introduction, and thanks to the u.s. chamber and aarp for inviting me to share thoughts with you this morning. --ould say my first taught thought actually when i think about this meeting, just hearing aarp and the chamber coming together this morning and finding common ground on strengthening retirement savings inspiration. i am reminded of humphrey bogart's famous last line in the movie "casablanca" -- "louie, i think this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship." and i hope it is. because no two groups i think in this country could do more together to events the cause of cause ofance the retirement security in america.

and we do, all of us, share a common goal. we all want every working american to be able to save for a dignified, well-financed retirement. i trust we all agree that it is in the interests of every american business to see every working american have a real ownerships take in the american enterprise. i am very confident that these two goals can be achieved in tandem by strengthening both are public and private retirement systems and the that make thems successful. there is too much knowledge in this audience today to really talk about retirement saving shortfalls, woes, and problems, and we know there is a serious risk arising over poverty if we do not ask soon to shore up our public and private retirement

systems and lift america's retirement savings rate. that is why we are here this morning. the most salient point i want to make today is that we are actually much closer to solving america's retirement challenge than i think most everyone realizes. in the workplace savings arena at least, i know what actually works. my greatest hope for this conference would be that we could begin today to reframe the national debate about retirement savings away from the problems and towards solutions, and then on to actions to make these solutions real. so i will focus this morning on ways we can build on proven successes, successes that are already taking place within america's existing defined

contributions saving systems. i will discuss three specific actions that would more fully realize the potential of 401(k)-type plans to help americans replaced their savings and retirement for their whole lives. thatl close by suggesting the long-term benefits that robust, reliable workplace savings can deliver for america's economy and national more row far outweigh any short-term costs. better yet, we do not need to reinvent the wheel. we already have the key structures and insights we need to build on. to put it in a nutshell, there's nothing wrong with 401(k)'s that cannot be fixed about what is right with 401(k)'s.

this is especially true, since the passage of the pension protection act of 2006. because defined contribution plans has been displacing other plans for a generation since the mid-1980's, it was not until the pension protection act that congress and regulators formally recognized that k plans in fact had become the primary source for america lost future retirement income. by endorsing the best savings plan design elements, namely, auto enrollment, automatic savings as collation, and then guidance to qualified default investment, and by providing employers legal safe harbor for adopting these features, ppa marked a qualitative change, one that has already begun to

transform all workplace savings plans in this country for the better, i might add. pre-pension protection act, workplace savings plans were seen mainly as defined-benefit plans. post-ppa, the way the change among k plans across corporate america has begun to create a true national retirement system, though the build out is finished. in the seven years since ppa was signed into law, we have seen best practices like auto enrollment spread across most large american corporations and raise the retirement readiness of millions of workers. we can see the positive benefits already, as well as a

continuing shortfall in the lifetime income surveys that putnam has done over the last three years. these take total stock of the working americans age 18 to 65 assets weighted to match u.s. census parameters. -- assets we cap are quite count are quite comprehensive. social security, and d.b. contribution plans they have, other savings, and even home equity and the value of businesses people own. overall, we estimate that working americans in total are on track today to replace roughly 61% of the income they

enjoy during their working careers. this confirms the future risk for millions of a serious drop in living standards in retirement, even when we include social security. but what is most important and positive about the survey's findings are the powerful evidence they provide about what is working well in america's retirement savings today under current law and through currently replacement -- current workplace savings plan. george orwell once said that seeing what is right in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle, and what this survey shows us right in front of our noses are the key changes we need to make to fully realize potential of workplace savings.

thedramatically raise prospects for retirement success for all working americans. first and foremost, we need to recognize that the only real solution to america's retirement savings challenge lies in payroll deductions in the workplace. -- difference in return but retirement readiness between americans who have access to workplace savings plans and those who do not is truly staggering. our lifetime income research shows us that the median americans who have no savings plans on the job are on track to replace just 41% of their work life incomes once they retire. and remember, that is including

social security. americans who do have access to savings plans at work are on track to replace 73% of their pre-retirement incomes. wet is still less than should aim for the mob but it but radically a better result. workers who are active in defined contribution plans are on track to replace 79% of their work life income. those who are automatically enrolled in their plans are doing even better, tracking toward 91% of income replacement. those who are enrolled in auto escalation are headed to 95% replacement rates. perhaps most strikingly, those who -- at rates at 10% or more

stand replace over 106% of their working income once they to retire. byt, my friends, is success any measure. and we are not talking about some tiny outlying exception here. we estimate that 23 million individual retirement savers are on track today to replace more than 100% of their current income in retirement, and they come from all income classes, not just the well-to-do. and that is what i believe the next round of retirement policy debate in america should be about. we can and have identified the structures and behavior that leads to success. how can we make this success and tedious?

-- contagious? if we define success in retirement as an enabling working people to replace pre- retirement income for life, the answers to those questions are again right in front of our noses. here are three highly impactful steps that would take us from here to retirement security. first, let's aim to make the best practices and doorstep by -- endorsed by the pension protection act of 2006 the new norm for all workplace savings plans. let's go full auto, auto enrollment, auto escalation to higher deferrals, plus automatic default to qualify target date or allen's funds for balance funds for every workplace savings plan in

america. there really is no reasonable doubt here that these basic structural elements do raise participation, deferrals, account balances, and the likelihood of interment -- retirement readiness. that is why i would like to see this a requirement for all plans designed. in other words, a requirement.

by spreading best practices across all existing plans, we could lift the retirement readiness of more than 70 million working americans. almost have ae fiduciary and responsibility to aim for that and no excuse not to. step towardig boosting retirement readiness is to extend some form of workplace savings access to all working americans. many of the ideas proposed to do this such as the auto concept and proposal simplified for 401k's, what would be inexpensive for companies to implement. if we require companies to offer savings plans, they could be compensated through that tax code and protected from

liability like the pension protection act did. retirementn readiness for below and moderate income workers would be astronomical. proposals but the auto -- there has been opposition to the very idea of a mandate. but can we not encourage policymakers to design and sentence to make simple savings plans so attractive that every small business would be motivated to offer them. we will leave this discussion to go live to a conversation with the white house chief economic adviser, alan krueger, interviewed by political correspondent mike allen. this is just getting underway.

to beat mr.ger gets chairman for one more week. we will talk to him about the news of the day, a retrospective going back to the beginning of this administration when he was at treasury. andill talk about economics a few of his unusual and interesting specialties. my politicoart, colleagues do such agreat work n these events. i want to congratulate alexis williams to is getting married. her last act was to put on this luncheon. congratulations. [applause] we're grateful for you. welcome to you. we will be taking questions on twitter. please follow along. tweet us, we will answer

questions. before we start, i want to thank the bank of america for making this event possible. we have had a great partnership with bank of america. earlier this month, we were in new york with the baseball commissioner. we are excited about the events that matter most in washington the we are able to talk about. here to say a few words before we get started is the washington complex director for merrill -- wealthp management management. [applause] >> you did not come here to listen to me. i know that for sure. i will turn it back over quickly for the chairman's interview and presentation. i did want to say two things. number one, welcome. welcome for attending, participating, listening, and being part of the event. we do a lot of these events for customers and clients and for the community in washington, d.c., and around the country as well.

we appreciate you attending. the second thing, we appreciate our partnership with politico. it is something that we value. we think rate policy comes from greek discussion -- from great discussion. we want to thank you for putting this event on. it does not happen by accident. i hope you will be surprised and pleased with the program today. thank you for attending. we appreciate it from bank of america. [applause] >> thank you. we appreciate it. now i would like to welcome mr. alan krueger, mr. chairman. [applause] you for coming out on your final week as a member of the president's cabinet. you have been there almost from day one. alan krueger was the chief economist at treasury for the first part of the

administration. then you went awol. >> i called a sabbatical. >> what did you do? >> i went back to princeton university to teach. >> then came back to be chairman of the president's council of economic advisers. we start with the news of the day. congress is in its final week before it goes on is on sabbatical. ,verybody is wondering september 30, are we going to have a government shut down? this administration always feels like republicans do not listen. you only have so many letters from making republicans listen. i wonder if this administration wants the government shutdown. thelearly what administration wants is what is in the interest of the middle class. it is hard to see how a government shutdown is in the and it -- in the interest of the middle class. >> how do you make the congress

listen? >> the president is doing his best. he went to illinois and then to jacksonville, florida. i went on that trip with him. tomorrow he is speaking on jobs in the economy. he is focused on the number one problem facing america today, providing more opportunities for people to get into the middle class. we try to make the case as best we can to the american people and the congress. >> the government will shut down if what? i am not going to negotiate in public about it. let me make my point again. the president is looking to use every lever he can to strengthen the middle class. he has put forth proposals that would strengthen the middle ofss and has statements administration policy. he has discussed which bills he would veto and so on.

that is probably the clearest expression of where the administration is. these are all avoidable problems. there is no reason why the government should shut down if congress is working in the interest of the american people, these problems should be avoided. after the september 30 deadline, probably in mid november, the debt ceiling becomes a real emergency, a real issue in november or december. what would be the consequences of not raising the debt ceiling? hasn the dates, treasury said after labor day. it is hard to pinpoint the date at this point. when i was at treasury, i worked on looking at the forecast for when we would run out of funds under emergency measures. we have already passed the debt ceiling and are into emergency measures. in themselves, they are risky. the deeper you go into emergency

measures, the more it puts the recovery at risk. the idea of reaching the debt limit is unthinkable. the scienceng about fiction movie probably saw, "sharknado." i think if we crossed the debt limit, it would be worse for the financial sector. [laughter] >> how is that? >> to be blunt, our entire financial infrastructure depends on treasurys. the idea the government would be picking and choosing which bills to pay, the idea that is being contemplated by some members of congress is unhealthy for the united states economy. >> one of the biggest decisions this president is going to make this year is through the next fed chairman is going to be, who was going to succeed ben bernanke. your former tennis partner, hans

nichols of bloomberg, wrote today that among the supporters and the west wing, the allies of janet yellen and , the two who have been mentioned. those, the trade adviser, and someone from omb. can we add your name to the list? >> i am not sure it is helpful for the process for names like that to be in public. people should speak for themselves. i think everyone you mentioned follows the ethic that whatever advice they provide to the president and others remains confidential. that is something i will live here too. >> that is a no? >> you can take it as a no

comment. >> knowing the president, what qualities will he look for in a venture? >> i can point to the comments the president made last week in an interview with "the new york times." i do not remember who asked the question. he said he is looking for someone who supports the fed's dual mandate, someone who recognizes the actions the fed take affect ordinary americans. also someone who has judgement to know the right balance between supporting the economy and possibly over heating inflation. those are the characteristics the president mentioned. >> tomorrow when the president appears, he will be appearing at an amazon distribution center. amazon announced new hiring in

the united states. we're told the president is going to announce new policy on job creation. it isf you may have heard a little bit like charlie brown and the football. the press is told there will be new policy. are we going to hear something new from the president tomorrow? >> the president has been consistent -- >> in not giving new policy. [laughter] andn fighting for policies actions he could take that do not involve congress to help the middle class. i am confident you will see him do that tomorrow. i do not want to from the president's address. i think you will see the president emphasizing the steps congress could take today to help the middle class. >> a real worry has been the

labor force participation. the number of people working full time and seeking work has declined. is that coming back? what are your concerns about that measure? >> the labor force participation peak -- rate peaked in 2,000. it then fell sharply during the recession. the council of economic advisers predicted some time ago that starting in 2008 with the retirement of the baby boom we will see a gradual decline in labor force participation because of demographics, because we're getting older as a country. older people tend to produce a bit less, even though that is the one group that has seen a rise in the participation rate. that will tend to dominate. on one hand, if you have this demographic trend which will continue unless we have comprehensive immigration reform which would push in the other direction. at the same time, there are people who left the labour force because of the recession.

either to go back to school or take care of the house. some of them are coming back to the labor force. we have seen that the last couple of months. the participation rate increased. i suspect we will see a tug-of- war between those two forces, demographics and encouraged workers coming back because they feel the job market is strengthening. on balance, those will roughly cancel out. those will roughly cancel out what we have seen in the last year-and-a-half. >either the purchase -- if the participation rate stays congress -- constant, that is pushing against the downward trend as a result of demographics. of working age people not in the work force were not seeking to join the workforce is a sign of diminished ambitions or the restriction on ambition americans are feeling.

>> i think it is a sign of how deep the recession was. even before the recession, we were seeing a decline in labor force participation, particularly among young people. that is not all bad. school enrollment has increased. that is important going forward. trend of a long-term decline in participation is among older men. i used to write for the "new york times." and wanted to write an article around 2005 about why the participation rate was declining for middle-age men. i call this the creamer effect. if you watch seinfeld, you can never figure out how he supported himself. we know he was not in the labour force or arc of looking for a job. i wanted to know how men in that situation were supporting themselves. i went to off-track betting in new york in the middle of the workday. i interviewed people. i still have not come up with the answer. that is a challenge we face.

it is a serious challenge, along with long-term unemployment made worse by the recession. i would suggest there are a lot of people in america whose hopes and dreams are not been realized. to being realized. . i think that was the title to a speech i gave recently. >> the president makes it clear the reason he ran for office is because the economy was not providing enough opportunities for people struggling to get into the middle class. the middle class has been battered for decades. that is continuing even as the economy is recovering. that is why it is important now that we have cleared away much of the rubble from the financial crisis that we focus our attention on what we can do to strengthen the middle class and provide more opportunity into the middle class. to theshift of jobs service sector -- good, bad,

inevitable? what probably all three. -- >> probably all three. that is not a dodge. it is happening because productivity growth has been outside services, mainly in manufacturing. it has been going on for years. that is a good thing as long as we can handle the transition. it is good we have had a sector that was vibrant and developing new products like the internet and providing opportunity. it is bad because the service sector does not pay as well or offer as many private sector opportunities by and large. there are exceptions up very well paid jobs in the service sector. i think it is of three. forces to harness the that have been affecting the job market and use them to a greater extent to our advantage to try to bring more manufacturing jobs back to take a advantage of the tremendous productivity we have

in manufacturing. to aimproved our tax code so there is not an incentive to move jobs overseas. to provide workers with the training they will need in a high-technology, global economy. >> some people find a penny on the sidewalk. show us what you found on the sidewalk right here. >> right in front of the mayflower hotel. >> in june at the rock and roll hall of fame in cleveland, you gave a speech called rock-and- roll economics and rebuilding the middle class. what does rock'n'roll have to do with the middle class? you this.give the speech i gave you was a follow-on speech to a speech i gave a year-and-a-half ago. i wanted to draw attention to the forces that have been

battering the middle-class the last few decades. you can see them in the music industry. the music industry has become much more of a superstar industry. it already was a superstar industry. >> you mean something specifically by the turn of the " superstar industry." >> the idea of the superstar economy where a small number of people take home a large share of the reward goes back all the way to alfred marshall in the 1890's. he was trying to explain why the salaries of a small number of business people were growing rapidly and ordinary artisans, including singers, were flat line. his explanation was because of changes in technology, he included both love and talent. a lucky and talented business person can command more of the market. they can dominate a market to a

wider extent than previously, as long as the number of people who could hear the singer were limited by those who could fit in the room and hear her voice. their incomes would never rise of the same rate. he used them as his example. he used a woman named elizabeth billington who was the most in the earlyprano part of the 19th century and never made much income compared to what business people were making in that day. i discussed research i had done onomics.ld called rock we have seen the top 1 percent go from taking home 26% of the revenue in the music industry in the early 1980's to 56% today. the same type of thing has been

happening in the job market and economy at large. the top 1% went from taking 10% of national income in 1979 to 20% today, double their share. i think it is because of related factors. because of technological change, globalization, luck. i tried to synthesize the role of fairness. we have had an erosion of the norms and institutions that enforce fairness. was eroded.wage we have had tax policy tilted to the rich. all those factors have conspired to reduce the incomes of people below the top 1%. >> one thing people are interested in is how ideas spread, sort of the viral marketing of ideas. and interesting slide you had a the rock-and-roll hall of fame

is use of the belief a song is popular has a profound affect on his popularity, even if it was not truly popular to begin with. tell us what you mean. >> this was a fascinating study. a colleague of mine at princeton ist did anolog experiment where they enlisted about 45 unknown bands to put up one song on the internet. they had roughly 10,000 people listen to this and download what they like. they showed a ranking from most to least popular. iran this for several weeks. then they did something devious. the flipped the order and said the least popular song was the most popular and vice versa. they ran this with another sample of thousands of people. they looked at what happened. did they return to the original ranking? did the fact they said a lot of people like this song mean the

popularity rose? they found in the song that was ranked at the bottom when they said it was the highest ranked one became the most popular. >> what does that tell us about human nature? >> it is not news that it suggests there is a lot of her behavior, a lot of important information, especially when it comes to cultural goods where there are subjective opinions and judgments about what is popular. it dawned on me that another way of explaining this is a .ovie called "sugarman p in was a commercial flo the united states and turned out to be the most popular singer in south africa without knowing it. timing matters a lot. i have a lot of examples of bob dylan being turned down by a recording studio.

a superstar economy, chance matters more. if the gap between the best or those perceived to be the best and everyone else expands, the factors matter a lot more for economic outcomes. >> your the godfather of rockonomics. >> i have become more interested in music. i wrote a piece in the "new york times" on super bowl tickets. i took my dad to the super bowl in 2001. i wrote an article about lessons from going to the super bowl for economics. i was invited to be the keynote speaker at the concert industry convention. i was invited by wonderful magazine. i told the person who invited me i know nothing about concert. the only concert i had been to in the last decade was n'sync.

i took my children. i said the only thing i learned was i need your plugs because they are allowed. he said they could help me. they gave me data on 3000 concerts in north america. it was fascinating to study the industry. since then, i have gone to many concert. one observation made in your itginal paper in 2005 was was the concerts' where the money was being made. is that still true? >> that is still the case. itould generously called bowie t heory after david bowie. he said music would run like electricity and be available for free. he said the only unique experience will be going to concerts and advance should be prepared to do a lot of touring. i think that is what has been taking place.

you can raise the question. in the old days, why did they not charge more for the concert. tomorrow we have seen concert prices rise even faster than health care inflation. i think the reason is the concert for a loss leader. they performed concerts to become popular and so more albums. now that people can download music, they are making less money from of bonds and ewing concerts' as a profit center. >> do we have an education bubble? >> i have said if we are to have a bubble, that is not a bad place to have one. of self- say that out interest. if you look at the countries that have done better dealing with the global forces affecting the u.s., their countries that continue to increase educational attainment. in the u.s., we plateaued in the

1980's and 1990's into the 2,000's in terms of enrollment, especially among men. it would be healthy and helpful for the u.s. if we approach to education more like south korea and put in more resources and toe, devoted more effort work, tutoring, and all of that. at the same time, i worry about student at rising quickly. in some pockets of the education system, i think there is clearly a problem, lack of information and a minimum is part of the problem. what as do not know typical student gets out of the school. we have been trying to address that by providing more information and clear guidelines. >> a friend who works on capitol hill says every business person who comes in from their home state to talk to them expresses concern about how the

affordable care act, obamacare, is going to affect them. i know it is your view the -- pushingut these people into part-time work. it is your view that these are anecdotes, factors, not a widespread problem. the concern is widespread. what can you do about that? >> i think there are many reasons for the concern. on the one hand, if you have anti-affordable care at forces spending four times as much many criticizing the law as you have supporters' spending promoting the law. >> they are looking at their own house and worry. >> some are. the vast majority of businesses that provide health insurance have been seeing slow growth in insurance premiums. i think when they take a look at what has been happening to the health care market, they will see some advantages. that covers the 85% of people who already have insurance.

undersizebusinesses 50 not required to provide health insurance qualify for subsidies. that will make them potentially better off. s, for all the difficulty getting them off the ground with some states not been fully committed to running the mall, they have been providing much lower insurance premiums in many cases. when you look at the picture manya whole, there are benefits that can occur from the affordable air -- affordable care act. the legislative aide would say, how many jobs have been created since the affordable care act? 7.2 million jobs have been created since it passed. that is double the private sector number of jobs created in the first four years of the

previous recovery when there was no affordable care act. is evidence is job growth proceeding at a faster pace than in the last recovery. when we look at part-time work, i have no doubt you can find examples of companies who have been cautious with work hours. overall -- iscautious with work hours sugarcoating. >> i do not know because i have not looked at the actual records. you can find evidence in the newspapers about some businesses saying they're going to cut working hours. we do not see that nationally. i do not think we will. i will tell you why. if you look at the data, we have about 145 million people working in the u.s. today. between 30 andg 35 hours a week, the group you think might see their hours reduced below 30, of those only

1.4 million do not have health insurance currently, work for a company that has over 50 employees. the universe is not enormous. i do not think this is going to have macro economic effects. it has been something that has attracted news stories. and concernsries about backlash against the affordable care act are based on urban myth? >> we are focused on implementing it affordable care act as well as possible. we could see a health care costs growing at the fastest rate in five or 10 years instead of premiums coming down for small and medium businesses that were growing. instead of job growth at 200,000 jobs a month so far this year, the best start to a year since 1999, we were seeing job growth

which was much lower. the coverage would be different. we are focused on improving the outcome. so far, the outcomes have been quite positive. >> are you worried about what will happen with the portable care act -- is affordable care act as everything kicks in? >> my main worry is congress will not provide sufficient tools to implement the law. that and concern about some states fighting the last war. what will become more apparent is the states that have done their jobs and taking implementation seriously are seeing more competition. they are seeing prices come down. that is going to be beneficial for citizens in those states. >> you worked for the labor department under president clinton. you have been in the economic inner circle of this administration almost the whole

time. first at treasury and now as chairman. what is the culture of this white house? >> i think the culture of the white house emanates from the president, which is trying to issuesclear look at the and what is in the interest of the american people. no drama. that is an environment where i have felt very comfortable. it certainly was the way treasury operated when i was there under secretary geithner and that is how i felt working directly for the president. 's what is the president management or leadership style? >> when it comes to economics, the president has outstanding intuition and is will read -- will read. he will point out articles i need to read. i do my homework.

difficulty i have had is when i worked at treasury, i knew what the treasury secretary's portfolio was. that was during the financial crisis. the president has many other issues on his plate. i try to be judicious in not overloading him, but providing him the information i think he needs the most. i have enjoyed being adviser to him. it is a funny thing. as a professor, you have a completely different life. you write articles and try to discover new things. as an advisor, it is necessary to be discreet. it is necessary to be mindful of not principal's time and take up more time than necessary. it is to anticipate what

information the principal needs. sometimes that information is available. sometimes you have to develop and have your staff to research. there are different skills. i have enjoyed working for the -- for the president. it has been the highlight of my career. >> what kinds of articles does he point out? >> economic articles, academic articles. meeting doesof a he run? >> very organized. i do not like to tell too many stories about the president so i will not. before one of them, i got a phone call telling me president obama likes to start his meetings on time and sometimes they start early. i was reminded of the coach of the new york giants. they've got to find the players if they did not show up 10 minutes before the meeting.

me.as a total change for the president said he wanted you to give him unvarnished advice. is that easier said than done? >> i am glad you remember that. he said are rely on the council to give me unvarnished, objective advice about the best thing to do for the economy, not influenced by politics. it is not hard because i will say on the one hand and the other hand. i have tried to give what i think is the best economic evidence, but also characterize where the different view is. i think that has worked pretty well. temptationsted the to give advice about politics. there are plenty of people that know much more about that than me. that is their job. i have tried to stay in my lane and give the president objected economic advice. >> has the president given up on

getting a grand bargain, a fiscal deal that would deal with long-term entitlement programs -- problems? tothe president's last offer speaker boehner is still on the table. the president has said there are many ways to solve our problems. i think he had a sensible compromise on the table to address our fiscal problems. he has said if we have to, we will do it in pieces. think what is important is we have a grand bargain for the middle class. now that we've cleared away the rubble from the crisis, we can start addressing the structural problems that have been building for decades. i think that is to a large extent what the election was about. 2011 stateresident's of the union address, one of his biggest applause lines. i think you are in the chamber for this.

one of his biggest applause lines was he said we do big things, referring to the country. is the long-term entitlement program interfering with our ability to do big things? >> i do not think it currently is. i think it is a looming problem. theink right now dysfunction in congress is what is preventing us from doing big things. when i was out of the government, and went to visit the panama canal. you talk about seeing big things in america accomplished over 100 years ago. i went with the president when he visited the port of miami which is expanding to accommodate the larger ships that will be able to come through the panama canal. you see a tunnel under miami that is impressive. we still can do some big things. we would like to do a lot more big things. i think the constraint we face now is the opposition in congress not the fiscal

situation we find ourselves in. longnk that is a problem term. it is one we need to address in the long term to preserve room for the investments necessary to strengthen the economy. >> in the state of the union address two years ago, he said this is our generation's sputnik moment. years, our goal is to get 80% americans access to high-speed rail. that is a tall order. how're we doing? >> i think we were doing better before the sequester. the sequester is having any adverse effects on the economy. ,t is hurting the vulnerable cutting benefits for the long- term unemployed. sutting the number of student in programs like head start. it is cutting critical investments. if you look back at the history of the u.s., we know the more

people were looking for breakthroughs, the more we get. the example i like to have in and is the hydraulic horizontal drilling. horizontal drilling was developed because of research at the department of energy. it is the best example of government investing in new technology and private entrepreneurs taking it to market and developing it. it could not happen any other place. we are much further ahead than the rest of the world in terms of horizontal drilling. those are the types of investments getting cut as a result of the sequestered. that will affect us in the future. >> i want to bring you into the audience. if you have a question, we will bring you a microphone. let me ask you about being in the treasury department right after the meltdown. you were trying to avoid a worldwide depression. what was it like? your comfort zone was jobs.

but you had to get beyond that. >> who like to say it was all hands on deck. we were facing unprecedented problems. background in economics was fairly broad. i felt comfortable dealing outside of labor economics. we consider issues of moral hazards. those are big issues and financial markets. the range of issues we were facing, the decisions the president and treasury secretary had to make on a daily basis were extraordinary. i remember when the life insurance companies came in. it felt like a good chunk of the economy was on life-support. when i reflect back, i am reminded of how much progress we have made and how dark the prospects were at that time. your worry at that

time? about theery worried financial system. let me give you an example. if you go back to the president's first budget, there was a reserve fund of an additional $250 billion for financial stability programs, if necessary. >> what did that mean? >> that meant the fear was tarp that was unpopular at the time -- it is not a popular idea to use taxpayer funds to shore up banks. no president would want to do that unless we were in an extraordinary situation. i am sure the bush administration did not seek the ly.ds gleeful we were not sure that would be sufficient given the scale of what we're facing. given the skillful management of secretary geithner and secretary

we were able to shore up the financial sector and get havete capital in and taxpayers repaid with a profit from the financial system. not from some of the other investments are made. they were not designed to make money. they were designed to rescue the economy. when you look back, it was not clear we would not have been in a much deeper crisis. you would love to bring into the conversation. we have a question in the back. say your name. >> [indiscernible] that, i we're doing will ask you about senator elizabeth warren. about her? >> is an open-ended question. champion ofeen a

particularly in the financial area for decades. she brings a new element to the u.s. senate. i have not had that much contact with her as an academic. i had some contact with her when i was at treasury. i think she is a superstar with in the democratic caucus. but we hillary clinton was, i would say. and a senatore who introduced glass-steagall for the 21st century. do we need that? >> i think we have the tools somedodd-frank to address of the problems that can arise in the financial sector. it is important to continue to implement them. aca, it is important regulatory agencies are

adequately funded. there has been installed war on stealth war on funding. the higher capital requirements, the living wills that are required to provide and the oversight committee are important tools. >> what do you mean by a still stealth war. >> effort by special interests and some members of congress to inadequately fund the regulators which would make it much more difficult to implement dodd- frank and also put the financial sector more at risk for the kind of boom and bust cycle we have had before. >> we do not need a microphone. someone down here has a question. >> [indiscernible]

>> welcome. i have to answer carefully. we have longstanding policy of not commenting on the federal reserve. in terms of inflation, i think we are seeing inflation expectations well-anchored in the product markets and the labor markets. tame inflation partly because health care costs have been growing so slowly. i believe that has resulted from structural changes in the health care system, partly brought on by the affordable care act. >> returning to princeton, what has paul kruger been like? two doorsthe office down from me. he has been a good colleague.

theink i mentioned before semester of respect -- i was back i had a new course called consequences and remedies. he thought it was such a good idea he decided to teach it. [laughter] he and i have had some interesting comments. the new one is called the economy and economic policy in 2013. that gives me a fair amount of discretion to cover what i like. >> another field of expertise for you, in the administration you tried to stay in your lane. you have not said much about this. you did a book on terrorism, what makes the terrorist, the economic risk of terrorism. it is dedicated to pat stillman, killed in afghanistan. the popularting explanation for terrorism, that came from people who work

educationally or economically depressed. you found out it was often well- educated people from welfare families. they were sophisticated about wanting to affect political outcomes. >> the popular view, stereotypical view of terrorist was wrong. the general tendency is for people to be engaged in terrorism because they want to make some type of political statement. we have a view of terrorism that is like a street crime. people who are desperate, have nothing to live for get involved in terrorism. it seems to me that it is people who believe in something so strongly they are willing to die for it. that is a better explanation for who becomes involved in terrorism. tois that harder or easier deal with, prevent, curtail? >> it makes it harder in the sense that another thing that we found was that those who had

more training were more effective in terms of carrying out their plot. in that sense, i think it is harder. i think also -- this is another demon in the book -- the terrorist organizations are pretty adaptable. if the authorities are looking for one particular profile they are pretty good at changing that profile. on thing i would recommend to the audience is there is a fabulous new movie called "the ," about a palestinian couple living in israel. a true story. i don't want to give away the whole movie. --ery well educated couple it does that the conclusions that i found in my book. clocks with did you learn from the attack? >> it was an excellent movie. for onenot generalize case. one of the things i try to do in my book is try to bring quantitative analysis.

>> last question, what should we worry about now? do you think the threat has diminished? >> i will stay out of my way. -- i will stay in my lane and leave that. clocks -- >> it is fitting friday is a job stay -- a jobs day. what is it's like to be thrown out there month after month? >> it is not the easiest day of the month for me. i try to take a long view. the numbers are very volatile. i added a paragraph to my statement, as the administration cautions every month jobs numbers are very volatile, they

and people make too much of the monthly numbers. i have not try to lower the temperature on the monthly reports. there aremonth change -- if youut cecil look at the change from july to july. i found that if you look at the course of this recovery on a rolling 12 month basis, we have been creating about 2 million, 2.1 million, 2.2 million jobs per year for the last 2.5 years. thatyou look at it in perspective you are a little bit bit less inclined to overreact to the news. that is what happens, i think, in much of the press on the monthly jobs report. , regardless ofn what the numbers are. i get criticized because my

statement has been fairly issistent over time, which the latest report shows that the economy is continuing to heal. sometimes i get criticized for being lazy. my view has been that when that stops being true i will change it. tenure, wer my whole have been gradually deepening our way -- digging our way out of the recession. we are on a much better path than we were on when i first started working for the government. >> her tennis skills, one of your former artist describes her tennis style as effective. they described it in contrast to gene sperling. what does it take to be good in tennis? >> practice. i love tennis. telling a member of the

washington capitals that it is a refuge -- i was on the track team when i grew up. every year i get older i run more slowly and that is not as much fun. tennis is therapeutic for me. it gives me a chance to run and chase after the ball. practice, i used to have the illusion that i was getting better but now i have the illusion of feeling like i am not getting worse. from you could extrapolate rock in -- from rock economics in the middle class, what can you tell us about tennis in the middle class? >> i think it is important that people exercise. that is important to a healthy life. >> this is congruent with your homeestion, remained up in new jersey. , how hasare in d.c.

the restaurant scene changed since the clinton administration? what would you tell new yorkers about d.c. restaurants? in the two years i have been living on 15th and p street, the 14th street corridor has changed dramatically. there is a new restaurant every other day. i think they are excellent. i've tried linda beaumont in my neighborhood. clocks does it live up to the hype? >> i should probably try it a second time before i answer that area -- answer that. how does it compare to new york? i would say new york has a lot more restaurants. i would say the top are pretty similar. new york restaurants stay open

late. i used to live above a fabulous restaurant. they close at 10:00 and in spain that is when they start to go out to dinner. clocks we have another question down here. matt mcdonald, go ahead. >> i am curious, there has been a lot of discussion about the rise in disability and the question that some argue that there is the class workers who just do not have a place in the economy as it currently is and that there is not home for them to have jobs to add value to any sort of thing. do you think that is true? if so, what are the solutions to deal with that problem? >> i think the rise in insurance is driven by a number of factors. one is the demographic trend we have talked about earlier.

that is something the social security administration had predicted. also the state of the economy does tend to matter. particularly concerned about the rise in disability insurance and working people. i think it is symptomatic of the trends that are taking place in the economy over the last several decades. i think we need to create more jobs thatrticularly pay decent wages. we also have to make sure workers have sufficient training for those jobs. i can tell you nobody wants to be a disability insurance. ofid a study years ago people who were paraplegics and looking at their job prospects.

we interviewed about 800 people. it was a catch 22 at that time. many of the individuals could have used some of the new technology. the cause they were unable to work, people were learning how to use a computer on the job. i do think there are opportunities to reach disability population to provide them with more opportunities. what we say goodbye here, is a book we should read? and what is something you are looking forward to reading? >> i very much like my colleagues book. >> what is the big idea? is that whenea people make decisions sometimes they make decisions based on emotion. thumb andse rules of

intuition, which may be wrong. in other times they think through the benefits and the costs and think more rationally. that is a fabulous book. and we talked together so i very much enjoyed collaborating with him over the years. i am looking forward to reading some nonfiction -- some fiction. i have not read some fiction in a very long time. maybe you can give me some recommendations. i like mysteries. >> one other book you recommended, tell us about "the theory that would not die." >> i read that book before, just before i came back to government. in ankind of the system economist framework. it's about-based analysis. statistics and forgot, it is a way of integrating information and

tells you how to update. how much should you change your views? some people never change your views. some people change them to easily. history base was absolutely fascinating. it was applied to many different situations, including search engines, including looking for bombs that fell off of airplanes. is quitery fascinating. >> think you for making this possible. i think all of you in person. -- thank all of you in person. a great conversation. [applause]

>> alan krueger leaves his position as the chair of white house counsel economic -- council of economic advisers. set to replace him is jason furman, who was approved by the senate banking committee about two weeks ago. on capitol hill, congress is returning for one more week of work before their august recess. the house gavels in at two tomorrow with legislative works set at 2 p.m. eastern. also a bipartisan compromise bill, addressing the doubling of student loan interest rates. the senate approved their version last week by a vote of 81 to 18 read the sentences in the afternoon at two. 5:30, senators will take on the boat to name it -- on the

vote to name james comey as the new fbi director. today, nominees to the national labor relations board. top leaders talked about when they could expect the house to go to conference with the senate to resolve differences on their 2014 budget proposals. ask my friend, the majority leader, does the gentleman expect we will go to conference? i yield to my friend. >> mr. speaker, i think the gentleman for his tenacity. this is a weekly discussion between he and i. i am that live to respond -- delighted to respond. it is something we should commit to ourselves to working out.

is position of the majority we do not enter into discussions if the prerequisite is you have to raise taxes. , wey week on this issue believe strongly that you fixed the problem of overspending, you informed the programs that are needing to be unformed -- informed. the gentleman is insistent that the taxpayers need to pay more of their hard-earned dollars into washington, that discussion is appropriate. as a prerequisite to entering budget talks that we agreed to raise taxes is not something i think the american people want this body to engage with. i yield back. >> i think the gentleman. the gentleman's premise is incorrect. the senate has voted to go to conference -- they have not

voted to go to conference because the republican members of the united states senate will not vote go to congress. there was nothing in that motion that said there was a prerequisite that the house agreed to anything. leader,d, the majority has said repeatedly that we have a prerequisite. we have a difference of opinion, that is what democracy is about. there is no prerequisite. or is no precondition. there is no condition to going to conference. that is what conferences are all about. they are about coming together and understanding there are differences. there would be no need for a conference if there weren't differences. atthe houses back tomorrow noon eastern. the senate gavels in a 40 .inutes

president obama's hosting secretary of state hillary clinton for lunch today. no word yet on what the two are discussing. the president also released a statement in reaction to the announcement of many peace talks set to get underway today. partdent obama said in that during his visit to the region he experienced the profound insider for peace among both israelis and out -- and palestinians -- tonight.ks begin >> the first lady reflects reflects the schism that is in the united states about one and -- about what women are supposed to be. are we supposed to be mom in chief?

are we supposed the first mate? to navigate that if the president is supposed to be head of state and head of government, is the first lady supposed to be the ideal fashionista? be mom inposed to chief? is she supposed to be first help mate? if she is going to be first help mate. -- first help mate, she needs to understand what is going on in the administration, what is going on in the country. and her husband's political agenda. outcannot really separate the first lady presents herself and the conflicting expectations that the country still has four working lives and working mothers. >> as we continue our conversation on first ladies, rolerians talk about the

of the first lady and its move from traditional home and family to activism on behalf of important issues from the transitioning of public tonight -- public to private lives. my thesis is the internet began with extraordinary promise for democratizing society, making the world a far better place. some of the promises came true but much of it has been turned on its head. that is largely due to commercial pressures that have changed in the course of the internet dramatically. unless he or arrest those pressures and redirect the internet the future is not necessarily going to be as glorious as we once thought it would be. >> the future of the internet, with digital disconnect author. tonight on the communicators, at 8:00 eastern on c-span two. today's washington journal focused on the nation's healthcare law, looking at its

imitation and addressing some of the concerns of viewers -- limitations and addressing some of the concerns of viewers. >> we are focusing the rest of the "washington journal" on the federal health-care law and what it means to you. we kick it off with a series, with kaiser health news.we are joined by some -- by three senior correspondence. first up we have mary agnes carey. jay hancock, thank you to you as well.both have been guests at this table as well. we also have sarah varney in from california.thank you for being here. here is how we are dividing up the lines, if you're eastern or central time zones you can call us at 202-585-3880. if you are mountain or pacific or further west it is 202-585- take us back and remind us what were the original goals of

the law and what it was intended to do? guest: -- to make the health insurance cover more than it currently does. host: what we know about its effectiveness? guest: several benefits have been added for millions of americans, preventive care, looking at screenings for for high blood pressure, mammograms for women over 40, those are available without co-pays. adult children up to 26 are up to health insurance plan. --ere is no lifetime coverage. no more lifetime limits on coverage. heaven forbid someone had cancer, there's no no lifetime limits on your coverage. seniors have seen their costs go down for medicare prescription drugs over the closing of the donut hole. host: as we look at cost in getting more people insured, what we know on those counts? guest: there are concerns over

time that adding additional benefits will increase the cost some ofth care coverage. the new bids coming in for these , enrollment starts on october 1,these are run by the federal government whereby the states were partnered partnered with the federal government and states. some are lower than originally anticipated. host: as we look into the elements that change so far, these are people that currently youe insurance plans. mentioned adult children are covered up to ageclosing the doughnut hole is 26. also on the list. how significant is that? guest: it is significant. over time the donut hole hasin medicine -- the donut hole in medicare prescription drug costs have left seniors with a lot of costs. that is going to be faced down to have seniors just cover 25% of their cost.

many do not have large incomes to begin with, this has been helpful for them. host: we are seeing things like coverage cannot be canceled except in cases of fraud. guest: this has been a problem several years ago. california had coverage, you would file a claim, and then you would not have it anymore. if you intentionally lie on your application, that is the front element, that insurer could counsel. if you do not do that something like rescissions are no longer allowed. guest: we were talking about situations where someone was getting cancer treatment. the insurance companies actually had internal compartments that --re said that were set up to that were set upfind errors in applications. you might be getting cancer treatment and they will look back and see that you had your appendix out or acne when you were 16.

they would say you have not given your full medical history. people have lost their coverage. california banned that with a state law. it is part of the affordable care act now. host: we sun news when the obama delayedration delete-- -- the laidg implementing -- delayed implementingand enforcing large businesses having to insure you their employees. why was that change made? guest: it was significant because it was a delay in one of the major pillars of the law, which is the idea that we want to get everyone to get insured. one pillar is expanding medicaid for poor folks. another is the individual mandate that everybody over a certain income has to have health insurance.

the other pillar is that employers are obligated, 15 employees are obligated -- employers are obligated with 50 employees to insure their employees. the delay was seen as a setback by republicans, who keep arguing it is very difficult to implement this law. it was seen as a source of relief by a lot of employers. one of the things going on with this law -- remember it was passed in 2010. it was suppsoed to be, "that gives us four years." what's going on now is the time to get new rules out are squeezed. rules are still coming out even as we are sitting here.

employers were trying to figure out how they were going to they have tothe law. be in compliance starting january 1. the administration decided, we will give them a year's break. we can all take a breather and figure out we are going to do this. guest: i was at a seminar by an insurance broker in california. this room was full of employers that were athar plastic about-- apoplectic about this. there was this list of dates, by october 1 you had to give a piece of paper to every single employee letting them know what their benefits are going to be. they were worried they have to update their computer system because many of these employers i was talking to did not have a computer system that would track at the level they needed to. now they need to buy a 100 thousand dollar computer system on top of all of these added costs to the system.

a week later he was released he has more time. now he has until next year. this october they do have to send out notice to their employees saying they have to buy insurance by january 1. host: we are joined by senior correspondents from kaiser health news. the washington journal is launching a partnership to export a federal health care law with kaiser insurance. their work can be read and publications like "usa today," tell usgton post, "npr." about kaiser health news. guest: we are part of the kaiser -- familyndation area foundation. our stories do run and partners throughout the country. the editorial independence

element of it means that the newsroom works like all of the newsrooms we have worked in throughout our careers. you decide our stories, write them, and pitch them to partners around the country. it is important to note that neither the kaiser family -- kaiser foundation -- neither the kaiser health is associated with -- kaiser foundation nor kaiser health news is associated with kaiser permanente. host: let us go to the phone lines, you are on the phone. caller: i have been made off since 2009.-- laid off since 2009. since then, it was from finding full-time work to almost part- time work and a lot of areas.-- in a lot of areas. i am thinking employers -- i just found work within the last 35 days. what i am finding is a lot of employers are trying to avoid giving full-time hours coming even though the demands of the work is full-time work. they are actually going to the point where they are writing

people up if they are going over there hours, trying to meet the demands of their customers. is that fair? what can you do to report it? i think americans should do the american thing. if you have part-time workers doing full-time work, they should get benefits just the same. they are trying to hide under this 30 hour barrier. i wanted to see if someone could comment on that. host: what reporting heavy done on this topic? guest: quite a bit. two points to be made here. one is if your employer is asking you to work more than 30 hours a week and not paying you, or not paying you for any hours you are putting in that is against the law. you are not supposed to do that. it has been known to happen every now and then.

you should talk to your supervisor about it. if you do not get any satisfaction, you can talk to the illinois labor department. the other points to be made is the big one, which is you know something that is a bit of a trend going on here. the number of part-time jobs has been growing. this is giving something of a talking point to republicans. they claimed the growth in part- time jobs and the relative lack of growth in full-time jobs -- they blame it on obamacare. as you mentioned obamacare revives coverage for larger employers and employees working over 30 hours a week. this gives incentives to employers to keep employees under 30 hours per week. the mandate we just talked about is giving some employers some time to rethink this.

the question is will this continue? the economists claim the poor -- the growth of part-time jobs -- there is something going on with globalization. a lot of republicans are blaming it on the affordable care act. we are going to be watching in the job numbers in the coming months to see exactly what is going on. host: here is a story jake hancock filed for kaiser news. we will talk about what this means for businesses and employees. jonathan is from phoenix, arizona. go ahead.

we will talk about what this means for businesses and employees. jonathan is from phoenix, arizona. go ahead. caller: i want is a call about age in which it covers, say your parents will cover you. i believe it was 26? i do not understand why the age once you turnigh. 18 try to pay your own health care. these kids that are growing up to be unaccountable for what they want, now they won't be accountable to get up and there own jobs and their own economy going.

i am 17 and i grew up with different values. i want to know what you guys thought about it. do you agree or disagree to affect that this age limit is so high? host: do you have a game plan for when you turn 18? do you plan to continue your education or get into the workforce? caller: i plan to get a secondary education. it might be difficult for me to afford my own health care. that is part of life. i am going to stroll with that. i am going to find my own way. i will be happy to participate. host: take us through what this cutoff means and why it is significant. guest: so many young americans were getting out of college with the economic slowdown and were having difficulties either getting a job or finding a job with coverage. that is why this provision was

created. it helps millions of young americans get covered. i think the caller's concerns are ones that have been echoed on capitol hill, that this adds an unnecessary expense. the health lot does have special and larger deductible plans. it is a good policy when it is time to go into the health insurance world. there will be options for younger folks. this was a backstop for those getting out of college that need coverage. many parents as well as little children out of college are happy to have it. guest: there was a story a couple of months ago i did a story on, asking the obvious question, does having health insurance protect you from

catastrophic financial problems? what they found out was it does. they looked at in number of things that would send you to the hospital, bar none. situations where you would not have a choice. before this provision was implemented and after, what they found was $147 million in compensated care for the hospital is now being paid out by insurance companies. there were a lot of legitimate economic reasons. students who are graduating that were not able to get jobs with health insurance, whoever wants to phase one of these illnesses would have gone to the hospital. they would have been sued for claims or the hospital would

have had to claim uncompensated care. host: republicans push for killing obamacare funding, this is gaining some support among conservative republicans. as we look at a recent poll by cbs, 39% of those holes say repeal the obamacare act. 67% said expand or keep it. what do you think in terms of the fight? guest: it continues and is very intense. house of representatives will have the 40th vote to repeal all or part of the health-care law. this will look into defunding the internal revenue service in having implementation efforts in the health-care law. i think republicans see a lot of good things for them. despite the fact that democrats

kept the senate and white house in the november elections, republicans feel that the law is not good for individuals and employers. they are very motivated to he funding it, not only the standalone measures but as we look toward the continuing resolution, the bill that will fund the government beyond september 30, they plan to act on the health-care law. host: our next caller is jonathan in new hampshire. good morning. caller: good morning. i had a couple of questions. i have had quite a bit of confusion on some of the information.

with regards to the medicare advantage, is that going to be dissolved? my confusion is which of the two are they going to continue? guest: medicare advantage reimbursements is being reduced overtime. they are trying to equalize with the government pays for beneficiary and traditional services. the program will remain. you talk about supplemental coverage, that is used most often for a variety of policies. neither one of those programs are going away. guest: i would add that a lot

people have been predicting a decline in in medicare advantage coverage because of the funding reductions. you are seen that anywhere in -- we areance industry. not seeing that anywhere in the insurance industry. these plans are only getting more popular,despite the reimbursement reductions. host: david in new jersey, hello. caller: good morning. i have been unemployed for two years and i have been uninsured for that same. i have gone onto to the health and human services website to get it yield for how the affordable care act works. i do not want to bash the program but it seems kind of clandestine. they do not want to publish the numbers, they talk about this gold, silver, bronze package they're going to have. it is very hard for the consumer to wrap their hands around it. i am hoping for the best.

i am going to pay the $240 premium every month but they are offering for this basic clan. i am only doing that because i do not have a lot of confidence in the affordable care act. i am not in the position to even afford this. i was a high income earner for the last couple of years. i just have to take the basic insurance now. i don't know if anyone wants to add to that. guest: a couple thoughts. yes it is really complicated. however, in a few months, if everything works close to the way it is supposed to, a lot of things will become clearer. new jersey's health exchange --

these online marketplaces were anyone like you is supposed to go on and sign up for coverage if the software is designed right you will be able to go on there and actually get a really clear idea of what your choices are, what the trade-offs are, the plans, and what the plans are going to cost. those open october 1. people like you have until march 31 of next year to comply with the mandate. one other quick tip, go online and google "obamacare subsidy calculator." this is something our colleagues at the foundation put together. it is a great tool that will show you not only what coverage is available but what kind of subsidy you are going to get based on your income to help pay those new premiums.

if you're unemployed you will most certainly qualify for a subsidy. it should give you more information than you have now. host: one question i have is should he wait? guest: that is a great question. if you have not signed a contract already, wait until october. it is when the subsidies become available. they are not available now. if you bought the plan already you are doing the responsible thing by being insured. you will get financial health if you wait a little bit. host: the calculators you are talking about was from the kaiser family foundation. it is a way to plug in information and find out some results. we have seen some tweets come in especially on this question of young people and their health insurance. jan says --

we see this also from don -- for young people who are not on their parents health insurance, they are still facing having to get insurance, whether or not they have a job in the coming months. mary agnes carey, take us through don's question about why 100% of people are supposed to get covered. guest: younger people tend to be healthier and insurance is the balance for us. you need younger people to balance it out in the risk pool. to jay's point, looking at subsidies that might be available, not only with what

your premium and co-pay is, you can get a lot of financial assistance to get coverage and get into health insurance system. it is part of the nature of insurance. this is where the individual mandate comes in. it is important to note there are a lot of young old looking-- young people lookingat this and weighing this and wondering if i pay the penalty or i get the health insurance. this is the balance they have to make. if you are not covered and you have a catastrophic event, e get in a car wreck, you will be responsible for those costs. >> look at what this will be. or 1% of taxable income, what ever is greater. why is whatever greater in significant detail? >> $95 is not a big deal but 1%

you might think twice about taking that path. >> bronx, new york. caller: good morning. i want to thank what he is done for our community and nation. it was so useful for our family. as a human being and a nation we are claiming to respect human rights in different parts of this world, i want to add this. president obama. -- you are caring for our

host: do you have a specific question for the affordable health care law? if you are caring for our buddies in this country, we want to care about this in different places. host: our guests are answering your questions about the law. we will turn out to look at the insurance marketplace. here are some new phone lines. if you have insurance you can call us at 202-585-380. if you lack insurance it is 202- if you are a healthcare

provider 202-585-3882. we will take a couple of calls on our regional lines. let us hear from donnie in tennessee. good morning. caller: we have about 30 employees. we could easily higher 20 or 30 more but we will not do it because of obama care. it is one of the largest hospitals in america. we just laid off it is one of the largest hospitals in america. the reasons that he did not institute his policies simply because there were elections coming up in november. myat is ready much it. question for the lady in the red, i apologize, i forget her

name --she said people that do not get insurance if they get hurt they are going to be responsible. andthey do not have the money they are already getting subsidiesthey do not care if ,they are responsible. there's nobody to get. it looks like we are already paying for these people to start with. a change in the system is the any way i look at it.host: follow-up questions? there are a lot of antidotes -- anecdotes about employers saying they are holding of hiring. i suspect a lot of it is because of uncertainty surrounding the law. i think i met this one man down

this idea that you can somehow go to the emergency room and walk away is somewhat of a fallacy. i think i met this one man down and brownsville who works full- time in the shipyard. a couple ofured. years ago he had to go to the hospital for an emergency. they sent him a bill for $11,000. i asked him what he did about the bill. he said i still have it.this is somebody who wanted to go and try and buy a house. that will be on his record. this idea that you can somehow go to the emergency room and walk away is somewhat of a fallacy. there are hundreds of billions of dollars of care. the price to the individual and family is not one of just a clean slate. host: good morning. caller: my question is this.

to me, this is strictly healthcare that has to do with big company money and insurance companies. did any of you people see the hour-long special on public television where they compare healthcare cost from this country to other countries in the world? did anybody see that? and makespen your eyes. it look like this is nothing but insurance companies andpoliticians is just greed and money. my brother had an mri about two years ago, $1300.he had to have a special mri. if he can back it will be $2000. any other country he went to would've cost of $91. a doctor visit in this country walk in with $15 and you can see doctor. it is not matter what kind of insurance you have. some countries have a limit on how much money a doctor can make per year. when he hit that limit he is

working for free. i want to know why it is that this country, with the politicians and insurance companies who do not care about the elderly or the kids, why is it that this country has to have this kind of a healthcare deal? guest: it is an accident of history. it is true that when other --untries are looking at any if you ask any economist when you asked them if you would design it the way the united states, most people would say no. taiwan was facing a situation where they have many uninsured people. they looked at different health systems and they came to the united states and left immediately. it is not one that is seen as a model by any stretch or any country. it is an accident of history. during world war ii companies were not allowed to increase

salaries for workers. in order to create enticements to keep workers they started offering health insurance. it worked its way into the american healthcare system and it is how we have been set up for 46 years. i do not think there's anybody who would say this is a perfect system. it is one that has been built on. guest: politically it is pretty invulnerable. congress democrats said they wanted universal health care coverage. as the political possibility that made it happen. it is very complex. it is very expensive. one of the things we should mention about the affordable care act is it is designed to control some of these costs and reduce the unenforceability that the sheer expense of these procedures and the number of procedures show signs of that happening now.

guest: everybody is frustrated with the costs. you go to people in different parts of the system and asked them where they should come out and they always point to somebody else. that is the big problem. how do you get people to agree to take what needs to be about a 20% cost to even begin to match what other developed countries are paying. host: we are visited by three guests this morning. they have a partnership with kaiser health news. jay hancock, let's talk more about the exchanges for the marketplaces. what are they? guest: marketplaces is the new term.

exchanges was this policy term. they are trying to rebrand them. they think that is more descriptive of where they are. they are mainly online places where you can shop for health they have been likened to travelocity or orbitz worldwide online and walk through several steps. -- where you go online and walk through several steps. it is not an obvious thing. starting october 1, you're going to hear more and more about these exchanges opening. you are going to start hearing

you are going to start hearing about navigators, who are consultants to help consumers sign up what -- sign up through what is going to be a complicated process. the idea is thatbased on this individual mandate they can sign up get credited with the subsidies we have been talking about on the spot. they will be insured for healthcare after that. host: some states are choosing to run their own exchanges.some

are default and the federal government. here is a map from the kaiser family foundation. why is it significant that some states like california are doing faith bait exchanges and others are faulting it to the federal exchanges? the state has decided they will run their own exchange. it is coming from california where i have been following what is going on. you see different kind of models. in california this was considered an active purchaser. when the legislature passed a law setting up this exchange they authorized them to run the exchange to negotiate strictly with the insurance companies. went to the unveiling of the a month or two ago. it was like a party. everybody showed up. there were 100 people there.

you felt like you are going to an art show or something. they cut of the rates on the screen and everyone started hollering. they were participating in the california exchange. i think there were about 13. the rates were much lower than what people anticipated. i think we're seeing that in maryland. we're seeing that in a couple of other states for the rates are coming in a lot lower. california is an active purchaser. others are saying we will put up the marketplace and build a website and anybody can sell their wares on this. host: what are some states having a harder time getting insurance companies marketing their products? guest: mississippi is where there was a wide swath where there would be no insurance options.

humana has stepped in. this is what you have when you have a marketplace. it is something where you have to have customers willing to buy a project.-- a product. you might make a business decision that that is not a market you want to go into. as long as you're having this delivered through private health insurance companies, that is what you are going to get, people making business deals. host: appleby recently filed mississippi s of consumers may not be offered insurance subsidies. take us up to date with what is happening in mississippi. guest: when he wrote the story there were some blank spots on the map.it was a subject --

host: what does that mean? guest: if you were eligible to buy in the exchanges in certain counties in mississippi you would have no choice. you would say i qualify. i'm eligible for the subsidies. i want to buy in the exchange. since then the department of health and human services in washington as well as mike cheney had been working really hard with the arm twists. one of the larger insurers i believe has agreed to come in and offer a plan in these

counties where there might not have been any choice before. there are other states where it is thinner than some others in california. sarah mentioned it would have 13 in the marketplace. it is not going to be appropriate. south dakota, iowa, they are not going to have any empty counties. guest: all health care is local right? in california and in many other bigger states, you have states broken up in different regions. insurance companies have to go in and form these partnerships with providers. the providers are very local.

a regional hospital chain in southern california building around a network of providers. that would be different where there is mainly one hospital. it is the ability to get an insurance package. it depends on who the providers are. host: they ask if you can comment on the number of plans offered in the state marketplace. will it be sufficient in competition? let's hear from our callers. beverly is insured. hello. caller: i am so glad you are there today. i am so ignorant about insurance.

caller: i am so glad you are there today. i am so ignorant about insurance. i talked for years. we talked for years in new jersey. we are both covered by blue cross blue shield. i have to go out on me. i cannot finish my term. it did not matter to me. i was covered under his insurance. i lost my when i went out. when he passed away and they informed me now my insurance is not free. i would have to pay. ok. it did not bother me. every year my premiums are more and more. they are taken out of my pension check. i have to have insurance so it doesn't matter. i heard president obama saying something about if you are insured and you are paying premiums you will get money back this year or something to that effect. i do not know anything about it. i do not want to upset them. i do not know anything about it. could you answer that for me? guest: i'm very sorry for the

loss of your husband and having to deal with this. what the president is talking about is the healthcare law is required to spend 80% of your premium dollar on health care benefits. it does to people who buy their own health insurance. they may get a check back from there and sure. they are spending at least 80% on premiums. if you do not buy it yourself your employer buys it for you. your employer may get the money back. that has been confusing for people. i encourage you to look at the

exchanges. you might qualify for your actual premium. we will see if you can get a better deal. guest: if i was a late mail and my late 20s i should not have to pay a fine. and a story. look for c-span. we will go over again the numbers of what you will pay if you do not get insurance. next are $95 a person or 1% of your taxable income goes up from there. it is two percent of a taxable income or over $300 if you do

not pay and then it goes up more. it is annually adjusted. would they come knocking on your door? guest: we tracked through the revenue service and it would be your premium. guest: if you do not pay, and the law it is not a criminal offense. no jail time. you cannot be prosecuted. they can, the worst that can happen, is they could garnish her pay check in the future if you owe the penalties. it will be interesting to see

how much they have to enforce it. they are the ones that verify your income. they will have a lot of information. the enforcement aspect is one that no one is really concentrating on now. the white house does not want people to concentrate on. guest: this is one reason why the tax companies are interested in the health care laws. h&r block will step forward and say we will make this part of our tax coverage process. a lot of people they go to the companies are not high income earners. they are working class families here it the idea that these others have said we will sit down and figure out what your subsidy will be in how to apply

that proactively so that you could potentially have a lower premium month-to-month. people are working with one of the companies. they will most likely be asked to talk about the health insurance. host: for washington, maryland. and uninsured caller. caller: i have been doing a lot of natural taking care of myself by natural means. i am looking for natural doctors now. a lot of people are so ignorant about healthcare. as one of the main reasons the health insurance companies are like that. i would love to see the new healthcare law act work. we need to stop listening to bill o'reilly and fox cable. they have state of the art insurance care. we need access to the health care. i do not want to go to the doc for and said our naked and get two minutes worth of a doctors time.

$10 of that is going to your actual healthcare. could we ever come to a time where we would actually have no employers responsible for healthcare? people need to be able to have their own health care. host: let's dive into some of those. guest: there is a lot of interest among republicans. health insurance should not eat link to your job. it should be something you take with you. that thought is certainly out there. this is very much based on the system. it would not surprise me is several years down the road you solve that rim unemployment. i do not think it will do anything to reduce your weight in the waiting room waiting for your position. you will have more preventative

care coverage. this is where it is charged and what you have to pay. the frustrations are certainly share by a lot of people. host: why is language important when talking about this? guest: words carry meaning. they carry hidden meanings be on the literal meaning of the word. obamacare started out as being the pejorative term. it was jean to by opponents. it was used by obamacare. last year the administration started this as a brand.

from some of the groups that are trying to promote the law we saw public ad campaigns having examples of benefits of the law. i use it as a shorthand. while some people still to see this outlier. host: will this be the affordable care act? if you like your health insurance policy you can keep it.

that has proven not to be true. they make this offer. host: michigan is up next. hi. caller: i want to thank heiser for the count later. should we wait until october 1 to get her policy in place? the risk pool is going to increase. it is the price increase of 125%. i think this may be 700. you will not get that until of the year. you will get that every month. i see a problem. host: it is a problem given your income.

i think it does make sense. he is eligible for the subsidies. if you're not eligible for the subsidies, and we should say right now about subsidies. subsidies are available for a family of four if you have income up to about $94,000 in change. you can still be eligible for these tax credits with a middle- class income. for a single person it is about $46,000 and change.

your point is a good one. if you are a family making $100,000 a year and you do not have health coverage, you might want to go in and talk to a broker or some other source now and look at a plan. in some cases that situation might change in october. it might be a better deal for you to lock in now. host: arizona, medicare recipient. hello. caller: good morning. how are you? host: good. thank you. caller: i have concerns about the republican people. i guess i can call them people. they always try to diminish government. i am for a strong government. that way we can be governed and accountable. you know, the people that correct the systems that are in

them are being held to charged to something. the republicans keep hollering about too much government. we need to enforce the laws that are there such as epa, healthcare, trying to be good citizens. host: do you have any russians about how this healthcare law is going to impact your coverage in medicare? caller: yes. somebody should answer me. i already have health care in medicare. my wife was in the hospital about three or four years ago and i got bills. she was the hospital twice overnight maybe half a day. i got bills for over $35,000.

i paid them. even though we had medicare and we were eligible for that. i think that was crooked. there was another case where he took her to the hospital and i griped over the cost of what i was going to have to pay for being injected with a little bit of juice. i do not know what they call it. anyway, she was in there about three hours total. i did not get a bill. $1400. i showed up in the office. i really griped about it. they say ok, you are griping enough. we'll put it down to $866. host: negotiating costs. guest: your wife is on medicare? i'm concerned about the ability are on medicare.

i am curious why it was $35,000. if i got a bill like that, i am not on medicare, i would call my insurance company and ask right away, cautionary note. we're are talking about something that sounds very boring about a piece of paper that comes in the mail to try to explain what you have to pay, you should question that before you pay a bill if you think it is too high. that is my number one thought. host: we are seeing some questions coming in on twitter. what the average person needs is a step-by-step. it is too confusing. guest: that is what happens when the exchanges open in october. it might help to explain a little bit in more detail what

you are likely to see when you go online and try to buy health insurance through the local exchange or marketplace. first of all, each state will have a different name. in california it is "covers california." every state will have a different name but you are going to hear about it. the publicist is just starting. you will see at campaigns even if you do not know the name. you are going to go on and you'll do do several things once you're online. the software is designed software -- intelligently it will walk you through the decision. one thing you need to do is verify your income.

they're supposed to be a link with the irs records. you can put in your social security number. you will say you earned asked last year. you are eligible for this amount of subsidies. you will see that. once you qualify for the subsidy, you will go through and you will shop for insurance companies just like you shop for a plane flight. you will see all of these different choices. the software that is good will help you choose. it will ask your priorities. it will ask you if it is important to keep your current. to. if it is you will click yes.

you will say who your doctor is. it will steer you toward plans where your doctor is there. what is more important, the lowest absolute cost? you want to pay the lowest premium costs, your answer is yes, emea be able to keep your online doctor. to save costs they are setting up narrow networks. a relatively skinny group of doctors and hospitals that will be available to treat you. in return for that narrow access, the costs are down. they say in return for giving you a higher volume of patients will you cut your costs? that gets passed along to consumers true that is one way it is working to try to get providers and insurers on there to give you the best fee. one thing we should really mention that we have not talked about yet is your hearing a lot now about sticker prices. we did one on maryland last

friday. the typical sticker price you are going to see for the lowest benefit, bronze plan, you're going to have bronze, silver, gold, platinum. a bronze plan will have low premiums but you will have a relatively high number of co- pays and deductibles that goes along with those. when you go on the exchange, one of the things you need to do is not just pay attention to the sticker price. the typical sticker price for the bronze plan will typically be in the $200 or $300 range. in some states we have seen less than $200 a month. it sounds pretty good. i spent $2000 a year for these plan. one thing we need to focus on is

looking at your out-of-pocket costs. do not look at the upfront premium. particularly if you have medical issues. if you have a chronic condition, you need to figure out what your total cost is going to be for the year and you're going for all of these steps. it ought to show you that. i have german through some of the programs. they want to show you the upfront price. they will show you your total cost. host: will a direct you to your exchange of people go there first? if they are first it should happen. it is the first one you can go and see what premiums are costing interstate now. i can't imagine that they would not. guest: you mentioned co-pays.

i think it could be as high as about 6300 for individuals and about 12,000 for families. my premium might be a blow but how much am i pay out of pocket throughout of the year. host: we are talking with three correspondence from kaiser news. >> we will have more from this roundtable in just a moment. quickly, some news from around washington. interviewedwas today about the impact of budget cuts on the military and how that is shaping their strategy looking ahead. the general issued a warning about the cost of further budget cuts next year. iswhat keeps me up at night if i am asked to deploy 20,000 soldiers somewhere, i cannot

guarantee they are trained to the level i wish they would be over the next two or three years because of the way sequestration is being enacted. that is of concern to me. what does it mean? yes, we will send soldiers and be able to train them to a lower level, but they will not have been able to train the way we would like. that means operations will take longer, but most importantly, it probably equals more casualties. that is that concern. even if i said let's do sequestration, it should have been written differently, which gave us time to execute it out early where we could do it in the back. completed by this year and let's get there so we are not taking so much risk this year, next year and the year after, which is the case right now. the other comment i would make, and i do worry about the size of the cut, and for us, in order to keep it balanced, because one

thing the secretary of the army and i have been clear is that we are not going to keep an army just to keep that army. it has to be ready at it has to be modernized, so we will have to continue to reduce the size of the army. i believe potentially we will be called to get to such a point with the size that we will have to completely look at our strategy and how we look at the army in the future. these are the discussions we had to have as we move our word. >> you can see his entire remarks at the american enterprise institute today www.c-span.org. the associated press rights about the middle east peace talks -- the decision was made to free palestinian prisoners as part of a settlement rocard this month by secretary of state john kerry to bring the sides

back to the negotiating table. kerry and president obama are going to meet again before those meetings tonight. before the talks, they released a statement saying during my march visits to the region, i experience the profound desire for peace among israelis and palestinians which reinforced my belief that peace is possible and necessary. on capitol hill, senate gathered -- the senate gaveled in a short time ago. they have votes scheduled on whether to move forward on the nomination for the next fbi director. the senate is live right now on c-span2. the house returns tomorrow on work on 2014 spending bills. legislation to address student loans and a republican bill that would prevent them from implementing any portion of the healthcare law. individuals will be required to purchase a healthcare plan if

not already enrolled in one or face a potential penalty. for more on how the law would impact businesses and employees, return to our roundtable discussion from this morning's washington journal. >> we are dividing up the phone lines now whether you are a boss or employee because we are going to look now on what it means for the workplace. if you are a business owner, call this number. the callst with since we are already getting some coming in.

caller: i have two questions. i've been working since the age of 15 i will be 65 on friday. in 2008, i started getting social security disability. i also have a subsidize insurance through the state. it has been great for me. i have been seeing the same doctors i had for 15 years, including some specialists. but i have to work. $60 a month,ke which is a month, and i'm glad to do it because i've been working since i have been able to part-time. but i work for a school. i am inool is out, limbo about my insurance coverage because of the kind of plan i'm on.

i cannot afford that. i was wondering if the affordable care act is going to help me in any way so that if i could stillg, have coverage through the state. host: an employee about to turn 65. guest: my first thought is that you should go to medicare.gov or call the number and find out how medicare my sync up with the current coverage you have appeared you say you will be 65 on friday. that would be my very first thought for you. the providers probably know your stay program very well and how it may or may not work with medicare.

host: hope is self-employed. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i have a two-part question. will the exchanges the offering dental and mental plans? my husband is on part b. will i be able to get care from him even though he is on medicare? host: are you getting insurance not yourself? are you paying for insurance out-of-pocket? caller: i am. i am part of a self-employed plan through the state of arkansas. i pay a premium every month of

$35. that gives me six visits to any doctor in any network. i pay 15% of the total charges to the doctor. it has really been quite affordable for me right now. that program is going to be ending on december 31. i will be on the market place here in arkansas after they are set up october 1. i'm really excited about that. host: let's get jay hancock to respond. guest: it is a great question. i do not know whether it dental and vision will be on it. guest: only pediatric dental coverage. i think if you had a problem with your retina, a medical

issue, he might get some coverage. if you think it will be the same on the exchanges. it sounds like the exchanges may be a very good option for the color. guest: you are shaking your head yes. in california we have been going through the bidding process for the pediatric dental plans. adult dental is still considered an orphaned organ. guest: it can be offered in the packet or it can be a stand- alone. most of us get dental coverage through standalone packages. if you want to buy that for your child you have separate co-pays and deductibles. it has been a bit of a problem for democrats on capitol hill. it is something that hhs is watching. host: if you are self employed with a small business, how do

you approach this law? guest: i forget that i am a business. i go shopping to the consumer that is where the subsidies are likely to be the best. that is where your options are likely to be the most as you point out there are two products that will be on the exchanges. one is for individuals and families buying directly from insurance companies. the other is for small businesses. small businesses under 50 employees will be able to go buy coverage for their workers on the exchange. it is taking a little bit of time to get ramped up. the idea was that say i run a

car repair garage. i had 25 workers. the vision was that i could sign up on the exchange and that my workers could go on and sort of shop in the same way individuals would be able to shop to go through these sources of multiple insurers that we have been talking about. that is not going to happen. that was one of several pieces of the law that was too complicated to get up and going this year. the exchanges for small businesses will be in business. there will only likely be one choice for employees when they go on. in other words, you will offer coverage to your employees as small businesses have

traditionally. host: we see the plan choice element has been delayed. as you mentioned, most employees will only have one plan option. by 2015 there will be more of a choice element. guest: that is the idea. the aca is about choice. it is supposed to be about diversity. if everything goes as planned, you will go on and you will have choices that look somewhat similar to what the individual going on the exchange will do. right now if you are a small business that is your pool. when you insurance broker tries to sell you a plan, whether it is at the or humana are what ever, that is the affordability act. everybody is there together. you pool your resources and it gives you better partner. they're able to offer a better

deal. >> and it is rich sharing. the employer, the summer camp where the average age is 23 will pay not the same but a similar premium as an employer with an older work force and higher healthcare costs. sue is in cleveland, ohio. caller: we have 23 employees. we have always provided medical insurance for them. in the last recent years we have split it where we pay 75% and they pay 25%. beginning january 1 there is going to be federal fees and taxes on the insurance policy. there's 18% per insured. 525 per person. 2% or three percent as the

market share fee. for a family of four that is like $59 a month. if we switch to the marketplace we will have to pay these federal fees, too? is it just for private insurance? guest: the fees will be leveled on all insurance products. we have not talked about self- insurance. this is something that has traditionally been practiced with very large companies. self-assurance is basically when the employer has enough revenue that they can agree to pay the medical bills directly based on the risk that employees will have very high medical expenses

the basic idea is that your employer is paying the bills directly. it contracts with the others to pay the claim. even employers as small as your company are looking at shelf insurance. or one of the reasons these taxes are not levied on self- assurance is because it is not a licensed insurance rodarte. that is where the rubber hits the road. what is going on is that it's these are self insuring and they are going out and ensuring from insurance brokers to sort of hedge their risk. for example, if you go self- insured you can buy insurance

that will kick in if any single employer of years has healthcare bills of more than $10,000 you are not be for that afterward. it looks like insurance to you and your employees. not only do you not pay that tax but you are also exempt from some of the required health benefits that the law offers. it is controversial. it too many employers do this it shrinks the risk pool we were just talking about. it puts it across everybody. it lets them do this. for firms like yours it might be an option why it is still a loud. i would talk to your broker and see what he has to say. host: you can join this conversation by looking for c- span on facebook here it what exactly does the federal health

care law change for people who already have health insurance in addition to those without it? guest: you are probably having more preventative care with no deductible. when we took our children to the pediatrician i did not have a co-pay or deductible for the services i have before. we are talking about more screenings, blood pressure for everyone.

you cannot be discriminated against for a pre-existing medical condition. they are not only treating the subsidies to help people that do not have coverage, if they're helping people with coverage to have more benefits. what does that due to the price of insurance? >> we should probably mention that employers and their insurance companies are making changes in their coverage and dependent of the affordable care act. the hallmark of what is going on are the consumer directed health plans known as high deductible health plans. i would bet that a lot of people watching now are seeing this in your workplace. they're asking you to pay much higher to that tuples, almost as much as $1000 dollars or $2000.

there is a philosophical idea behind it. now that more of the responsibility for payment is on your shoulder and not the insurance companies it is supposed to turn you into a savvy shopper. you're supposed to start comparing prices. you're supposed to start calling when you have an expensive procedure coming up. there is a problem there. the transparency of medical prices isn't nearly what it is for airplane tickets. if a doctor says you need an mri test, you have a bad act, prices for mri prices vary hugely. they're asking you to shop around.

cost sharing is going on to a much larger degree among employers of all sizes. they were typically used by small businesses. the premiums are cheaper and they can afford them. even the largest employees are having high deductible plans with health savings accounts. you put pretax money into these accounts. this has little to do with the affordable care act. it is the counterweight to the aca. everybody focuses on what the

affordable care act is given to consumers or taxpayer subsidies. they have been pushing this. what is flying under the radar is that conservatives are getting health care policy. host: the washington journal is launching a series of visiting with kaiser health news reporters. watch the federal health care long roll out. our guests are mary agnes carey, a longtime reporter who has covers a health care law reform. she watched it as it became law on capitol hill. she worked for congressional orderly prior. j hancock is a senior

correspondent for kaiser health news. she worked for a long time at kqed public broadcasting in san francisco and she did health- care coverage and has filed for the monthly magazine "health dialogue." jean deaux tweets in -- is that a fair assessment, sarah varney? guest: certainly. the primary goal of the affordable care act is to ensure millions of people in the united states, and there is a whole bunch of other things the affordable care act does. medicare, trying to reduce inspections, the list goes on and on. primarily at its core,

absolutely, we have 50 million uninsured people and how do we get them insurance? guest: we are talking about financial security and peace of mind. by far the largest cause of bankruptcies in recent years, recent decades, it's been health-care costs. one of the reasons behind the aca was that nobody should have to go bankrupt because they get sick. host: you do objective reporting. is the goal to market health- care law or to educate and learn about it? guest: no, the goal is to explain health-care policy and politics. we cover things other than the aca as well. we write about hospitals, the insurance industry, providers, every nook and cranny of the

health care system we have folks dedicated to that. no doubt the implementation of the law is a great niche for us, but we are not here to promote anything. host: andrew is self-employed go ahead, andrew. caller: hi, how are you? your guests are excellent this morning. thank you all for showing up and being so professional. i am self-employed. i don't make very much money. i'm a handyman, kind of a carpenter, painter, roof repair stuff. i mostly make less than $17,000 a year. am i going to be put on some kind of total subsidy thing here? if i got insurance outside of this whole obamacare thing, do they then say you don't have to apply, or am i roped into this thing no matter what? host: sarah varney? guest: you are the type of

person the exchanges are meant for. you are eligible for a fairly large subsidy -- i'm sorry, what state did you say you are in? guest: new york. guest: you are in a state that is expanded medicaid. up to 138% of the poverty level, $15,000 a year. if you were to be below that, you would qualify for medicaid in the state of new york. but since you are above that, you will go on the exchange, and because of your income you will be eligible for what is most likely the largest subsidy. i have not seen the new york numbers, but in california, obviously another big state with a lot of people, most likely new york will have a fairly robust exchange, we are seeing in some of the markets, we are factoring in the subsidy of $90 a month. in some cases less than that.

you are exactly who the exchange is built for, and i think you will see that you would qualify for a fairly large subsidy. guest: we should mention, andrew, that the exchanges are for medicaid enrollment as well. if it works as it is supposed to, it shouldn't matter -- you don't know whether you are eligible, which one you are eligible for, when you go to the website, and you shouldn't have to know. it should steer you in the right direction no matter what the case is based on income numbers and other information you put in. host: kaiser family foundation has this map showing which states are running their own exchange is and which are defaulting to the federal government exchange. federal exchanges are in the lightest color. those who are doing a partnership are in the midrange blue. some states have launched ad campaigns to let people know

about what is happening in the coming months. let's take a listen to an ad airing in the state of connecticut. [video clip] >> now, thanks to access health connecticut, just about everyone can get health insurance and nobody can be denied due to a pre-existing condition that you may qualify for a discount on your monthly insurance bill. use our savings calculator to calculate how much. access health connecticut -- see how much you might save. host: this is airing in connecticut. mary agnes carey, who pays for them and what are they trying to communicate? guest: they are trying to get people interested in the health- care law. there are people who oppose the law, who are in favor of the law. one poll i thought was interesting was a kaiser family foundation poll from april,

talked about 42% of the people they talked to were unaware that the affordable care act was still a law. connecticut is moving forward with his exchange and wants people to be aware and to get out there and to sign up. if you haven't really paid attention to the affordable care act, you can tune back in now because you will hear a lot about it in the month ahead. guest: the question of the ad strategy, when you start launching these ads, because we have been to the movies and we see the preview of the new tom cruise film that is not going to come out until next april and you think, how on earth am i supposed to remember that? there is the question of when you start to air these things. we have a lot of callers who go to the website and cannot sign up, because you cannot sign up yet. when should a bulk of the ads hit the airwaves? we should tell people about the law even though there's nothing we can do about it right now. in some states where they have the money and resources, they can get out there early.

in california you have not seen a lot of ads just yet, and america, one of the big organizations we can talk about, they are saying we are not going to watch a major ad campaign in the fall either. host: a comment from james on twitter, a question but with implied commentary. guest: no. what it will do is increase the health of these risk pools that we keep talking about. people who are really going to be bombarded by these ads, publicity, if it does the job, are the young invincibles we mentioned earlier. the exchanges open for business the coverage they provide is available january 1, and we all know that people who have medical needs, who have ongoing

chronic conditions, and see doctors regularly, are going to be first in line to sign up for these plans. but if they are the only ones who sign up, the premiums you are seeing quoted won't turn out to be realistic. the cost per beneficiary will turn out to be too expensive. this is what has happened again and again and again with attempts to expand health insurance in the past. the difference now is we have these mandates that require everybody to be in the pool or pay these penalties could what you will see a lot of his ads targeted at people in their 20s, people in their 30s, to get them in the pool and answer the implied commentary is no, that won't cure anybody, but it will make these exchanges, make these insurance pools sustainable. it will spread the costs around,

which is the intent of the act, and make it sustainable. if we see insurance professionals call it a death spiral, which is the technical term, adverse selection, when you get too many sick people in the pool, your costs per person go way up and even people who need coverage cannot afford it. the ads are supposed to prevent that from happening. guest: on npr's "planet money" i sat down with this ad man in new york city, a viral market expert. i was saying to him, just imagine if you have any budget in the world and you have got to get the young people into the pool, how do you do it? he is thinking not just television, but internet advertising, embedded branding in "jackass" videos on mtv. [laughter] and you look at the geico ads, they are completely wacky.

you have flo, the lizard -- the gecko. could health insurance ads go that way eventually? he seems to think so. host: byron, retired. hi, byron. caller: thank you, c-span, and thank all you folks. i appreciate it. i have a unique situation. i am a retired federal employee, i recently went on medicare age, but i still work. i'm a trucker. and when i am working, i am under the teamsters insurance and under -- and at times i am under different locals' insurance and i can have up to three insurance plans going. i have my federal and maybe two different teamsters plans. and i am a vietnam veteran so i see the va for agent orange checkups. my question is this -- how is

this going to affect my federal insurance? and -- i kind of lost my train of thought -- how is it going to affect my federal insurance? are my premiums going to go off the chart because my wife and i are on my federal insurance? and also, why is it that when i have the three insurance plans going, nobody wants to pay for anything? i am insurance poor at times and i have all this insurance. i would love to be able to take these teamsters' plans and say, give this to one of my brothers and sisters. but i can't do that. i am hamstrung in that. i think that the industry is hamstrung in that type of thing, too -- host: byron, stay on the line with us in case our guests have any questions for you. mary agnes carey. guest: when you file a claim, who is your primary insurer?

if you are married to someone and they may say, date of birth, for example, distinguishes who is the primary insurance carrier, who was born first. whether it is va or -- caller: ok, generally speaking, when i am not working for the teamsters and i don't have enough hours to carry the teamster insurance, i am under blue cross. va i use for myself when i have to have to checkups for the agent orange. there's no charge there. when i have enough hours working to pick up the teamster insurance, they become the primary, and if i go to another local at the same time and i

pick up enough hours on that insurance, they would then become the primary. i can have blue cross federal, blue cross massachusetts, and cigna in new hampshire all at the same time, and it is either going to be cigna or blue cross mass if i work for the teamsters. guest: it sounds like you kind of got that down, you know where to go and who your primary payer is, depending on the particular circumstance. the question of what this does to your federal coverage -- i want to say that open enrollment is this fall for the federal government and you will have to wait and see what their choices are. there is no particular reason why it would change much. but insurers always make decisions whether they want to offer federal employees -- a pretty vibrant pool. you can see that happening this fall and see what your options are and see what your costs on that would be. but you're definitely right, you would have a lot of insurance and overlap there. complicated case, very interesting. guest: why taiwan did not choose the united states is a model. host: good morning, kelly. caller: thank you so much for

taking my call. our situation has been a little bit different. my husband was full-time employed, but paying in the affordable care act, my husband's employer moved many of their employees to what i guess you would call 1099. the irs basically forces you to claim as self-employed. at that time we picked private insurance. however, due to my pre-existing condition, no one would cover me. i was just awarded disability, and thank goodness, i received

medicare. however, in our town, as i am trying to finally get a doctor, no one -- there is no doctors that will cover a medicare patient. those are just basically a few comments. i am having a hard time finding a doctor. my husband, however, his private insurance, his premiums continue to go up and up and up and up and up, to where we finally had to drop it due to me waiting nearly four years trying to get disability. now that we are trying to look at the affordable care act, georgia is a little bit different because they have not wanted to participate in the exchanges. as we look at trying to get him on insurance, it has been a debacle trying to figure it out. host: as our caller kelly mentioned, georgia is defaulting to the federal exchange. tell us why that is significant and then we can get to her questions, sarah varney. guest: even in states like

georgia that are not doing their own state exchange, there are exchanges available and you will be able to go on october 1 to this website. what it will because, i don't know, but on health care.gov you should get some kind of link and figure out essentially throughout calculate or whether or not you, or your husband, i guess, would qualify for one of these subsidies. it will not be until october 1. guest: i thought her medicare question was interesting. you hear a lot of anecdotal evidence from people -- maybe they have access to a primary care physician or specialty doctor, but she -- obviously, this something she may look beyond her hometown where she has coverage to get a physician to take care of her. this is something that as somebody who covers medicare you hear a lot about all the time. host: we will hear from more of our medicaid recipients and also we would like to hear from -- if

you are insured or uninsured. we will change up the phone lines a little bit for the rest of "washington journal." about have questions obamacare or the healthcare laws will mean to you. if you have private insurance, you can call us at -- healthcare -- if you are a healthcare provider -- let's get one more business owner in on the conversation. he is in northern virginia. caller: thank you, this morning. i have been self-employed since 1987. i have seen health insurance skyrocket through the roof. in,he gentleman who called my business is also linked to

the construction industry as well. i can tell you and the most scholars listening will certainly affirm that in most industries, we are still working off of may be debt mid-1990 crisis for labor while we have watched everything around us like materials and services go exponentially up. to big problem i would like have your guest respond to is we basically have a new economy. i think corporate america has gotten to a point where what used to be good profit in the 1960's and 1970's has gone on steroids. if you climb the corporate industrial complex, you can continue to push your rates, push or profits, and because you are the only game in town, you can be unaffected areas it is

the second part i have an issue with. it is the simple fact that is basic sense. find a way toe to be able to connect your academics to what actually to the peoplepens in the undercurrent. at that is further causing the issue in the healthcare industry. i am thinking, why do we need a broker to give me healthcare? if the doctor who is in business is providing my healthcare, this money would be better spent if we could get doctors or other where theysionals to can house of their own administrative processes to be able to care for patients. >> that's get a response. thoughts about the insurance industry and the role. >> it is one of many complaints

about the u.s. system. one of the reasons why taiwan u.s.ed not to have the system is the administrative costs you are talking about. the u.s. implements the affordable care act, we are going to have all these ,ifferent layers administrators, managers, supervisors, over and above the caregivers who are there on the andnd making people healthy curing them of disease. we have employers, we have insurance companies. we have people in washington administering all of this. we will have the exchanges now. we will be state exchange organizations. one of the big arguments about healthcare, we are going to continue to hear it in years and i daresay decades to come, is why are we spending all of this money on this administrative

superstructure when we could be spending it on caregiving? as a practical matter, however, it is a moot point. the country has chosen, based on theertia -- based on inertia, based on the coincidence we have an employee or a-based healthcare, the idea is to deal with that we have. to aca was congress's answer that. we will see how it works. you are referring primarily to how expensive it is. there are parts that are a meant -- that are meant to address the costs. you are supposed to start paying providers and hospitals to keep people healthy and not put them through the hospital. we will see whether that works or not. >> a follow-up to that, there is a conversation going on twitter.

we decrease the cost of health care? itit -- it doesn't, decreases the cost of insurance. one of the things the critics point to about the affordable care act is the rising costs. s go up oning premium average of these policies we are talking about. we are probably talking about net increases in the cost. what people forget to talk about is that society is already paying for this care anyway. we see a enormous amounts of taxpayer costs that go into pay for medicaid. we see incredible bills and hospitals that right off. people are being taking care of in in optimal ways.

one of the ways behind the aca is to shift the cost inside the system and to deliver care more intelligently. if we can do that, people will be healthier and the cost will be better-controlled. >> how can insurance be used? everybody has preventive screening costs. that has been a big debate. if you can reduce the epidemic of childhood obesity, if you can get to someone who is a pre- diabetic as an adult and get them to control their food intake and they get exercise and off certain medications, i am not saying this is a panacea. there is great debate about what could or could not reduce healthcare costs. it could change the trajectory of some trends we are seeing that are not in good health. >> one of the things that he is alluding to is the new version of an hmo, basically. or managed care organization.

i went and saw one of these in riverside a couple years ago. this was pre-aca. this is the three dog shop. they took on the risk of all of their patients. they have formed relationships with the local hospital. to care money directly for these patients. what was interesting is the doctor who leads this, he is very pragmatic. he said some years i make money, some years i do not. some of these positions have to be willing to, essentially, take a pay cut in the years were the .ave a lot of expenses a lot to positions are unwilling to do that. one of the positive things that is happening in my constructed,rly are actually increasing compensation for the primary

caredoctors who supervisor at the expense of the specialist. at the behind healthcare reform is to keep people healthy. primary care physicians who by the standards of medicine are underpaid compared to their somelogist and colleagues, of the better constructed are actually seeing significant resources -- increases in their income. if they can manage care the weight she is talking about and keep people healthy. another conversation on twitter. if we all went to the er it would be much more expensive. preventative care is cheapest. some responds with

disbelief. he says, linked to meet a study that proves preventative care saves money. it is still a debate. you can tweak in your thoughts. et in your thoughts. another state that has issued a campaign to raise public awareness is organ. let's us into their tv ad. [video clip] i am free to be healthy and strong. long live the oregon way. organ. ♪in host: the organ added. guest: i love this ad.

this made for? what is it trying to communicate? guest: what we heard from the people who made this ad is they wanted to get out of this idea that the exchanges for the health of our citizens. this is something we are doing together in the same lot. much has been written about this and it is something that could have come off the set of portland. tlandia." i don't know there are a lot of people in eastern gordon who identify with that message. i just love the little kids with the cutout trees. it seems very creative. it is not trying to sell a product, but an idea and a feeling about this thing that is coming. on twitter, someone asks

what are the mechanics of the exchange? and you just sign up with the internet, phone, mail? visit a government office? we will see a lot of that at the end of september and certainly by october. here is an exact website you will go to. i imagine you'll see a lot of ad campaigns with click and point. get muchhe ads will more specific as we get closer to the launch date. hear from scott who is uninsured and living in oceanside, california. -- ood morning caller: good morning. i am an air force veteran. my question is, with the new actor that is going to take place, will i be required to have insurance as well even though i have my veterans?

right now they are taking care of me and the only thing i have to pay for is my medication. guest: you are fine. you are covered. if you have the va system or considered toare have coverage and are fine. host: -- the foundation looks at the status of the medicaid expansion decision. take us back to the supreme court's decision about the affordable care act last year. what they decided about the medicaid expansion and why we look at it now. guest: if your mirror the first day and the ones that followed, they were working on the decision to keep the law in general. what did not get attention right away but has now is whether or not medicaid can be mandatory. was a lot of surprised that this came out of the decision. and now that so many states have chosen not to expand medicaid.

the way congress designed the expansion, it was seen as a carrot dipped in a lots of sugar. the federal government is going to pay for the expanded medicaid for the first three years completely, 100%. after that, about 90%. that window where the feds pick up the entire tab starts january 1. i think people are surprised that so many states have not actually signed on and it has continued to be a political question. if you do the expansion, you are endorsing obama care and president obama. governor rick perry has made this an issue in texas. texan. mind, it is un- host: so texas is not doing it. guest: no. there are about 24 states

expanding. the northwest, nevada, the southwest. a long be eastern standard board were you have most of new , many of the states in the mid atlantic. that is about 9 million people who currently uninsured who will get insurance through the medicaid expansion. the states that are not expanding, it is about 21. also about 9 million people. the people who would otherwise be living someplace else will get coverage under medicaid. this is essentially texas which has the most uninsured people in the united states. it is primarily the midwest and the entire south. it is also montana, wyoming, and .tah there are some states still debating. michigan, pennsylvania, and a few others. i want to be january 1 is the fourth corners with one arm in new mexico, another arm in, i am

getting this wrong. in utah is still the one that doesn't have the medicaid expansion. host: there will be a difference. absolutely. unlike the exchanges that will be available to anybody in the united states, the medicaid expansion will only be available to the states that have chosen to do so. followers sayr health insurance would be cheap as car insurance that was sold across state lines. an opinion there. how does it work from one state to another? guest: those are two to go separate issues. it.e is a part that allows that is actually an option. in terms of medicaid, you do have to -- the state you live in and you have to qualify for state program or you don't.

i think there is a lot of confusion around medicaid and who actually qualifies for it. there is a sense that if you are poor you get medicaid, which is not the case at all right now. you have to basically be pregnant, have dependent children, be disabled. it does not matter how poor you are. if you do not fit into one of those categories, you do not qualify for medicaid. with the expansion does is does away with those categories. if you earn about $15,000 a year for one person, you will now qualify for medicaid regardless. you do not have to prove you are pregnant or disabled. host: a senior correspondent with kaiser health news. we are launching a partnership this morning to dig into that federal health care law and find out what it means for you. we have a call from illinois from someone who has private insurance. thank you for taking my

call. i feel like the fact that colonoscopies will now be covered is a huge benefit and i do not hear that much being said about it. feel most people who aren't sure it will save probably $1500 a year. if that is what we'll be saving, each of us. in addition to that, my husband was seeing his doctor at a medical nothing and he was complaining about his hands hurting. i sent them down for x-rays. was is a building that affiliate with the hospital. for taking a couple x-rays of his hands, we got a bill for $750. it flabbergasted us. i was upset. but once it was submitted to our aturance plan it came back $450, which again is an example of how outrageous our health

care system is in the sense that it is involved with it. for a family of three we pay about $900 a month. i am self-employed, making not much. to around makes close $80,000 a year. in order to save money, i went on a catastrophic land but ended up not saving us money because we saved $100 a month reduced to what we were paying on his family plan, but my deductibles were so high that all of a a really bad decision to go that route. my real question for you is, -- if mymily of three husband can get discounted insurance rates, and the power to go on a separate plan and bring my son with me, currently we file our taxes together. i am just trying to figure out

how we can still save money. for a family of three, if you went on to the exchange, if you earn less than about $70,000 a year, that is one route. guest: they can separate out. i suspect your best options will be on the exchange. as i said, small business exchanges are developing less slowly than the individual policies. to the point, i think the subsidies would be more favorable. bonnie and i

google, find a subsidy calculator. you can include yourself or your husband or file separately. can i weigh on the colonoscopy question? this is difficult. before you get a colonoscopy, do a little reading. in cases where they are screening tests, they are covered. if it is a diagnostic test, sometimes insurance does not cover them. , there is a website great column. there's a great paper with the cancer society in the affordable care act. .o a little reading talk with your doctor on how that order it's going to be written. host: two questions on twitter

that are related. if you have medicaid level income in a state without the you use thean exchanges? and then the simple question is, if you are poor, what is your option? guest: if you are 100% of you areor above, eligible. of one person is about 11,500 dollars per year. you would qualify for a hefty subsidy. here's the problem. because we are not anticipated supreme court will will say the medicaid expansion was optional. ofyou have below 100% poverty, you are not eligible for the exchange. hole in a new doughnut the united states. it is basically if you are between zero percent and 100% of no poverty level there is option for you. >> it reduce the costs of the law to put people into medicaid

because of the reimbursement dividers being typically lower. this and somead other kinks worked out, but we never had that. it was an unintended consequence. doing -- was guest: i was doing a story on a lot of people that would qualify. up a listly brought of 4000 patients that go to hurt clinic. 4000 people in texas would , but these people are out of luck.

how are they going to continue to provide services for them since they do not have any kind of reimbursement method? as ari mentioned, some of her stories air on npr. you can read their stories and hear their stories at kaiser health news's website. let's hear from vince in indianapolis who is on medicaid. caller: hello. i wanted to ask a question. i'm going to go off medicaid and suspend my social security payments. my best to maintain still maintain my lawyer's license. i know from bankruptcy that there are lots of people who file their medical debts and it bankrupts them.

does the eight -- the aca does not address that at all. host: what happens to people with that catastrophic medical situations and cannot pay their bills? can that still happen? guest: absolutely. hope for thosee who support the act is that it will happen a lot less when employers are mandated to offer them boys coverage, when individuals are mandated to have , that should go a long way towards reducing medical bankruptcies. but there is nothing in the bill that precludes bankruptcy from happening. guest: nothing that if you aren't he a situation where you racked up a lot of bills, there is nothing that wipes out that debt. not like mortgage debt, unfortunately. host: dawn in huntsville, you're

on the air. are you with us? to rot in on plainfield, indiana who has private health insurance. caller: i have two questions. i thought i heard somewhere that in the bill the government has direct access to the insurance companies. i didn't have to call it bank accounts, for faster payments eyes in the the can no longer be didn't oust from insurance companies to maximize profits, i guess you would say. -- that they would transfer to the doctor or hospital? this subsidy payment would be sent to the insurance company from the federal government but i know of no provision that does anything to make any changes to how that insurer pays that provider.

that is probably company by company. guest: it is contractual. it depends on the companies agreement with doctors and hospitals. i know of no provision for the government can intervene, certainly not automatically on a computer other than the avenues that artie exists. insurance is regulated by the states and you can protest claims. claims will still be denied. the idea is that under the new rules, claims will be much less than they used to be. however, disputes with your insurance company have not been the best bit of history yet. can you talk a little bit about the importance of net worth -- of the network and then

going out of network? is there any change because of the federal health care law and how this is dealt with? guest: i don't think so. typically in the network is less expensive than out-of-network. i don't know if any provision that changes how insurers decide that and how you pay. guest: there is no explicit provision in the law that talks about in network charges that talks about out-of-network. the incentives in the law are changed for what providers and insurance companies are doing. i think the trend is the difference. we mentionede show a lot of insurers are setting up a relatively narrow networks and hospitals in the exchanges to

get price discounts from them and pass them along to consumers. it will be really incumbent upon you and consumers to read the fine print, pay attention, see what the difference is between the in network charges in the outer network charges. are seeking care, stay within the networks. there are been reports when you go to the hospital, you cannot shop around for a provider. a doctor comes to see you and you find out she is not in your network, that is a problem that will continue to be talked about. try to stay in network. guest: in california what is interesting as there are about 13 plans not offered on the exchange. oakland is, you are at the alliance which is a quasi- government run plan.

we talked about the public option during the whole discussion of the law. california actually, and we will see if other states do as well, there are public plans that will be offered in many regions in california. the way they were able to come in so low on price was to create these very narrow networks with a local teaching hospital, local community clinics. they are a sweet spot where they are going. thee they are used to medicaid system and used to going to the community clinic, but now they earn too much. it is going to be -- it is interesting. for instance, in san francisco, a teaching hospital, and hospital but happens to be quasi-public hospital. the options are still quite good but they are very narrow. guest: you are seeing multiple networks, peer networks, where

one is the cheapest and you have a mezzanine network that is little more expensive, and one that is really expensive. host: we have a californian on the line. medicaid recipient. caller: good morning -- thank you for your empathy.host: we talked to already, rick? you've either been waiting very patiently or we have talked to you. caller: yeah, thank you, libby, for taking my call. last time i call i kind of fell apart on the air and i want to thank you for your heartfelt empathy. my question for your guest is, as a dual eligible person, why wasn't dental and vision care

addressed under the aca? guest: my guess is purely cost. they're currently in the -- the commercial market for a lot of us, they are standalone policies. some employers offer them, some don't. we talked about this a little earlier -- insurance is not forbidden from offering it. it is just not one of the essential benefits, like hospitalization and prescription drugs and someone. my guess is that it is based on cost, but who knows? some of these companies can offer supplementary policies that would be affordable to cover this for you. host: we see on facebook this comment -- "obamacare will affect smokers the most." guest: they pay more. 1.5 times -- jay, do you remember?

thet: i do remember premium. jurisdictions like d.c. and others as well have elected not to have smokers pay more. the district of columbia's decision was, look, we want to have smoking prevention treatment available to smokers, and by charging them a lot more that is a disincentive and it removes access. they made the decision to not penalize smokers. guest: no additional premium for smokers in california. host: oklahoma city. gregory's uninsured. caller: hi, i am unemployed but i also was an employer. thousands of people were designing a health care plan in 2007, talking to people from all over the world, what country has the best healthcare? france was number one.

i look at that for a while, and then i decided as an employer, and all of you sitting right there, why are you paying for healthcare on your vehicle more than half the bill on your coverage is healthcare. -- are employers so scared why are we having employers, which i was -- why are they paying the outrageous cuts i had to pay when i was a contractor? for every $100 i paid my employee -- why is it not included in all healthcare so that way, all of healthcare is under one envelope, and we will actually have a lot lower healthcare if you eliminate two things? one is the cost of the advertising the industry is doing massively. the other is the amount of money they paid politicians over those years trying to get rid

of healthcare, because remember, they were advertising way before obama started this we only make 10% profit. yes, but you write up another 10% for advertising and another 10% you paid politicians. all of that money, including the people i ask in foreign countries -- why are you paying for healthcare on your car? host: gregory, hold on a second. stay on the line in case cap analysts have follow-up questions. jay hancock, his expense as an employer looking for health insurance plans to injure his work force and what he's talking about? guest: gregory, you expressed the frustration that a lot of employers and consumers have with the system. it is expensive, as we mentioned earlier. i suspect that you and the four of us here could sit down and design much better healthcare systems than the u.s. has now.

but as we said before, we work with the system that we have. there is still a group out there, not very influential, that like to replicate the system, something like france and -- like switzerland, where they have private insurance companies but they are all nonprofits. that is not likely to happen in this country anytime soon. but in the world there are still people who talk about it. guest: i was going to say that i was in vancouver looking at the canadian healthcare system, because there were all these ads demonizing the canadian healthcare system, so i said i would check it out and for npr i went up there. we talk about what providers get paid for their services. in canada, they sit down together and they basically hash it out. it is not a pretty process. there are people who win and

lose. but if you walk into any physician's office in canada, oh, that will cost $89. everybody pays the same price. that is one massive difference between the united states system and anywhere else in the world. host: more information about the exchanges -- is it true that each exchange will have at least two nonprofit countries offering insurance? sarah varney? guest: i don't know the answer to that. guest: the idea is that each state is supposed to have one. it is problematic in some states. there are multistate plans, which we haven't mentioned before. the people who designed the law and who wrote it foresaw the chance that in some parts of the country there might not be sufficient competition. there are provisions to have at

least one nonprofit of the state plan and one for-profit of the state plan. still being implemented now. not likely to be rolled out on a national basis, as was the original intention. but there are other backstops intended to bring in more competition into states that may be lacking them. another is the co-ops. the federal government, the law provided large subsidies to set a brand-new insurance companies in some states. typically these are blue states like maryland, california -- guest: stopped midstride. they got defunded. guest: so it won't be in every state. but the point is that there may be limits to competition and

that is something that is going to have to be ironed out in parts of the country as time goes on. guest: with insurance the difference between the nonprofit and for-profit insurance is sort of a distinction without a difference. if you look at the difference between anthem blue cross and blue shield of california and the for-profit -- the rates are very similar. they still pay taxes. it is somewhat of a misnomer that if you have a nonprofit participating in the marketplace, somehow they are not paying the ceo $10 million a year. he is doing pretty well even if he is working for a nonprofit. host: a few minutes left without gas, all senior correspondent at kaiser health news. littoria, uninsured. caller: hi. i am disabled and on medicare.

my question is about my daughter, who is 21 and in college. i am not working. i have no healthcare coverage for her to be on. she has no income outside if we support her. come january we would love for do have healthcare, we have been a great supporter of the law, but our state is not taking medicaid so i don't know what we are supposed to do to get coverage in january. with our state refusing to take the medicaid program. guest: my first question would be does your college offer any program for students? she could get coverage through college -- caller: we tried that. didn't work. guest: since she doesn't have income, i'm thinking she would qualify for a subsidy on the

health insurance exchange. you say you are disabled, is that correct? caller: mm-hmm. guest: you can't put her on your coverage. she is 22 years old and they have these young invincible plans and i don't think you get a subsidy with those, but they are -- they could be more affordable whether or not there's any kind of other assistance to help her get that coverage, i'm not quite sure. guest: this is a good example of why the medicaid expansion is going to affect a fair number of people. it is quite significant. if she does not earn up to -- if she earns below $11,000 a year, she cannot going to the exchange and cannot qualify for a subsidy. it would be fantastic if she had either a part-time job or some kind of work she could get on campus where she can actually earn up to 11,000 $500 and then she would be at 100% of the federal poverty level and go into the exchange and

qualify for what i'm sure would be a pretty significant subsidy. host: under the law, her daughter will be mandated to have insurance next year. guest: yes. guest: except if you are in a state where they don't expand medicaid and you are medicaid, you could have gotten medicaid through the expansion. there are exceptions to the individual mandate and that is one of them. undocumented immigrants are exempted if the insurance costs more than eight percent of household income. there are certain carveouts where you would not be penalized for that. host: what are some areas who are watching at kaiser health news for changes, development over the next couple of weeks? guest: we are watching how states are doing to sign up the young invincibles. the critical task of getting turnout for these pools. we are still looking at how the law is being interpreted. there are a lot of experts out there who suggest that some of the coverage offered by companies on the edge, companies

that have not typically insured or given good insurance to their employees -- fast food chains, hoteliers, retailers, their coverage could be less than optimal and the law would allow that, and the record is still being written. that is something i am watching. guest: i'm interested in the states doing medicaid expansion reaching out to people we know -- there are people we know are eligible today for medicaid that are not currently signed up, for a variety of reasons. one is basically don't know. there is going to be interesting work with county jails and state prisons where a lot of these guys who are getting out of prison or jail are not eligible for medicaid. they tend to have a lot of chronic conditions. i think it will be interesting to see how the states go out who are doing the medicaid expansion reach the population. guest: i will be looking at the limitation process that sarah is talking about as well as the is the regulatory, how it is interpreted, of course, i follow capitol hill.

the debt ceiling and on and on. host bob we have over 650 comments -- host: we have over 650 comments on our facebook page. , all senior correspondence, will be visiting with kaiser health news over the next several months to figure out more about federal health care law. >> legislation defunding the health care law is amongst the final week of work before the august recess. among the spending bills, along with the bills, that is, the house will also take up a republican-led bill that will prevent the irs from implementing any portion of the health care law. the individual mandate requires citizens to buy health insurance

or face a penalty. funding for the federal government runs out at the end of september and republicans in the house and senate have threatened to block short-term spending. politico reports today that the deputy whip, speaking on one of the cable news shows today was critical of this tactic, saying that shutting down the government is a suicidal political tactic, the president will not have capitulated and you will have discredit yourself and hurt the american people. despite the supreme court upholding the constitutionality of much of the 2010 law, house republicans have attempted on 40 occasions to defund all or part of the law since returning. the house cavils in tomorrow for legislative work and speeches. >> the first lady reflexed a schism in the united states

about what women are supposed to be today. are we supposed to be a mom in chief? are we supposed to be first mate? , that, ifigate that's the president is supposed to be head of state and head of government, is the first lady supposed to be, you know, the ideal fashion the stuff? is she supposed to be mom in chief? first help make? at the same time, if she is going to be first helpmates, that means she has really got to understand what is going on in the ministration, understand what is going on in the country, and understand her husband's political agenda. you cannot release separate, i think, how the first lady presents herself and of the conflicting expectations that the country still has four working wives and working

mothers. >> as we continue our conversation on first ladies, historians and others talk about the role of the first lady and its move from traditional home and family to activism on behalf of important issues and the transitioning from public life back to private life, tonight at 9:00 eastern, on c-span. >> my thesis is that the internet began with extraordinary promise for democratizing society and making the world a better place. some of it has come true, but much has been turned on its head, largely due to commercial pressures that have changed the course of the internet dramatically. unless we arrest and redirect those structures and redirect the internet, the future is not going to be as glorious as we once thought it would be. >> the teacher of the internet with the author of "digital disconnect," on "with the

communicators." -- "the communicator's." several members of the group shared personal stories of love ones who lost their lives to gun violence and gang violence. this is just under chief of below ours. -- just under two hours. >> good evening. thank you all for coming this evening on this friday night in chicago. how are you? you have a member -- a battle? we welcome you to the town hall of the national summit on urban violence here in chicago state university. first i would like to introduce dr. wayne watson to give you some greetings and welcome you to the university.

[applause] evening. we can never acknowledge and thank those who have the courage to have vision and the courage to bring it forth, we can never acknowledge and thank them too much. our congressional black caucus, let us applaud and acknowledge them. [applause] by mother used to always say, let me smell the roses while i am here. you know, two things. asked question was earlier, what are we going to do? are we going to come up with new money? new money to solve the problems? chicago state university, we are stepping up and we have stepped

up for the last year now. we have established what is called an interdisciplinary institutes for urban solutions. i now challenge universities to readut america prioritize your human-resources. to take your tens of thousands of students and faculty that are in the different disciplines, from social worker to health , and have those students and those faculty go into the continuous community, work with the community organizations and activists, identify the problems, use our human resources, our research

capacities, come up with actions, strategies, and start solving the problems in our communities the way universities did at the turn of the 20th century. the chicago state is the state of my professors. we acknowledge physical violence as a challenge. as professor harris and our african-american studies program talks about, there is abstract violence. .e talks about that the detriment and the pain that we feel as a result of abstract , it far exceeds anything that one will feel from physical violence. an urban city might have 200,

300, 400 people die in one year. poor accesslence, to health care, from food ,eserts', from the literacy infant child birth -- i mean, infant mortality, we have an impact and we feel hundreds of thousands of people who are killed through abstract violence. as we must address that, well as the physical violence. with that, i say, congressional black caucus, thank you very much for bringing us to chicago state and university city. this is what universities should do. provide a vehicle for you to take your vision and make it a reality. thank you very much, congressional black caucus.

thank you for coming to the chicago state university. [applause] thank you, dr. watson. i will be your moderator for this evening. i am the political director to russell simmons and editor in chief of local grind. i have listed on the board of directors of the trayvon martin foundation. thank you. this evening, this day is about you. and the incredible folks who are on this stage who gave a call to action for the city of chicago to have this conversation, this emergency summit, if you will. the next two hours to want to engage in a conversation and have a dialogue with those sitting in the audience and on stage. i will speak as little as possible and just allow for the conversation to incur.

there are some members of the congressional staff who have index cards that will be passed around to right questions on. we will be taking those index cards throughout the evening. if i can for a moment, as i sat in my home in new york last night reflecting on coming to the city of chicago, i remembered a piece i wrote four years ago. if i could just reach to small portion of it, i would appreciate that. the line has slowly come to a halt. stretching around the inside of a church, hundreds of people who had come to this holy place of worship to pay their respects to the life of this 16 year old young man. on this cold, crisp autumn day in the city of chicago, inside this old, run down, a beautiful cathedral, i sat back and rose

four hours watching old people and young people, wheelchair- bound seniors, families, crying babies, coming and going. i thought for a moment that some would cross themselves. others could not even look. but all of them at some point move done. the fed stopped. someone wasn't able to move on. someone wasn't aware that there were hundreds of people waiting in line behind her. no one needed time and said a word. we all just watched. we watched this precious, beautiful, 8-year-old angel stand over her cousins open casket and hugged him like she may never see him again. we watched her father, dressed in a black t-shirt with a gold

jesus peace medallion stand by her side. we all just sat and watched and pretended that we were not in the room so that this child, who walks with god, could have her one last moment with her hero. she slowly walked down the aisle, with tears streaming down her swollen face. i turned to witness for powerful exit. just as she was about to exit, the young man's entire family was standing at the front door of this congressional hall of god. we rose to our feet, with deep respect for their pain and suffering. we stood motionless as they walked down the center aisle. led by some of the most powerful men and women of faith in this nation. and now, as the mother of this 16-year-old young man who told

me on the phone just three days prior, that she could lay her baby to rest. that was the funeral of durian albert in 2009. i come here in his memory, in the memory of the thousands of young people who've been shot in this nation and this city. i come here in the memory of your son, your daughter. i come here with love and gratitude for welcoming me here with open arms, but also as a in the citiespain across this country. we welcome four incredible people. i am sure that many of you in this audience, congressman bobby , congressman danny davis,

, andesswoman robin kelly although we had a tough day two weeks ago, from the city of florida, congresswoman karen brown. i want to ask each of you, and congressman rush, if you would begin, for a personal moment in your lives -- i am sure there are many -- but one that stuck with you over the years of violence that brings you to this space and to the work that you do. >> well, i have two that made me kind of serve as bookends.

the first one was on december the fourth, 1969. at 4:30 in the morning, an apartment at 23-37 west monroe. the state's attorney police raided an apartment and murdered two members of the black panther party, shot and wounded seven other people in the apartment that night. the very next morning they came to my apartment and shot my door and had ang for me search warrant.

so much so that they had been demobilized. it was the summer before 1969. that night, that day, that had a tremendous .ffect, and it still does it affects the things i do and the reasons i do them. for me that represents an thernal condition,

visitation of violence. an internal visitation of the condition of violence that occurred to me was when my 29- byr-old son was shot down some young, black men of the south side of although i was in the conference, that stirred up something in me that motivated me then and still motivates me to continue to try to work all i all that i can in

every way i can, in the college, and the community and in the to deal with some of the prevailing issues of health and violence in our community. that episode of violence is what ande me into the ministry they need to look closely at my face. , in 1969 instances , the violence i may have beenen

most clip -- may have been most pivotal. let me say this. i know we want to move on. my wife said he had been shot. we were in the operating room or in the waiting room and the doctor said the operation was successful. it looks like he might pull through. the time i was on a conference

there was a very important bill we were working on. when the doctor told me he was doing alright and it seemed like he was going to pull through, i said i wanted to go back to conference and spend the next couple of days there and then go back to chicago. when i went back, i was at my apartment in washington. i needed to get back for the first flight out the very next morning. i went to the room where he was all swollen up and was hardly recognizable. after he made his transit, he

passed on. the reason i say that is because , when the, his mother he was dead, i never ill forget that primal scream here today, that primal scream i can only come from a mother. i shouldn'tthat even repeat. that comes from the heart of a i just don't know whether or not there are enough of us, especially our young people who don't know what it

means when you take a life. the media and the movies and they kindmmunication, of created this homogenized idea of what that really means. that time -- that primal scream ofa mother, it is a force nature that you can't ever forget and should not ever forget. what i'm doing and what i would like to do, i don't want to hear that scream coming from no other mother.

.hat primal screen >> thank you for sharing that, congressman. [applause] congressman davis? lived in the central area of chicago since 1961. as a 19-year-re old after having graduated from spent the rest of my adult life living in what would be called the west side of the the lawndale, the east and west garfield and the austin communities. i taught school in the chicago public school system for six years before deciding to do some other things. during that time, eight of my

students were killed. , six of my same time .tudents killed other people a was nothing unusual for fellow named frank lipscomb and i to go to court with the young person who did the shooting in the morning and the family of the person who was killed. we go to their funerals in the evening. i've seen a tremendous amount of violence. one of the most graphic was a who was dropped out of a public housing high-rise

that just happened a woman who worked with me today, her husband owned the funeral home. toent to the funeral home view this little boy, crumpled and this was before time for the funeral. just a little mass of humanity crumpled on a table. became one of the most graphic and pathetic scenes that i have experienced. but what really brings me here this evening is a realization

that there are those of us who have had individual tragedies. then there are those who have tragedies that have not been individualized. in that respect, i have been fortunate. when myn tell you brother feels pain, i hurt. when i hearou that of an individual, we hear a great deal. in thed played for us ways and means committee room while they were in washington. ofave the experience watching the students from this school spend a couple of hours with us while they were waiting

to do something else. i thought of how gracious they were, how talented they were, how talented their teachers and the adults who are chaperoning them, and to think some of them would not have the opportunity who they werelan because their lives have been taken away by century -- by senseless violence. i can never forget those two incidents and i never will. those are the things that are in my mind as i come here this evening for the continuation of the last days we have experienced happenings in our

community. >> thank you, congressman. [applause] congresswoman kelly? >> my work as a counselor in child abuse and the mastech violence, that was my entrée into the world of violence. personally, in 2004, i lost first cousin who was murdered by her husband who is a neurosurgeon. he stabbed her 50 times while she was sleeping. , onehe next three months of my volunteers was shot in the head by her husband and she killed herself all in front of the eight-year-old. is becausere today and theen wilson's

movement of a generation of young people and we cannot afford to do it. i know they are and the people have discussed them and we will hear about them tonight that there are solutions and we can't afford to lose anybody else. we don't want any more parents crying in something i've never experienced. my cousin has been dead nine years and the pain is still not going away. >> thank you for sharing. [applause] congresswoman brown? would like to thank you for letting me be here with you tonight. you all look really good. am so happy that i caught plane at 5:00 this morning to be here. [applause] , have been elected 30 years but in my real life, i used to be a counselor and i will never

forget when the police came to see me about one of my students and he wanted the students to testify against their husband. i couldn't understand what was the problem. she had twins come of girl and boy. the father had raped those of them. i'm talking to the mother and she said what will i be able to do without him? i said what black women have always had to do. they are the backbone of the family and they have to stand up. jobs i've haddest in congress is to talk to trayvon martin's mother and talk to a young black guy who got shot for playing his music

too loud. the alexander story i told you about earlier where this black , got shot a warning shot an abusiveom husband. but that's not the whole story. i went to the senate and i couldn't believe it. went in there was not a dry eye there. i could not stop crying because for black women came and testified why she should not go to jail. each one of them had a child from this abusive man and he beat every last one of them and they were beautiful, attractive women, and i'm saying we need something else. another towork to make sure this does not have this kind of abuse going on in

our community. i want to give the women in this audience a hand. strong black women. we've got to do our part. [applause] thank you, congresswoman brown. that's a perfect segue. burris alexander is a story she is speaking of, sentenced to 20 years understand your ground. she said that she was standing her ground and the jury found her guilty because there were two kids in the house, they gave her 20 years. her guilty in 12 minutes. in 12 minutes, they came back with a verdict. there was a restraining order against the husband that day. he had beat her when she was six months pregnant and put her in the hospital. this is stand your ground. >> absolutely. for sharing that

story. it's an important one. i want to welcome the great congresswoman of texas, sheila jackson-lee. she has just joined us, i assume from a hair -- from an airplane somewhere. i'm going to ask you to absorb all of this first. then i will happily ask you a few questions. as congresswoman brown talked about domestic violence and for those who aren't here today, we have four amazing take-out sessions, really inspiring breakout sessions. for those who did participate, thank you for participating. fromll have some reports the breakout sessions about some of the solutions that you came up with during the breakout session. i see our nine-year-old friend who is the and is member of our group. i'm glad you are still with us

and still awake. thank you for coming. the first rake out session is the leader from domestic violence. >> hello, family. i marion perkins, the chairperson of the criminal justice and philosophy department at chicago state university. i'm also the founder of the cook down deep expungement project. i look at a lot of people and they see me at the expungement summit. a shout out to the victims. i would like to honor the lovely, respected congress people, the honorable robin the honorable sheila

jackson-lee, it's an honor and a privilege to stand before you are -- stand before you all. we had a very good session on domestic violence and i will tell you briefly what we came up with. first thing we looked at were issues and then solutions. the issue is domestic violence is the precursor to use violence and gang violence. when we are trying to define the situation, there's a discussion that domestic violence is a learned behavior. we talk about it as early as from birth to age seven. when we are looking at solution s, we can't emphasize enough education for the parents and education for the children. when you hear congresswoman

brown talk about domestic , of a pregnant woman no less, we want no violence at all, but that's sometimes one of the most difficult and interest times unfortunately for women, when they are pregnant. we must educate our community and make sure as you hear about what we think are the flashy topics of use gang violence that we remember that all of them were little, beautiful, each one of the children beautiful. we don't have to be a latin scholar for tabula rasa, a blank slate. when you have a link slate, thele don't just become

violent people that they become. it's a learned behavior. we want to support the parent. in terms of the action lan, i see congresswoman kelly taking notes. in terms of early childhood education and money for parenting classes, it's extremely important. i would like to commend the male members of our group. i don't know what happened, but by the time it was over, we all held hands and we were in a piece circle and you know what they said? i was a batterer. i did it. they said i'm sorry to us. they didn't even know. that one particular individual,

they said they were sorry to all of us. we said we accept your apology because you have come out to do that. the point i'm making is that many of the men talk about that a need help. they need help with how to guide their behavior and we say listen, if you are willing to come more than halfway, we are willing to meet you. i'm a former prosecutor and we are not making light of it and there has to be prosecution to the fullest extent of the law. i know how to vigorously prosecute a case. i know that they did not vigorously prosecute the trayvon martin case. you don't bring the defendants statement into the trial. ring in the defendant statement into the stage trial thinking you can make the

defendant has to fight or make a technique like that. to come back to the domestic and wee, information realize and we talk about gang violence, would we talk about gun violence, we talk about all the violence, it is starting at home. please don't forget domestic violence. it's an extremely important issue that must be considered. thank you, ladies and gentlemen. [applause] >> we will next here from the group leader of gang violence. >> good evening. my name is sharon lacher and i'm the ceo of labor of love and a lover of

the community we all live in. have a good time. congressman danny davis was there and we went a little bit off. we got into gangs and ex offenders and other stuff. we think we covered at all, but when we talk about gangs, we say why are young black kids involved in gang activity? why are they involved? out of everything that was said in the session, one young man got up in the back and said it's not that we want to do it, we don't have anything to do. you talk about us hanging in the corners but you close the community center. where do you want us to go? we don't have any place to go. so we congregate on the corners and they are closing the schools as well. talking, ig man was was sitting there as an

educator looking back and we talk about the prison pipeline and we talk about things and they are looking at our children in the third grade. if our children cannot read and write, based upon how much they are going to sit and on the prison system, what we do as a community to stop this, my community is a child cannot be what a child cannot see. if a child can't see it, he can't yet. the parent is the first teacher. if the parent doesn't know any better, how can the parent teach the child to do any better? that's where the community comes in. we always say it takes a village to raise a child but it takes a community to save one. as a community, we have to step up. the blockg mamas on and you couldn't curse, you

couldn't stay out, you couldn't do a lot of things because big mama would tell on you. then you get a weapon once you got home. now we are afraid to even discipline our children grade we can do any of that. we talk about yang's. why do our children get involved in gangs? we as a community have not been receiving that at home. , wealked about programs need to stop throwing our money behind bad programs. let's put our money behind programs that are working. why do our children get involved in gangs? number one, they have nothing to do. leader andity community activist, what are we going to do? i'm tried -- i'm tired of sitting around the table. what do we do after we write down our ideas and get all of our information? we get charged

up. what do we do? absolutely nothing. someone has to make a conscious decision to say i'm going to do something differently and i'm going to take a child on my block in my community and i'm going to mentor the child. does it work? yes it does. i can't mentor the child, i will mentor the parent. they said i would never get a parent to come to a meeting on a saturday. i said yes i will. i had every gang represented at my school but they knew when they came they were not having ,t because you had choices chances and consequences. you made the choice to do what you did. the consequences you had to come to my school. my school has rules and you are not going to run me. we ran a very successful alternative school under the late dr. vince bateman. we have to put some rules and systems in place.

if we don't stand up to put the systems in place, all our children are looking for is guidance and leaders. stop saying yes all the time to our children. no is not a word. if we begin to look back on what we were raised on and how the values and morals we had, we need to start implementing those right into our children and guess what? we will have a better community, better country and better nation and we will not have the violence we have in our city. chicago will not be on the news because of the crime that we have. let turn these things around and put our faith together. we have religious leaders of all communities. put it together. come together as a community as a whole. [applause] >> sunday is coming up soon. next, we will hear from gun

violence. >> good evening, everyone. i'm the district chief of staff for congresswoman robin kelly. i have the privilege of co- moderating for gun violence. in our group, people were either speaking from their arsenal experience of having lost multiple members of their family to gun violence or they have gotten into a gun culture and violent lifestyle and are telling about their personal story. the overarching theme is this is a symptom of a much larger problem or series of albums. some of the problems we identified were hopelessness, lack of connection to history, people not understanding where they are coming from and less economic opportunities. learn occasion of violence and guns. we had a discussion about

abstract violence and not literally shooting people, but what is happening with redlining, vacant lots, school closures, economic disinvestment, all things that create an environment ripe for violence. we talked about the lack of community or loss of community and community parenting. we talked about barriers for ex offenders and reentry into our community. recurringons, the theme was education, multiple levels of education. short term with mentoring and connecting to the community. we had several people giving examples of ways they are mentoring youth and other folks in the community. long-termlked about solutions, including legislative action and education in the broader sense, investing in our schools, and reinvesting in our community. another theme that came up was parenting. first to be better parents to our children and again, part of the community parenting theme.

this group recognized it's going to take a multifaceted solution for a multifaceted problem. once again, violence is simply a symptom of larger problems affecting our community. [applause] >> the last break out session from today was youth violence. >> good evening. good evening. , although we have tried to layer these things, what we addressed at the beginning of our session was, violence is interdisciplinary. you cannot talk about one without talking about the other. it is not the poverty that a lot

of our children are in. when we talk about the issue of violence, the first thing had to do was contextualize what it meant to endure youth violence. dr. king said you can legislate policy but to cannot legislate attitude. it cannot have paralysis of analysis. what we did in our group was we tried to kind of satisfy this reality by bringing somersault. we talk about the problematic component but we also talked about the solutions. i believe to educate our kids, you simply have to motivate them. you have to care about people, motivate and inspire them. ,hen we came back to our group all the people who were caring to listen to us today, we decided there were a few things

that need immediate attention when we talk about youth. we first need them to be involved and engaged. president obama signed an executive order for the white house on educational excellence for african-americans. we have a very empirical question that is worthy of analysis. what is the question? what happened? the executive order was signed. the resources they were arguing for, education, we can talk all of that, but at the end of the day when we present something for african-americans, we need to see it through and focus a comeback for the community. very simply, we try to funnel educational excellence for african-

americans. the president signed an executive order almost one year ago today. where is it, what is happening, and what are we doing? this is something the president argued for about four or five years ago. inhave not put the things the building that would help the building to function. where are we with these things? how can we institute the reality of children knowing who they are? this is not a hard question. when we look at our textbooks, but there is something that is very serious that can be argued from a federal perspective. we want tosaying talk about slavery or whatever else that impacts african- americans from a curriculum standpoint, we have to have a rebuttal to that. history is history, whether you like it or not. our children need to know who they are, how they are, but they became and how they became.

if you teach people who they really are, i don't have to teach brothers how to pull up their pants. [applause] >> i am going to go home now. [laughter] the rules ao change little bit, and i might get in trouble, but i think it is the right thing to do. i had some questions i was going to ask, but i am going to throw those out. will definitely get an answer. what i am going to do is, i am going to read the question, ask whoever wrote the question to raise their hand and i will come to you with a microphone. all that we ask, even in

disagreement, let's have a civil conversation. even if we disagree with each other, this is not easy for us, i will hold the microphone. please don't take it out of my hand. i want the folks who wrote the questions to have a chance to respond to the answers. on president obama's executive arer, do we know where we with that executive order? >> let me say, i don't know specifically. there are three branches of government. the president issue in the the last irder, heard about this particular

they are having interdepartmental meetings, they are looking at the issues. they have asked people across the country to come in to discuss this particular, education of young black males, but they have not come up with any legislative initiatives. once they come up with legislative initiatives, that is when the congress gets involved. >> i will add to it. jones, who is executive director, the day before yesterday when we rolled out the caucus, the congressional caucus on african american men ad boys, and he actually gave

litany of initiatives and theosals that he and advisers who advised him, and that is a committee that has been appointed by the president to do so, have put on paper that they are now in the process of beginning to implement, and so it is moving. it has not been in existence long enough to have produced results, but it does in fact exist, and has an executive director, and has an advisory group, and it is moving. >> congressman, do you want to add to that? >> if i might stand up for a moment so that i can at least thank my colleagues for doing this. i am daring and caring to enter

the sisters. because i came to congress because of congressman danny davis and congressman robin kelly. can you give them a hand? just do me that favor. just want to take a thatt to say some things sessionswhat excellent we have had. one of the things that we have to do -- maybe we have to wear a billboard. we, too, are america. reintroducee to ourselves to america. aretell people that we going to stop accepting, acquiescing, and letting you have a second chance. weause the work is done, and make up the congressional black

caucus. your members represent you here in chicago, but they make up the body politic of congress, but in particular, the congressional black caucus. i ask isuestion and that while we are putting together an enormously important to credit these three members, because they need to get on the road. because as i were to show you these numbers and tell you that the brilliance of what they have done, we need to get on the road. because in gun injuries, as you have already heard, if i could just see these numbers, these 2009, non fatal injuries. 26,225 were injured in gun assaults, and 13,000 40071 were black. those numbers have probably gone

up 51%. in essence, who has been listening? the members have. state,icy goes local, and federal. what we are facing in washington, i did not want to just come in and not let you know that when they are fighting, when we are putting policy together, we are dealing with something crazy called a sequester. passed,tive order was and if you are cutting into the resources for no reason, we've got to say we, too, are americans. our children deserve. to try to pass a legitimate basis of dealing with children from what i heard, intervention, jobs, alternative schools, we have a money crisis. i am going to engage with some but i hope itions,

can sort of pinch you to say we've got to link arms and do this as a whole body. because i am not saying it is only money. i have heard some wonderful things. one of the greatest tragedies i had is a friend of a friend at her cousin and her cousins shot by a domestic abuser who has been taken to aloud and i don't sing man versus woman, but to show you, taken to court, got mad that he was taken to court, but gets let out, even though she had a restraining order, went home and got a gun, and shot the wife and her daughter. and church. so we know we have a problem with gun violence. but with got to be able to address intervention, whether it is an abuser, someone who has

been abused, whether it is a child in gangs, whether it is someone who is involved in criminal activity. we've got to get in the middle of it. there is no shame to say that resources are needed. i am hoping that when we get through here, we don't run away from where is the money and why can we not get money that is valid and looks to the cure. i am not saying waste money. you had that jobs program, you wasted money. i can show you people who benefited from those programs. i can show you people who made a difference in their lives because they had a summer job or they were in the model cities program or the great society or maybe they got medicare. theof the things that members battle every day is the not understanding that we are america, and when our children

are not being shot, when they are in a classroom, then all boats are lifted. i would just leave you with this point. i hope you all will come with augustr is you may have, 24 to march on washington. i am not saying marching is an answer. remember how i started out. i started out by saying, is anybody listening? because you have ideas. you have members of congress who are more than excellent, crafting legislation, seeking opportunity, trying to give back. where is the summer youth program that we have all been fighting for?

we had won in 2009. then came the big money cuts. so i think that we in the on tonight, weaving in and out of these excellent suggestions, and hopefully we'll have answers to some of your questions. the president faces the same uphill battle. the executive order was signed a year ago and we don't have a budget today. we don't want to throw stones. ask the broader politics, do you recognize that we, too, are americans? i am looking forward to getting into the mix in getting you further energized. i want you to keep in mind so you won't say what are they doing, why are they not doing anything? to bed doing something. we are hanging on in the dark of night trying to do something, but we've got to turn america

around to recognizing that when you deal with these issues, you are loving america, built in makeca, and we should not second-class citizenship to say that our issues should be pushed back and others put forward. i thank you all for being here tonight. >> thank you, congresswoman. i am going to come out into the audience, looking for theresa smith. please raise your hand. please come down to the front. her question is, and i am getting a lot of these questions. you heard some solutions here tonight. how you intend to work with established groups that have vision for help the young people to have an economic base for money for many years. how do you intend to work with established groups that have a vision for helping young people have an economic base for many years?

how does the congressional black caucus intend to work with those groups or how are you already working with those groups. is to reset, and you can respond to her. to recess miss. >> i am asking that question .ecause -- theresa smith if you don't have anyone listening to you, you cannot have strength. what i am asking is that, for you to look at the established groups that have already been as reverend al sampson, he has had a farmers' market, he has heirloom seeds. , asas been working so hard mentioned. we need to get rid of the division where everyone is doing their own thing and we need to

come together and find out where these things are happening. being a former educator, and i at woodlawn prep alternative high school. in that classroom, we had 16 of the seniors -- up to seniors. if you don't listen to the wisdom that is there among all teachers, your not going to accomplish anything. we listenedlassroom to the wisdom of the young people and to the wisdom of older people. it is that each one, teach one environment. >> we wanted to hear from the people on the ground, from the people who experience all the things that are going on. i want to hear from the people that are doing things. there are a lot of good things going on right now.

i am so glad there are all aged people here. i am so glad there are all age people here, and there were all ages earlier. because we want to hear from everybody. everybody has ideas and suggestions. you are the ones living in the community and you can come and tell us what you think will work. the other thing is i was hoping people that are involved in that things have shared those. i don't think we need to keep reinventing the wheel. we need to support the good things that are going on in chicago now, and there are a lot of good things, but we are not connecting with each other. sometimes we on even know the good things that are going on.

it may be people, money -- i am not sure what everybody needs to help expand those programs, duplicate those programs and what has already been mentioned. we want to take this show on the road. we want to go to new orleans and baltimore and other places. it is not just in chicago that new things are occurring. the plan when we leave here, we are going back to the rest of the caucus to let everyone know what went on here. we want to keep hearing from you. we need each other. we cannot do it alone, and we want to help you. [applause] >> it is also an established 1570 club. there are established action era groups happening in chicago right now. >> i am looking for mr. noel

green. this is his question. at the root of these violent issues within our communities is local economic crisis. how would each of you illinois congress people and the great congressman from texas work to foster the transformation of the economic plights of our communities into a destiny of economic vitality? >> we do it in many different ways. i am one who believes in -- i have 20 advisory groups that i work with in my congressional district. , early from everything childhood development to business and economic development. we meet regularly.

some of them meet every month. some meat every other month. some meet twice a month. we are engaged all the time, and some of us are even almost as old as al sampson. we have been working for reverend sampson for a long time, so we are actually engaged with the kind of ourvities, anybody can join groups. all you have to do is give us a .all 533-7520.he -- 773- most of the legislation that we originated passed with our group's meeting.

one is the $5 million that hivle have gotten to have aids organizations whose budgets are less than $100,000 a year, and the money comes from a lottery scratcher. that came from one of our town hall meetings. that is where the idea was generated. the second chance act was generated at one of our town hall meetings. that is where it came from. so we are engaged in the ways you are talking about, and we do it with consistency and regularity. >> i am committed to working with small business. i am very committed to working with small business because it is really small business that is the backbone of this country.

sunset earlier if you have a small business in the neighborhood, you are probably going to hire the neighborhood person. i am also committed to keeping the government speak to the fire. you need to hire the local, home town residents, contractors, minority and women businesses. i have met with various people to ensure that is going to happen. science, space, and technology. meeting with the various universities in my district and entrepreneurs. there are job openings, but what we keep hearing from other manufacturing plants, they cannot find enough skilled workers. i want to make sure return unskilled workers into skilled workers. you can do that through community college. yelled have to have a four-year degree, but you need certification. manufacturing is not what it

used to be. -- you don't have to have a four-year degree. we can build into the curriculum the skills that are needed to get the jobs that are the jobs of the future, because it is not what it used to be, and things are different. somewant to say, we have roles that we play as legislators, and one of the roles -- i am on the energy and commerce committee. one of the oldest and most powerful committees in congress and i am a senior member of that committee. i am the leading democrat on the subcommittee on energy in

power. work, iof my day to day have energy companies coming and meetingommittee .eet in my office , and ithe responsibility assume the responsibility courageously and of making surey that every energy company that i am in contact with that they have positions before minority participation. ownership, contracts. i had the head of the american gas association, pipeline

association. the american pipeline association. this was about six months ago. he came before the committee. about the only black on the subcommittee, or as the ranking member of the subcommittee, asked how many but minorities were in the association. the guy could not answer that. he had never had a question like that asked of him by a member of congress. he turned beet red because he did not have the answer. he tell me he would get back to me. which i knew that before i asked him. the point i was making is that sure is leverage to make that african-americans are , inuded in the discussion

the consciousness of some of these major corporations, and that they aggressively and affirmatively go out and help, either expand or help create light business. we have had a lot of success along those lines -- help create black business. that is not the only thing you can do. you are in a position of influence. as theo take off my hat anding member on congress they came and told me they are trying to take your money out of illinois and put it someplace else.

that let me focus on the create programs, so we had to get that money refocused and read channel. ice we protected that money, were $93let's i $93 millionre .ontract and put take off my hat on my tam. and we had to march on metro. you have to deal with some

dualities. we've got to be leaders before we are legislators. leaders have to do what leaders do. whenever there is an opportunity to create some businesses, whenever there is an opportunity to leverage some specter, to raise the then you have to rise up to that occasion. us to march, then we march. let me just tell you another example here. trying to be critical of me on this. they are trying to create some kind of spectacle or controversy about this. i am on the energy and commerce committee.

we have jurisdiction over telecommunications. comcast was trying to buy nbc. so comcast needed my support and if you are going to go against my support then you are going to my own television station. televisionted station, magic johnson had a television