me. and it should concern anyone in their 20's and 30's that have parents or someone else, who may be told. the cost for you is that we county do that -- can't do that. ents as in the closing days of life. i won't comment on those. they are the rub of healthcare reform. i will say to the credit of a lot of the drafters on the legislation there is incentive to encourage doctors to be to encourage doctors to be primary providers coming out of medical school who are traditionally unreimbursed. but on that initial clearance when you make the visit you can meet with the primary provider who will hopefully have a better role in terms of governing the

overall treatment with specialists. right now is very ad hoc. but you are right. if it is a government run plan doctors will likely be underreimbursed and take on more patients and waiting lines will increase. host: do you see significant differences between the highways and senate at this stage of the legislation that you want to point to? guest: the senate -- there are two bills in the senate, one is senator kennedy, contend-dodd and senate finance which is out of the baccus and grassley committee. i expect the senate finance bill will take a less expensive approach to reform. we will have pay fors in it and it will be more reasonable from our standpoint. but we are waiting to see. i think the senate is taking a narrower sort of approach on the employer mandate issue and public plan issue. not surprisingly we will see a bill likely out of the house out

of nancy pelosi that is far to the left than we will be comfortable with. host: monty, the last call, independent line, knoxville, tennessee. caller: health insurance is not for profit, nothing will be solved. my husband and i -- my husband worked hard. we paid our insurance. i go to the doctor, i'm denied coverage. i take my sons to the doctor for a broken hand. it took two months of me calling every day for them to even start to pay the doctor and orthopedist to fix his hand. excuse me! that is not right. host: final thought from randy johnson. guest: i think we can get a lot of reforms that the caller is sensing we need in the insurance market as i mentioned which is wrapped up in this mandate idea without going into these

broader, huge issues that may bring down the bill like new government plan or -- there is stuff we can do without doing everything. i think that is what we need to strive to pull >> in just a couple of minutes, more about health care. this is the annandale campus of a community college. president obama is holding a town hall meeting today to take questions about health care reform and legislation to. he will take questions submitted online from various sites like facebook, youtube, and twitter. that begins at 1:15, and will probably run it to about 2:30 or so. we will follow with your phone call reaction. that gets underway in about 10 minutes. until then, a look at the

economy and the impact on the housing industry from this morning's "washington journal." a look at housing and the economy. on the screen kiss lawrence yun, national association of realtors chief economist during his what is the latest? guest: more buyers are coming into the market. we have seen three straight months of rightistrise in pendie sales. the closings have also been rising. there is some buying activity. mostly it is on the lower price points. people are looking for bargains. at least on the sales activity, it looks like we may be hitting bottom or near bottom. >host: declines in home prices are beginning to slow. can you explain that? >>guest: a combination of lower

prices. those with jobs -- we are in a challenging environment in terms of the economy. the low interest-rate environment is also helping. the stimulus package also includes a first-time home buyer tax credit. some people are trying to take advantage of the tax credit before it expires at the end of november. there is by your activity, but this is due to the declining home values. in the latest data from case- shiller lawyer, it is beginningo stabilize. host: what parts of the country are seeing the most activity? guest: the boom and bust was in four states. california, nevada, arizona, and florida. these markets had the excessive boom and a big bust.

home prices have come down 30%, 40%, and sometimes 50%. these are the areas that are now beginning to see strong buyer activity. the middle part of the country, where there is sluggish activity. there are some signals that the declines are beginning to lessen. host: what does this mean to the broader u.s. economy? guest: the housing market is critical in getting the economy back on track. when you look at past recessions, it was always the housing market recovery that led to economic recovery. it is critical that the housing market does turn around in order to have a sustainable economic recovery. i do recognize that we have a massive stimulus package into the economy, but that can only be a short-term lift, if the recovery happens without the housing market.

getting the housing market to stabilize is critical. host: the phone numbers are on the bottom of our screen for lawrence yun, national association of realtors chief economist. the phone lines for republicans, democrats, an independents. by the way, the tax credit is a credit, not a tax break? guest: that is right. the first-time home buyer would get an eight thousand dollar tax benefit from the government. essentially, a check sent to the home buyer. this is a tremendous opportunity. it is part of the stimulus package in order to encourage buyers to come back into the market. home values have been falling, but some buyers are hesitant, even though the qualified to enter the market. they are thinking that the home values will decline further.

to counter that pessimism, here is some money on the table. many people are trying to take advantage of that. host: how is lending going? guest: it is much tighter than before, and rightly so. we do not want a repeat of a loose lending standards, where we have people who are marginally qualified, or people who are overstretching. lending criteria is much tighter. right now, people who are meeting the tighter underwriting standards are buying homes. overall, people are looking to stay within budget. this is good quality. after we had the excess of years of people trying to stretch their budgets, and now we're seeing that people want to stay comfortably within their finances. the recent buyers who are entering these markets, these are the people who will stabilize the markets. it is a great thing. host: the first call for

lawrence yun on the democrats' line. caller: what is the threshold for this $8,000? i understand that this is supposed to be for first-time home buyers. what about the person's credit? is it just going to be eight thousand dollars? if this person is making $100,000 per year, and this person is making $20,000 per year? host: is it for everybody? guest: there is certain criteria. it is for a first-time home buyer. the definition is someone who has not owned a home for the past three years. if somebody own a home 10 years ago and decided to sell it and has been renting for the past few years could qualify. there's also an income limitation.

currently, $75,000 for a single @@@@@@ guest: there is an income limitation, and it is up to $8,000, or 10% of home price, which means if someone was to buy, say, a $60,000 home, they would get $6,000 rather than a thousand dollar tax credit. host: gwendolyn is on the independent line. caller: my problem is is that i paid $66,000 for my home, but i have to pay it back over $150,000, and i think -- pay the bank over $150,000, and i think that has to be addressed. i'm taking 30 years out of my life to pay this money back i do not know why you cannot pay more on principle instead of paying the bank up front. i am making to the thousand

dollars per year and pay $7,000 for my mortgage, and more from my car, and i don't have any money. we could stimulate the economy if we address why we have to pay the banks back. host: caller, do you know what kind of interest-rate you are paying? caller: 0.5 on my interest. gue-- 6.5 on my interest. guest: historically that is a very favorable rate. for some people it is 5%, depending on credit scores. the importance of the private capital market in providing the lending activity -- the people who are providing the capital of the right to -- rate of return on their investments. the situation is that interest rates are very low, but some people are still locked in at higher rates and it is difficult to refinance because either they lack the equity, because of the

home value declines, or in some cases, the banks are just being -- dragging their feet. there is an over abundance of people who have to go through, and they have laid off so many people that they are running is staffing issues. host: so it bothers that particular color, but to get specter, the budget, -- but it gets back to her monthly budget. guest: most people are trying to stay comfortably within their finances. this is a healthy development of housing market and u.s. consumers. the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, people have to understand, fixed monthly payment for 30 years. in any given year, there would be normal inflation, so people would be paying a little higher for the price of food, higher for the price of gasoline. but the mortgage payment would be fixed if people went into a 30-year, long-term mortgage. right now, what the 90% of the recent homebuyers are looking for the 30-year fixed mortgage.

host: who decides what the interest rates are? guest: the interest rates are determined by the marketplace. the federal reserve tries to nudge it forward or backwards, but it is really the global investors, the bond market, if they feel comfortable with the credit risk, and also the inflationary risk. if they perceive that because of some much pumping of the money into the system that there could be future inflation, the lenders want to compensate for that potential loss in purchasing power, so they charge higher interest rates. another factor is budget of the since. we have seen a little uptick in general interest-rate because people concerned about the larger deficit. host: have the rules for down payments changed much? guest: people are required to come up with a larger down payment. there is the government backed f h a-loan program out of the

department of housing and urban development, and the down payment requirement is 3.5%. but as long as people stay well within their budget, not overstretching, for most people, the overwhelming number of people, they will be fined if they intend to stay in their home for a normal -- they will be ok if they intend to stay in their home for a noble time of something like five years. caller: i only got a tail end of the conversation, which i have been reviewing. i'm a home builder in north carolina, and we are pretty much conservative builders who do not have a lot of speculative homes on the market at any one time. we shall have one or two at any one time -- we usually have one or two at any one time.

bad decisions have been affecting our ability to get potential buyers to look at it. we have to have what are two out there at any one time to show what we do. i guess my concern is, long- term, reducing speculative lending from banks to contractors -- reduce the spec to planning for banks to contractors? -- where do you see speculative lending from banks to contractors? the lending environment we're in, we're not sure if -- even though we are a list of the strong company, and we've taken some hits this year, but we are still pretty much a stronger company, but the lending environment has become so tough, and we have long-term goals to overcome that hurdle. thank you for your time. guest: spec homes are were the builders build hoping to find a

client, compared to where the client has already requested to build a home. there is some degree of home building activity where there is already a client requesting a new home be built. but regarding the specter that to -- regarding the spec homes, the lending activity has been very tight, because there is a large oversupply of inventory out in the marketplace. many of the foreclosed homes are now competing with new homes. lenders are getting very cautious. i would say, again, that then it may be overly stringent. now, we have seen some loosening in the lending activity on wall street. we have seen the libor rate decline, the interest-rate spread between the junk bonds and the benchmark u.s. treasury has narrowed. but the loosening in the credit has not really filtered into the home building loan market. for construction loans, it is still very difficult. maybe it's just passage of time, but i will say that current home building activity is far below

the trend line. normally we would build about 1.5 million new home construction each year. during the bill, -- during the boom, we built too much. right now we are building about 0.5 million, about 1 million below the norm. this is to burn off excess of inventory out there. if this low level of activity continues, we could encounter a housing shortage and a couple of years' time. host: florida, democrats lined. hostcaller: thank you for c-spa. are they really tracking was buying these homes? i have a friend in real estate, according to hart, most of her purchases are investment firms, people who invest in real estate, not individual buyers. this does concern me. guest: it depends upon the geography. in the markets like miami, where there is a large number of condos sitting vacant -- we have

heard that investors are coming in and buying in bulk. in other areas, where there is a large number of foreclosures, some investors are shying to take advantage of the deeply discounted prices. but when we take a broad nationwide survey, all the members asking about who their recent clients are, we are finding that the investor activity today is roughly 20% of all of buying activity. as a comparison, in a normal year is about 25% as an investor activity people buy to get it out. it is slightly below normal. we are checking the data to see if there is any notable trend in recent months, because we have anecdotally heard investors coming into the market. right now, i am not too concerned about the overall investors when i look at the national survey. host: you mentioned foreclosures. there is a headline in "the new york daily news" today.

bring us up to this date with foreclosures. how bad has it been, and when they use the term "new foreclosures," push it forward a few months. guest: unfortunately, we had a record high for closures last year. essentially 2 million people losing homes. this year, 2009, i anticipate it will top that, maybe 2.5 million, despite all the efforts that are being made to mitigate foreclosure pressure. right now a combination of job losses, as well as people who are under water, size of the underwater, meaning that their home values are far below the mortgage debt is outstanding, it is not a good picture of the foreclosure. i anticipate higher foreclosure this year, but what is critical is whether there are buyers willing to come in to pick up as foreclosed homes. the foreclosed homes sit on the market, it deteriorates the neighborhood. but what we're seeing right now is that when the closed, reaches

the marketplace, there are buyers. in some community, multiple building -- multiple bidding is a common occurrence now. california, many of the florida markets. the prices that pushed up. host: you mentioned the $8,000 tax credit that goes to first- time home buyers. what else has congress done in recent months to help the housing market? what else might they do the rest of the year? guest: part of the stimulus package was raising the loan limit, and that is to say that fannie mae and freddie ba-- let me state that in the past, they were involved in many of the political activities. currently effectively nationalized but what they're doing is essentially passing on their low borrowing costs to consumers. as a result, we are seeing historical low mortgage rates on

those loans that can be purchased by fannie and freddie, and to permit more activity, congress raised the limit so that more people what have access to the historically low mortgage rates. that is drawing more people into the pool of eligible buyers. the other areas on the foreclosure mitigation. there is a strong financial incentive for the lenders to we modify those loans -- to read modify those funds, financial incentives. >> "washington journal," like every morning at 7:00 a.m. we go now to northern virginia committee college, with virginia gov. tim kaine introducing this town hall on health care. >> it is a pleasure to welcome everybody to northern virginia community college, the second largest community college in the united states. [applause] and the largest trader of health

care work force professionals in the washington metropolitan area. i want to thank the president and the chancellor of the community college for being such great hosts today. we're also joined by numerous elected officials come and i will not name them all, but we of federal, state, local, from boards of supervisors to u.s. senators, here on such an incredible topic, and we're so glad to have them. the president has had plenty to do in the last five months, as you all know, working to bring the american economy back, properly arranged our fares these heavy the rest of the world, regulated credit cards and tobacco is so that our kids to be sacred pay equity for women. in the massive issues, he has not failed to pay attention to virginia. he has not failed to pay attention to fairfax county. in february, he and i stood together on the eastern edge of the fairfax parkway, a long design and long-term project

that still was not done, and backs of the support of our representatives from congress, that bill was passed and the president signed, and today, of the dollar is going to virginia for transportation infrastructure from the recovery act, the single largest project is two sections of the fairfax parkway. that happened because of this president. [applause] and in may, at mount vernon, i stood together with lisa jackson, the president's epa administrator, as she announced the first -- the first ever presidential executive order about the chesapeake bay, coordinating all the activities of numerous federal agencies to truly saved the day. it was a historic day, and again, it happened because of this president, right here in fairfax county. we are here to talk about an important issue, the issue of healthcare. we have done wonderful things in

virginia, but we are working at the margins, because in virginia and the nation, one in seven americans and virginians to not have health insurance. those who do have it have serious difficulties in cost and access and quality. our president is joining us to talk about that. it is so great to welcome him here. i want to introduce a very special individual who will be the moderator of this session today as the president his remarks and then takes questions both from the audience and from previously submitted questions. valerie jarrett is the senior advisor to the president who is both the senior adviser and assistant for intergovernmental affairs and public engagement. she is a longtime friend of the president who has worked in numerous capacities in both the corporate and philanthropic world in chicago prior to coming to washington, of particular note, this topic, the need for health care reform, is one that she knows a lot about. she was the chairman of the university of chicago medical center board of trustees, working both on a medical school

training, training of health professionals, and provision of care to the university of chicago hospital. join me in giving a great northern virginia welcome to valerie jarrett. [applause] >> thank you, governor, and good afternoon, everybody. we are happy to have the altar and president obama's health care reform -- have you all here at president obama's health care reform ceremony. i want to thank the people from northern virginia community college. we have students administrators and faculty and staff. thank you all for being here. we thank you for your participation. also, all those here from the annandale community that has been very hard hit by the health care crisis that we face here in america.

as health care reform moves through congress, is very important to president obama that we take the time to engage the american people. we want to engage them and hear the questions, engage them and have the president had an opportunity to answer the questions. in addition to the people we have here today, we are also live streaming this session over the internet. we want to make sure that everybody has a chance to kind of get in action and participate. we will have a multi dimensional session, if you will. three different ways. first of all, we will have a chance to hear the video responses to the questions that were put to us today. the president did a youtube video and solicited questions, and we will have video questions first. in addition, the white house is doing a live chat on whitehouse.com at on our facebook page, and my guess is that we will also have questions coming from twitter. all that will be going on while

the president is answering questions. if you see a nice gentlemen, and and a question, it is because we are getting just-in-time information coming across. of course, we want to hear from those of you in the audience as well. the audience, the facebook, as well as the videos, all coming at us at the same time. and so let's get started. without any further ado, i would like to introduce you the person whose first priority is passing health care reform this year. please welcome to our townhall.com president barack obama. -- please look into our town hall president barack obama. [applause]

>> good to see you guys. thank you, everybody. thank you. thank you, northern virginia. thank you very much. everybody, please have a seat what a wonderful welcome. i am so grateful to all of you for taking the time to be here. a couple of quick announcements. first of all, i want to thank the president and chancellor for their wonderful hospitality. we are grateful to both of them. we have at some extraordinary elected officials, a few that i want to mention. first of all, you have got one of the finest governors in the country, who is also doing a great job as dnc share. please give tim kane a great round of applause. [applause] part of the reason he is such a good governor is because he took notes while being lieutenant governor to the former governor and now-a senator from the state

of virginia, outstanding public servant, mark warner. [applause] and three outstanding members of congress, bobby scott, jim moran, gerry connolly. thank you so much for the great job you do every day. [applause] i know there is all kinds of stuff that valerie was explaining. don't worry. she is in charge, so she will organize this. i want to give a few remarks at the outset, and then we will save most of the time for questions. first of all, it is wonderful to be here in annandale. i am looking forward to answering questions about what is obviously one of the most important issues facing american families, american businesses, and the american government. but before i began, i just want to say a few words about where we are as a nation. and where we need to go. we are living through extraordinary times. i don't need to tell