under then governor mitt romney. our guest is john king still who ran the outpatient program for massachusetts. we will also take your calls, e- mails and tweets. andy look at today's news. and a look at today's news. ♪ >> good morning, it is the "washington journal" for november 19. president obama will meet with the select senate legionnair les today. several stories in the paper talk about the status of those discussions. president obama will also sit down for an hour long interview with wall street journals gerald side. that at c-span.org. it is the 150th anniversary of the gettysburg address.

government of the people by the people and for the people that shall not perish from the earth. on this anniversary we want to get your thoughts not only on the speeches that were told that end, but what it means for our country today. here's how you can do so -- >> if you want to give us your thoughts on the gettysburg address via twitter you can do so. as always, you can e-mail us at span.org. >> i hear some of the speech that was delivered back on november 19, 1863. it is by president lincoln.

it is rather frustrated dedicated to the great task remaining before us that we take increased devotion to the cause that they gave their last full measure of devotion. perhaps you have thoughts about these lines are presently can delivered back then. social media is available to as well. facebook is it with you can do so. we had a few people posting on this as we started this morning. ourbook.com/c-span is

facebook page. you can also tweak your thoughts to that c-span wj. the associated press takes a speech thatg the defined a nation. thousands expected to gather today in gettysburg to commemorate lincoln's word. again, you may have thoughts on

the speech as well. for first 45 minutes we will look at other topics, but the gettysburg address is what we want you to comment on this morning. the phone numbers will be on your screen. again, reach out to us on social media, two. here is james from seattle, washington. james, good morning. at first thought, what does the gettysburg address mean to you today? as an african american, the gettysburg address is just the beginning. if you read the bill of rights and the constitution, we are trying to form a more perfect union. during this time in history, we see a lot of conflict and people can pairing to the civil war. it is because united states is becoming a more diversified country. we have more blacks. a white person cannot just get ed.ct di they must now get other people to try to vote for them. nine out of 10 of the people

that voted for him was white. imagine if we had a country that white people were allowed -- like to say we have inalienable rights that were given to us by god. black people did not have these rights. we had to fight, we were oppressed and we had to struggle for these rights. thank you. guest: host: joseph next. we've got something really exciting happening in my home county and the state of georgia. we're trying to bring -- the last caller was very interesting. we want to make our county the most positive county in the world and george of most positive county. we have people like commerce meant tom graves are helping us and bury loudermilk and david pennington. we want to bring people together and encourage people. pedro, be the best you can be. be committed to excellence. we all need to come together and

be the best person we can be. dream big. that aside, your daddies -- what is the impact of the gettysburg address on your today? it just energized me to try to be the best person i can be and it just was a great address, pedro. i can't tell you, just fired me up and i think it fired all the american people up for it i think it's still far as me up today. i really appreciate c-span. you do a great job. host: that is joe from georgia. we are engaged in a great civil war, president lincoln said.

philip, from boulevard, california on our democrats line. caller: hi i just wanted to call you today and hopefully we could address this magnifico day for us and embrace our president a little more. ,e need that at this time especially with all these hurricanes and stuff that is happening around our country and around the world. we need to come together as , republicans and start embracing our president a little more. i don't see that yet. you called the speech a magnificent day. why is that specifically? caller: we needed and we need republicans to hear this. 150th anniversary of

the gettysburg address. this is the "richmond times dispatch." milton is up next in san jose california, independent line. i just wanted to say i'm glad the north won and i think union is greater than liberty. i know there are a lot of people that might disagree, but we live in a beautiful country and it think it is because we are united in spite of our differences. sometimes that means we have to forsake a little bit of liberty for a better cause. it is for a country, for our patriotism, it is for what connects us as people. think that is a beautiful thing. what influenced you think

the speech had in our current day? caller: i think right now we live in a time where people are very concerned about the state and liberty. i don't fault anybody for being upset about that, but we are a country. we have a unity, we have a patriotism, we should stick to it. that means sometimes accepting that just because you are getting your way, you have to have some faith that this beautiful country of ours which has survived over two centuries and has been to some hard times, but we are still here. i am a young man and i am pumped. and tomm joins us not is from fort lauderdale on our republican line. hi. gettysburgee the overcoming or

the majorne of reasons for slavery and that is why ignorance. when i say white ignorance i mean that even some of the best scholars of the day said that a 3/5 of a humans being. that was totally ignorant. but yet some of the most learned people in our nation believed that. this is not taught in our schools and i think the reason it is not taught is that it has thattain understanding makes the advent of slavery somewhat understandable. people can't really swallow that. i don't disparage anything that black people say about slavery and civil rights, but there are

aspects of the advent of slavery that is factual and people need to hear. another thing that is not taught didchools is that slavery not begin in the united states. slavery -- slaves were not imported to the united states by colonists. slavery began in africa. do you think that the colonists knew where to go in africa and where to capture black slaves? from mary is joining us magnolia, alabama on the independent line. caller: i would just like your listeners before the, not the speech to read it. understood what the sacrifice was for this country and to bring it back together.

he was going to reach his hand and reconstruct it, to bring us together. it was unity. he was so devastated in his mind and his soul that it took so many people to die and sacrifice for this country. we are remembering john kennedy another important president. we should start understanding the government is to work for us . we don't work for the government and we must ask what our country -- we must ask where we can do for our country, not where country can do for us. and lincoln, god rest him and god bless him for what he stood togetherow he kept his and how to this day 150 years later he is still inspiring us. our president today is sitting

in the white house and not even going to gettysburg and andgnizing are to president what is to bring us together and unite us. from there's merit alabama, one of the folks at is making this major awareness campaign of the duesberg address. ken burns has a national outreach of the campaign is reaching out to all of the presidents to read the gettysburg address. >> fourscore and seven years ago >> our fathers brought forth on continent. >> now we are engaged in a great civil war. we are met on a great battlefield of that war.

>> we have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place -- >> for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. >> it is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. >> but in a larger sense we cannot dedicate -- >> we cannot consecrate -- >> the brave men living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it. note ororld will little long remember what we say here -- >> but it can never forget what they did here. >> to beget -- to be dedicated here to the unfinished work -- >> it is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- >> that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause -- >> photo gave the last full thatre of devotion -- >>

we highly resolve that these dead should not have died in vain -- >> that this nation, under god -- >> should have a new birth of freedom. , ofnd that this government the people, by the people and for the people -- >> shall not perish from this earth. mr. burns, thanks for joining us. guest: i'm very pleased to join. in april pbs is going to be showing a film called the address about wars of the greenwood school in tiny putney, vermont. these boys are asked each year to memorize and then publicly recite the gettysburg address him a formidable task for anyone. is a minefield for them and yet they do it and do it heroically. in the editing of this film had the idea that maybe we should left,e entire country,

right and center to do it. we live in really fractured and very few things remind us of why we agree to cohere as a people. there is too much for both and not a few known. -- there is too muchpluribus unum. ordinaryum folks are contributing things at great variety. stadiums are setting it, the u.s. soccer team, schools from alabama and utah, all over the place. people in their 90s, little kids arising and resetting the gettysburg address, which is quite exciting. host: as a understand it you're heading to ginsburg today? guest: i'm pulling up not to the visitor center where we will be filming citizens recording the

address for us and talking about the meeting on this important day, the 150th anniversary -- i do want to respond to a caller from alabama about the president. i had an opportunity to speak with him before he recorded the address for us. his only reason for not being there is modesty. he had spent so much time in august dealing with the 50th anniversary of martin luther king speech that he didn't want to feel that he was appropriating yet another one. this is not through lack of interest. he would love to be -- and he would love know better than to be here. this is about citizens coming here to these hallowed grounds, to the sacred that it feels. i think it is a much more interesting back story to that. "the washington post" said at the last president to attend this event was rutherford hayes. is that true? that is so interesting. talking to folks

getting a sense from them about what the gettysburg address means. what is your favorite part of the address? it is so hard to say. there's certainly a bit of irony in the fact that the world will little note or long remember what we say here but will never forget what they did here. in some ways our collective historical amnesia has actually forgotten the details of battle. in fact we have spent more time remembering the extraordinary presidential poetics of abraham lincoln. there is in a stunning statistic i learned that 83% of college graduates having diploma in hand thet tell you which speech phrase of buy-in for the people should not perish from the earth comes from. that tells us we have a lot to do as a society, as a people, as a policy. we are very good at arguing with one another, we are very good at forgetting the genius of our

country was compromised. but we need to investor sells in our history and all the personal as elective blessings that flow from our extraordinary history. gettysburgthe address is doubling down on the declaration of independence. thomas jefferson wrote that all men are created equal. he owned more than 100 human to freend never thought of any one of them. he set in motion an american narrative that would eventually fourscore and five years later erupt in a great civil war. lincoln traveled four and half months after the greatest battle on american soil, 10,000 dead, 56,000 casualties, to say we really do believe in what the declaration says. we now know that this is what a vision is. that wemarching orders still use to this day. the fact that he did it in two , that hend 272 words

did with such poetry grace, that he did it without proper names and without the usual celebratory bombast and belligerence that comes with speeches about battles, that he force that onch 9/11,rst anniversary of t that the first words of his address, that that they had anything to do with 9/11, but because they were the glue that .eld us together that words could be medicine. and that is the importance of his message. burns documentary set to air in april. pedro, we hopee, that you and all your listeners will memorize the gettysburg address. exercise,t some but i want all adults a do it. you will tape it up to mirror in

.he morning once you have intuited it like singing in a church you will feel really great. host: ken burns, thank you very much. as far as he hundred 50th anniversary, you can see what they take in. that will air on thanksgiving day. you can find out more on our american history tv website when you go to our c-span website. back to you, the viewers. on the significance to you of the gettysburg address. here ken burns give his spots. hummers will be on the screen. alameda, california. good morning, pedro. contrary to earlier from your callers on to thank the cable providers for c-span. calling again. "washington journal" never seems

to disappoint. the first collimated all racial and talked about lax fighting for the freedom. it was white republican males who volunteered to go down and liberate and free a bunch of slaves and never met, never knew . no republican ever owned a slave. i think that all young african- american students should be brought to places like , antietam, bull run , and see the sacrifices they made for people they never knew. hitler made the same mistake when he was so confident that a american losing playboys or get off their couches to save a bunch of friends people. no republican ever owned a slave. caller: hi, this is offered. i had to memorize the gettysburg address in middle school and -- what ite to me

showed to me was that we have always been an exceptional nation. i realized we are an exceptional a credoecause we are nation dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. that truly makes united states, our republic, unique among .ations of the world of the 18 century, france tried, but they are on their fifth republic. lenin tried in 1917 with the and that lasted about 75 years. so if you ask what a frenchman or china men or and the theyieves,

can't say. i think that is what makes our republic exceptional. three thoughts on the state of the union especially in the light of the hundred 50th anniversary of the gettysburg address. from vancouver, canada. this is randall. caller: it has been years. situation i a little angry with now is because the united states is in a situation in assertt is creating -- i -- and understand subject. i don't appreciate the fact that

americans like to honor and celebrate tragedies in their history. there are never more americans killed in any war than the civil war. brother against brother, father against son, we around the world are wondering why is that happening in the united states continuously and it continues to go on, war after war, continuous wars? the rest of the world is getting tired of it. your neighbors or to the north, we are getting sick and uninsured also. i'm sure his mexican nation is also targeted to. i'm sorry to be so angry, but i am. thank you. host: walter up next from bridgeton, new jersey, independent line. caller: the caller who just called from canada makes a very good point. -- you call ohas

two called and said with the republicans own slaves, the republican party at that time was basically a part of the north. the seven people were democrats. we should make the civil war a partisan issue or a racial issue. it was something that was done and it was a tragedy and we should not still be fighting the civil war. host: what you think about the speech? is a greats beach speech. he was trying to unify the country but it seems like the country is still not unified. partisan they, racially or regionally. here is darrell from nashville, georgia on the democrats line. caller: i'm a veteran.

just want people to know that i've been listening to a lot of callers calling in. we need to bring this country together. i'm a christian. we need to start praying and me need to start asking god to bring us together as one. have hate in your heart if you're a child of god? when you start praying, stop seeking man. darrell, your thoughts on the gettysburg address it saw specifically. what are they? [indiscernible]

we are still in slavery. two thoughts from facebook this morning. 70 people making the thoughts on facebook did you can continue the conversation there as well. facebook.com/c-span is how you can do that or it from the front page of "the wall street journal" takes a look at jpmorgan.

saying thatick is the decision came on monday. it is a $13 billion settlement that resolves a number of legal headaches for the u.s. bank, clearing the way for public announcement as soon as today. they added that the final piece holding up the deal is for billion dollars worth of aid to distressed homeowners was completed on monday. the historic settlement and several investigations and lawsuits targeting soured mortgage bonds issued before the financial crisis and amounts of the biggest combination of fines -- is a 100 50th anniversary of the gettysburg address. you may have heard our guest ken burns talk about on the phone, we are getting your thoughts on it as well on this day and what it means to you. the thought of lincoln, what he said today and what it meant back then and what it means today.

steve from pennsylvania, republican line. good morning. actually, i am calling on the independent online. still celebrated and talked about and discussed by so many of us. it is a true testament to great words and great men. their words live forever. one of the comments i wanted to talk about was that one of the callers talked about the learned , considering the slaves as 3/5 of a person. my understanding that the reason that the 3/5 as a person was the governmentn is being set up to be based upon the proportion of population local how many representatives

for states -- slave states the slavehave population counted. the northern states insisted they should not be counted because they did not have the full rights and the full voting cap abilities as the freeman. so the compromise, which is a dirty word in today's government with the current conditions in washington, but the compromise was that 3/5 of the population would be counted for the proportional representation of the people. had his place in history . the people of the united states, for the most part, are much better off. you can argue that it is much -- as much of a great conqueror of the bad things he was, he was also very cognizant of the plight of the american indian people out west. the policies out there were

pretty severe. so there is good and bad. but the gettysburg address is one of the greatest documents by man, in my opinion. thank you. host: the national security agency is the subject of several stories this morning. the boston globe saying the supreme court is rejecting a challenge to the nsa program. the justices declined to hear thetion, saying that foreign intelligence surveillance court had exceeded its statutory jurisdiction when it ordered production of millions of domestic telephone records that cannot plausibly be relevant to an authorized investigation. another story from the "washington post" looking at intelligence documents released by the federal government, saying this was an 87-page order and lays out the argument for the collection of the foreign

collection act. saying the relevance to collect the information was necessary for use of this very valuable investigative tool at the early states of a foreign intelligence and international terrorism investigation. it included a memo sent to the house and senate intelligence committee in 2009 which the nsa that it failed to abide by the court imposed minimization rules. international relations is the topic of this one, looking at the larger issues of data collection. headlines -- spy claims hurt trade talks, says angela merkel. her toughest words on the scandal so far, the chancellor said the relationship with the u.s. in the negotiation of a transatlantic free-trade agreement are currently without doubt, being put to the test without accusation.

her first comments, the said newt, ms. merkel trust can only come with transparency and a recognition that the transatlantic relationship was for both sides look especially for germany, a true guaranty of treatment security. d from miami, florida, talking about the gettysburg address this morning. talk aboutanted to the actual use of "four score and seven years ago, our fathers , out of all the many books and writings about lincoln and his gettysburg address, no one has accurately explained why lincoln used that. of course, the watchers score and seven years ago was 87 years , going back in time from 1863 to 1776.

even though he used 87 years, when he gave a speech at the white house on july 4 1863 right after the battle of gettysburg and right after the siege at pittsburgh had ended, lincoln realized he was always referred to as father abraham. he used that as the master politician he was. and four score and six years ago 1616.m genesis it is the first use of the word "score" in the king james bible. story of abram, who of course in the next chapter is renamed abraham by god. genesis 1616, cointreau score , was abramrs ago when the slave woman hagar gave

birth to his son. host: that is aot of information. how did you learn all of this? caller: part of it is i am a bible expert. if everyone would look at thesis 1616, but it must be king james bible which is what was used back then. caller: marty, big town, texas, republican line. just wanted to express my view. i think the gettysburg address is probably one of the finest pieces of writing that we have .ad i feel it was honestly from his heart and he meant every word he had. sincere. also, what really strikes me of, for, and by " the people." i feel that is not how our congressional leaders lead

today, nor the president. we need to get back to that and get them out of there. or if they go in there and represent us, when they do not represent us anymore, they need to leave. that it is "of, for, and by the people," and we need to remember that. on the topicysis of gay marriage this morning with those saying that liz cheney's views changing on same- sex marriage has had many jump on the gay marriage bandwagon. the conservative base remains overwhelmingly opposed to gay marriage even at this intimate of the party establishment has dramatically shifted toward acceptance. the shift may be even more pronounced by 2016 or 2018. for now, cheney has calculated, probably correctly, it would be too risky for a republican

running and a heated wyoming senate primary to be anything but firmly against same-sex marriage. sunday, ms. cheney said she is supporting "the traditional definition of marriage." we have a call from kansas on our republican line. caller: good morning. just following on from some of the comments, particularly the gentleman who spoke about the idea of american exceptionalism. i agree with him. the thing that always gets me about the gettysburg address is how he encapsulated the whole idea that we are really one union. of course that was one of the primary reasons we went to war, to preserve the union. this thing is, what is exceptional is you can call this back to really first principles. we americans, the canadian solar's talk about the idea that we americans think we are

exceptional. i do not think we think we are exceptional. all the people we had, there was lincoln that the battlefield of gettysburg era to folks have not been there, they need to go. it is a very moving place to be. we have been several times. golived in new jersey, so we to the pennsylvania dutch area and then go down to gettysburg. it is always a wonderful day for us. doesn'ten you go, change your perceptions about the speech itself? -- does it change your perceptions? caller: i think it does. i think about lincoln being there and how moved he must have been because he was very close to the military. host: mobile, alabama, independent line. caller: good morning. the gettysburg address is a very beautifully written speech. like all of the other listeners

together a lotll of concepts in that speech. but you asked about what was the most moving part of it? --me, it was when he said there were a lot of people that died there. he said that we have come to , but in this cemetery the next sentence he said that we cannot dedicate or consecrate this cemetery. he said the man who died here have already consecrated these grounds. he was so right. it was so many people that died there. but he pulled so many concepts together. to me, that was the most moving part. let me read it. it says, and a larger sense, we cannot consecrate, we cannot follow this ground. the brave men living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. caller: exactly. you say it, yeah, i am the

president and adhere giving a speech, but it is really about these men who fought. it was northern soldiers as well as southern soldiers that were buried there. a lot of people died there. he is saying we're not doing anything. these men have already given. you know, the final price. when i read that, because i studied it a few months ago, and it really almost brought me to tears. host: what led you to study it? caller: i listen to c-span a lot in mytry to be active community. and i just see so much that needs to be done. like a lot of the people are saying, that our government, whether it is local government, national government, we vote for people, send them into office but phil and in many cases they do not live up to those kind of ideals. it is just a beautiful, moving document, and it is short.

the guyshey say one of who spoke before him spoke for like an hour. but lincoln, he was the president, but he said we cannot do anything with these grounds because these guys already have done that. they paid the price. host: there is a sidebar story today out of new york. the headline is -- the gettysburg redress. -- aspaper apologizes pennsylvania newspaper chided abraham lincoln's gettysburg address as "silly remarks." this week, and time for the 150th anniversary of the speech, harrisburg's patriot-is apologized for a judgment so flawed, tainted by hubris, so lacking in the perspective ittory would bring, that cannot remain unaddressed in our archives. it has gotten national attention

despite the tongue-in-cheek approach. it read in part -- our predecessors, perhaps under the influence of partisanship or strong during, as was common in the profession at the time ago called president ligon's or its silly remarks, deserving a veil of oblivion, apparently differentit and in and altogether ordinary message, unremarkable in eloquence and uninspiring. good morning, caller. i think this address in a large view but in a small view is plain and simple. it is the way our country was built. it is the way we lead it for so many years ago and even today because there are three words -- love, on, and respect. makings no need in us this thing any harder than it really is. it is not complicated. there are many things in life that as time goes on changes. you know, we go from the time of

lincoln where everything was written down with a pen that now,ink to where we are putting everything online and making websites. but the basis of it, the same thing you spoke on, love, honor, and respect. the way it was already laid down , no matter how much we dress things up today, the more we get back to basics, the quicker we will get back to what held this country together and what will hold this country together. love, honor, and respect your decision thing we need in our homes, in our cities, and the same thing we need in our streets. this is what makes this country what it is today, a very proud place to live. that is what makes as attractive to other countries. we are the only country that can stand today and save love, honor, and respect is what makes us who we are, the united states

of america. host: former presidential candidate john edwards starting a new law firm. this from the "new york times" this morning, saying he is opening a new law practice with his former partner david kirby. he has his eldest daughter on the payroll. we form the firm because we believe in the same thing, standing up for franchise and those who need equal chance, mr. edwards said in a telephone interview from north carolina. that is why we exist. the path back for mr. edwards ernestn curtis -- and may 2012 when he was acquitted and a mistrial was declared on five corruption charges. he had a pregnant mistress as he reached for the democratic presidential nomination in 2008. john from florida, independent line. caller: good morning. i just pray that today in all

the schools throughout the nation that the kids are being taught what we are speaking about today. i am a self -- to show that a self-educated man could write something so eloquent. i have been watching your programs on the battlefields, the 150th commemorations. disappointedust that our president cannot be there today, just like he was not there for the 150th anniversary of the battle of gettysburg. the 150th there for anniversary of the battle that gave us the emancipation proclamation. i do not know why he has something against these commemorations, but i wish someone could explain that to me. thank you. not: the president today only briefing senators, a select

amount of senators, on iranian negotiations, he will sit down with the "wall street journal" today to talk about a wide range of projects. you can see that live at c- span.org. tom from ohio, independent line. caller: thanks for taking my call. the gettysburg address, i mean, we could learn a lot from this book of our yesteryear politicians. politicians like abraham lincoln, they wanted to bring the people together. they were of the people. they were among the people. they saw us as one-on-one, not someone they rolled over. they saw us at the losses. i think today's politicians could learn something from the past politicians, of our forefathers, and start becoming more of a people's politician.

every time there is a serious issue, like health care, taxation, all these programs that come up, every time people start paying attention, that is when our political parties start dividing us appeared public versus private. poor versus rich. black versus white. is dividedtion that by our politicians instead of united by them. we can really take a lesson. it is not just the people taking a lesson from it. we demand our politicians turn back the clock a little bit and become more like our forefathers were they wanted to unite the people. thank you. a story from the associated press about the education secretary arnie duncan , writing to the education secretary continued to face criticism over remarks to dismiss white suburban moms for academichigher

standards. mr. duncan has consistently showed little patience for critics of the common core educational standards being implemented in 45 states and the district of columbia. but his remarks, as reported by politico, what a step further and add elements of race and class. it is fascinating to me that some of the pushback is coming from, sort of, white suburban moms who, all of a sudden, there child is not as brilliant as they thought they were and their school is not quite as good as they thought they were, and that is pretty scary. friday, you bet your house and where you live is everything on, my child going to be prepared. that can be a punch in the gut. it is said he chose his words poorly in trying to make his point. it is a globally competitive workforce. maryland up next -- marilyn up next from illinois. caller: i would like to go back

to the gettysburg address where it says that this nation under god shall have a new birth of freedom. eventually lincoln was , and they more or less dumped the reconstruction. so we started right in on the jim crow laws, things like that. so it makes the gettysburg hindsight,lly, in look hypocritical. that is my comment, as to why there is not a lot of respect for this document as it should be. the ideals are great. not long after this is when reconstruction was supposed to have taken place, and it was just dumped and given over to the southern states and they started their black laws, blue laws, whatever you want to call them. is significant that we are still talking about it? caller: exactly. from that point on, we took 100

years in order to get our rights, the freedoms that lincoln spoke about in the gettysburg address. a story in the "washington times" looking at the progress meeting on the december headline. it says the difference in a 10- betweenicits totals paul ryan' plan with deep spending cuts to reach a balance in a decade and the senate budget chairwoman patty murray whose 10-year plan includes higher taxes and spending and never reaches balance. even in the short term but the democrats would spend billions more than the gop in 2014 alone. there are differences in priorities, differences in approaches, which is why it think that a growing consensus is that budget negotiations will focus primarily on trying to address some of the near-term differences with a special focus on trying to partially requires

-- replace the sequester. that was representative chris van hollen. he says by narrowing the scope of the challenge, we may be up to make some progress. it is too early to tell. our last call from jersey city, new jersey, independent line. caller: it is great to speak to you today and to the rest of c- span about this topic. it is great to note -- hello? it is great to know that this in which the gettysburg penned, its panned -- was put together at the last moment. it was on a rail train, writing the gettysburg address suffering from a cold or he was trying to bring to the remembrance of the american people what the forefathers had initially

republic.n this new it brings back today all the veteran all that lincoln suffered at the hands of the people who called him a tyrant. they called him a dictator. in the newspapers he was called so many different things. when the gettysburg address is as important today, you must remember the concept of the americans, of what our words stand for. the lady that's moe -- spoke just a moment ago, yes, the reconstruction basically flew in the face of everything that was set up until that moment. the gettysburg address has significance and that it brings back to remembrance of the american people what was fought for in the revolution and the birth of this nation. the 150thlast call on

anniversary of the gettysburg address. coming up, we will get the affordable care act your next, joining us will be representative tim murphy, democrat from pennsylvania, on the affordable care act. be joined bywill tom daschle, a former democratic senator from south dakota who will give his perspective on the affordable care act as well. we will have that and more as "washington journal" continues after this. ♪ >> today marks the 150th anniversary of president

lincoln's gettysburg address. look for our coverage from soldiers national cemetery, including the keynote address from a civil war historian. next week, thanksgiving day, at 4:00 and 10:00 p.m. eastern on c-span3's american history tv. publican, we bring affairs events from washington directly to you, putting you in the room at congressional hearings, white house events, briefings, and conferences, and offering complete gavel to gavel coverage of the u.s. house, all as a public service of private industry. we are c-span, created by the cable tv industry 34 years ago and funded by your local cable or satellite provider, and now you can watch us in hd. >> if you are a middle or high school student, c-span's student the most to know with important issue congress should address next year. make a five to seven-minute

video and include c-span programming for your chance to win the grand prize of $5,000, with $100,000 in total prizes. the deadline is january 20. get more information at studentcam.org. "washington journal" continues. host: joining as is representative tim murphy, republican from pennsylvania. another hearing looking at affordable care, at least an aspect of it. what is it about? guest: this'll focus on the security of the system. it is a great concern for people if they send private information , personally identifiable information, to the website. is that information going to remain private? so you have your name, address, e-mail, and your social security number, and a little bit of medical information that go you want to make sure that a hacker will not take that information and use it for their concerns. we have heard that it is a

pretty porous website, that hackers can get into it. we have heard of people getting misinformation, and people e- mailed other people's personal information. we are going to try to find out about the security system and if they knew it was going to be a problem. host: what kind of answers do you think you will get to those questions? i am not sure. we expect them to be upfront with us. but we have heard in the past members of the administration tell us that everything was fine along the way. now we're finding out that it appears they were briefed several months ago that it was were seriousthere concerns. but they came before congress and told us things were "on track. so now we are wondering why they told us one thing that could get their briefings were entirely different. on the "washington post" a story that you're quoted on. it has information that came out before the launch of the website

about concerns. firm: yes, there was a hired to give them consultant information on how things are going. they conducted a lot of interviews and reviewed a lot of data. then what we find out is as early as march 28 there was a briefing at the cms headquarters in baltimore were they said there are serious problems with the website. at hhs headquarters in washington, d.c., the secretary civilians was there and others. then another one on april 5. another one on april 8 at the white house office. people were told that the way this was designed in the problems being covered were and were not sure this could be fixed by october. chairman murphy is the

of the committee on oversight. on c-span at 10:00 or go to c-span.org. if you have questions about the website, it security, or things related, here is how you can do so -- 202-585-3880, democrats. 202-585-3881, republicans. 202-585-3882, independents. what are you looking for? guest: a lot of money has been spent. we want to know if we are idea -- adding more costs to this. the american public is quite distrustful of how the government is handling the health-care rollout. whether it is the promise that you could keep your health care if you liked it, the promise that the costs would go down,

the promises that you can continue to see your doctor in the hospital. even three years ago on this bill, we were told this website will be great. it sounded like a pretty good idea. you could just go online brokerages like amazon, and look at prices, compare policies. it will be great. a lot was put on this. just glitches.an these are serious concerns. you need to put someone in charge who knows what they are doing. it came down to september. is this ready to launch? it was signed off by maryland town off --maryland turnoff. all these frustrations by the american people trying to get insurance. now a narrow window of when they can sign up for coverage by

january 1. it is no wonder the american people do not trust this. host: less glitches are happening with the website. do you think these problems will resolve itself? guest: eventually i would hope the website would be solved. i do not think they can meet the november deadline. today what mr. cho will be ready and how much will be ready. people have to sign up by december 15 if they won coverage by january 1. they may have a lapse in in coverage. that is a frightening thing for someone with health problems. can you tell me if my information is secure? would we be concerned that

someone was still tap into that? someone who is sick has enough to worry about. host: our guest with us to your calls, this is james from florida. caller: good morning. how are you this morning? guest: doing well. caller: i hope this is not as bad as medicare part d. medicare part d. i had a good plan through my company. said youeled it and could get the government plan. i said this is a lot worse than what i got. i went to the v.a. every medicine there was higher than i could get any egg box store. store. big box

is your plan, replacing the replacing this obamacare. guest: you said you're with the v.a. plan. that is not medicare part d. you are limited to the list of medications you can take. of big-boxd is a lot stores began to offer medications like antibiotics for free or at huge discounts, to get you in the door. you mentioned medicare part d. saw thattary of hhs

there were problems and he told drugstores fill the prescription and we will take care of this later. they ran several tests along the way. some people were dual eligible. just fill the prescription and we will take care of that. that was not a lapse that occurred. here we have a huge problem that is not fixed yet. the website may be fixed. what is not going to be fixed are the prices people will be paying. people are saying there policies have gone up. they paid $15,000 a year. now they pay $18,000 a year. one man cannot afford to put his wife on his policy. they cannot pay their mortgage

and their health insurance at the same time. at this point, you are required at this time to buy a policy. is different from other things before. this is one reason the american public is very upset. ronald, are you there? caller: yeah. host: good morning. caller: i was wondering why they did not use an american -- wh f. they: they did a firm, used a canadian-based firm. they handled some of these for a canadian health system, they were dismissed by the government. i do not know all the background vetting that hhs used.

when we had this firm in front of our subcommittee, what they had said was they were told this was the way to do it and never pointing the finger back at hhs and said we were told to do it this way. they said they did their part and it worked. this was the warning that mckinsey gave secretary sebelius last april and said you have to do end to end testing. most of us have never designed a website. it is best to have a plan. and architect's plan. here's the cost and do the job. they were making up as they went along. buildere working on the and not doing testing.

that added to the confusion. this firm was saying this is real confusing, we do not know how the pieces fit together. host: the editors of "the new a question asked about the republican alternative and right now there is none. guest: that is not true. we were marking up this bill and offered 30 a more amendments to make changes, including an amendment that said if you like your health care plan you can keep it. democrats voted tit down. the president continues to say, let's work together to get things done. what has been lacking is bringing people together to get things done.

we had a vote last week. he said let's bring republicans and democrats together. that is a good idea. he said let's have an executive order to tell insurance companies to do something. insurance company said you have not changed the law. we have already set up prices. ok the eggs.eccok oko let people maintain whatever level of insurance they want. those have been out there. host: you hear the charge -- guest: we have had those votes as well. absolutely true. week to recent one last let people stay on their plan. there are people out there who

like their plan. to tell everybody they need the same policy is what threw off the cost for people as well. there had been things out there. host: here is stephen from grand rapids, michigan. caller: hi. good morning. a quick question. i am the owner of a medical clinic. when a patient comes in, their name is covered under hipa. we have to go to the front office, we use first name and last initial. we will not say the patient's name out loud. when we are putting their names you havehcare.gov -- to put your name -- i have heard

arguments saying it has nothing to do with hippa because it is just your contact information. that is medical information. tsest: there are two par to what you are saying. that information would include your name and social security number. they are supposed to protect that information. if that is breached, to take hour andome within an some within a day. they are asking if you are currently pregnant and if you .ave a medical problem wit if someone is putting on the record they have a psychological disorder, that is medical history. what happens if that information

gets out? i am a psychologist by trade. most people who received counseling do not want that out there and wanted to be private. people who say there is no information at all, that is simply not true. we do not want that out there. that is an important fix. i would feel much more comfortable if secretary stability is said let's put a hold on this -- if secretary sebelius said let's put a hold on this. if they say rolling out the website is more important, i have concerns. host: larry from memphis, tennessee. caller: good morning. i do not believe nothing coming

out of the republican gentleman's mouth. they had -- [indiscernible] they did a follow-up and all three died. this man is not care --they are trying to get rid of the health- care law. nothing at all. they try to get rid of the health-care law. jobsdo not want to create or nothing like this. these people have nothing to do with jobs. host: do you have a question for our guest? caller: what do you plan to do for the american people? there are no jobs. you are against the job bill. you are against anything to help

the american people. guest: what you are saying is simply not true. the unemployment rate has been dismal for the last five years. not only what is reported but the real unemployment rate, which is probably closer to 18%. we have offered a number of bills, including the keystone pipeline. another $1 trillion defending oil wells. i have worked to make sure thousands of people, tens of thousands of people continue their jobs. we focus on clean, coal technology. the president's's policies wants to shut those things down. we need to have a well educated workforce.

we need to make sure those things in this country that are part of jobs are there. we have to make sure that the hate speech in terms of accusing one side of another has to stop, and i hope you agree with that. it is just wrong. when people say why can't folks work together? it is hard to work when people make statements like that that are not true. i know you care deeply about our country. we have to say there are ideas out that ought to be looked at. some of the things we have it up for votes, they have not moved anywhere in the senate. let's work on these. host: henry childs will appear at 10:00.

you can see that live on c-span. guest: we will hear from a number of other people involved in the website development and talk about the concert he -- security concerns. host: people who take information on the front lines like the navigators. guest: we had before when gary cohen was in front of us about the navigators. they were supposed to be trained in early summer and they were not trained until august. these are people that are supposed to inform people of policies. no one will be going door to door. people were going door to door. there is a number of other concerns which i do not think -- what happens if someone asks you

for information? should you give them that information? unless they're working for a firm officially as a navigator, i would not give them anything. i have concerns about where that information goes after they talk to you. host: representative tim murphy is our guest. you are next. ks for theatn fon opportunity to express myself. have already made up their minds to ensure the president will get only one turn. -- they wilills

nominees.he the website is secure. guest: have you gone to the website and try to purchase health care policy? caller: i registered and waiting. guest: through the website? caller: i went through the website and i gave them my information. guest: you are waiting for what to come to you? great. should have gotten some information in terms of discounts and your income level. plan willo doubt this be better for some. those with pre-existing conditions. we do not want their insurance

cut. there is not a democrat plan -- for a small percentage, they will get a stipend. some will be paying a lot more, more.o 200% those were people that were told if they like their health care, they can keep it. there is a lot of things where people are scratching their heads saying, that is not what you told us before. what a shame it is when we should be figuring out what we can do to fix this. the website is not secure yet. line,.n our republican illinois. -- peoria,

caller: i can be just as emotional as the prior democratic caller. journeysrats had super and could have passed anything. he is apparently with selective motioemtion.nning on a the only thing to have is emotional response. right now there are people that are struggling and they are not sitting over there crying and whining, "what are you going to give me?" people are being turned away because there are too many people to help. just like the last caller who said kathleen sebelius said it was secure.

if we believe everything kathleen sebelius said, we would be in trouble. endthey going to do end to on this whole system after they put every input in. you have to turn around and do another end to end. when theydo not know are going to have this fixed yet. they did not do their end to end test before october 1. marilyn tavener signed off and said we have to get this killing. you are right along the lines that this was not secure. host: what's the difference stress end to end and a test. ledt: the big problem that

to so many difficulties is if you go online when you're shopping for a product, you can go to multiple websites and compare the products and see them. this had all the data up front. caused a lot of other stresses in the system. more than just a few thousand people trying to get in, that is when it is blocked. now let's put a lot of people in to make sure it can handle the load. sebelius, should should be removed from the project? guest: all along i wanted to do her job. i always think people in a government position do best --

if you mess up, fess up. is not enough to say, sorry, this is not working. is what wee, "here are going to do about it." there are still concerns. to my office -- "this is not what i was told." host: what do you make of the enrollment numbers? guest: they are still small. maybe people cannot get into the website. also people do not trust the website. the numbers of people are looking at medicaid and not signing up. they look at the price and say, i cannot do that.

tom concerned is it is going be far more than the congressional office budget estimated will be willing to sign up. we know they need tens of millions to make sure it is paid for. they want healthy people to cover the cost of those who have problems. this is yet to be seen. host: what you think that more will sign up as the deadline approaches? guest: i suspect some will do that. it is only three weeks away. we are reaching that deadline. if the website cannot handle volume, we will say. ee. host: next up from tennessee on our democrats line. i have ar. murphy, comment and a question. i have a few.

calls that the house is conducting the investigation. what is the cost? , because comments are the president had to redesign the health-care law, that put a burden on the president on the it coming out correctly. that seems like it is not an issue. i know that we are more or less overburdened. it will take a little bit longer. we all know that insurance change from year to year anyway. the insurance company has some discretion on whether you keep your insurance as it is or

whether it is changed. to have no choice except accept what they are for you. my question is, why are the more to help the president? guest: let me describe what our job is. overb is to have oversight government programs when they are working. when they are not working, shine a light on them. the constitution says congress sets the law. congress does not give up on its authority. we continue to have oversight. as far as the cost investigating, in terms of my staff and others, in terms of what is wrong. wrong,one does something

you do not say the district attorney's cost -- if someone does something wrong, you have to investigate. we were told not to worry. we are still trying to find out, why did you tell us that if it wasn't true? know and thet question is how could they lead in the context of not having that information? house ifith the white they say we have some fixes and we need your help. help us with this. if they think they have full authority to fix this, then ok. if they do not have full authority, they need to say, we need some help. host: how many more of these hearings do you envision having?

until we want to continue these problems are resolved. we will be hearing more of the concerns of how much costs have gone up. we had a number of small businesses telling us how much cost was going to go up. some will pay more but many will find great things. it was dismissed as insignificant. it was not insignificant. mycannot continue to cover employees." some said they will increase the premium, increase the deductible in order to make it work. labor unions were told they were going to be ok. costs areaying these going through the roof for them, too. as long as those problems continue, those are things we

should continue to look at. host: sandy from ohio, independent line. caller: hi. i have a couple of questions. i have a couple. why did the republicans passed that hr bill that allows only the speaker to allow a bill, brought to the floor and why was it done after midnight, between the hours of september 30 and october 1? that is my first question. are you receiving any letters that claimed the health-care law and the plan have done any good for any americans? it seems like only the democrats have the good letters and the republicans have the bad letters.

i watch c-span regular. i am house bound. i am down. it amuses me. a keeps me going. i watch it regularly. hast: the majority party the ability to bring bills to the floor or not. i did not say in the senate. senator reed has not brought forth hundreds of bills. let's have each chamber do that. some of the other issues -- host: have you heard from anybody on the health care bill? guest: for those people with a pre-existing condition, and for others in new york and california, those costs are going down for them. the majority of people are

seeing there costs go significantly higher. those were all issues we are concerned about. host: mark from iowa, republican line. caller: good morning. i heard the authors of the obamacare were three ceos from a major insurance company with no input from the hospitals, doctors, nurses. i was wondering if that was true. why weren't more people involved ?n the obama care writing guest: let's go back when the bill did go through and it was one where in our committee a lot of amendments were offered by our side of the aisle. arrived at the bill the floor of the house, a number of those amendments disappeared.

another version of the bill showed up. i was surprised at that. there were other groups that were told about parts of support of this. ended up endorsing the bill without seeing it. we did not get the bill until after they offer their endorsement. support?also offer it points to, a lot of bills will come be for the house. in something this major which is this is theconomy, kind of thing that does not need to be rushed. there was plenty of time. it could have been gone through at a slower pace.

now we are paying the piper for the albums that have emerged. host: quinnipiac did a poll about trust. republicans in congress received 43%. what does it say about where this program is going? guest: my hope would be is what happens after the next few isths, if the president earnest about what we can do to fix this problem, i am concerned about things in the mental health realm. we received the guidelines for mental health. we still have a lot of problems with how mental health is handled in this country. you have to understand the problems that are there. i would hope that is what we could come up with. host: what should happen at this

point with the website? guest: do they need to shut it down? work on it thoroughly, test it, and move back the dates. people set up can still sign up even later and still get in there. this will take a lot of metrics analyzed to see what can be done. i would hope at some point to not punish americans because they cannot get through. host: the proposal let insurance companies continue to sell policies. guest: a lot of insurance companies base their price on the assumption that people would be signing up and getting rid of the old plans. now they are saying we do not know if we could have the metrics together to do that. it is like when you buy car

insurance. there are high and low deductibles and you get to choose that and that will affect the price of your plan. all you can choose is how much mium wouldtible -- pre be set, but you are going to have the basic coverage, in terms of your out-of-pocket cost. we do not know if we can comply. i think this is where you need to legislate a fix. allassed a bill last week, the senate had to say is we will look at it. harry reid said we are not going to touch it. that is not how you get the dialogue to fix it. we will have some legislative fixes that will come up. host: our guest, representative tim murphy from pennsylvania.

hearing today about the security of the website. ou can see that hearing n c-span. coming up, tom daschle, for his thoughts. then later we will meet jon kingsdale, a chief driver for the insurance exchanges in massachusetts. he will tell us about that state's experience and how played out on a larger scale. but first an update from c-span radio. >> a group has claimed responsibility for twin suicide bombings that struck outside the iranian embassy in beirut and killed 23 people. they said it carried out the southerntoday in the

hezbollah stronghold. president obama will discuss iran with senators today. tweetingington times" lindsey graham says a bad deal on iran will lead to war. the justice department and jpmorgan chase has settled all issues and could sign a $13 billion agreement.as soon as today it could be the largest settlement ever reached between the government and a corporation. jpmorgan sold low-quality mortgage backed securities that collapsed in value. investors were left with billions of dollars in losses. donating $50ric is million to newtown, connecticut,

to build and operate a community .enter a number of employees live in newtown. those are some of the latest headlines on c-span radio. >> when president kennedy was shot in 1963, within one minute, several police officers ran up the grassy knoll. many people were pointing to it to a source of the gunfire. the first officer had his undrawn because he expected to find an armed gunman. he encountered a man that presented secret service credentials. they were often in dallas for one reason or another. two other offices reported the

same thing. there was just one problem. the secret service and the warren commission have identified the location of every single secret service officer at that time. no one was in dealey plaza. they went to parkland hospital with the president and the vice president. who were these people with secret service credentials that no one can identify? i do not have an answer. i explained in the book. i stuck to the facts. >> the lasting legacy of jfk. part of booktv this weekend. booktv is live in new york city. coverage starts at 6:00 a.m. eastern with red carpet

interviews with the nonfiction finalists. "> "washington journal continues. is tomoining us now daschle. welcome. talk a little bit about what you brought to the table as far as the creation of the affordable care act. guest: i had more of an advisory role. i have the opportunity to talk to my former colleagues and members of the administration. i wrote a book which laid out a lot of the principles. it was a very transformational time and it still is. host: give us your sense about problems with the affordable care act. talk about the main problems and how they can be addressed. guest: i think the main problem

is still the execution of the website itself. the fundamentals are to contain costs and to improve quality. there is no question we know we cannot continue with the current system as it exists. we have 50 million people uninsured. 25,000 people every year die because they have no insurance. we can do a lot better. this is a chance to address that in a meaningful way. it will take some time that we are getting there. we have to continue to be patient. host: what about the sign-up problems with the website? guest: it is getting better. massachusetts started there's in

2006 had 123 people that signed up in the first month. it has now been and enormous success. 90% of the people would say let's keep it, i dare say. they had the same kind of which is we're experience at the national site. one stateerent scale, to a nation. guest: but we can learn from that. some of it was avoidable. it is unfortunate we do not catch this earlier. that does not deny. we have to make our system better. all of those who criticize and really find fault are not providing the kind of opportunities for alternatives. what is it we do if we do not do

this? what solutions are there that might provide a better solution than what we are looking at today? none of the critics that i have seen are being forthcoming in that regard. host: what about the initial enrollment numbers? guest: in those exchanges where the states are operating are pretty good. i think we will see if i am continue as we meet the deadline. the american people want to be able to make their decisions in a slow and careful way. when i was helping my mother with medicare part d almost 10 years ago, we had a lot of the same challenges to figure out the best plan and how she might be affected by this. we had a lot of the glitches but we worked through those glitches

and my mother made a good decision with regard to her medicare decision. it is provided in large measure because of the approach we use with the aca, that is working extremely well. host: a lot of success depends on those young, healthy people. guest: it is a deal they cannot refuse. they can sign up on their parents' plan. they had in our was opportunities to be given special treatment. they can sign up for a catastrophic plan up until they are 30 years old. they will get assistance. there is innermost opportunity to take responsibility and to do the right thing. people ask me, is health care a right in any country? i think it is a moral right.

with that comes a responsibility. my republican friends talk about the importance of citizen responsibility, but then argue there is no need when it comes to health. i think the responsibility is an important part of american citizenship. taking responsibility to ensure you're not a burden to society ought to be one of those requirements of american citizenship. host: our guest is tom daschle an talking about the affordable care act rollout. for democrats. 202-585-3881 for republicans. 202-585-3882 for independents. how would you rate the

leadership of the president on the rollout? guest: this has never been done in 100 years. we have tried and tried and failed and failed over 100 years. administration for some of the glitches? of course. we need to take responsibility when things go right away and things go wrong. i also give them great credit and with that comes a lot of challenge and opportunity for mistakes, because we have never done it before. will he get it right eventually? -- will we get it right eventually? i have no doubt. they are taking on the heavy lifting to do this. i am more optimistic than a lot of people are. host: ron from new jersey, good

morning. caller: mr. daschle, i really like you. i have never seen such desperation as the republicans seem to have to kill this law. ollowems they want to fin brothers'agenda. the president asked for help and their words nowhere to be found. forgot to say sticker shock. that is their latest word. i congratulate you and the democrats working hard on this law. i think they are trying to turn people against themselves to get the insurance. they are desperate. thank you. needs a think this city

real injection of bipartisanship. i just came back from a week in japan. the japanese have been shaking their heads wondering how the city came this dysfunctional. how is it we cannot address the basic challenges like health care and all of the economic issues we have been grappling with, including the budget. we have a responsibility to get the job done. start governing the way our people and our founding fathers expected. i think that is required of all of us. from new york.ff caller: thank you. hubris jumped into my head. there is a huge disingenuousness from the democrats.

they talk like they are for the people but when it all comes all threeu owning branches of government -- the biggest tall tale in the health care debacle is the dog that did not bark. pharmaceuticals and insurance companies are saying this is not a good thing because it was lining their pockets. guest: i would just say if you look at the record, i wrote a book on how the law was enacted. i did a lot of research and found there was enormous reduce a patient by all the stakeholders. they were invited to the white house and to hearings. they discussed this matter at great length. is not accurate to say they do not have an opportunity to

express themselves. there were 350 amendments and almost half of them were republican amendments that were ultimately passed in the committee. there is a misunderstanding to i regrete to which -- it was so partisan at the end. we have to find ways to do better in reaching common ground. i am disappointed we did not see more bipartisanship in the process. host: there were no bipartisan votes. guest: there were republican amendments on the floor that were passed. at the end of the day, we do not see any republican support for the bill. caller: i just want to tell you how much i appreciate as a republican that we are trying to plan national health care

put into place. taxpayer,ear-old taxpayer, iyear-old am scared to death that might health care fees are so high anyway and they are going to double or triple. i am now in a position that i cannot afford to pay that. light toow has the come in. i am scared to death of the irs. i have been paying all along. i have been paying for 40 years. and now the irs coming down on top of me. i cannot pay my health care fee and they take a little assets i have left. i am very frightened about that.

could you please address that? goes too many of the concerns you raised. to provide more security and more opportunities for choice. right now, you had many people who could not get insurance because of pre-existing conditions or they were dropped from their insurance plan because they had reached annual our lifetime limits. they were charged much higher fees if they were a woman or older. the law attempts to address all of these disparities in a meaningful way. if you cannot afford to pay for the premiums, the government is going to help you pay those premiums. we have to go through this process to convince you and others that are skeptical about what it may mean for them and

the implications they have going forward. i am hopeful and confident that we are going to do a lot better job than we have done in the past, in large measure because of the detections in this law. host: there is a publication from south dakota, an op-ed. tomcolumn says, "only daschle can save the affordable care act." president nominated me. there are some issues involving a car that i had used that i did not realize was a taxable source of income. in never occurred to me it was shared with a friend. i found out and i paid the taxes. it became a far more obligated political controversy then i thought was deserved.

i decided i would remove myself from consideration. and an dear friend enormously successful journalist and pioneer in native american journalism. i am flattered and honored by his comments. it needs our country and our congress and the american people to be working together to come up with a better understanding of the implications for health going forward. i think the one thing most people agree with is that we know we have a cost problem. when i was born, health was 4% of gdp. if a monkey to have great grandchildren, it will be 32% of gdp -- if i am lucky to have great-grandchildren, it will be 32% of gdp.

we can do better than this. this is our first installment in doing just that. we are not anywhere close to being finished. host: let me take the idea of his point. how would you all-out the affordable care act? guest: i am not going to second- guess the administration. what was important was to include all of the players and to test, test, test. we probably could have done a better job at both of those things. are we going to learn from lessons past and tried to do a better job of ensuring that we understand the complicated nature of this in a way that will allow us to work in a much more effective way? i think we are on that track today. i do not think we will reach the 100% goal.

we're going to be in a better position by the end of the year. that is the expectation of the american people. host: our previous guest was concerned about missing deadlines. guest: it is no excuse to do nothing and to further complicate the problem by decimating the actuarial tables and all the things the insurance companies and others have counted on to make sure this is going to work in the long term. we do not want to create even more problems going forward. just as we would do in the private sector if the same circumstances resented themselves. host: will the be a problem as far as actuarials? our previous guest said rates have already been determined. guest: the president did a smart

thing. he said we will let two other factors weigh in. the insurance companies will have to make that decision. the commissioners will have to weigh if a problem exists. wethe extent that it does, are not going to change it. host: some have rejected the idea. guest: i am not surprised. there is uncertainty about what the mix will be and the balance of the actuarial cac relations required to meet the premium expectations. host: here is troy from st. paul, minnesota. caller: i went on the minnesota site. i found it to be pretty easy to get on. my wife is a school teacher.

we figured out we can save about $800 a month by going off her coverage from her schoolteacher plan. this care i had to look at it five times. then i called up the people on the phone, on the policy. they said all i have to do is call them back and i could sign up. i am not asking for a tax break. if there wasn't this care plan and if they didn't get it rammed hrough, we would not be having this discussion. it would just keep rambling on. everybody would be paying over. host: you have a policy in place

already? caller: we pay $6,000 a month for my wife, myself, my daughter -- we apy $1600. almost $1000 out of her pocket. the school district pays $600. i cannot even find a policy that costs that much. i had to look at it five times. i could not believe it. y.st: thanks, tro guest: one of my closest friends called yesterday that his son signed up in the last couple of days and saved over $600 a month from what he was paying before. you will see a lot more of that going forward. as people that are understand,

they're going to save a lot of money. that is going to make this a lot more popular. the glitches will be history, someday. vaughn froms alabama. good morning. caller: the way of the language gets confusing around here. we have the best health care -- health care --in the world. the world seems to think we have the best health care here. all we are talking about is how to pay for it. if we had jobs, we would go back to what it used to be years and years ago out of our pockets. now we have insurance in between. people handling insurance will be relying on the government or it is going to be the government. the insurance policy is a piece

of paper. health care is what you get when they save your life and put you back together again. guest: the caller is definitely right that there is a difference between health care and health insurance. i would emphatically argue we are by far from having the best health care system in the world. if you look at any rankings. the world health organization, we don't even rank in the top 20. on just about every performance criteria we fault our short anywhere near the best. -- we fall far short anywhere near the best. we have a huge responsibility to destroy the myths about where we stand in regard to health. a life expectancy in this country is actually going down. we have some of the best technology in the world. we have some of the finest institutions in the world. unfortunately not everyone gets into the mayo clinic or

cleveland clinic or johns hopkins. because they don't, the rest of us have to deal with health skip -- health care that is not the quality that one gets at one of the finest institutions in the world. therein lies the distinction. do we have some of the finest institutions? absolutely. do we have the finest health care? not even close. we have to make that distinction and make sure that as we look at how to address the challenges we face, we've got the facts. and those are the facts. the problem is, even though we don't even come close to being the best health care in the world as a nation, we pay more than the next 10 countries combined, more than the gdp of india or brazil or russia. just for health care alone. so, we are paying more than anyone else and we are not getting the result of a lot of other countries. at is what this whole fight is about. host: a viewer off of twitter -- states leave it to the

to administer and decide? guest: that is what we have had for 200 years. the state administered and decided on the problems have gotten worse. we have about 50 million people uninsured. quality is going down, not up. life expectancy is going down. what we decided in this country -- has always been a debate about government, whether government or the private sector should do it. back in 1915 only about 15% health care was related for government and that was primarily for veterans. it was expanded to the point where in the 1960's where we added medicare and medicaid, we expanded the role of government. in 2011 for the first time there was more government insurance and private insurance. 50 today. about 50- the real question is what should the role of government be going forward. we decided we should expand the role and medicaid of those cases where people just don't have the resources to buy health insurance and we created new private marketplaces with private insurance for people to

choose on the marketplace in those cases were medicaid is not necessary. that is the balance that the american people have interesting towards for some time. interestingly, the president chose to use one of the most conservative think tank approaches, heritage foundation, to create the model in the first place and i think that balance is something that we will continue to try to resolve as we go forward. host: "the washington post" highlights the recent poll looking at the president's popularity. 42% is where it stands. what does it mean for an agenda going forward? guest: the polls are going to risend fall. you look at all of the president's predecessors, and they have had strong moments and moments where people have been concerned. obviously with the controversies involving health and involving the government shutdown and a number of things that have been isng on in washington, 42% probably 35% better than where congress is today. it is all relative.

the question is, how can we improve the perception and confidence of the american people in the government in washington today. the question -- the answer is, we have to find more ways to work together. a partisan bickering and the polarization and the tofrontation that continues be part of the rhetoric and get back to working in governing like the american people expect third host: you mention part of the bickering, your former career in the senate. a picture on the front page of "the new york times" talking about a third nominee for a judgeship and blocked by republicans in the senate. talking about filibuster and the process. give us your insight of what is going on, the idea of a filibuster, and your experience in the senate. guest: i think filibusters have been used to frequently on both sides of the isle, frankly. i have been involved in filibusters when i was majority leader and minority leader, and frankly, i look back with some regret that we didn't do a

better job of resolving our differences back then. but whatever level of filibusters i experienced, it can't compare at all to what has been experienced in the last two years. had oneohnson filibuster during the six years he was majority leader, 1954-19 60. harry reid in eight years has had something like 400 filibusters. the dramatic upswing in the number of filibusters of both on nominations and legislation has just exploded in the last few years. to a lotled, i think, of dysfunction and a lot of the anger and frustration that you see today among the american people. host: how do you change that? i wouldirst of all, like to see us go back to the old way of addressing filibusters, where you didn't dual and triple track. that is, set the nomination aside and pick up something else. i would require everyone who

filibusters hold the floor for whatever length of time it took to get cloture. that is the way we did it in the past. i think i had a very consequential effect on limiting the number of filibusters as we went forward. i would also eliminate the practice of what we commonly memberght hold where any of congress will say i will filibuster if you bring this bill or nomination on the floor. to be aas turned out one-person veto. government cannot work with one person vetoes in the country today. you can't run a government when you can get the people into the positions of responsibility for which they were nominated. you can't run a government if you continue to see the immigration bill languished for as long as it has or any one of a number of pieces of legislation that demand consideration today. this country deserves better than that and i think we've got to look at ways in which procedure can address these issues more effectively going forward. host: our guest, former senate democratic leader from 1995-2005

, tom daschle. martin from wisconsin. independent line. caller: good morning, think -- c-span3 hi, tom, how are you? two comments in one question. and you educate us a little more about the money flow within the aca. somebody get a subsidy, the insurance company paying the fed -- how does the actual money flow question mark somebody pays the insurance company. the second thing is the point you mentioned about bipartisanship -- good grief, harry reid will not take any bills to the floor. can you give them a call to get things moving? thanks. works the way the subsidy is you are entitled, based on your income, as he signed up for a given plan, there is a calculation and that is one of the areas where we had probably technicalst degree of difficulty in determining what

that subsidy might be for any income.an given one's that is automatically tabulated and the premium you pay to the insurance company is reduced by that degree, and the difference is made up by the subsidy itself. legislation,o the i was say i think you've got a i think- i would say you've got a lot of in assigning blame to senator reid when he has had so much difficulty moving his agenda forward. he and i have talked about this on many occasion. the problem he's got, of course, as majority leader is a limited number of days in which to deal with all the legislative responsibilities. i frankly don't think we spend enough time in washington today. the country needs to do better leaving on thursdays and coming back on tuesdays, the way the current schedule is worked.

we can't govern effectively if we only try to do it about a day and a half or two days a week. we've got to spend more time here addressing the challenges, and when we do we can take on more of a legislative schedule. house-senate budget conferees, coming up with a deadline of december 15 to come up with results as far as spending issues. what do you make of the comp -- process of what you think the outcome will be? guest: i was very hopeful. it was something as part of the resolution of bringing an end to the debt limit them of the shutdown, to a close. i think it is essential that we redouble the efforts. i worry, for when i am hearing, about reports that not a lot of progress has been made so far. you got the thanksgiving break coming up. again, to my point about how much time is actually spent in washington. it isreally think essential to prove that we can govern, that we can take

something as fundamental as our budget and find some resolution here. there's got to be give on both sides that there really have to be determination on the part of the leadership that we aren't going to fail. we will stay here for whatever length of time it takes to get the job done. -- ne of the issues host: one of the issues of taxation. guest: that is correct. there is no way you can address the enormity of the problem without having some revenue on the table. it can't be done. we are about 17% gdp on revenue and 22% on spending. we've got to bring gdp on spending down and revenue up. we got to find some happy medium, some common ground in the middle. when that happens -- just as we have done every single successful -- i cannot find it tempting history where both revenue and spending were not both considered as we resolved these issues in the past. of course they are difficult, but that is the only way we will get the job done. host: what do you look to on spending?

guest: entitlements, there is a lot we can do. what i hope we do on entitlements -- frankly, not what we have done and what i did in the past is simply to cut the programs and shift the cost onto somebody else -- whether the beneficiary or the state with the private sector. what we've got to do is redesign and improve these entitlements. there are a lot of ways we can make sure we do more with less. suggestions made by a lot of very reputable organizations, there is no reason why we have to cut and shift the way would've been in the past. host: bonnie from parsons, kansas. republican line. caller: good morning. good morning, senator daschle. i have not seen you in such a long time. nice to see that you look so well. guest: thank you very much. that is kind. veryr:i want to tell you a funny story but i will be very brief about it so i will probably leave out a lot. hospital that i needed to go to, i had no way of making

transportation to the hospital through their bus, so i had to call public transportation. they said you needed to make a two-day advance deal so that i could get there. had a call -- i from independence, kansas, about 40 miles from me, and it was a limo company and they were willing to come and get me and take me to the hospital because my car has to be worked on right now. [laughter] terrible spider bite. nobody can figure that one out. but that is beside the point. just so funny that i end up with

a limo going to the hospital --ause they don't have it they have not worked out these little things like transportation. host: bonnie, thank you. state i come from a rural like she does. south dakota. wife and her childhood years in scott's city and saint francis, kansas. we still have relatives there. but she is exactly right. one of the real difficulties we have had with good health care delivery is transportation. people who live 100 miles from a good facility. that is why tele health will become more important to address the challenge of distance and to find alternative ways to give the better care. but we can do a better job. it shouldn't require a limo from independence to get to the hospital. we have to fix that, too.

host: slover spring, maryland. independent line. caller: hi, mr. daschle. thanks for all the great work. of my question. with all the debate and back- and-forth, i don't understand, what is the real agenda or arevation behind folks that politically opposed to this better coverage for people. a quick example -- i went to the er about a year ago and it turned out to be a fairly minor was a weekend and nobody was open and it was the only place i could get there in a hurry, and the bill was like $2000. i called the billing office, and they said people with insurance like you are effectively covering four or five other people who come in with no insurance or very little money. the whole idea of getting everyone to get coverage was a

republican idea at one point, something they were promoting. that is not the only aspect of the bill. i understand the glitches that occurred on the website and the loss of insurance by some people have given ammunition, but is it just that the old system was really just too profitable? i don't see any alternative being proffered by the republicans. i have the old system is just to profitable, is that it? -- is it just the old system is profitable? guest: my own view is at its core the debate is about the role of government going forward. what should the role of government be as we consider health care? in theid earlier program, i think what the american people have come to appreciate is that we probably need government and we need the private sector, and we need to find ways to integrate both government and private sector involvement more effectively going forward. your point about uncompensated

care is absolutely right. we have mandates today. people who say they are opposed to a mandate -- we have a mandate now called uncompensated care. all the care that is provided to people who have no ability to pay is being passed on to businesses and individuals in higher premiums and higher hospital and doctor costs because that is the only way the facilities and the providers can accommodate this uncompensated care. it is passed onto somebody else. and we pay the difference. that is probably the least efficient way to pay for those who don't have insurance today, and that is why, again, as the caller correctly points out, a lot of republicans over the years as well as democrats have called for people taking more responsibility for themselves, regardless of what context we are talking -- health care, response, tax abilities. we all have responsibilities as american citizens. what the affordable care act attempts to do is to say, look, we will give you the right to

ehealth -- health care but we also want you to take some of the responsibility for yourself. not only financial responsibility but we want you to better understand that your own need for taking better care of your own personal health -- if you have obesity issues, we've got to work with you to make obesity more of a priority. if you have other issues, we've got to make sure that you got the access to resources and facilities to deal with those challenges so you can take more personal responsibility. that is what this is all about. days?what do you do these guest: at the good fortune to work with a terrific law firm ,rimarily on health care issues hopefully good, strategic advice. i work with a couple of think tanks, the bipartisan policy center and the center for american progress. i serve on a few boards, i do some public speaking and enjoy it all. host: are you a lobbyist? guest: i did not register -- i don't lobby and i have never been on the hill lobbying for

the affordable care act or anything else. host: you wrote a book "critical -- what we can do about the health-care crisis." if i understand it correctly, some kind of federal -- establish? guest: what i described in the first book was laid out as it occurred in the legislation -- in the second book called "getting it done." i long felt that a lot of these decisions today are really becoming too politicized, as we see with the health-care system. just as we saw with monetary policy when it became too politicized in the early part of the 20th century, congress very wisely decided to take it out of politics into have a federal reserve board make monetary policy today. as audiences what you think would happen today if congress was in charge of monetary policy, raising and lowering interest rates, deciding what the supply of resources would be in our

monetary context question mark i think we all know the answer. but that is basically what has happened to health. because it is so complicated because it has become so politicized, my view is that we need an independent board to make a lot of the decisions that are obviously still subject to congressional approval and oversight, that that would de- politicize it and put more managers in charge of a lot of the decisions going forward. one day we will have that kind of the system, in my view. i think it is necessary. i would argue that we really don't have a health system today. if you define a system as having a central decision-making or administrative authority, we don't have it. we have a market made up of a collage of subsystems that are public and private and they are not well integrated. we need a better way to better integrate public and private engagement in health. will i guess the question be about oversight, if you give power to one port to make these decisions. guest: obviously, just as we have done with base closing and even with monetary policy, the

congress can challenge the fed and can do things that can influence the direction of monetary policy regardless of whether it is tax or budget. i think the same thing can be done in health care to there will always be an opportunity -- and i would argue, a necessity for a congressional role. but the day-to-day management of the health-care system, now about 18% of gdp and going up, it really has to be addressed in a more professional organizer and former successful way. host: tom daschle served in the senate, democrat from south dakota, senate democratic leader from 1995-2005. coming up, we will continue our conversation about health- related issues. is jon kingsdale, with the massachusetts insurance exchange to give us not only a sense of how they operate exchanges but what it means for exchanges run nationwide. we will have the discussion right after this update from c- span radio. compensation costs for u.s.

workers rose modestly in the june-september quarter as the cost of benefits such as health insurance rose more rapidly than wages and salaries. the labor department says compensation increased a seasonally adjusted 0.4% in the third-quarter compared to april- june quarter when compensation rose 0.5%. over the past 12 months, compensation costs have risen just 1.9%. the associated press has the great re-chefs the -- great recession kept a lid on wage growth. organization for economic cooperation and development is cutting its forecast for global growth in 2013 due to a deterioration in emerging markets. the group now expects the world thismy to expand by 2.7% year compared to the may forecast of 3.1% and a cut the 2014 growth outlook from -- to 3.6% from four percent. ae secretary-general says in

statement "the recovery is real but at a slow speed and there may be turbulence on the horizon." this morning that senior obama administration officials including several in the white house were warned by outside management consultant mckinsey and company that the effort to build the healthcare.gov website was falling behind and at risk of failure unless immediate deaths were taken to correct the problem. the report, which was prepared in late march at the request of the department of health and human services, says dan richman indecision and a "lack of transparency and alignment on critical issues" were threatening the progress despite the tight deadline. the documents were released by house investigators last night. the hearing on that issue begins in just under an hour. hear it live on c- span radio. those are just some of the latest headlines on c-span radio.

>> today marks the 150th anniversary of president lincoln's gettysburg address. look at our coverage -- including keynote address by a civil war historian. next week, thanks giving day, 4:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. eastern on c-span3's american history tv. there are some serious scholars in women's studies. most departments include their fair share of non-ideological academics that just offer straightforward courses, sometimes wonderful courses in women's psychology, women's history, women in literature. but ideological -- statistically challenged hard-liners set the tone in most women's studies department. all that i have ever seen. if there is a department that defies the stereotype, let me know, i would like to visit them. by the way, conservative women, moderate women, libertarian women, traditionally religious women, left out.

>> her critiques of late 20th- century feminism and feminism and consent for every american culture led critics to label her as antifeminist. sunday, december fourth, your questions for christina hoff sommers live for three hours beginning at noon :00 eastern. -- noon eastern. and join radio talkshow host mark levin january 5 on c-span2. continues. journal" host: joining us from boston is jon kingsdale, former executive director for the commonwealth health insurance connector authority, also director of weekly consulting group. thank you for letting us. for our final segment we are taking a look at it -- insurance exchanges, especially what is being done in massachusetts and comparing them with the u.s.. can you talk about your role in the exchanges that the massachusetts level? guest: sure. we and act the legislation that

was in some regard to the template for the affordable care act accu 2006 under governor romney and a democratic legislature, and a key agency in implementing that reform was the massachusetts health connector, which was an independent -- semi-independent authority i was appointed to run and reported to a board of directors that was ofointed in part constitutional officers and in part appointees to the board. host: looking at the level that you had in massachusetts, comparing it to what is being done nationwide, can you give a sense of what you are seeing perhaps on a nationwide level and doesn't reflect the issues you had on the state level? guest: sure. actually, there is a very direct analogy among some of the issues that are getting a lot of attention right now. i am thinking particularly of the cancellation notices that were sent out as a result of an and halfter three

years to bring policies up to some minimum standard. that's the and word was spelled that'sh more in the -- standard was spelled out much more of the affordable care act, and in the massachusetts legislation it was left to the exchange board to develop our standards. we called it minimum creditable coverage. we did it in the winter and spring after the law was enacted in april and it gave the state about 18-20 months to get ready for that. up canceling, if you will, replacing about 150,000 policies in massachusetts which would translate to about seven or 8 million nationally for the same size population. f similar issues. some of them, frankly, world dealt with in legislation -- we dealt at the exchange level. ailding an exchange, making consumer friendly, getting it up and running in time, all of that

was really sort of pie in nearly, if you will, in massachusetts. a one way or another in the affordable care act. sometimes much more ambitiously, frankly, than we did it in massachusetts. host: on what level? guest: what i am thinking about most particularly in the level of ambition -- in massachusetts exchange,ced on the the connector, the whole eligibility determination process. are you eligible for a subsidy and what level of subsidy where residents eligible for? we outsourced it to the existing medicaid system run by mass health. in the affordable care act, of course, there is a whole new way of doing eligibility determination based on income tax filings, federal income tax filings. and that has made identity proofing and personal financial information, protecting that

information, much, much more important, and as a result, has complicated the launch of the website and the start up. end ofre destined to the the program -- if you have questions about the massachusetts exchanges and the compared to the national level, our guest will be with us until 10:00. host: tweets can be sent an e- mail. mr. kingsdale, what about initial enrollment? i'm not being made about the numbers on the national level. what was massachusetts's experience? guest: there were some parallels in areas where there were differences. but bottom line, we had pretty steady and woman during the od and it-year peri

took us two years to ramp up to full maturity, if you will. nationally, i think it is projected to take about three years. projections do not really begin to flatten out in terms of the uninsurance roles and exchanges hitting a plateau until 2016. we are six weeks into a three- year effort to build enrollment. it's early. and i think if they can get the exchange website on -- up and running, the federal one -- as those get corrected, they can make some adjustments. it is a marathon, not a sprint, and i think they are still very much in the race. you: the website where managed the exchanges, what was the team in place like in massachusetts as far as manpower compared to the team in charge of the website nationally? is interesting. we got about 45 employees, and of about $30budget

million a year, which was about three percent the premium flowing for the exchange. surchargend that the or the assessment for the ability to facilitate the marketplace will be higher than that. there should be some scale economy. there should be plenty of dollars. what i am not seeing is a development of a separate team tod, long-term running the largest insurance store. serving 36 states, but when you compare with california, their exchange has 300 and -- 300 to 400 people. anythingsure there's analogous to that to serve all 36 states. intervention that is occurring now to fix the website is one thing.

we all read that is making progress, not as fast as anyone would like, but it is rapid progress given the scale of prop blems. >> here is michael, from alabama. michael, go ahead. thank you. what is his name again? >> jon kingsdale. thank you. mr. kingsdale, thank you for being on c-span. i cannot stand what the did tocan consultant your governor back in 1988 just when i got out of college. aboutthings i am curious as a person who is self-employed with a home-based business, but

who has had two mental illnesses in my past. temporal lobe epilepsy, asked burgers syndrome. bergers syndrome. thank you for having temple grandin on book tv. a volunteer for people with worse meta-conditions, do you --w what mental health whether or not mental health problems have been written into howacare and the second, are these exchanges the same as or different from blue cross blue shield? i am worried about my stay

because i heard that 21 republican state governors have said no thank you to medicare and medicaid increases. let me take both of those questions. on mental health, behavioral health issues, that is one of 10 essential health benefits that the affordable care act requires be covered by individual and small employer plans. if you are eligible and go to the exchange to buy coverage for yourself, then those issues should be covered. the federal standards are pretty high in terms of equal coverage for mental health as for any other kind of treatment. you should rest assured on that. some of thesef

cancellation letters that are going out because some of the policies do not cover mental health. while the individual policyholder may not have that problem, he may have another problem that you do not have. insurance companies are pooling resources together to cover a standard set of circumstances. >> we have a little bit of technical difficulty with our linkup from boston. we will continue to take calls and notes as we go along so our guest ken wrapup. -- guest can wrap up. what was your question or comment? >> thank you. my question is -- when he compares the affordable care act to the exchange in massachusetts , he is talking about they had policies in massachusetts that were canceled.

to me, he is kind of saying this is going to smooth over and go away. all of these issues are going to disappear. they lieon is -- did to the people in massachusetts or were they honest about it? did they live so these people could get reelected to pass the bill? -- did they lie so these people could get reflect -- reelected to pass the bill? these different things about obama care -- it was built iner the exchange massachusetts under romney and then i hear it was built after the heritage foundation. then i hear i was built after -- you know. which one do they want to pick? credit?hould get the that is what you are wondering. talkingmake up more

points to convince people this is a good thing. i agree people should have howth insurance, but they're going about paying for it and expecting some people to absorbese policies and these exorbitant costs. not with us is currently, but what is your question or comment for him? how are you going to expect and demand a people -- and mandate people to accept this? my second response would be, i remember in february 2008 when obama said he would not mandate or force anyone to accept this health care that he was trying

to push through, on my kiss histerpart, have -- unlike counterpart, hillary clinton. he specify the fact that he also specified thee fact that he would not aid in kicking people off of the plans that they have. he has lied. why do we continue to allow this to happen? ing like a childish dictator. we need to take his pen away and tell them to act like an adult. host: this is amber, democrats line. e.ank you for you for having mr. kingsdale as a guest. i am sitting here, shocked.

you get health care through the exchanges? caller: no. public health care. i feel privileged to be able to be cared for and had access. i do not think people across the country no what we have here. host: how would you explain that? caller: the state cares about everybody here. we are taking care of. we are protected. it is rare, it is special. it does not matter if you make i've thousand dollars or $500,000 -- if you make $5,000 or $500,000. how does the state deal with costs? policy my question is a question. i cannot answer that. i do not know where he is, but on our cable news, there was a

with the she was on head of harvard pilgrim health care. she was talking about a policy enacted in our state requiring insurers to put up websites for consumers to compare on cost and quality. it is brand-new. it is not done around the country. i wonder if mr. kingsdale could comment on that. we are having technical difficulties. we are trying to get him back on the air. we are taking notes as we go. any other input you want to give about your state, its website exchange, before we move on? is now a policy requiring insurers to put up these sites for consumers to so thatcost and quality you can -- before you make a

health care decision -- do that. host: we appreciate your input. is playing out the experience of the affordable care act. website that needs fixing, a lot of information that he puts out there if you want to google this and find it for yourself. he made his thoughts about massachusetts' experience. he says the focus be on short- term technical problems meant to bolster the face of -- the fate of those like me. insuranceoor to shopping for 13 million of the 70 million uninsured who are eligible for subsidies -- gets patched up in the coming weeks. the government must meet daunting challenges and he goes on to list them.

back to calls. john, hudson florida, independent line. caller: i wanted to bring up one thing. a lot of people do not .nderstand it says allitution rights not granted to the federal government are given to the states and the people. you should never have u.s. insurance exchange. that is getting on the line of dictatorship. you can go to new york if you don't like it. where you going to go in the u.s. if you don't want this? that is my comment. question --ter please address the fact that in massachusetts, 40% of their dollar goes to funding health care costs.

here's james, republican line. caller: i wanted to ask if he realized the president was lying about this all along and that there was someone in massachusetts lying as well before they enacted the massachusetts law. there was proof, as of yesterday, that he realizes it would be 70% of the small business groups that will lose their insurance in the near future, before 2013 is up. the doj was arguing this in a federal court and mr. obama has been lying to us continually. ask the man when he comes back on -- how does the american people trust the president when he continues to lie to us? thank you. about exchanges, the affordable care act, a little more from jon kingsdale. enrollment billing and premium collections working smoothly -- he says in 2006 when we launched the house connector, my team

encountered start up problems tracking billing and collections was a large challenge. and rowley's are not covered until their first month's lees are notnrol covered until their first month's premium is paid. as they stop paying, they do not notify the insurer. the company must determine whether it is an intentional termination, and oversight, a lost, or a late payment. -- a loss or a late payment. caller: i am a democrat. and is thing is so great going to do so much for people, why don't they tell us how long our price is to be guaranteed for? we can take this policy out, change our insurance. i am satisfied with the insurance i have. i pay very little. a lot of people don't have it.

i understand. the same people that don't have it, somebody else will be paying for. great, why doesn't everyone want to go on a? .he president, all of them why don't they go on it? they are no different than everyone else. chris is up next. good morning, chris. caller: good morning. why is everyone up in a roar about health insurance? they are asking like health that we had before obama did this affordable care company wasnsurance doing everyone favors. if everyone think, they didn't care if you lived or died. they need to quit whining. what about the law. all of these governors are not accepting it, hurting their own citizens and breaking the law.

why are they going to jail? if we did that, we would be locked up. next, boylston, massachusetts. caller: good morning. i live in massachusetts and i looked up emergency room visits from 2011 and massachusetts was top 13 of highest emergency room visits. i am not sure if it is going to take care of that nationally. thank you. ed.t: marco rubio has an op- he says no bailouts for obama care. ofied deep in the department health and human services press release that accompany the president's november 14 speech was the sentence.

though this transitional policy was not anticipated by help insurance insurers when setting rates for 2014, the risk court or program should help ameliorate unanticipated changes in premium revenue. while risk corridors can predict -- protect taxpayers, obama's risk corridors are designed in such an open-ended manner that he president's action now exposes taxpayers to a bailout of the health-insurance industry if and when the law fails. to president's only response people losing their health insurance plans entails putting them on the hook for bailing out insurance companies. that is an op-ed from marco rubio of florida. night still, indiana,

republican line. hi. ille, indiana, republican line. hi. all the counties around here have brought the noncertified employees, cut their hours to 29 hours. anything school can do , no sporting events, anything, outside of the county. the athletes have to provide their own transportation. they don't want to have to pay the bus drivers to put them over 30 hours. special ed teachers are being cut. host: i think we are having problem with the signal there. here is joe, from twitter.

what ways the massachusetts health plan good question mark what does it have that no one is the what way massachusetts health plan good? what does it have that no one else does? in late march, the obama administration received a clear warning that its october 1 launch was fraught with risks. analysis foreshadowed many of the problems that dogged healthcare.gov since his rollout. insufficient testing would make it difficult to fix problems after the launch. sheila, new orleans, democrats line. isler: i am wondering why it that republicans are not trying to help as far as making some help theolution to

affordable care act. instead, i watch and see that -- i am disabled. i see that they are always complaining about what somebody said that. they never say anything good. i give credit to the president. he is trying to help the american people. those of us who do not have insurance, do not have good health insurance, he is trying to do something. behink they need to try to off all of these days, stay in the house, do something. work for what they are getting paid for instead of making it seem unfair always criticizing him. host: are you going to be getting insurance through the exchanges? yes, i am. host: what is your experience so far? caller: i am going to do it today.

so i am goingts, to do it today with my eight. aide. we're going to get on there and see what they have to offer. i will keep trying. i believe in the president. i believe he is trying to do a very good thing for us. they need to work together. host: here's kingsport, tennessee, independent line. caller: i have nothing against what the president has done, the republicans. thing -- this affordable health care, if you purchase it, you are going to get the government subsidy to bring the cost down, but then your deductible is going to be higher than the actual cost. it is going to cost people money. next.gloria is up brooklyn, new york. same people who are

calling in and saying obama is lying and this and that, i am sure they should stop and think that social security was once like that. everybody was saying, it is not going to work. give obama a chance to fix it. i believe in him. i believe the country needs to help. the same people calling in saying they are lying -- you cannot pry social security away from their hands right now. host: how long of a chance should he get? caller: this is new. -- to fix thelow obstacles that are in the way. i pay $100 for my medicare part d insurance. this has been going on since i was 48. i am 62. i appreciate it. other people do not even have that. they have nowhere to go. we have to fix it. denver, colorado,

republican line. good morning, fred. caller: good morning. i enjoy your show. thee is an expression that path to hell is paved with good intentions. my criticism of the health care act is that there were not enough high let programs throughout the country. let -- pio h high lot programs throughout the country. cap on premiums, but no cap on benefits. how do they handle mental health problems? there is no clear on set of illness and no evidence of cure and no verification that treatment is effective. much treatment in mental health is trial and error. host: what he focus on the mental health aspect? caller: i tried to write a

policy of my own and i found that mental health is the most difficult to reconcile in how to structure and pay for it when there is so much opportunity for fraud and abuse in that field. to write said you try a policy -- would you mean by that? caller: i wrote a 19 page document to every congressman during the process. i got zero response on my plan. massachusettshow handled that problem. host: did you offer solutions? caller caller: yes, i did. host: such as? i structured around the where youserve plan grew the states by demographics. what happens in massachusetts is not the same as the demographics

in georgia, alabama, mississippi. call for demographics different solutions. one plan cannot fit all. debbie, she is up next. our guest will not be coming back to join us due to technical difficulties. a story taking a look at the foreign policy -- writing under the headline a wash with $100 million. an international trust fund , the u.s.d in 2004 and 16 other donor nations have raised almost $2 billion for reconstruction progress -- projects in iraq. donations for iraq are becoming harder to justify, given its sizable oil based revenue.

the united nations said iraq's status as a middle income country has led to declining donor interest and a reduction in international funding. nino, columbia, maryland. caller: good morning. i want to say that president obama has done an outstanding job with this affordable care plan. he swore to uphold the constitution. he is protecting the citizens of our nation to make sure they are in good health. if republicans want to make this better, add a little bit of dental care in it. thank you all for listening. host: jpmorgan and the united states have reached a settlement concerning troubled mortgages. the headline is here. you can read the rest on "the wall street journal" website. independent line. hi.

ron, hello? you are on, go ahead. caller: i have been hearing this stuff about health care and all of this and that. i have been to the hospital a few times talking to people that are telling me they are losing their health care. the doctor won't see them anymore. what i want to know -- what hip credit the codes? oath?pocratic host: why is that an issue? caller: you are not supposed to refuse people. that is my understanding of it. that is what they're doing now. they are afraid they're not going to get paid or whatever. that is wrong, pennsylvania.

ron, from pennsylvania. federal regulation has no warnings to consumers about the ingredient. supplements with an agreement called acacia scientists could not the substance and verified samples of the plan. rita, the mcgrath line, high. line, hi.ts what about all of the

fake foundations that are sending people around telling them not to get obamacare and even have a problem -- a promise that they will never sign up for obamacare. that is trying to kill it for everybody. i do not hear anybody but rachel talking about that. host: that is rita. this is nita, shiloh, georgia. republican line. caller: thank you for taking my call. i was listening to the lady a few calls back that was talking about medicare. -- 67, excuse me, i can i get medicare coverage until i turn 65. i don't know how she got it at 62. to her, i would like to say this -- we paid in through medicare taxes taken out of our pay every

week. paid to have obamacare. we are all going to pay dearly for it if it's fully implemented. i don't know why people don't understand that if the government cannot take control of our lives like that, health is something very personal. anita, shiloh, georgia. the president will have an interview with the wall street journal and you can watch them online. you can also go to c-span.org for more information. p.m. on c-t at 7:00 span 3, they're going to feature and hes on ben bernanke

will talk about communication and monetary policy. that will be live tonight, at 7:00 p.m. on c-span numeral pre-. john -- c-span 3. john, independent line. to talk about the coverage i have that is being canceled. had $190,000 of medical bills. i paid the total out of my pocket. host: the house of representatives is coming in. we will take you to the house. unication from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's room, washington, d.c., november 19, 2013. i hereby appoint the honorable george holding to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, john a. boehner, speaker of the house of representatives.