[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] what do you think a single mom who says obamacare is slamming me and >> how do you think -- >> a live picture of texas republican senator ted cruz on the floor of the u.s. senate. he's been there over 19 hours now in support of denying funding for the president's health care law. the senate currently is considering a house-passed bill to fund the federal government after october 1, which contains a provision blocking any funding for the nation's health care law. senator cruz started this all at 2:41 yesterday afternoon, taking occasional breaks, yield for questions. the rules, if you will, says that senator cruz is unable to

leave the chamber for any reason without risking control of the floor. when the senator started yesterday, he said he would speak in support of defunding obamacare, if you will, until he can no longer stand. this is not an official filibuster. it's more symbolic since he will not be able to prevent a cloture vote which harry reid scheduled for mid-day today. during his nearly 20 hours, senator cruz has read tweets, he's read dr. sues s's "green eggs and ham" to his kids. now, moments ago we were told this could come to a close shortly. you can watch it on our companion network on c-span2. we smoke with alexander bolton, congressional reporter, who writes for "the hill" newspaper earlier today.

>> well, sometime this afternoon there's going to be this vote to end debate on the motion to proceed and this is the first step to getting on the bill. cloture will be invoked. it will end debate. it a motion to proceed itself, at that point -- and that's also expected to pass. the senate will then be on the bill tomorrow and less time -- unless time is yielded back. right now there's no indication that cruz and lee will yield back time. that's because they want to be on this bill at least for a couple days so they can have the opportunity to make their case to the american public and to their colleagues that cloture should not be invoked a second time to get off the bill. once we're on the bill tomorrow, then harry reid is going to offer a couple amendments. one of those amendments is something he unveiled

yesterday, and that's going to be to strip the defund obamacare language out of the bill and to strip another provision the house republicans put in there that would prioritize debt payments. basically what that provision means, if the debt limit is not raised next month, the u.s. cannot default on its debt. the point of that provision is to in the republican's view is lower the danger of not raising the debt limit next month. reduce the fallout for not raising the debt limit next month. once reid schedules these amendments, then there will be another cloture vote to end debate on the bill itself and to move to a final vote. this is the key vote in the view of cruz and lee and heritage action, for instance. they say if republicans do vote to get off this bill once reid has filed his amendment to strip the obamacare language, -- any cally they are republican vote is voting to

give harry reid the keys to gut the bill. and so that second cloture vote could happen friday, could happen saturday. it depends. i think, again, cruz and lee are not likely to give back time. they want to make the case this needs to be defeated, this second cloture vote. that will happen saturday. then after that we'll have a vote on the amendment to strip the obamacare defunding because it's a germane amendment. it only needs a simple majority to pass. reid will be able to overall -- overhaul this bill dramatically. it sets up for a final vote either saturday or sunday, sending it back over to the house. host: quickly, one change that senator reid is looking for is to change the timing of what that funding measure would be. he talked about that yesterday. why does he want to shorten the length of the continuing resolution? >> he wants to shorten it by a month. the shorter c.r. there will be

more pressure on the house republicans and senate negotiators as well to reach a broader budget deal. they want to get that broader budget deal by mid november so that the chairwoman of the appropriations committee could have time to write an omnibus over thanksgiving and the early part of december. it's mikulski that wanted that. >> and senator cruz continuing on the senate floor at this hour. you can see live coverage on our companion network, c-span2. the senate vote is scheduled for mid-day today. members of congress have been eighing in on the talk-athon in the senate. senator rand paul says --

>> rows posing, yes,ess -- rose posting, yes, he's agreeing. it limits choices and freedom. it makes health care more expensive. why didn't they leave the 85% of americans who were happy with their health care alone and addressed the 15% not covered? e're taking your input via facebook.com/cspan.

the house will gavel in for morning hour today with legislative work set for 2:00 p.m. four bills on their agenda today dealing with federal helium reserve. the house is waiting for senate action on the continuing resolution with a warning of a possible weekend session if the senate sends back a modified c.r. house republicans may consider legislation later this week that would tie a one-year increase in the debt limit expected to be reached on october 17, according to treasury secretary jack lew with a one-year delay of the health care law. less than a week before americans can begin signing up for health care coverage through the health care law insurance exchanges, president obama sat down with former president bill clinton for a discussion on implementation of the law and how americans will be affected. speaking yesterday at the clinton global initiative in new york. his is just under an hour.

>> hillary rodham clinton. >> thank you. thank you. thank you very much. i have -- i have the great pleasure to introduce our next two speakers. who are about to have a conversation concerning health care and i thought hard about ow to introduce these two men. and the more i thought about it, the more i realized how much they have in common. they are both left-handed. they both love golf, a game that does not often reciprocate the love they put into it. they both are fanatic sports fans and go to great lengths to

be in front of the tv or on the side of the court or the field. they both are master politicians. each of them has only lost one election. they're both democrats. they have fabulous daughters. they each married far above hemselves. and they each love our country. and so, please join me in welcoming number 42 and number 44, bill clinton and president barack obama.

[applause] >> mr. president. >> are you interviewing me? i've been talking a lot today. that was a good thing you did. thank you for coming. >> it is wonderful to be back and let me start by saying to all the people who have for years now supported the incredible efforts of c.g.i. thank you. because wherever we travel, all across the globe we see the impact that it's making every single day and we're very proud of what you all do. and let me say that we still

miss our former secretary of state. [applause] and i should add that there is nothing that she said that was not true. particularly about us marrying up. [laughter] >> well, that brings me to my first health care comment. this will be a conversation about domestic and international health and america's role in it. i want to begin by telling you that i think the first lady has done a great job in this fight against childhood obesity. we have been honored in our foundation to be asked to represent her effort in 18,000 schools where we have lowered the calories in drinks being served in schools by 90%. she has been great on that. the other thing i think is that i was a little upset, and as you know, called one of your administration members when you got to africa when i read an

article that said you didn't have a big initiative in africa. and i said i can't say exactly what i said. i said that is inaccurate. that's the sanitized version of what i said. because when the president took office, our programs was giving anti-receipt vow viral medicine to 1.7 million people . because of an agreement that i made with president bush to use generic drugs that were approved by the f.d.a., about half our drugs were being purchased in that way. under president obama, we have gone to 99%. we are treating more than 5.1 million people, three times as many for less money. that is a stunning legacy so that more money is put into malaria medicine, bed nets, so you saved a lot of money and saved more lives while doing

it. and i'm very proud of that and i want to thank you for it. t's important. now, maybe at the end of this conversation, we can get back to some of your current global health initiatives, but let's talk a little about the health care law, because we're about to begin on october 1 open enrollment for six months. and i'd like to give you a chance first of all to tell them why, when you took office and teetering on the brink of a depression, you had to avert it, you had to start the recovery again, why in the midst of all this grief did you take on this complex issue? many people were saying why not just focus on the economy and leave this alone? so tell us why you did it. >> first of all, i think it is

important to remember that health care is the economy. a massive part of our economy. so the idea that somehow we can separate out the two is a fallacy. second of all, the effort for us to deal with a multifaceted health care crisis has been going on for decades. and the person who just introduced us, as well as you arly in your presidency, had as much to do with helping to shape the conversation as anybody. the fact is we have been, up until recently, the only advanced industrialized nation n earth that permits large

numbers of its people to languish without health insurance. not only is there the cruelty f people who are unable to get health insurance, having to use the emergency room as their trr or their health service, but we're also more efficient than anybody else. and so when we talk about, for example, our deficit, you know this better than anybody, the reason that we have not only current deficits but also rojected long-term deficits, the structural deficits that we have is primarily based on the fact that we have a hugely inefficient, wildly expensive health care system that does not produce better outcomes. and if we spent the same amount of money on health care that canada or france or great

britain did or japan or any other industrialized country with the same outcomes or better outcomes, that essentially would remove our structural deficit. which would then free up dollars for us to invest in early childhood education and infrastructure and medical research and all the other things that can make sure that we are competitive and growing rapidly over the long term. so my view, when i came into office was, we have an immediate crisis. we have to get the economy going. but we have to start tackling some of the structural problems that have been building up for years. one of the biggest structural problems was health care. it's what accounts for our deficit. it's what accounts for our debt. it causes pain and misery to millions of people all across the country. it is a huge burden on our businesses. i was at a ford plant in

missouri and making the f series out there. it's a big stamping plant. ford is now the biggest seller in the united states. we took that lead back from the japanese automakers. but we are still burdened by the fact that every u.s. automobile that is many fractured requires a couple of thousand dollars in added health care costs that our foreign competitors don't have to pay. so this has everything to do with the economy in addition to what i consider to be the moral imperative that a mom should not have to go bankrupt if her son or daughter gets sick. that a family who is dealing with a layoff and is already struggling to pay the bills shouldn't also be wondering

whether they are one illness away from losing their home. and i think most americans agree with that. [applause] >> first of all, folks, for hose of you who are from the united states, that is as good an overview as you're ever going to hear of what this economic issue is. but you remember the president said that our structural deficit would disappear if we had a comparable health care system in terms of cost to the french and germans who are consistently rated the highest. it is about a trillion dollars a year. somewhere around 44% of that money is government-funded money. so you just run the numbers. think of over half of our deficit has already disappeared because of economic growth and the revenues you raised and the

spending we cut. and you pretty much get rid of the rest of it if we just have a comparablely expensive system. before you took office, we lost a car company that wanted to locate in michigan that went instead to canada and they announced, they said, look, we're a car company that provides health care benefits to our employees. we're not a health care company that sells cars to cover our bills. we have to go to canada. it was one of the few companies willing to go on record and say this. so thank you for doing it. let's talk about this. what does this open enrollment mean? how are people going to get involved? when you have universal enrollment, you can manager your costs better and cut inflation down. i will give the president a chance to talk about all the good stuff that's happened. but i will let you know one

thing. in the last three years, when we started doing this, inflation and health care costs have dropped 4% three years in a row for the first time in 50 years. 50 years. before that, the costs were going up at three times the rate of inflation for a decade. so now what? what are you going to do on october 1? tell them how this has to work. >> the me give folks a little bit of background what's already in place and then what happens on october 1. when we passed the affordable care act, there were a number of components to it. a big part of it was essentially providing a patient's bill of rights that americans and advocates have been fighting for for decades. so what we wanted to make sure is if you already have health insurance that you get a fair

deal, that you're being treated well by your insurers. so we eliminated, prohibited insurance companies for putting lifetime limits which, oftentimes, if a family member got sick, they thought they were covered until they hit that limit and now they're out hundreds of thousands of dollars with no way of paying it. we said to insurance companies you've got to use at least 80% of your premium that you are receiving on actual health care, not on administrative costs and c.e.o. bonuses. and if you don't, you have to rebate anything that you spent back to the consumer. so there are millions of americans who received rebates. they may not know that they got it because of the affordable care or quote-unquote obamacare, but they are pretty happy to get those rebates back. because it made sure that the insurance companies were treating folks fairly. we said that any young person

who doesn't have health insurance can stay on their parent's health insurance until they are 26 years old. as a consequence, what we have seen is steadily the rate of uninsured for young people dropping over the last three years since the bill passed. obviously providing a lot of relief to a lot of parents out there because a lot of young people have been entering the job market at a time when jobs are tough to get and oftentimes benefits are slim. his is providing an enormous security until they get more firmly established in the labor market. we provided additional discounts for prescription drugs for seniors under the medicare program. so seniors have saved billions of dollars when it comes to their prescription drugs. so there have been over the last three years a whole array

of consumer protections and savings for consumers that result directly from the law hat we passed. for those who say they want to repeal it, typically when you ask them about what about all these various benefits, they say, that one is good, and we would keep that, and you go down the list, and there is not too much that people object to. you will recall also at the time that part of the way we paid for the health care bill was, we said, medicare is wasting a lot of money without making seniors healthier. there was a lot of outcry about how we were taking money out of medicare. well, it turns out that we were right. that we could change how doctors and hospitals and providers were operating, rewarding them for outcomes as opposed to simply how many

procedures they did. you started seeing practices change among millions of providers across the country. medicare rates have actually slowed in terms of inflation. seniors have saved money. folks are healthier. some of those savings we have been able to use to make sure that people who do not have health insurance get health insurance. this brings me to october 1. the one part of the affordable care act that required several years to set up, but a critical part, was, how do we provide health insurance for individuals who do not get health insurance through their job? it is a historical accident that in this country health care is attached to employers. part of the problem is, if you

are out there shopping for health insurance on your own, you are not art of a big pool - well, there's no aggregation of risk taking place for the insurers. so they're basically going to say, let's see, you're 50 years old, you have high blood pressure, and we just look at the actuarial tables and we figure you are going to get that, so we will charge you $1,500 a month for health insurance, which the average person has no way of affording. because there is no pooling of risk. we said we need to set up a mechanism to pool people who currently do not have health insurance so they have the same purchasing power, the same leverage that a big company does when they are negotiating with an insurance company. essentially, what we've done is created what we call marketplaces in every state across the country where consumers are now able to be part of a big pool, insurers have to bid, essentially compete, for the business of that pool.

nd what we now have set up are these marketplaces that provide high-quality health care at affordable prices, giving people choices so they can get the health insurance that they need and want, and the premiums are significantly lower than what they were able to previously get. i will take the example of new york state. the insurers put in their bids to participate in these marketplaces. it turns out that their rates are up to 50% lower than what was available previously if you went on the open market and you try to get health insurance. 50% lower in this state. california, about 33% lower. in my home state of illinois, the just announced about 25% lower.

just by pooling and creating competition so that insurers have to go after people's business the way they go after group plan, we have drastically reduced premiums and cost. n top of that, what we are now saying, if with the better deal that you've got, you still cannot afford it, we are going to give you tax credits that will subsidize your purchase of health insurance. here is the net result -- we will be continuing to roll out what the actual prices are going to end up being, but i can tell you right now that in many states across the country, if you are a 27-year-old young woman, don't have health insurance, you get on that exchange -- you will be able to purchase high-quality health insurance for less than the cost of your cell phone bill. and because all the insurers who participate are required to

, for example, provide free preventative care, free contraceptive care, that young woman, she may make up what she is spending on premiums just on her monthly use of health care. this is going to be a good deal for those who do not have health insurance. those who already have health insurance are getting better ealth insurance. the best part of the whole thing is, because of these changes we initiated in terms of how we are paying providers, health care costs have grown, as you pointed out, mr. president, at the slowest rate in 50 years. >> i should point out that so far in most states, one of the ood things, at least, that i

didn't know would happen is, when we began this, in the united states, more than 80% of american states had only one or two companies providing health insurance who had more than 80% of the market. there was, in effect, no price competition. what i was terrified of, we would open these things, and there would only be one company to show up to bid. we would be having an academic conversation. instead, it has led to the establishment of more companies doing more business. -- bidding and i think part of it is that they have greater confidence that they can deliver health care at a ore modest cost. so far, it is good, but i think it is important for you to tell people why we are doing all of this outreach.

this only works, for example, if young people show up, and even if they buy the cheapest plan, they claim their tax credit. it will not cost them much. $100 a month or so. e've got to have them in the pool, because otherwise all these projected low costs cannot be held if older people with pre-existing conditions are disproportionately represented in any given state. you've got to have everybody lined up. explain all the work you have been doing on the outreach for the opening on october 1. >> i think president clinton makes a really important point. the way pools work -- any pool is essentially those of us who are healthy subsidize somebody who is sick at any given time. we do that because we anticipate we will at some oint get that. -- point get sick and we hope a healthy person is in our pool, so those costs and

risks get spread. that is what insurance is all about. what happens is, if you don't have pools that are a cross-section of society, than -- then people who are already sick or more likely to get sick, they will rush out and buy insurance. people who are healthy, they say, you know what? i won't bother. you get what is called adverse selection. essentially what happens is the premiums start going higher and higher because the risks are not spread broadly enough across the population. you want to get a good cross-section in every pool. that is why big companies have an easier time getting good rates for their employees than small companies because if you only have five employees, one person is stricken with breast cancer, let's say, and your rates potentially shoot up. but if it's 1,000 employees, then it gets spread out. so on october 1, open enrollment begins.

all of these folks can start signing up for the marketplace. hat we want to make sure of is that everybody in every category, every age group understands why health insurance is important, understands why they should sign up, understands the choices that are going to be available to them. they will be able to go to a computer, tap on the webpage and they're going to be able to shop, just like you shop for an airline ticket or a flatscreen tv and see what the best price for you, what's the plan best suited for you, and go ahead and sign up right there and then. that open enrollment period will last from october 1 until the end of march. there will be six months for olks to sign up. normally, this would be pretty straightforward.

a lot of people do not have health insurance. a lot of people realize they should get health insurance. let's face it, it has been a little political, this whole obamacare thing. what you have had is an unprecedented effort that you have seen ramp up over the last month or so in which those who have opposed the idea of universal health care in the irst place and have fought this thing tooth and nail through congress and through the courts and so forth have been trying to scare and discourage people from getting a good deal. some of you may have seen some of the commercials out there that are a little wacky. the main message we have, and e are using social media, we are talking to churches, we are talking to various civic

groups, and what we are saying to people is, look, go to the website yourself. go to healthcare.gov, take a look at whether or not this is a good deal, and make your own decision about whether this is good for you. because what we are confident about is when people look and see that they can get high quality, affordable health care for less than their cell phone bill, they are going to sign up. they are going to sign up. part of what i think the resistance we have seen ramp up, particularly over the last couple of months, is all about, the opponents of health care reform know they are going to sign up. in fact, one of the major opponents, and asked, why is it that you would potentially shut down the government at this point just to block obamacare, he basically fessed up and said, ell, once consumers get hooked on having health insurance, and subsidies, then they won't want to give it up. you can look at the

transcript. this is one of the major opponents of health care reform. it is an odd logic. essentially, they are saying -- people will like this thing too much, and then it will be eally hard to roll back. so, it is very important that people just know what is out there, what is available to them, and let people make up their own minds as to whether it makes sense or not. now, one last thing i want to say. i do think sometimes people come up to me and they say, well, if this is such a good deal, how come the polls show that it is not popular? ne of the things you and i both know is that when you come to health care, there is no more personal and intimate decision for people. this is something that people really care about. the devil you know is always better than the devil you don't know. and that's what harry and

louise was all about back in the 1990's. it was scarring people with the prospect of change. and so part of our goal here is to make sure that people have good information. and there have been billions of dollars spent making people scared and worried about this stuff. and rather than try to disabuse eople of every single bit of misinformation out there, what we are saying is, look for yourself. take a look at it. you will discover that this is a good deal for you. >> first of all, i completely agree with that. we've got to drive people to the websites. the states that are participating. the supreme court decision upheld the health care law said that states didn't have to set

up these marketplaces if they didn't want to. if they didn't want to the federal government would set it up. they also said that states didn't have to expand medicaid help people whose incomes are up to 138% of the federal poverty level. there are some states, believe it or not, that want the marketplace but do not want the medicaid. that is going to lead to a cruel result. there is nothing the president can do. it is not his fault. that is what the supreme court said. so we could have this bizarre situation where, let's say, a business with 60 employees or an individual going into the individual market will get the benefit of tax credits for everybody with incomes at 138% of the federal poverty level, or above, but they will not get it for people between 100% and 138% of the level. lower income people who desperately need health insurance, we will have the

cruelest of all situations in those states. there is nothing the president can do about it because of the supreme court decision. we have to persuade the states to come on. more and more states with republican governors and republican legislatures are doing it. tell them about arkansas, we are doing well down there. >> a little hometown bias, there is nothing wrong with that. [laughter] a couple of things that are happening that i think are very interesting. first of all -- look, i'm sympathetic to some of these republican governors who re under a lot of pressure because the whole issue of whether you are for obamacare or not has become a litmus test est. some of them, it is literally tough. sometimes state legislatures

have refused to allow governors to go ahead and implement it. but as you indicated, what we have seen is that when republican governors take a look at the deal they are getting, where i'm at in addition to these exchanges, we are also providing a much more significant match, much more federal money, to provide health insurance from the state's perspective they're not paying, the federal government is picking up the tab, and this is helping them because people are no longer going to the emergency room. they now have good health care. they are now getting preventative care. you are seeing some republican governors stepping up and say, i may not like obamacare, but i'm going to go ahead and make sure that my people are benefiting from this plan. that is one good thing that is happening. the second thing that is happening, there are a couple of states, and arkansas is a good example, kentucky is another good example, idaho, an interesting example -- these are states where i just got eat.

i do not have a big constituency in these states. well, i take that back. you know what? 40% is still a lot of people. i am losing by 20% in these tates. the governors waltzed -- were still able to say, we are going to set up our state exchanges, heir own marketplaces, and each state is just using their own name for it. so i had a meeting -- a conference, a videoconference with all the state directors of all the marketplaces, and i am talking to the director in kentucky and idaho, and in kentucky it is called kentucky connect, and in idaho, it is called the idaho health care exchange. there is a story that came out of kentucky where some folks were signing people up at a county fair somewhere, and some guy goes up and starts looking

at the rates and decides he is going to sign up, and he turns to his friend and says, this is a great deal -- this is a lot better than obamacare. which is fine. i don't have pride of authorship here. i just want this thing to work. arkansas just came out with its rates, and as has been true in virtually every single state, ot only are premiums lower than they were, they're a lot lower than even the most optimistic predictions were about how low they'd be. you know, once these marketplaces are up and running, it turns out that what is for additional event a pretty conservative principle, which is competition and choice, well, in the insurance market, competition and choice works.

what we are seeing is that people are going to be able to get the kind of health care that they have never been able to get before. states are going to benefit from it because they are going to save money. there are probably very few of you in this room that you not have health insurance, but if you don't, you should sign up starting on october 1. one of the things that many eople do not realize is that he subsidy that all of you provide for the uninsured is about $1,000 per family. you pay $1,000 -- everybody here who has health insurance pays about $1,000 more for your family's insurance than you otherwise would have because hospitals are mandated, they

are required to provide service to anybody who shows up. what happens is, when you've got 15% of the population without health insurance, they end up showing up at the emergency room, particularly if they are much sicker than if they got regular checkups and preventative care. so, you pay for the most expensive care there is. hospitals have to recoup the money some way. the way they do it is to charge higher prices, and people who have health insurance and up -- health insurance end up picking it up. so part of what will help reduce the increase in health care cost is make sure that that hidden subsidy no longer exists. >> let's talk a little bit about business. we are out of time, but i think it is really important. as you pointed out, most people who have insurance work for a living or someone in their family does, and they get their

insurance through their workplace. the law says that all employers have to participate if they have 50 employees or more. many employers with fewer than 50 employees already voluntarily provide some health insurance. both the companies with 50 or more and the companies with fewer than 50 are somewhat concerned. the employees that have to be insured are those that work 30 hours a week or more. there were many people who speculated that when this law ame into place that it would add to the cost and there would be a lot more part-time workers instead of full-time workers. i will say the president some time and energy on this. so far, that is not true. the overwhelming number of people who have been hired coming out of this recession, they have been hired at lower wages, that they have been full-time employees. there has not been an increase in the percentage of our

employment in part-time work. here has been an increase in relatively lower wage new jobs, but that means they need health insurance even more. explain, very briefly, to them how this is going to work, how private employers are helped to buy their insurance and the requirements. >> first of all, if you are a large employer or an employer with more than 50 employees, you are already providing health insurance, you don't have to do anything other than just make sure that you can show you are providing health insurance. there was a lot of news recently about how we delayed the so-called employer mandate. for a year. because under the law, what it says is, if you have more than 50 employees, you are not providing health insurance to your employees, then you are going to pay a penalty to help subsidize, to help pay for the

fact that we, the taxpayers, are going to have to provide your employees with health insurance. which, by the way, is only fair. a lot of the controversy around the affordable care act had to do with these so-called mandates, both the employer mandate and the individual mandate. the employer mandate says, if you don't meet your responsibilities by your employees, and they end up getting medicaid or they are ending up in the emergency room, you are dumping those costs onto society. that is not fair. we will charge you a couple thousand dollars to help pay for health care for those employees. for the individuals, what we said was, we are going to make health insurance so affordable, so cheap for you, so heavily subsidized if you are not making a lot of money, that if you are not getting health

insurance, then it's because you decided you don't want to, you don't need to. and in that circumstance, what happens when you get hit by a bus, heaven forbid? or somebody in your family gets sick and you didn't have them covered? we are not going to just let somebody bleed in front of the emergency room. what we have said is, you've got to take responsibility. there is a small penalty if you do not get health insurance. this is where a lot of the controversy and unpopularity came in. people generally do not like to be told, you've got to get health insurance. employers don't like to be told, you got to give your employees health insurance. but as a society, what we cannot do is to say, you have no responsibilities whatsoever, but you've got guaranteed coverage.

this raises the whole issue of pre-existing conditions, which we haven't talked a lot about. but it's really important. one of the central components of this law, one of the main perversities of the health care system before this law passed was, there were millions of people around the country where if you had gotten sick before, if you'd had a heart attack, if you hadded cancer, if you had diabetes -- if you had had capser, if you had diabetes, let's say when it first happened, you had a job, you got your, and then you lose your job or you are trying to change jobs, and you try to go out and get health insurance -- the health insurance company could not only deny you, but had every incentive to deny you. they would rather have healthy people who are paying premiums

and never asking for a payout. they do not want somebody who actuarially anticipate they might get sick. keep in mind that a huge percentage of our society has some sort of pre-existing condition. and they can be locked out. you can do everything right, work hard, build a strong middle-class life, but if you've been sick and then you lose your job or something happens, you may suddenly be locked out of the insurance market or the premiums may be rich h that only somebody could afford them. what we said is, you know what? insurance companies, you can no longer bar somebody from getting health insurance just because they've got a pre-existing condition. but the only way that works is if everybody has a requirement to get health insurance.

if you think about it, what happens if you don't have that rule? all of us, well, not all of us, but a lot of us who were trying to figure out how to save some money would say, i'm not going to worry about it until i get sick, and when i am diagnosed with something that is going to be expensive, i will go to the insurance company and say, you cannot prevent me from getting health insurance just because i've got a pre-existing condition. so they could potentially game the system and it wouldn't work. now what we have done is said, you've got to provide health insurance to anybody. that is the deal. the flipside of it is, everybody's got some responsibility, and we will help you pay for to get health insurance. that is where a lot of the misunderstandings, the frustrations about health care reform came in. i should add, by the way, that this was the same proposition that was set up in massachusetts under a governor

named mitt romney. it is working really well. 99% of people in massachusetts have coverage. and that same principle was eye roncally considered -- ironically considered a very smart republican conservative principle. but it was a right one. the economics of it is true. just to finish up the question, when it comes to businesses, if you are already providing health insurance for your employees, that's great. you don't have to do much other than just make sure that you show us that you've got health insurance for your employees. if you have more than 50 employees and you are not providing health insurance for them, you now have the opportunity to join a pool of small businesses to get a better price and a better deal on health insurance. you are eligible for tax credits in providing health insurance to your employees, up to 35% of the premiums for each employee. that will be a tax benefit, a tax credit from the federal

government. but if you're still not providing health insurance for your employees after that, then we are going to go ahead and penalize you for it. i can understand why some businesses wouldn't want to pay for it. if they are not currently providing health insurance for their employees, that means they would rather have those additional profits than make sure their employees are getting a fair deal. in some cases, they may be operating under a small margin. keep in mind, since companies are exempted, the average small business with five employees, mom-and-pop shops, 10 employees, they are not under that requirement. i'm not that sympathetic to a company typically, if it's got more than 50 employees and generating some significant revenue, we're making it affordable for them to provide insurance for their employees, they should do the right thing. [applause]

>> i agree with that. we have to close, but i think there is one last issue we ought to deal with. the most important thing, obviously, is to get people enrolled in this. we will work through it as we o along. you just heard the president say that so far in virtually every state, the actual prices of the insurance are coming in quite low, quite a bit lower than they were originally estimated. with the original price estimates and with the government obligated to provide subsidies, which costs money on the budget, right, it was nonetheless estimated that in the first 10 years this would keep the national debt $110 billion lower than it otherwise would have been. which means if we come in at even less, we can bring the debt down more or we can

subsidize more small businesses and get more small businesses nto this loop. a lot of people come up to me and say, you know, now you sound like the people you used to criticize who say we could cut taxes all day long, don't give me that, that sounds too good to be true. before you leave, you should tell people how we can spend more, not so much in direct spending, but in tax credits and still wind up reducing overall federal spending by $110 billion in this decade. >> a couple things in terms of how this whole thing got paid for. first of all, i think it's really important to point out here that the total cost of the affordable care act, to provide health insurance for every american out there at an affordable rate is costing about the same amount over the

course of 10 years as the costs of the prescription drug bill at president bush passed except that wasn't paid for. we felt obliged to actually pay for it and not add to the deficit. what we did, it is paid for by a combination of things. we did raise taxes on some hings. for example, we said that for high income individuals, you can pay a slightly higher medicare rate, medicare tax. we bumped that up a little bit. we said that for employers who are currently providing a so-called cadillac health care plan, where there are so many bells and whistles there is no incentive to actually spend

wisely when it comes to health care, we are going to penalize you for that not only to raise a little bit of money, but also to say, you are encouraging the worst aspects of the health care system where you spend a lot of money and you do not get better outcomes. i mentioned to you medicare -- we basically said -- there is a program in medicare called medicare advantage that provides some additional options for medicare recipients above and beyond standard medicare, and it is very popular with a lot of seniors -- you get eyeglasses and other benefits -- but it turned out that it was so uncompetitive that we were providing tens of billions of dollars in subsidies to insurance companies under this medicare advantage plan without getting better outcomes for seniors. what we said was, we will keep medicare advantage, and we will give them a small premium if

they are providing better services for seniors, but we will make you compete for a -- for it a little bit. we are going to save tens of billions of dollars in the process, and that will go into paying for the affordable care act. the bottom line is, through these various mechanisms, we have raised enough money to pay for providing health insurance for those who don't have it, to provide these tax credits in the marketplace and, at the same time, because we're driving down costs, we actually end up saving a little money. it is a net reduction of our deficit. the irony of those who are talking about repealing obamacare because it is so wildly expensive is if they actually repealed the law, it would add to the deficit. it would add to the deficit. now, there have been a couple of republicans in the house who have been smart enough to say, we are going to repeal all of

the benefits, 25 million, 30 million people do not get health insurance, but we are going to keep the taxes that obama raised. we just will not talk about that. that way we can say we reduced the deficit. but obviously you're doing some funny business there with the budget. but look, nothing is free. the bottom line though is, do we want to continue to live in a society where we have the most inefficient health care system on earth, leaving millions of people exposed to the possibility that they could lose everything because they get sick, where we have little children and families going to the emergency room once a week because they have asthma and other preventable diseases because their families are not linked up with a primary care physician who is providing them regular care, where the costs to society for reduced

productivity, illnesses, etc., all burden our businesses, is that the kind of society we aspire to? i think the answer is no. and the notion that we would resist or at least some would resist as fiercely as they would or as they have, make this their number one agenda, if perpetuating a system in which millions of people across the country, hardworking americans, don't have access to health are, i think is wrong. [applause] we have to -- we have to close but i'll close with a story. i told you all this morning that the employee that our health access program lost in

the kenyan mall shooting lost was a dutch nurse. we spend a lot of time in the netherlands. we get a lot of support there. oxy is one of the biggest insurance companies in europe. they're one of our partners here. i went to celebrate their 00th anniversary with them. they had been -- they started as a fire insurance company with 39 farmers 200 years ago and we were out there in this in farm field with a tent the shadow of a 13th century church and a big dutch windmill and i said to the executive, you have health insurance. everybody is on an individual mandate. you just subsidize people based on their incomes. . . he said yeah, i write it. we all do. he looked at me and said we

don't make any money on it. he said, we shouldn't. this guy -- can you imagine somebody saying that in america? he said, we shouldn't. if i can't make money on this business through a traditional insurance business i have no business to work. health care is a public good, and you got to find a way to finance it for everybody. he said, it's just an intermediary function that somebody has to handle, but in the end it's how it's delivered, how it's priced, and how healthy you can keep your people. so the first lady is trying to keep us healthier, and you're trying to change the delivery of the pricing, and you have to cover everybody to do it. i think this is a big step forward for america. this will over the next decade not only make us healthier, but it will free up in the private sector, largely, funds that can then be reinvested in other areas of economic growth and

give us a much more well-balanced economy. but first we got to get everybody to sign up. >> everybody sign up. go to health-care.gov. thank you very much. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] >> gentlemen, please remain in your seats for a moment while the president of the united states departs the room. thank you. is is a country whereu work hard and you sacrifice, you should b >>e a it's less than over 20 ho now the sustained speech in the senate by texas senator ted cruz, florida senator marco rubio on the floor right now. senator ted cruz began yesterday 1/2on at about 2:41 eastern.

anguage toward the effort to defund obamacare is in the current house bill. current funding runs out in 12 days on september 30. if no agreement is reached the government will shut down. senate is expected to debate the continuing resolution sometime today with a vote on moving the bill forward also coming up. you can see the house live on c-span. the senate on c-span2. here is the plan for the house today. the gavel will come down in the house at noon eastern. legislative business will get under way at 2:00 eastern with votes after 6:30. there are four bills on their agenda today, including one dealing with federal helium reserves. the house in a holding pattern in terms of the continuing resolution. house leadership is warning of a possible weekend session if the senate sends back a modified c.r. house republicans may also consider legislation later this week that would tie a one-year increase in the debt limit. expected to be reached this

october 17, according to treasury secretary jack lew, with a one-year delay of the health care law. also later this afternoon, off the floor, democratic leader nancy pelosi is expected to hold a briefing on raising the debt ceiling. here's how some members of congress are reacting to what's going on in the senate. >> all of that on c-span.org. actually that is our c-span chat if you want to offer tweets. and this on facebook.

>> also george franks, if you can't compromise you should not be in politics. it is not about absolutes. i hope those who do not compromise get voted out of office next election. you can offer your comments, your reaction. do you support senator ted cruz as he speaks on the senate floor to defund the health care law? go to facebook.com/c-span to offer your comments. british labour party leader ed milibrand addressed the party leaders tuesday during their fall conference. during his reremarks he talked about increasing the minimum wage, prioritizing mental health, and lowering the voting age to 16. he also touched on foreign policy and the situation in syria. the conference was held in the town of brighton along the southeast coast of england.

>> please welcome the leader of he labour party, ed milibrand. >> ♪ this is their time this is their day the day they're waiting force all the world stopped to ♪tch you shine ♪ >> ♪ let go let go let go how beautiful this world has become

now everyone will see what i ♪ [applause] >> thank you. thank you, friends. thank you. it's great to be in brighton. i want to start by thanking somebody from the bottom of my eart for the kindest of words. not justine, though i would like to thank her. a round of applause for justine, please, ladies and gentlemen. not my mum, but a woman called ella philips. it was local election day, ella rode past me on her bike. she fell off. i helped -- not funny. i helped her up. and afterwards she called me

something i had never been called before. she said i was an action hero. you're laughing. she said i was an action hero who mysteriously appeared out of nowhere, and she said, what added to all the confusion was that ed was actually attractive. and not geeky at all. i promise you, she did say that. she said, even the way he appeared was swave. i don't know why you find it so funny, friends. he was dressed casually, but he had style. now, now -- [applause] >> i was pretty pleased with this as you can tell until

something dawned on me. ella was concussed. she was badly concussed. in fact, she herself said, i was seeing things because i was stealing quite day as well. ella, you're not kidding. let me say, ella, if you're watching today, thank you. you have made meir. - you have made my year. i want to start today with the simplest of thoughts, an idea that has inspired change for generations, the belief that helped drive us out of the second world war and into that great reforming government of 1945. an ambition that is more important now than it's been for decades. an emotion that is felt across

our country, kitchen tables every night. a ceiling that is so threatening to those who want to keep things as they are, words that are so basic and yet so powerful, so modest and yet so hard to believe, six simple words that say -- britain can do better than this. britain can do better than this. we're britain. e're better than this. are you satisfied with a country where people are working harder for longer for less year after year? are you satisfied with a country divided losing touch with the things we value the most? are you satisfied with a country which shuts out the voices of millions of ordinary people and listens only to the powerful? are you satisfied with a country standing apart as two nations?

i'm not satisfied. we are britain. we're better than this. [applause] we have to rebuild anew. one nation. an economy built on your success. a society based on your values. a politics that hears your voice, rich and poor alike, accepting their responsibilities to each other, one nation. we are going to make it happen, and today i'm going to tell you how. i want to start with leadership. leadership is about risks and difficult decisions. it's about those lowly moments when you have to pier deep into your soul. i ran for the leadership of this party. it was really hard for my family, but i believe that labour needed to turn the page and i was the best person to do

it. when i became the leader, i faced a decision about whether we should stand up to rupert murdoch. it wasn't the way things had been done in the past, but it was the right thing to do, so i did. [applause] -- and together we faced him down. then the other week i faced an even bigger decision about whether the country should go to war. the biggest decision any leader faces. the biggest decision any parliament faces. the biggest decision any party faces. all of us were horrified by the appalling chemical weapons attacks in syria, but when i stood on the stage three years ago, when i became your leader, i said we would learn the lessons of iraq. it would have been a rush to war. it wasn't the right thing for

our country. so i said no. it was the right thing to do. [applause] you see the real test of leadership is not whether you stand up to the weak, that's easy. it's whether you stand up to the strong and know who to fight for. and you know i'm reminded of a story back when i was starting out standing to be an m.p. with a woman called molly roberts. molly was in her 70's. and there i was candidly trying to get her vote, sitting in her front room, sipping a mug of tea, and she said to me, how can you, who weren't brought up in this area, possibly understand the lives of people here, their hopes and their struggles?

it was the right question. and here's the answer, for me it lies in the values i was brought up with. you see, in my house it was my mum that taught me these values. about the importance of reaching out and listening to people, of understanding their hopes and their struggles, she's the most patient, generous person i have met in my whole life, and she taught me never to be contemptuous of others, never to be dismissive of their struggles. now, she was teaching me a lesson of life. and some people will say, yeah, but you got to leave decency behind when it comes to politics. i say they're wrong. because only if you reach -- [applause] plause only if you reach out and listen can you do the most important thing a leader can do, the most important qualification in my view for being prime

minister, only then will you have the ability to walk in the shoes of others and know who to fight for, whoever your opponent, however powerful they are. guided by the only thing that matters, you'll sense -- your sense of what is right. this is what i believe. this is where i stand. this is the leadership which -- britain needs. [applause] when i think about who we need to fight for, i think about all the people i have met over the last year. i think of the people of britain , and their enormous and extraordinary spirit. i think of our troops, serving so bravely all around the world, let us pay tribute to them today. [applause]

i have seen in afghanistan those young men and women. young men and women who are young enough to be my son or daughter serving our country. and it is a truly humbling experience. don't the event of the last few days in kenya remind us of the importance of being ever vigilant against terrorism at home and around the world? [applause] i think of the brave men and women, i think of the brave men and women of our police force who serve with so little credit each and every day for our country. let us thank them for what they do. [applause]

and then i think of all the people i've met over the last year. see the local election i did something unusual. i went to town centers and market squares and high streets and i stood on a pallet, not a soapbox but a pallet. i talked to people about their lives. i remember this town meeting i had, it was just coming to the end of the meeting and this bloke wandered up. he was incredibly angry. his words i won't exactly repeat what he said. he was so angry he wouldn't give me his name, but he did tell me his story about how he spent the last 10 years looking after his disabled wife, and then another four years looking for a job and not finding one. he was angry about immigration. some people in the crowd booed him, he wasn't prejudiced, he just felt the economy didn't work for him.

and then i think about the two market traders i met in chesterfield, standing by their stalls, out in all weathers, working all hours, and they said, look, this country just doesn't seem to be rewarding our hard work and effort. there seem to be some people getting something for nothing. this society's losing touch with our values. and then i think about this beautiful sunny spring day i spent in lincoln and the face in the crowd, this young woman, who said she was an ambulance controller. so proud to be working for our national health service. [applause] and so proud too, of her young son, because she was a single parent, 19 years old. what she said to me was, why does everybody portray me as a burden on the system? i'm not a burden on the system. i'm going out there. i'm doing the right thing for our country.

why doesn't anyone listen to my voice? [applause] then i think about the scaffolder i met around the corner from where i live. i was just coming back from a local cafe i had been at. he stopped me in the street, he said to me, where's your bodyguard? i said i don't have one. he told me his story and he said to me, i go out, i do the work, i go all around the country, again out in all weathers, i earn a decent wage, but i still can't make ends meet. he says, he said to me, is anyone ever going to do anything about those gas and electric bills that just go up and up and up faster than i can earn a living? he wanted someone to fight for

him. now, if you listen to these stories, four of just the millions of the stories of our country, and you have your own, friends, and family, what do you learn? all of these people love britain. they embody its great spirit, but they all believe that britain can do better than this. today i say to them, and millions of others, you're right. britain can do better than this. britain must do better than this. britain will do better than this with a government that fights for you. [applause] but for britain to do better than this, we have to understand why we got here. why things are so tough at the moment, even while they tell you there's a recovery. and why unless we put things right, it will only be a

recovery for the few. now, what i'm about to tell you is the most important thing i'm going to say today about what needs to change about our country. for generations in britain, when the economy grew, the majority got better off. and then somewhere along the way that vital link between the growing wealth of the country and your family finances was broken. this goes beyond one party or one government. it's more important to you than which party is in power, even more important than that. see when i was growing up in the 1980's i saw the benefits of growing prosperity. people were able to buy a house, a car, even a second car. go on a foreign holiday. their grandparents would never have dreamed of. not spend all their hours at work. able to spend time with their kids, not working all the hours that god sends. have a secure pension in retirement, and also believe

that their kids would have a better life than them. that feels a long way away from where britain is today, doesn't it? and that's because it is. see somewhere along the way that link got broken. they used to say a rising tide lifts all boats. now the rising tide just seems to lift the yachts. [applause] now, i say this to the people of britain, if i were you, i wouldn't even take a second look at a political party unless they make this their central defining purpose, because your future de -- depends on it, your children's future depends on it, britain's future depends on it, i say we're britain, we can do

better than this. [applause] now i have a question, now i've got a question for you, ladies and gentlemen, do the toris get it? >> no. >> come on, i didn't hear you. do the toris get it? >> no. >> that's better. they don't get it, do they? i would say this, i understand why 3 1/2 years ago some people might have thought that david cameron did get it, and that's why people voted for him at the last general election, but they voted for change, and i don't believe they got the change that they were voting for. let me just explain it this way, next week you're going to see david cameron resuming his lack of honor for how brilliantly he's done as prime minister. claiming credit for his enormous achievements, how he saved the economy, as they put it.

i mean no doubt he'll even be taking off his shirt and flinging it into the crowd expecting adoration from the british people, like he did recently on holiday. maybe i should make this promise while i'm about -- film' about to prime minister, i won't take my shirt off in public. it's just not necessary. [applause] i'll try to keep the promise. back to david cameron. he's going on this lap of honor. everything is britain. he saved the economy. george osborne, he deserves the honor as well. come on, the slowest recovery in 100 years. one million young people looking for work. more people on record working part-time who want full-time work. more people than for a generation out of work for longer. the longest fall in living standards since 1870, that's not

worthy of a lap of honor. that is worthy of a lap of shame, and that is the record of this government. [applause] he does have one record, though, but i don't think he credits a lot of honor. he's been prime minister for 39 months and in 38 of those months wages have risen more slowly than prices. that means your living standard's falling year after year after year. so 2015 you'll be asking, am i better off now than i was five years ago? and we already know the answer for millions of families will be no. you have made the sacrifices, but you haven't got the rewards. you were the first into the recession but the last one out. now of course it would have taken time to recover from the global financial crisis whoever

when these but tories tell you the pain will be worth the gain, don't believe they. they can't solve the cost of living crisis and here's why. the cost of living crisis isn't an accident of david cameron's economic policy, it is his economic policy. [applause] , let me lain why explain why. u see he believes in the global race, but what he doesn't tell you is that he thinks for britain to win the global race you have to lose, lower wages, fewer rights at work. but britain can't win a race for

the lowest wages against countries where wage rates are pennies an hour. and the more we try? the worst things will get for you. britain can't win a race for the fewest rice of work sense against the sweatshops of the world. the more we try the worst things will get for you. and britain can't win a race for the lowest-skilled jobs against countries where kids leave school at the age of 11. and the more we try, the worst things will get for you. it's a race to the bottom. britain cannot and should not win that race. [applause] you see it's not the low achievements of these torreys that really gets me, that's bad enough. it's their low aspirations.

it's their low aspirations for you. it's their low aspirations for britain, but they're high hopes of those at the top. the bonuses are back, up 82% in april alone, thanks to the millionaires tax cut. so when they tell you the economy's healing, everything is fixed, remember they are not talking about your life. they are talking about their friends at the top. that's who they are talking about. it's high hopes for them. and every so often, you know, he mask slips. the other day a man they call ord howl -- howell, he was their advisor on tracking at one point -- fracking at one point. nothing funny about that. now he said it was wrong to frak in some areas but it was ok in others.

it was ok in the northeast of england because, he said, and i quote, it was full of desolate and uninhabited areas. in one casual aside dismissing one whole region of the country. let's tell these toris -- torreys about the northeast of england and every other part of britain. people go out to work, they love their kids, they bring out their families, they care for their neighbors, they look out for each other, they are proud of their communities. [applause] they are proud of their communities, they hope for the future, the tories call the inhad been -- torreys call them inhabitants of the desolate

areas, we call them our friends, neighbors, the heroes of our country. [applause] and they are fed up. they are fed up of a government that doesn't understand their lives and a prime minister who cannot walk in their shoes. we are britain, we are better than this. [applause] now, to make britain better we've got to win a race to the top not a race to the bottom. a race to the top which means other countries will buy our goods. that companies will come and invest here. and we'll create the wealth and jobs we need for the future. but we are not going to be able

to do it easily. it's going to be tough. let me just say this, friends. you think opposition is tough? you should try government. because it's going to be tough. it's not going to be easy. i'm not going to stand here today and pretend to you it is. we are going to have to stick to strict spending limits to get the deficit down. we are not going to be able to spend money we don't have. and frankly, if i told you we were going to, you wouldn't believe me, the country wouldn't believe me, and they would be right not to believe me. but we can make a difference. we can win the race to the top. and let me tell you how. it's about the jobs we create. it's about the businesses we support. it's about the talents we nurture. it's about the wages we earn, and it's about the vested interests that we take on. let me start with the jobs of the future. the environment is a passion of mine because when i think about my two kids who are 2 and 4 at the moment, not talking that

much about the environment, more interested in the octonauts, years' time , 20 they'll say to me, we are the last generation not to get climate change or the first generation to get it? that's the question they'll be asking. [applause] but it's not just about environmental care. it's also about the jobs we create in the future. some people say, including george osborne, that we can't afford to have environmental commitment at a time like this. he's dead wrong. we can't afford not to have an environmental commitment at a time like this. [applause] that's why labour will have a world leading commitment in government, to take all of the

carbon out of our energy by 2013, a root map to one million new green jobs in our country. that's how we win the race to the top. and to win that race to the top, we have also got to do something else. we've got to support the businesses of the future. now, many of the new jobs in the future will come from large number of small businesses, not a small number of large businesses. and this is real important. if you think 15 years ahead, the rate of change and dine nism -- dynamism is so great that most of the new jobs that will be being done will be by companies that don't exist. that changes the priorities for government. when this government came to office, since they came to office, they have cut taxes for large businesses by six billion pounds but raised taxes on small

businesses. now, i don't think that's the right priority. yes we need to compress the tax regime for large businesses, but frankly they have shortchanged small business, and i'm going to put it right. it's the next labour government wins power in 2015, we will use the money that this government would use to cut taxes for 80,000 large businesses, to cut business rates for 1.5 million businesses across our country. that's the way you win the race to the top. [applause] one nation, labour, the party of small business, cutting small business rates when we come to office in 2015, and freezing them the next year. benefiting businesses by at least 450 pounds a year.

that's how we win the race to the top, friends. and to win that race to the top we have also got to nurture the talents of the next generation, the skills of people. there are so many brilliant businesses in our country who provide amazing training for the work force, but we've got to face facts and leading businesses say this to me, too, which is there aren't enough of them, and we have to work to change that. so we'll say if you want major government contract, you must provide apprenticeships to the next generation. [applause] we'll say, if you want to bring in a skilled worker from outside the european union, then you'll also have a legal duty to provide apprenticeships to the next generation. and we'll also say to companies doing the right thing, training their work force, that they will have the power to call time on

free riding by competitors who refuse to do the same. that's how we win the race to the top, friends. [applause] it's not just business that has to accept responsibility, those young people. we have a tragedy in this country, hundreds of thousands of young people who leave school and end up on the dole. we have this word for it, haven't we? neat, not in education, employment, and training. behind that short word is a tragedy of hundreds of thousands of wasted lives. if the school system fails our young people, they shouldn't be ending up on benefits, they should be ending up in education or training so they can get back on the road to a proper career that requires them to accept responsibility, but it requires government, too, to accept our responsibilities for the next generation in britain, and

that's what we'll do. [applause] but to win the race to the top we've also got to take advantage of the talents of britain's 12 million parents. justine and i have one of the great privileges in any parents' life this year, which was taking our son, daniel, to his first day at school. he was nervous at first. pretty soon he started having fun. it's a bit like being the leader of the labour party. . not exactly like being the leader of the labour party, but, look, for so many parents in this country, the demands of the daily school run combined with their job are like their very own daily assault course, and we have to understand that, because we can't win a race to the top with stressed out parents and family life under strain. we've got to change that.

in the last century, schools stayed open until mid afternoon. that was ok back then because one parent often stayed at home, but it's not ok now. that's why we want every primary school in britain to have the breakfast clubs and afterschool care that parents need, and that's what the next labor government will do. [applause] to win the race to the top we have also got to deal with the issue of low pay. the national minimum wage, one of the last labour government's proudest achievement, friends. [applause] but we have to face facts. there are millions of people in this country going out to work, coming home at night, unable to

afford to bring up their families. i just think that's wrong in one of the richest countries in the world. the next labour government must write the next chapter in dealing with the scourge of low pay in this country. and to do that, though, we are going to learn lessons from the way the minimum wage came in, because it was about business and working people, business and unions working together in the right way so we set a minimum wage at the right level. and we have to do the same again. the minimum wage has been falling in value and we have to do something about it. there are some sectors, i don't often say anything nice about the banks, but i will today, there are some sectors which actually can afford to pay higher wages, some are. lifting wage in. so banks. we have to look where there are some sectors where we can afford the high minimum, but we have to do it on the rye base -- right business, businesses and working people working together. that's what we'll do. the next labour government will strengthen minimum wage to make

work pay for millions in our country. that's how we win the race to the top. [applause] to win the race to the top we have to call a halt to the race of the bottom, between workers already here and workers coming here. i'm the son of two immigrant parents. i'm proud of the welcome that britain gave me and my family. we have always welcomed people who work, contribute, and a part of our community. let me say this, if people want a party that will cut itself off from the rest of the world, then let me say squarely, labor is not your party. [applause]

but if people want a party that will set the right rules for working people, then labour is your party, the only party that will do it. employers turning -- not paying the minimum wage and government turning a blind eye. it's a race to the bottom not under my government. recruitment agencies hiring only from overseas, it's a race to the bottom not under my government. shady gang masters, exploiting people in industries from construction to food processing, it's a race to the bottom, not under my government. [applause] rogue landlords putting 15 people in tight housing, it's a race to the bottom, not under my government. and our country, and our country, and our country sending out a message to the world if you want to engage in shady,

dubious employment practices, then britain is open for business, it's a race to the bottom, not under my government. [applause] and in case anyone asks whether this is pandering to prejudice, let's tell them it isn't. it's where labour has always stood, countering exploitation, whoever it affects, wherever they come from, we have never believed in the race to the bottom. we have always believed in a race to the top. that is our party. to win the race to the top, we have also got to take on the vested interests that hold our economy back. in the 1990's we committed to a dynamic market economy. think of those words, dynamic market economy. and then think about this, what happens when competition fails?

what happens when it just fails again and again and again? then government has to act. train companies that put the daily commute out of reach. payday lenders who force people into unpayable debt. gas and electric companies that put prices up and up and up. it's not good for an economy. it's not a dynamic market economy when one section of society does so well at the expense of others. it's bad for families. it's bad for business. and it's bad for britain, too. now some people will just blame the companies, but actually ultimately i don't think that's where the blame lies. i think it lies with government. i think it lies with government. for not having had the strength to take this on. not having stood up to the powerful interests. not having had the strength to stand up for the strong. take the gas and electric

companies. we need successful energy companies in britain. we need them to invest for the future. but you need to get a fair deal. frankly, there will never be public consent for that investment unless you do get a fair deal. and the system is broken and we are going to fix it. if we win that election in 2015, the next labour government will freeze gas and electricity prices until the start of 2017. [applause] your bills will not rise, it will benefit millions of

families and millions of businesses. that's what i mean by government that fights for you. that's what i mean when i say, britain can do better than this. [applause] now, the companys -- companies aren't going to like this because it will cost them more, but they have been overcharging people for too long because of a market that doesn't work. it's time to reset the market. we'll pass legislation in our first year in office to do that. and have a regulator that will genuinely be on the customer side, but also enable the investment we need. that's how britain will do better than this. [applause] so, for making britain better than this starts with our

economy. your economic success as a foundation for britain's economic success, but it doesn't just stop there. it goes to our society as well. i told you earlier on about those market traders in chesterfield and how they felt that society had lost touch with their values. i think what they were really saying is this, that they put in huge hard work and effort. they bring up their kids in the right way. and they just feel that their kids are going to have a worse life than them. nowhere is that more true than when it doms to renting or buying a home -- comes to renting or buying a home. there are nine million people in this country renting a home, many of whom would want to buy. nine million people. we don't just have a cost of living crisis, we have a housing crisis, too. in 2010 when we left office there was a problem, there were one million too few homes in britain. if we carry on as we are, by 2020 there will be two million too few homes in britain. that's the equivalent of five cities the size of birmingham.

we have to do something about it and the next labour government will. so we'll say to private developers, you can't just sit on land and refuse to build, we'll give them a very clear message, either use the land or lose the land. that is what the next labour government will do. [applause] we'll say to local authorities, we'll say to local authorities they have a right to grow, neighboring authorities can't stop them. we'll identify new towns and garden cities and we'll have a clear aim by the end of the parliament britain will be building 200,000 homes a year, more than any time for a generation. that's how we make britain better than this. [applause] and nowhere do we need to put

the values of the british people back at the heart of our country more than the national health service, the greatest institution of our country. i had a letter a couple months back from a 17-year-old girl. she was suffering from depression and anxiety. and she told me the heartbreaking story about how she ended up in hospital for 10 weeks. mental health is a truly national problem, it covers rich and poor, north and south, young and old alike. let's be frank, friends, in the privacy of this room, we have swept it under the carpet for too long. it's a bit of a british thing, isn't it? we don't like to talk about it. if you got a bad back or suffering from cancer, can talk about it, but if you have depression or anxiety, you don't want to talk about it because somehow it doesn't seem right. we have to change that. got to change that.

[applause] it's an afterthought in our national health system. here's the interesting thing, you might say well, it will be really tough times, you told us that before. you said there will be really difficult decisions in government, that's true. how are you going to make it work? here's the thing, the 17-year-old said in that letter, look, if somebody had actually identified the problem when it started three years earlier, i wouldn't have ended up in hospital. i wouldn't have ended up costing the state thousands of pounds and the anguish that i had. so it's about that early identification and talking about this issue. if it's true of mental health, it's true in an even bigger way about care for the elderly 6 -- elderly. [applause]

there's so much more our country could be doing for our grandmas and granddads, moms and dads, uncles and aunts. it's the same story. just putting a 50 pound grab rail in the home stops somebody falling over prevents them ending up in hospital with needless agony and all of the money it costs. now, the 1945 labour government in really tough times raised its sights and created the national health service. i want the next labour government to do the same. even in tough times to raise our sights about what the health service can achieve. bringing together physical health, mental health, and the care needs of the elderly. a truly integrated national health service. that's the vision for the future. [applause]

we don't just need to improve the health service, friends, we have to rescue it from these torreys. and the liberals, too. now, look, before the election i remember the speeches by david cameron. i remember one where he said the three most important letters to him were n.h.s. he's got a funny way of showing it, hasn't he? when they came to office they were still saying how brilliant everything was in the health service. how the health service was doing great things and the doctors and nurses. now, have you noticed they have changed their tune recently? suddenly they are saying how bad everything is in the national health service. now, the vast majority of doctors and nurses do a fantastic job. sometimes things go wrong, and when they do, we should be the first people to say so.

but hear me on this, the reason david cameron is running down the n.h.s. is not because the doctors and nurses aren't doing as good a job as they were before, it's because they have come to a realization the health service is getting worse on their watch, and they are desperately thrashing around trying to find someone else to blame. blame the doctors, blame the nurses, blame the last labour government, that's what they are doing. [applause] let me tell you about the record of the last labour government. when we came to office, there were waiting time targets of 18 months that were not being met. when we left office there were 18 -- waiting times of 18 weeks that were being met. when we came to office there was

an annual winter a&e crisis, when we left office, people had a&e services they could rely on. when we came to office there were fewer doctors and nurses, when we left office more doctors and nurses than ever before. when we came to office, the health service, it was a good idea in previous generations, but i don't really believe it will be in the next. we left office with the highest public satisfaction in the history of the health service. yes, friends, we did rescue the national health service. [applause] so when you hear david cameron, when you hear david cameron casting around for someone to blame for what's happening in the n.h.s., just remember it's not complicated. it's simple. it's as simple as a.b.c., when

it comes to blame it's anyone but cameron. [applause] we know who is responsible. we know who is responsible, the topdown reorganization that nobody voted for and nobody wanted. the abow lution of n.h.s. direct, the cut of social care, the fragmentation of services, we know who is responsible for fausts of fewer nurses. we know who is responsible not just for an annual a&e crycy, but one for all seasons. it's this prime minister -- crisis, but one for all seasons. it's this prime minister. friends, it's the same old story. we rescued the n.h.s., they wrecked the n.h.s., and we have to rescue it all over again. and that is what the next labour government will do [applause]

>> right. now, let me explain to you how we can make britain better by changing our economy and changing our society, and now i want to talk about how we change our politics. here's the biggie you have all been looking forward to. arty reform. [applause] now, look, let me say to you, change is difficult. change is uncomfortable. and i understand why people are uncomfortable about some of the changes, but i just want to

explain to you why i think it's so important. with all the forces ranged against us, we can't just be a party of 200,000 people. we've got to be a party of 500,000, 600,000, or many more. and i'm optimistic enough some might say idealistic enough, to believe that's possible. and the reason it's possible in our party is because of the unique link we have with the trade unions. the unique link. i don't want to end that link, i want to mend that link. i want to hear the voices of individual working people in our party louder than before. because you see, think about our history. it's many of you who have been telling us that actually we haven't been rooted in enough in the workplaces of our country. and that's what i want to change. and that's the point of my reforms. see, my reforms are about hearing the voices of people,

construction works, people in small businesses, to people working in supermarkets, at the heart of our party. because you see, it's about my view of politics. leaders matter, of course they do, and leadership matters, but in the end political change happens because people make it happen. you can't be a party that properly fights for working people unless you have working people at the core of your party up and down this country. so that's the point of my reforms. and i want to work with you to make them happen so we can make ourselves a mass membership party, friends, let's make ourselves truly the people's party once again. [applause] but to change our politic, we

have to do more than that. we have to hear the voices of people who haven't been heard for a long time. i think about our young people, their talent, their energy, their voices, the voices of young people demanding a job, the voices of young people who demand that we shoulder and don't shirk our responsibilities to the environment, the voices of gay and lesbian young people who led the fight and won the battle for equal marriage in britain. [applause] and the voices of young people, particularly young women, who say in 2013 the battle for equality is not one -- is not won. you see, they are not satisfied that 33% of labour m.p.'s are women. they want it to be 50%, and they are right. [applause] hey are not satisfied.

they are not satisfied that 40 years after the equal pay act we still do not have equal pay for work of equal value in this country. they are not satisfied, and they are right. [applause] and they are not satisfied, and they are not satisfied that in britain in 2013 women are still subject to violence, harassment, and everyday sexism. they are not satisfied, and they are right. >> we will leave the remaining 10 minutes or so of this conference to go live to the floor of the u.s. house where members are expected to gavel in to begin their day in just a moment. lawmakers will begin with general speeches and they'll return for legislative business at 5:00 p.m. eastern. votes at 6:30.

live coverage of the u.s. house coming up here on c-span. the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's room, washington, d.c., september 25, 013. i hereby appoint the honorable kerry l. bentivolio to act as

speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, john a. boehner, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to the order of the house of january 3, 2013, the chair will now recognize members from lists submitted by the majority and minority leaders for morning hour ebate. the chair will alternate recognition between the parties with each party limited to one hour and each member other than the majority and minority leaders and the minority whip each, to five minutes but in no event shall debate continue beyond 1:50 p.m. the chair recognizes the gentleman from michigan, mr. kildee, for five minutes. thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank other members of this body. in less than a week, 72 members, members representing e house and the senate, have

joined me in the campaign to free amir from prison in iran. join the free amir campaign. this has been a strong bipartisan effort. we know there's not a lot that 's happening in this house right now that happens on a bipartisan basis, but this is something that members of the house on both sides of the aisle and all americans can join together to do, take a tangible step to free my constituent who is being held in an iranian prison on false charges. every day americans are speaking up. because it's something they can actually do to make a difference. through the social media, through twitter. ousands of tweets calling on the iranian president to release amir have gone out. while he's in new york at the u.n. general assembly and we know that the iranian

government monitors social media, participates in social media, so we know that the message is getting through to them. it's a powerful tuesday and one that all americans can engage in to help with this important cause. i was sent here to fight for my constituents, to work on their behalf, and that includes amir hekmati. he's a u.s. marine, former marine, who served his country well, went to visit his family in iran. he's of iranian descent. born and raised here. a constituent of mine in flint, michigan. he went to visit his family and was arrested, tried and convicted on false charges as a result. so what we're now seeking to do is encourage the iranian government, as it makes overtures to the global community, to make a tangible step in coming toward the

international community by doing what's right and releasing emir. -- amir. we've had tangible support here from congress. 112 of my colleagues signed a letter to secretary kerry asking him to elevate this case and he's responded and spoke out, calling upon the iranian government to release my onstituent, amir hekmati. tweeted shortly after one sent out a letter, sent out a tweet of her own calling on the iranian government to release amir. it's time for iran to do more than just talk. if iran and the president are a hasy is looking -- rahani is looking for a tangible demonstration that he's serious about re-engaging the global community, re-emerging as a nation among nations, then he can do what's right and release

my constituent. the other day he said he wanted to bring peace and friendship from the iranian people to the americans. the american people have responded by asking for that important critical concrete step in the name of friendship, in the name of peace and that is to release amir. it would demonstrate to all americans and to the global community that this is not just a matter of words, but it's a matter of action. and the only way i think that we as a global society and certainly as the american government can accept iran's request to rejoin the international community is if it does something more than they say they want to join but actually takes an important step. i will continue this fight. we will not stop. the family of amir hekmati will not stop. democrats and republicans in

the house and senate will not stop. the american government will not stop until amir is free. i take this as my personal challenge as a personal responsibility as the member of congress representing this family, but i think we all as americans can join this fight to free amir hekmati and to bring him home to his family. ladies and gentlemen, that's all i ask, is that members of the house and the public join this cause and help free amir. mr. speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the chair recognizes the gentleman from connecticut, mr. courtney, for five minutes. thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, yesterday in groton, connecticut, which is a community on long island sound the "day newspaper" of new london hosted a job fair for the surrounding area which i have the opportunity to attend for about an hour or so, and

the good news is that there were 16 companies that were there, employers who had job openings, who, again, were anxious to use the job fair as a chance to meet face to face with folks who attended. the distressing news, though, there were over 800 people who showed up for the event. the line wound out from the ballroom of the groton suites into the parking lot. and clearly if anyone who was attending there it was quite obvious there was not even close to the number of openings to match up with the number of people who were in attendance. as i said, i had a chance to visit for a while, walked around, talked to a number of people and was struck by the fact that the number one question on people's minds who carried heavy burdens, some of which had been out of work for months, some two years,

graduated from college, carrying student loans, anxious to get a start in life and a way to pay the bills, the question was -- is congress going to shut down the government? and it seemed and it seemed out of sync of the reality of what was going on in the room. it's very clear that the people there understood instinctively that a government shutdown in roughly eight or nine days is exactly the wrong thing that the u.s. economy needs right now, particularly in terms of fostering job growth and giving people confidence about the future. that event, compounded by a debt limit showdown, which now the treasury department announced this morning that on october 17, the borrowing authority of the u.s. treasury, the full faith and credit of our country is actually going to expire in terms of being able to pay the bills for our nation, whether it's our troops over in afghanistan, whether

it's the folks who protect us at our airports, whether it's the f.b.i., the coast guard which again my district is home to the coast guard academy, the notion, again, our nation, which has always honored the full faith and credit of the 230-plus years of history is put in doubt is the self-inflicted body blows that this institution is on the verge of inflicting on a very fragile economy. again, when you looked in the faces of the people who were at that job fair yesterday, again, i'm very proud of the fact that i come from a state with a very high educational attainment levels. really in the top five in the country. you know, what was clear is you're talking to people who again were in many instances very experienced employees, working in manufacturing, pharmaceutical, retail businesses, many of them, again, with certainly strong educational backgrounds with college degrees and postcollege

degrees, they're ready. they're ready to go out and support themselves and their families. you know, talking to them about food stamps, if this type of public assistance or that type of public assistance, that's not what they're looking for. they're looking for an economy that, again, has an horizon so that employers and budgetmakers and individuals who are again so critical in terms of investment decisions in this country are going to have confidence that we're again not to capsize the world financial markets by basically threatening the value of u.s. treasury bonds which is still the number one security in the world today. the question is whether in a month's time that's still going to be the case. it is time for this institution to start focusing on what people really get up and worry about every single day which is about jobs, the economy and the future of their families. i will -- don't want to end on a totally depressing note and want to end on a positive note.

in the first week of august i was at the oval office for a bill signing on the student bill which cut the loan from 6% to 3.4%. it was a hard-fought compromise to get that measure to the president's desk in august. will save thousands of dollars for middle class families and for students going to college. but the fact is we were standing there behind president obama with the republican chairman of the education committee to my left, the independent senator from maine, angus king, to my right and other democrats and republicans who were in the room. i mean, the fact of the matter is that event showed when we do our duty in this institution, when people actually recognize they were not here as part of a debate club, we're not here to read "green eggs and ham" like the circus that's going on in the senate right now, but we're here to do our work and pass measures and let's get the jobs of this country going again, pass a budget, let's protect

america's full faith and credit in the next couple of weeks or so and then this economy is poised to grow and we're going to help those people who were lined up yet in groton, connecticut. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable the speaker, house of representatives, sir, pursuant to the permission granted in clause 2-h of rule 2 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives, the clerk received the following message from the secretary of the senate on september 24, 2013, at 11:48 a.m. that the senate passed with amendments h.r. 1410, 1412, with best wishes, signed sincerely, karen l.a. haas. -- karen l. haas. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to clause 12-a of rule 1, the chair declares the house in recess until 2:00 p.m.

fraud or about

americans losing the health care they like and want to keep. even the administration is having a terrible time spinning this law. just look at the cherry-picked report they released just today. about the best they could claim was that some premiums would be lower than projected. let me say that again. some premiums would be lower than projected. note i didn't say lower, but lower than projected. basically this law is a complete mess. so washington democrats have been able to brush the american people off back in 2009, just brush them off. but they have no choice but to deal with reality now. we've seen how this has worked out over the last

here on c-span soon as it gets started. until then, some of our discussion from earlier today with georgia congressman and budget committee member, rob woodall, on the current budget showdown in congress. host: we're joined now by representative woodall of georgia, he's a member of budget committee representing georgia's second district. is there room to reconcile between the house and senate? guest: there absolutely is. we have to think about how we got here. we in the house have been working on appropriation bills all summer long. september 30 is that deadline. but the senate has yet to pass even a single appropriation bill. we went ahead and passed everything in one big package last week. now it's up to the senate to move something forward. host: how likely do you think it will as an observer? guest: this is not a town of

reckless people. it's a town of folks that wants to get things done. it's not easy to get something done and you can't always get what you want. i think what we have to understand is that the american people are counting. again, we did what we could in the house to make sure the government doesn't shut down. i don't believe that the senate won't follow that same path. host: would you want something other than a continuing resolution as we look to solve this had problem? guest: i'm an open-minded person. i'm always looking for consensus. the problem with the question, juana, again, we passed appropriation bills individually, small bills, targeted bills and we've seen absolutely nothing back from the senate. >> the best way to stop

lurching, lurching on this crisis to the next crisis, let's get back in funding our government the way the founding fathers set it up. through the appropriations process. i discussed at great length with chairman mikulski and murray about whether there's any possibility of funding the government. they believe there is. they've had conversations with some of the republican colleagues, so they believe that a funding measure that runs through november 15 will provide a greater opportunity for appropriation bills to pass the senate. and i agree with them. so the amendment that i file in the next day or so will prevent a shutdown through november 15 so the only thing we're going to change it appears at this stage on this c.r. we got from the house is the date. the rest will take -- we'll

take out all the rest of the stuff. host: that was senate majority leader harry reid. congressman, your response to that proposal. guest: well, i believe that folks want to take senator reid seriously about the appropriations process and its importance. again, that's a fellow who has complete control of the united states senate and has failed to pass even one appropriation bill. we're supposed to pass 12 every year. that is work done in may, june and july and he hasn't passed even one. am i glad he's coming to the table today and say let's get this done? of course i am. we wouldn't be lurching forward like this if the senate had gotten its work done like the house did. host: take out the language from the house about defunding the affordable care act, obamacare, can you respond to that. guest: he said that's what he wanted to do. i don't think his constituency is the same as my constituency. my constituency is concerned about the president's health care bill. in fact, the president is

incredibly concerned about it. we see time after time after time the president has sponsored delays. he's sponsored repeals. of course, he's delayed the bill for big business. he hasn't done anything to help individuals in my district. u.p.s., big employer there. folks are losing their health insurance. delta, prices skyrocketing. i.b.m., home depot, kroger. the list goes on and own. i don't believe that's what the president intended. i understand if he doesn't want to defund his entire domestic policy agenda, but he must agree that we need at least a one-year delay in order for him to implement it the way i believe he wanted it to be implemented. host: -- guest: you won't see anyone in the house threatening the government shutdown. we didn't fund it just last week when we attached the delay of obamacare to it. we funded it in individual appropriations bills throughout the summer. if only the senate had done its job and we'd been able to go to conference on these issues, we

wouldn't be lurching forward at all. the only reason there's even the opportunity to attach a delay to a continuing resolution is because the senate has failed to get its appropriations work done. that's unfortunate for congress and it's unfortunate for the american people. host: we're talking with congressman rob woodall of georgia. please call in and give us your thoughts. or democrats the number is 202-585-300 -- 3880. and for republicans it's 202-585-3881. 202-585-3882. back in the 1980's, you were a political staffer. how is it different then? guest: you controlled the house and the senate so you could speak with a unified voice, congress could have a position and the president could have a position. the article 1 congress would do oversight over the article 2 executive branch. today you don't have that. congress is divided.

instead of having a congressional position, we have a house republican position and a senate democrat position. it won't be easy, but i would tell you the key to success long term is to get together and have a congressional position again so it's the article 1 legislative branch doing oversight over that article 2 executive branch. host: we are going to your calls. starting with james from cedartown, georgia, welcome to "washington journal." james, are you there? caller: longtime -- you've been up there in washington a long time as a staffer. georgia has a 8.7% unemployment rate. we are just about last in education. you did not accept the medicaid expansion. so people without insurance could get insurance. you know, all i hear you guys talking about is protesting the president. there is nothing you are doing. you are also cutting head start. you're cutting programs for the

elderly. which is in newspapers and stuff. these are the same people that come out that vote for you. i'd like to know, when are these red people in georgia to get all this way -- government aid, medicare, medicaid, they're complaining about, going to stop voting for you guys because you have actually taken benefits and things that help the people of georgia? thank you. guest: james, i kind of disagree with your conclusion. your conclusion that folks vote based on who gives them the most benefits. that's not the way my constituency is in georgia. my constituency votes on who's willing to let them exercise the most freedom. folks don't want to be dependent on the government in my district. they want to be able to make decisions on their own. you talk about educational standards. county.rom guinette president obama, for example, sent secretary of education arne duncan down to the county

to learn from us what we're doing to be so successful. so we could bring that back to washington and share that with the rest of the nation. you know, what's so wonderful about local control is people in your community and mine, james, have wonderful ideas. they do take care of each other. we do care about each other. it's not a political ploy to say let's implement local control. it's a genuine belief that our neighbors care more about us than does any bureaucracy in washington, d.c. but let's just be clear. we do have ideas about health care reform. in fact, in 1996, republicans got together with bill clinton, eliminated pre-existing conditions for all plans regulated by the federal government. the concern we have about obamacare is it is a federal solution to a state problem. we took an issue where we had between 18 million and 38 million folks who could not get access to insurance and we turned the insurance industry upside down for all of america. we absolutely must solve the problem of pre-existing conditions for folks.

we have not one but two bills sprow deuced by bills. dr. tom price from georgia as well as one by dr. phil roe from tennessee. i encourage you to take a look at those bills. i think you'd like what you see. host: this debate we're seeing playing out in the house and senate, is this debate about health care or the budget? guest: i think it's debate about health care. it's a fair question. people talk about why you can't get things done in washington, d.c. understand as chairman of the budget and spending task force in the house, i introduced one of the seven budgets that we voted on. it balanced in four years. i couldn't get enough votes to pass it. the budget we passed in the house balanced in 10 years. the budget that the president introduced never continues to balance. continues to borrow as far as the eye could see. that's two ideas. the president thinks it's best to borrow and invest in the country. i think it's best to repay our debt to stop deficit spending and borrowing from our children. that is a giant divide. we are not going to bridge that

in one single bill but we can bridge that piece by piece by piece. and the debate you're seeing right now over the funding of the government, the debate you'll see later in october, over the debt ceiling, is going to be about how can we move that ball forward. i don't have to have it my way or no way at all. i don't have to get the entire loaf today, though i'd like to. what i do have to do is be able to tell folks back home, tell the children back home in a we're moving the ball in the right direction and there will e a solution on the horizon. host: we have kansas city, missouri, on the line. good morning. caller: my question, mr. woodall, could you please explain to americans why the government isn't already shut down -- the institutions in -- building not

seven blew down on 9/11? host: go ahead. how are you? caller: i've been listening to c-span quite a bit and from what i could see, this -- we couldn't have any jobs. obama, he went ahead and had a speech saying we need to make college more affordable. where is all these people that are going to college now supposed to work? we need to get our jobs back that we shipped off to china, that we're shipping off overseas and then everybody starts working and we have insurance. decline in the job market that's causing this whole problem. guest: al, i think you're absolutely right. we're getting distracted on issue after issue. some important international issues. some just a washington, d.c. issues but distracted from what

everyone back home wants to talk about and that's jobs and the economy. you're absolutely right, these other solutions won't matter if you can't get a job, if you can't feed your family, if you can't support your spouse and your children. there is agreement -- there's a possibility of agreement to come together on these issues. i think of a letter that the president of the boilermakers union sent to the president recently that said, mr. president, we supported you when you ran for president but now you're coming out with brand new environmental regulations that congress hasn't approved that will destroy jobs in virginia, west virginia, ohio. we need you to worry about us and our jobs. jobs are one of those things that bring people together, al. we can absolutely pass bills today. i think you'll see some moving through the house this week and next that can begin to address that job issue one bit of a time. there is no silver bullet for jobs in this country. we have to create an environment where people want to create jobs in this country.

the closest thing we have to a silver bullet would be fundamental tax reform. i'm a believer in the fair tax as a right path for that. i think you'll see in these debt limit negotiations a desire. the president talked about it in his four of the last five state of the union speeches. we talked about it in the house size. america has the highest corporate tax rate in the world. you know that's driving jobs offshore. we can change that today and put people book to work. host: thank you so much. next call from jackie in colorado springs, colorado on our line for republicans. go ahead. caller: hello? host: hi, jackie. guest: good morning, jackie. caller: yes, good morning. i wanted to make a comment. number one, raymond from massachusetts talked about senator cruz, you know, what he's doing, doesn't amount to anything and why is he doing this? i'm asking raymond, what are you doing to preserve our country and the freedom in our country? i lived in germany for sometime

and the social medicine over there, the doctors' offices were very dirty. the doctors, underneath their fingernails were dirty. people sat on one bench. i was there seven years ago. they were like cattle. so i applaud, i applaud senator ted cruz, as young as he is, certainly he's young and learning just like anybody had to learn. the senators did not support him. they went home, went to bed. but he has carried on in spite of it all, he carried on and i just applaud senator ted cruz. thank you, sir. guest: jackie, you're absolutely right. participation matters. i tell anyone who listens. america is not run by 51% of americans. it's run by 51% of people who invest their time and energy and passion that try to change.

whatever end of the political spectrum you're on, the more folks that we have involved, the more that think they can make a change, i applaud to anyone who will stand up and have their voice heard. host: congressman, earlier this week, "the wall street journal" discussed the efforts by senator cruz and mike lee from utah. i'll read that and have you respond. they said we lost this debate and cruz and lee in charge. if they succeed in defunding obamacare we'll gladly give them due credit. but if things don't don't go well, let's not hear any excuses about the "surrender caucus" or claims that it would all have worked out if only everyone were as brave and principled as generals up at h.q." your thoughts. guest: we are concerned about the president's health care bill. whether it's intended damage or unintended damage, we want to see that damage stopped. we want to see folks have

access as the president promised through their health care plan if they want to keep it. so we disagree on how to get to that goal. i might have said the best way was to negotiate on the debt ceiling. that's what we have seen president obama do in the past. we've seen president reagan do it. we've seen president bush do it. that may have been what i said is the strongest area. you don't always get to choose when you have that fight. i will tell you, and it's a great source of inspiration and hope to me, this was not on the agenda as the right time to fight in july. but it is now in september. and the only thing that changed in those intervening 45 days is the voice of the american people rose up around this issue. it's not as if ted cruz is operating in a vacuum. i get calls every single day. i am not talking about two or three calls. i'm talking about hundreds of thousands of calls of folks saying we appreciate what ted cruz is doing and we hope folks in the house can support that. good news is the house listened

to those voters, listened to those american citizens. we did act in the house and, yes, now it sits in the senate and only the senate can control the outcome from here on out. host: vote on this measure as the house already has? guest: my view is the senate should respond to the will of the people. the will of the people i think is to delay this bill until we can fix things that we all agree are a problem in it. i haven't heard any of that from the leadership in the senate that they're interested in moving in that direction but i hope we'll hear some of that this week. host: talking to congressman rob woodall of georgia. miami, florida, on our line for independents. go ahead. caller: good morning. i'm actually just flabbergasted listening to this. i hear the u.s. politician saying we and i know what my constituents want and the majority of the people do not want obamacare. but i agree with what nancy pelosi has said, that the

bill as a used this shutdown of government in order health care bill as being able to -- use it -- what did she call it -- political arsonnists, legislative arsonnists, that's what she calls you. and when i listen the way of what you know the american people want and what you're getting from only one side, and you're only getting one side because you're republican and you support this ideology and i'm just finding it completely offensive because i love obamacare. i don't find it a bad word. it's a great thing. we need universal health care. and just like back when social

security was considered a communist idea, and so your philosophy as a politician and ou support it has i think been just a terrible thing. just a terrible thing. guest: i know those are heart-felt comments, juana. i'll tell the caller that my philosophy that my philosophy is the one of freedom. it's the one that our founding fathers had. it's one we've been trying to perfect over the years. but the president told me if i like my health care plan i could keep it. he didn't make that promise to me as a congressman. he made that promise to more than 300 million americans. i see people in my district losing health insurance every single day as a result of this bill. not only that, they're losing their jobs. they used to have one 40 hour a week job that had modest benefits. now they're working three part-time jobs and have no benefits at all. i know that's not what the president intended. you talk about your desire for

universal health care. i categorically disagree with you. i understand where you're coming from. the president's bill doesn't achieve universal health care. it leaves tens of millions of americans uncovered. we can do better. i -- i know there is a crisis here that we needed to address as a nation. it crafted exactly the wrong solution. know we're not saying we don't have an issue we need to work on. we do. families in my district don't need to lose their jobs and their health insurance in order to achieve the president's goals. host: democrats line. go ahead. caller: hello. how are you? guest: good morning. caller: good morning. i do appreciate you coming on talking to people. i don't agree with you. i really feel -- if i'm right,

president nixon first tried to start -- to have some way of controlling health care costs. i think that controlling health care costs have gotten -- not controlling health care costs has gotten us to where the debt is so big and i think obamacare was an effort to try to control health care costs. i think you need to work within he system to make it better. i don't think it's perfect. i do think -- i happen to be a disabled and 0% the v.a. system works pretty damn good. i just want to know -- and i see a lot of that system in obamacare. i don't find that objectionable at all. i just wish that people would get behind it, try to make it better and work within your

committees. the congress has been be aer gaiting their responsibility so badly i think it's just time to -- it's been three years since it was approved. get behind it. start to work it better, make it a much better system. thank you. guest: i very much appreciate your service. i appreciate your kind words about the v.a. system. we've been working awfully hard here to try to make sure that the v.a. system gets better and better and better. as you know, having been a patriot of that system, has not always been a topnotch system and we have been working in a bipartisan way to try to make that better. but understand that the congress, when you talk about advocating congressional responsibility, the congress actually has no responsibility in the area of obamacare. in 1996, bill clinton and newt gingrich, they came together in a bipartisan way, they solved all these problems for every single health care plan that the federal government was allowed to regulate. what obamacare is doing is

reregulating every insurance plan that state governments are responsible to regulate. there is not one bit of obamacare, not one line that we couldn't have done in the great state of georgia. that you couldn't have been done in california. that couldn't have done across every state of the nation. my complaint with the president's health care system, larger than the freedoms that it's taking from my constituents, to make their own health care choices, is it's crafting a one-size-fits-all plan for a nation that is not one size fits all. our creativity comes from trying different things. that's what creates new productivity in this country. california has good ideas with medical malpractice that the states ought to look at and adopt. but if we had a one-size-fits-all malpractice system, we wouldn't learn from each other what skeds and what fails. again, thank you -- what succeeds and what fails. again, thank you for your service and know that the folks

at the v.a. have been working hard and we've been working hard in concert with them to make sure that system serves you. you've earned it and we want you to have it. host: there have been a number of articles about the government shutdown. one hits on what jim mentioned, that veterans' benefits were delayed. you heard officials in the pentagon suggest that military paychecks could be delayed though troops will remain on the job if there is a government shutdown. do you think there are other things that need to be protected if we get to the point if there is a government shutdown and what should happen to those? guest: one of the big reasons i'm opposed to a government shutdown is we won't make those decisions. this goes back to rommed reagan, the attorney -- ronald reagan, the attorney general -- the white house gets says what stays opened and closes. passing those appropriation bills that harry reid was talking about, that is our legislative responsibility in order to make decisions about what gets funded and what doesn't get funded in the

government. a lot of folks believe in a government shutdown, that that's going to solve our spending problem. truth is government shutdowns costs more. the president, o.p.m., o.m.b., all those three-letter agencies in the executive branch, they get to make the decisions about what stays open and what gets closed. host: you said you're against it. is there a limit of how long a government shutdown would last? guest: there is no reason for us to end up there. i can't imagine why one of our constitutional responsibilities is to fund the government. again, the house has been doing that all summer. we have not seen it in the senate. we've still seen nothing from the senate. at some point legislators have to legislate. and the american people should absolutely hold the legislature responsible if they can't even do the one job for which their title requires. legislating. what we saw back in the gingrich-clinton era is that one of those big decisionmaking points was when the military is

supposed to get paid. we have bipartisan support for our men and women in uniform and what they do for us. we're grateful to them for that. the military would get paid on october 1. it would be october 15 that would be the next decisionmaking point. that's what brought the first government shutdown in 1995 to a close. i have no doubt that that would have the same unifying effect here. i don't think we're going to get there. again, we passed a responsible piece of appropriations legislation out of the house. i don't know why the senate has not done the same. i know that the committee on the senate side has been working hard. harry reid has not brought any of these bills to the floor. we can come together and get this funding done. this is a crisis of washington's creating. it's not a crisis that needs to happen. host: let's take another call from bonnie in worcester, ohio, on the republican line. go ahead. caller: yes. thank you for being on. i totally support you and these other callers, i oppose what they have said. i have great admiration for ted

cruz. i believe he has put his political career on the line, that he'll get a lot of negative publicity and whether he is thinking about running for president, i tonight think that is entering in his mind. he's doing a great thing knowing that this health care is a train wreck. it's terrible. i think our founding fathers would be appalled that a person like nancy pelosi would say you have to read a bill or pass a bill before you can read it. this is what's made us -- this is what's ruined the whole thing. we needed to read the bill, we needed to discuss the bill, all of the flaws that are in it, before we even came close to thinking about passing. it's such a tremendously awful bill. taking a you for stand. i hope that every republican senator and congressman will take a stand and we have an alternative plan. one of the callers, what sour plan? well, we do have an alternative

plan. all you need to see there is an alternative plan on the republican side. thank you so much for taking a stand. guest: bonnie, you are right, there are alternatives out there. not just republican alternatives. bipartisan alternatives. the way this health care bill was passed, it had no bipartisan support. in fact, it didn't even go through the regular process where the house and senate come together and work out the details and make sure it's ready for primetime. it got jammed through in a highly unusual political process and we're seeing the results of that today. unfortunately when washington makes those kinds of mistakes, it's not washington that suffers. it's individual american families, individual american citizens that suffer. we can do better. again, the president identified exactly the right problem of the uninsured in this country. and i commit to you i'd love to work with him to craft a solution for that. his bill, as much as he tried to do, he would admit falls short of insuring all

americans. we can do better and we should. host: next up, missouri on the line for independents. go ahead. caller: yeah. i'd just like to say the government's been shut down for the last 15 years. and more so the last 4 1/2, five years because of this ama -- there's no reason for it. the government can do their jobs. they shut us down out here. if we can't do our jobs, they need to be shut down too. guest: i understand your sentiment. i get that from a lot of folks back home. i think in a government shutdown, it's not the government that gets punished. it's the american people that gets punished. if you planned that family vacation to go to that national park and you have three generations of your family together for the first time in a long time, the park is closed. it's not the park employee that's going to suffer, it's your family that's going to suffer. when veterans' benefits that

doesn't go out, it's not the government that suffers. it's the veteran that suffers. i am not a politician. i am a public servant. my job is to serve the public. government shutdowns happen to be -- and it's a sad circumstance, but it's the only time the president comes to capitol hill to visit with me. i've been in congress for 2 1/2 years. the only times, juana, that i've been able to have a back and forth from the white house about policy is during these debt ceiling negotiations, during these government shutdown negotiations. just on an ordinary day, the president's not coming to capitol hill. you heard that press conference that he had about a month ago where the president said ordinarily i would have gone to congress to seek this delay about the impacts of the president's health care bill but these are not ordinary times and so i'm going to use my executive power and do it by myself. the founding fathers did not intend this. both parties are responsible for how we got to this point. we've got to come back together

and make this government work the way the founding fathers intended and that is with congress working to craft a congressional position. the president having a president's position and us coming together and working out those details in a way that benefits the american people. host: what affect will this have on the u.s. economy, perhaps markets or credit rating? guest: as i read the reporting coming out of new york and chicago, it seems folks believe as i believe we are not going to have a government shutdown. that this is the kind of theater that you have to go through in order to make a deal, in order to sort things out. you know, making a deal has a negative conowe take to it, i have -- connotation to it, if we don't have conversations with each other, as we have not -- again, 2 1/2 years in congress, i've seen the president on policy issues two times. if we're not going to be able to work together during the normal course of the year, the only time to bring us together is in crisis. as you know from your reporting

here, sometimes this town responds better to a croix cisthan it does to -- crisis than it does to prevent a crisis. host: the line for crates. -- for democrats. caller: i'm here. host: go ahead. you're on "washington journal." caller: yes, my question is, i have seen so much dissension between the representatives, the senators and the congressmen fighting when they're supposed to be battling for the people and not for themselves. it seems like everyone is go against each other instead of working together and not working for the american people who they are supposed to be working for. and we have veterans here that have gone above and beyond. they've lost lives. they've lost limbs. and now they're talking about a government shutdown that is

maybe a possibility. you know, i think that the government owes more to the american people than what it's putting out. i'm not blaming president obama. i'm not blaming the senators or the representatives or congress. i say it's time to stop fighting one another and come together as humans and do what is right for everyone and stop all this bickering between one another because it's insulting. and this is supposed to be the government -- this is supposed to be the government for the people, not the government for the senators and representatives in congress, but for the people and somewhere the people have been forgotten in this battle that's gone on between democrats, representatives and independents and i really do think that it's time to change. guest: i hope that call lifts you up like it lifts me up.

linda, i could not agree with you more. we absolutely have an obligation to serve. one of the neat things i've been able to see in 2 1/2 years with a voting card in the seventh district of georgia is that 40% of the house has been serving for three years or less. the american people have done a pretty good job in the house of trying to find folks that they believe are really are servants, that are in it for the people and not in it for themselves. we had a lot of turnover over the past three years. but what i do want to caution you as you look at that and walk away with some pessimism, understand there is some petty bickering here and we have an obligation to shut that down, but there is some real disagreement about what's best for america. you know, emp wants to do what's right -- everyone wants to do what's right for their children and their grandchildren. the president believes what's right is continue borrowing as much money as we can borrow and

invest that in the future and by doing that we'll create a better future for them. now folks like me believe the best thing we can do for our children is to stop borrowing, to go back and pay back the bills that their parents and their grandparents have borrowed and spent, pay back those dollars so those children can grow up debt-free. now, those are two very different visions for how it is to help children have a better future. but they are both heart felt visions. and the conflict that you see is the conflict that comes when you really love your children, when you really want the best for your children but you have two categorically opposed ideas about how best to serve them. that conflict has been a healthy part of the american history for many, many years. we need to do away with the petty bickering and focus on those big issues, try to come together and find consensus. you really lift me up. i appreciate your sentiment. host: let's stay with the debt ceiling. is not raising the debt ceiling an option to make sure that the health care law is not

completely funded? guest: there's no budgetary option for not raising the debt ceiling. i think of the budget that i introduced, for example, an incredibly conservative budget, but it took four years. rand paul had a budget that took four years. there's not one budget proposal in washington, d.c. that says i can get to balance tomorrow, we don't need to raise the debt ceiling. what we need to see, juana, is if you don't have a plan to get our budget to balance sometime, tomorrow, a year from tomorrow, 10 years from tomorrow, then we're going to have to raise the debt ceiling forever. do we have to raise the debt ceiling tomorrow to pay the bills? we do. but we shouldn't raise the debt ceiling without a commitment from all sides, house, senate, white house, to get on a path to balance one day. borrowing indefinitely is not a plan for economic success.

i can cooperate with my colleagues on any plan that brings me to balance. i just need to see a commitment from them that we are going to get them one day and one day soon. host: sure. we'll take one last call from congressman woodall of georgia. republican line, go ahead. caller: yeah, i kind of feel sorry for obama the way you guys treat him. i'm a republican and i think you guys treat him like a dog. and as far as cruz goes, he's an independent -- an idiot. they need to send him back to canada where he belongs. host: thank you, congressman woodall, for coming here. it's a pleasure to speak with you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] >> the house gaveling in briefly and then legislative work begins at 5:00 with four bills on the agenda, including one that deals with federal helium reserves. the house is waiting senate action this week on the continuing resolution, or the c.r., that would fund the

federal government until september 30. they'll take a vote on that. and at the top of the hour here on c-span, we will take you to the white house where spokesman jay carney takes questions from reporters. scheduled to begin at 1:00 eastern and we'll have it as soon as it gets started. >> originally in 1840, this was two houses. they were joined together. the downstairs was used as retail space. the upstairs was the home of the bowlings. this is the first room of edith bowling wilson. this was the bedroom of her parents. she was the seventh of 11 children born to the bowlings. she was one of over 20 family members that lived in the bowling home. this is the back sleeping porch. this is where edith would gather with her family where they would enjoy evenings together. edith's parents sent her to washington, d.c. to keep her away from this older gentleman

who was wishing to court her. there she met and married h.r. first husband, norman, and it really changed her life. >> watch our program on the two wives of president woodrow ilson at our website c-span.org/firstladies. or see it on c-span at 7:00 p.m. eastern. . d we continue our series >> coming up tonight, debate for virginia's next governor. and terry li mcauliffe in virginia. our live coverage begins at 7:00 eastern on c-span3. earlier, we spoke to a reporter about that race. >> thank you for joining us this morning. >> good to be here, john. >> what are we looking for at this debate tonight? what are the key issues that are going to be in play between the two candidates in that

debate? guest: well, i think the main thing everybody is looking for whether the republican, ken cuccinelli, can do anything to make up lost ground. he polls have him behind the -- there is a different situation between last spring when he was ahead in a lot of the polls. but "the washington post" had a poll this week with him eight points behind in a three-way race. there's a libber tarian running as well -- libertarian running as well. five points behind in there is a head-to-head race. sort of over the summer, big advertising campaign by the democrats by terry mcauliffe, their candidate, was successful it seems in pushing a lot of voters to view cuccinelli as basically too far to the right, especially on social issues, especially on women's issues. and this is a big opportunity

to -- for cuccinelli to turn things around. host: the questions, one of the interesting things that came out of that poll, that "washington post" poll that you talked about was the tone of this race. one of the questions you asked was, do you have a high -- does the candidate have a high personal moral and ethical standards? and we can sew both for mcauliffe and cuccinelli, that negative opinion has shot up dramatically from may 13 until now. 35% say that -- talk about the tone of this race? guest: it's negative. both candidates have spent a lot of time and money to try to paint as one another as ethically challenging. both of these candidates started out as flawed. everybody who knew anything about this race knew from the

start that both of them had big problems. far , cuccinelli is very on the conservative side. he's a very popular leader of the tea party and of the religious right. plus, he got tarred a little bit, not a whole lot but a little bit by this big scandal in richmond that has enveloped the republican governor, bob mcdonald, over gifts from a businessman. and terry mcauliffe and the democrats have been hitting him on that. mcauliffe has never held elected office. he's mainly known for having been chairman of the democratic national committee under bill clinton and having raised a lot of money, you know, millions and millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars for the clintons. especially. and for the democratic party. and he's got some questionable business dealings or at least suspicious business dealings in

his past. most notably in the present, an electric car company that he started up has not really produced very much in the way of yobs or cars. and it's currently under federal investigation for , ssibly having violated rules overgiving visas to investors. he was the founder and chairman of the company and of course the republicans have been making a big deal about that. so both of these guys have been vulnerable to attack on ethics complaints, and that has hurt the tone of the campaign. plus, you know, neither one of them has a record that he wants to stand on. i mean, cuccinelli, i mean, his record is very popular with the tea party and with the

religious right. but he needs to get some people in the middle, not just independents, but moderate republicans to support him. and his record isn't very conducive to that. then as i mentioned, mcauliffe, who's never held elected office -- host: we'll look for all those issues tonight during the debate. thank you for joining us for a quick preview of it. guest: my pleasure. >> again, we have the debate for you tonight at 7:00 eastern on c-span3. virginia attorney general ken cuccinelli and democratic candidate terry mcauliffe in richmond, virginia. we'll show you the floor of the u.s. senate, the procedural vote under way, the vote on the temporary spending bill that would defund the health care law. this is a procedural vote. our live coverage of the senate always on c-span2. we're standing by to bring you today's white house briefing with spokesman jay carney that's scheduled to begin any

minute now. there you see the briefing room. obviously mr. carney not out there just yet. we'll watch for just a moment and if he doesn't get started we'll bring you something from "washington journal."