be seen and heard by the american public. right now, they do not have a clue who we are or that we exist. the name of the game is empowering the american voter for what they are demanding, which is more voices and more choices. they do not like they have got so just empowering the american voter to be the driver of our democracy and our election, that is what we have to do. let the chips fall where they may, but we have got to start with an inclusive and open democratic discussion. if we cannot have it now while we are looking our mortality in the face and the american people are saying, this stinks, if we cannot change the discussion now, when in heaven's name are we going to change it? it has got to be now.

>> you mentioned how racial disparities play a role in who ends up on the front lines of the climate crisis. i was wondering if you could expand on that. ms. stein: louisiana, what we saw, was kind of like instant replay in katrina. hardestof those hit people and communities of color, neighborhoods of color, not only that they were hit hard but that the relief did not come and years later, the relief did not come. people and communities ofwhen i was in new orleans for the 10 year anniversary, the numbers at that time reflected that about half of the african-american population had not been able to return even 10 years later because that is not where the rebuilding happened. it is not where the salvage happened.

we could see that in the neighborhood we were walking and driving through, that these were largely families of color that were just helping each other. volunteers were coming in. the green party was mobilizing from around the state to help people out because the needed relief just was not coming. people were very worried, and there we were seeing refugees from katrina that were there in the shelter, and that shelter was not even an official shelter so it is not receiving support from fema, not getting drop-offs of supplies and food because it is not a recognized shelter. it was not just katrina, it was superstorm sandy where it was poor communities and african-american and latino communities are the first to get hit in the last to get helped. we see really a compounding of a

crisis of racial justice together with the crisis of the climate and the environment. it is important that we fix them both and we need attention to both. i want to mention briefly in solidarity with the north dakota x, the standing rock sioux in north dakota trying to protect their land as another disenfranchised group, another people of color who are trying to save their water supply, their traditional lands as well as the climate. really onways relied indigenous people to be the caretakers of our climate and ecosystem, and they are basically resisting now another of the worstpeline kind of fuel that is going to run over their water supply and

put their land very much at risk. i just want to stand in solidarity with them, there are about 1000 native americans who have gathered their tribal lands in and attempt to resist the pipelines. what they are doing is trying to help present the next katrina, the next superstorm sandy, the next louisiana floods down the line because they are only getting worse and more frequent and more devastating. they exemplify i think the kind of courage and the foresight that we need, and the kind of community spirit that we need in order to stop this crisis from barreling down on us, which it is right now. thank you. when we spoke yesterday, you talked about the need for a

truth and reconciliation commission and i wondered if you could expand on that. ms. stein: i think this pertains not only to the issue of environmental racism, police violence, to the issue of xenophobia for that matter that we are a country really that is armed and ready to shoot. we are the most violent country in the world, with the most shootings and violent deaths at the hands of police, but beyond the hands of police as well. we have a violence problem which goes hand in hand with our problem of fear and mistrust and hate. unfortunately, we are seeing fanned rightbeing now in this election. the flames of hate and fear are being intensified where we need to be moving in the opposite direction. we need to be having a

facilitated discussion, a frank discussion about race, about the legacy of racism, about in particular, many people say slavery ended. well, it ended and then it became lynching and then it became jim crow and then it became redlining and then it became segregation, which is coming back full force, the war on drugs, mass incarceration, and police violence which is really just the tip of an iceberg. there is a deep underlying onlyem here and it is not the culture of policing and the broken window of policing that creates very aggressive policing. the culture has to be changed and the training of policing has to be changed. charge --s need to be in charge of police rather than police in charge of communities.

we need to be able to hold perpetrators accountable through investigations of every death at the hands of police. we also need a truth and reconciliation commission and in my view, we also need reparations to discuss this historic and compounded burden of economic disparities so that violence is not only at the hands of an occupying police force, violence is also taking 48 -- place economically. we know that while living while black leads to a seven-year loss of life. if you add that to a lack of education, it is another seven-year loss of life. there are consequences to the burden,ve historic and it is not just african-american. it is against people of color, muslims,s, latinos, native americans, and so on.

we need a facilitated discussion at the city level that includes storytelling, and the things that enable us to humanize each other to each other. this is not rocket science. there is a whole method for doing this, for helping us build trust and make friends and become a common community, which we must do if we are to solve any of the problems we are currently struggling with. coming.nk you all for if you have not gotten a card for me, please see me. thank you. ms. stein: thank you very much. i really appreciate your attention.

>> the washington post reports that the alabama secretary of state says the third-party candidates jill stein and gary johnson will be on alabama's presidential ballot, however independent evan mcmullen missed the deadline. he pointed out he has gotten enough signatures to get on idaho's ballot and needs help getting on the ballot in virginia and minnesota. donald trump delaying his major immigration address scheduled for thursday. there was no explanation as to why. president obama is on his way to louisiana this afternoon to see the flood damage in the baton rouge area. he will be touring the area and then will make a statement. live coverage set to start at

1:55 eastern. withn2 will be live coverage of international river management. the stimson center is hosting a panel. that starts at 2:00 p.m. eastern. >> 100 years ago, woodrow wilson signed the bill creating the national park service and thursday, we look back on the past century of these caretakers of america's natural and historic treasures. natural and historic treasures. beginning at 10:00 eastern and continuing throughout the day, we take you to the national parks as recorded by c-span. 7:00 we are at the robert e lee house at arlington national cemetery.

we talk with robert stanton and brandon buys, the former arlington house caretaker. thursday, the 100th anniversary of the national park service, live from arlington house at 7:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv on c-span3. q&a --ay night on onet was an average of racial lynching a week in the south. it was a brilliant psychological device to hold down a race because if you were black, you were afraid this could happen to you. >> lawrence lamer talks about his literary career, including his latest book. about the trial following the 1981 killing of 19-year-old michael donald by the kkk in

mobile, alabama. >> michael was a teenager, trained to become a brick layer, the youngest of seven children. he was home with his mother in the house and his aunt asked him to get cigarettes. he goes out. knows pulls out his pistol and bars him into the back seat of the car. he knows when he gets into the car, he knows what will happen. at 8:00 p.m.ht eastern on c-span's q&a. ♪ q&a, louisiana state university professor and historian nancy isenberg talks about her book "white trash."

>> nancy isenberg, author of "white trash," you talk about a professor in your preface by the , had a keen passion of demystifying ideologies. what impact did that have on you? ncy: she was a very unusual person. had to create a space for us in the history program, and she was someone who was very aware, not only of gender and class and racial issues but also what i think she imparted to me, you have to understand the politics of academia and the way in which politics in general, we like to believe in america we are free agent and are able to carve our own destiny, but in fact we do

not always get to make the choices that we think we do. she always emphasize the importance of thinking about a larger way the culture, politics, the law shapes the way people think even though they may not be aware of it, to take that into account and not just take things as a given. challenge them. history, you read that i want to make sure i look at , and i do not want to just take the consensus. i want to see if it is true and make sure that any argument that you make has a firm historical foundation. >> how hard was it to name this book "white trash"? nancy: it went through various names. trash,going to be white then american greed, waste

people, and back to white trash. the reason it needs to be that name is because today is the name that is most familiar. i think people have misconceptions about what it means so i think people are curious about it. that is why i wanted to write the book because people throw around that word not knowing where it comes from. when i began to do more and more research, and as you know, i talk a lot about british colonization which is not what people have paid attention to in talking about white trash. i have found a much more history and i felt like it was important to pay attention to language. that is why not only do i use the term white trash, but all of the vocabulary that was used to talk about the poor because i think we miss something when we talk about poverty if we do not understand the words. >> we have all of those words

available to put on the screen which we will do now, and there are lots of them like white trash. --ice gatherings, lubbers scourings, lubbers, crackers, clay eaters. where did those terms come from? nancy: you will find each generation reinventing the vocabulary. the term that i pay a lot of attention to his waist people. people.ste it goes back to the first proposal to convince queen elizabeth the first on the importance of colonization, and what with the colonies be used for. we have a whole mythology about how we think america was founded. we like to talk about the peer tens and the city upon the hill. reagan invoked that metaphor.

in fact, the majority of people who came to the new world came out of economic desperation. they fell into categories of convicts,dentured -- indentured servitude. slave laborform of in the sense that they did not have the right to leave. they would sign up for an indentured term that could go anywhere from seven to nine years, and the large majority of them were children. that is something i think we forget about, we forget about the exploitation of child labor which we know lasted all the way up to 1919. waste people, to define the term, is that idea of dumping the poor somewhere else. they were a burden on the british economy and in fact, that notion of waste has all the negative connotations that you

can bring to mind when we talk about it. one of the things that is very refreshing and disturbing, they are very clear. they do not conceal anything under the pleasant language of the and light meant. they are very forthright -- language of the enlightenment. they are forthright and direct about what they mean. notions of waste, expendable people, surplus population, and the importance of how waste people are collect -- connected to the land. this is something historians know that we often lose sight how land were being landless is probably the most important definition of whether you have civic value, whether you can have economic independence. >> where do you live and what do you do full-time? history professor at louisiana state university. i really enjoy new orleans.

i enjoyed my colleagues. we have a really supportive department. have, like a lot of academics, i have taught at several places. the university of tulsa, i taught in iowa, a post doc at lehman mary. -- at william and mary. i have been a bit of a vagabond and a vagrant throughout my economic career. >> you mention your mother in the preface. why? you are an though historian, it is amazing how you may not know the whole details of your own family's background. my mother at one point told me, and with my sister we visited her birthplace in texas, deep southern part of texas. i was curious, how did she get there? her father essentially had a job for transporting later -- labor

from canada to texas. this is telling, because it is part of the story i talk about when i talk about indentured servitude. rather than thinking about america in the way that we like andhink about it, exceptional society that we broke free of the class system at the time of the revolution and was a land of opportunity and upward mobility, as i argue benjamin franklin and thomas jefferson and this continues to be part of our way of thinking and the real pattern of how people define themselves economically, what was really being promised was horizontal mobility, the ability to keep living. if you move one place and fail you can move somewhere else. that to me resonated with what my book was about. >> where did you grow up and go to college? nancy: i grew up in south jersey their philadelphia.

andnt to rutgers university graduate school at the university of wisconsin in madison. video,nt to run some this is jumping way ahead from where we started. people my age and maybe a little younger will remember lucille ball and desi arnaz. this is from a movie you wrote about in 1953 called the long, long trailer. clip] >> and then we saw it. >> isn't it a beauty? right.s big all >> let's look inside, just for fun. >> that costs a million dollars at least. >> i know we could never buy ri. >> it but since we are here, let's

look inside. come on, darling. >> a big yellow trailer. nancy: i talk about that movie because it fits into a really important phenomena that we tend to ignore. when we think about post-world war ii, this is where sociologists and historians have states was able to establish a more stable middle-class. part of a measure of being in the middle class, if we think about before how we emphasize land ownership, that continues to be important in defining today, aause even measure of upward mobility is owning a home. what happens in post-world war ii? we have the growth of suburbia, we have the track homes. we have the government backing mortgages so that more people who would not have been able to

buy a home are able to buy a home. i quote richard nixon saying finally capitalism has made it possible to create a classless society. what is happening at exactly the same time is we have a new form of the lower class that end up being identified with living in a trailer, what is referred to even today as trailer trash. what i argue is that the trailer has a kind of conflicted identity. freedom, youea of do not have to own a home, you can be on the road. there is this other notion of the trailer that is associated with trailer trash, in which the core -- and the reason that term begins, it begins during world war ii, where poor workers were housed in trailers across the country. what we see is the trailer market is constantly trying to upgrade and compete with what

becomes the dominant pattern, is that i like 1968 only 30% of people living in trailers hold middle-class jobs. there begins to be another phenomena and we know not only are trailers being sold brand-new as in the film, but they are secondhand and thirdhand. discovered,sts also there begins to be what are called hillbilly havens. who is living in trailer parks? it is a large portion of poor white, many from the south. where are trailers located? margins,located on the on the margins of cities and urban areas. at the same time we had the growth of suburbia what we also ended up getting was a class zoned society. trailer trash he comes a symbol, the mark of poor white poverty

in the united states even when we are at that moment where america seems to becoming more of a middle-class society. >> andy griffith from a movie, "a face in the crowd," 1957, saying a lot of things that i want your reaction to. clip] >> 53.7, just picked up another. this whole country is just like my flock of sheep. hillbillies,ckers, house for hours, shut-ins, p pickers.- pea they do not know it yet but they are all going to be fighters for fuller. they are mine. they think like i do. they are even more stupid than i am so i have got to think for them. nancy: that is an incredible

movie, one of my favorite movies. it invoked a kind of conflicted response to how people feel about that movie. on one hand they saw the character of any griffith who starts out a someone who is in jail, a musician in arkansas who is discovered and becomes, is turned into this demagogue, this person who was seen just as he says in the clip, who will be able to manipulate everyone because he thinks like them, he talks like them. what is he drawing on? this pattern, this tradition of how we think about populism, how we think about democracy. it becomes really important in southern politics, this idea that what we want in america -- and this is sort of, i quote an australian who came to you that united states in 1949 -- what we

want is not a real democracy. we want a democracy of manners. and we want our celebrities politicians to do is act like us and behave like us. this idea of being a stage worker, sounding as if you can invoke the feeling, the voice, the attitude, even the dialect isthe average american, something that unfortunately politicians have been taking advantage of for a long time in this country. you can take it all the way back to andrew jackson because he was the first one with a campaign biography, was turned into the candidate for the common man. he was a fairly successful slave owner, wealthy, no longer one of the common man but what he did have in common is it was always remarked, he sounded like the common man because he slammed

crackers.like that idea of talking to the people has the dark side of the demagogue that can manipulate people, but is something in our american tradition we are supposed to think they are more authentic, they are more real, or we have a direct connection with them. unfortunately, it does not necessarily guarantee that you were going to get a more honest, authentic candidate. >> what is going on in this clip? 1979, up, this is from now deceased senator from robert byrd from west virginia. he got his diploma by john f. kennedy. what is going on here, he is the senator. [movie clip] ♪

nancy: robert byrd, this is one of the most amazing things again that i discovered in researching this book, when he went on the campaign trail essentially he would go from hell people's l people's homes, he would play the fiddle for them. what i found so striking about that was that he becomes one of the most powerful people in washington. he was drawing on this other tradition, i talk about the story of the arkansas traveler which goes back to the 1840's which was the elite politician who had to get on horseback, meet poor squatters and

crackers, and the story goes that he is traveling along, wants to get a drink. a squatter is sitting on top of his whiskey barrel and he says, can i have a drink, and the squatter ignores him. in order to get the attention of the squatter, he has to jump off his it is the same fame but i just talked about. relate to that person on their terms. show them that you are one of them. , i'm glad you showed that clip. he really knew how to play the fiddle. [laughter] brian: here's another one from 1992 and he is a much in the news today, former president bill clinton on the arsenio hall program, playing some elvis stuff. [video clip] ♪

brian: how important was this to him? nancy: it was crucial. even though the news media revised the nasty stories about the clintons come with a have seen to forgotten is that when bill clinton was running, he was viciously attacked as white trash, not only from republicans but the media who mocked him and made fun of him. he had to find a way of how can i make myself accessible so people will not dismiss me? what he started doing is tapping into the ghost of elvis. he even invoked it on the campaign tour. he is playing "heartbreak hotel." he was also doing the southern

tradition of how southern politicians -- you probably remember frank clement, who was in the running to the adelaide stevens vice president. he put on a wild show and was kind of like a baptist preacher. people compared him to elvis. this idea that i am a southerner and you should not be afraid of me, which is what he is saying here, that there is something uniquely american about being able to communicate with music and being able to say, here's a more positive side that we can associate with poor whites. this idea that they have this musical tradition or that somehow that can make bill clinton more acceptable if he invokes elvis as opposed to being seen as redneck or what trash. when the monica lewinsky scandal breaks and ken starr puts his report together with 500

mentions of sex, what he is really doing is equating high crimes and misdemeanors with lower-class groups. that is how he went after bill clinton. he does not ever quite escape and that is one of the things i highlight. even when there are attempts to make white trash and poor whites , and there is this vaudeville tradition that i highlighted, elvis is really important because he is seen as being able to escape the toxic connotations. even so, even when it is given a more populist spin, still the negative connotations seem to reemerge never disappear. they have a more strong and potent lasting power than the broader culture things about it than we would like to admit. brian: in your lifetime, what politician do you think has been honest? nancy: honest? that is a really difficult question to measure coul.

i've written about jefferson and madison. madison is kind of an tristan because he could be pretty direct with people and tell people what he thought. he did not seem to line up a list of enemies that hurt other politicians. have not quite thick about why that is, but he knew how to present his ideas. honest,ne hand, he is but even madison cannot be honest because when he thought about writing an essay critiquing slavery that was going to be published in one of the major newspapers, he realized he cannot do it and had ck.hold it tha it even before we had television and the internet and people with cell phones following you and catching everything you say, they are always aware of their constituency. . in madison's case, he was a

virginian. he thought about trying to move to new york, but there is that awareness that what can they say at a certain time that people will listen to. at times we want to say they are hypocrites, but at times they realize this can't be said at this moment because people are not ready for it, but maybe at some other point you can present it in a way that people will accept. i do not like the immediate label that politicians are more wise than the average american. brian: what about hollywood? what role have they played over the years with your thesis? nancy: hollywood and film -- that is what it wanted to do with the book. there's a lot of politics and it. have legal historian and i discussion of legal cases that have to be understood because of their widespread influence and laws that do matter. law is about power. you cannot ignore the law. i also think we have to embrace the way in which forms of mass

media do shape widespread americans thinking on certain issues. one of the historians that i worked with at rutgers was an amazing cultural historian and he wrote about the impact of radio. for the first time, americans were suddenly hearing the same songs. they were suddenly hearing the same sports statistics and advertisements. that kind of nationalizes america. they now have a shared culture which they did not have before. i have to recognize that it is power, but we do not want to exaggerated. watch, they are being indoctrinated it i. it is not purely propaganda. most scholars are cautious about using that paradigm. we have to realize that people just don't define themselves. they are shaped from the day they are born, not only from the parents of the world they are a part of. it's going to define how they

look at the world, how they speak, how they think. we have to not marginalize popular culture and think that it is not have an influence, particularly when we are talking about class. brian: 1962, this was a television show. but he absent and irene ryan -- ryan insen and irene "the beverly hillbillies." [video clip] >> the chandelier was made in the hallways of versailles. thnapoleon bonaparte used it, disraeli. >> we are just plain folk. we do not mind a few things been secondhand. >> i seen unloaded your washtub and scrubbing board. throwld say we could that away and we don't use that here in beverly hills. >> i don't care how other folks live in beverly hills. this is going to be clean.

may not be as nice as back home in the cabin. we are not going to lower our standards. nancy: see that to me, irene ryan, who came out of the vaudeville tradition, just like pearl, cook who came from an upper-class background and was college-educated, particularly by the 1940's and radio, it became a stage act. became a role that people play ed. i quote what i thought was an amazing commentary on "the beverly hillbillies," that was written by how humphreys. he says that americans are extremely class conscious. what is going on and plot plot is the battle between the snobs, which was the , and his son is always

per trade as an effete child, versus the hillbillies. what the middle class viewer at home was supposed to feel and this is what some people have said about reality tv is that we are superior because we do not fall into either extreme. e are not snobs or slobs. the other thing that "the beverly hillbillies" cap into is that there was a large mass migration of african-americans who moved up north and settled in to places like chicago. there's also a large mass migration from appalachia who moved to chicago and st. louis . the chicago reporter made this comment. he said, just imagine the same people in the beverly hillbillies moving next door to you, but without those millions in the bank. he was tapping into where this

was a stock role. everyone is familiar with it. it emphasizes the class tension and one of the points that we have to realize is to define yourself as middle class requires that there has to be a lower class that you are comparing yourself with. that is one of the things it was drawing on, but it was drawing on real social reality that was going on at this time. and the way in which people who lived in northern cities felt very much ill at ease. there were actually poor white ghettos in places like indianapolis, chicago, and they were described in many of the same derogatory ways of poor blacks living in the city. that is part of our history that we do not talk about. we do not really want to face up to the fact of how important class is. brian: why not? nancy: there are a variety of reasons. one as a highlight in the book is that we tell ourselves we want to say that america is the

land of the free, the home of the brave. we want to believe that from our founding promoted social mobility and equality. in fact, we are not that comfortable with the quality. just because thomas jefferson said it and put it in the declaration of independence, and his own state of virginia, 40% of white men were tenant farmers. he was running this at the very moment equality did not exist in his own state. 1930, the up tonigh 1930's were still 40% landless tenant farmers. the myth is nicer. it is better to think that if things are not perfect now that it will be in the future and that things are potentially going to change. i think politicians say that over and over again that this is what america really stands for. that is one reason we did not want to talk about it.

the other reason is it makes people extremely uncomfortable. i've gotten a lot of e-mails about this where some people say we are so glad you wrote this book. i want person who talked about how this person has become successful, but he still feels a sense of shame. the way he grew up does not actually make him feel equal. for middle-class people, it makes us feel uncomfortable when we have to acknowledge that a, if you were born to a stable, middle-class, wealthy family in a good neighborhood, you get a better start. you have advantages and privileges, which means we are not self-made men. we do not pull ourselves up by her bootstraps. original correggio horatio alger had a mentor. he cannot have made it on his own.

he needed powerful people to back him and promote him. we know that still works in today's society. brian: why do you think that your book made it to "your times" bestk seller list in july? is it one place that you can point to? have 1, 2, 3, 4 -- this is my fourth book. i started this book six years ago and you have no idea what's and happen. i wrote it because to me it was an intellectual problem that i wanted to solve. it is hard. i'm a historian and i can figure out history. why is this book popular? i do think it has to do with the political climate. i think that because we have donald trump, who journalists have labeled as the white trash candidate, particularly when he

was on the southern swing in the primaries. his followers have been called the revenge of the lower class. we have suddenly an awareness of class that we are seeing everyday. in one way or another, americans have been reminded. then we have bernie sanders on the other side. we have bernie sanders, who was also talking and critiquing the when he wond about, in west virginia, he wanted to say i have a working class. the political climate has made people, i think, aware in a way that we have not been as aware sort of stepto back for a moment and try to think about class. i think that for me, as a historian, i want people to read this book and understand that what we are seeing at this moment -- because journalists like to say, this is new and never happened before, but in

fact, there is always a history. things do not happen by accident or i do not believe in fate. to happen because the way our society is structured, the way history does shape the present. if anyone can take anything for my book, it is to come away with a more sophisticated understanding of class, both a more sympathetic appreciation for what it is like to be poor since myountry, and focus is en route poverty, that is easy to ignore as well. historically there has been a urbanre attention on poverty than rural poverty because it is out of sight, out of mind. that is the other thing i want to remind people of. even today, we have a high percentage -- 41% of people below the poverty line that are white. we cannot just say that it is only a race problem.

it is a race and class problem and we have to embrace that. brian: anybody who is seen the movie "deliverance" will never forget a couple of scenes in particular. there is a fellow in their playing the banjo and the dueling banjo moment. his name is billy read and realize. he's a real person. if you watch the clip, you will see him in the movie and him a couple years ago. he currently tells you he works at walmart. let's watch. [video clip] ♪ banjo's" plays] ♪

>> how did that change your life that seem? >> i work at walmart. i do whatever needs to be done. >> can you play the banjo for me? >> know. >> can't play it at all? >> no. brian: he can't play the banjo. it looked like he could in the movie. what was the impact of this? nancy: he was plucked out of a nearby school. as you can see, they added make up you. he was supposed to be an idiot savant in the film. here are four guys in the city going on a canoe trip and this is another theme that i highlight that we have to emphasize is this tension between the urban-rural divide.

as we watch them, it is like they are watching sideshow. there is this bond is formed between the one character playing the guitar on a canoe trip. he is the one that end up being killed. for of the reason he is killed as there's too much sympathy. the whole message of "deliverance" is this really dark side that there can't be. there is one moment where music is the former king occasion, but the overall message is that the country, poor hillbillies are so uncivilized, so violent that the only way, that this is what the author of "deliverance" emphasized, that the only way you can survive is if you find your own inner savage and fight back and get out of there as fast as possible because this is a world that is not america. that is what i highlight when i talk about "deliverance." it highlights that really negative stereotype and how it persisted.

this is the same time in the 1970's where we begin to see a more positive version will be talk about redneck roots in the s a moreneck take positive idea that you want to redefine your identity and say no longer associated with movement and seen as degenerate and seen as an idiot savant, but now it is a positive, cultural heritage. in the 1970's, everyone wanted to rediscover your roots. you had studies of ethnicity and people celebrating the jewish ghetto. you had alex haley's "roots." that even exist at the same time that this movie is being made and people want to reclaim redneck, but as i show here, you have people who are defending it in a more positive way, but it coexist with this widespread negative and probably one of the worst portraits ever. brian: you mentioned "roots."

out haley was clearly not telling the truth at the time. that has happened more than once. what is your reaction to that? nancy: one of the articles that eyesight is a wonderful article that was cowritten by a husband and wife. he is a genealogist. there are other people who exposed how he did not have the research to say that it was really his story. he makes numerous errors. this is one of my critiques and part of the problem. when the book came out, "then s" wasw york time praising its history as a massive pile of facts. notlar history at times written by has story gets a lot of attention because it's tapping into what people want to hear. people immediately embrace it and want the story to be true, but they are not able to

judge if it is true and accurate. we are the one to spend the time and archive and we know how to read people's letters. we know how to say it in a broader context because we spent years and years reading history in order to figure out, does this really make sense? that is why as a professional historian, we always find her ourselves defending the practice of history, defending the importance of distinguishing fact from fiction, because i think we blur those lines, particularly when something is extreme a popular, because if it is popular and presented in an exciting way, it is telling a story americans want to hear. is going to be wildly successful. it isis an attempt to say real history, but a few years down the road, people are than willing to admit it's not. i get the sense from reading your book and some of the articles that you have a academice between

historians and non-academic historians. i have an article here from "the washington post" and the liberals love alexander hamilton, but aaron burr was a real progressive hero." nancy: the musical "hamilton" -- my point is it is great entertainment. you can enjoy the music. is not more historically accurate in 1776. two assume that you're getting and as you get to the end of my book, there are hundreds of pages of endnotes. not only do you have the what to say, but there are debates that you have to distinguish itself from what other historians say, what documents you are dealing with. whatever they want to highlight is i do not want to detract anyone from having fun and enjoying the musical. the hamilton that is portrayed there is an extremely

sympathetic one and leaves out important details of hamilton's background. tries to portray him as an abolitionist. he was not. a tried to portray him as a self-made man who rose up. patrons.d and try to portray himself as a dream of an immigrant, but it was aaron burr and his party defending the rights of immigrants. before he was in the new york legislature, he was talking about america as the place for immigrants to come. he is the one defending the rights of immigrants. at that very moment, hamilton's party was pushing for a constitutional amendment that would not allow any immigrant hold any public office. they also push for restrictions on voting. we know the famous alien and sedition acts, which are part of the federalist party, and part of what hamilton does. you have no idea.

you learn nothing about what the party stood for watching the play. it is not history, but it is fun. enjoy it, but do not assume that either by watching the musical, listening to the soundtrack, or even reading the biography that you are going to get the full portrait of housing to hamilton. brian: are you saying that the biography is not accurate? nancy: there are errors in it. he is constantly turn to defend him and push them in a direction things thatring needs to be addressed about hamilton, as in the case of slavery. musical wherethe jefferson is portrayed as a slave owner and hamilton is being portrayed as more progressive and more of an abolitionist and it's just not true. brian: you have a book out called "

aaron burr." nancy: it is called "fallen founder." is not because i'm in love with simplythat i wanted to defend him from all the previous criticism. i wrote the book because i felt historians were really missing something important. here is a guy who is not only jefferson's vice president, but he has an incredibly influential political career in new york and you cannot understand the relationship between hamilton and birth unless you understand your politics, which was messy that when. has an amazing career in the revolution as an officer and ends up getting involved in a major filibuster, which was common practice. even hamilton supported filibusters, this idea of if we witha chance to go to war maybe mexico, there were numerous attempts at filibustering. this is part of massive manifest destiny and expansion. what it wanted to do is that we take burr seriously and

we do not understand what was happening in politics in the 1790's and 1800s. even historians have gone to extremes and said he did not have a single idea in his head and that is ludicrous. they do not read his papers. to work on because he does not have office papers published like hamilton did. a lot of his papers are on microfilm. it is harder work to actually figure out aaron burr. brian: want to ask -- we are in the middle of a presence of campaign. i have historians against trump. it was put together by historians and there are some almost 800 names on the list. you can get it on the web. it is called historians against trump and it's an open letter to the american people, which is quite critical donald trump. the other one we had video on. these are mostly non-academic historians. it is jim dwyer and "the new york times."

one of hi " no one can mistake the voice of david mccullough, either in the books." i want to run a couple of minutes of this and tell me whether you think this is the right thing to do the wrong thing or does not matter. just watch. [video clip] how can it beelf that the republican party, the party of abraham lincoln, is on the verge of nominating donald trump for president of united states? >> may things raise eyebrows about donald trump -- the degrading remarks about women. these are demagogues who rise and sometimes rise to the very heights of power by appealing to things that are unfortunately part of human nature. >> which brings us to a current

predicament of a presidential nominee who borrows from what supremacy. >> trump is a truly low some man. trump has all the qualities you most dislike -- banded the, dishonesty, greed, arrogance, ity, ignorance, add your own. >> the republican party nominee has an experience, self absorption, and delusional levels of self-confidence that defy clinical descriptions of narcissism. not clear that trump reads much of anything or cares about anything besides the fortunes of donald trump. >> make no mistake about it. when the past escrow clean and american history becomes a blank slate, donald trump more than any other demagogue can come along can write upon it whatever the hell he wants.

and that disturbs me most of all . please, please, please, folks. do not let it happen here. brian: for those listening on the radio, david makela, marked dobbin, most of those nonacademic historians. should historians be doing all this active work in politics? nancy: it is always a tricky and i think historians are better. i think you can draw historical analogies. when we talk about the fact that a lot of what trump is doing is not new. that is where i think historians can say something. i think it is harder when with a lot of those clips, and maybe they are incomplete, that -- brian: you can find them on "the new york times" website. nancy: basically you're saying that you should listen to me

authority and that somehow donald trump is beyond the pale or somehow this the waya departure from in which american politics has operated. i did see the one with mccullough and he was quoting isaiah and talking about -- eisenhower and talking about the qualities when needed. brian: he said he has never done this before. of -- for me, i like sort when i look at. politics, you cannot stop thinking. you cannot stop seeing certain that apply not only to donald trump but even the democratic party. when they were holding their convention essentially, many of the speakers were highlighting american exceptionalism antiemetic and dream. we can -- antiemetic and dream. d the american dream. i'm much more cynical.

i actually think historians have less influence in society. i think we are not as popular as many people on tv, in film, and popular culture, on reality tv. we know that famous people are often paraded forward to defend, promote politicians. griffith and andy the role that he was playing, the idea that famous people have influence and that people will listen to them. i think it is a mixed bag. i think it is better if , which is thep way that i have sort of commented about donald trump. talk about it in the context of historical patterns and where he fits. their own choice and they have the ability to say what they want to say. i certainly would not say anyone should be curtailed in voicing

their opinions. it is just what i more come to bullet in saying that instead of saying isolating trump, put him in historical patterns. he does not just come out of thin air. brian: back to your book, "white there is aw reference to a program that used to be on the learning channel. boo." comes honey boo let's watch a minute of honey boo boo and her family. [video clip] ♪ >> the redneck games is an annual event here in georgia and it's all about southern fried, similar to the olympics. there's a lot of but crack showing. the girls will be competing in some of the events here today. there are some broke down people out there.

>> who do you think is going to win, you are jessica? >> me. >> the married couple, they go first. ♪ >> i like to get in the mud because i like to get dirty like a pig. brian: ok. nancy: that is really important because one of the things that i talk about is i talked about land earlier and being a land owner was an important measure of being an economically valuable citizen. the other strange thing is the importance of mud. one of the themes that goes all the way back to early north carolina is, sort of seen as the first white trash colony, because of the dismal swamp.

rednecks, in 1904, the word redneck was defined as people who live in swamps. hillbillies were people who lived in the hills. rednecks were people who live in the swamps. one of the other important themes i talked about is mud and the importance of mud and hammond, ajames pro-confederate ideologue, who emphasized his house metaphor. house has tovery have mud sills. it was polls that would serve as a foundation. anyone to say is that mud sills were the people that you exploit. he said that always has to be a less educated class, menial laborers who must be exploited, so then you can have a house on top, which were the upper class and the richer classes. you need that foundation. thehen went on to say that north had created a more dangerous society because they

had given their mud sills, poor whites, ethnic immigrants the right to vote. he was predicting class revolution. where as in the south, things had been in proper order. we only had african-americans on the bottom. in fact, that is not true because the south in 1840's had an increasingly large poor white population. they were disparaged poor whites . a lot of the times i picked up a where to refer to them as horse from the marshes of north carolina. that was really important because it contrasted with how one of the leading, another leading seven ideologue, daniel hunley, he wrote a whole book on class and said there were seven different classes in the pre-bellum south.

he might on to say that the elite class, these are people who dissented from royal cavalier lineage. he said they were the equivalent of stallions. of course, poor whites are the equivalent of a defective breed of force found in the marshes and swamps of north carolina. the metaphor is important in honey boo boo. what is striking about the different way that white trash are disparaged today is the reason that mama june is the real star of the show. she is overweight. to have been social commentators, political commentators who have attacked obesity. unlike the 19th century poor whites, who are considered them and children look older for the time and they had yellow skin because they suffered from hook one. worm.

what conservative critics find upsetting about the show is that these people are going to celebrate the things that formerly were looked at as being negative signs of being obese, laying around in the mud, guzzling beer, all those things that are seen as celebrated lower-class life. should've been hidden is not hidden because it's on reality tv. brian: one less clip, 40 seconds long. you said it was past the loop club. it was praise the lord stood for. it was jim and tammy faye bakker. she is deceased. he is not. let us watch their last day when they had to abandon their television program. nancy: techies is the degenerate horse found in marshes. [video clip] are destroyed,y but i believe, tammy, that they got i serve is still god.

i believe the sun will shine again. >> tammy faye's going to sing a song for you just before we leave our house. [applause] ♪ maybe you're hurting i will sing it for both of us, ok ♪ [singing] brian: she said in their that maybe you're hurting. there is still plenty of programs on television like this. nancy: tammy faye baker was seen as she actually came from a poor white rural family in minnesota. her parents were pentecostals. i draw the comparison between her. i've talked about the importance of how the similes him of her

makeup is a sign of moving up the social status. we forget that women are marked by class. our idea of appropriate human behavior to be understated, to be do more and polite. that is all the associations of the upper class and middle class. women of the lower class are often not seen as women, which i highlight here. they were dismissed because they were toothless and haggard and because they cursed like men. even our ideas of what it means to be a woman is shaped by class. i think her story is really interesting. on the one hand, they exploited the poor. they would send out for donations at the beginning of the month as one of the people working for them said. hopefully people are getting their welfare checks to exploit them. it was clear that most of the people who watched that show barely graduated from high school. a lot of them were out of work.

they were in a sense of appealing to a particular group. , shenk with tammy faye also taps into that desire to rise up into the middle class. it reminds us that when we use that term nouveau riche, you do not quite make it. brian: our guest has been nancy isenberg. she was born in new jersey and is a professor at lsu. her book is called "white trash: the 400 year untold history of class in america." we thank you very much. nancy: thank you. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] >> for free transcripts or to give us your comment about this

program, visit us at q&a.org. programs are also available at c-span podcasts. ♪ >> while members of congress continue on their summer break, here's a quick look at what some members are giving. "great to tweets out be in macon today for the georgia chamber of congress congressional lunch. on her to introduce senator johnny isakson." maine democrat chellie pingree is attending an open-air competent chat at wilson with usda marketing officials. brad ashford said it was an honor to join my colleagues to unveil the new boys town centennial commemorative coin. president obama is on his way to louisiana this afternoon to see the flood damage in the baton rouge area.

he is going to be touring the area and he will make statements. we will have live coverage of that briefing, expected to start at about 1:55 p.m. eastern on c-span. coming up on our companion network c-span2, live coverage of the discussion of international river management. the stimson center will host a panel on rivers that share hundreds with different countries. that will start at 2:00 p.m. eastern. ♪ >> 100 years ago, president woodrow wilson signed a bill creating the national park service. thursday, we look back on the past century of these caretakers of america's natural and historic treasures. beginning at 10:00 eastern and throughout the day, we take you to national park service sites across the country as recorded by c-span. at 7:00 p.m. eastern, we are live from the national park service is most visited historic

home, collington house, though robert e lee memorial at arlington national cemetery. joined us with a phone calls as we talk with robert stanton, former national park service director, and brandon vice, the former site manager who will oversee the upcoming restoration of the grounds. thursday, the 100th anniversary of the national park service, live from arlington house at 7:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv on c-span3. >> the state of tennessee has approved a 62% jump in individual health exchange rates by blue cross next year. that is according to "the times free press." it is the latest in a series of movements by insurers with the health care law. this morning, "washington journal" looked into what's happening. at nothing a major and

sure when it comes to the affordable care act exchanges, announced it was dropping out of the health care act marketplaces in 11 of 15 states that its operating in. here to talk about what that means is ron pollack and joanne and test of the american enterprise institute. how big of a blow is aetna's departure to the affordable care act? guest: it was totally preventable. i do not think it was a huge blow. it is not exactly news. united health care was the first to say they were going to drop out. july andopped out in now we have aetna. the problem, of course, is why are they dropping out? the answer is there are problems with the law. host: ron pollack, when you are here a few months ago after united health care dropped out, you said it was much a do about relatively little. is this departure of story that's going to have a much bigger impact? guest: it's much ado about a little more. i do not think it's a big deal

for the following reason. aetna had altogether 911,000 subscribers in the exchange . they're going to keep a bunch of those. when you take a look at what they comprise in terms of the inal number of people coverage through the affordable care act, it's about 6% of the total load in terms of those who may lose coverage. it is a problem, but it is not a huge problem. yet understand that there are a number of insurers that still find it quite profitable to participate and some are expanding coverage. you have got groups like cigna and kaiser permanente. they are all participating and find it worthwhile to participate. an interesting question, john, i think to ask is that mark burda

ertollini, the president and ceo of aetna, talked about it was a good deal. not only was he not attending to contract or reduce aetna's participation, he wanted to expand it from the 15 states to 20 states. host: he was also looking at a merger at this time as well. guest: absolutely. in july, he wrote a note to the department of justice, saying that if it wasn't approved, he would reconsider whether he was going to stay in the exchange. so there is more at issue here than just aetna feeling that they cannot do well in the exchange. host: do you buy that? guest: no, not at all. first of all, he did not know how that things were going to be this year when he made that statement. second of all, it was a political statement. he was speaking to washington.

he was not speaking to his stockholders. this latest move comes on the thes of the revelation that $700 billion losses that they sustained last year are to be increasing. guest: you might take a look at the letter itself. in april, which was not that long ago, he actually talked about why it was a good deal. he was talking about the cost of acquiring customers and he said this was a good deal. host: you talk about other insurance companies that are finding this profitable. why didn't united health care find it profitable? why are some of these larger companies not finding it profitable to operate in these markets? guest: some of the companies, like united, the individual marketplace is not the marketplace that they have excelled in. biged, for example, their line of business is with employer sponsored insurance. insurershese larger

has not been in the individual marketplace. it is the companies that have done fairly well with respect to the individual marketplace or in medicaid that are finding and staying in the exchange and the is a good thing . not all caps these are best equipped to deal with this new marketplace. host: we are opening our phones if you want to join about the discussion of the health of the affordable care act in the wake of the news last week that at no would be leaving 11 of the 15 states that their operating in next year. if you receive insurance through the affordable care act, the number for you is (202) 748-8000 . if you have employer-provided insurance, it is (202) 748-8001. if you are uninsured, it is (202) 748-8002. those of the phone lines and you can start calling in. antos is our guest and ron pollack has talked about the

group. what is families usa? guest: families usa is a national organization for health care consumers. we have been around for about 35 years. we actually did push for health reform for a long time. our mission is to try to make sure that everybody has access to the high quality affordable health coverage and care. we are supporters of the afford will care act, no surprise. while we think that the affordable care act is a historic a compliment, it is not perfect. there are a lot of things that we can improve and it is our intention to help make sure that happens. host: your areas of expertise? guest: i work mostly on health policy, but i am a budget expert as well. ron's proposals are going to cost the taxpayers an enormous amount of money. host: we will be talking about it for the next 45 minutes this

morning, having this roundtable on the afford will care act. robert is our first guest in harrison, arkansas. he gets his insurance through his employer. robert, good morning. caller: yes, i'm from arkansas. when this all started, arkansas went together and came up with what they called the private auction. it has been successful. now that we have gone through a and the democrat governor turned to a reposting looked at ity l and it against. . we still have legislatures that got together and made everything work. now we have men like this mr. antos sitting there. he gets his insurance subsidized. is amazing that he finds himself in the circle for insurance, but other people getting it is socialism. we should be looking

for insurance for all. those that have it should be thinking about why they have it and we should give it up. businesses get expense deductions. public employees have it. nonprofits have it. why is it when you help the other people they become socialism? thank you very much. host: do you want to talk about your insurance plan? guest: i never said anything like that, robert. you are completely wrong, of course. i, like most people, think that everybody ought to have access to insurance. the problem with the affordable care act is that it's not affordable and it's not the kind of insurance that a lot of people like robert. he was going to get. it is not the kind of coverage companiese with big -- i'm not with a big company, but people with big companies typically get. that is part of their compensation.

guest: robert made a very important point. arkansas try to do something on a bipartisan basis and they succeeded. there were a good number of conservatives in arkansas who did not like the affordable care , yet they found a way to extend coverage particular for low income people. i believe that we are going to see such bipartisanship in the not-too-distant future. the reason for that -- let's assume for a moment that right now hillary clinton is winning . at least all the polls seem to say that. if she is elected, i think it sends a clear signal and it tells people like joe and others that the affordable care act is here to stay. it is not going to be repealed for eight years, probably longer than that. i think that encourages bipartisanship, which has not existed for quite a long time. hopefully some of the difficulties that the afford will care act has experienced --

the affordable care act has expense that people who have different points of view can come together and say here a reasonable fixes to the affordable care act that will make a better. there's a pretty important historical lesson here. when the social security act of 1935 past, and it's one of the important pieces of legislation in history, it was heralded as a major. legislation 1935 help to protect over half of the women and the workforce, two thirds of people of color in the workforce. those things got fixed over time. you should look at the affordable care act the same way. it is a historic step in the right direction, but it's not perfect and it can be and will be improved if we get the kind of bipartisanship that i think will happen. host: i will give you a minute to respond, and specifically to

that point of it hillary clinton wins the election, does that give some political stability to the afford will car affordable ? guest: she has to be willing to make changes that are absolutely necessary. i think that liberals like ron would agree on some of the changes. he would disagree with many of the ones that are absolutely necessary to make it stable. i'm more confident that if she wins that she will actually come to congress and try to make a reasonable deal with republicans. if she does not do that, then she can forget about it. she has to realize that it is a two-party system and that it is up to her to make the first move. guest: she does have a history of that kind of bipartisanship and she has already offered a variety of proposals. i think we are going to see something different than what we have seen since 2010 when the legislation was passed and the say no, no, no democrats saying

yes, yes, yes and very little possibility to do something in between. guest: if you look at what republicans have actually proposed, even though the first line of every proposal says repeal obama care, all the other lines basically say we're going to start with the structure that there is an we're going to make reasonable changes. guest: i've heard a lot of repeal and not much replace. host: for viewers who want to hear about republicans have proposed, joe had a blog post at how the fair.org running through the house republicans plan , . jim has been waiting in florida. he gets his insurance through the affordable health care act. caller: thank you for taking my call. host: go ahead, jim. caller: i'm 72 years old and in pretty good health. when you have auto insurance, you're penalized by how you

drive and if you're safe driver. health insurance should be similar. if you take better care of yourself, i do. i do not go to the doctor very often. i go for my yearly checkup, but i take time to take care of myself and stay healthy and eat healthy. if insurance companies offer that incentive and programs like health programs for their insurance, it would be more affordable for everybody. in other words, if you take better care of your health, you should not be paying the same amount of money as people who abuse themselves and did not take care. host: ron paul it, are the programs that incentivize good health? guest: one of the afford the things that the affordable care act does is that it provides event of care to deductible -- preventive care pre-deductible. andeeps themselves healthy it does provide help.

one of the big advances of the affordable care act's we said we are no longer going to allow the insurance companies to discriminate against people who have a pre-existing condition. someone who has asthma or diabetes or high blood pressure or history of cancer, they were denied insurance in the first place. i do not think jim is suggesting that we go back to that, although some of the republicans on the talk about repealing the entire statute would go back to that. but i do think that incentivizing good behavior in terms of eating well and taking care of oneself and exercising, i think there is lots of room for trying to provide incentives for that. host: i will give you don in new jersey. he also gets his insurance through the affordable care act. caller: it just seems kind of ridiculous and amazing to me

that a large company like aetna is unable to make a profit in a market where other large corporations and not so large corporations are doing fine. it really kind of boggles the theynation to think that are that bad of a company that they cannot me for profit and a market where everyone else is making money. guest: i'm sure that mark feels insulted. the reality is that most insurance companies are losing money. none of them thought from the beginning that they were going to make money for the first couple of years. the reality is that people are losing money. a you look at bob, he has blog and he's an insurance expert. he documents just how much money most of the company's are losing. it is true that the medicaid typical plans, they are the ones

that are making money. here's the reason. the reason is that they already have very low costs and very tight networks because they are medicaid plans. they basically paying medicaid rates. medicaid is the worst payor in the united health care system. aetnave united and going and they are the highest payers. you don't to big health system and you negotiate this with whoever is in charge. to have control over that market. if you are molina, you can say that we can bring in a lot our customers and we can pay you $10 more. if you are united or aetna, you can say we can bring you more customers and we have to pay you $50 less. it is not a good marketing position. guest: here's one thing to take into account. when you have aetna or

particular united, which really do not specialize in the individual market place, there is a learning curve that has to take some of them quite frankly underpriced their premium. that is not an unusual thing. when you start in a market you want to get the largest market share. most of these companies that didn't have experience in the individual market place were not sure what to charge since usually the name of the game is get me market share. get me market share. some of them underpriced. some of them have to make corrections. the companies like united that had the least experience in the individual markets are the ones that had trouble. host: let's talk about the market next year and what it's going to look like. the new york times column looked at the number of carriers in different counties and states around the country and what that marketplace will look like next year after aetna's departure.

year after aetna's departure. states and counties in purple on this map are the ones that will only have one carrier as the option in the aca marketplace. the pink will have two providers. the white color three plus providers. let's talk about pricing in those markets that have just one provider. one thing that your viewers need to understand is that'su have one company providing coverage it doesn't mean you have only one plan to choose from. most of the companies offer a variety of plans. from a consumer perspective there are two sets of issues that we care about. one, we want to make sure that our provider is in the network of our plan. to fact that there are going

be numerous plans offered even by one company should take care of that. the issue you raise is a little more difficult. that relates to price. because it's good to have competition. competition helps bring prices down. perspectivesumer the consumer cares mostly about what does he or she pay out-of-pocket. one of the things your viewers need to understand on the affordable care act probably do understand -- there are significant subsidies provided to people all the way up to 400% of the federal poverty level. four with income below $97,000. subsidies are provided on a sliding scale. the lower your income the higher the subsidy. the bottom-line for individuals is what do i have to pay out-of-pocket after the subsidy?

i think what you are going to isd getting to your question that the overwhelming majority of people are not going to find a significant change because as the premium goes up so does the subsidy. host: this story in politico. the county that obamacare forgot. this is the one county in arizona that has no health care providers expected to be in the market next year. in the exchange. there will still be blue cross in the nonexchange market. the insurance commissioner is trying to get blue cross which is losing money big-time in arizona to go into that market. it probably will because that buys them goodwill with the regulator and maybe it will give them a slightly higher increase in the premium.

let's be clear about this. if are speaking as everything is going to be just great and we don't know that. the leading expert on measuring premium increases estimates that right now it looks like it's going to be a 24% average increase across all the plants in the exchange market. you are right. there are subsidies. the key thing that we saw last open enrollment, hhs was saying look around and find another plan. the plan you are in is probably going to go way up. people are going to have to work their way down from a plan they may have been happy with to a plan that likely is much harder to deal with. host: todd is waiting to chat with you both in ohio. he gets insurance through his employer. caller: what i find you are all

missing although i understand the logic -- you are all missing the problem is the individual mandate is an intensely evil maneuvering scheme that should be -- and be thrust upon private citizens. participate and decide you are going to be subjected to the fine of 600 plus dollars or more which goes up every year then you decide you are not going to pay that you basically had six jeff did yourself -- subjected yourself to prosecution. people should do the experiment that i did. most of my personal affairs are in atlanta. you take cleveland clinic in cleveland and university hospital in cleveland" $1000 aside and walk through what it would cost you to get a good physical. get a dentist somewhere and

teeth cleanings and your eyes checked. maybe some additional blood work such as a pregnancy test or std test. prostate exam. you will find at the end of that $1000 you still have a little bit of money left. you find out everything you need to know if you are an individual who takes relatively good care of themselves through exercise and live a low risk lifestyle and have a low risk job type lifestyle and live in a neighborhood where they don't have to be too concerned. you don't have to be a participant in health care insurance. you will subject yourself to the possibility of something bad happens that you need insurance four. then you should have to suffer the consequences of that. but if that doesn't happen to you you should not be subjected to a $600 fine. host: let me get a response from ron pollack. guest: the argument that todd is

making you hear from a number of young invincible's in particular. are healthy and exercising and doing all the right things. why do i need health insurance? reason anyone wants insurance whether it is homeowners insurance or any other insurance is because you can't predict the things that are going to happen in your life. god forbid todd has a major accident today or an illness. he's probably going to impoverish himself in terms of the cost. it is a concern. what the affordable care act did was said we are no longer going to allow insurers to deny coverage or charge discriminatory premiums when people are sick. that means that obviously people who have health problems are going to go into the marketplace. that is what has happened. if on the other hand you don't have younger and healthier

people join the marketplace what's going to happen to the premiums? they are going to go up. penalty wasof this to make sure that those people who might want to take a free ride and hope they will do ok attracts more people. it is the least popular part of the affordable care act to be sure. but it does help to make sure that the marketplace has a greater balance of risk pool. host: i will give you an a in arizona. guest: it doesn't work. that's the problem. if the mandate really had teeth and it and people were seriously afraid not to buy insurance than we would have had a more balanced risk. guest: you would have wanted a larger find? guest: i would have wanted a more effective approach giving insurance companies the ability to sell insurance products that

people actually want to buy at a price they are willing to pay. it has to be subsidized. na.t: let's hear from an caller: good morning. i'm a project manager at an insurance company who is a participant in the affordable care act in arizona. i have not had worse insurance in my life than i have being the affordable care act even working for an insurance company. what impact did the supreme court have when it -- it did a couple of things early on. employers tothe put them off having to participate to a later time and they made some decisions about the states having to expand was supposed to be a part of this and many states were able to opt out of the expansion. what part did the supreme court

play in those rulings that might have made the participation less profitable? she is raising a question about what happened with the first supreme court ruling. in that case what she is referring to is a part of that case was the court held that the affordable care act's requirement that every state expand medicaid program was impermissible under the constitution. it converted what was a mandate to expand medicaid to a state option. most states like arizona have actually picked up on that option. 31 states plus the district of columbia have accepted this option. 19 states have not yet done so. arizona is a very interesting case. because the governor at the

time, jan brewer, very conservative governor. she decided it was a good thing for the state of arizona to extend medicaid. she had all the local chambers of commerce say it's a good idea and it's going to be very helpful in terms of jobs. arizona opted into expanding medicaid. we still have 19 states that haven't done so. . host: did you want to jump in? guest: that is really the only significant part of any of the supreme decisions that affected normal people. after the election i think we will see maybe all of the 19 states signing onto the medicaid expansion. especially if hillary clinton is cutted because she won't back the extra payment to states who do that.

if it's not hillary clinton they may change their mind. host: we have about 30 minutes left. joseph antos and ron pollack are our guests. you are stepping down from that position. guest: i have been at families usa over 34 years. i think the organization could use some young leadership. we're in the midst of a search process and i'm going to move on. i'm not retired. hoping to work in economic fairness beyond health care. host: we are talking about the health of the affordable care act. -- aca insert viewers insured viewers, bill is on the line for those who get their insurance through their employer. good morning. caller: when bill clinton became

president, hillary tried to push through hillary care and republicans stopped it. becomes president you have a republican president andcongress and senate health care costs went up 140%. by 2008 it was $12,000 a year. 05-06 in one year. 140% --are has gone up has health care gone up 140% under obama? it didn't become an issue until ronald reagan and george bush senior became president because the republican congress about -- sold out the medical community

to the insurance companies. not-for-profit hospitals and medical centers. au used to have to have medical license to own and operate a medical facility. no longer. now it is all owned by insurance companies. obamacare was so popular was because after you took 140% beating and republicans did nothing they were willing to do anything to stop that. then the employer was smart by dumped it on the workers. this lady talked about how bad her health care is now. let me give our guests a chance to respond. clear about the national statistics. he may be talking about his personal circumstances in new york.

nationally from the mid-90's to about 2003 the average growth rate in health spending was about 8% year. the average growth rate in the economy was close to 3%. we have seen that for decades. it is faster than we would like to see. then we have the great recession. everything slowed down. health spending slowed down. that happened before the aca. a lot of people want to say the aca is fully responsible for the slowdown in health care spending. it's not really true. we are coming back up. it is a big challenge. even these numbers that seem smaller are very large when you translate it into people's taxes

and premiums. do have a problem and unfortunately part of the aca was supposed to slow down health spending. that was something that was put interest of increasing coverage. host: ron pollack is shaking his head. a few things. bill was recounting some of the history about health reform. it goes back well beyond that. wanted to pass major health reform and wanted to include as part of the social security act. the american medical association was strongly against it so he jettisoned it in order to protect the social security act.

in 19 49.an tried again the american medical association opposed it. ronald reagan got some of his public start right being a spokesperson in opposition to health reform. right -- i like to tell joe he is right periodically. seenve clearly increases in costs that preceded the affordable care act and after. really interesting is that even though the affordable care act did remarkable things about extending coverage to over 20 million people who didn't have health insurance we have our lowest rate of uninsured in the history of the country. at the same time one of the things we have learned, dhhs recently released data that shows in terms of the cost of health care that have really

decelerated. are they where they should be? no. but they have decelerated. host: angelo gets his insurance through the affordable care act. good morning. good morning. i think something you are not touching on is for profit medicine should be not only illegal, it's immoral. i don't understand how a ceo and all of these people in the insurance business -- if it was up to me there would be no more insurance companies. there would be medicaid for all, single-payer. it's that simple. why should you work your entire life and have one catastrophe come along and wipe out everything that you put away? it's completely absurd. i don't understand this. angelo's want to take

comment. guest: he's right. everybody needs health insurance. we have to start from where we are. is a privateare insurance system and a private health care system as well. those who argue against for aofit misunderstand that not-for-profit status is a tax status but they still have to make money. and they do. blue cross plans are not-for-profit. end of the't at the day make a substantial net gain over their expenses they will be out of business. aren't there cap's on how much the companies can make? guest: there are on how much of a premium dollar is spent on things other than providing care. it's called the medical laws ratio.

to spend aty have least $.80 out of the dollar on actual provision of health care. theothers it's $.85 out of dollar. profitn't particularize but includes administrative costs marketing and advertising as well as profit. insurers are not happy about that. they would like to have no caps on things spent other than care. it does provide greater efficiency to make sure most of the premium dollar is actually spent on care. guest: you have a different definition of efficiency than i do. among the several things in the 15% are patient management costs which i think most people in the especiallyuld agree for high-cost patients and people with chronic illnesses

you need to be efficient to minimize the resources to produce a healthy patient. you need to have administrative costs. the patientsanage and the doctors. if you don't do that we're just going to blow through the money. guest: i agree. the question that preceded this was are there some caps on profit. i think in a capitalistic system anyone in the marketplace wants to make a profit. in terms of using taxpayer dollars effectively we don't want our taxpayer dollars to go to insurance company profits. we want to make sure they go for good care. host: let's bring in a taxpayer from virginia. he gets his employer -- insurance through his employer. good morning. caller: thanks for taking my call. i live in virginia and work in maryland in a number of paid

clinics. i'm not an owner. i get my insurance through my employer. i wanted to make some comments about the fact that i know we are talking about providing insurance to everybody which is great. i think it's a really good thing. i have been involved with the ama. we have to find a way to pay for it. we pay into the hospital insurance trust for medicare is not going to cover all of those costs. the supplemental insurance is still ok. with regards to obamacare i think a lot of the insurance companies are pulling out the markets because they are not making enough money or they are losing a lot of money. continue to go that way because there's a lot of sick people out there and they are a lot bigger and they are going to stay a lot sicker and stay in the system longer.

i don't see a good solution for all of that. with regard to direct medical cost i think the lobbying interests involved in the health care including doctors and insurance companies and hospitals and pharmaceutical companies -- the pharmaceutical lobby is the strongest and they continue to churn out really big profit. they are taking the majority of the money. the weakest lobby is the doctors. host: let's talk about that. joseph antos. guest: anybody involved in business in the united states lobbies congress. that is not a surprise. insurancedes companies and doctors. they are all lobbying. and pharmaceutical companies as well. runcription drug costs

around 15% of national health pending. they're not getting the bulk of the money. the bulk of the money is going to hospitals. it's about 40% going to hospitals. it's really hard to say where the costs can be cut back but it's clear that the incentives in most hospitals have systems is fees for service. if you don't provide a service you don't get paid. that is one of the fundamental issues. the way we pay everybody in the health system promotes the use of service is even when the services provide marginal usefulness. host: a couple of tweets. agreeing with ron pollack.

aetna leaving the exchange is retaliation for the blocked merger with humana. a question. insurance companies complaining when the aca mandates that people must buy their product? guest: i don't think they are complaining so much about the mandate. i'm not saying it's a popular thing. surveys.ok at all the the mandate is least popular of all the different provisions. insurers know that when they are prohibited from denying coverage to people who are sick or have a it could be improved, no doubt but it's an important part of making sure the polls are much more -- do not have as much risk

in them. let me say one other thing because this really goes to the future. those who are opponents of the affordable care act have so far refused to seriously engage in trying to improve the affordable care act, as if it is an act of sacrilege. when hillary gets elected, assuming she does, i think it is important to look at some of the things we can do to improve these risk pools so that we keep premiums down. here is an opportunity. likeepublicans really medicare part d, which is the prescription drug benefit. it has certain mechanisms and it designed to keep costs down. it makes sure there is some kind of risk adjustment for those plans that have sicker people

and they get some protection. so far republicans have not been willing to do that kind of adjustment to the affordable care act. my hope is that we can make those kinds of changes after the election. guest: i am puzzled why the democrats didn't put that in the first place. they do have those mechanisms but some of them expire. that was the democratic decision not the republican one. just go i look forward to your support of our extending them. host: we have 15 minutes left in the segment. waiting in fayetteville, arkansas. good morning. caller: good morning. i have a question. the affordable care act creates adverse selection for insurance companies because people are sick and that's who's going to buy the policy.

why not just have medicare for everyone? hillary clinton is proposing lowering the age to 55. medicare operates at the least expense ratio of any of the providers. that way everybody will be in the plan. we will be a big boy country. host: medicare for everyone. guest: medicare does not operate substantially less expensively than private insurance.

[indiscernible] >> we are watching pictures of

president obama. he is in a neighborhood called as a in zachary, louisiana. the president has been surveying some of the damage done during the recent spate of bad weather there. >> everyone is all lined up? another member of congress here. with, i just want to say thank you to the outstanding officials behind me who has been on the ground working 24/7 since this flood happened. it begins with outstanding leadership from the top, with the governor john bel edwards, and we very much appreciate all the outstanding work he has done , his better half, first lady of louisiana, i know has been by his s