public sectors working together to come up with lower costs, more innovative solutions. it doesn't have to be a policy that covers 500,000. i think there is a lot of innovation that we can bring. there have been some comments just just to give you some statistics about the care. 1974, thearted in first year we issued a policy. all the policies were nursing home only. today, 70% of care was provided in-home. we just published our 11th study on cost of care. we actually can tell you how much it cost for in-home care. about $20 an hour. assisted-living, $42,000. nursing homes, or over 82,000.

right now, medicaid primarily provides coverage in institutional setting. there is opportunity to bring -- move for people into the homes. i think there is an opportunity there. inflation for last five years have gone up 4.3% per year and it is the same for assisted-living in-home care which is only growing a little more than one percent. we need to think about inflation because if you picture of the maybe baby boomer, 68, needing care 15 years from now. if you look forward and you project 25 years from today when the bulk of the baby boomers will be at the age where they need care, at the current rate -- they cost

$80,000 and dental floss to $200,000 a year in on average people need three years of coverage. coming back to the public and private solutions, i think there is a lot of opportunities there to come up with insurance that is both public and private. we need more innovative products, lower cost products. role for certainly a public insurance and public financing. i'm looking forward to working with the dpc and others to lay out at least the multiple of opportunities and options, different solutions, and hopefully there could be some consensus here and in the states for picking some set of those to at least move the ball forward. i will turn it over to our last speaker. [applause] >> i am very pleased to be here today. i think it is interesting in the

discussion medicaid has gone last. medicaid is certainly first for long-term care and has been the workhorse of our long-term care services and support system over years. one could say it has been the developer of what we have today as both nursing home care, but especially home and community-based services. it is nice to not have to be talking about expansion states versus non-expansion space. i would like to be talking about something that is going on in all states which has been really on the forefront of most states work because they know the dollars they're spending on their disability population and on their emily -- they're utterly population -- elderly population is the majority of the dollars in the digit -- thei r budget. it is a critical issue will be look at the income distribution of the population. the fact that we don't say very

much and we're going to have a society in which many people are going to need long-term services and are not going to have the resources. they are not going to be able to live in some of the affluent communities where the beverages -- villages can take care of you. we need to look at what our income guidelines that we are going to use. programmedicaid is a that has very severe income eligibility levels. you have to meet severe disability test to qualify on the basis of disability. if you are elderly, the income levels are very limited. some might say go to state planners have been able to manage -- transfer everything. we have never seen that there was enough people who transferred assets. it is not a part of the real problem. congress have been very effective in going back to future lookbacks. what we're looking at in the medicaid program is what lessons can it give us and how can we

build on the innovation that states have put forward, especially in light of the decision never quires more care in the community for those who elect to be there. i think what we really see in the states is that they are learning more and more about not only how to provide long-term services, but especially on how to integrate those with acute care services and with the medical needs of the population. about two things as if the same person does not have both sets of needs. i think one of your challenges going forward is not only to look at the role done medicaid plays and how to integrate those services, but to bring what is not on this panel the medicare program into the middle and talk about how medicare can better effectively provide for some of the disability in elderly populations that depend on a medicare for their primary care and needs more integration of their acute and

long-term care services through the medicaid program. i would put medic where firmly back on the table as one of the issues at that we should look at in the intersection between medicare and medicaid as a critical one. i would also say that the affordable care act has a lot going on for innovation and long-term services. many of the states have embraced the taking on different ways to try and reduce nursing home readmissions and back-and-forth the hospital to try and look at better ways to provide behavioral health services. that is the kind of thing no one really talks about. out behavioralt health services. if we are going to be moving to more integrated coordination, we need to look at providing for the behavioral health services. when need to think about the the population may have greater and greater cognitive impairments unless we

find -- find the solution to alzheimer's, we need to think about different kinds of settings and strategies. the other piece we have to talk about is really housing because housing is really the big impediment to be able to key people in the community. going for, i won't take a lot of time to go back through everything medicaid does or does not do well. we need to really look at today's options -- these options to see how care is being delivered. we need to look at integration between private insurance, public insurance, medicaid and medicare so that the whole system of care that people need to support them is integrated. i really think we need to look at a better care management, case management strategy within the medicare program to manage people through the system even if they are coordinating with medicaid. care conditionm

put forth, we really do need some form of a standardized assessment for who needs long-term care, how they needed so that we can match resources to people's needs. indiana, i think we have to look whatgh and i know you will medicaid is doing today, how does it fit into the future, what are the limits of the program, how does that fit with medicare? how does that fit with private insurance? unfortunately, when i worked on the pepper commission, it all comes down to who pays and how to finance and deliver those services. you have a broad challenge ahead and i know you will contribute a new level of understanding to this debate about how to we really take care of the full range of health and long-term care needs that our population faces. thank you. [applause] >> all right.

q&a.ll do a quick we will start with anne. the big question is the one you already which is how do you build a viable, sustainable, private market? what has emerged is this primarily a policy challenge? is this about convincing people to come into the market and premiums will go down on their own? obstacles do we need to clear in order to get that? >> there are a lot of obstacles. i don't think -- certainly, education is an issue but that will not yet as to where we need to go. this is definitely a public policy problem. the solution that is required is, in my view, a revamp of the entire insurance marketplace.

on this written a paper so i will let him talk about some of his ideas because i think that at the level in which we have to intervene in order for this to work. >> thanks. [laughter] >> i do want to say one of the thing. there is no private insurance solution that will work without a public piece to it. even ado as much -- dramatic or awesome reform, we can do those but in order to get enrollment to a level in which we would needed to be, we have to have -- there has to be a public piece to this. leftm is sitting on my -- i don't want to understate -- underestimate what anne said. we have major demand-side issues. lack of understanding. there needs to be a very targeted and focused effort to

let americans know what stands before them, what is the nature of this problem, what are the risks they face so they can begin taking certain actions. the critical issue is cost. people cannot afford to pay for this. there are a number things that can be done to lower the cost of products. distribution. how is this product is committed? if this was made a standard benefit package when you go to work, you sign up a health care and there is long-term care sitting right there. or you change the choice architecture so that people don't opt into purchasing something that they opt out. it is part of their package unless they say otherwise. reform.ry to allow the insurance companies got into this market believing they were providing a product that is guaranteed renewable. they have found often they've been treated as noncancelable.

they can never change prices when assumptions go sour for reasons outside of their control. i think we really need to take a look at that. trying to file and get accepted 50 different insurance departments. it is a very costly proposition for companies. completely with what anne is saying. the industry is now willing to assume all of the risk. the number of lifetime coverage allah sees, unlimited policies -- coverage policies, companies are no longer selling them. that opens up the door for some kind of potential, catastrophic potential that may help people understand what they are -- what their exposure is on the less catastrophic part. -- i doi would add think that consumer awareness

and education is critically important. we have done a lot of surveys. most americans think either medicare or the aca covers long-term care and it does not. americans that don't have a policy are dependent on their own safety net and what they have saved. a lot of studies out on what people save on 401(k) plans -- i think this is in the white paper that was just published. the average tuesday five-year-old -- the average 65 he rolled -- year-old has $65,000. that $70,000 to live off of if they become disabled is a big issue.

disease management has been raised and is bringing together medicare, medicaid, and how we manage diseases. think this will continue to be the case going forward is that 51% of her claims are poor cognitive issues led by alzheimer's. only about, i think, the disordersn cognitive like alzheimer's is something like 1/10 of the research spent on cancer. it is appropriate it be less than 1/10 probably doesn't make sense. alzheimer's is the sixth largest cause of death. that we have gone for about 100 insurers in the private sector to about one dozen. it has been a very difficult and challenging regulatory environment. i think there needs to be in

much more -- need to be much more flexibility. if insurance companies, private or even the public sector, are going to play a role, you have to have good legislation. i think these proposals will help. a regulatory system, wherever it comes out, that is fair, it is somewhat predictable, and it is reasonable. it is a credible process to grow through -- you go through in terms of how you price. >> i am hearing two sides of this. i'm hearing let's develop a private insurance market and then medicaid you hear let's integrate long-term care into managed care into broader system so that we can take care of the whole group. i think that is a real challenge to figure out as you go forward -- you really want a separate private insurance market or is it really somehow necessary to merge that with what we do on

the health care side and try to go to more of a managed care coordinated care concept even if there are separate contracts? that and glad you said am glad you made the remark you did. i could not agree more. i think what we can do -- i think there was a way to do it. thisterm care is really weird hybrid of disabilities, disability insurance in one hand and health insurance on the other hand. woman look at medicare spending data, we see that somebody who has five or more chronic take a personwe who has five or more chronic conditions and compare them to someone who has long care need, it cost twice as much did that -- to medicare. it'll cost medicare on average twice as much. all the things that medicare is doing around bundled payment,

managed care, improving the core nations is really critical -- coordinations is really critical. if you're not focused on long-term care population, you are never going to get there. eventually you are not going to get there. at the same time, we are still under financed. there was a lack of money to pay for these more basic services. what we need to do is empower consumers with more resources. system oralth care delivery system that has the more coordinated care management services to help them and to work with them. >> i want to reinforce that. i think the important point is that when i talk about thinking new ways about this, you can imagine health plans assuming part of the risk for what traditionally has been long-term care. we have some historians have all

said --historic examples. we can learn about how health care is managed especially when it comes to substitutions between were costly, acute care services versus supportive services. i am in agreement with that. right now, you have such a gap between the people who could spend all the way down to medicaid and people were looking towards premiums. is it feasible to just think we could bring the costs all the way down to close that gap or is that something where different public programs or health programs or other entities could come in that middle area? the average nursing home care $87,000.e country is that has been growing in the last five years by over four percent. 25 or 30d to imagine

years from now that you won't have a nursing home cost of double or triple what it is today. that is the way inflation works. care, it depends where you are but it is somewhere between $19 and $20 an hour. on the previous panel, someone talked about a lot of that care is now being given by baby boomers to their parents. turningby boomers are 65, 10 thousand a day, for the next 20 years. the number of 65 and over will double in the next 40 years. the number 85 and older is the real scary part will triple in the next 40 years. boomers will shift to the millennial's or whoever and there are as many of them.

that ratio onto is going to be significant. if families and friends are -- $450 billion, due when the keep that in the system. you don't want to keep to much burden on them because while they are taking care of someone who is disabled, they also have to have a job. -- we can deal with disease management, managed care like we have done. i started in the insurance industry in the 1970's. their work ppos or hmos. that is help to bring the cost down. despite bringing the cost down, it doesn't cover inflation. it still costs more today than it did in that is going to go up. i think we need to work on innovation and bringing the cost down.

it is pretty hard to actually reduce cost. it is more about controlling the growth. there was a hundred 50 million americans between 40 and 75. even the ones who have saved something in 401(k) plans can't find benefit pensions anymore. whether it is the public-sector or the private, it is a huge expense. i have said over the years with the senators and other senators and others, these entitlement -- depending on where interest rates are, the underfunded entitlements are $40 trillion. we know the public debt is $17 trillion. when you add those together, at least $60 trillion. we have less than three workers. it is only going to get worse. whatever you do them bring in

the cost down, this is a huge financial burden. the private sector no way is he going to be up to cover everyone. they will do some medical underwriting to improve its pool. the public sector has to be like it is today. -- there are hundred 50 million people between 40 and 75. and r 7.5 million web policies today. it takes a burden off the entitlement programs. i think as part of all this, recognizing that the private system our public system on its own cannot solve it but we are able to work together on the private and public sector in washington and the states that we can at least do a better job than we did today. financing is one of the biggest underfunded liabilities that we have. >> i think you really have to look at the nursing home peace

versus the home community piece. we haven't had -- at a lot of people to the nursing home population. it has been between 1.5 and 2 million. is in home and community-based services and all the complements the go with that. i do know from public opinion programs that most people when they hear the words long-term care or long-term care insurance think it is only for being in a nursing home. i think you have a real public perception of what it is you are selling and what it is you are marketing to people. i think you need to think about a strategy that keeps more in the community and doesn't get hung up on trying to figure out how to finance nursing homes. one more point i think we should turn it over. that -- was a consensus is a consensus that while everyone in colleges -- everyone

acknowledgesis -- both sides to play a role. to the extent, we want to take a series of actions to move the needle so that at least more people, again, without prejudice ing private and public insurance. >> any questions? >> i am an attorney and physician. i came here to talk about the tie between long support services, community-based supports services. it is what you said. maybe i need to tell you about

my experience with long-term care insurance. when i left the federal government, i was in my 60's. i had hypertension. i went to talk to a broker. i found that i was going to have to pay thousands of dollars a year. that could go up. i would have to pay every year. if something happens and for a while i couldn't pay, i lost everything. i lost thousands of dollars a year. nothing was saved, nothing accumulated, nothing was left. this has nothing to do with denial. this is not a business model that most people will find appealing. years ande pay for 50 lose their insurance and the insurance companies counted on that that you would pay all this money and get nothing in return. thatthink i should take one. [applause]

[laughter] the traditional long-term care said -- itwhat you was designed to let premiums annually and pay a claim. that is no different than homeowners or auto insurance. you pay for the hope that you will need to make a claim because part of the financing mechanism is that not everybody is going to have to make a claim. i don't want to defend that. the policies that the way they are. 97% of the people that made a claim in the long-term care policy are satisfied. it may very well be that i long-term care policy was not right for you, isn't right for everybody. there are new innovative , affordable life products. it does have a cash value.

you can take away at the end if you never made a claim the value of the life insurance but if you make a claim, part of it can be used to pay the claim. i agree with you that going forward there are a lot of opportunities for new and different kinds of policies that can get at some of the negative that you say on what has been the core traditional policies. i know what my risk is for this year. [indiscernible] i pay for that care this year. that would've been the end of it. >> time for one more. >> i hear all of you talk a little bit about opt out versus mandate. itit going to come down to,

are going to have something that economically works, is he going to come down to that? benefit-- is cash the and had as a change the psychology of how people would plan for this personally? if you are the king and queen of the world and the decision had to be made by 5:00 today, what would you of eyes congress -- what would you advise congress? we have been talking about it. how would you come out on it if you had to make a decision today? >> awesome. think, to get back to the remarks earlier, i think that cash is actually the only way that we can actually -- if we are going to greater risk product, and insurance pool, the way long-term care behaves

for people in their lives and ports in the way to sup the services and integrated, the last thing we need to do is create a service that pays for services. i think families of the ultimate integrated services system. let them work with a lot more support from the health care system. i am a big fan of cash. honestly, i made my views known publicly. to my head andn you asked me to opt out versus mandatory, i would say it is some piece of this has to be mandatory. it is too challenging to get enough enrollment in order to create enough of a risk pool. you have to get premiums down in order to get people enrolled. where do you start?

you start by enrolling people and i get the premiums down. i have a min able to figure out another way to do it mathematically. >> join me in thanking an excellent panel. [applause] >> that does bring to conclusion our presentations and discussion today. but i think this last panel, especially, introduced the challenges before us. the great excitement we have in large part, in turning to you, many of you, many of whom have been involved in this a long, long time. we do at the b.b.c. reach out for your ideas, your thoughts. we look forward to continued engagement. encourage all you've to read the paper which is the foundation for which we will put together specific recommendations over the coming months. i thank former panelened that panel and thank all of you for being with us today.

thank you all very much. appreciate it. >> c-span, for 35 years, bringing public affairs events from washington directly to you. putting you in a room at congressional hearings, white house events and offering complete gavel-to-gavel coverage of the u.s. house, all as a service of private industry. we're c-span created by the cable tv industry 35 years ago and brought to you as a service by your local cable or satellite provider. watch us on tv, like us on facebook and follow us on twitter. >> coming up, an update with how many people have signed up for health insurance under the affordable care act. coming up in a little less than an hour, shielding journalists and then this weekend's elections in afghanistan and

then discussion on the future of ong-term care insurance. now we'll have a couple of live events tomorrow on the c-span networks. secretary of state john kerry will testify before the senate foreign relations committee on national security. you can watch it on c-span 3 at 10:00 a.m. eastern. on c-span 2 at 1:30 p.m. eastern, we'll be covering a defense department briefing on u.s. strategy on operations in africa including peacekeeping and anti-terrorism efforts. now an update on the affordable care act. president obama announced last week that more than 7 million people had signed up for insurance under the new law. from "washington journal," this is 40 minutes.

viebeck. ed by elise there is another enrollment effort that is going on here for medicaid and the children's ealth insurance program. for the a new front affordable care act? guest: that is right. the white house is very excited to encourage this, which became optional because of the supreme court's decision to uphold the act in 2012. before that states were going to be required to expand programs up to 133% of the federal poverty level. about $32,000 for a family of four. they were going to have to offer health care coverage from the states, paid for by the governments, several gop sites were very upset about this. the supreme court vindicated

them, making it optional. now the white house says that this figure, which no one ever thought they would get to, i remember being on this program on october 1 having just gone on the website and seen the problems that political observers across the city did not think that they would even reach, 4 million or 5 million, let alone their original goal, they are very excited and want to apply political pressure to expand that program for the low income adults that currently don't have health insurance. host: and we got some new numbers at the end of last week about medicaid. what were those numbers? what tn found is that people who signed up for medicaid and chip relative to the months before -- exchange exchanges opened insurance exchanges opened, that continues because medicaid

enrollment continues by state. what the administration is trying to do, they did not even say that these additional people are precisely because of the affordable care act, but we can assume that that is because of the expansion, people are joining the health insurance rolls. what the administration is trying to do is empower local advocates in red states to pressure governors alongside members of the health system, like hospitals, to call was good for the health care system for people to have medicaid coverage. that medicaid expansion that we talked about, here is a map of the state to have expanded their medicaid to date. the darker red, brownish states, the ones who have not currently expanded. what are the states to watch here as this push comes from the white house to continue this expansion? there are a lot of swing

states that we would watch, places like arkansas, new hampshire, pursuing alternatives , trying to take money from the federal government to provide more health insurance without doing it in a way that the affordable care act exactly outlined. i think that what the white house is going to do is continue to update that map. they put a version of it on social media from time to time in order to pressure their base to take it to the governors. they feel that this is the next battleground and they hope to use it to political advantage. sowhat has been the response far from governors targeted the most? guest: a mixed bag, frankly. mike pence, who as we remember from his time on capitol hill, was no friend to the affordable care act, he is now encouraging the health and human services onartment to work with him an alternative expansion.

it is interesting to watch these red state governors, very vocal opponents of obamacare, as they would call it, adapt versions under fresher from the local business community. if you watch some of those governors trying to work with hhs, there is an intriguing story there. one other intriguing story that has come out in a week since that deadline, comments from former obama administration official, robert gibbs. what were his comments when talking about the employer mandate? the part that has been delayed twice by the administration. what robert gibbs said was that he was speaking to a health care gathering in colorado springs and said that this will be the first thing to go about the law, that it was not very important, and he was not mounting a great defense of the policy. everyone was surprised. it was picked up by a small

health care public. -- such ation, to have high-ranking former obama official call out a part of the law that hasn't been implemented yet cast all kinds of doubt. we wondered if he had inside information or if he thought it was even important. and then yesterday, with nancy on cnn, saying that this is an important part of the law, it was clear that there was a vacuum for democrats there. someone needed to step in to mount a defense. someone like even hillary , another high-ranking official we expect to run for president, it was important for someone for the left to come in if the mandate is still alive. host: numeral show the viewers now the defense that you are talking about from nancy pelosi yesterday. [video clip]

the clientsnow who of robert gibbs are or what his perspective are -- is, but we are celebrating the fact that 7 million have signed up. not counting the 3.1 million on the policies of their parents until they are 26. not including over 3 million, probably closer to $5 million on medicaid, bringing close to 15 who now have quality, affordable health care. for those of us who made this individual mandate an integral part of giving people -- >> you think it is integral? and it has to stay? >> this is an initiative that strong pillars in it that relate to each other. >> you cannot see anything removing the business mandate?

>> i don't know why we are focusing on this. one person says one thing. 7 million people sign up. the congress of the united states is trying to show that they are proud of what they have one away from what we have done. -- run away from what we have done. host: what was the response throughout the day, yesterday? guest: everyone expected a leader like nancy pelosi to come out instead of the mandate, but people are still skeptical about whether the administration will ultimately carry it out. the administration has given us no indication that they will do it again. delays have been called over. whether that has -- whether that is true or not, that will be difficult to say, but it will be difficult -- important to keep on top of the mandates on k

street. groups like retail and restaurant groups that feel they would be the most affected by it. affecting up only their bottom line, but employee hours and the ability to hire. the comments from robert gibbs alternately energized that movement to repeal the mandate or pressure the administration to delay it again. the left's campaign was in defense of it. host: if you have questions or comments for elise viebeck, of "the hill" newspaper as we talk about the future of the affordable health care act, phone lines are open -- as the folks are calling in, we showed a picture of kathleen sebelius. she will be in the senate on

thursday. what are we expecting to hear from her? talking aboutl be the proposed budget from the president for 2015. these are typical hearings to see a cabinet secretary at. know, given the seven point one million figure and all of the delays and different changes we have seen to the affordable care act, lawmakers are certainly always interested in talking about this. interestingly, they don't spend much time on the budgetary issues. we are likely to see her on the hot seat again. she has interesting, and secondhand on what is to come, so we will be watching her closely. host: opening the phones, russ, you are on with elise viebeck. high, isy comment, along the lines of the things that i see so much from the beginning. it is all about money and

investment made by the republicans in trying to defeat this thing, trying to turn the american people against it. if they had taken all of that energy and brain power and turned it into working with the if they were this big, this massive, of course it would have problems. if the republicans had worked with democrats on the problems, i feel like we could have had a very workable bill right now. i am hoping that the republicans realize that there is nothing more to be gained by fighting it and actually work with the democrats to really overcome the remaining problems in the bill. the bill seems sound and i hope that we can really make this work in the future. , what dide viebeck

you hear in that call? guest: the caller reflects many people, he wants to see the law fixed. that vulnerable lawmakers would do well to propose fixes to the law. poll after poll shows that the american public does not want health care reform repealed, just improved. there is a lot of pressure in the senate for vulnerable democrats. some people were worried about elections where republicans take the chamber. what these democrats are trying to do, maybe not to the agreement of their leaders, is proposed changes to the law. we will have to watch the senate theseticular to see if vulnerable democrats are allowed to vote on these. nancy, democratic line, good morning. caller: i would like to say that

i am a democrat, but i don't agree with the affordable care act. i was against it and am still against it. i think that what needs to be done is a needs to be totally republicansbut the were not given a chance to put into it. democrats and president obama did not want any input. president obama is still saying that it is done, there is no way we will change it. makes have to change to this affordable to everyone, otherwise our country is going majore major deficits and financial problems. that is my comment. thank you. of thelise viebeck, some same comments happening on capitol hill amongst republicans on capitol hill? guest: absolutely. it republicans are concerned that this is a law that will affect the deficit and extend it dramatically. the congressional budget office have -- has not found that to be

true. but there are parts that rely on , a law to remain in place board that is not there and lacks imminence cuts, that board has bipartisan legislation to reveal. a lot of people were concerned about the cost of these provisions. we will have to wait to get the data to see how many people were subsidized on the exchanges. on the subsidy question, dd wrightson on twitter -- host: do we know any of those numbers, yet? guest: we do not know that yet. many are receiving the subsidies. administration are in rome and activists who were on the ground trying to enroll people and saying that

things really changed when they emphasize the idea that people could get a discount from the government for their health care coverage. we knew that these subsidies were popular and drew many people to the exchanges might not otherwise have been interested. but the administration has not released data on the amount of people receiving subsidies. it varies, person by person. there is a sliding scale, based on income. we will have to wait to see more. roberta, republican line, san diego. you are on with elise viebeck. caller: first of all, i do believe your prejudice for the health-care law. i don't believe that people in this country have to be bribed or that we should be involved in buying of votes. or that we have done the things that we have done to prevent obamacare. i am also very concerned about we had more people

purchase pet rocks a few years back then have shown interest in purchasing obamacare. we've never had states, ever, pay 10%, which they say is what they are going to pay after the government leaves, for the states to pay out. none of them ever gain that kind of income. i have many questions. i would like to know about the subsidy issue in the courts today. what happens if they vote against that? will they send everyone a bill for the subsidy? and it is here in the long-time covering of this. but the subsidy issue is raised crucial. i don't know anyone who purchased pet rocks in the last

year. maybe it was more than seven million people. interesting. my understanding that the part of the law that has been decided in the supreme court as legal, we are likely to see it going forward unless republicans are ine to take the white house, which they would be able to alternately repeal coverage provisions that they disagree with. i think it would really take the republicans who continue to talk about repeal. , for example, reiterated his commitment to repeal. certainly there are a lot of base republican voters out there who want to hear that message. the other side of the coin is the fact that 7.3 million people have signed up for private coverage and democrats will be able to use that as a political constituency in the future. people will be called upon to defend their coverage. now, whether that is a

successful strategy, that is hard to say, but democrats will try to use it to keep the law in place. host: we are always interested in new numbers coming out. what other numbers are coming out that we should be looking for? guest: a good question. the obama administration is expected to finalize its proposed cuts in 2016, part of the affordable care act. >> for folks that may not use the advantage? guest: that is the private alternative to medicare. you can sign up for this or the plan carried by a private health insurance offer. it is interesting. today we are expecting the obama administration to finalize this as it was composed under the affordable care act. the reason the cuts became a part of the law and have been so , he often accused

that it is over pulled relative to traditional medicare. programs receive more money on average per beneficiary than they do on traditional medicare. democrats would argue that that is not fair and that the affordable care act is to rectify it. the reason this is interesting they is whether administration bows from pressure on the right and democrats on capitol hill to either reduce cuts or detract them, which they can do with broad regulatory discretion. certainly, democrats don't want to be running in districts where insurance companies can accuse them of having medicare for seniors. so, there are a lot of democrats on capitol hill who have said to the administration -- please, do not implement drastic cuts here. we will see an answer from the administration today. the: before we go to numbers question, there was so

much focus on a 7 million enrollment number for private health lands. what is the next enrollment number to look for, looking ahead to 2015, now that the 2014 enrollment. is closed. is closed.nt period ort: guest: in the next week two weeks we will see a final report breaking down the numbers from march, when they saw the massive sweep of people enter. we are also watching premiums over insurers right now having to file their rates for next year with state regulators. and with state regulators over will accept them or challenge them. perhaps under pressure from the administration, challenge them. those premiums are going to matter to how many people enroll in these marketplaces over time. it is not necessarily great for getting customers, but at the

same time, the mandate penalty will be ramping up next year. that will entice more people to come in. end of marchat the spills over into april. theinistrations --guest: administration has a special period to enroll in these changes. it will last for about one more week. insurers were worried this would be open-ended to continue to boost enrollment numbers, but it looks like that is going to and. -- to end. host: stand, good morning. my comment is -- i am not on the affordable care act. i am on medicare. my son, who had insurance that everybody is talking about that he had to get rid of because it was not up to par, he got rid of it and got a much better coverage on the affordable care act.

now, january his wife was rushed to the hospital and the bill was paid 100%. my next-door neighbor who had a pre-existing condition was in the hospital many times. was once a republican. i believe the republican party is only for the rich and the wealthy. that is all they do. we can give money to all of these countries, why can we not give money to our citizens. why can't they pay more taxes to help the poor and innocent. i do not need the help, but i see people that do. i am willing to pay a little bit more so my son and other people's sons can have health insurance. my daughter's two kids will stay on her plan until they're 26. one of them has very bad problems and will probably never be able to get health insurance he has a bone

deficiency. now he will be able to get health insurance. story from theve affordable care act. the scholar sounds like his family has experienced the benefits of this law, even though there was a plan cancellation, which has been an issue for the obama administration. the associated press estimates about 5000 people solve their health plans canceled. what this caller is saying is that in spite of plan florida, that is a federally run exchange, towns like his son was able to log on and find a plan that was cheaper than his previous option. that is exactly the kind of story the white house likes to

hear. brings up a question -- are there more people insured than there were before obamacare? there are. we will have to wait until the census bureau data comes out to see exactly how many people gained and lost insurance in the last six months. there were about 5 million plan cancellations. that is a pretty neutral number. signedere 7.1 people who up on the exchanges in addition to about 3 million that stayed ' health parents insurance plan. when you add those numbers and the aggregate, it is likely that people did gain insurance, particularly because those who plans were canceled, they thought they only have the option of going to the exchanges and those 5 million were perhaps the bulk of the people that the 7.1 million

figure. people that had their plans canceled generally received a cancellation notice from their insurance company offering plans. off onwere able to sign plans off the exchange. up next on the line for republicans. and caller: thank you for taking my call. i deliver the rubber on the road when it comes down to this bill. talk about whyto did nate read it and the regulations should have been made that people in the insurance business should have helped with the regulations, but the website itself, let's talk about that a little bit. whoever designed this website,

and i have done over 400 policies through the website, they do not realize that a two-year-old or a five-year-old or a seven-year-old cannot have a job in this country. they do not collect alimony and so on and so forth. there is stuff on this website that makes the question who designed it? . that is one thing i am surprised about on a website. number four, i wonder when -- the lady on the show said the independent payment advisory board is put in place to make cuts to medicare. i want to make sure everyone heard that. i also want to talk about my stories because there is no doubt that i have people that i ensure that i have gotten plenty it issidy for that think the best thing since sliced

bread. i get the other side, two retired police officers and of their wives and they have lost their health in michigan because they plan for the retirement, they make a little bit too much money so they can i get subsidy and their insurance is 1100 and $1200. happening as we have not addressed anything about health care because we have not addressed y and m ir -- m.r.i. is a grand. lease -- elise jump in. he is from michigan, which is a federally facilitated exchange, which means he would be using healthcare.gov to enroll these clients. it is difficult. there will be books written about all of the problems at hhs that allowed this website to move forward. we know they're going to

continue overhauling it before the next enrollment season begins. the problems were so deep, they feel they can do well by making significant changes. theydministration hopes can fix it. we will see if that is true. on the idea of health care costs, this bill is the law now. it was passed in order to address access problems. what they desired was to make health care coverage accessible to as many people as possible at as low a cost as possible. values -- i think the idea of cost is something that lawmakers will have to continue in the future. the health care system is expensive. there are certain parts of the toordable care act that seek

begin to address the cost question. we are likely to see federal health officials published at a about doctors who receive reimbursements from medicare, the specifics they bill, and how much money they receive. we receive data about how much hospitals charge for procedures. this is part of an effort to increase chance -- transparency. it will also give data to researchers who can see where waste, fraud, and abuse is occurring a little bit better than the government does. host: we stock about the state headlinesthat a few generated from meetings with members of congress, state officials say technology problems on health insurance sites. the wall street journal states grappling with the health care exchange.

not great headlines coming out of that headline. -- that meeting last week. know, there were not. many of the states that trouble most were democratic led states. consumers were struggling as recently as the last month to enroll. it shows government has not attempted to create systems like the ones the affordable care act asked to create. states may appeal to the federal government to use their software. that is an interesting idea. what supporters would say is this is a long -- this law will be on the books for a long time. say theators would system will not work for the

public. government should not be attempting it. host: linda, mississippi, democratics line. caller: good morning. i agree with affordable health care act. when i was young and raising my children, i did not have insurance. working and could not afford health insurance. always talk about the cost of health care. they did not worry about what it cost when they put us in a war, they did not worry about that. democrats worked with them to fix what problems they had.

if they spend more time trying to fix the problems instead of trying to knock it down, because it is here to stay. the democrats afraid to run on they need care law, not be afraid. republicans always against everything. just like they was against voting during the last election. they were criticizing the act during the time when president obama was running. linda brings up some of the republican efforts when it comes to the affordable care act. the save american workers act that passed in the house, 236-186. employer addresses the mandate we were discussing. it is a requirement that most businesses offer health insurance to workers if there are 50 workers or above.

this bill would redefine full-time work. is 30 hours a week rather than the traditional 40 hours a week. republicans argue that it ought to be 40 hours. that is the traditional definition and 30 hours is actually prompting employers to order toyees in avoid offering them health insurance. 18 democrats supported this bill. they sided with republicans in order to pass the bill to raise the threshold to 40 hours. it is unlikely to see a vote in the democratic led senate and the white house is set to veto it. it will not go very far. if republicans are able to claim the senate, which people believe they have a good chance of doing, it could have traction there. mellon, fort lauderdale

florida. caller: good morning. to address wanted was the issue with respect to the democratic call-in complaining that obama had no input into the law. i wish you would tell her that republicans had over 140 members in the law when it was written. secondly, in respect to medicare advantage, why will be cut. people do not realize that medicare advantage cost more than regular medicare. when that program was put into effect, it was supposed to be cheaper than regular medicare, as a result, it is more expensive. why should people with advantage get more medicare payments for

individual than those in regular medicare? people wanted, they can paid the extra money out of their pocket. guest: medicare advantage is is whymore and that democrats argue it ought to be cut. the additional payments are subsidizing benefits that are very attractive, like glasses and jim memberships that make these plans popular. those are not essential health care benefits to equalize the government's contributions. launched arers have lobbying campaign against these. and humana,hcare whose profit margins depend on medicare advantage rates staying stable. they have a huge investment in keeping them equal to what they are now. insurers argue that these benefits will go away for seniors if the government cuts its payments to medicare advantage.

they are encouraging seniors to vote on this issue. medicare advantage is very popular. there are many people that say the benefits should not be cut. can you talk about the first part of the question where he was talking about the republican amendments in the original health care law? guest: the affordable care act passed without a single republican vote in this remains a thorn in their side. a lot of people believe a health-care reform law was going part ofaul such a large the economy, it required bipartisan support. the heritage foundation was excited about marketplaces. there are a couple of different sides of the debate, but i think

you will remain an issue for republicans, who are energized by the opposition to the law. they have made great use of that . a few minutes left. a few folks left waiting to talk to you. zach, good morning. caller: good morning. you are refreshing, to hear this conversation done in an , itlligent, factual manner feels good. i am one of those beneficiaries. self-employed, my wife a government employee. both of my kids have sickle cell. one is graduating this year and the other one goes to another major d one school. it is a blessing for them to stay on her plan because they're 26 and make their way through college is -- i cannot describe

how elated i am about this. , taking the side people out of it -- how much we subsidize farms, other nations, i would like people to know that when you compare subsidies, there is a lot of money that goes to reach institutions that actot serve us the way this is going to service nationwide. people need to know that. i am so glad you brought up the point -- and i tell my friends that this is from the new green grinch era. grinch -- newtn

gringich era. guest: a lot of families in the country are benefiting from this. it is not necessarily a change for everybody. the idea that someone with sickle cell, which is a terrible disease can remain on health insurance is a key benefit of this law. republicans are going to have to answer for its. there are a couple of different replacement plans to obamacare. none of them have been brought to the floor of the house. are concerned about bringing a replacement plan to the floor because any replacement plan that involves repealing obamacare, they will have to answer for the idea that some of these plans are going to go away. that is unavoidable. the white house has taken a lot of its own political heat for that. it will be interesting to see if

republicans move forward. jindal replaced his own replacement land. guest: he did. i believe it is part of his abovet to place himself 2016. he wants to make the republican right believe he is a policy thinker, that he is committed to repealing the law. the way he would cover people with pre-existing conditions would get away of the protections now, but incentivizing states to create a grant -- grant program. states can have a part of that money if they choose to allow kids to stay on their parent's health insurance plan until

their mid-20's or cover people with existing conditions. it is another position gentle got criticized for. host: >> ohio democratic guzman tim ryan discusses the debate over the federal budget on capitol hill. followed by senate republican policy committee chairman john barrasso on energy and health care issues. later, brian bennett will talk about white house deportation policy under president obama. "washington journal" every morning with your calls, tweets, and facebook comments at 7 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> during this month, c-span is

pleased to resent our winning entries in the student cam documentary competition. this is the annual competition that encourages middle and high school students to think critically about issues. this year, students were asked to create their video based on the question, what is the most important issue the u.s. congress should consider in 2014? eighth-grade student connor tyding-lynchgelo entered their video,. >> our national debt is a major weakness of the u.s. economy. it has never been as big a problem in the past. now that the u.s. is accumulating more debt, other countries may discontinue buying treasury bonds. you got two big you could

have a situation where our lenders got nervous about our village to -- ability and that cascading series of problems. >> isn't weak demand the greater concern and i look at consumers going back on their spending because of high debt burdens, underwater mortgages, the financial crisis, business is holding off on investing because of weak consumer demand. our country cost greatest concern. >> how will the u.s. cope with its own accumulating debt? the u.s. debt began after the

revolutionary war. american borrowed france from -- money from france and the netherlands to pay for the costs. over the next 10 years with the national dead at 43 million thern dollars, they created u.s. treasury department. it was given the ability to borrow money and to keep the debt at a manageable level. was to make sure the [inaudible] whichxt was the civil war cost over $5 billion to fund. in 1862 the government passed a legal tender act which allowed the government to print paper money to help pay off the debt and to sell $500 million worth of treasury bonds. in the early 20th century,

america prepared for world war i by erasing -- raising taxes and selling more bonds. after the war the u.s. debt was set at over $25 billion. the great depression combined with the stock market crash drove the u.s. debt up even further. even so by world war ii, the u.s. economy still have not come close to surpassing the gross to mastic product of america. however after the war the debt had more than quintupled from $50 billion to $266 billion. >> we had a big debt after will war two. -- world war ii. the >> the u.s. had accumulated anost to the point of economic collapse. has never been more dire. >> we are approaching the level which would be the worst we have had. note are worried they will get their hands are on the debt question. >> one of the greatest threats

was to follow. it is the act of being unable to pay back the national debt which can lead to distrust of the nation as a whole. >> default would be horrific as the country would not be able to borrow the massive amounts of money it needs to keep itself running. default could possibly mean the collapse of our economy. >> we can relatively -- came close to a lace where the u.s. would have been unable to pay its bills. that is because we have a ceiling in the law on how much we are allowed to borrow. unless that ceiling is lifted periodically, the treasury department runs out of ways to finance the debt that we have. and so we can relatively close to that. that has happened several times in the last five years. but thankfully the different parties are being urged to work together to combat the national debt. again the good news in this round is that we hope that our colleagues have learned the

right lesson from the debacle we just went through. unnecessary pain imposed on the country for 16 days. we did not have to be that way. we're hoping that our colleagues clubs andown the recognize this negotiation should be between the budget and myone should try to manage threatening to shut down the government or default on our debt. put down those clubs and have a serious conversation, maybe we can advance the ball. >> congress and white house are working together to make the monster debt a thing of the past. >> the president has made the priority of his which is why we submitted a series of budget usingmises that seek to some very targeted policies, seek to reduce the debt as a share of our overall economy. >> as long as i am president to my will work with anyone in this chamber to build on this momentum.

but i intend to fight obstruction with action and i will oppose any effort to return to the very same policies that brought on this economic crisis in the first place. [applause] >> i think that unless we get a very serious -- very serious about attacking these issues it can impact the overall economic stability. >> the debt problem has been plaguing the u.s. for decades. due to the efforts of political figures in the president, the balance is beginning to tip. america's beginning to lower the gross to mastic product ratio and create more jobs. >> in the six months before he took office, we lost nearly 4 million jobs. we lost another 4 million before our policies were in full effect. those are the facts. but so are these. months,ast 22 businesses have created more than 3 million jobs. [applause]

>> making those kinds of investments [inaudible] will commencewe our reduction. we have to be smart about it and you have to do it in a balanced way. >> to watch all the winning videos and learn more about our competition, go to c-span.org and click on student cam. tell us what you think about the want these students congress to consider. paste your comment -- place your comments on our facebook page. >> coming up in a few moments, a look at a bill that would shield journalists from restitution who are protecting their sources. and more than an hour a form on the lisa -- recent elections in afghanistan. after that the bipartisan policy

center hosting a discussion on the future of long-term care insurance. we will have a couple of live events tomorrow on the c-span networks. secretary of state john kerry will testify before the senate foreign relations committee on national security and foreign-policy. you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter and watch it on c-span3 at 10 a.m. eastern. and on c-span2 we will cover a defense department briefing on inategy and operations africa. including peacekeeping and anti-terrorism efforts. discussion about a shield law that would protect journalists from prosecution from protecting their sources. you will hear from the bill's sponsor, new york senator charles schumer and palestine lawyers. focusing onanel

conflict between the government and media. >> i will talk to senator schumer for little at about his bill, which is the free flow of information act, and he will make his escape and we will have a panel of journalists who will pick apart everything he has to say. i assure you all of them will be here live and in the flesh. as you know, almost every state has your shield law or the traditional equivalent of it, but the exception being wyoming is the one state that does not. are we going to get a federal shield law? >> i think we are. it is i think the odds of getting a shield law passed certainly by the senate and maybe buy a house are very large.

it is very likely the senate will pass the bill this year. just about every democrat is for the bill. that is from my own personal lobbying as well as the publishers and all the other groups and a journalism lobbying them. we have five publicans on record being for it. three are cosponsors. then in committee, pleasantly enough, grassley and hatch voted for it. the fact that grassley is the ranking member of the judiciary committee helps. we will get a few more republicans, but we have 60 votes, and we are making an effort -- lamar alexander and i are trying to put bipartisan bills of significance on the floor that will actually pass. i have spoken to harry reid about, and he seems very sympathetic. i think we will get up bill on the floor and pass it. >> in reporting for column on the subject -- i was surprised

to see that there are conservatives that support this. somebody like ted poe who may agree with you in one out of 10,000 issues, a house sponsor of the bill which at that point was more liberal than yours. so who is against it? >> the whole -- the most republicans are against it. they do not want any exception to national security. present law is if the government says it is national security, a journalist has to testify. what people mistake is there's no first amendment right for gathering information. there is a first amendment right for putting forth information, but not in the way you gather it. there are a lot of people, particularly the national

security side of republicans, who are against it. until we made the compromise that is somewhat controversial, having more limited protections in national security, the obama administration and the attorney general were against it. it mainly comes from the national security side. >> the obama administration is now in favor of it because there are limits in terms of national security. >> i was for a talent thing test for national security, leaving it to the judges they pay could weigh the interests of national security versus the need for a free press. until we put limits on national security, it is a lot better than present law where they can say national security, testify, period. ours has to go before a judge. you have to prove it is national security, so you cannot just make it up or say or stretch it.

and not just -- you have to prove it is national security. you have to prove to future damage. it gives notice so journalists will not have a recent situation where there was no notice at all. >> one of the issues in the drafting and debating of this legislation is a question of what is journalism. who is what anybody calls a reporter when anybody in an internet service provider calls a journalists. what is your definition? >> the bill is not the definition we started with, because my job is to get something passed to make the situation better, and it has been my credo all my life. the original bill i introduced said that as long as you had an intent to gather news, you were a journalist and protected.

two people on the democratic side of the committee did not like that, senators feinstein and durbin, whose politics are similar to mine, but they thought loggers and people like that -- they want traditional journalists to be protected. the compromise basically says three things. if you are a traditional journalist, you're covered. a traditional journalist does not meet anybody who writes for a newspaper -- it does not separate the medium with which you send out news. it means you have some relationship in terms of being a journalist. some commercial relationship at some point in time. if you have it now, you will be paid by somebody to do something. you're fine. if you had it once in the last 20 years for a year or so, you're covered.

the people who are not covered, i wish they were, but they are not, they automatically are people who have written freelance articles and never gotten paid for them. they should be covered. we put in a safety valve that if you are in that situation, you are not automatically covered, but if the judge finds -- and i wanted to get the words right here, that it is in the interest of the justice and necessary to protect lawful newsgathering activities, you're covered. both -- most judges have been quite liberal in applying this law. friendly, we did not get too much opposition from the blogger, new media community, and they did not like this. they thought it was a good compromise, given the fact we need those. if we did not have a unified front in the committee, i would not be able to give you an answer about the bill passing. >> that previous panelists included glenn greenwald who

lives in brazil and said during the discussion that he worries about consequences might befall him if he returns to his native land, this one. would anything in your bill set his mind at ease yes, bottom line? this clearly is a national security case. it would be a judge who would have to rule that bringing glenn greenwald forward to reveal his sources would protect the future security of the united states. that is a lot better than the justice department saying you have to reveal your sources, no contents, no independent arbiter, etc. if the judge thought there was future damage, potential damage

to the security of the united states, he would have to testify. there is a chance he would not. i would be up to the judge, and you would have to look at the ramifications of the case. and he would get notice so he could prepare as opposed to someone just swooping in on him and telling him what to do, looking at his records. it is probably not enough protections to satisfy him, that is for sure, but it is better. >> his concern is not only that he might be compelled to testify. they did not have edward snowden here to prosecute so they are not proceeding where he could be compelled to testify, i guess. his concern is judging from the the administration has used, like co-conspirator and accomplice, that he might be charged under the espionage act. >> i would have to examine the law specifically to see whether he was in jeopardy or not. i cannot give you an answer on the top of my head. >> can you talk about julian assange, another famous nontraditional media figure of recent years.

he is currently encamped in an embassy in london because of his various legal consultations. would he be protected under the shield law and be protected more generally for being with a broker and publisher of the wikileaks -- >> on the first case of if he had any kind of commercial relationship as a journalist, i do not know the details of how he operates, he would be protected. if he did not have any commercial relationship, you would go to this test of in the interest of justice and necessary to protect lawful and legitimate newsgathering, and there would be an independent arbiter to decide. depending on any details of how he operated, he would have protection. if the risk a commercial relationship, which is there? i do not know how he makes

money, as my mother would say, how does he earn a living. >> because he is a former colleague and a friend, i cannot ask about a "new york times" reporter who has refused to identify his source about u.s. intelligence activities in iran. >> he would have a day of court with an independent judge to term and whether he had to reveal his source. >> it would be a balance test that the judge would -- >> national security, it is the test i mentioned before. >> you end up eating push the

.ittle

they did make an effort. they put out some guidelines. there is no independent judge. there are some safeguards. journalists really need notice in just about any situation. the guidelines in the administration defense are some improvement. they are not as good as the bill. the administration is now for the bill, so that's a good thing. >> senator, thank you for being with us today. >> thank you very much. good to see you, senator.

we need to more chairs. am i supposed to stay in the middle or what? if we are going to play musical chairs, we could at least have some music. [music plays] [laughter] ok. all right, i will introduce the panelists as they make their way out. kenneth wainstein spent 19 years

in the justice department where he established and led the brand-new national security division and served as the homeland security advisor to president bush. welcome. jonathan landay is a correspondent for the mcclatchy papers and has been awarded every honor that our business confers. he is most admired for his reporting in the run-up to the war in iraq. quinn norton is a writer who likes to hang out in the dead and alleys and rough neighborhoods of the internet, where bad things can happen to defenseless little packets. her reporting on hackers and many other subjects has appeared in "wired." scott horton is a lecture at columbia law school. he's is the author of a forthcoming book about the rising role of secrecy in national security. kurt wimmer is a counsel of the newspaper association of

america. i have a lot of questions of my own, but i will strongly encourage you to jump in and challenge one another as the opportunity arises. ken, i'm guessing you're outnumbered here. [laughter] the first pitch is to you. in a presentation at the heritage foundation in september, on the future of anti-terror efforts, you said congress should maintain its record of largely resisting legislation that unduly restricts the government's taxability in the fight against international terrorism. does the shield law fall into the category of the undue restrictions? >> that is a good question. i think that was more talking

about the investigative tools and limiting investigative tools. such as scaling back on national street letters, scaling back on electronic surveillance, the kind of thing. i put the free flow of information act in a different category. it does not limit unduly or not the government's effectiveness in terms of its ability to detect terrorist plots. we will talk about terrorism for now. terrorism in a kind of thing. what it does is it undermines the ongoing effectiveness of government operations. obviously, as we have discussed here all day today, there is a

balance to be struck between two principles, the need for transparency and the need for secrecy. will hear more about this the other panelists, but the last 12 or 13 years, there has been an enhanced -- the zone of government operations that are very secret has increased because of that counterterrorism threat, because that by definition needs to be done in a covert manner, and the type of investigative activities that the government is undertaking to take on that threat have moved into new realms that raise new concerns, concerns about privacy, about overreach, concerns about whether the government is going to hard on not going hard enough against terrorists. all are matters of intense public interest. that has sharpened tension between public discussion about what the government does and the need for

the government to maintain secrecy. i would say the shield law does not necessarily curtail the government's investigative, but it limits their effectiveness in some ways. it undermines their ability to launch operations, to do so without worrying about compromise, to the global sources come and all you have to read the 9/11 commission report to see that one of the main reasons 9/11 happened was we did not have human intelligence. we have not developed sources. we only develop sources if this sources have confidence that they will not be unmasked and killed. it undermines the ability to use methods like stuck sets and codes. on a range of areas, leaks undermine the government's effectiveness, and if you have a law that makes difficult for the government to prevent those links from and one way of preventing them is finding the people to do it and punishing them in order to incapacitate them as leakers, but deter other leakers, you have more links about classified information, and that in the long run will degrade our effectiveness. >> the two biggest leaks since the pedagogue papers, the wikileaks drove in the edward snowden revelations, happen without a shield law.

you would argue though that we will get more of that if there is a shield law? >> it depends on how the law was crafted. i would not say you will get more leaking necessarily if you have a shield law. it depends on how the law is designed come and i know senator schumer made the point that the one right now has what is called the national security exception, but it does address the need for national security, to maintain national security, and be able to ferret out leaks. i do not think leaks are going to go away. i get that. but the reality is that government is very constrained already in the way it goes after investigative leaks. every day in newspapers and media across the country, there's classified information

being published. that is actually against -- the government has shown restraint for all the right reasons in pursuing these cases. those that are particularly egregious or include particularly sensitive information have been selective about this as well. my concern is if you have a law that overly handicaps the government's ability to investigate this case is, then the leakers we really want to go after, and i submit like snowden and others, the government would be constrained in their ability to investigate this case is, and that one encourage more leaks. >> jonathan, you spent much of your career dealing with the confidential sources and classified material. a lot of it in the area of national security. has that job become appreciably harder, as i imagine it has since 9/11, and would a shield law maybe improve your ability

to do your job? >> it has become much harder, and not dealing just with classified information. i understand why the government would go after leakers of classified secrets. but i have had conversations with sources about issues or things that are not classified and ireland are talking to someone in the department of the government who says it is not classified. i cannot talk to you about it because if they find out they will kill me. that was a bit of hyperbole. literally, it is evidence of what we like to call a chilling effect by as a result of that crack down on leaks. let me talk about, because laura talked about this, the susceptibility of people within the government and the protections that they do not

have, i will submit that as hard as the government cracked down on lee, it prevents the disclosures of things like abu ghraib, torture, this kind of thing, the more people inside the government some people are going to be impelled and encouraged because they do not take an oath to defend and protect the current administration. they take an oath to protect and defend the constitution of the united states. when they see in their views the constitution being violated as a result of government that goes way overboard in trying to attack terrorism, for instance, i think there are people who will feel it is their duty to leak. as far as doing my job, it has become much harder. i think peter maas whipped out his iphone and said i do not use this anymore. that is absolutely right. i do not e-mail sources.

we just broke the story of the fight between the cia and the senate intelligence committee. most of the work on that was done by a 22-year-old freelance -- paid freelancer who did nothing but doorstep committees on the hill, go to people's homes, got me doing that again, going out at night to visit people, and that is how we were able to do that without sitting in the office and taking phone calls. we do things like what bob woodward did. we give codenames to our sources, so we do not talk about them even in the office using their real names. i do not know if any of you have touched the hbo series "the wire," so you know what a burner is. you go to cvs and buy a cheap cell phone. you use it. you do not register it on your own computer. you use it just a little while

and then you throw it away. i'm not going to go into other things we do except to say that i know there are a lot of payphones still in washington, d.c. [laughter] the fact is hotels, metro, this kind of thing. but i think it is absolutely impossible given the technology and technological power to the government has now to evade an electronic -- to leave an electronic wake, to leave an electronic shadow behind you come as you do this kind of thing, and, yes, it is a hugely constraining problem. >> the shield law does nothing to protect you from -- it does not do anything to reassure you in other ways. >> i appreciate senator schumer's efforts and the people i'm this, and i have to point out the president when he was in the senate was a cosponsor of a similar bill like this. the fact is when it comes to my reading of this, and i suggest that there is some profit to be made by google translator if they were to do a translation of senate bills, because reading

these things is really quite cumbersome. [laughter] my impression is that, yes, you have to go before judge, but this bill said the judge has to give deference to the government's argument that they need to be compelled to testify because you have violated some kind of national security regulation. so i am disturbed by that. the whole definition of threat, current threat, or future threat to national security is so broad that we know that when for instance if you look at a government program called insider threat program, which this administration has instituted, which says -- which makes it incumbent upon government employees basically to inform on each other and let their superiors know that this person is suspicious, their

drinking, or they have come into money that i did not know they had or this kind of thing, you know, that the fact is that this gives weight to the government's argument. the government goes to a judge and his national security. the security office in the cia -- every single government department, including social security administration, the peace corps, the department of education now has an insider threat office that is tasked to determine who in the future might be an insider threat, right disclose government information, and the department of defense, their guidelines say leaks to journalists are akin to espionage. it treats us journalists, patriotic journalists -- [no audio] no, i don't get a lot of comfort out of this because this

definition of national security that the security offices will necessarily take and interpret in the most intensive way they can. >> you deal with a sort of netherworld. you have had your own run-in with federal authorities. does the shill not have any relevance to your life at all, or is it a kind of legacy media issue? >> one of the interesting things about this is that i never set out to be a national security reporter. i work on technology and culture and i have for many years. national security came over and started squatting on my lawn. so now i'm kind of transformed into partially a national security reporter because you guys took over my internet in early 2000. it isn't super relevant, and i'm not totally clear on how well it covers it. anything can be national

security at this point. like i said, i never intended to be a national security report and now kind of am. the same way that everything is technology at this point, everything is national security at this point. all these categories that served us well in the 20th century have gone very muddy. when you talk about the leak can be damaging to government operations, sometimes that damage comes from public accountability. that's exactly the kind of damage you want. the offer that the government is not the best arbiter of which operation should be damaged by public awareness. if public awareness is going to damage something the government wants to do, in a democracy, that is supposed to happen. uighur sitting outside of that

system are maybe not in the best position, but we are in a better position. who elected us? the majority of people doing these things are not elected, either. they are overseen by very different embodiment of elected power. it is such a complex machine with so many moving parts, there are only two professions that i know of listed in the constitution, us and pirates. >> not in the same amendment. >> but we are both very special. i think we are also living at a point where -- it was a journalist in the 1700s or 1800s that was delineated by who had a big machine and the motivation to use it? now what this needs to be about, the protection of speech in journalism as a method of

accountability for democracy. it needs to be about active journalism, not being stamped an official journalist. people find themselves nowadays in the position of committing acts of journalism. they get help from professional journalist sometimes and they don't other times. that needs to be a position that is supported so the people who are in that position make better choices. when i look at not just wiki leaks but other places that have taken on the burden of what was once more traditional journalism, i don't see a system that should be adversarial to

traditional journalism, it should be cooperative. we all have the same common goal, which is informing the public, having -- making the decisions the public is required to make in a democracy. right now this is all kind of out of whack. because the things we are talking about, what we have to do to do our jobs. right now, i think i'm in a really interesting position with a chilling effect myself because i have taken a break from the active reporting because it is just so much work. i'm doing a lot more reflective and analytical work right now, and to be honest, that's because i just need down time. when you are reaching the edge of human capacity because of what you have to do in order to remain safe in your job, that is a significant chilling effect and i'm going to guess that every other journalist on this panel and possibly in this room could actually speak to that somewhat, the actual burden as well as the fear of all these procedures we have to use. does this protect me? not really. it doesn't go to the heart of the matter. >> a very dispiriting lecture you could give is that journalism schools who still

think there is some reason to go into this line of work. >> when you were talking before, you said your concern was that -- correct me if i've got this wrong, but even if the intentions of the legislation were fine, the language is as good as it could get, you were concerned about the way that an administration actually and laments this kind of legislation. >> that's right. i think we are coming here to an area where law and politics come very close together. there is clearly an element of political decision-making. my picking about this is formed by discussions i had with my mentor, a deputy attorney general. he described at one point a long series of cases under the ford administration in which the intelligence community came to the justice department asking to tap the phones of reporters and

in one case to break into an apartment. in other cases two assigned fbi agents to tail reporters, sometimes with the of certain figures in the white house. don rumsfeld, dick cheney, no surprise. and tyler and leave the consistently explained no, that this shouldn't be done. it was a mistake. not that the law shouldn't give authority in exceptional circumstances to the justice system to take such steps, but that the attorney general, weighing the situation, has to take into account our entire political culture. you have to recognize the best part of the american tradition respects journalists and journalist writes you investigate and bring out facts that are painful to the government, even those respecting national security matters.

so i think there is an important element of political accountability, shared by the president and the attorney general. one problem with this legislation is a tendency to sort of mainstream the process, make it something pretty routine that goes through and then goes to a judge, and the judges making the decision. we can say that judicial check is the hallmark of democracy, but the political -- tyler also raise with me a very serious concern he had about the way the justice department was being restructured. because at that time the division that ken was the first leader of the national security division was being formed. he viewed that as a very serious structural error. you have a division within the department of justice that was working effectively as a walkaround for the intelligence community and would be there advocates within the justice

department. so these requests, which frequently -- were now going to come with the imprimatur of assistant attorney general with support of the staff. the big concern was that it would change the dynamics of the process, which would lead to more prosecutions and war subpoenas and more surveillance of journalists than was appropriate or healthy. i think that was completely prescient, that is what has happened. the structural element is largely the reason why. >> i realize you are not here as the surrogate for senator schumer. >> no pressure on me. >> as a strong proponent of this legislation, you have heard that this bill goes too far and from everybody else that he does not nearly far enough. that is an indication that it probably strikes the right balance. >> come on, that is a journalistic canard.

>> if you don't like to bilk him the question is, do you like the current situation? >> do you agree with senator schumer there is a reasonable chance that this -- >> i do. >> the judge would waive the balance and decide the stories he wrote was of significant public value and the damage to national security was commensurately less. >> i think there's actually different reason. in the context of the leak case, it first deals with properly

classified information. second, it looks forward. the government gets to ask for your testimony only if it can prove there is specific harm to the national security that it will either prevent or mitigate. it is really looking forward at preventing harm. jim rison is writing a book about a leak that occurred in 2003 about a country -- iran is very different than it was then. is difficult to see how the government can prove there is national security harm that stems from that leak. >> what about by trying to prevent future leak? that seems to be a major deterrent.