you claim your non-profit car sharing service is greener than four car sharing services. how? >> i'm using information that

came out of a study back in 2008 that showed non-profit car sharing organizations do save more greenhouse gas emissions. what is the reason for that? i think there are several reasons and the main one is we have the greenest fleet in the industry. 45% of our cars are hybrid or electric vehicles. when we look at -- just based on e.p.a. standards, our fleet is about 35%-40% more fuel efficient than the standard car on the road today. >> i would say the former car share member i drove around -- i wouldn't buy those car bus drie around in. is that true that for profit companies are looking to maximize their profit? >> what i would say is the data showed for profit and non-profit had a negative effect of

redoesing co2 emissions or a positive effect for the environment. we did see that this effect was higher for the non-profits. i have another hypothesis for the dynamics of the fleet. i also think the pricing of how city car share prices have an impact. they do charge by mile. i think that has an impact on the total number of miles driven by a city car share vehicle. it is contained more inside the pricing of a for profit company. does that make sense? >> sure. for relay rides and theers models where people are using their own car, they may not be

he cleanest or a hybrid. is there an incentive to be clean and green in the model? >> you know as far as not with respect to the way city car share is doing it but what is clean and green about it, you have less vehicles on the road. less vehicles total, more people using their vehicles in an efficient way. even if you're not driving a prius you maybe are taking another car off the road. >> i read a statistic that 80% of the car seat miles are empty. you think of a five-passenger car and during rush hour -- so we're talk aboutal pretty big cultural change here prp for all those people who are used to listening to n.t.r., we love them, or sports radio and

picking up a stranger, do i want to talk to you all the way to san jose? really? how is this working culturally to ride with strangers and make that commitment? >> i think it is working remarkably well. i think there's this whole culture that -- i'm old enough to remember texas chainsaw massacre. there is -- one thing that surprised me was that we put all these safety measures in into place and people have taken to it. the background check of the , all , the rating systems of these systems have, i think built confidence that this is a safe system. enough so when we surveyed the users, 71% think it's safer, they feel safer in a ride they atched through us than a taxi.

we've been around for less than a year of offering this service. >> someone who recently took my first thrilling ride in another company that is a real time dynamic, basically, replace taxi. i like the fact i can see the guy's face before he picks me up, eni have his information afterwards. that moderates the drivers and i get to check one or five stars, that has an effect on the person's behavior. i think trust seems to be a big part of this. user confidence or accountability in both directions to making this work. >> we have this new model of trust that is now possible. it is because of social media, just the ability of feedback. there is little accountability before. casual car pool here in the bay area transports 5,000 people a

day with no accountable. >> that is where you wait on the side of the road and a carpals up and you don't know who they are. >> that's right. so we took that model and was like, gee, can we take that and make it work across the entire bay area and around the country? and the answer is yes, it's working and it is spreading rapidly. >> it is spreading rapidly and t is causing resistance with regulators. >> let's talk about the yellow cabs, who is being disrupted by this innovation? let's talk about the incumbent defending their territory and how that is playing out. >> it is a battle that happens a lot. the industries that -- the new

envow vacation want to resist it and they use every enmeans they can. i think another example of this is what happened with voice over i.p. and things like skype. they offer this amazing service and amazing advantage for consumers and at&t and the rest really resisted it. they used other systems to help resist that change. i think a similar dynamic is at work right now. we've got objections that are made against us don't come from the public, they come from people who have a lot to lose by having innovation happen in the marketplace. > you've been fined what $20,000 -- the regulatory issues cost you half a million dollars fighting this. >> just to recap, the california

regulators have sent notices to . fines three of us while there are those fines out there to be honest, what is expensive, we haven't paid the fines. what is exspebsive is engaging with regulators. -- expensive is engaging with regulators. lawyers, that is the expensive part. we're innovators and we're looking for new ways to make the systems better and transform transportation. we estimate about $500,000 that have gone towards these regulatory engagements. >> what is their beef? you're not regulated? what is the problem? > well, i think --

>> you don't have a license to do what you're doing. >> we had a note saying that we should stop operating because we don't have a license for a don't ory code saying we have a license for another company. we don't have car, we don't have drivers. we are information provider, we provide matching of riders and drivers. so i think there has been a fundamental -- this is a new median and it needs new rules. that viewpoint is one that regulators in the beginning don't understand. we see the same thing in philadelphia, austin. >> are they trying to make it illegal? in philadelphia they did a sting operation on your company. >> yes, a week before last there was a sting operation -- it wasn't against -- it was against

our company but they impounded the vehicles of three drivers, they fined each of them $1,000 -- sorry one of them was fined $2,000. they sent us fines as well. they the , -- austin, sent us a cease and decease and the city council has made it impossible for them to impound vehicles as well. i think what happened in california is we went from an attitude of the regulators to hey, you can't do that we're going to shut you down to, ok, we get it. we need new rules, let's have a conversation about what this new median is like, what the right rules should be for it, and how do we benefit california through this new capability? that is the approach we want. we want to talk to these folks. we're not saying there is no

role for government. we think there needs to be a way to encourage eninnovation. >> your company reached an agreement with regulators and so what was the deal to get them off your back? >> right. we had a number of trust issues in place background checks, rating system, etc. the public utilities commission's number one concern is public safety. i think they're not as focused on the entrenched interest like the taxi cab, they are interested in protecting consumerss. once we were able to show them what we do we were able to come to ansettlement agreement. >> -- to a settlement agreement. >> but that was not ok with you?

fines was to stay the and cease and desist. those conversations, we've agreed to keep confidential so i'm not going into details. i will say, we obviously, have not agreed to what they proposed. we have principle disagreements with what they have so far. we may end up signing it but only after we get an agreement on those principles. >> where is this going? innovation is ahead of policy as often is the case. there's industries fighting to protect -- susan sha sheen, how is going this going to shake out? where is this going? >> i think we have to work through these policy issues for the entire space.

the ride sharing space are hitting it first. i think a lot of questions about liability, new insurance models, no ways of doing pricing, a lost things need to be worked out. >> those are built around ownership. >> access. yeah, they are not based around principles of access. so i think we really need to work across the industry so there's many different players in this beside car sharing and ride sharing. we've got public bikesharing in it, we have new models of ownership being developmented that fits into this space. there's a range that could be represented and collectively, i think they have a voice. it's difficult when you're an entrepreneurial and trying to . n a business we need a new policy framework and we need a new dialogue.

i've seen a lot of promise in regulators wanting to have that dialogue but it is this immediate reaction that i think is really tough and difficult for the small companies. this could stomp out innovation. >> by the time rules get made. >> can i just add? >> sure. >> we're seeing this not just in transportation, we're seeing it with challenges in sharing. it across the board. sharing is not crime. it is good for sorte and we need to figure -- society and we need to figure out a way to encourage innovation. > hashtag defending sharing? good access on twitter, the hashtag is our hand. >> we should get people to sign our petition. we have people helping us with south by southwest coming up in

austin. the timing with austin is really unfortunate. we were planning on providing these shared rides for south by southwest and along came all these actions. we would love support on our petition on change.org. just search it and you will find it. >> i want to reference quickly, a company not up here but relay ride had a person -- quite a tragic case. n m.i.t. student and going her -- googler es leased out her honda, several people were injured, someone was killed. that looks like it would be exceeded. she could be on the hook financially. this ask a case that no one thought would happen but lending out your car than leasing out your couch.

>> i would say this goes back to the public policy issue. he talked about his work to develop peer-to-peer legislation and it would help to protect consumers as well as protect their right to make money off the use of their car. only two other states have adopted that legislation thus far. in that particular state, massachusetts, there was no protective legislation in place. you can see, are these small companies expected to go state by state by state to develop legislation? it is going to be impossible for them to do that. we need to elevate this to a national dialogue if not a higher dialogue. in the libraryability issues liability address -- issues need to be addressed. is the current insurance model the proper model? probably not. we need to look at insurance

vehicles and, you know, do we need new insurance approaches, new insurance products to help promote the service? >> is this market driven? the insurance companies are saying we have different clients and they are protecting different interests so it is hard to see the market doing this. >> god help us if the regulators are in charge of innovation. can you imagine if they ran twit center [laughter] i have nothing against them but their institution is not set up to do that. their job is to protect public safety, not to encourage innovation. i'm sorry, that is not their charge. there has to be a way to -- the role of public policy, to uphold the role of people is to encourage innovation. the role of our government is to encourage innovation.

>> you think insurance companies innovate? >> yes. yes. >> they are going to have to. in insurance, you have the commercial and the personal side and they do not meet. they don't talk the same language sometimes. when you have cars involved with different regulatoryle environments in different states, you have a mess. right now, as typical of any business that has been relatively successful over a long time you're going to get inertia and they are going to do everything they can to protect themselves. it is not working as far as promoting and helping innovative new ideas get accomplished at a cost that is practical. in the peer-to-peer car sharing model right now, it is a great model but one of the key issues

they have is they cannot make any money with the insurance costs at the level they are at. i think she can talk a this. when we penciled it out years ago, we went great idea. is it scaleable? is it going make money? it's not going to make money if insurance companies don't get -- become more innovative and choose to create a new product, quite frankly. >> it took a lot of work for people to take their health insurance different places. that was hard. >> do you think there is going to be innovation in insurance? there's going of to be large companies that will be more resistant before there's smaller companies that might be more nimble and pencil out the risk. car sharing, you can speak to this. tremendous history of wonderful,

safety, good driving records. there's not a lot of accidents in the shared space, with respect to car sharing. i know this for a fact. there's money to be made by the insurance industry by understanding that data, that risk data. >> if you're just joining us e're talk about car sharing. shaheen, is susan sunil paul. before we go to audience questions, i want to talk a how this is going to affect buildings and cities in the way that we build new spaces to accommodate growth? there's going to be new people in the bay area in the coming years and we if we build parking one to one that has imply cakeses. do you get special parking

spaces if you're driving a shared ride? how is the land use going to connect with mobility as a shared service? >> san francisco actually has been somewhat innovative in this air ya. back in 2006, the planning code was changed. now in san francisco, any billing, commercial or residential that is built, is required to have car sharing if they have above a certain amount of units. that kind of legislation is being studied and looked at in other venues as well. we did a pilot test on on streetcar sharing parking last year with the city of san francisco. is is a very interesting subject because what we're talking about is using the public right away and the public good and making it available to private companies. so it shouldn't be taken

lightly. the fact is there are many benefits to allowing shared vehicles of any kind to be parked in areas where we might have equity issues, where car sharing or car ownership is not financially viable. therefore, being able to have on street parking or parking that either subsidized or permitted is going to help expand car sharing and i believe some other models greatly. in the bay area, parking is the ey aspects that causes costs challenges for almost every model and is difficult to find. >> anyone else? >> i think sharing models have a tremendous opportunity to reduce

challenges for cities. it takes so much money, it costs $1 million a mile to build a sidewalk. not the mention a freeway. it is incredibly expensive to build these things in public infrastructure. having shared use, we already have h.o.v. lanes, having shared use through an apartment, through a side car system, having shared use of public infrastructure for parking spaces, through car sharing. all of these things make our public dollars go further than they would otherwise. i think it is fundamental, special to a money constrained environment that we're living in for the foreseeable future, sharing has to be part of the solution. >> building developers don't like what they see as a government mandate. it messes with their economics. >> there's a lot of developers who buy into this.

many developers, at least in the bay area, we're local community buzz many developers get this. they look at sharing as an amenity for their projects. they see it as an opportunity to also build less parking. parking cost $30,000-$40,000 per space. if you can not build those spaces and put in a few other units or even some open space, that makes it a better project. many developers are very supportive of what we're doing. >> we're talking about car sharing and climate one. we would like to invite your participation. don't be shy and come up here and come to the microphone. who is going to be the first brave soul? if you're on this side i would encourage you to start on that side. our line starts with our producer who will invite you up to invite your question.

while that line is forming, let's talk about the jobs impact. how many people -- we talked a little bit about extra income. are these companies significant job creators? let's get a sense of new jobs as well as, sort of part time jobs? how many employees? >> side car has 50 employees around the country but if you ook at the extra income or offsetting of vehicle cost we're closing in on 1,000 people around the country. >> we heard a member members of the car sharing services. how about jobs? >> our numbers are similar to sidecar's. i think we have 40-45 full-time employees now. hundreds more receiving incremental income because being able to ride share. >> part of the economy.

>> i am wondering if local developments have partnered with the car sharing and marketed that as a benefit? >> absolutely. we have several build information san francisco and also in the east bay. there's a local developer named patrick kennedy who -- maybe you have heard of these microunit developments going up. >> super small housing. >> patrick that is been a leader in that space and one of the things he pitched to the city here is i won't build any parking, we'll use car sharing so we'll have microspaces. >> these are housing that might fit into a parking space. >> true. we don't want people living in the car necessarily but it would be bigger than some those spaces.

>> anything to add to that? >> i've been tracking this for a long time and i see developers getting on board with this because they can make better use of the space. >> parking is a selling point. when you go to a condo the owner is like what if there is not a place to park when i come home with my christmas tree or bhaffer. so this is one step further, right? >> in my cities and locally here, you have unbundled parking. so a condo must separate parking and you pay a separate amount for that. if you choose to go car free, you don't have to pay for that spot or even buy it. at least in urban environments that seems to be more popular with sharing mobility services, whether you can use sidecar lift

and gate car immediately or being b a member and share a car for more common needs. you don't need to have a car in the city. >> how about the impact on transit? is this taking people off bus >> this is where model matters and different models of car sharing, ride sharing and peer-to-peer car sharing, we know through studies that when people join city car share, they decrease their drive big 45%. how many miles they drive and they increase their use of walking and biking over 50%. we've done studies with the san francisco m.t.a. over the years and it shows we're pushing more people on to public transit quite a bit actually. cally last year, we had more ople taking a car across the

bay to use a dart station than people using it who lived there. >> dart u.s.n't do go wherever and use a car sharing to get that final mile. >> thanks for a great panel so far. the social car sharing is impressive. we talked about insurance liability. if you look at zipcar stock's performance was underwhelming until it got bought. my question is what can you tell us about how compeling this market is for companies that are in it financially? if we had this panel 10 years from now are these companies still going to be in here? >> start with your background and i will plan. >> we should -- before you start ride sharing from car sharing,

the differences. >> zipcar was about car sharing. >> as far as car sharing is concerned, we're non-profit. we've made money for many years. we take all that money and put it back into the community through a low-income that we call community share. we developped the first wheelchair accessible vans that we've shared. we're going to initiate a local bike program. we own other companies are making money. not a lot but enough to create some social program that we think are important and to help expand car sharing. ride sharing, a new model here, my opinion, is that people like sunil would not be in it if

there was not money to be made somewhere down the line, as well as social good that is produced. -- an le ventures is a investor. the ogle ventures is institutional investor in it. this is my third company i've started and ran and invested in many. the last company was very successful. i made a lot of money already. so i am a capitalist so i expect to make money on this company and it's a big reason why i did this. i did this -- i'm doing this company not just because i think i can make money but because i think i can make a big difference and i can make history. i believe there is an opportunity to build a big

company that fundamentally changes transportation. 10 years from now, we'll look back and say, wow, that -- not just sidecar but other companies in the space ended up transforming the way we think about transportation. in the same way we look back in material days of electric cars. we say wow, ok, amazon, they were not just selling books and ebay, was not just handling collectibles and allowing people to trade collectibles. there's a whole bit of commerce has changed because of those companies. i think we're in a similar stage. i think the smartphone is going to unlock mobility in a different way, it is not just your mobile phone, it is going to be your mobility phone. >> so you may never buy a car for the young child that grows up and hits 16 like you and i wanted so bad.

it may not happen. >> the trend is heading downward. the number of people who get drivers licenses at age -- i think it is under 21. that population has been declining since the 1970's. in part because of of -- for a different reason. in the past, your automobile was your key to freedom. you got the keys and you can go out and do stuff in the world. today, my almost 12-year-old they have freedom already. they can talk to their friends, they don't have to be stuck with their dad all the time because they have a smartphone. that kind of -- it's already unlook different kind of freedom and mobility. i think when you take it to the point that i need to be able to move around in the city and i do need to look into a job. all of those things will be possibly through their phone. >> would you call up a ride

share, sidecar and put those kids and send them somewhere? >> sidecar. they are only 11 and a half but when they are older i would. >> next question. >> you were talking they are saying that we will have self driving cars. >> another reason why i jump in is because of self driving cars. -- we think that it is a fundamental change to transportation it will occur, that having a network where you

can get access to our ride plays very well to self driving cars. >> i would add that many people in the industry are arguing that good platforms for autonomous vehicles are actually these. a selfidea of buying driving car might be a little scary, but going to a city car share, which can be a factor, maybe they'll want to buy because of range anxiety, but that could be a good place to sort of prime the market for electric vehicles. >> we have the largest program going. currently only have 20 vehicles. i believe we will double it. the first six months that we had our initial 10 vehicles out

fully fleet, some are electric vehicles, we had over three house and -- 3000 unique individuals trying those cars. we think that car sharing, we are also putting in charging stations for public use and car share use in locations that will allow us to do that. >> did they go on to become buyers? >> we suspect that we have had some short-term membership that we're looking to try out. we are happy that way. >> we have found in our research that individuals who have a life change need to move to the suburbs, they have a child or something like that, they often by a vehicle that they were driving and car sharing. >> this whole idea of sharing

and variety, it is intrinsic to the whole sharing experience. if you are -- one of the things that is attractive about using someone else's apartment is that you get to connect. it is variety. in it is not the same old holiday in. you get to try different vehicles. you get to meet all of these interesting people. it is part of what makes it fun. it is not just the same old thing every day. wax -- >> i would never buy one, but i felt: help driving those things around. does this model translate to rural or suburban america? the ford f1 50 is the best- selling truck and america.

moving up to the suburbs? >> i believe it will. i think that the stronghold for the systems will be urban areas. just because of patterns and how people are going to be gravitating more and more towards urban living. but i do think that through phenomenon like peer-to-peer car , fractional ownership, the idea that several people: a vehicle, and all this connectivity that is provided, there is really not a reason why these things can't spread to other areas. this is the next great challenge for the space. can we move this into other location that -- than just these areas. >> did you do research or benchmark on what is happening ?n europe

you had to companies one in germany and one in france. did you check why it is so big there? i do not know if he is here. has hadof car sharing limited success. all over year. it is a denser population. >> they also have institutional governmental support. i'm talking about regulatory and policy support. that helped tremendously in europe. thes a great example of

sort of public framework encouraging these kinds of innovation. -- i shouldn't they areumber -- doing millions and millions of riders. they are doing very well. >> that started out of colleges. i saw one today for someone going to greenville from san francisco. that is something that is really growing. >> that is right. today is our sixth year anniversary of a corporation. it started initially focus on colleges and universities, a critical thing with respect to carpooling, getting a critical

mass. a large enough user base. the original model of the company was focused around colleges and universities where you have a dense population of people that are often going to and from the same destination. and we were left with the evolution of that with mobile technology, the ability to do these things in real time, rather than plan a week or so in advance. >> we have to end it there. we have been talking about car sharing and ridesharing. -- rick hutchinson

>> wednesday's last hour of the "washington journal," there was a recent magazine article on a spotlight of the amazing series, and today, a forbes article with the headline "big money, big money," begin with the headline and the economics of the mississippi river. explain that for the viewers. >> caller: well, thanks, greta. the economics of the mississippi river are huge, of course. the mississippi is a vital conduit for goods of all kinds

in the united states. i think about 16% of coal, 20% of petroleum products, a large amount of fertilizers moving down the mississippi, so this is a very important part of the industrial logistics infrastructure of the united states. we can't really live without it. >> host: who ships down the mississippi river? explain the barge business. >> well, the barge business is huge. there's about 20,000 barges that ply the river at any given time, and i recently took a ride on the river with the ingram bar company as well as cargill, adm, bungee, they all have their open barge fleets moving grains and petroleum products and all sorts of stuff. it's interesting to see the news right now that there's barge traffic that's been halted on the river because of all the floods in the northern stretches

of the mississippi. that's putting a crimp on business these days. >> host: explain what it was like to be aboard that barge? what did the people you talked to on there tell you about the business? >> guest: well, they've been in the business forever saying that, you know, once you wear through your first pair of boots, you're on the river for life. these guys, some are on the river for 30-40 years and absolutely love it. it gets in their blood and can't dream of working anywhere else. i spent a day floating down the river. we went past new orleans and checked out the loading facilities, saw giant grappling claws grabbing claw and loading that on ships. we stopped at a cargill grain elevator and saw these guys loading up a ship with wheat bound for egypt, loading 60,000 tons of wheat for egypt.

these are the things going on on the river every day. when we have times like this week when the traffic has to stop, you automatically start to see grain prices rise and corn prices rise and coal because there's concern we can't get the commodities to markets if the rivers close. >> host: taken the 150 mile stretch from the gulf of mexico to baton rouge moving 400 million tons of cargo a year. cargo alone moves more than 9 o commodities on the river and operates 1300 barges. the access here is so thick the crew of the ingram calls it suicide alley. explain. >> guest: yeah, they do. it's called that because that stretch of the mississippi from baton rouge down to the mouth of the mississippi down new orleans can be very dangerous.

this is -- this area is chocked with refineries, grain elevators, a lot of barge traffic, and they don't have have many accidents. the name "suicide alley" goes back decades, but that's what they call it, and it gets sketchy. there were times we floated down the river and you're not floating, but you are powered by four big diesel engines on the boats that we were on, and the boat is so big and the cargo that we were pushing that day was so big, 40,000 tons of coal, and it's not like they can change direction on a dime. they are kind of sliding down the river and the traffic going down river has the right of way of course because if you go with the current, you can't change the path that easily. it was exciting at times. you're only going 11 miles per hour, but that feels fast. >> chris, explain the role of

the government in this industry. >> guest: well, that was something that i found very interesting. i started taking a look at the river as part of a logistics series we are doing in "forbes" magazine, and when i went into the story, i didn't have any real preconceived notions, but i just wanted to learn more about the scope and scale of the investments on the river and importance as a logistics network, but as i got more into it, i realized that the movement of cargo on the mississippi is subsidized tremendously by the american taxpayer as far as i can tell, subsidized more than any other mode of transportation perhaps other than sending supplies up to the international space station. taxpayers fork over about >> reporter: 800 million a year to keep it navigateble, and this

is a tremendous amount of money helping these barge companies. yes, we need barge companies, need to move cargo down the river, but the barge companies only pay $80 million a year towards the upkeep of the river. that's about 10% of the total cost of maintaining the navigatability of the mississippi. that was something that really surprised me e. >> host: let me stop you there. we have a full screen from your piece comparing the barge industry to other transportation industries. the railroad shippers, you write, paid $20 billion in construction and maintenance costs in 2011. truckers for the nation's highways and roads paid $30 billion, and that comes from fuel taxes and other fees. barges, by comparison, paid about $80 million in 2012, so billion versus millions. >> guest: uh-huh. yeah, yeah, it really is a stark

difference. the railroads, of course, they received subsidies early in their life. they were given land grants by the government when there was nothing out west and they needed railroads to be built, but today, the railroads don't receive any subsidies from taxpayers and like you stated. the railroads pay $20 billion a year to keep their tracks contained. they pay fuel tax, diesel taxes, and most of the taxes that they pay, i believe, they cover the wear and tear of the destruction they put on the highways. the barge business is different paying a very small portion of the costs of maintaining their water born superhighway as it were. that's something, that as a country, we have to think about, especially now that we have the

floods on the mississippi. i wouldn't be surprised that if in the next few days, there's more barge companies and politicians saying we need more taxpayer money to keep the river navigateble. i don't know if that's the right way to spend our cash. >> host: we want to get viewers involved in this. republicans 202-5 # 85-381 # 1, and independents, all others, 5 p 85 3802. tweet us and we can read those on air. if you look inside your piece that you wrote for "forbes," there's a graphic here, the water drops, once the king of cargo, the mighty mississippi is dethronedded by interstate highways and railroads. is that the reason subsidies, if you will, are needed? that's why they have to foot the

bill for making the mississippi navigateble? >> guest: i don't really think that's connected. the u.s. government heavily subsidized the river system since the get-go, navigating the about of the mississippi, the missouri, the ohio rivers, the whole inland waterway network. that costs more than $50 billion in today's dollars when it was done earlier on in the 20th century, and there's always been a lot of traffic on the river. the thing is in recent years, the use of highways has, of course, blossomed, and railroads are getting more and more traffic all the time, and as it stands, the railroads and the highways together move about 15 tons more freight ever year than the river system does, so you could make the argument that we

could stop funding the river system all together and the railroads and the trucks could take up all of that cargo capacity by just increasing their fleets by about 10%. i'm not suggesting that happened. i think the river system is a very important part of the logistics network. united-- network of the united states, but people have to understand the real scale of the different modes of transportation. the railroad system carries far more freight than the rivers do. >> host: from twitter, industrial plans that favor certain states, regions equals bad policy, and then james writes in, "a barge hit the bridge, closed the river for a while costing a fortune." can you talk a little bit about the -- if something were to happen, close down the river, do

we have numbers? what's the economic impact? >> guest: well, it is funny. it's back in last year, we had a massive drought across the midwest, and the river levels on the mississippi, the water levels got very low, frightening low back in no november and december, and there was talk back then that, oh, no, the u.s. army corp. of engineers would stop traffic on the river, can't get barges through, and the industry, of course, was saying we have to do something, need more money, need to -- we need to dredge more channels, and the concern was that we would lose something on the order of 7 billion in barge traffic, impact, 20,000 jobs if traffic on the river were stopped for, say, a month. if traffic stops for a month, it could impact maybe $7 billion in

trade. now, in the scheme of things, that's not much, but it matters a lot to all the workers on the river who would make about 130 million in salary during that time, so it matters to the people on the river, but like i said before, the barge traffic and the cargo capacity can be absorbed by other means if the river shut down. we don't need to fret about the section of the river being shut down for a few days. >> host: okay. allen in michigan, independent caller, hi, allen, welcome to the conversation. >> caller: hi, thank you. having worked inland waterways for a lot of years and dredging, of course, into the mississippi is -- i'm confused if you say that we have flooding now going on and that would mean you'd actually have more water for the mississippi, and also is there any talk about if you get into a

drought situation this year, will it be nymph a draught on the great lakes living on the great lakes all my life, i tell you we're at historic lows. can you talk about that? i wouldn't mind, actually, if they shut down the traffic if you say what is true could be picked up by trucking because, really, the inland waterway is a manmade system, and we really can't afford to lose anymore water in the great lakes, and, plus, we have another front. we have the asian carbs that are going to come up here and just, in fact, i think they are already in the great lakes going to eat all the fish, and so, anyway. >> host: all right, allen. chris? >> guest: i think your comment about how a few months ago the concern was draught and now the concern is flood is a very affluent. this is a natural, it's a manmade system, like you said, the waterways are totally manmade and man maintained, but it's still influenced by the

natural systems of rainfall and the snow melts. about a week ago, illinois and michigan got upwards of 7-9 inches of rain, and now all that water's just rushing into the mississippi, so six months ago, they were worried about too low water, and now the concern is too high water. the thing is, the barge industry never lets a crisis like this go to waste. when the river levels were too low about six months ago, they got with their politicians and got in front of the lobbyists who came to washington and started talking about the need for appropriations, federal appropriations for billions of dollars to maintain the rivers and prove locks and rebuild dams and all of that stuff. there's a couple bills out there right now, one which would appropriate $8 billion for new dam and log construction over

the next ten years. this is the kind of thing that they will continually bring out and try to get political attention on whenever the water's too low or too high. these are always opportunities to make political hay and try to belly up to the taxpayer trough. >> host: chris, you write in the piece about who is leading that effort, and recently, a group of senators led by democrats casey of pennsylvania, landrue and others led by kentucky congressman introduced another bill known as the waterways are vital for the economy, energy, efficiency, and environment act -- >> guest: a mouth full. >> host: yeah, appropriating $8 billion for new river infrastructure. from twitter, chris wants to know if you want them to pay, they raise rates. make the ones shipping on the river pay for dredging. before the drought happened,

what were the proposals to increase the fees or make the barge business pay more? >> guest: yeah, there have been a lot of moves over the last two administrations to make the barge companies pay more, both the bush add obama administrations have floated the proposals whereby the barge companies might pay a fee of perhaps $50 every time they have to move through one of the 200 locks on the system. the obama administration was trying to figure out how to impose, i think it's $900 million in new fees over the next few years, but all of these administration proposals have fallen flat because the senators and the congressmen in all of the states that border the mississippi and illinois and the ohio rivers, they are powerful, especially when they vote together as a block. they are going to be able to

stop a lot of these proposals, but the thing is, like the twitter commenter said, yes, the barge companies, we need them to pay more, but, ultimately, they're moving the traffic, moving the cargo for the farmers, the adm, cargill, e exon-mobil, baton rouge, marathon oil, so many giant facilities up and down the river, and they built these facilities there, factories, processing plants, refind river levelses, built there in order to take advantage of the cheap mode of transportation, so, ultimately, if those companies that make these commodity products that will have to pay more, but the mechanisms to get them to pay more is to get the barge companies to pay higher user fees, and then pass that cost along to their customers.

>> host: inside the "forbes" magazine piece, a river of subsidies, the barge business is the most heavily underwritten transport system in the u.s. with the taxpayers picking up nearly the entire bill for the business, and railroad and trucking pay more and still pay their own way. highways 8.8 billion tons a year, railroads, 1 #.9 million, 0% subsidies, and waterways, .4 billion tons a year, 92% federal subsidy. republican caller, joe, thanks for waiting, go ahead. >> caller: thanks for having me on the program. i want to remind everyone that the river system is used a lot for recreation by boaters, and i, myself, have been up and down the mississippi several times, and i've enjoyed the use of the

river exiebt. in addition, i want to say a barge, full toll barge, moves the equivalent of over a mile long freight train worth of goods. it's an economical means of transportation, and we have to remember that. >> host: yeah, joe, inside "forbes," chris, you quote the ceo of ingram who says having the industry pick up the tab is unfair, saying, quote, consider all the other beneficiaries of the river used for drinking water, hydropower, flood control, wildlife conservation, recreation, irrigation, and yet none of the beneficiaries pay anything. >> guest: absolutely right issues -- right, but i think there's many parts of the river, suicide alley, where you don't want to float along in a sailboat and have a giant tow boat come by

you pushing 60,000 tons of grain and coal. there's not a real recipe for a fun day on the river. there's parts wonderful for recreational use, but those boaters are not making money from the river. they are not the ones to be concerned about charging a fee for the use of the resource. >> host: chris, how much money are we talking about? >> guest: in what? >> host: that the companies are making? profits. >> guest: the profits can be enormous. they are making billions of dollars a year in revenues, certainly, and i think the entire barge industry is grossing $10 billion a year, and they are private, so it's hard to tell, and they maintain their

own fleets of barges, and barges, singly privately held company in the united states with revenues on the order of $130 billion, so cargill is taking advantage of the river because it's a cheap and economical way of getting their product to market. ..

anytime you charge corporations anything, they pass it on to the consumer. so whatever you want to do, it just ends up costing everybody else. post go to japan that in in your research? >> guest: it might end up costing everybody a little bit more. when i visited the cargo great altimeter just outside of new orleans, the reloading of vote, he should 66 million tons of wheat ban for each it. this week in the ship will make 200 million loaves of bread in egypt, so i have a hard time seeing where the u.s. taxpayer should subsidize the movement of goods to egypt.

why not have cargo charge the egyptians more for the green and using a little bit more revenue to pay a little bit more for moving their barges on the river. yes, it is going to cost everyone more if we charged the barge companies, but at least the payments will be coming from the end-users rather than the taxpayer. >> host: barges or a hidden industry, vast majority of americans have a reason to think about. carl, democratic caller. >> caller: yes, hello. thank you for being on the show. i was just wondering if possibly there was a way to get your average joe owner who has his own slip next to another house

in another house all in one water cul-de-sac and the audit their own slip since data of car. everybody's taxes pay to dredge that ammo into the mississippi. >> host: all right, chris helman. >> guest: if there's private citizen that have their own slip for their own boats, yet keeping that operational weather that's right? >> host: heatsink taxis people who have slips to pay for the dredging of the river. >> guest: that's a great idea. to some extent, you want the rivers to be navigable for everyone, but the people who use the resource ought to pay a little bit more. it can be like the toll roads we all drive on.

we've all got devices attached to our cars that whenever we go through the easy past lane in houston comets going to charge you. i don't see any reason why the users of those on the e. in other rivers can't have that same system. if you pass at mile marker in the river adobe charge 50 bucks or what hunger bugs. if you go through a lot or dam the river, maybe you pay 75.x. perhaps they could waive the seeds that it's a sailboat that wants to come through because there's so few in relation to the hundreds of thousands of barges on the river. i don't see why we can't have a system that works like the toll road and apply the same type knowledge each of the rivers. >> host: chris in minnesota, independent caller. >> caller: hi, good to be on.

we are dealing with carp on the upper price of the mississippi. my question i'd love to get an answer on that is, you know, the long-term studies on the impacts of shipping on the e. ecologically or approaching water crazies here in the midwest red menace out of his mostly a drought. this is our main drainage basin for most of the midwest and reynolda cannot tax dollars to fund these electric areas and what have you, but the argument is not about barge traffic? we do physical barriers or this or that, we will affect our barge traffic and use tax dollars to pay for that. i am all for the barge companies shipping and more because there's some blooming long-term ecological effects. u. of m. has done a couple of buddies on it that if we don't pay now, we are really going to

pay later with recreational fishing is there a spread of the waterways but have you. you know, the realigning up with the river want is a natural flow versus what we can to flow way should be. so yeah, i'm all for the companies paying more because cargo and adm and what have you, we don't know how much they make and they make a lot of money. thanks for having me on. appreciate your comments. >> guest: that's very interesting comments especially in regards to the ecological concerns of the river. the caller noted that there is this concern that the river ultimately will want to take a different path than the one it is on now. that's a topic that fascinates me because i look at the old maps done 100 years ago of the mississippi river flood plane

and as you know, the course of the river is serpentine, looks like a coiled snake and over the millennia, the river has taken many different paths. right now, man and the army corps of engineers has forced with ease levies into a particular path. a couple years ago when we had his raclette on the river, there was something turn we would break through levees north of new orleans and washed down with a bush ally of river, which is actually the path to geologists made the river really wants to take next. a monster breakout and go down the atchafalaya. so this is a man made construct. the river is held against his will and we will start to see the effect it would have been when a huge natural system like

that it's forced into a certain flow by man. eventually some day it might be a million years from now, but the mississippi will not follow the same path it is not now. o-oscar milton and eddington north carolina on ireland for democrats, go ahead. yes >> caller: hi, good morning. i'm calling for what the last caller was talking about, the mississippi river. the last big flood up there in chicago, all the industrial ways, all of the pollution from cesspool of knowledge that is going to slow down the mississippi river. the floodplain is going to spread pollution 100 miles wide on either side. it is going to wind up in the gulf of mexico.

it is going to be a dead zone from bair, though chicago all the way to the gulf of mexico. >> host: heiress arts from christopher helman. just go to some extent you are right. there is already even under the best of conditions, a tremendous amount of runoff in to the mississippi. much of it as fertilizer from farms. all the chemicals put on the land to pesticides and fertilizers will run into the river system. it will run down the river. all of the nature and have indeed created the massive debt down into the gulf of mexico. you can see it. i've flown out to the golf a few times and in the helicopter you pass over it. you see the line that delineate the dead zone and it's really an insane to think that this lack

of oxygen has been created at the effluent from the cities along the river and in some cases a thousand miles north. as your caller mentioned with recent floods, we are seeing sewage dumped into the river. we saw some barges sank a couple days ago with something like 50,000 tons of coal. so while the poll is sung to the bottom of the river. it's hard to recover that encourage it back up. the cargo grain elevator, you know, voting a giant ship is not the tidiest process. you're getting a lot of wheat seeds that simply blow onto the dock, blow onto the river and people i talked to said throughout the entire river system come you find the biggest catfish around these green alligators. they just live under there and

wait for the crane to fall and gobble it up and they become enormous. so all of these industries are putting affluent into the river. that shows the way it is. >> host: don't be silly. very few of those need the rivers drudged. we're talking to christopher helman about his piece in "forbes" magazine about the mississippi river, economics of it. he writes, washington's management of the mississippi river dates back to the 1820. subsidization of the barge began in the 40s. that's in the federal government slept in a construction frenzy of world war ii dumped more than 50 billion in today's dollars to make the missouri river navigable from sioux city, iowa to st. louis. randy and red wing, minnesota. hi, randy. >> caller: good morning.

your guess to have speaking here is partially right and partially wrong. you've got all your repairs. how much comes in that goes into the dnr to take care of things. you said everything was going except sailboats. i take it may be one a sailboat. the pollution that runs in the river in other nature has to dump it into the river since the great glaciers came through. they are trying to keep it deep through the system and mr. topsoil always going in there. it's a management system. they should drudge it and put it right back on the shore instead of on the way because we live up here in the northern part of the mississippi river. the bank keeps caving in and caving in. they're kind of keeping nine, 10

such and all and it keeps blowing them in and then they haul it away. they should put it right back on the shore where it came from. that would save a lot of money rather than spending that money to haul it away all the time. >> guest: that's interesting. i love your perspective. i really appreciate that. you're absolutely right the river has been dumping out topsoil and sold for millions of years. in fact, i mostly cover the oil and gas industry in houston. all of those fields in the gulf of mexico in one way or another were fat, were created by organic matter has been swept out of the mississippi basin for tens of millions of years. so you might want that topsoil put back on the banks in minnesota, but if there is going

to be another crop of oil fields 200 million years did not come or should let it pass out the amounts of mississippi and subtle vocals again. >> host: on twitter, jhc right as fertilizer runoff and research keeping the delta debt is growing. and in san rafael, california. democratic caller. >> caller: hi, i was wondering what that subsidy would have unemployment, like we are outsourcing so much of our labor. are we going to hurt large people? >> guest: i think that's a good question and an important question. i think there has to be a level that the barge companies can pay that would not necessarily impact their employment or business. they should be able to pass

along most of these costs to their customers. at this seeing as, if we were to remove subsidies and did impact the number of jobs on the river, those goods still need to move one way or another. so if you lose a job on the river, you are probably going to add a job on the railroad or a trucking company. that said, you might gain more jobs because the barges can move so much tonnage with relatively few people. the boat that i was on, the crew was about 10 people. forgive me if that is off. we were moving about 50,000 tons of material. it would take -- i forget the exact numbers, about 100 tracks to miss that same amount of commodities. if you've got 100 tracks, that

music out of these 100 drivers. if you take some of the traffic off the river and put it on the highways, we don't want that. but if you were to do that, you might see more employment. post go how much of these barge operators make on average? >> guest: how much did he make an average? that's a good question i do not know the answer to. they make enough to where they will stay on the river their entire career. some of the deckhand are very comfortable out there. they probably make more than $50,000 a year, but that is a guess on my part. they usually work a schedule that's 28 days on, 28 days off. so they'll be on the river for a month nonstop around the clock. they don't think their boat, just going up and down the river and take another month and go back to families or do whatever

else they want to do. so it's a very interesting career, similar to the way it works with the offshore oilfields. >> host: mulberry, massachusetts, republican. >> caller: good morning. during the hurricanes, it was said the banks that deteriorated 50% over many years mainly because canals built to supply fresh water and large barges. can they refurbish the outer banks? thank you. >> guest: that's a good question. i assume he's talking about the area around the mouth of the mississippi and louisiana, where we've seen so much destruction caused by hurricanes. what's interesting is if you look at the past the mississippi is on now, they've got it levied up so that it comes about 100 miles south in typical and by the time you get to the end

of it, there's absolutely nothing on either side of the river. it's levied up so much at the gulf of mexico would be very difficult for them to bring in enough dredging material to replenish all that area. but there's talk about doing that. there's some talk about opening up the dams in various places to let floodwater laden with a lot of silt and topsoil in through the swampy areas to rebuild the marshlands if that's possible. if it is, it would take a very long time. >> host: christopher helman pier 100 truxton at the same amount of commodities on a barge? maybe the water system isn't so bad. you write in your piece, mr. helman, quoting a cargo employee that is agnostic about

transportation, saying that the largest, as you note, in excess of 130 billion in 2012. we use rail unload thousands of trucks a day at the waterways are extremely for customers. what did you find out about this? >> guest: no one is saying we don't need the waterways. a certain i think it is an important conduit for free. even cargo and ingram barge company and the other operators say that they are willing to pay in fees and taxes to pay their share as they were. they currently pay 20 cents per gallon for the diesel they use and say they are willing to pay

an additional 9 cents per gallon. but the thing as that's all well and good that they are willing to pay a little more, but that would only raise an additional $40 million a year and when we look at a river that requires 800, $900 million a year to keep it operating to 49 has dropped the bucket. the same cargo you're referencing in congressional testimony in recent months at that the river system needs upwards of 30 billion, 30 billion with a b. investment over the next 10 years to a great these lots, to keep everything operation all. so if the barge come names are willing to spend an additional $40 million a year, that might be 400 million over 10 years. that's nowhere close to the 30 billion in taxpayer subsidies he's hoping to get. >> host: the house is about to

come in the session, but the legislation you talked about an additional 8 billion for water infrastructure, where is it headed? >> guest: i don't think it's heading anywhere quickly. as you well know, we are in a sequester age. every dollar count and i think the sponsors of these bills would be very hard pressed to convince their colleagues that we need to give more handouts to insist on that already receives so much in federal subsidies. >> host: thank you are a match. the piece is "big muddy, big money." thanks for joining us. >> more now from "washington journal" with demographic changes in the u.s. in metropolitan areas. >> host: are america by the number segment this week looks at the latest census numbers. what areas are thriving?

archives are marked. from the u.s. census bureau, population distribution. thank you for being here. also take it as some perspective is lisa sturtevant come adrift of the center for regional analysis. thank you to you as well. let's look at the map the u.s. census has shared with us, how the population is changing in 2011 to 2012. we stand green, areas on the rise. we see orange areas on the decline. what are the takeaways from this? just go to start out with estimates today, these are counties in natural micro areas built out of counties. in natural micro areas. >> host: what are micro areas? >> guest: defined by the office of management and budget, basically densely settled areas in the outer counties connector communing. matcher areas have a core of 50,000 or more. a very similar, big rather,

little brother. atop mount is 2011 to 2012. the bottom is 2001 to 2002. we see different patterns going on in the country in this latest period a 2011 to 12 come in many growing areas are places we haven't been talking about, places like small counties in western north dakota, eastern montana are rural counties. some have been declining in population for a century or more and are now among the fastest growing in the country. this is a departure even a couple years ago. some of the areas on the top map or 2011 to 2012. we see growth in the traditional sun ultra areas like dallas and houston, austin, central florida is growing quite rapidly.

some of the counties in nevada as well, parts of california. but i will say come easy and an awful lot of orange on this map. most counties last year last population. >> host: what are major areas that have lost population are ones you want to point out to get things started. >> guest: you certainly see not much grosser new england across the great lakes states to the eastern part of the midwest. there's a lot of population decline and not much rapid growth. >> host: before return to lisa, give us a sense of how this compares to 10 years ago because we can see from 2001 to 2002 with the growth and decline for quite. >> guest: 10 years ago as part has to do now. 10 years ago we had more immigration, higher birth rate, the country was growing closer

to 1% a year but now we grow up .7%. so we are down substantially from the growth 10 years ago. on this map you see more green. a traditional counties. 10 years ago were suburban counties come in the outer counties in matcher areas, places ever growing through housing construction in the outer edges, places i cannot county, illinois, texas. these places for the last few years, their growth has slowed quite a bit commercial at in the national trend in the housing industry and the like. >> host: if you like to join the conversation can't hear the numbers to call. urban president's (202)589-3880. if you live in a suburb,

(202)585-3881 and rural residents, (202)585-3882. do that to your perspective on what is happening in your community. are you seeing it grow or shrink? have you moved either for a job or family reasons? show your perspective with our guest our guest and we are joined today by marc perry for the u.s. census bureau in lisa sturtevant from george mason university. what do these maps tell you in terms of the direction of the country? >> guest: discount areas, metro growth rates are indicative part of an emergence. i think about these maps when i look at the mobility rate. residential mobility is the rate of folks in that one year to the next and for a long time, rates from the decline. in 2012 the mobility rate picked up for the first time and was driven by the state to state

migration. what that means is people are able to move and they move for jobs. the population growth is highly concentrated in the energy sector, counties in matcher areas. >> host: what government programs affect population growth? >> guest: right now, population growth is driven by deployment less of a government programs. for the population estimates and are set as government programs is the fact that 80% of federal grants, states and localities are driven by a formula that includes population estimates. so if you're not orange county the population, that may be problematic if you rely on federal and state grants because they may be tied to population estimates. some jurisdictions will challenge these estimates and the reason is not that they don't trust the census bureau,

but because their numbers so closely tied to funding. >> host: marc perry come you talked about population growth and concentration. weiss is the epic and what can we learn from that? >> guest: asserted a two-part thing. the country overall is growing slower than 10 years ago in the growth is more concentrated than it was. fewer counties are gaining and even fewer gaining a lot of people. half of the country's population last year could be accounted for by the 46 largest gaining counties and so in fact it's very, very concentrated population growth, even more so than 10 years ago when it took about 63 counties to get to that 50% mark. >> host: let's hear from peter in greenville, kentucky. urban collar. >> caller: could earn it, everybody on the panel. my question is for the

gentleman. according to your data, these populations under the age of 18? >> guest: they do. so we start with the most recent than this, the 2010 census and a date that number each year with information on deaths, domestic migration, which is migration within the country and international migration. >> host: one of the takeaways is the national population growth has slowed in recent years. the u.s. population is at 2.3 million. why is that significant? >> guest: it is significant to us like we talk about, the country is not growing as rapidly as it was a few years ago. when you go from annual growth of 1% down to in your growth of .7%, that is a sizable decline or might lead some to see that play out because we have fewer counties growing.

>> guest: it's maybe not surprising that no one and no to the decline has been due very much to decline in immigration and what we are in a period of economic recession, the amount of new immigrants always goes down. that combined with federal immigration policies that have limited the amounts has been a primary driver of this decline. >> host: kelley, rural calder. >> guest: i'm about to start a job on money back in my hometown of little rock arkansas after having lived in a very rural area where the population has declined significantly simply because i cannot find employment in this area and i more than happy to move back to a larger urban area. my husband is not so happy

because we'll have to once again live separately at least during the work week. i wondered if you guys had any statistics on families impacted, especially with the great recession would've had living in one area and another spouse taken a job in a different area. i wonder if there's a significant and reason that dorothy had any statistics on that. >> host: kelley, how are you to split in your household or you have to set up shop in little rock and have a separate household pay for all that? >> guest: i know. it's going to be interesting to see how this works. we are to have a home and mortgage and all toronto, arkansas and will probably keep it. we're fortunate we are not underwater here. our mortgage is going to be

lower and i'll be paying them little rut. i did get enough that i will be able to afford, so for right now we keep the markets down here. if my husband doesn't pick up and will be joining me on the iraq within the next nine to 10 months at which time we'll put the house up for sale and combine households again. i will be in little rock and we can make that work. i don't know that a lot of people can't. >> host: thanks for sharing your story. just go in her situation that sounds a little bit better with the housing market situation where folks have been underwater and unable to sell that house.

if one gets an opportunity somewhere else, they have this tension about whether they should take that job. there is a loosening here in the housing market. the housing market is improving and there's more ability and were seen not. >> host: marc perry come she asked whether households have to live apart. >> guest: many people are statistics -- like i said, her story is emblematic of many, many americans. so the story behind these numbers is people have to economic opportunity and were a mobile country. much more so than most other countries in the world and window for the economic opportunities are. what she's doing and her story is on the pleaser at large across the country all the time.

>> host: let's hear from lewisohn pikesville, maryland. urban resident. >> guest: thank you for taking my call. one trend in this area because the overpopulation they are growing now they have these large homes. they really want to sell another two assisted-living. i notice i'm receiving the organizations and listen to their program. the only thing that's propping up many of our suburban areas is the inability to sell these high maintenance, that many senior citizens and baby boomers have got to do. if this ever gets solved camile seah for greater increase in the vacancies of the people have to foreclose. what do you think of the effect of inability of a larger home

and downsize? thank you for taking my call. >> guest: this is a great point. all the housing market has been on the upswing in maryland and virginia and columbia, there has been demand for house says closer than there's a lot of homes in the more distant suburbs that are quite offended man. the more expensive for the homebuyer ticketing to end at some point in these homes come on the market, they may be driven oversupply of these bigger single-family homes that might put downward pressure on the housing market. >> guest: lewis is getting on a question demographers vasco potemkin which is how are the baby boomers going to be even retirement. so many of them are retired that preferences are going to stay local, with a move to the sun bowl? the sorts of questions. it has national implications.

>> host: charles is in the alexandria, virginia. go ahead, charles. >> guest: >> caller: i'm a former member of the census bureau. i did computer operations in southern kentucky inmate to 90. it was a great experience, unforgettable ticket to my grave. most don't realize the decennial sent this was one of the largest federal operation done primarily by amateurs and almost always come in on time and under budget. i live in fairfax county. there's fairfax. i just want to say that since this is a fabulous operation and everybody felt works should be commended. the great americans, retired people, housewives, college kids and they will do a fabulous job. once in a while we need a pat on

the back gate thank you so much. >> host: before we let you go, tell us why you live in a suburban area. what choices have led you to live in alexandria, virginia? >> guest: on the computer systems specialist by profession and there's so much economic opportunity here. the fact is that kind of unusual person. for the last nine years, i worked in iraq and afghanistan on telecommunications and computer systems projects and i'm preparing to retire pretty soon. i think to be in afghanistan in 2014 when they turn off the lights. >> host: let's go to mark perry. >> guest: i can't add anything to that. but i will say is the quality of numbers depends on the hard work and diligent effort to fieldworkers. a pat on the back to everyone who's out there everyday collecting all the data and information for somebody like me looks at insisted the numbers to get the meeting. but we are glad to have people

like you and energy and enthusiasm. >> host: one of the highlights mr. errors in creased by 2.4 million. 45 manchuria screw. you can see the map showing the net migration for the neighboring micro areas. what is significant about this? >> guest: there are a few things significant. one is much or areas, the country's metropolitan. more than four out of five people live inside a matcher area. we are very much in metropolitan people. we might not live right inside this database in the country but if you add in the suburban territory, that's her most americans live. as you see on this map, the dark green areas are the ones where people move to in the orange are ones where people move from. easy areas across the country.

it's not just a sunbelt phenomenon in the south and west, but certainly places like florida are well represented on that map. florida grows primarily because of migration from other areas and we see that. >> host: lisa sturtevant, what do you learn from this map? is rural america on decline? >> guest: there's two issues raised for me by looking at this. in the period of economic recovery, recovery tends to happen first in urban areas. i don't think we should necessarily jump to the conclusion that it's necessarily on the decline, though there has been a longer-term trend of decline in growth areas. this is more emblematic of the facts were in the early stages of recovery. when we look at matcher areas, understanding different growth rates in the suburbs versus the city in the washington area that fast growth in the city, faster

than the outer suburbs relatively slower growth. >> host: florence, wisconsin peterborough area. >> guest: calling to ask if anyone agrees with me that the redistribution of population is the plan. if you are familiar with agenda 21, which has to do with the united nations and the department of natural resources, i live in the upper midwest, the border of wisconsin and upper michigan. i noticed on your map that northeastern minnesota, northern wisconsin and a sheik in i also have seen the color-coded maps put out by agenda 21 and the dnr, indicating this is a red

zone. with guns are depopulated to minimal use by human beings. as part of a plan. >> guest: i would disagree that this is part of a plan. the patterns are representative of the pattern of economic growth, demographic growth we've seen over the last decades. >> guest: the county that the caller is coming from, that part of northern wisconsin has seen population growth. it's been a popular retirement destination for people from twin cities, milwaukee and chicago and it's really kind of an interesting area in terms of being a rural area that did see a lot of growth in the 1970s the 1980s. >> host: gene, new bedford, massachusetts. urban caller. hi, gene. >> caller: hi, i was the new bedford in this area has always been hit the hardest out of the whole state and its population

has declined because there's not any jobs here ever. can you give me any feedback ways that? when i was in college i was told because democrats don't put any money in the area because it is a for sure when. republicans don't put any money in the area because there's no use because it's a democratic area. >> host: how have you managed? >> guest: first of all, i was going to leave the area and my mother got sick. second of all, i love the area because i am an ocean person, but i never thought 20 years ago i would've ever thought about leaving the area. but now i want to get my grandchildren out of the area. i had the best hopes for it. it has a lot to offer, but you

don't have the right people. the money gets eaten up and there's never any jobs once the study is done. but it's a shame because the area has a lot to offer ms declined. people are so disgusted with the area and it's become a high drug area. there isn't any hope here. >> host: let's go to lisa sturtevant. >> guest: without on the structure of the new bedford economy in particular, gene is experiencing one a lot around the country are experienced team, that depending that the industries are prevalent in your community, you're either a winner or loser depending on the structure of your economy. place a strong and professional services are places that have grown over the last few years. place a stronger in manufacturing and information sectors in the utilities and transportation or areas that haven't been growing as much.

>> host: marc perry, talk to us about iraq when bush is calling from. >> guest: i grew up outside of lowell, massachusetts, which has strong similarities. older city, roughly the same size, 100,000 people, strong industrial heritage. lowell is a great example to redefine risk of itself quite successfully over the last decades. massachusetts recognized its older cities have challenges and i know when i go home to visit family, there've been efforts to revitalize the state solar cities, which they have lots of turns on their own. new bedford has a wonderful whaling history tradition going back to those days. >> host: marc perry is cheaper of the population distribution branch and the census bureau population division. he's worked since 1997 and we are looking at a steady with the

latest numbers that show population changes. our other guest is lisa sturtevant with george mason university where she serves as deputy director for the center of regional analysis, also an associate public policy teaches statistics program policy and also survey methodology. clearly, south dakota. >> caller: i just have some observations and comments. i sent the late 60s and early seven days and they have what i think we should look at our urban areas close then. retracting and using some of that infrastructure rear of the house built. over there they have greenbelt greenways that you can lock down through an preserve kind of a rural atmosphere, which overhear

people of nevada in the country and take over farmland which he had the framing industry and things that go in a rural area and how people perceive the rural area. some of the aspects of that is you shave time travel to revitalize it is the infrastructure in place. >> guest: that's a really interesting point. are we seeing many many of our central cities is indeed in urbanization, a return to demand for a living and the cities driven very much by the growth of the echo boomers, folks in their 20s moving into the workforce and making choices choices about housing. they come to the district of columbia. population growing 1000 a month and there was this idea that the

desire for city living is on the rise. as we see from our recent population estimates, the housing markets in proved that our cultural identity, desire for a suburban living i don't think a fat man. >> host: mark perry, you mention north dakota earlier. i last caller from south dakota. what else have you learned about that part of the country? >> guest: the situation north dakota is interesting because it just on the surface goes against all of our recent trends in population growth. like we were saying earlier, were metropolitan country. most of our growth is in the south and west. it has been in suburban areas in these counties in north dakota that have been growing rapidly in almost every dimension. they just look very different in our fastest-growing counties.

but we do offer is jobs and economic opportunities. we see all the time is people respond to economic opportunities. >> host: we see a difference between 2011 to 2012 versus 2001 to 2002. do you have a sense whether these are short-term residents? are they just temporary? at the thought homes? >> guest: it's hard to say. these estimates are for permanent residence in what we do hear from that area is if anything these numbers are under stating the transformation that has been going on, people may be temporary employees only there a few weeks at a time, but would not be captured by these numbers. >> host: let's hear from troy, ohio. what's it like where you live?

>> caller: it's kind of country. we've got a barnhouse entry or entries. post i think were all jealous of you. what kind of trends are you seeing? >> guest: of course i'm close to date when ohio which we then had heard of general motors in everything, but it has an effect me. in fact, i moved here in 1973 from dayton, ohio, which fits pretty well depressed right now because the general motors plants, mainly because the downturn in automobiles or whatever the union and that sort of thing. i moved here and 73 because the rest of my kids 30, 40 miles away and i just couldn't see

that. across the street from me, 30400-acre farm and my closest neighbor is probably 400 feet. but i enjoyed out here. >> host: marc perry. >> guest: ohio presents population challenges. population grows at a couple different ways. if you have more earths and deaths, more people elsewhere in the country are getting through immigration and the situation almost all of ohio with a couple exceptions as it's not gaining any of those fronts. you don't have to get on all three. it has to be announced. ohio is an older population, so it really isn't gaining from having more births than deaths. it has traditionally been a domestic migration moving elsewhere in the country that hasn't really been an immigration gateway of any magnitude, certainly when you

compare to other cities, other states such as illinois, florida, texas or california. >> host: what are the fastest growing counties? in america. >> guest: in america, what we see on the flight here, chattahoochee county, georgia grew at over 10% last year. to put them in context, the u.s. grew at .7%. when you grow 10% a year, your population is doubling every seven years. that's incredibly rapid growth. i should say these are among counties that 10,000 or more people in 2012. so this actually is not counties in the dakotas that grew faster, but they happen to be below the threshold. >> host: we also see north dakota, kansas, montana and fredericksburg, virginia. >> guest: some of the patterns

we see in these counties are oil and energy industry research may see midland, texas and richland montana, north dakota, williams north dakota. several counties have grown because they have military bases and there's been some growth in the alignment over the past couple years. chattahoochee county, georgia is the home of fort amines. >> host: does growth earn more growth? >> guest: that's a really good question of what we've been getting to them lease is losing population because they lose job. as employers look or ways to locate, and they go with the population is then there is the reinforcing cycle here and i think that is what happened in the midwest or parts of the midwest the last couple decades. >> host: ballinger and sister mashburn, virginia. hi, roland. >> caller: thank you.

worst of all, thank you for the census bureau they were able to share the information with the united states is very important. i live in virginia and this is a question that has had tremendous growth and i'm wondering what the research of the census bureau has done. what does this show? is it simply because were so close to washington d.c. as a main hub? what are the reasons for the growth? >> guest: encapsulates all of the great national trend. it's an honor accounting of a large and fast-growing metropolitan area. it's one of the centers of the high-tech industry in this area. this game a lot through foreign-born migration comest the immigrants moving to the washington region have located and also came from domestic migration, people from fairfax into loud county. it has a young population, so

it's gaining births over deaths. it sort of one of those areas where it's going on basically all fronts. >> host: martin county has seen tremendous growth over the last two decades and as we look ahead with completion of the dullest metrorail to loudoun county, growth will only continue. >> host: deputy director for regional analysis at george mason university. also associate research professor at jamie's school of public policy. mark carrier at the u.s. census bureau greasers this population distribution branch chief. newark, new jersey. hi, cindy. >> caller: good morning. how is everybody doing? wow, it's 2013. five years since i last got through. [laughter] but that's okay. i haven't tried that often.

this is very interesting. what popped into my head is something that i was saying five years ago that i called in to say. all right, so i am here in north new jersey insurer, the city has changed in terms of the population and it always seems that it's because of some political event that took place. which is fine. i have love for everybody. but the main thing is to have the city prosper, folks need to stay and work where they live. it's quite difficult here. now, what i was mentioning five years ago and i'll just keep it

short, public law 1983, the beautiful you easy zone -- and a geyser familiar. >> host: i don't know what that is. tell us what it is. >> guest: urban enterprise zone. so they simply need to do away with it. i just think that -- >> host: okay, luster, but she's against urban enterprise zone. tell us what they are the concerns of our callers. >> guest: she's talking about a larger issue. aside from the urban enterprise sound from what she gets sad is that cities grow, you need people to stay. cities around the country are dealing with that. you can often attract young people who are single, living alone, not as worried about public safety or more in part the schools when they get

married and have children a choice about where to live is highly dependent on quality of schools and cities are really interested in maintaining families, attracting people and keeping them in the city. schools are critically important. >> host: lisa sturtevant, taken two of them are how immigration and migration effects the groupings around the country. >> guest: look at immigration, people outside the country versus domestic migration, folks in the country, all the migration, the majority has been domestic migration the last couple years. within less likely to get folks overseas are merely due to the recession as well as federal immigration policy. as the economy improves and this legislation is approved vsat for high school immigrants in the news lately may be a return of

immigration the next few years. >> host: key gateways with large immigrant population. >> guest: absolutely. los angeles and new york, but what we've seen is the rise of emerging gateways. washington right now is an established gateway, but 20 years ago was part of this emerging at charlotte, north carolina, salt lake city, utah attracting immigrants that i hadn't before. >> host: jackie called mr. baran, south dakota. hi, jacqui. >> caller: i just want to tell you that our county is growing at this point. we have immigrants that come from burma. they are a section of that country and they are called karen and they've come to work at a turkey plant in our town and that has made our town grow and county grow in the schools have worked hard to accommodate

these children who are having to have a lot of english as a second language, instructors in the schools. so we have to increase the number of classrooms in elementary schools. but it has both its good sides, mostly it's good sides to bring to our community. previously we were a community that was heavy on retirement. my son used to come to visit from austin, texas and washington d.c. and he was surprised to see mostly older people on the streets. >> host: jackie, why were older people drawn to your community or were they people who lived there all their lives and chose to stay after they retire? >> guest: mostly people who chose to stay and some people come back to retire, too. >> host: let's get a perspective from our guest. marc perry, talk about what

she's referring to. >> guest: her county, the trend of the meatpacking industry for the facility tried largely foreign-born workers was the typical story in five years ago we were having a conversation about fast-growing counties in the midwest and great plains area, it would've larger than most kinds of counties. that was one of the stories that first came out of the 2000 census was places in nebraska and iowa and south dakota, where seemingly overnight they were foreign-born communities that popped up around these facilities. it's still a situation, but the types of fast-growing counties would not talk about boylan said a mass for the stories changed a little bit. >> host: >> guest: and the situation, when you have a population with

a greater share of retirees and a greater share of children and a smaller share of working age population, fewer numbers of people are in the labor force and provide income to support the services needed by the community. if the ratio shifts come you get less opportunity to generate services for the community than the quality of life in the community goes down at a party to attract labor force and you can see as part of the cycle we talked about. it gets harder and harder. ..grants come in? caller: it can be a shock. we had that in some of the outer serve to prevent communities whe there were rapid growth of the immigrant population. new idea ofng this what it meant to be a suburban community. it was a shift in the population from being 8 w