not looking at their family income and they think that testing is a way of teachers measuring schools. >> we need to encourage our students say enough is enough. we are the future of america. >> we should protect the future of mankind. >> equal opportunity to education. ♪ teach studentcam entry online at studentcam.org. >> coming up in an hour, kaiser health news chief washington correspondent julie robin or on how u.s. companies are responding to the coronavirus. bipartisan policy center economic policy director on

washington's effort to address job losses amid the coronavirus pandemic. " is next.n journal ♪ one month ago today, president trump declared a national emergency over the coronavirus pandemic. with wyoming over the weekend, all 50 states have been declared disaster response areas. good morning, it's monday, april 13, 2020. this first hour we will ask about your thoughts on the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic so far and how your state governor is handling the crisis. we will look at joe biden's just published plan to reopen america. here's how to be a part of the discussion this morning.

in the eastern and central time zones, but linus (202) 748-8000. mountain and pacific, that line is (202) 748-8001. we welcome medical professionals, to hear from you. that live is (202) 748-8002 -- that line is. .- is (202) 748-8002 you can text us at (202) 748-8003. we have facebook posts ready, we will show you those. as we begin the program yesterday, "the new york times" had published a lengthy story on the lead up to the naming of the national disaster a week ago, a month ago, it was friday, march 13. this was the headline on that story in "the new york times," in the newspaper. "despite timely alerts, trump was slow to act." "usa today" has a seat -- similar story.

"squandered week highlights trump's lack of covid-19 focus." it goes on to say --

that,not responding to but yesterday in a series of tweets "the new york times article," president trump responding, calling it fake. "i was criticized for moving too , secretary a's are told me nothing until later likely to bes action this week in the u.s. senate at least on potential additional legislation on top of the $2.2 trillion passed into law and now in effect. we are joined by jennifer shut, appropriations and budget reporter for cq roll call. tell us why there is additional money congress needs to add onto

to the money passed back in march. guest: so, in the large piece of legislation that congress passed in march, the aid package, there was a new program that included forgivable small business loans. it's known as the paycheck protection program. it was designed really to help small businesses that had been shut down because of the social distancing guidelines to try to reduce the spread of the virus. thems designed to give money to get through this time and a big part of that program is that you know, they continue paying employees father employees are home. , congress package approved 300 and $49 billion for this program. which is a substantial amount of money. at the time they thought this would last for about two months, if not more. but this program has proved extremely popular since it launched.

administration is now asking congress for an additional $251 billion for that paycheck protection program, bringing the total amount of funding for that to $600 billion . so, right now negotiations are underway between the trump administration, republicans, and democrats to try to figure out a way to pass this legislation because democrats want some changes to the ways that small business loans are structured to make sure that money is getting to people and businesses that don't have those traditional long-standing relationships with big banks. they are really touting this, they want to make sure that the money is going to minority owned and women owned businesses. that's a negotiation going on now. on the senate floor i believe we saw what was supposed to be a pro forma session. ben cardin, senator warner, we to what wasecting

being proposed on the senate floor. his more of that likely ahead in the senate? guest: we are not entirely sure that it will happen this morning at the pro forma 10:00 a.m. session. we have not gotten good guidance about whether or not republicans plan to try to once again bring up this bill that would include additional money for the small business program or whether or not they're just going to let this be the standard kind of session where they come in and they just sort of adjournment immediately. we are all very much trying to figure out what is going to happen this morning. we could see a repeat of last thursday whether our unanimous requests by republicans, democrats object. that is one of the things we are all trying to figure out this morning. what happensess of or passes in the senate eventually has to be passed by

the house. any word on how pelosi views this? -- guest: speaker pelosi and minority leader chuck schumer have put out duel statements this last week, saying that they are unified in wanting structural changes to the paycheck protection program. they also want additional funding for hospitals, as well as state and local governments. that's another thing that republicans are resisting. they say that those programs that already received funding from the previous package are not set to run out of funding. they think those negotiations should hold over to the next bill. so, democrats want to have bipartisan for corner negotiations. on friday we heard from schumer

and pelosi after they spoke with , that thechin administration was on board with negotiating. but then on saturday we got a statement from mitch mcconnell, senate majority leader, and house gop leader kevin mccarthy, say they hope democrats come around to the republican view of the package and that they want to support a clean funding extension. we are veryight now much in a stalemate heading into the week. one more quick thing we are seeing this morning in your reporting, appropriation process, that the works have been gummed up. proceed iny going to the house on this process? guest: the senate has been doing a lot of telework with staff.

one piece of moving legislation on the house side is that the house appropriations chairwoman has given the 12 subcommittees their allocation, total spending levels for the upcoming fiscal year. start onposed to october 1. to draftlooking at how legislation and, potentially, fully could draft of the legislation remotely so that when the committees are able to come back and meet again, they could quickly move on the markup process. but obviously we don't have a timeline right now for when congress would fully returned to washington, d.c.. - washington, d.c. we don't know when the various curves in the country are going to start to end and the social distancing will relax. host: we appreciate you covering this story. covers theutt

appropriations process. thank you so much this morning. guest: thank you for having me. calls, youro your comments. a couple of facebook comments before your calls. host: let's get the calls. david, first. apoplectic over the pelosi moves.

i've been working, i've got a small business, i do website development. employ five, counting myself. working out of my home office for the last 20 years. the part in the plan where they refer to the fact that they want to make sure that the larger businesses are not the only ones to benefit, i agree with that seen it,because i have it's true that it happens that way almost out of necessity because of the way banking far asres are set up as this came down the pike. there's also confusion because there are three plans out there, the covid-19 disaster recovery plan that was out there before the payroll retention plan that started on friday that week officially. but i have got a client whose business is actually up because of this. got his stuff through and qualified and

everything before i did. he has got a banking relationship, the biggest issue. he has got a banking relationship in commercial loans . those of the guys that were in first position to have something happen. second was you have got to have a banking relationship of some sort. everybody wasn't even accepting .hat to begin with bank of america wasn't taking anybody unless they had a commercial lending relationship with them at first. so, i spent the better part of over a day just finding someone to take my call it my bank, where i have had a checking account for 20 years, but no lending relationship. it took me a day to get a phone call through or a contact. finally got contacted. i was happy to see it was a local banker that i actually knew. after working with him that day and thinking i had gotten everything done that i needed to do, i was contacted over the

next week and was told that my application is going to be put is the scarythis part to me, because i filed a schedule c as far as tax returns were concerned. i looked at this stuff up this morning. is soleusiness proprietorship. the majority of sole proprietorship's are going to file a schedule c of some sort and he told me that they are holding things up and i am being put aside because they didn't have clear enough guidance for them on schedule c. here's the thing that scares me about nancy pelosi and the democrats at this point. i agree that they need to make ,ure that the banks understand sole proprietorship's, loan to those who previously wouldn't be qualified for these things beense the economy has destroyed by the standdown orders as far as doing business. but they also want to ensure sorry,s, excuse me, i'm

making sure that minority and women owned businesses, they shouldn't need to do anything by a special in edict. that is going to cripple the ability to get these things through fast. there are very few lines on these forms. there's very few lines on them, maybe three that have to do with numbers you are actually producing. if you have to produce proof having to do with mayor the, women ownership, anything to do with the order in which these things get done, i can't even imagine how this comes up the works. my biggest fear is that they will come back and say groups, anybody's application has been processed yet, you will have to redo it. one quick thing before i let you go, you said you had five employees. how much of your business are you asking for in this small business loan? the calculation works out to about $53,000.

my employees are all for load. they would be on the payroll right now immediately if i had the funds. appreciate you, sharing your experience there. lori, long beach, california, next. hi there, laurie. hello. i was a nurse for 42 years. hospital nursing mainly. i did get a notice from governor newsom's office through the union. we had plans and 66, they were semi retired. they did try to get us to go in and do the retired nurses work. just can't, really. i would but i can't because i'm, you know, at the age that i am. that being said, i would. i told them to keep me in the

it gets desperate, i certainly would. that aside, i'm calling about the stimulus checks. it's a mess, a hot mess, in my humble opinion. i just found out, i filed my paper taxes. filed in mid-march. that all of the irs offices are closed due to coronavirus. they are closed. the only people getting stimulus checks are the people doing turbotax and tax online. go to those websites. i went to fresno, california, my federal place to send it. but all over the country their closed. these are mail-in returns. there are none. eventually they said they would do it, but right now they are all locked up in a lockbox

somewhere due to safety concerns . they will get to them when they can. in that ins more terms of dependence. i have an adult son with high functioning autism. he won't get a check because he is still on as a dependent. host: have you tried reaching toll-free lines? you should be able to reach them through the national toll-free line. i have already read extensively, i already know. i contacted the union and i know what's going on. it's messy, he should be eligible and of course i should be eligible but of course unfortunately for me, because i filed paper taxes before this became a big crisis, those are going to be delayed for months and months and months and months. host: todd, redwood, california, welcome. caller: i am very disappointed

in c-span. is now the same as watching cnn, it's all about alarm and a blame. but your blame is selected. if trump was slow to react to this, who was fast? walmart, jay inslee? he welcomed this eight patrick's day parade. everyone partying on mardi gras. you have people from all over. is c-span trashing any of these new treatments? they offer the normal people, they call it plasmid transfer. governors asiew on reflected by joan, texting us from minnesota.

host: schaumburg, illinois. this is charles. hi, there. in response to last caller, the president of the united states has over a dozen intelligence agencies telling him what's going on all of the planet. the problem is donald trump doesn't listen to them. he spends more time talking to fox news tv personalities than the important people who know what's going on. reports are coming out now, president trump was told about this, probably in late december and he chose to do nothing. because it would affect the stock market and he is more worried about himself than anyone else. instead of standing up and being a leader in taking this by the horns, he laid back, pointed fingers, trying to push the blame onto the governor's. of course, governors have made mistakes. everybody's going to make mistakes.

but donald trump is not being a responsible president. he has cemented his position as the worst president the united states has ever had. presumptiveden, the nominee for 2020 the democrats, an opinion piece. "my plan to safely reopen america." in the piece here's what he writes, "first, we have to get the number of new cases of the disease down to significantly. meaning social distancing has to continue and the people on the front lines need the supplies and equipment that they need. and there need to be widespread testing and contact tracing that protects privacy.

host: read all of that at nytimes.com. connecticut, good morning. field, connecticut. you're on the air. go ahead. caller: can you hear me? host: yes, we can. go ahead. you are on the air. hello? ok, we will go to diane. hello. caller: good morning. my hope. expressing

please, let's have national a la thing by mail. registered voters should vote by mail and if they need to, begin the preparation for this now. it's six months away. in place.system everyone can get a ballot by mail. it's called absentee ballot. let's not even have a absentee. every registered voter gets a ballot sent to them. plus to this, it would be if we have paper balloting, we have a paper trail, so no one can complain or hold up the election, the national election results by saying that there was something going on. we will have the paper ballot trail. what thedon't know status of the virus pandemic is going to be. prepare ahead of time, get the

ballots going, send them out, have an election and call it from there. but they need to begin now. i do hope that they will do that, get ahead of the problem and let's move on. host: how would you rate governor whitmer in her response, your government response to the crisis? i can't say enough good things about her. i know unfortunately this pandemic is hurting people. it's unfortunate but it is where we are right now. she has, i call her the people's governor. she has been great. she thinks things through, she gets ahead of the problem. i feel in good hands with her. she is on top of it and is a great governor. a reminder that our website, c-span.org/coronavirus, that's where we archive all the coronavirus briefings. ensure several will come up

today. nothing on the schedule just yet , but keep it here for updates on that. the governor of arkansas, asa hutchinson, was on "state of the union" yesterday. on that program he was asked if he thought other governors had made a mistake by putting stay in place orders in their state. here's what he said. >> it just reflects the flexibility of state needs. new jersey, new york, they have really had to lock down. --y have hide it high-density populations. we have less density are in arkansas and we cannot take this -- and we can take this targeted approach that has proven to be effective. on the first day we had one case i declare public emergency and we proceeded as you said, to those the schools and other things and were targeting where we need to. look at the result. right now we have about 80

hospitalizations. we have 8000 hospital beds. of course, they are empty because we are not doing elective surgeries. as we are meeting the trendline in terms of our cases, it's better. we are increasing our testing. right now i would like to think that we are at the peak, or at least flat and, hopefully, we won't peak later, we will peak sooner. there is a lot of hope and optimism this easter that are tough time is behind and we are going to be getting better. -- >> i sure hope that's right. let me ask you, you talked about density playing a role. i understand that arkansas is not like new york in that respect. but little rock is and you are towns orng different cities or localities in arkansas make their own stay-at-home orders if they want to. the mayor of little rock says it's making his situation more difficult.

why not let mayors impose a stay at home if they want? >> we have a good partnership with the mayors. we have negotiated curfews where it's helpful, they can close the park if they need to. those are some of the targeted responses. but if you look at this, we want to take a long-term approach to this. you are not going to win simply to lock down because there is no such thing as a true lockdown where everybody stays at home and does not go out. you are going to have, if we put a shelter in place order in have or tomorrow, we would 700,000 people going on the streets and going to work. the most important message is that you wear your mask, you do your social distancing and the people of arkansas have embraced that and it has given us success. federal coronavirus national emergency one month old. how is your state government

doing? randy in michigan, good morning. good morning. i would like to start by thanking you and all the other men and women it takes to bring us this program and i hope you are all safe and family -- safe and healthy, your families. the response from the federal response is what you could expect from a republican led government. i don't know why anybody is surprised. money was always want to be first on the republican side. that's not knocking them. that's just the way their politics are. i will say that there is a positive on the coronavirus 19. many people are willing to embrace socialism right off the bad. we didn't hear none of those republicans standing up and turning down the money, did they are smart they were lining up like the rest of us.

so maybe we will have a government after this where the younger folks will make the government more for the people and not for the money. that is my hope. them2i got to depend on ones coming up making this country better and i think this coronavirus will show them that yes, we need a government that is for the people. thanks, bill. i appreciate your time. have a good day. host: louisiana, you are next. thank you for taking my call, i will try to be brief, enough said. i'm from louisiana, enough said. i applaud the governor, though i am not of his political persuasion. on a national level of the -- level, all of this would have, should have, could have about the president, history will decide. your op-ed in "the new york times," with joe biden and what

he had to say, i'm older than and while i think he's a nice man, he's an old man, i'm sorry, he cannot put a couple of sentences together and i don't think he has the stamina. when i look at the present president, i'm amazed all the strain he's under that he can bear up. that's my comment. i'm sorry, i think the president has done an adequate job under the circumstances and i think we need to stop with all of this quarterbacking on who could have, would have. host: all right, this story from "the new york post."

look at that tweet from president trump -- host: this is the retreated tweet with the time to fire fauci hashtag. dr.ant to remind you that anthony fauci will be on the primetime "washington journal," coming up tonight. ,nne-marie in san carlos

california, go ahead. thank you for taking my call. stop blaming trump. let's all take our common sense and do as each community should do. stop laming trump. let's blame ourselves for not taking heed of what we were supposed to do. thank you, that's it. patty, north branford, connecticut, good morning. i'm calling up. give me time. please. obama was six months late on h1n1, many thousands died. not a word from the media. please, please, keep your right hand off the button. every time a republican calls, your hands go right to the button. another thing, if biden wrote

the op-ed piece, i will eat it. because i don't believe it. i think his wife wrote it. i wanted to say. you notice, you only get compliments from democrats, c-span? i wonder why. that's all i have to say. to tom, next, in new york. go ahead, tom. good morning, c-span. good morning, america. it's going to be four more years of donald j. trump. host: all right. dr. anthony fauci was on "state of the union" yesterday, referring back to the "new york times" story on sunday about what led to the declaration of a national emergency and what could have been done. j cappers here asking dr. fauci about the report. tappert is here asking

dr. fauci about the report. [video clip] >> administration did not announce these guidelines until march 16, one month after your recommendation. why? jake, as i said many times, we look at it from a pure health standpoint. the recommendation is sometimes isn't.sometimes it it is what it is, we are where we are right now. >> do you think that lives could have been saved if social distancing, physical distancing, stay-at-home measures has started third week of february in set of mid-march? >> again, if what would have and could have, it's difficult to go back and say that. obviously you could logically say that if you had a process that was ongoing and you started mitigation early, you could have saved lives.

no one is going to deny that. but what goes into those kinds of decisions is complicated. you are right, if we had right from the very beginning shut everything down, it may have been different. but there was a lot of pushback about shutting things down back then. host: john from georgia, this -- host: here are the numbers from "johns hopkins -- from johns hopkins university.

we hear from new york city, next. this is dee. good morning. caller: yes, good morning. my concern, my concern basically is the fact that they are saying that the governor is in control. i'm going to speak mainly on governor cuomo at this point. they say he's in control and it's a lot of bickering going on between him and lazio. -- deeiblasio. cuomo has been playing it safe from the beginning. if you look at the numbers of the pandemic in new york, new york alone, we are being hit very hard. stilly is governor cuomo talking about a pact with connecticut, new jersey? .ou need to worry about home new york, new york.

i'm speaking as a government official and the mother of a daughter who is a schoolteacher that has pandemic as well. i'm talking is a grandmother. you want to worry about these businesses? what you need to worry about is these lives. i won't be spending my money on a country that doesn't quit care about my life. what you need to do is worry about this pandemic, get people together, rally people to stay out of the streets. i see people walking the streets rampant in new york, harlem. this is absurd. you need to have a curfew. dr. fauci is a doctor, exactly. he's not a politician. he has given his recommendations on how to save lives and we should be taking them and if they were taken seriously in the beginning from the doctors and the experts, we wouldn't have these problems. we already know we don't want trump as our president, but now we have to look at our governors and say -- are they able to make

these decisions? are they scared of trump? "the wall street journal" this morning, state concerns over rapid tests. jerseyhe governor of new was on "state of the union" yesterday and was asked about the health care workers in his state and if they are able to get enough personal protective

equipment. [video clip] >> raleigh speaking, and there are nuances in the specifics, but the answer is no. our heroic health care workers are stretched incredibly thin. so, we are testing only for symptomatic patients. a decision be made from day one. most tests offth any american state, 11th largest population, we are punching above our weight. we would love that. capacity,ding to bed with the medicine you need for those ventilators, personal protective equipment, and from the bullpen, the health care workers, every minute on everyone of those days we are doing what we can to stay ahead of it. >> you closed schools on march 18, coming after ohio kluth -- closed schools in ohio.

"the new yorkold times" that the death toll could have been cut in half. if things had happened a week or two earlier. should new jersey have acted sooner? it >> we acted about as any american state. the first and we are probably as i said here today, the tightest. but we will do a postmortem. i hope we do a national postmortem that is not partisan and asks the tough questions. we need to do the same thing in our state. the would have, should have, could have deserves an important focus and right now, the house is on fire. we have to put out the fire in the house and then we have to begin to get back on our feet and then at that point we have

to look back to ask what we could have done differently. on twitter we have a couple of these -- host: the president said this to governors, texting this yesterday -- host: back here calls. edwin, new bern, north carolina. our president, donald john trump, needs to go right now on national television to say that he intervened 60 days late. dr. fauci, dr. burke, the

medical experts have already pointed out, especially dr. fauci, that we should have intervened very early and donald john trump will not admit any fault whatsoever that he intervened late. host: what does that accomplished, if you were to do that? what effect does it have on the country if he says something like that? has an effect on is if he would have intervened and had a national emergency january 30, governor cuomo of new york, all the other governors throughout the country , north america lies, would have been ready. ok? we can't even get our asphalt together on testing. i been retired for 10 years. all of those ventilators in the strategic stockpile, why were they not by a medically checked to go? now we find out the ventilators in the strategic stockpile were sent to states not even

operational. that's a waste of time. dayssted time, at least 60 . our president, donald john trump, should get on national tv today at admit that he did not intervene early. all right, marie, next. peninsula, ohio. caller: i have been a democrat forever. first of all, i want everyone to be safe. andve been watching c-span it has become nothing but ignorant people blasting off what they don't know. about these testings, guess what , it was set up under obama that cdc would create all the testing. if you want to point to problems to testing, point to obama who set it up that all cdc would perform every testing. it was our congress that allowed all our pharmaceutical products

and our reagent supplies and everything else to go to china and taiwan. 90% of our drugs are made over there, including the reagents that are necessary, the reagent material in order to be able to read the tests. we cannot get the material from china to be able to read it. the last caller who said apologize 60 days late. in january and march it was the world health organization that was saying, from china, that we were not able, that this was not passed from people to people. that's the kind of information donald trump was getting. if you want to point fingers, point to congress for allowing all of our drugs, our masks, taiwan makes 90 million a week. taiwan shut down the borders and said we are not shipping to the united states. 3m only makes 33 million in an entire month and most of that

was overseas. the rest of that came from china. i have are democrats say -- either supplies from china and india and everything else. they have shut down shipments to the united states. thanks, marie. this story from "usa today," a site and a picture here that you're probably pretty familiar with, these cleaning products may be scarce for quite some time. they write how could something so basic suddenly become hard to get? they write that manufacturers preparedox were not for skyrocketing demand in a sleepy sector with skyrocketing sales that usually only fluctuates during flu season and with supply chains store by coronavirus, they cannot produce enough inventory to meet the demand. the four in one disinfectant spray is among one of the products the environmental protection agency says likely protects against the spread of the virus.

"no one ever expected this to happen. --y got caught flat-footed happen to her coat -- happen." "they got caught flat-footed." the next is sean, columbus, ohio. i think one of the major issues with the whole area is the economic impact, but also the federal government has to be in charge. i know we don't like to hear the word socialism, but when we are writing to trillion dollar and 350 million ghost of people in $500 million goes to small business, is that not socialism? i know we have a pandemic, but we love to downplay big government and when a tragedy like this hits, only the government can solve this problem. people wouldhat

understand that when things are going good economically, you don't spend money on things like the pandemic for him that he got rid of. that's the problem and you don't have a federal government charge of a whole country. this is always going to be a problem if we don't have federally run programs and hospitals. ok, reyes next from homestead, pennsylvania. caller: how are you doing? try to be quick, i hope you don't cut me off before i finish. i was watching the television, local news in pittsburgh, about a week ago. university of pittsburgh said they had a virus x seen ready to go. they had preliminary testing done with a delivery system and all they were doing was waiting for the fda to give them approval for clinical testing and they said it would take four

to six weeks. i can't believe that that the to didn't take four minutes tell him that. i wish someone would call university of pittsburg and their department. we are no slouch for vaccines here. why the fda says they need that time, that's the first thing. and in answer to the lady who said she was a democrat and then spoke everything republican she could, i'm tired of the republicans and trumper's getting on their saying they used to be a democrat and that now they are republican. as far as the allegations about what trump her, he heard from his own infrastructure and national security team that there was a problem in china. china was relying on it and he knew early on that there was a virus coming and it wasn't from the who. it was from his own intelligence

agency he didn't listen to. i can go over everything else he -- he was lying on, but i don't want to go that far. testing is next. everybody is part of the media. they are giving trump too much of a break on this. host: how so? caller: he keeps saying that we ever,one the most testing the most testing ever, the greatest testers in the world. we'll may problem is if you do it by percentage and you test 2 million people, that's less than 1% of the population, meaning 320 million people haven't been tested. now, i'm sure trump would like it if anybody came to visit him, now that everyone is testing, if they tested 1% of the people coming to visit and talk with him. do you think that he would let that happen? appreciate that. facebook.com/c-span is how you

post your thoughts there. host: silent springs, arkansas, mitzie, go ahead. thank you. hope everybody had a good easter yesterday. i believe trump is doing the best he can with what he has to work with. a 92% hostile media is going to bash anything that he does. response,the federal the biggest inconvenience i have had his church. i have had to go to online church services. i miss the fellowship and actually being with the folks there at church. i'm in arkansas, so our governor has definitely done a great job.

i don't see any panic around here. think he's doing as best he can. everyone knows that trump from the beginning has put america first. the american people come first with him. that's why he has broken all these trade agreements that were unfair to us and has done so many things to help american businesses. having the stock market go from 30,000 to 20,000, one third of our economy just taken -- tanking, it's got to be agonizing for him, to. but he's doing the best that he can. like one of the previous callers, the hostile media is just making it worse, causing more panic, putting doubts all over him, trying to make people doubt him, his competence, his truthfulness, his honesty. everyone knows that trump has from the beginning been putting

america first. host: mitzie mentioned in her call missing fellowship from her easter sunday service. these photos accompanied the article, "an easter of solitude ." queens, new york city, you're next. i'm very close to the elmhurst area. let me to you one thing, attacking this president for what he did and what did not, it really turns me off. i have followed media. there is no media in any country who is attacking the leader of that country at the moment. that's a disgrace. this is a reality now. our governors are doing a fantastic job. it had been an error before in

working with the government and everything is available for them. expected.n anybody we are good. regarding openings, it's between the federal government and the states and we will do it wisely. it's about testing all these things and it's hurting people. i know errors were made, but this is not a presidential error. the cover up with the who and china, the media wants to give them a license to cheat. believe it or not, trump at this moment has much more support in new york than he had before. host: a couple of different

approaches to a similar story, the national emergency is one month old. "the washington times" on that. host: i'm going to pull this off and show you the headline, similar story, but a different take. "reopening u.s. economy by may 1 may be unrealistic," experts say. jeff from twitter has this this morning -- bob in oldwe go to fort, tennessee. bob, go ahead.

ofi'm down here north chattanooga, where all the tornadoes hit host:. how are you doing, you ok? doing fine,, we're where we're at. some places in north georgia got hit. but anyways, i think trump is going to be reelected unanimously. this people that just hate this guy, look at the alternative. if we go back to liberals and democrats, murdering our babies. it's just pitiful. house.at, sell the don't allow this country a florist? want people that don't want to work together. all i see is fighting and hatred out of the democrats. i mean if we are going to have true freedom, we have got to

stand on the side of god. not idiots. host: more of your phone calls are ahead on "washington journal." we are joined next by a representative from rockland county. welcome to "washington journal" this morning, thank you for calling in. want to get your thoughts about how your community is doing. we hear so much about new york, new york city in particular, so tell us about it. guest: as you know, too many neighbors, community leaders have been ill. people have been laid off. at unprecedented rates. i have spent too many hours on the phone trying to access uninsurance benefits. access insurance benefits. my district has received

hundreds of calls, emails from constituents who just cannot keep their businesses afloat. others, as i said, trying to get unemployment. now i am proud of what we have done so far in the congress with three bipartisan bills that i have helped to shepherd through togress, providing trillions families, businesses, communities. but we have to do more to protect the lives and livelihoods of the american people. that is why we are working on a $250ackage that would be billion in assistance to small businesses, 100 billion dollars for hospitals, community health centers, health systems, including production and distribution of national rapid testing. we still don't have that, which infuriates me. $150 billion for state and local governments to manage this crisis.

a 15% increase to the maximum snap benefits to help families put food on the table. these are commonsense policies that everyone, democrats and behind.ans, can get i hope that republicans will come to their senses and move the package at once. are you surprised at all, you said this will be the last word, are you surprised that all how quickly the small business fund seems to be being tapped and needs replenishing? seeing -- i'm not surprised because i can see what's happening in my community, westchester, rockland . the stores are closed, everything is locked up. the lines, the calls, talking about those phone lines trying to get through to unemployment, that's what i hear over and over again.

by the way, this last package that we have to pass be the last one. we are going to have to have a serious long-term conversation the investments we can make to make sure that we revitalize our economy. things like infrastructure investments to create jobs, they are so important. in addition to legislation we also have to ensure that the tax dollars committed to the crisis is spent carefully, well, and i'm pleased that speaker pelosi has created what we call a modern day truman commission. this is a bipartisan and it is the house led committee on the coronavirus crisis. look, we will get through this. this is the united states of america. as a new yorker i'm particularly pleased with how andrew cuomo is handling this. all of mys from

constituents. he gives a report every day that is solid and based on fact. we will get through this. but this is the most difficult time i can remember as a member of congress. host:-- host: after all of this is through, looking ahead, what do you think the u.s. needs to do in terms of being more prepared for future pandemics? guest: that is a good question. it shocks me that the federal government, led by this whereent, and his remarks he is arguing on the phone with anyone that is asking a thoughtful question and what he does at press conferences, if he does not understand that we are the united states of america and we were not prepared, why should nurses -- i hear about this all ,he time, i see it on the news especially local news at my local hospital -- have to worry

about masks? have to worry about the equipment that they need. the doctorsbrave, that are here, going to the hospitals, that are going to people in the communities, that have set up driving places. around,till scurrying looking for equipment? what kind of preparation is this? although this president thinks he is a great leader, i would hope everybody, democrats, republicans can learn lessons from the inability of us to really provide what is necessary to our people. i cannot tell you how much time we extend -- we have spent on the issue of unemployment insurance. people get on phone and they said she was on the phone for eight hours. they had kids taking turns, they

cannot get through. this was improved in new york. i am not sure about the rest of the country. week the house is due next . the 23rd do you think you will be back in the nation's capital on the week of the 20th? guest: i certainly do not think so. i do not think it is possible. we are all working. starting with you, i am going all day long. we are working. going backnterest in now. how do you get there? train? plane? last time i got there, i drove for about five hours. people across the country are not going to take a chance. unless it is safe, i think we are better off doing our work, as we have been doing. passing bills by unanimous consent and hopefully, there is a bipartisan --

partisan -- in line to lee partisan politics aside. do you think that will happen in the senate this week? this is not a time for partisan politics. the speaker and certainly our senator schumer have been working together with a focus on what is needed out here. this is not a time for leader to say i don't like this bill. i don't like that bill. we have to work together to help the american people. and then we have to look back, after this is over. i hope it is soon, and see why we were not prepared. why the president of the united states could marshal all of the people, all of the equipment to do what is essential. i am glad that he has the

intelligence to have found she at his side. -- dr. fauci at his side. he understands this inside and out. we have to put politics aside. and pass anything that goes through the senate. no one can get back to washington. host: representative nita lowey of new york. thank you for joining us this morning. guest: you are welcome. it is my pleasure. good luck and stay healthy. thank you. host: thank you. more ahead on washington journal. julie will join us to talk about how u.s. health insurance companies are responding to the coronavirus. also, shai akabas will talk about washington's economic response to address the job losses and more. that is amid the coronavirus pandemic.

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watch white house briefings, updates from governors and state officials, track the spread throughout the u.s. and the world with interactive maps. watch on-demand, any time, unfiltered at c-span.org/coronavirus. >> washington journal continues. host: joining us this morning, julie rovner, cheese will -- chief washington correspondent. in particularly looking at health insurance. we want to start off by asking the health care system overall and the u.s. health care system and its ability to absorb the patients, not just in new york city but nationwide, what is your sense of that? guest: the health care system in general is fairly robust. in the united states, the hospital system is not set up to take and a nervous surge of patients -- enormous surge of

patients anywhere. hospitals run at mostly full capacity. it is so extensive that they cannot afford to have extra beds hanging around, waiting for something to happen. this is part of the idea between the national strategic stockpile that the federal government would stockpile supplies and medications. as we have heard recently, ventilators. is, in placeseing that are very hard-hit, people with a lot of complications, hospitals are completely overwhelmed. at the same time, we are seeing the rest of the health system come to a grinding halt. hospitals have stopped doing elective surgeries with things like hip replacements. things that they make most of their money from. people are afraid to go to the doctor unless they have covid-19. we are seeing primary care practices and specialty practices and things that are not respiratory basically start

to lay people off. host: looking at the health insurance, is this overwhelming the health insurance part? keeping in mind, as i understand it, didn't tested or having covid-19 related expenses will be covered i most health insurances, correct? guest: yes. that was in the thing that congress passed a couple of weeks ago that patients should not have to pay for testing. someone said that money may throw -- flow through the government. it is not clear how much of a hit that this will be on health insurance. tomiums next year would have go up a lot to make up for the extra costs that insurance companies are facing this year. they will step in and pay a fair bit of that. it is not entirely clear how much premiums will go up as a result of this. there are many more people who are getting sick and going to

the hospital and getting very expensive care. that is obviously going to do something to the nation health care tab. hospitals poised to get massive infusion of cash. a $350 billionad -- had $350 billion for small businesses. that is beginning to be tapped with nitatalked lowey. how are hospitals going to get this money? is there a concern that there may not be enough for hospitals nationwide? guest: there is concern hospitals will not get enough money. the department of health and human services announced that $30 billion, $100 billion in that bill will go to hospitals around the country, based on from last year. there are hospitals that are upset about that.

particularly hospitals with a lot of covid-19 patients will get less than other hospitals. all hospitals are in need because many, if not most of them, have stopped doing other things that bring in money. even if they don't have a huge percentage of covid-19 patients, they are still hurting initially. the hospitals in the hard-hit areas are hurting more because they are losing the money that they normally make from routine things that they do and they are having to spend this extra money to care for extra patients. here is how we are breaking up the phone lines. for those of you on the afford will care act. (202) 748-8001 if you get your employer's insurance. if you are uninsured, (202) 748-8002. others, (202) 748-8003. on the affordable care act, the

open upt client to options for the aca. guest: a number of states run their own aca exchanges. there is a couple of things that reopening enrollment does. if you lose your job and your job health insurance, you're automatically entitled to what is called a special enrollment period. you can go on to the exchange and by insurance. in order to do that, you have to have documentation, including to your employer. if there is a regular reopening of enrollments, it is much simpler and there is a lot less paperwork. people are at home and people do not always have access to documents or our transmitting document. the other thing is there are people last year -- at last year's opening enrollment, which was in december, people might not have bought insurance who do not have insurance. they might have bought these short-term plans that the

president had been touting that do not cover a lot of things. hospital care. if you get sick, you will end up in the hospital. a lot of people are rethinking those decisions now. under current laws, they are not eligible to sign up for health insurance again until mid-december. health care providers and the insurance industry and the openc health officials are to reopening enrollment nationwide. these are extraordinary circumstances where people who did not buy insurance before but want to now would like to have that opportunity. what they said instead is that they will use the money we are talking about in-hospital money .o help pay for the care that is not what the hospitals had hoped the money was for. there is some disc insertion about that too. oncertion about

that too. host: remind us again the number of states that expanded medicaid in those states. certainly, this crisis has tapped those programs in the state. when lots of people lose their jobs and lose their income, medicaid has to go up. have expanded their medicare program. in those 14 states, there is still a lot of people who will not be able to get health insurance, even if they did reopen the exchanges, because get on the exchange rate the way the law was originally written in 2010, everyone would be covered by the medicare expansion or by the affordable care act. in states without the medicare expansion, there are people who do not have many options. welcome.ie rovner,

if you want to send us a text, that is (202) 748-8003. tell us your name and where you're texting from. we will go to eddie in baltimore. hi. caller: yes. how are you doing this morning? host: fine. thanks. caller: i just want to make a statement that since trump came into office, he tore apart the aca. limitations are so dire. i cannot understand the republican party. they were protecting the trump -- protecting trump. denial about what has happened since this man came into office. hopefully they wake up and see that this man is not qualified to do this job. that's all i've got to say. i hope god touches their hearts.

all right, eddie. julie rovner, your reaction. guest: there is obviously people watching the president and seeing how he is reacting to this and seeing what the administration is doing and making their judgment. people who support trump think he is doing a great job. people who do not support trump do not think he is doing a great job. host: let me ask you about dr. anthony fauci. you had a chance to meet him and interview him or at least cover him. guest: many times. host: tell me what you're thinking is,- your granted this virus is bigger than anything we have seen, is this a typical response from anthony fauci compared to previous pandemics this country has encountered? guest: i have known dr. fauci since the late 1980's when he was working on aids. he has always been a very

straight shooter. very calm. he has been through a lot of health crises. obviously has -- infectious disease is part of andjob that makes it public stressful at times during public health crises. he has been good with journalists. he is very free with his time. take scientific information and explain it to laypeople. that is important during a public health crisis. things are more partisan. i have covered a number of crises. i covered aids and september 11 and the anthrax attack. -- h1n1d the h one i flu. i have seen this play out before. i do not remember that it -- i

do not render it being this partisan. when the u.s. was in a crisis, the parties tend to come together. i feel like the country is so divided right now that we are seeing a division in this response to covid-19. host: let's hear from detroit. this is clements. good morning. i would like to ask the question , how much money did your industry make in 2019? i understand you made over $3 trillion last year. ast: clement, our guest is reporter with kaiser health news. are you talking about the journalism industry or the health care industry? caller: i am talking about the health care. they are talking about wanting to charge us for health insurance when they don't make the profits. in 2013, they made over $3 trillion. what is going on? they are asking us, the taxpayers, for money? thanks for your comment.

just to be clear, because our guest julie rovner is from kaiser health news. she is the chief washington correspondent. guest: we are not affiliated with kaiser permanente. we are an editorial independent project that is not affiliate with kaiser permanente. i do not think it is three choi in dollars. we spend about 18% of gdp on health care. way more than the next high spending country. it is distributed unevenly. there are a lot of hospitals and family practice doctors and nurses and health aides who do not make a lot of money. then there are people who are making enormous profits off the health care industry. with the covid-19 outbreak, that is what washington is most concerned with.

even people in -- and unsuspecting patients. there is an enormous amount of money in the health care system. that does not mean that there are not corners of health care in dire straits. host: have you had a chance to look at what other countries are doing well in their responses and others not so well? guest: yes. everybody seems to be doing similar types of things, because there is still no treatment and there is no vaccine. the best way to keep the virus from spreading is to keep people from getting too close to one another. that is how it spreads. there is a lot of sheltering in place and a lot of closed pools and a lot of closed businesses. obviously, in italy, it turned out to be more difficult than it was in china, because italy is not so much an authoritarian

regime as china is. even in china, we are seeing that they are a couple of months ahead of us. we are seeing them tentatively try to reopen things. now, they are concerned about cases coming in from other countries. it is really difficult in a -- inin people get on which people get on airplanes and go across continents. the president talks about what a great job he did, shutting down travel from china in late january. as it turns out, according to the new york times, what happened is that chinese tourists went to europe and the virus got embedded in your -- europe and americans went to europe and brought it back within. it is hard to say we will shut down our borders and keep it from coming in. notwithstanding, a lot of it has to do with how good public health systems are in some other countries. some have done a better job of testing and tracing so that you don't have to quarantine everybody. you can try to figure out who has the virus and keep them from

going out and spreading it to , keeping them quarantined until after the notential period for a infection is up. people who are not showing symptoms can spread it. that makes things much harder, more than just staying home if you are sick. it is stay home if you might be spreading it and don't even know. that is why we are at the everybody stay-at-home face. host: let's hear from cal. caller: good morning pray thank you for taking my call. the representative made a mistake preach she criticized .he president the obama administration cut funding. my question is will we see an increase in premiums because of

this problem? host: thanks, cal. guest: we do not know yet. tend to bereases regional -- increases tend to be regional. states tend to regulate insurance if you have employer insurance. it will vary. there will be more federal health. two your first question, there is an article in political administration, going back to -- a political administration magazine going back to clinton. pre-much every administration tried to do something and it was ignored by the administration after them. particularlyn trump or obama. it really is sort of a bipartisan, we tend not to think about public health until we need it.

every time something happens, we tend to pay attention to it for a while. then it floats into the background again. something happens and everybody starts pointing fingers about why weren't you ready for this? host: our line is (202) 748-8000 . on that line from seattle is james. good morning. caller: good morning. the reason why this pandemic was not nipped in the bud earlier is because trump and republicans were trying to get phase one of the trade deal signed during this time in january, even while impeachment was going on. the democrats and republicans tried to sign phase one. going to comeoney from? it seems like the republicans and trump have found where the money can come from. it is coming from the treasury department, it is coming from the taxpayers.

health care for all as bernie sanders was saying. this is the only way the pandemic will be nipped in the bud. we have homeless people in airports. upave homeless people coming and giving them a cup of coffee. socialism, it is a socialism type of system that is going on now. the money is being spent. why are you people not talking about socializing the health care system, where everyone has these -- andn these types of issues going on now, the money is being spent. how do you rovner, think a medicare for all or a single-payer system would have responded to this pandemic differently? how might that system absorb or not absorb patients any better? guest: we are seeing that happen in other countries. i did see boris johnson last night basically singing the praises of britain's national health system, which is

extremely popular in britain. whichnservatives, in boris johnson is one, have not funded adequately pray there are serious problems with produce -- with the british health care system. --. adequately. there are serious problems with the british health care system. they have health insurance for everyone is what people are saying great it obviously makes a difference. there is a concern that people who do not have insurance are afraid to seek out care when they need it because they are afraid that they will not be able to pay for it. that is a problem. that is one of the reasons that congress made testing free at the point of service, so that people who think they might be ill or passing it on to others may not be afraid to come forward. i think that this is over, we as a society will look at our health care system differently.

i don't know what that will mean in terms of policy. i don't think it is possible to know yet. i think the debate is going to change. host: there is a story this morning at the front page of the washington post about another area of shortage. a shortage of drugs. iny say that hospitals regions experiencing a surge of coronavirus patients are struggling to maintain andbiotics, antivirals other drugs produced in countries where they are curved manufacturing. hospitals are increasingly concerned about future shortages of life-saving drugs, as authorities in india and other countries producing them try to guarantee supplies for their own people. ofargument i guess in favor more of that production coming back to the united states. guest: this is a huge concern. it has been a concern for

several weeks. i saw that story. there have been a few stories along those lines, that so much of our medical systems supply chains now come from other countries. for drugs and sort of the pieces that go into making drugs. much of that comes from india and china. we are seeing this with ppe. a lot of that is coming from china. we are having a worldwide pandemic. every country wants to keep what they are making for themselves. it is kind of a problem with the global supply chain. we are talking so much about being energy independent. we are not health care independent. i think we are finding that. i don't know what the solution will be. i think that there is a realization that this is the first real global pandemic in 100 years. that is not to say that there will not be more. we have seen 500 year floods that have been followed the next

year by a 500 year flood. i think there will be a lot of rethinking about this global supply chain and what it really means to our health security, in addition to our energy. host: are you surprised the world health come under the criticism that has? guest: i think the world health organization always comes under criticism during times like this. the president has been with therly unhappy who. they have a difficult job. there is an argument that they were a little slow to react. they were reacting to it. there was a little bit -- we don't want to call it a pandemic even though it was very clear that it was in a lawful a lot of places -- in an awful lot of places in that -- at that point. host: do you find it hard at all for you to get straight information out of china? do you trust the veracity of what is reported out of china in

terms of health issues, in particular on the coronavirus? guest: that is not what i do so i am not getting a lot of information out of china. i am dubious about information thatcomes out of regimes don't have free media. it is very hard to tell. i listen to experts who also say that china is trying to be helpful. i think there is so much that we don't know. there is so much we don't know about the virus because it is so new. it is not just because it is in china. it is literally only a couple of months old. we know a surprising amount given how new it is. frustrated that we don't know exactly how it works. how we can be spread, when it can be spread and what all of the symptoms are, who is most likely to get very sick, we just don't know that yet. host: let's hear from melvin in

georgia. good morning. caller: how are you doing? a previous color asked her to address the idea of -- caller asked her to address the idea of medicare. she said it would not make much of a difference. the difference when you have medicare for all or insurance for all is that you don't have the underlying conditions african americans are experiencing in detroit, new orleans and new york because they have high blood pressure, they have diabetes and asthma. difference between poverty and not having health insurance has created conditions where americans, people of color, are at a disadvantage when they get covid-19 because the underlying conditions undermine their ability to resigned -- respond positively to treatment by the doctors. guest: that is absolutely all

true. health insurance is an important peoplenant of whether are and can be healthy. it is not the only term in it. determinant. poverty has an effect on whether people are able to eat healthy and exercise and get to grocery stores that have healthy foods. there are issues invented in this some of them are cultural. insurance, if poor people had insurance, they would be less likely or more likely, even if they had pre-existing conditions, to be able to control them. people have high blood pressure that is not well-controlled or asthma that is not well-controlled. those are all issues. i am not saying the united states is in a better position than countries that have national health insurance. we are obviously in a less good condition. ours not enough to mean

health system will not be overwhelmed by this. we have a lot of places that have national health insurance that are also overwhelmed. host: our guest's julie rovner. she is here with us until just about 9:00. we welcome your calls. (202) 748-8000 for a.c.a. enrollees. if you get employer health insurance, (202) 748-8001. for those of you who are uninsured, i should say, that line is (202) 748-8002. all others, (202) 748-8003. andrea is next in fort washington, pennsylvania. caller: thank you for c-span. i have been listening to this show for about 15 minutes. i wanted to ask your guest, julie, about if she knows anything about health insurers dipping into their reserves, which, as far as we know, there are billions of dollars in

health insurance reserve funds for an emergency, which i always thought that was what they refer. i have not heard anything declaring this an emergency for health insurers -- as far as health insurers stepping up to help people who, like myself, and others who have contributed for decades. high costs, it is one of the biggest bills that we get a month, to help provide insurers with masks and other things. i just -- i have heard nothing about whether insurers are breaking into their reserves for this pandemic. host: ok, andrea. guest: yes, they are. health insurers has stepped up in a lot of ways -- have stepped up in a lot of ways. they are clarifying the costs of testing for covid-19 and they

will make sure that patients do not have to pay for the cost of hospitalization or treatment or if they end up in the hospital with this. this is not every health insurer. we don't know what is going to happen with bills. you go to an in network facility . the hospital bills you separately for something else, saying it is not covered or it is out of network in an in network facility. they obviously will get into them. the point is, if premiums go up next year, it will be because they need to replenish their reserves because they are required to have a certain amount for exactly the situation that we are going through now. the fact that insurers have reserves, that is not money that -- that is money that is there for an emergency, which this is. they will have to have that money put back for the next emergency. host: those unexcited charges

back in the fall, there would seem to be bipartisan support for this legislation, against surprise billing, what was called surprise billing. the president weighed in in favor of it. where does that stand? guest: they have given themselves until may two sort of come to an agreement on this. some thought they might try to get a deal into the bill that was passed a few weeks ago. this is less a fight between democrats and republicans and they agree that it is a fight between insurers and doctors in washington about who is going to pay and what kind of mechanism there is to settle the dispute. that has been a big fight. doing television commercials during the democratic debates if you are not

embedded in this, you have no idea what they were talking about. each side sort of tried to make their case. they are still at it. it is obviously something they want to do. there is obviously a bigger emergency in front of them right now. host: to david next in roseville, michigan, on the uninsured bind. go ahead. caller: thanks for taking my call. is a globalistis , populist agenda. if you go to the internet archive, there is a pdf document that was put out in 2014 by the rockefeller foundation that outlines this entire scenario. they talk about italy, china. go look it up. it is mind blowing. look up lockstep. worldwideer a giant

signoff. in our houses, we are not powerful. i think your spreading lies. you are not affiliated with the kaiser family? you are the kaiser family foundation, how are you not affiliated with the kaiser family? that is ridiculous. i want to know how you say you are not affiliated with the kaiser family when you are the henry j kaiser foundation. host: our guest is not affiliated with kaiser permanente. she is with kaiser health news. guest: we are affiliative with the kaiser family. we are not affiliated with kaiser permanente. people withlot of theories on how this happened but it is not like public health officials have not been working on plans for pandemic preparedness for three decades. as i mentioned earlier, there is a piece in politico and the new york times. a lot has been written about this and it is hard for public

officials. president is agonizing and public everyday. public officials do not want to make people stay in their houses. this is having a dramatic and terrible effect on the economy, which is not something that one would want in an election year. we are seeing the same thing in other countries. their economies are being ravaged. this is not something that public health officials are doing because they want to. it is basically the only thing that they have left to do in the race of the pandemic. host: it seems like if you look back, maybe it is hindsight, you see sars and mers. the rise of these and the increasing rise of these, are you surprised at all that the u.s. and other countries were not prepared as well as they should be for a pandemic of this size? guest: yes and no. as i say, people don't listen -- people do not pay attention to public health except for when we are in a crisis. and it is allowed to languish

otherwise. , there was an enormous amount of time and effort in congress, it was basically all i covered for a couple of years, to sort of rebuild the nation's public health infrastructure, create the national -- refill the national stockpile. create this public-private agency to develop countermeasures. there was a lot of effort put into it. over the years, it was allowed to just sort of -- you know -- drift, essentially. we are never ready for an emergency. as i said, if you look around the world, a few countries are doing pretty well. a lot of countries are having their own kinds of difficulties. host: a question for you on twitter. you addressed this earlier with the procedures that are not being done at hospitals. this question asks how is the health of americans, the elderly being affected when all other

medical services are put on hold. what are the long-term costs to health? guest: that is something we are looking at. there is a huge issue. cancer patients are not getting treatment. there is a lot of treatment right now that is not happening. a lot of deferred care. it is a big problem. hospitals, many of the hospitals that are being clamped are closing their doors to things. people are in pain and people that are notseases being treated. now a huge problem. it is going to be a bigger problem, all of that deferred care as we go forward. host: let's go to gate city, virginia. this is james. good morning. caller: yes. know, to address, you everybody who thinks that the insurance companies, i know i will be booed for this.

everybody thinks insurance companies have these bottomless, bottomless pits of money. that is not true. -- we should have everything,ups for every type of situation. we don't have anything to protect the insurance companies. they are required to have certain amounts of backup money. out this is going to wipe every insurance company's backup money. and yet, nobody's thinking about what is going to happen if the insurance companies have to go out, because they don't have any money. they cannot operate without backup money. host: all right, james. julie rovner. guest: insurance companies are

busy on capitol hill with the rest of the health-care industry. there is a concern. just like the rest of the health care industry, there are insurance companies with deeper pockets. there are smaller insurance companies. there is a lot of nonprofit health insurance companies and community health insurance companies, similar to different types of hospitals and sometimes deeper pockets than others. there is worries about the continued viability of the health care system in general. we cannot expect nurses to be miracle workers, masks and equipment shortages push nurses to the brink across the nation. in general, are hospitals able to find the staff they need, keeping in mind of the staff exposes themselves to danger in treating covid-19 patients? guest: it is a real concern. there are shortages of health care personnel in lots of the

country. new york did a callout for health-care workers and health-care workers who certainly -- suddenly were not working where they lived because things have shut down. the health-care system shut down. they got a pretty good outpouring of people who have come to new york and are living in hotels to help take care of the surge there. majoruld assume that metropolitan areas will surge at different times and you will have people who can come and fill in. there is a worry about not just burnout but people getting sick and having to stay out. there is not enough personal protective equipment. health-care workers are more likely to catch the virus. and then they cannot work. it is a huge issue. among the things that we are going to need to take a long look at after this is done, is the state of our health care workforce. let's hear from judy in

seattle, washington. you are on. caller: i wanted to bring up the way numbers are being used to obscure facts. for instance, when people talk about more people have died in america from the virus and then of oneitaly is the size of our smaller states. how many people die per capita? that is where it becomes more interesting. i know that in washington state, there are areas where it is very concerning. in seattle, and other places, it is not so concerning. capita wouldhs per be the way to count victims of this disease. and, other news, it is being reported in very confusing ways. it is not just that what they

are saying is alive, but it is a truth that is not real. host: ok, judy, thanks. guest: i agree. every morning, i wake up and you get these numbers and they just don't mean very much. i live in marilyn. marilyn has started reporting cases by -- maryland. maryland has started reporting cases by zip code. testing is not as universal as it was promised. it is still difficult to get a test. it is hard to know there are differences in how we need to get a test in different parts of the country. even that starts to get -- you don't really know how widespread it is. people may be walking around with it or have just been at home and never got tested. you honestly don't know read that is why we still don't really know how deadly this is.

itdon't know what percentage is of the people who get it because we do not know how may people have it yet. this is one of the big frustrations of the public health expert to talk about when can we open up? we cannot open up until we know who has it and who is able to spread it and who is not. host: there is reporting about the discrepancy of both disease, about itdisease and hitting the minority populations much harder. the new york times didn't op-ed, called the americans we need. they said less affluent americans will bear the brunt in health and wealth. they have suffered disproportionately from diseases of labor like black lung and mesothelioma. obesity diabetes and the opioid epidemic that has raged in communities. by one estimate, these patterns of poor health mean that those

at the bottom of the income spectrum are twice as likely to die from covid-19. many are losing their jobs. death to obtain the necessities of life. -- risk death to obtain the necessities of life. is that a reflection of the overall health care system for minority populations in general? guest: yes. we know how the african-american community has been hit in proportion to the percentage of the population. it is hard. they are much more likely to get the disease. once they get it, they are much more likely to have serious complications or die. those are numbers that we actually can tell. -- there has been more attention to this. it has been a long-standing problem as you mentioned about poverty and the types of jobs that lower income americans have, which might in this particular pandemic is more likely to expose them to the virus.

about their difficulties about -- about withir their daily lives. there are a number of societal reasons and health reasons. the earlier caller was correct that if more people have health insurance, that would certainly be a good thing for this population. not enough. but it would be a good thing. this is a huge issue. at least people are talking about it. it has been there for a long time and people have not been. the president declared a national health emergency. way is your opinion on the guidances have changed in terms of wearing a mask, not wearing a mask, six feet, the shifting guidances over the last month in the u.s. and longer than that worldwide. frustrating. been i feel for my public health communication collects. there is an entire branch of public health that is dedicated to nothing but explaining to the public how public health works.

how we can keep ourselves and our neighbors safe. this has been difficult, because i mentioned earlier, there is so much we don't know about how easily this virus spreads. there was concern and i now see what they were concerned about, life, peopledaily wearing masks but doing it entirely wrong. putting them on and off, touching them. putting them below their chins to talk and then putting them back up. how often to washcloth masks. and the concern that people who are wearing a mask will feel it is safer to get closer to other people than they should. there are also stories about if six feet might be enough if you're running, biking and breathing hard, maybe it should be 20 feet. i think people are scared and confused. public health experts are doing the best they can. the guidance is changing because we are learning more about things. host: let's hear from helen,

calling from tulsa, oklahoma. caller: hello. i am sorry. host: go ahead. caller: anyway. thank you for taking my call. i am a nurse and i work for the state for 15ed the years. when i hear people say they want medicare for all, it is concerning to me because i don't thek they understand possible consequences of medicare for all. medicare for all does not pay 100% of your bills. you still have to pay some of that. that is why a lot of people that are under income are eligible for medicaid. that canrtunately, cause problems too. a lot of times, the atlantic times, it lot of

to access aability primary care physician. a professional that you would see if you have pain. call your doctor's office. instead of going directly to the emergency room. all might cut that out. a lot of doctors and a lot of people may not know this. most doctors only take 10% medicare and medicaid combined. so, the 90% of the rest of their clientele is paying by private insurance. that is the only way they can keep your lights and water and gas on. , you know, it is a problem. i think the problem needs to be

with medical professionals. and not just washington professionals. because, if you are on medicaid in this state, you get paid per unit. paid $28ou are getting for four units, you can figure out what you will get paid for 15 minutes. host: thank you for your experience, helen. guest: i think there may be some doctors who limit their medicare and medicaid. it is not 90%. most doctors except particularly haveare, most doctors large medicare panels. it is hard to find a primary care doctor in a lot of major metropolitan areas, no matter what kind of insurance you have. with medicaid, it can be even more difficult because medicaid

pays less, substantially less. i think the most important thing is that when policymakers talk about medicare for all, they are not talking about the current medicare program. it took me a long time to wrap my head around that. they want to create an entirely new program that would be called medicare but it would not be the medicare that we have now and it would not have the patient cost sharing requirements that medicare has now. medicare has significant patient cost sharing requirements. that is why most people have medicare advantage, which is a private managed care version of medicare or they have a plan to help fill in and pay those very substantial costs that medicare requires. it is confusing. host: we have the line for a.c.a. enrollees. (202) 748-8000. julie rovner, the affordable care act turns 10 this year.

imagine the covid-19 pandemic without it. remind our viewers of how money people are now covered on the -- under the affordable care act that would not have been covered before. guest: it is about 20 million more people who have insurance. a combination of a.c.a. insurance and medicaid expansion. children up to age 26 who are staying on their parents plans. substantial number of people. it is hard to imagine what it would be like as it is when we have 28 million americans who do not have health insurance. imagine the crisis if we had 48 million americans who did not have health insurance right now. for allinly has been -- of the efforts of the trump to undo the affordable care act. indeed, there is another supreme court case coming this fall that could strike the entire thing down. i think it is hard to make the

case that, without the a.c.a., we would be better off right now. host: this is a manual, next up in rockville, maryland. , next up, in rockville, maryland. we talk about african americans with diabetes. this has gone on for years. we have not gotten assistance or anything. [indiscernible] i'm like you have not done anything before this situation. anything. done it is just like anything else. when this thing is over with, it will go back to square one. -- [indiscernible]

it is done in white communities. they do not come into african-american communities and see what is going on. that is just baffling. we have had these issues for years. it has been disproportionate about everything. no funding. host: we will let you go. thanks for calling. we talked about it a little bit before. do you have any further thoughts? guest: i think we do. i am talking about people who have been in these communities and have done rigorous studies. that is where i get most of my data. yes, there are people who work on health inequities. that is their entire career. it is not that we don't know it is there or that we don't pay attention to it -- there. it is that we don't pay attention to it enough. i am hoping we will. caller: thank you for taking my call. i would like to hear your comment about the quality of when i hearand

politicians talking about medicare for all, and health care coverage for all, that can don't hear- i anybody talking about how bad it can get, if it is for free. i am 69 years old. i have medicare advantage. for me to find a dentist in -- whost queens that will take my insurance. the ones who will are people i back away from. leak when itrooms rains. just ridiculously bad. can you comment on that? host: ok. guest: part of that is our network issues. a lot of people with private insurance have trouble finding a dentist. issues.e workforce

there is a lot of work on quality and we have the highest quality health care in the world. if you look at actual world comparisons, that is not entirely true. it is difficult. we have a health care system that is floundering a little bit. obviously, this is putting even more pressure on it. look we will take a closer when this is all done. i think that one of the things that this has done is a lot of people who don't use the health system very much or do not think about it very much are suddenly thinking about it very hard for the first time. host: recycled this back to congress. do you understand that there may be additional money in future bills for hospitals and health insurance companies? guest: absolutely. there will be more money for the health care system in the next bill, whenever the next bill happens. host: julie rovner, chief washington correspondent for kaiser health news. as always, great to have you here. guest: thanks for having me. host: it is one month since the

president declared a national emergency over covid-19. we will get your reaction, your phone calls here at (202) 748-8000. for those of you in the eastern and central time zones. , mountain and pacific. all others, (202) 748-8002. us andabas will join talk about washington's response to address job losses during the pandemic. ♪ ♪ >> a big question for everyone is wind will reopen? people want to get on with our lives, get out of the house.

we need the economy working. people need a paycheck. life has to function. when do we reopen? reopenwer is, we want to as soon as possible. everyone does on a societal level, everyone does on a personal level. let's just end this nightmare. groundhog day, you get up every day, same routine. you almost lose track of what day of the week it is because they don't have meaning. there is anxiety and stress we are all dealing with. we want to reopen as soon as possible. need to beis we smart about the way we reopen. what does smart mean? a coordinated approach and a safe approach. nobody wants to pick between a public health strategy and an economic strategy.

as governor of this state, i am not going to pick one over the other. we need a public health strategy that is safe, that is consistent with an economic strategy. how do you reopen, but how do you do it in a way that is smart from a public health point of view? the last thing we want to do is an upitck in the infection rate numbers weck in the work so hard to bring down. we need a strategy for businesses, work, school and workforce. when new york pauses, it stopped everything at the same time. it was a blunt device and it shut down everything at the same time. we will need testing. testingting, faster than we now have when we start to move people back to work. we will need federal help. there is no doubt about that. >> washington journal continues.

host: we have been in the national emergency for one month now. we would like your reaction about how the federal government is doing. tell us about (202) 748-8000 your state reaction. (202) 748-8000for those of you in the eastern and central time zones. (202) 748-8001, mountain and pacific. medical professionals, your line is (202) 748-8002. a tragico point out weather story that is happening in the southeast mid atlantic. weather.com, 18 killed as tornadoes tear across the south. 1.3 million without electricity. usa today is looking at the coronavirus one month in and the u.s. response. poll,ave done a usa today one month later. attitudesericans'

have changed dramatically. taken march 10 and april 9, they said covid-19 posed a high threat to the global economy, one month ago 47%, now 76%. a high threat to the u.s., 36% one month ago, now 71%. a highstock market, -- threat to me personally, one month ago it was 15%, and now 29%. let's go to steve in massachusetts. caller: how are you doing today? host: fine, thank you. caller: i moved up here two years ago and i want to say the last lady that was on, julie rovner, she seemed like the kind of person whose comments and views depends on who is signing her paycheck. the federal

response, i don't think there is a person -- the goalposts keep changing. if you go back to the very essentials, every time you see a picture of china, everyone is wearing a mask. why don't we have masks here? entitiesr is corporate -- i don't think there is a rational thought that could say anything but that. comment, but it hope that everybody out there that all the things they have said. who would have thought this could happen? are you kidding me? that is what happened after 9/11. did inthat bill gates the government did, it said this was going to happen. they all said it was going to

happen. they did these studies and people are saying who would've thought? how many times of you heard that? craig, go ahead. caller: talking about the timeline with the president. exclusively in business travel for one of the big three companies that are over there. warned 21, they were about this back in december. january, she canceled 70 flights. that is just one of the companies. they make a lot of money over there. host: was she surprised at the pace of the reaction in the u.s.

in terms of federal government reaction? caller: yes, she is not a big trumper. she knew it was coming. he always acted late. he has done the right thing but it was two weeks or one month late. pennsylvania, up. caller: good morning. we hear on the television every day social distancing. she was up in new york state visiting with family that traveled from philadelphia. i would have done the same thing if i was in her shoes. up and it ised it all over the news that our county rep. they are making it political. she is just trying to do her job the best she can and she is

trying to be there for her family. it is amazing how they turn it into a political thing. host: politico this morning with a report that george stephanopoulos of abc has tested positive for coronavirus. they said the chief anchor for abc news announced he tested positive for the coronavirus, making him the latest high-profile broadcaster to become infected with the disease. george stephanopoulos said he likely contracted covid-19 from she revealed she tested positive earlier this month. next up is bob in ohio. caller: good morning. host: good morning. caller: i would like to make a response to the question of whether the federal government has done a good job. host: go ahead. be, i: my response would

think they have done an adequate has considering this virus come upon the entire globe and nobody was really prepared. everybody is trying to be political and say our president has done a bad job, but considering that all across this world, the governments have had a difficult time trying to manage this and nobody was prepared because nobody expected this to ever happen. if you like to say that compare all of the governments across the world, nobody was ready. i think he has done a great job compared to all of the other federal responses. i know we are learning each and every day what we should and should not do. i support that if each american takes their own individual responsibility to be safe. bob, your governor is mike

the, correct? caller: yes, sir. host: are you satisfied with how your state government has responded? caller: pretty much, i am. i wish the restrictions would have been a little tighter right from the beginning. they did jump on it pretty fast. me and my wife, as soon as we heard about this, individually, we started wearing masks before everybody was told to, because we thought that was the best possible way to try to protect ourselves. if you take an individual -- insibility for yourself am elderly. close to i even come this disease, i am in jeopardy. scared, buta little

we are intelligent enough to know we have to help everybody. host: stay healthy, bob in ohio. this is from twitter. iowa's republican governor said we will decide when iowa opens its economy, not the president. in montgomery, alabama, this is brenda. go ahead. caller: hello. host: go ahead. caller: i am worried about them opening the country too soon because if they do it will be worse than when it started out. our governor, whoever he is, he has cut the nurses salaries and i think that is a terrible thing. host: christian in woodbridge, connecticut. caller: thank you for taking my call. i was hoping to talk about the federal response to the coronavirus, as well. i wanted to talk about what is

going on with the federal reserve. i was hoping to make a few points. host: our next guest will be talking about that, as well. but go ahead. caller: nobody is covering this in the mainstream media. the federal reserve has announced almost every single bailouts of the financial institutions. they are currently bailing out .he junk debt market this is concerning. that market is bad corporate debt or low graded corporate debt, which is a result of these corporations getting free interest loans from the federal reserve. they take out the bond, the bonds become junk, and the federal reserve is now a buyer of those bonds. they are basically bailing out all irresponsible companies, this includes companies like

carnival cruise lines, all of those companies are getting bailed out massively by the federal reserve. has been added to the federal reserve's balance sheet. this money is going directly to banks, they are doing swaps with foreign bankss, foreign banks are getting bailed out by the federal reserve, hedge funds are getting bailed out by the federal reserve. all of these parasitic actors that caused the 2008 financial crisis are getting bailed out presently by the federal reserve. host: we will ask shai akabas about that and get his response. i appreciate that. bob in roanoke, virginia. good morning. caller: how are you this morning? host: fine, thank you. caller: i want to comment on the last speaker you had on there

for the medicare for all. i would like for anyone that agrees with her to take a small trip across the border to canada and try to make an appointment up there and see if you wait six months and if you are happy, because that is what you will get if we go medicare for all. it is unbelievable. you talk about people dying here at the v.a. because you have to wait six months, what you think it will be like when everybody has to wait six months? one of the ladies talked about the doctors. you will see the biggest exit of doctors in this world if they have to live off of what they would get with medicare. any doctor right now will tell you if he has to live off medicare, he will retire. i don't know where that lady is getting her information from. i see several doctors. i am close to the medical field.

we have already had doctors retire early because of the same thing. host: a story related to the coronavirus pandemic about the oil prices, a headline in the wall street journal, opec oil allies seal deal to cut the demand, it spurs 23 nations to withhold $9.7 billion per day. saudi arabia, russia and the u.s. will lead a coalition in major oil production cuts after a drop in demand due to the coronavirus crisis. sealed of the agreement sunday after president trump helped resolve a saudi standoff with mexico, 23 countries billiond to hold $9.7 of oil from the global markets. let's go to california and hear from patrick. haser: the response i think been great considering the fact

debtve been in 30 years in to get slave labor with china. we are massively leveraged at the personal level, the corporate level, the government level, because our expectations of profitability are too high. we don't plan ahead. we don't have three to six months of income. we have millions of people in this country that get free breakfast and lunch at school but they are driving $40,000 cars and they have $2000 wheels on their cars but they can't buy their own children lunch. we have taken all of the jobs and we have given them to china. they lie to us consistently. we are now bound to them in a way in which if we don't unravel, we are going to cease to exist. we have to unravel our relationship with china. host: in our next segment here on washington journal, we will focus on the economic response. our guest is shai akabas who is

the economic director at the bipartisan policy center. we will talk about job losses during the pandemic. more ahead, here on washington journal. ♪ ♪ >> television has changed since c-span began 41 years ago. our mission continues to provide an unfiltered view of government. we brought you primary election coverage, the presidential impeachment process, and now the federal response to the coronavirus. you can watch all of c-span's programming on television, online or error-free radio app, and be part of the national conversation through c-span's daily washington journal program, or through our social media feed. by privateated industry, america's cable television company as a public service, and brought to you today by your television provider.

c-span has around-the-clock coverage of the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic. it is all available on demand at c-span.org. briefings, house updates from governors and state officials. track the spread throughout the u.s. and the world with interactive maps. anytime, unfiltered at c-span.org. washington journal continues. host: joining us in our next segment is shai akabas, the director of economic policy at the bipartisan policy center, focusing on the economic response of the federal government and the economic impact of the pandemic. let's start with unemployment numbers, more than 16 million americans are unemployed. the headline at cnbc, jobless claims last week up by 6.6

million, now 10% of the workforce in three weeks is unemployed. , of us an idea, shai akabas the short-term and midterm of those numbers. scary howis really precipitously the economy has fallen off. because we had to proactively shut it down to combat the public health crisis. it is different from prior recessions, where there was some underlying economic problem that caused us to go downhill. the first thing we have to recognize and emphasize is first and foremost this is a public health crisis. betternomy will not get until we resolve the public health situation, or at least mitigate the problem. that has to be our primary focus. it will be the most important determinant and how the economic fallout ends. host: what is your sense of how

the legislation passed so far by congress and what might be ahead in terms of the money available will help mitigate some of these job losses and help extend unemployment benefits for these people and help balance, or at least stabilize, the economy? guest: that has been critical. they passed the $2.2 trillion package with phase three, and that is basically unprecedented in scale. they set up several new programs at the treasury department, federal reserve, unemployment insurance program major expansion, and what we need to realize is this is the relief phase. we are not in the stimulus phase yet. we are in a situation where the government is proactively telling people not to go to work , we can't give people the incentives and the aligned job skills to try to reenter the workforce.

that would happen in a later phase. right now, we are just trying to help families and households make ends meet so there is not as much financial suffering in the economy. we need to think about this into different phases. right now we are in the relief phase and then we will start opening things up and what kinds of incentives will be needed to get the workforce back to its formal self. phase, whats relief is your sense and how much bigger the number can go in terms of the jobless numbers? guest: the real answer will depend on how long the public health crisis is drawn out. if we don't go back to work on a broad basis for several more months, it is clear there will need to be an additional large package. i don't know if it will be the same as the prior one, but we have seen the small business loan program helping small businesses keep their employees originallyoll, they

put $350 million into it. because the demand is so high, there are so many small businesses looking to take advantage of this, we will need to increase the size of the lending capacity within the next couple of weeks. that is just one program. there will be other programs, like the direct check economic impact payments that is wired to people's bank accounts in the amount of $1200 and $500. those will not be useful in terms of the amount after one month or two. we need to make sure people don't fall into economic distress during the time they are forced to social distance. host: shai akabas is the director of economic policy at the bipartisan policy center. four the eastern and central time zones, the

mountain and pacific time zones, (202) 748-8001. why thebas, tell us feds' action so far had been unprecedented in responding to the pandemic. guest: they have been unprecedented because of the nature of this crisis. we are telling people that they cannot go to work, many normal functions of the economy and financial markets are just not working as they normally do. what the federal reserve is primarily doing is injecting some sort of liquidity into these markets to make sure there are buyers and sellers for these trains, whether it is things like mortgage-backed security in the housing market, to make sure there is liquid be there for large and small businesses, over night credit market that helps ofilitate transactions, all those things are capacities that they have had to stand up to

make sure the fundamental functions of the economy don't break down when there is a reluctance by a lot of investors to invest right now in risky assets. the rate on the u.s. government interest has almost never been lower. flight forng a safety, and there is a hole left in a lot of markets. host: we had a caller who was very critical of the fed and was concerned they would be lending actors, as head said, from the 2008 financial crisis. parasitic actors was his term. some companies he was concerned about was cruise lines. how will there be oversight about who gets those funds from the fed? guest: the oversight is critical and there are a couple different components they have set up.

there is treasury department also aht, there is commission of sorts that will be overseeing it, and then there are congressional committees whose job is to oversee these other functions of government. the important point to come back to when comparing it to the 2008 financial crisis is then we had a moral hazard problem. there were actors the took risks and those risks did not pan out well. there was a reason why actors in the federal government should have been reluctant to bailout because they were taking those risks and they went bad. just bailing them out incentivizes them to do the same thing again. here, we have a different situation. this is a pandemic, nobody could have seen this coming, and it is impacting businesses in unforeseen things. the social distancing that is apsley necessary is adversely affecting businesses.

to make sure we don't hurt them in this situation just because we are imposing policy on them, there is a need for the federal government to act. it does not mean it should be andmited, but these sectors these entities will need help because the policies we are implementing are actively harming them. host: let's hear from dave in california. you are on with shai akabas. go ahead. caller: good morning. all we are doing with this social distancing and the precautions we are taking is extending the length of time it will take for this epidemic to run its course. i understand why we are doing that, it is to keep our health care system from being overwhelmed. the longer we allow this epidemic to go, the more damage it does to our economy and our future, actually.

wonder, since only a small percentage of people get infected with this virus become seriously ill, half the people don't even show symptoms. would it not have been better to simply isolate the most vulnerable members of our society, the elderly, the people with underlying health conditions, and just allow the virus -- the epidemic to run its course among the rest of the population? the sooner that happens, the sooner we would reach immunity, were enough people would have been infected and recovered. at that point, all of us would be protected, including the most vulnerable, and we would not have done so much damage to our economy and our future. the longer this goes, the more damage we are doing to our economy and the longer it will take for people to get back to work. host: shai akabas. guest: the caller makes an

interesting point, and i am certainly not a public health specialist, but i think there is a concern about taking that approach. hard to all, it is define who this virus will impact and who it will not. negative cohorts were impacts on certain population, it is not like we can just take a small sliver and put them in a quarantine safe space and have everyone else continue to function as well. the second element is there is a concern where if there is general fear of what will work, going to the shopping mall, go to the sports event, could mean for your personal health, you will be reluctant to go. i think we would have seen a withoutdemand, even these government policies that are forcing people to socially isolate.

that is one of my biggest concerns. i think public policy will have to take a close look at. unless we have a vaccine, there will be a lingering reluctance from a lot of people to participate in the type of economic activity they did before the crisis. host: let's go to richard in missouri. good morning. caller: good morning. , let the gentleman thing run its course, and then die off and the rest of us have a good time about things. this deal that the government my going, i have saved all life and have some money in the and if live on, inflation does it thing, it will be terrific. the bank is getting free money

and they don't pay interest on savings of any kind. about --alking inflation is going to eat us up. this virus will change our country quite a bit, the way we look at medical. we will have to have a medical core just a way we have an army corps to protect the citizens. lepers felt,the everyone has to stay away from everyone else or you might catch this thing. brings up akabas, he inflation, is that a concern down the road? guest: it is an interesting question because the government is pumping a lot of money into the economy and that is what can cause inflation concern. we heard jerome powell the other day comment on this and i shared his view, back in 2008, there were similar concerns when the

fed implemented a policy, or it was putting liquidity into the market. because of the reasons i said in my last answer, there will be reluctance by consumers to there may be certain areas where there is much higher demand, like sanitation products and other things that people are increasingly demanding because of the public health crisis, or even food, in some respects. but i don't think we are likely to see that on an overall economy basis because there's going to be a drop in demand for a lot of types of goods, even people who have the same money in their pockets. theirof people are losing jobs, and a lot of businesses are going out of business, so we are likely to see a push and pull in both directions. host: jerome powell was participating online in an event last week with a very optimistic view, potential optimistic view

of the economy. the headline, powell said the economic recovery can be "robust" after the coronavirus is contained. here's what he had to say. >> our emergency measures are reserved for truly rare circumstances such as those we face today. when the economy is well on its way back to recovery and private markets and institutions are once again able to form their vital functions, channeling credit and supporting economic growth, we will put these emergency tools away. none of us has the luxury of choosing or challenges. fake and history provide them for us. our job is to meet the tests we are presented. at the fed, we are doing all we can to shepherd the economy through this difficult time. when the spread of the virus is under control, as nasa's will reopen and people will come back to work. there is every reason to believe that the economic rebound can be robust. we entered this turbulent period

on strong economic footing and that can will support the recovery. in the meantime, we're using our tools to help build a bridge from a solid economic foundation on which we enter this crisis, to a position of regained economic strength on the other side. center,partisan policy what did you hear from the fed chair in his comments? guest: chairman powell was actually one of my mentors, i had the privilege of working with him for a couple years at the bipartisan policy center and i thought his comments were spot on in terms of the challenges that the fed is leading to meet and the tools they are using to do so. the one place i disagree a little bit, and partially because he is in a public position, i'm a little bit more pessimistic about the prospects for a full recovery in the short run on the backend of this public health crisis. shapetalk about a s- recovery, or au-shaped economy,

i think this is going to be a little bit more of a square recovery, what i mean is that you are going to see this drop and then there's going to be a recovery, a partial recovery when things start to open back up. but then we are going to see a long tail where it is going to take a much longer time economy to open up and again for consumers to regain their confidence and spending and all the other activities that they take on. there was a survey that just came out that showed that about a quarter of people say that it's going to be at least six months before they feel comfortable doing a whole variety of activities, whether it's going on vacation or going out to a large event, and there's another quarter, they had no idea when they are going to be comfortable doing that. that shows you the uncertainty that is pervasive right now. until we can mitigate that with something like a vaccine or something that is widespread and , we are not fears

going to see the tail end of that recovery begin. that whenow has said the recovery gets going, economy returns. the fed would "put those emergency tools away." wasn't it after the financial crisis of 2008, 3 long time, the fed was still involved in buying securities and that sort of thing. >> yes, and i expect that this will go on for a period of time, too. i think he is sincere when he says they will put them away when the time is appropriate, but i think it's going to be a longer recovery that a lot of people are technology. it's very hard to put a figure on exactly how long because there are so many different public most of all the health involvement which i'm certainly not an expert to .omment on one important element that i wanted to mention, there was an interesting op-ed by the famous

economists of the rockefeller foundation a couple days ago in the wall street journal and they said that it is really the widespread testing that is going to help us get back to a place of some normality. they need the ability to see whether people have the virus right now, and the ability to know whether they have contracted in the past, he does once we have those elements in place, we can do it on a population scale basis, and we will have the ability to at least go back to some sense of normalcy where people are returning to work and they are somewhat more comfortable. host: let's go back to your calls and hear from marvin in baltimore, maryland. you're on the air. caller: yes, sir. reference to the , when is thatkage

supposed to be sent out? if the caller talking about the direct payments? host: i think i just lost the caller, sorry about that. we will go to david in california, go ahead. >> yes, i'm calling because i've been listening to the program for the last few weeks and not once have they mentioned treatment,out everything is mitigation and it is indirect. real treatment would solve tuitions number one, it will solve the economy and because it will get us back to a full economy very fast compared to what we are going right now, and also, it will help enormously if andle don't get the virus have resistance to it and feel inspired because of it. what are talking about is a historical rest are -- record with holistic medicine going back 100 years, the spanish flu. there's several studies of

people who have staged for an ammonia level and they had in bothqual cases conventional medicine and chiropractic conventional medicine along with 6100 of the 10,000 who died, and chiropractors lost approximately 100. let: david in california, me ask you a question about the economy and about in particular, the business loans that were part of the care package, the $2.3 trillion package. asks, hear from oregon how soon do you think before the release money gets to the small businesses? guest: the relief money is already starting to be approved. i'm not sure in terms of the actual mechanics when the small businesses are going to have those funds in their pockets, but the administration has said of $350 billion

approved initially has already been approved or has already been applied for and confirmed by the financial institutions. i expect that money will start flowing soon, but it is a really important point that we are now already more than a month into this economic shutdown and that's a long time for a small business to survive on little to no revenue. there's research that is shown the average small business only has a cash offer of about two weeks, so for many small businesses, it could be too late. that's why the administration is prioritizing trying to get this program up and running, but when it comes to all of these programs of the government has, it's important to recognize that this is an emergency situation and they are trying to stand up several new programs or significantly expanded program on a couple he turn around. that is no easy task, but what it demonstrates is a forward thinking before we get to the next crisis about what types of policies we can have in place so

that these aren't new structures that need to be stood up, they are just new tools that we can tap into. host: we go next to california to hear from lila. good morning. caller: good morning. package, i take there is not enough information for people who are getting medicare. where't see anywhere people need to get on the computer except for on foxnews there was a little taste thing that ran across and a lot of seniors i believe are thinking that a check will just be deposited in their checking accounts, and that's not going to happen and i believe it was the man who called earlier and he was going to ask about that

but his call was dropped. and i think this is very disconcerting, what about people who are in assisted living places, and rest homes? they are not going to go to , i wish there was better clarification, i've watched all channels and there's so much news and i feel like this is not being addressed appropriately. host: we are hearing the news that those payments coming from the treasury department actually start this weekend. guest: that's right. they are first taking care of those who have taken counts on the treasury department mainly through the filing of their taxes. that's estimated to be something in the order of 70 million people, tax filers.

that they have a known bank account. there is a whole group of other people that the caller points out that are going to be more difficult to reach. who are receiving social security benefits are supposed to have this automated and not have to file additional forms, not 100% sure about that, so folks should look into that. i do know that the irs has put up a form for folks who do not fall into those categories who would be expecting a direct wire to their bank accounts to fill out that can make it easy for many of the other populations to get that. i do think of the caller raises good points around those who have no easy internet access or who aren't aware of these programs or how to access the websites. be a challenge for the federal government to get these funds out to all the people who are of the. -- who are owed them. advicend similar, the may be to try the toll-free number of the irs for a regional

irs toll-free number if you don't have access or good access. madison, wisconsin, this is marty. yeah, before the economy comes back, trump is going to have to open up the country. for the people that got laid off, furloughed, they did not get fired. when they start to rehire people, they will go back to the people they already know that works for them for five or 10 years, they already know the job, they will start right back where they started. the economy will follow as it goes along, ok? host: if you are a furloughed worker, are you eligible for unemployment benefits? guest: yes. the expansion has made furloughed workers eligible which is very important because it means they can stay attached and still be taking an income

that is in many cases crucial for the financial stability of their household. but i think was important to note, and your caller is right, there are going to be a lot of differences that will go back to those workers and they will rehire them and ring them back on in the same capacity as once this crisis has passed or once the worst of the crisis has passed. there's a lot of other businesses that are not going to be able to do that for a variety of reasons. some businesses are just going to have close already. are some that will be around in the same capacity as they were before the crisis. retailers, shopping malls are a pretty good example of this. for a long time, there has been a decline in the big-box stores and in person purchase of goods like that, moving toward amazon and other online retailers. certainly seeing that expand and i expect we get out of the crisis, especially because of the uncertainties and concerns that people are going

to continue to have about public eriod of time,p that trend is not going to go away. they will be able to hire back all those workers. there is going to be a mismatch and the economy is going to need to adjust. host: on reopening the economy, , theort this morning headline governor abbott rollout plan to reopen texas economy, this week the governor is expected to issue an executive and whenlining how texas businesses will reopen. today, he plans to unveil a new small business initiative, the details of which are unknown. as the state continues to battle the corona virus pandemic, he says he is starting to shift his focus on "protecting lives while restoring livelihoods." how important is it that the governors of the states coordinate this opening of businesses between them? >> i think it's very important. we have one country where there is a free flow of people and

goods, which means that if we get staggered reopening that are not coordinated, we are very the illness being transmitted from one place to another and not effectively contained on a lasting basis. both within each jurisdiction or region and across the country, we need that coordination when it comes to the public health side of things, in terms of testing and in terms of trying to discover therapeutics that can help symptoms among people who contracted the disease, and also when it comes to portions of the economy that are reopening. host: next up is florida, tom. caller: how are you doing? a couple points of it like to make, i actually work for added labs with infectious disease, and i worked on live antibodies. and daughters are nurses. we got a little medical kind of experience behind us. one of the points i'd like to

make, when we worked with the virus, we knew what we had and it was contained and we could control of antibodies, we had full knowledge and control of everything. this virus, we really don't know that much. we are learning by example. but i wouldn't put a lot of stock in everything that you are hearing daily. as you know, it's changing. the other point i'd like to make is the other people are asking about their checks. 26ve mnuchin said on march what he was doing a trump thing that the money was going to be in your account within two weeks. it wasn't that big of a deal to do direct deposit and that type of ink. that was march 26. we are seeing how the roll up is coming out, they are going to be out of money soon anyhow, so the people that are waiting, you can find out when is my check coming.

it forn't be looking for at least maybe six to eight weeks, realistically. that type of thing. the last thing, on the virus, we were actually warned. i don't ever hear anybody telling us, we were actually warned in december about this. christmasim jong-il's surprise that was coming to the united states, and we were warned about that, and i think we had a lot more knowledge than their leading on. we definitely had a lot more trust in china, that was kind of sad. i would just like to see us start bringing our manner of fashion back to this country. 1957, i was 10 years old watching tv and we had the cold war, sputnik had just went up. tv, do you think you can defeat the united states of america? and he just smiled and looked into the camera and said we don't have to defeat the united

states of america, they are going to defeat themselves from within. you can go and see that on the internet, that was in 1957. host: tom in florida. any thoughts? guest: first i want to take the opportunity to thank the caller and his family because the medical front line workers are the real heroes in our society that are helping us get through this crisis and think to them, we'll them a debt of gratitude, we also probably owe them some financial debt in the form of something like hazard pay for the risk they are all putting themselves through for the state of the community, and that extends to other front-line workers that are continuing to work in this kind of crisis like folks of the grocery store, sanitation workers, all of them are porting themselves in harms way for the sake of the community. that's the first point that i would make. the other point that the caller you noted the checks,

at the top that the insurance department, the irs has begun sending these out, the wires for people who have direct deposits, people who have bank accounts on record with the irs and those will probably continue over the next week or two. and then the checks, the , that willecks probably take a couple months and in some cases, it's going to be difficult to identify those people at all. theould add that i believe irs or the treasury department with some kind of tracker that you can go on and checked where your payment is, whether it is ready, whether you need to fill out some sort of form, that is something i would encourage folks to do if they are wondering about the status of their specific data. host: online we also see the national debt clock, plus0,000,000,550 alien --

, every single person in america. you reported quoted in bloomberg government recently by saying that we could see debt to gdp at 100% by the time we get out of this over the next couple of prevent that tax increase or rely on increased revenues after the crisis has passed. >> yes, this is a critical challenge that i'm really worried about. one is that relative to other countries, we did not have these otherms in place, and the is that we have this large disparity that is growing, and is going to be terrifyingly large of a time we get out of this crisis. it is likely that the public debt is going to exceed the size of our economy and be on a dramatic upward trajectory. int that is going to mean

the coming years as a hard look at the spending programs, especially the programs like medicare, medicaid, that take up a large portion of our spending. and even more importantly, the amount we are bringing in with revenue in taxes which has been insufficient for many years. it's a shame that we as a society did not take the economy -- opportunity when the economy was relatively strong to start addressing these problems, and now we are in a position where we are going to be forced to address them on the backend of this crisis when the economy has not fully recovered. host: let's go to patricia next, calling from iowa. caller: hello? host: you are on the air. caller: first of all, thank you for being here to help us sort this out in the last you things you said, with the national debt skyrocketing, i interpret it as my kids and my grandkids are going to pay this tremendous

price of the stupidity of how we handle things, but my initial question was in regard to strings attached, we went through the 2008 crisis, we didn't attach strings, although people pleaded. no responses whatsoever in , because common sense told most people, you know, if you don't attach strings, it doesn't come back. in other words, the payments and so on. in light of that, what do you feel and how do you feel this is being handled, all these phases of this tremendous amount of tax money which is for years going to cause problems? strings shouldk be attached? host: you are talking about oversight of businesses that get money and things like that? caller: that's the right word,

oversight. host: good question. thanks for your comment. guest: yes, that's going to be an ongoing challenge for us to companies,hat entities that get this support are abiding by certain norms or restrictions that they have been put under. there is a requirement that those who get assistance retain at least 90% of their workers for a time. other restrictions on executive compensation. i think those are reasonably important. when it comes to the broader , that we are likely to need additional legislation, we are in such a time of crisis right now that the risk of not doing anything and not putting anything in these funds is actually greater than the risk of putting them in and adding to the national debt. right this moment is not the perfect time to be restraining national debt, we need to be injecting the support for the economy needs and the relief that many households need. thereere will come a time

he soon in my opinion on the back end of this that we need to turn our attention to that bigger challenge because i'm concerned that if we don't in the near future, there is a saying about the sick man of europe, the country that is dragging the rest of europe down, we are going to become the sick man of the developed world where the economies that have better starting positions in terms of their policies automatically respond, they are going to come out of this with a quicker recovery than we are, and that's going to put us in in for a challenge on the backend. host: one more question about mentioned your guest oversight of care funds, but is in that one of the same gentleman that president trump just let go? the inspector general? guest: i believe that the president let somebody go and installed somebody else who has extent inved to some

terms of having respect for the gentleman who was installed. i don't know a lot about his background. i do think that it is really critical that we have people in these roles have confidence of congress, to the prior powers to make sure that these funds are being used efficiently and for purposes. host: next call is from los angeles, michael. caller: how are you? a couple of points that i wanted , part of the stimulus program, i've never heard anything about making the funds that we have in our 401(k) available, maybe they could suspend the penalty for withdrawals to keep us abreast with our mortgages and other bills. we receive them, we can put them back in. mets money that i can get now instead of waiting.

and i agree as far as a long-term debt, let's start calling it like it is. the tax cuts that the corporations enjoy, that's where maybe we should suspend that. debt, myt is long-term kids and my grandkids are going to be saddled with this. offar as the other costs going for public medical coverage and such, social security and all that, they are going to cut that again. these corporations still get the tax cuts. host: michael, we will get a response. guest: the caller made some good points, the tax cuts are certainly a major contributor to the public debt situation, there were other decisions along with that over the past decade or so that brought us to this place,

not the spending we're doing right now that is a problem, the tax cuts from the spending that we did prior to this crisis that has put us in a situation that we are in today. also to the first point the caller made, we actually did make a provision for people who have 401(k)s and iras to put toward their current needs. host: without a tax penalty? guest: that's right. i just want to make one other broad point, when we think about the disparate impact this crisis is having on different communities, we've seen both from the public health light of things and also economically that the situation is likely to have a disproportionate impact on lower-income communities, communities of color, and it's important that we think about that when it comes to public policy, but from the public health side, when there are more minorities that a pre-existing conditions or are put on the front lines in the workforce, whether it is in transportation

positions, at grocery stores, facing the risks from this virus more so than rest of the population, were on the economic side were many more were in economically fragile situations before, the job losses many cases are in the retail industry or the service industry were a lot of those communities are employed. we need to think carefully about the responses that can help address specifically some of the challenges that is going to pose for those communities. >> new york city, this is peter, go ahead. caller: yes, hello. i'd like to make a suggestion that the pharmacies that you flu do flu shots, that they do the testing. these national pharmacies. that would solve the problem with testing. host: ok. he studied economics at cornell, you have a bachelor's degree, masters from georgetown applied economic. did any of your education or training or your background ever

predict anything like this, or what the models might show her the economy would look like in a severe pandemic like this? guest: no. there were certainly. the economic field who have done research on this, whether it is past experiences like the 1918 situation that one of the previous callers mentioned, for just theoretical frameworks, but the important point is that nobody could have predicted the situation. you ask in five months or six months, a global pandemic was not on anybody's list. we also see as progress through the crisis, the forecasts are continuing to change because we get more information on the public health crisis, more information on the economic front. there's no model that can put it accurately what is going to happen in the coming weeks, coming years. it's largely going to depend on the path of the disease. virus, and thehe

path that our policy takes to confront it on the public health site and economic side. those are not things that can be by economists, they will largely determined by our leadership in government. host: glad we could get you back on this morning for the bipartisan policy center, ray to have you here. guest: thanks very much for having me. host: that will wrap it up for this morning's program on washington journal. back tomorrow morning at 7:00 eastern, tonight, primetime. dr. fauci joining us, details on that coming up shortly. here tomorrow morning at 7:00. ♪ >> as a look at some of our live

at 2:00 eastern time, we will take you to new jersey to hear from governor phil murphy and then to georgia, live at 4:00 eastern as governor briefs the public. and the white house coronavirus task force briefing with president trump is scheduled for 5:00 eastern. you can watch that live on c-span. announcer: tonight, a special evening edition of washington journal on the federal response to the coronavirus crisis. join us at 8:00 eastern with dr. anthony fauci, director of the national institute of allergy and it is diseases and a member of the white house to one of iris task force. of then, the director infectious diseases division at the university of alabama at birmingham school of medicine. on the national fight against the coronavirus and his own experience contracting and recovering from the disease. join the conversation about the

coronavirus crisis. washington journal primetime, tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span. >> all month on c-span, we're featuring the winners of our documentary competition. middle and high school students created videos answering the question, what issue is the most important for .20 presidential candidates to address? 2020 presidential candidates to address. the winning entry is titled "educating america's youth: i top priorities." -- our top priorities." >> is the single most important part of our democratic society one of the most important things about america is we are an inclusive society, public schools help that happen.

this is where more than 90% of our people are, and it's going to stay that way. >> is extremely important that we take care of it. >> in 1635, the first public schools opened. since that time, public education has become desegregated and more inclusive. a great value public education is bringing everybody together. >> not only do we educate students within the classroom there has been plenty of research that shows what a middle school student or has posted is engaged in school, that academic achievement levels go up, that a sense of belonging is increased. >> currently in the u.s., school

choice is funded by taxpayer dollars. can it benefit all things? >> private schools can be selected. about who they allowed to enter their schools. >> sometimes, we could use public education but publicly funded education. families to know many you exercise education freedom. they aren't anti-public schools. or for privatization. they could care less about how is school is legally structured or how the funding flows. they care about their kids. >> for me, an explanation for --s [indiscernible]

>> that's what make public schools unique, they are open to all, for all to take advantage. >> 2001, the no child left behind act was replaced by the every student succeeds at to ensure that states haven't you will, well-rounded education. >> are teachers aren't paid enough, our schools aren't funded enough. >> if the teacher is really good, they should be paid as much as they want. >> in the past, you would hear about teacher shortages and staff deals with the science and math teachers would have a really hard time attracting a special education teacher or four language teacher. now, it's across the board, we are having a hard time attracting elementary school teachers. >> 58% of all the dollars we

spend our in classrooms. if we could use that percentage, even 1%, with you give every teacher in indiana $2000 per day. >> too many people in too many idea oftill resist the having a cabability over at all. hey everybody the same, whether a teacher is doing a great job for a poor job. that is a terrible disservice for this country. >> i know the importance. >> standardized testing is one of the biggest wastes of taxpayer money that i can identify. because we have to know how secondly,re doing,

they want to know what is schoolsso that the best can be imitated by those were not measuring up today. we made a huge mistake to walk away from standardized testing. i'm not sure that one test is fair. years, i was a fan of standardized testing and it took a long time for me to realize that the reason i like testing so much is i was the good at it. and so i thought everyone should do that. but as i got older and i got wiser, i understood that tests are not a good reflection of what people learn or what they can do. some people have incredible talents that i don't have that don't show up on standardized test. >> another hot button topic, the amount of money being spent on standardized test. >> they can be used to lower

class sizes and expand opportunities for children with special needs. >> if we can find out children's test scores or project their test scores and that by looking at their family income, and they think that testing is a way of measuring teachers and schools, all they are measuring poverty. >> to encourage our students to say, you know, enough is enough, we just aren't going to do it anymore. >> we are the future america. >> you are protecting the future of america. >> all students deserve equal opportunities with well-rounded education. winningan watch it student documentary online at studentcams.org. announcer: tonight on the communicators, american economic liberties project founder sarah

miller on big tech companies as monopolies and the impact of corporate concentration. >> now there is essentially a couple of strategies if you're a tech startup. are you going to sell to facebook or are you going to sell to google? what that is done is warped the ability of innovators in silicon valley to actually innovate according to market needs and according to ideas. instead, everyone is guessing, how can i develop something that facebook will buy that google is noty, and that necessarily how we want the economy or the innovation sector to function. >> watch the communicators tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span two. >> as we begin the program yesterday, the new york times had just published a lengthy up to thehe lead naming of the national disaster. was friday, march 13, president trump declaring a national emergency.