epidemic and constitutional law attorney floyd abrams and glenn reynolds look at media, liable laws and the first amendment. we take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. "washington journal" is next. ♪ host: good morning and welcome to "washington journal." this week was the 11th anniversary of the passage of the affordable care act, the signature legislative achievement for former president barack obama under whom current president joe biden served as vice president. this law has survived repeated attacks by courts and republicans but according to federal figures, almost 20 million more people have health insurance since the 2010 passage of the a.c.a. president biden says he's planning an expansion of the law but what we want to know is how has the a.c.a. been for

you? what do you think about the law now that we've reached the 11th anniversary of the affordable care act? we're going to open up special lines for you this morning. if you currently have a.c.a. insurance, if your insurance comes with the affordable air act we want to know how it's going, 202-748-8000. if you have private insurance, if you have private insurance, we still want to know what you think of the affordable care act, your number is 202-748-8001. if you don't fit in either one of those categories but still have an opinion, we want to hear from you at 202-748-8002. keep in mind you can text us at 202-748-8003 and we're reading on social media on facebook.com/c-span. we passed the 11th anniversary

of the date of the affordable care act earlier this week and president biden has already been talking about a possible expansion of the law. let's look at the "washington post" story and see what they're doing right now with the afearedable care act. this comes from "the washington post" story, more than 200,000 americans signed up for the affordable care act health plans during the first two weeks of an extended enrollment period president biden ordered to help more people find insurance amid the economic ripple effects caused by the coronavirus pandemic. figures released wednesday by federal health officials showed the number of consumers who chose coverage through health care.gov from february 15-february 28, 206,236, was nearly three times higher than during the same period last year and roughly 3 1/2 times

greater than 2019. but the demand for a.c.a. health plans in the early unprecedented three month enrollment extension is a fraction of the enrollment of the first two weeks of the most recent regular enrollment times when 1.6 million americans signed up during the first half of november. this all comes as president biden is talking about expanding the a.c.a. during his first term. on tuesday president biden spoke about how money from the rescue plan will go to the affordable care act. here's president biden. president biden: when i ran as president i promised i'd build on the foundation of the affordable care act and within my administration we delimped on the promise with the american rescue plan and does that by making health care more

affordable. it means better coverage and lower premiums for millions of americans. if you enrolled in obamacare you'll receive an average of $50 a month, $600 a year in the reduction of payments. for a family of four earning $90,000 a year, that could save you $200 a month in savings. for a 60-year-old couple here in ohio earning $75,000 per year, it could save them about $1,000 per month and to maintain the same health care. that's $12,000 a year in your pocket you didn't have before. because the american rescue plan, if you lost health care because you lost your job or your hours were cut, we'd pay your contribution and your employer's contribution on so-called cobra. that's what your employer based health insurance was. so since they've gone out of business or you're no longer there because you had to be laid off, you can stay covered for up to six months until you

get back on your feet because the federal government will cover both ends of that cobra payment. host: any expansion of the affordable care act will not come cheap. here's a story from n.p.r. talking about how the expansion that they're talking about from -- of the a.c.a. is already costing the american taxpayers money. i'll read a couple paragraphs from the n.p.r. story. the a.c.a.'s reliance on private plans, a hard-fought compromise in the 2010 health law that was designed to win over industry already cost taxpayers tens of billions each year as the federal government picks up a share of the insurance premium for about nine million americans. the price tag will now rise higher because of the recently enacted $1.9 trillion covid relief bill. the legislation will direct some $20 billion more to insurance companies by making

larger premium subsidies available to consumers who buy qualified plans. and if democrats want to continue the aid beyond 2022 when the relief bills added assistance runs out, the tab is sure to balloon further. once again, let's take a quick look at some of the facts about the affordable care act before we get to your calls. right now approximate 20 million people are covered by the affordable care act, half by state and medicare exchanges. 38 states in the district of columbia expanded medicaid. about 30 million people in the united states lacked health care coverage in 2019. all this is according to bloomberg. so what do you think about the affordable care act on its 11th anniversary? let's start with mary who is calling from louisiana. mary, good morning. coach mcgraw: hi, jesse.

caller: it's really pronounced bosier because it's french. ok, jesse,. . i'll answer this question about medicare for all. let me tell you something, that's like a one size fits all. that don't work. and not only that, a lot of people, when that care came through, that type of insurance, a lot of people lost their insurance. and it's like this, when you get to be a certain age, you're going to get medicare and stuff anyway. but even before i got to the age i could get medicare and stuff, i didn't have insurance. but do you know what?

i was able to go to the care of hearts and get as good of medicare as anybody who had insurance. so like i said, that was one size fits all, uh-uh. but jesse, i'll answer your question, i'll ask you a question and then make a statement, i promise i'll be quick. ok. the question is this, why is there not one republican host that show? why is there not one? jesse: how do you know there's not one single republican who hosts the show? caller: somebody did the research and looked into it and not one republican hosts the show. host: whoever did the research didn't do good research. let's go to mike from maryland. good morning. caller: good morning, sir. i'm calling to comment on the

obama health care. i've had it from the inception. and for me, it saved my life multiple times. i had no insurance and i joined the obama, kizer permanente. and i don't want for kizer permanente and you might think i do but i have nothing but good things to say about them and their medicare service has been top rate, topnotch, testing ahead of schedule for things that i didn't even think i needed to be tested for and they screen for everything, and to make a long story short, we should make health care available whether it's obamacare or otherwise to every american the way this country gives money away to every other country in the world, especially after we go bomb

them or go into a war with them and then we turn right around and go rebuild them and you know, we give money out in numbers you can't even count how many zeros are at the end of it there's so much money. host: what type of insurance did you have before the a.c.a.? caller: nothing. host: how were you handling your medical care? caller: i wasn't. i was struggling. and i was praying i didn't get something so debilitating that -- you know, you go to the hospital and get treated and then when you get the bill, now this is no joke, it could be a whole new topic. six months ago i was on vacation in florida, stepped on a nail and got diabetes and the next day it swelled up and knew i was in big trouble. i went to the local hospital

down there and they said well, you got a terrible infection, we're going to put you on a i.v. and they put me in the hospital for four days in gainesville, florida, and that's all they did. i got an i.v. drip for four days and no other medical necessary thing, surgery or any of that stuff, i.v. drip. at the end of the day, i'm not making this up. four days in the hospital, i got a $53,000 bill for four days in the hospital for the i.v. drip. insurance paid all but $7,000 of it. that's a ridiculous amount of money and they asked me, you got insurance or are you going to pay for it? i said why? we charge the insurance one thing and charge you something else, something less. so they covered most of it and

the homeowner had to file a lawsuit, his homeowner's insurance paid the whole thing plus damage. host: this week on washington, michael canon, health policy director at the cato institute explained his opposition to the a.c.a. here's what he said earlier this week. michael: i've been hearing the debate of the affordable care act is over about 11 years now. every time someone criticizes it someone says the debate is over. look, this law is not working the way congress promised it would. premiums have skyrocketed under the a.c.a. they are so high that in some places people are getting quoted benchmark premiums, these are not the most expensive plans but benchmark premiums of almost $50,000, that's 2/3 of median income. obamacare is so expensive congress just passed

legislation that would throw tens of thousands of dollars at individuals making over $100,000 per year. a 60-year-old couple earning $200,000 could get a subsidy under the bill the democrats passed. we're having to subsidize people making over $200,000 a year so they can afford obamacare coverage, this is not appropriately called the affordable care act. this is not affordable at all. obama's approach to affordability violates the first rule. it throws more and more money at health insurance which encourages providers to jack up their rates which makes health insurance more expensive and you can't throw -- if you throw more money at health insurance that way it just will become more expensive, not less. that's not the worst part about obamacare. the worst part is it's left million of the people with

worse coverage than before and shut up any other option people might have to buy better coverage. host: back to our phone lines and see what you're thinking on the 11th anniversary of the affordable care act. let's talk to james who is calling from monroe, michigan. james, good morning. caller: the red states have taken the medicaid expansion that would have worked better and if they'd allowed the co-ops to exist it would have drove down prices but they didn't do that. they wanted it to fail. and i have free insurance through my employer but i believe the only way it's ever going to work is for everyone to have single payor health care. our taxes should go to help everybody. i'm done. that's all i got to say. host: let's go to bill calling from buffalo, new york. bill, good morning.

caller: good morning, jess. i've been listening right along. i think what michael cannon had to say was pretty much out of line. there's no doubt the argument about whether we have government sponsored health care as opposed to private health care because so many people rely on the a.c.a. bear in mind, going from the a.c.a. to private insurance is simply substituting one set of problems for another set of problems. the unspoken problem with the a.c.a. today is that the primary providers, the primary doctors are not adequately paid

for their services, they're paid late and there are inadequate numbers of them to serve our $350 million person population. more medical bills across the country and more primary doctors need to be graduated and what's going on today, if you go to your primary doctor, you might go five times to that doctor before you actually see him. this is a form of -- which only gets worse as coverage expands under government agents unless changes are made to get more doctors into the field. host: bill, let me ask you this question. is that your personal

experience with your doctor, do you go to your doctor five times last year and did not see your doctor? caller: i saw him maybe once. i think my experience is typical. host: well, when you went to your doctor, who did you see? caller: i saw a technician of one sort or another or saw a physician's assistant or i saw a nurse practitioners. practically every doctor across the country are running offices that have 10, 12, 13 people on the payroll as opposed to the old family doc who had a receptionist himself and a waiting room with 10 people in it and now a waiting room might have 25 people but the work is spread across a larger staff

and three and four of those people are simply dealing with insurance companies and the governments in order to get the doctor paid who is inadequately paid for each service and worse than that, is usually being paid late. host: bill, are you saying this was different 10 years ago before the affordable care act? caller: it was different but not necessarily better. i agree with that. what i fear eventually will occur is the complaint we won't service $200,000 income people and above will result in a two-tier service, a private medical service will be available in this country and there will be government providers, medical service for

the rest of the population. obviously the private provider service will be better. rich people always get value for what they pay for. host: doesn't the government provide health care to our nation's veterans and some of them say it's actually pretty good health care. caller: well, if you have no health care as some of your callers had and are now getting health care under the a.c.a. or the veterans administration, obviously you're going to have a positive reaction to it but if you've had private insurance and are now in this system, your experiencing a form of rationing. host: let's go to carolyn calling from alexandria, virginia. carolyn, good morning. caller: good morning. i want to -- i have kaiser and

i had medicaid but last year kaiser had a marriage with medicare and now i can't use -- i pay for medicare but i can't -- i pay for medicare but i can't use it. i use just kaiser. i can't go outside of kaiser. i don't understand paying for something and can't use it. kaiser do not pay for supplies. like anything i need like a wheelchair or something for my arm, i have to pay for that. so i'm paying for insurance but when it comes to supplies, i can't get it. i got to pay for anything. host: let's go to nick who is calling from montrose, minnesota. nick, good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead, nick. caller: yeah, i get most of my health care through the v.a. which is pretty good. i mean, if we're going to throw

all this money at the a.c.a., i mean, i hear multiple plans are kind of junk plans anyway, so i think that maybe we should go through a national health care for everybody instead of this big circus that we have. host: you said you get your health care currently through the v.a. how would you rate it? would you say that's government provided health care, would you say it's bad, good, it's fair, what would you say about it? caller: i'd say it's great. the people treat me really good there. they take care of my problems. it's very good. i think this country has things to learn. these other countries, england, canada, they all seem to have a system and you can just go in and get care. here more of a circus.

host: let's go to jason calling from marietta, ohio. good morning. caller: good morning. host: i'm calling in to say the affordable care act, i really did enjoy the part -- i would not have insurance without it because it did help cover me. the only problem is i think we're looking at the problem in a way that's not solvable when it comes to the insurance because there's so much variation with the insurance throughout america. and i think the way we need to look at it is we need to figure out a way to where there is a set price for certain procedures done, whether it be through the doctor's office or through a hospital. the price amounts of different

surgeries vary. the hospitals are insane, talking $10,000 difference for a simple procedure. and i really think we need to work on that before we're ever going to solve anything with the insurance. host: let's go to charles calling from atlanta, georgia. charles, good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead, charles. caller: can you hear me? host: go ahead. caller: all of it is expensive. the insurance companies make way too much money. we throw money at them and then the people don't get served no matter what insurance they have. i work for a living for private insurance and it's way too expensive. you have to get the greed out of insurance and health coverage. thank you. host: let's go to vick calling from windemere, florida, good morning. caller: good morning. we pay 2 1/2 times more than any country, any developed

country for health care, insurance. bernie sanders has a single payor bill that he introduced and that bill would give us a single payor system similar to canada, similar to england. we rank 37th. we pay more and don't need to. we need a single payor system like canada, like england, we're ranked 37th, quality of our health insurance is not any better and actually worse and you have to wait longer. we also pay way more for prescription drugs and co-pays is what kills you because when you have insurance, you go to the hospital, it's not just going to send you a bill if medicare doesn't pay for it or medicaid even on a government system or on the a.c.a. the problem with the a.c.a. is that it's very good for people with low in comes. but if you're a working class person, some of the amounts on those plans are $800 and $900

so people don't take them and go uninsured and there are people who are working class people. our system is messed up. and until you start listening to bernie sanders and the people who want private insurance, private insurance would cost you a fortune. no other country in the world, no other developed country in the world doesn't have a single payor system and they have a supplement you can buy if you need insurance. host: what type of insurance do you use, how do you get your health care? caller: i'm on medicare, it's pretty good. but this year it's gone up. what happens with medicare is i go to the doctor, if i go to the hospital, they don't cover everything since trump got in, he cut the benefits, so i get bills like $300, $400 that i have to pay out of pocket even though medicare covers most of it. and they give you time to pay it over a period of time as

long as you're paying $50 a month. but it doesn't cover everything and there's been cuts to medicare. and trump lied about the health insurance. he said he had a better plan. he didn't even have a plan. host: this week on washington journal, avet fontenot of the advocacy group protect our care and former official at the obama department of health and human services defended the a.c.a. against charges that premiums are too expensive and criticized trump's insurance options. here's what she said. >> i think a problem with a lot of them is first of all, after 11 years of screaming for repeal, you're unable to include any of those in a plan and get them passed through congress so those are sort of by the wayside. the solution apparently that's been -- that was pursued by the trump administration for a long time was to give people junk insurance, so insurance that

you couldn't get if you had a pre-existing condition, wouldn't even be offered to you, that in most cases didn't provide coverage for essential benefits like maternity care and prescription drug coverage, in-patient hospital coverage, all benefits that the affordable care act guarantees to you and it ensures if you're one of the 135 million people in america that have a pre-existing condition, that you cannot be denied coverage and you cannot be charged more than the average person for that coverage. so you get what you pay for. premiums and cost sharing on the exchanges and affordable care act have been declining steadily as plans get more experienced with this population and will continue to climb as you bring more people in the risk pool and that's an issue that we are addressing and will continue to work to improve on. but to fundamentally say that

because there are problems with the law, it needs to be thrown out though it's currently covering 20 million people and providing insurance to those people makes no sense at this point in time. host: let's see what some of our social media followers are saying on the week of the 11th anniversary of the affordable care act. here's one person who texted in, the a.c.a. will eventually become just as important and necessary to the american people as social security, medicare, medicaid and the v.a. here is a facebook post that says it is still communist trash that should never have been legislated. a tweet that says the a.c.a. is not worth the paper it's written on and doesn't cover anyone and subsidizes very expensive treatment with taxpayer money. obama caved in as usual on universal health care so it's worthless.

another post from facebook that says, the worst piece of legislation in my lifetime. let's go back to our phone lines and see what you are thinking on the 11th -- the week of the 11th anniversary of the affordable care act. let's go to mose calling from detroit, michigan. caller: good morning, how are you doing? host: just fine. go ahead. caller: i have private insurance but i have medicare. now medicare covers some of the -- like 80% of your bill but they don't cover your medicine. now my private insurance covers my medicine with a little co-pay i have to pay. now i heard the lady said she had medicare. what they're doing is signing those people that sending in and telling you you've got to

actively enroll in all of these insurance, that once you enroll, they take over your medicare and then they put you in a plan that they want you to have and you can't go to the doctor until they let you to go. you've got to have referrals and all that. i know people who did it and they control your medicare. if you stay with your medicare they pay for all of your wheelchairs and everything. now what they need to do is get control of the medicine, the pharmacy. i just had a stint put in my heart. and one prescription hard medicine cost $343. now i have to pay a $43 co-pay but my blue cross and blue shield pays the $300. and if i didn't have that insurance, i wouldn't have --

you have to take this medicine for a year when they put in a stint. and with a you have to do, be careful of the outside insurance companies telling you enrollment time, you've got to do this, john them and join the medicare, they going to control your medicare, that's control. because i know too many people have and they had to wait three weeks, a month or three months to see a physician because they put them in the pool that you had to have a referral to go to this one and this referral and then the last one say ok, you can get treated and that's what is messing unnow. ever since the last president got in there, it went up every year when they give you a raise on your medicare, you wouldn't see it on your check, your social security check.

it raised your -- when you get the raise on your social security, they raise your medicare premium and that's what's killing us. now the way i look at it -- now i'm retired from general motors. if they would raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, it would be more affordable for your medicare and more affordable to where you can get outside insurance outside insurance that costs little money, like $200 a month. that michael cannon i listened to him last week and saw the rerun you ran today. he's a liar. if you got private insurance, it won't cost all that money, $10,000 a year, it will cost something like $300 a month.

or maybe $250 a month, i think blue cross is $225 a month for a single individual. host: let's go to jeremy calling from amarillo. caller: i think the a.c.a. is absolute garbage. if you're an american and go on a.c.a., at least in southern california they'll send you to dirt-bag medical providers and be in a room and be the one american in a room with 30 or 40 illegal aliens and even when you from a 10:00 a.m. appointment, you be waiting until 1:00 or 2:00 and they will take droves of the illegal aliens walking in the door in front of you. i'm also a veteran and signed up for the a.c.a. to prove a point and i'm a republican and tested it out. i go to the v.a. and the v.a. was absolute garbage where they try to tell me and put me on

fentanyl for 2 1/2, three years and supposed to be on a contract and turn it in. they kept pumping me full of drugs. all they had to do was go back in for secondary surgery and take out a bunch of scar tissue of my left hip hit service related and they stall it out and try and kill you in the old days and trump comes in and you can go to the outside and went to the outside, boom, u.s.c. medical school, great fantastic private doctor. corrected everything. so it was great. host: what were you doing before the affordable care act. i have private through my employer. host: they medicare or private employer. caller: civilian. host: huh private insurance before another fordable care act and after the affordable

care act passed you went on a.c.a. coverage and now you have private insurance again, am i understanding you correctly? caller: no, i have veterans, veteran military, v.a. now is what i use and even with them you have to keep them on a short leash. i tell them flat out and given them written directives and i don't want them calling me or setting them up for bogus a." s and that stuff and get you for co-pays and this and that. if i have a problem, i'll call you and make an appointment and come in for whatever medical care i need but don't set up a bunch of bogus stuff. that took a while and would send me for stupid basically guess work stuff i didn't need and would hit me for small little co-pays and this was

before trump and trump came in and cleaned it up where instead of being 60 or 80 in a room with an appointment at the v.a. in southern california, i could go there, make an appointment and in the old days they would stall it out and have authorizations for a surgery procedure or whatever, they would stall it out and that authorization expires in 30 days and you have to rerequest it and go through the whole system and then you have a lot of illegal doctors in those days, foreign doctors that would work at the v.a. and be over on basically tourism visas, six month blocks at a time and working part-time and would tell them keep your costs down or we're not going to renew your contract. so here they were, they were chopping up veterans figuratively from a standpoint of keeping costs down and not approving needed procedures. i saw a lot of african-american veterans, great men, combat veterans from the vietnam war, i'm too young for that, i see

them dying in waiting rooms because they kept getting things stalled down and legitimate procedures where there was liver and/or kidney procedures and surgeries they needed and in the old system they would stall it out and then die. host: let's go to cliff who is calling from tulsa, oklahoma. cliff, good morning. caller: on my seventh year of a.c.a., originally started out with really like $150 a month and i think i pay $300 a month. couldn't get insurance any other way. we have a deal called sure oklahoma on every year self-employed and was $60 a month. tobacco settlement actually funds it. they dropped income from $55,000 to $20,000 and hardly anybody can get on it and they're forcing us on the a.c.a. it should have been called the blue cross and blue shield act.

i don't understand why the president of the company can get a $50 million salary with all these people all over the united states are going without insurance. we need to take the profit out and post the price list all over. my wife has a prescription and of course she's on the medicare and singulair costs $28 a bill for -- pill for her pain medication. host: you're the second or third person i heard this morning say we need to take the profit motive out of health care. how do you do that without the government taking over the entire health care system? caller: look at europe and canada and the rest of them. i got a granddaughter from britain. they pay her when she's not sick. they take her in a cab everywhere she wants to go when she's in england. we're three or four times higher than anywhere else in

the world. go to mexico and buy your pills $25 -- 25% off the dollar when you walk in. the problem is you walk in, i've been plumbing and heating contractor for years and i have a price list and my doctor and hospital and everybody else, there's no price list. it's real simple, make it free enterprise. it's not free enterprise, it's monopoly. host: president biden spoke about the a.c.a. recovery act speaking at a cancer hospital in ohio on tuesday. here he's discussing how these laws address health care disparity and communities and help the unemployed and here's what he said. [videotape] president biden: for millions out of work and have no coverage thanks to this law there's a obamacare plan most people can get with zero dollar premiums, co-pays will still be there but zero dollar premiums,

4-5 americans shopping on the obamacare marketplace can get quality health care with a premium of $10 a month or less. let me say that again. four out of five americans who shop for a plan will find one for $10 or less per month. it's especially important in communities that historically have gone without insurance at higher rates. very few communities have always faced health disparities, brown, black, asian, native american communities have bern the brunt of the covid crisis and we're also making it easier to sign up for obamacare. we've opened health care.gov for special enrollments on february 15. in the first two weeks alone, more than 200,000 americans gained coverage. today i'm pleased to announce we've extended that period to run through august 15. go to health care.gov or call

1-800-318-33 -- 1-800-318-2596. a few clicks and a short conversation is all it takes to start seeing these benefits. increased coverage and lower premiums. i'll close with this. with the american rescue plan affordable care act, millions of families will be able to sleep a little more soundly at night because they don't have to worry about losing everything if they get sick. host: let's go back to some of our social media followers and see what they're saying on the week of the 11th anniversary of the affordable care act. here's one defeat that says medicare for all, glad we have a foothold with a.c.a. another tweet says the past 10 years, the a.c.a. has saved me from having to sell my farm to pay for health insurance. since i switched to the a.c.a.,

i now have blood tests and workups once a year, quit smoking, all things blue cross and blue shield wasn't covering me for for the previous years. here's a text that says shortly after the a.c.a. started three internists in our doctor's office quit. two retired an one changed to a closed practice. all three doctors held in person group meeting with their patients to explain the a.c.a. is tearing apart the quality they're able to provide their patients and they cannot morally be involved in substandard medicine. here's another tweet that says the a.c.a. affordability problem is due primarily to government not allowed to negotiate prices. another text that says wow, 11 years, haven't seen a downward trend in health care costs. in fact the opposite is true. so what was the point? let's go back to our phone

lines and see with a you are thinking on the week of the 11th anniversary of the affordable care act. let's go to larry who is calling from milford, michigan. larry, good morning. caller: good morning. hi, jesse. hello? host: go ahead, larry. caller: the problem is the obamacare took us in the wrong direction. we need to go to a markets driven health care system and insurance should just be for catastrophic coverage. host: isn't that what -- isn't that the system we had before the affordable care act? caller: i beg your pardon? host: what you're describing, isn't that the system we had before the affordable care act? caller: no. any time we talk about health care we talk about insurance. and insurance isn't health care. we need to go to a system where when you go to the doctor, you pay the bill.

no matter what we do with health care is it has to be paid for. we're arguing who to pay for. are we sending the bill to someone else, are they paying for it? what are we going to do? no one will take care of your money better than you will. i don't believe you think i would take care of your money better than you will. so we need to go to a market driven system. host: let's go to genie from missouri. good morning. caller: good morning. i'm retired and i have -- i'm on medicare medicaid. i only bring in -- a little over $700 a month to live on, so i went with humana. and my medication is paid for.

i get my doctor's appointments, i have no upfront payment when i go in. i don't see a nurse practitioner. i see my physician. i have my once a month every month on the 1st i get $100 for over the counter, anything i need, whether it's a wristband for arthritis or a knee band or whatever, wheelchair, they take care of. at no cost to me. it doesn't cost me anything a month. so what i have understood is the government -- my medicare, the government gives humana so much a month from the government but -- which is great for me but what i also wanted to say was the people keep talking about canada and their government, you know,

paid -- or their government medical insurance. people from canada come down here to america to get the things that they really need like surgeries and stuff because it takes so long to get in to any kind -- for any kind of service that they come to america instead of using a plan up there and they pay for it down here because they can't get in in canada. host: let's go to susan who is calling from orlando, florida. susan, good morning. caller: hello, good morning. i have private insurance and i actually own a company and we have our insurance through a well known health care company. i employ one employee who has type 1 diabetes since very

early age and i was shocked to learn that her -- she wears an insulin pump and i was shocked to learn that they would not cover any of the costs related to her type 1 diabetes that was from the time she was a small child. when i learned of that and that she was initially on the affordable care act and they covered this for her, i cooperate believe it. -- i couldn't leave it. i'm paying thousands of dollars for my employee and to find out this lifesaving device was not covered by our health care carrier, i couldn't believe it. and we had to make a choice, do we allow her to remain on the

affordable care act where they're covering this for her where she's had many, many conversations with her doctor about this device and if she goes into a diabetic coma in the middle of the night and dies from that like many type 1 diabetic people do, what do we do about this or does she have to pay the $700 a month that would be outrageous for her? she couldn't even afford to work. it didn't make sense to me and doesn't make sense. so i'm affirm believer in the affordable care act has helped her. host: let's go to richard calling from broken arrow, oklahoma. richard, good morning. caller: good morning, how are you? i want to highlight a little -- get the bubble out of my throat. highlight an issue out of there. a couple years ago i tried to sign up for the affordable care

act and i went through the -- it could be because i'm in a medicaid nonexpansion state. that could be the reason. but when i went in to the simulator to calculate the cost of the affordable care act, it was the insurance i chose was going to cost $400 a month and when i actually got to the real cost, it was $900 a month. so there is something wrong with the little cost estimator you go in to when you go on to the website on the affordable care act. and that caused me to drop everything and retain my cobra coverage that i was getting at the time. just wanted to throw that out there so people understand it. might be the fact i was estimated to make about $60,000 that year or $50,000, something a little higher for a couple. could be the fact that it's in

oklahoma, too, that it was medicaid nonexpansion state but there's a little issue out there, ok. host: let's hear some more from michael cannon who was the health policy director at cato, an opponent of the a.c.a. here he explains why he thinks the a.c.a.'s one size fits all system is preventing people from getting the insurance that's best for them. here's what i said. michael [video] michael: some people value things like insurance, some like higher dwuctibles and some like narrow networks or broader networks, but to let people choose what is important to them, book care tries to fit everyone in a one size fits all plan and ends up producing junk insurance because a lot of things don't want the high deductibles to come with obamacare and a lot of people don't want the narrow networks that come with obamacare, the

skimpy drug coverage for many conditions which is a result of obamacare supposed solution for pre-existing conditions. obamacare is a law now and congress is expanding it, not restricting it. we don't have book -- obamacare opponents running the white house and obamacare doesn't appear to be going anywhere, why not let people choose, if they want to enroll they can do that and if they want to enroll in a plan that doesn't cover everything or doesn't -- allows insurance companies to price according to risk so that healthy people can get lower cost plans, they can pay lower premiums and get more secure access to care when they get sick? host: let's go back to our phone lines and see what you think on the week of the 11th anniversary of the affordable care act. let's start with david calling from bloomington, indiana. david, good morning.

caller: good morning. this is david. yeah, i guess i'll try to make this pretty quick. i used to work for a union, i was unionized for about 25, 30 years and had great insurance and didn't pay nothing for it for years and then very little at the end. and then i left out of there and become self-employed and for the first 10 years of being self-employed i was paying $10,000 a year for insurance. and it never paid, not one dime on any of our bills ever. and i was paying. so i spent over $100,000 in 10 years and they never paid a single thing and then whenever the a.c.a. come out, i was tickled to death and i'll add this back when i worked union jobs, i was making -- i used to pay as much or a little more

taxes, income taxes, and then i do make now. and me and the wife, we make about $55,000, $60,000 a year on a.c.a. we buy a silver plan, one of the better plans. costs -- and we get subsidies now, i have to agree with that which we're very happy about that. but we only pay about $200 a month, maybe a little more than $200 a month for our insurance. and whenever we have a bill they pay damn near everything and they're not hard to deal with. kind of like back when i had a union job as far as i'm concerned. host: let's go to patricia calling from sterling heights, michigan. patricia, good morning. caller: good morning. you know, i'm listening to these people and so happy to get free stuff. listen, i'm a canadian. i hear these people call up, oh

canadian, england, they don't have a clue. over in canada the government gives hospitals so much money. once that money runs out, the health care is horrible. and their clinics, one doctor had the guts to put up on a window, i would love to take care of my patients but because of the government, i can't do it. it is horrible. the elderly, god help them. my family's over there, i'm dealing with it. and the woman from missouri is absolutely right. they warm over here to live. you wait months and months and months. how do americans think that the governments give you quality care? host: let's go to mary calling frl -- from philadelphia,

pennsylvania. good morning. caller: good morning, c-span. i want to say one thing. all insurance is subsidizeed, if you want priferte or medicaid or medicare. i'm a retired state worker. i work for the state of pennsylvania for 45 years. where we had the process, i was in one department where we had to process people benefits that walked into the emergency room under the emergency medical treatment act. we paid three times as much to these hospitals, these physicians, these surgeons when you walk in to the emergency hospital with no insurance. so if you're a taxpayer, you're paying three times as much. if you own private property, once you walk into the emergency hospital, the hospital has a right and a

surgeon to take you to court to take your property away from you. this is what you're looking at when you have no insurance onboard. host: let's go to our caller from baltimore, maryland. good morning. caller: hey, i've been listening and i've been listening to some people be a little disingenuous, taking advantage of the fact americans don't travel and don't go abroad and live abroad that often. i've lived in the u.k. and they have a single payor system but you can still buy individual health care. you can still buy private health care if you can afford it and you'd rather do that. and your employers can still offer health care if they choose to and many do as an incentive to get better employees. and if you don't have either, you can use a single pay or use both.

it's not an either/or situation. and the u.k. has no shortage of doctors, people are still going to medical school. they have a pharmacy on every corner. but they have more control over their choices. and if something happens to them, they're not left destitute because they can go and get medical care. host: let's go to stanley calling from south deerfield, massachusetts. stanley, good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead, stanley. caller: i've had liver cancer that wasn't reported to me for three years and found out later that i had it and by the time that i realized i had it, i took care of it and cured it because i did my own research about cancer. in 1848 there was a doctor, a paper came out by a doctor. at that time cancer was not

known as cancer but a disease and at the same time, also, diabetes was also considered a skinny disease. a doctor was within an inch of solving the situation. it came down to 1914, 1916 cambridge college england did research and they graph all the food any person can eat by p.h., what p.h. it stands for. also they came up with an arterial stick which tells you you're an alkaline body or asitic body. host: let's go to rob calling from schenectady, new york. good morning. caller: thanks for taking my call. i'm glad you're doing a segment on this. i'm originally from massachusetts and i'm a bleeding heart democrat, liberal and mitt romney was my governor for a while and people

seem to forget mitt romney and the architect designed the affordable care act for massachusetts and it was great. people seem to forget that it was romney care first, the same architect designed the one used the same blueprint for obamacare and then when obamacare this, obamacare that, fine and when the republicans in the senate and house got ahold of that version they willed it down. but it would have been imperfect, even obama said it was a great bipartisanship effort. romney started it -- and more mitt. i got to say, poor mitt is going jeez, folks, i started the whole thing, no one is talking about it, it would have been a perfect bipartisanship victory for both sides. thank you very much. host: well, coming up next, pew charityable trust beth connally will talk about the opiod epidemic and the biden

administration approach to the crisis. and later on law attorney floyd abrams and university of tennessee professor of law glenn reynolds will be here to discuss media, liable laws and the first amendment. stick with us. we'll be right back. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2021] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> book tv on c-span2 has top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern, george nash, offer -- author of the conservative intellectual movement talks about the past and future of conservatism in the united states. at 9:00 p.m. eastern, and asian -- nsa asked, and asian american speaks about issues of race and identity. sunday night at 9:00 p.m. eastern, "the washington post" joby work discusses the

unraveling of syria. he is interviewed by angela stent. watch book tv this weekend on c-span2. ♪ >> american history tv on c-span3, exploring the people and events that tell the american story every weekend. coming up at 10:00 eastern on " reel america." with the amount spent of three academy award nominee we feature three films that won academy awards. "with these hands" from 1950. sunday at 2:00 p.m. eastern, a civil rights activist recounts the 1958 massacre where south carolina state troopers fired on students protesting segregation's. -- segregation.

we visit the national museum of the american market -- army. and then the smithsonian secretary and a documentary filmmaker discussed the challenge of telling america's story. watch america history tv this weekend on c-span3. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are back with beth connolly of pew charitable trusts who is here to talk to us about recent developments in the nation's opioid epidemic. good morning. guest: thank you for inviting me. host: thank you for being here. preliminary data from the centers for disease control shows that from june 2019 to may 2020, including early data from the months of the pandemic showed an increase in opioid

deaths. what is behind this increase that we are seeing? guest: that is exactly what the cdc is reporting, that we have seen a significant increase in opioid deaths during the pandemic. we know that we had an opioid crisis in the united states prior to the pandemic. during quarantine and times when people are isolated, people may feel stressed and have turned to using substances. this type of stress can also be a relapse trigger for people who have an opioid use disorder. in fact, through august 2020, the 12 month period, there were 85 thousand overdose deaths in the united states, and that is the highest amount that we have seen to date, which is really significant and scary to talk about. host: i wanted to show our

audience some of the day that you are talking about right here, so we can get this information to you. this is based on provisional data, like you said, over 81,000 died overdose. that is the highest number eight -- ever recorded in a 12 month period. synthetic opioids is up 38%. death involving cocaine increased by 27%. likely linked to covid use or contamination of illegally mad -- manufactured fentanyl or heroin. what impact did covid had -- have? was it just the isolation? or did it have something else to do with it? guest: people were definitely isolated, the stress had people turned -- had people turning to substances. people were also using

substances alone. and we know that for an opioid overdose, that the use of naloxone can bring someone back to life. but, you need to be around people in order to have it administered, and so this was also a problem. people who may have been using drugs alone. you talk about the contamination. it is much more potent than your prescription opioid or heroin, and a little bit it -- of it in a drug supply can have an adverse effect and cause death. so these two things really have been working on increasing the number of overdoses that we are seeing. caller: what effect did having hospitals having to deal with covid patients have to do with hospitals dealing with opioid

patients? we were hearing all through last year how hospitals were overloaded with covid patients. does that mean that they had to turn away people suffering from opioid addiction? or were they mixed in wherever and they got to whoever they could when they could? guest: i am not sure how each hospital was working with the different folks coming in, certainly people coming and having been reversed from an overdose would have been treated by the first responders in an appropriate manner and brought to the hospital. for some, perhaps they did not feel comfortable going to the hospital and then lost the opportunity to be connected to care. for others who were seeking care generally who may have just brought themselves to an emergency department, perhaps they also felt uncomfortable because of covid. and we were all told to be at

home and stay safe. for folks who were alone this could have been a trigger for them to keep using, and perhaps overdose. host: how does this affect the first responders? they are so many people working on the coronavirus pandemic. there were so many hospitals running out of emergency room space. how does the opioid epidemic and coronavirus pandemic coexist in those spaces. guest: when we really want people to have access to treatment. and the emergency department is in -- is not the best place to seek treatment and people felt more uneasy about going to an emergency department. that avenue towards treatment felt like it may be close to them. what is important is that the

community treatments become available to people, and there were a number of barriers that restrict people from trying to get to treatment in their own communities. in the early times of covid, the trump administration had offered allowances to make it easier for people to access treatment so they did not have to go to the emergency department for health, but also so they did not have to go to treatment in person, and so some of these relaxations relied hell -- heavily on telehealth and allowing people to receive counseling, and to be prescribed medications for opioid use disorder and they are the gold standard. we know that the -- there is a strong medicine alu's. these allowances really permitted more people to enter care in the community setting, which is so important. host: let me remind our view is that they can take part in this conversation.

we are going to open up regional lines on the impact of the opioid epidemic. if you are in the eastern or central time zone, we want to hear from you at 202-748-8000. if you are in the mountain and pacific time zone, we want to hear from you at 202-748-8001. if you personally have been impacted by the opioid epidemic, whether it is yourself, a family member, or friend, we want to know about your experiences. for those impacted your number will be 202-748-8002 202-748-8001 -- 202-748-8002. keep in mind that you can text us at 202-748-8003, and we are always reading on social media on twitter and facebook. now, beth, you wrote in a recent

tweet "across the united states there is a demonstrated need for increased access to effective care for opioid use disorder." explain and elaborate what you mean. guest: again, community-based care is critically important and access to medication. medications are the gold standard and there is strong evidence base that medications are important for people to recover from opioid use disorder. it is a chronic brain disease, and unlike diabetes and hypertension, they are medications available for people to use, and we know that these medications have an evidence base if people adhere to the treatment, and we also know that they help keep people from contracting other conic -- chronic diseases like hiv or hepatitis c.

connection to care is very important. in terms of what we need to see, we have to look at states and the federal government to see what types of regulations and laws might be inhibiting access. there are some relaxation and allowances that the federal government made during the pandemic to help increase access to treatment. we have a report from gw university that analyzes these relaxations and federal allowances, and we know that the federal government can make these allowances permanent after the pandemic in order for people to continue to receive treatment in a less barrier freeway. so in a way that is easier to access. so for example, as people are using telehealth to connect with

a provider and be prescribed medications and receive their counseling. right now, this is temporary, but it can be continued through a regulatory change at the federal level. so, critical. we also know that people feel comfortable using telehealth. they do not have to worry about transportation, about deciding between work and childcare responsibilities and other family obligations, and they can get this treatment into their life in a very easy manner. another easy way is to increase access to one of -- there are three fda improved medications for opioid use disorder. one can be administered in a physician's office in a clinic

setting, and so it is very easy for patients to access. however the federal government has required that any practitioner who wants to prescribe it for opioid use disorder treatments must receive a special waiver. there is no other medication for a chronic disease that requires this type of waiver. this type of extra step in order to be prescribed this life-saving medication. there is a bill in congress right now. the mainstreaming addiction treatment act that would eliminate this waiver that is required to prescribe the medication. i should note that it, when used for pain, does not require the waiver, yet when used to treat opioid use disorder does require this special waiver. so, taking away the waiver what

allow more physicians to actually prescribe this medication in the setting of the primary care physician, where you feel comfortable and getting all your other health care. host: we have a question from one of our social media followers. before it open up to the phone lines, and i want you to address it. this person texted in, "how many opioid deaths were from legally prescribed opioids? this is important to know. guest: i am sorry to say that i do not have that number at my fingertips. we do know that fentanyl is driving another of the opioid overdose is but we know that we are seeing as more -- we are seeing more opioid deaths than we have ever had. it is critical to connect people, whether they are misusing prescription opioids or

illicit opioids, it is important to connect them with treatment and with medication based treatment. host: let us us go to our phone lines and let some of our viewers join in. we will start with allie from north cumberland, pennsylvania. good morning. caller: good morning. host: go ahead. caller: i just wanted to make a point that i do not know if many people are aware of. that chronic pain patients who had been treated with opioids before the guidelines came down that totally tapered or took patients of opioids altogether, if you realize that many if not most of us are now basically

have no quality of life, and also, the actual number of opioid prescriptions being written today is at an all-time low. so, people overdosing on opioids , it is illicit fentanyl. and, other illegal substances mixed in with it. and, there should be something done to help chronic pain patients who could at one time function, and do daily household things, or even hold a job, go to church, things you take for normal. and now, cannot do those things. host: go ahead and respond.

guest: thank you for sharing your story with eyes. i think it is great when people feel comfortable to share their stories so that others can hear them and benefit from them. thank you so much. we have been studying opioid use disorder and we have not been studying pain. and, the use of pain medication. the best course is to always speak with a provider, whether it is opioid use disorder medications, or whatever health ailment you might have. your connection to your provider and health care professional is the avenue by which to receive the most appropriate treatment. host: let us talk to tina from pennsylvania. good morning. caller: hello, good morning, and thank you so much. this is a topic that is very

important for me. i am on both sides of it. i lost a son in 2012 to a street pharmacist. i am a chronic pain patient. i rely on it daily to live my life, i am only 52, and most mornings i cannot get out of bed. i am having my 17th surgery next week. in pennsylvania, our governor pushed for marijuana. i am a person who does not want to lose control of my thoughts, i do not want to be high. if your pain medication is making you high, you are taking too much. the problem in pennsylvania is that chronic pain patients are being stigmatized as addicts. there is a difference between someone who is prescribed and taking it legally as directed, and then someone who is going to the doctor and there are plenty

of them out there that you can go and pay cash, and you can get a prescription and go to the pharmacy, seldom, get caught and get drug court. you do not get locked up. we need reform, but we need to take the stigma away from the chronic pain patients, because if i'm having a good day i do not have to take a break through and i do not go through withdraw because i am not addicted. miss. beth, we need help in the chronic community, we need the help. we host:. i am getting a lot of those calls on social media right now, what about people in chronic pain. they are being lumped into the same categories as addicts. guest: first i want to say i am sorry for your loss. the loss of a child is heart wrenching in my heart goes out

to you. chronic pain and opioid use disorder are two different things, and our focus has been on opioid use disorder and connecting people to care for any chronic health disease and any chronic condition is very important. and if patients find that they believe that they do have opioid use disorder or that one of their family members has an opioid use disorder, connecting people to care and helping them will help reduce the stigma. we all play a role in reducing stigma, whether it is the health care professionals, family, friends, we all play a role in decreasing stigma. the media, and using terms that can be stigmatizing such as addict really do continue the

stigma of all opioid use disorder, and so we really need to think about what words we choose to use, because we are talking about chronic disease, a public health issue. and so, it is so important that we treat chronic disease of opioid use disorder or substance disorder as other chronic disease such as diabetes and hypertension. host: how can you tell, if a family member or friend is addicted to opioids. are there telltale signs that you can see in someone that shows that you should be concerned about whether they are addicted? guest: i would leave that to a medical professional, but i am not, to talk about the signs of opioid use disorder.

and, addiction in general. i think people should really look at their loved one and have a conversation with their loved one in order to talk more openly. and people know their loved ones best. host: let us go back to the phone lines and randy from iron river, michigan. good morning. caller: yes, i would like to ask that when -- i got in trouble for smoking pot in wisconsin. they threw me in jail. i had been tested i drove over the road and i was a certified custom fabricator. i had been drug tested more than 100 times. my lawyer told the jobs that he had been tested over 100 times in the definition is if you can quit or not. i proved that i had not smoked pot every time that they wanted me. i got in trouble for it and they threw me in jail. i had to go to jail and after i

got out of jail they threw me into treatment for being an alcoholic. i had never drunk in my life and i've never been drunk over 10 times in my life, and yet i had to go to alcoholics classes to learn not how to be a drunk and to learn 12 steps. there were 90 alcoholics and three narcotics. the whole thing about it is they had one narcotics class. i live 30 miles away from the city. the next class was 60 miles away. i had to sit and listen to alcoholics three times a week, 460 dollars a month for two years to pay the alcoholics that had no jobs and i had a job. why is it that they steal from us and run us out of the state. i am living in michigan growing pot always like i used to in wisconsin because i know i cannot live there. i want to know how that law

affects the people who have had their lives taken away over this stupid law? host: go ahead and respond. guest: we advocate for the criminal justice system jails and prisons to really assess each person as they enter a facility in order to determine if they have a substance abuse disorder, especially opioid use. if they do, then we advocate for there to be medications and treatment available within the facility. we have been to prevent -- within the prison and jail systems. upon release it is critical for people to be connected with services in their community and we know that people with opioid use disorder who exit our three times more likely to suffer a fatal overdose, so the connection to care and community is important. we do know that in some communities treatment is not

widely available, and people are having to drive a great distance in order to receive their treatment. it is a barrier to treatment and a barrier for people to maintain their treatment. so, the provisions for telehealth, especially in rural areas where there is lack of treatment is really critical for people to access the care that they need. host: what has the biden administration said about the opioid epidemic, and how does it differ than what the trump administration was doing? guest: president biden has issued in his goals was to address the opioid crisis, and as the administration comes up and we know that the secretary of services was confirmed last week we are looking forward to

these advances that the administration will make in the areas of treatment and access to treatment. host: does that differ from what the trump administration was doing in the previous four years? guest: during the trump administration and during covert especially the regulatory allowances under the public health emergency really helped to advance treatment for people during this time of covid where they can access telehealth. one of the other three fda approved medications for opioid dues -- use disorder and there were allowances made for people whose medication is that. for people who are not familiar, it requires that the patient go every single day to an opioid treatment provider, and a program to receive their

medication. this can really inhibit someone's ability to work, to contend with all of their other family and household obligations, and during the pandemic, these regulations and allowances that were made allows for people to have take-home medications of up to 28 days, which then was safer the provider inpatient, especially in the beginning when there was more isolation, it was really important for people to stay socially distant. these relaxation and allowances under the trump administration have really helped people to access treatment during the pandemic. host: let us talk to jackie from santa clara, california. good morning. caller: hello.

i have to agree with the first two callers. i have chronic pain, i am 72 years old. i have been a kaiser member in california for 70 years. and, they took away my vicodin two years ago. i worked in the grocery store for 35 years. i was doing heavy lifting. and now i have chronic arthritis with no cartilage, bone on bone arthritis, and people like you and the government, and kaiser taking away the medication that may be a functioning person, and now i am walking with a walker, and i am going to be in a wheelchair soon, and this is no quality of life, and why you people cannot tell the difference between people who are not addicted, and take their

medication. i was on vicodin for 20 years, and i never took more than i was supposed to take. i still have a full, unopened bottle of 200 tablets because when the doctor started cutting me back i allowed him to cut me back because he kept telling me that it was going to be for the good, and it is not for the good, because i can hardly walk now. host: go ahead and respond. guest: so, our focus has been opioid use disorder. so, chronic pain has not been part of our study. we really do focus on people who need treatment on disorder rather than pain, and the health care system has done a lot and is continuing to evolve in the area of pain. host: are there certain areas of the country that are facing a worse time under the opioid

epidemic than others? are there areas being concentrated on? guest: we know that in rural america that they are least likely to have a community provider. in fact, in 40% of rural areas, there is no prescriber who can provide one of the three fda approved medications for opioid use disorder, and this really puts people in rural communities at a severe disadvantage because travel time is a barrier to access treatment and lack of providers. previously, the waiver that was required by the federal government to describe it comes with a cap and how me patients you are permitted to see. if you are one provider in a rural community, you could hit that cap quickly, and then other

people in need of treatment in that community are not able to access a. the idea of increasing treatment and eliminating the waiver is really important in rural areas where they have a lack of community providers. host: let us talk more about the act introduced in congress in february. it would eliminate the so-called waiver, the waiver that blocks health care professionals registered with the dea from prescribing the medicine from the patient's. -- patients. guest: the act has been introduced in february. there is bipartisan sponsorship of the bill, opioid use disorder is a nonpartisan issue. as many of your callers and listeners know, it does not know

any geographical, or socioeconomic bounds, so it really is a bipartisan issue. we are hopeful that congress will take a look at the bill and recognize that people are dying from opioid use disorder and they need this increased access to treatment. again, harkening back to the beginning of our conversation, the highest death toll in -- has happened, and we are still in the throes of the pandemic. so, we need relief, and people need to access treatment, and so, having more physicians able to prescribe and others such as positione -- physician assistants and nurse practitioners able to prescribe medication to reduce overdose deaths is very important. host: let us talk to kurt from

brownsville, new jersey. good morning. caller: thank you. very stimulating conversation to stay the least -- to say the least. i see a lot of young kids addicted to opioids. i see a lot of alcoholics total abstinence is the answer. the drug addiction is quite complicated. the argument of you do not know my pain is a very good argument to have, because i personally do not know their pain. do you deal with -- and of course they should not have to go get illegal drugs which are who the heck knows what. they should be prescribed, necessarily, but do you treat the pain between the years. i know chronic pain people and i

know young kids addicted to drugs. is there any kind of spiritual approach? the pain that people have, and depression, is there any kind of substitute for that pain, do you work on the actual psychologic's of it? host: go ahead and answer. guest: so, often counseling is part of treatment for opioid use disorder, and so, having that counseling portion is helpful to many people. although, we should never forgo medication where counseling is not available. counseling should be very important part of a treatment system, and telehealth has made this access to counseling even that much more available because

with these allowances from the federal government, people have been able to access counseling via video, zoom, or face time or telephonically, which is important for people who lack broadband access, and their rural communities perhaps where we lack access, having telephonic counseling over your telephone has increased access to the people and reduces the stigma. again, it helps people fit in the counseling into their everyday lives without having to worry about interfering with work and trying to juggle all these things so they can receive counseling that they need. host: president biden and congress just signed a covid relief bill. did the bill addressed the opioid epidemic at all? guest: there is a provision within the american at -- rescue

plan about we will provide services and harm production plans so getting naloxone access so that we have access to the overdose reversal drug is important. and ensuring people who use drugs have access to services that they need, whether it is clean needles and fentanyl testing strips. these items are important so people know if there drug supply has been contaminated, and also accessing services that they may find that their services programs is helpful and important to connecting people with care. host: robin calling from old forge, pennsylvania. good morning. caller: good morning. i think the problem is that the doctors are getting to be afraid

to order opioids because you people are coming down on them, and they want to cut our medication. we paid 1800 -- $1875 for 60 oxycontin. and that is a lot of money for case -- for 60 pills. my husband has been on them for over 15 years, and every time we go to the rheumatologist is that we are going to cut you down. it is you guys that are coming down on the doctors to stop. this is not right. you are hurting the people that really need it. host: go ahead and respond. guest: our goal is to increase access to treatment with those with opioid access disorder and we support avenues for people to accident -- access the fda approved medication.

and to decrease the barriers and increasing access and ensuring that people are able to get life-saving treatments that they need. host: christian from florida. good morning. caller: hello. i am 73 and this whole thing is very upsetting. i have scoliosis, a compression fracture, i have osteoporosis, and i have see attica. i had been taking this medication for six years, it made me feel better and like i wanted to get out of bed. now i have to go every month and get urine tested. i have to get to i do not know what to get one pill a day, and i have thought about doing marijuana, i did it in the 60's, but when i do it i get -- my mind is affected. it is not effective on opium.

i can cut it out and the only effect from cutting it out is pain. i am just so upset. you do not think about the people that really need the pain medication without getting affected emotionally or mentally. host: go ahead. guest: we have contested opioid use disorder. there is access to counseling for folks who feel like this is a good avenue for them, especially if people are seeking during the pandemic they need to have counseling. there is definitely more access to having that treatment and counseling available because of

the opinions -- that and we were hoping that these options to be made without an act of congress could be made permanent so this increase in access to telemedicine and telehealth will continue and be permanent and passed by the people -- by the pandemic. host: i want to remind viewers that there is a national helpline for people who suspect someone in their life may be addicted to opioids or that they may be addicted themselves. the substance abuse and mental health services administration national helpline can be reached at 1-800-662-4257. we would like to thank beth connolly who is the project director of the substance abuse prevention and treatment initiative at pew charitable

trusts for being with us this morning. thanks you for your time. guest: thank you so much. and we all have a role to play in reducing stigma and understanding opioid use disorder as a chronic disease. thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to talk to your audience. host: coming up next we want to hear from you on your top public policy issue in your state. we are specifically looking for you to talk about your top public policy issue, that is happening in your state. you see the numbers on the screen and we will wait for your calls. in a moment we will be back. ♪ >> sunday night onq7a, elizabeth becker tells the story of female vietnam war correspondents in a time when covering war was a male dominated profession. >> there was no embedding, there was no military censorship per

se, so it was probably the first and last uncensored american war. the south vietnamese had their censorship in the poston telegraph, so, it was for women, a gift, because it was only because of this lack of codification, this openness that women could get through what had been the biggest barrier as a war correspondent that you were not allowed on the field. >> elizabeth becker sunday night on q&a. you can also listen to it as a podcast where you get your podcasts. >> monday, watch live coverage of the trial for former minneapolis police golf -- police officer derek chauvin, charged in the death of george floyd. watch the trial at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span2, c-span.org

or on the radio app. >> "washington journal" continues. host: once again we want to hear from you on the top public policy issue that is happening in your state. we are going to look at top headlines from around the country in different states. we want to hear from you on what is going on in your state. in georgia the "macon telegraph," the top issue is the voting bill that has been pushed through in georgia. if you are in georgia we want to hear about that. alabama, you are picking up the pieces after the deadly tornadoes. what about fema, and what help are you expecting to get from the federal and local governments. here in toulouse -- duluth, you are looking and talking about the upcoming trial of derek chauvin and that snowstorm. what are you all thinking about in minnesota?

in california, you have all of these different issues going on in california. we want people in california to tell us what your top public policy is. florida, all of the issues going on in florida around the cruise industry and the reopening of the state. we want to know what you think, what are your top public policy issues going on in your state. we want to know what is going on with you. so, we are going to open up our regular lines meaning that democrats will call 202-748-8000 . republicans we wants to hear from you at 202-748-8001. independents, your number will be 202-748-8002. and, keep in mind that we are always reading on social media, twitter @cspan_wj and

facebook.com/c-span. for all of our viewers that are in the south, we know that we had -- you had to suffer through those horrible hurricanes last night, so we want to know what you think about what fema and other organization should be doing various states right now. let us look and see -- ok, let us talk to stephen who is calling from san antonio, texas. good morning. are you there? caller: yes. host: go ahead. caller: how are you doing. i want to know about this migrant crisis how are you all doing? host: turn your television down because that is the echo that you are hearing. caller: ok, i want to know because of this migrant surge i know it is about the security on the south border, i want to know

what can be done, because this is a disaster, really. host: were going to put up on scream -- green "the laredo morning times" that the democrats are visiting your state and looking at what is happening on the border. what do you think what they -- what do you think they should be doing? caller: not only the united states, but mexico, it hurts all of the country. i am not a democrat, but somebody has to get a handle on this. biden, or the president. this is out of hand completely. host: let us go to joe from michigan. did i get the name of your town right? nice luck? -- missoula?

caller: close enough. biden ran on a platform saying that he would give everyone $2000 a month. host: let us talk to jay from chicago. what is going on in illinois right now? caller: i would say the hypocrisy of the democrats here, who basically are in power, local and state. two particular instances would be the marijuana legislation, which is still locked out -- has locked out people of -- of color in terms of ownership in the second one being the rollout of the vaccines, the vaccinations, how the inequity of the distribution with people of color who have not been getting access to the vaccines quick

enough and in an equitable letter -- manner. that and the marijuana laws, new york seems like they are doing much more in the right way than illinois is. so just the hypocrisy of the politicians here claiming to be for the people. host: have you had a chance to get your vaccinations yet? caller: yes i have, because they had to have a special program to address the inequities of people of color not being able to be vaccinated in an equitable manner. host: i want to remind everyone that on monday the trial for former minnesota police officer, derek chauvin, is set to begin with opening arguments. he has charged in the death of george floyd who died while being arrested. watch live coverage of the full

proceedings starting at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span2. you can also watch online at [no audio], or -- at c-span.org, or listen on the free radio app. let us talk to grace from smithfield, virginia. good morning. caller: good morning to you and your staff. i do not see the crisis myself, because people are just coming back home. there the people who ran away some of them got caught sneaking the slaves bibles and to teach them how to write. those people are just coming back home. they are the number one people that have been here for decades before the slaves, before the european whites and everybody. and they have not been treated right and they have been treated

unfair because everybody knows that the united states is a stone country. thank you, goodbye. host: let us go to bill from illinois. good morning. caller: good morning. the top policy issue is, in my state, is the policy issue that nobody really talks about upfront. where are the people? the people are exiting illinois the state. the second thing is how many companies are not coming to illinois? we have a bunch of -- we have a budgetary problem locally, in chicago, and statewide. and it is to me, just amazing

that the biggest policy issue should be how do we get enough revenue to sustain the services that we have to provide, because you cannot just keep taxing. you go into a death spiral like detroit. you cannot keep taxing fewer and fewer people, most of whom will have lower incomes when people with higher incomes are leaving or not coming, and that is my comment. host: shelley from little hocking, ohio. good morning. caller: hello. thank you for having me today. i was just curious why during the press conference joe biden

would not -- his statistics about the filibuster, they went from 19 whatever, 1970 maybe, so when he was there in 1974. why didn't he live -- leave out all the years when he is serving and use the filibuster? when he talked about the statistics during the press conference, how many times was the filibuster used last year, and who used it? over 300 almost 400 times by the democrats. host: kim from antioch, tennessee. good morning. caller: good morning, can you hear me? host: yes, go ahead. caller: there is a lot of hypocrisy when you talk about people bringing drugs across the border and people of color, the mexicans and we need to keep them out and lock them up, what about big pharma?

they addicted people knowingly and killed thousands. nobody had any measures taken against them. they are not referred to as criminals. we just forget that. and, they are here -- i forget what i was wanting to say. down at the border they are talking about how bad the conditions are in stuff, they are still children that they have not located that they took away from the mothers when trump was in office. and, they were uncaring at that time. now they want to talk about biden and how bad the conditions are. we need to improve the conditions in countries where they are having to migrate here from. you get what i am saying? have some compassion and saying

that we need to build this wall. if we just help these people we might solve problems rather than just being divided and up in arms about being americans first. host: shall be from bluff city, tennessee. in morning. caller: good morning. thank you. well, we have so many issues. but i am concerned about the gun permit, which i heard, and i am not sure, especially in tennessee, that you can -- that they are voting for gun rights for without permits. i do not know their -- what they are going to do. that to me is the wrong way to go. especially, without permits. and just anybody can get them,

that is not right. that is wrong. and, you know, it could cause so many more deaths. plus on immigration i am very compassionate, i believe in immigrants coming, but i think until they have the laws straightened out and deal with the ones that were already here, they should put a freeze, maybe two to three years on anybody entering the country from any other country and also be working with those other countries about it. thank you. host: let us see what some of our social media followers are saying on the top local issues for them. here's a tweet -- a text from minnesota that says "the trial of derek chauvin and the rise of the border crisis. we cannot let them all in." here is a text that says "our

top issue on how to raise funds without raising taxes to pay for the pandemic and normal operating expenses. we are implementing legalized gambling and it appears that marijuana will be legalized as well." another tweet that says "every state has to deal with budgets devastated by the pandemic and the subsequent loss of revenue during closures. we have to think as nation, not as individual states." let us talk to lisa from california. good morning. caller: hello, good morning, thank you so much for taking my calls. ok, and california. we are still dealing with a terrible homeless problem all over our state. our governor is being recalled

because we have out-of-control homelessness, not only in big cities like los angeles and san francisco, and san diego. but, small towns, rural areas, and coastal areas. we are still pretty much on lockdown. they are beginning to open up restaurants more, gyms. but, there is still that attitude, or spirit of lockdown. our schools are still not open. you know, they keep saying that the schools are open, but actually, some public schools are open may be one day a week.

i know my daughter -- my niece, my sister's daughter is a junior in high school. that is in north san diego county. she just was allowed to go back to school one day a week, on monday, not a full day. and, the teacher -- it is like a zoom call class, so the teacher is in the class, and the students are in the class, but it is like they are on a zoom call. host: let us go to cody from shawnee, oklahoma. good morning. caller: good morning, thank you for taking my call. well on the illegal immigration, i think we cannot afford to take care of so many. they are not even testing them for coronavirus or anything.

they shut down everything and they are letting them in without testing and they are infected people and everything else. they are running all over the country. and it is mainly all for votes, so they will have votes and cheap later -- cheap labor which is not fair to the american people, especially for the one struggling already. that is all i have got. thank you. host: coming up next, constitutional law attorney floyd abrams and university of tennessee professor of law, glenn reynolds will discuss media libel laws and the first amendment. stick around. we will be back. ♪ >> today on the communicators, a former chief technologist with the federal trade commission talks about antitrust reform. >> nixon was notorious for dangling the threat of antitrust

cases over the three large broadcasters. he used that to get favorable news coverage when he was president. johnson did something similar with the houston chronicle. there's an interesting story around that. how he threatened the president of the houston chronicle, also involved in a bank merger, that he would block the merger unless the chronicle stopped covering his administration so negatively. he was able to suddenly get positive coverage in the houston chronicle. that's what i mean by politicizing. antitrust is not focused on the benefits of maintaining competition for consumers, but is a government tool, a powerful tool being wielded to choose winners and losers. >> today at 6:30 eastern on the communicators on c-span.

♪ >> sunday, april 4 on in-depth, a live conversation with harriet washington. her recent book is carte blanche. others include medical apartheid and deadly monopolies. >> when companies use profits to measure their success in the medical arena, the problem is that we cannot expect companies to care about us. we cannot expect companies to make less money because they care about our health. the data has shown that they don't care about our health. but our government, the people that we pay and that we should expect to care about our health and should defend us, our government should be reining in these countries. -- these companies. they should be forced to develop things that will serve the public need and it's not. >> joining the conversation for harriet washington, sunday,

april fourth at noon eastern on in-depth on c-span two. >> washington journal continues. host: we are back with floyd abrams, and glenn reynolds. they are here this morning to talk about libel laws and the first amendment. gentlemen, thank you for being here. >> thank you. >> it's good to be here. host: let's start off by study -- setting the baseline of what we will talk about. there was a dissent in a court from the judge around a new york times company v sullivan. floyd, could you break down what that case is and why it is important when it comes to media and libel?

guest: new york times again sullivan is probably the most important case dealing with freedom of the press and the countries history. it's from the 1960's with enormous libel judgment being entered against national newspapers in the south by southern white juries that were angry at the coverage of the civil rights revolution of that time. in the u.s. supreme court said that wet the press writes about, if it's a person the government that a libel judgment will not be in loud in favor of that person unless the press purposefully said something that was false. that is to say they knew it was false or had serious doubts

about whether it was true or false. that was a big step forward in terms of protecting freedom of the press. it's controversial in some quarters as we will talk about. but the primary effect was to allow the press some breathing room in writing about and talking on tv about powerful people in the government. that was later expanded to be powerful public figures generally. so it is a protection for free speech. and as i have said, probably the most important protection that the supreme court has ever given , rendered to the press. not because they love the press, but because of the function, the role played by the press in our democracy. host: glenn, anything to add?

guest: there was actually a very conscious and coordinated campaign, you could call it conspiracy, they wanted to try to shut down all of these media outlets with southern officials cooperating and planning rival suits to the point where the case was heard by the supreme court and at that time there were $390 million in claims. that's 2.5 billion in today's dollars. that was a big deal. it was the point where the new york times was spiking, -- spiking stories with legal department, and telling people not to travel to alabama for fear that they would give rise to other libel claims.

it was completely without precedent when the supreme court ruled in libel law or first amendment law before that time. that's a big deal in understanding why the court did something that breaks precedent. traditionally, fire wasn't -- libel was entirely outside of the protection. it didn't enter the discussion at all. after sullivan it did. that's a major shift. although in sullivan it's limited to public officials. and the court very rapidly -- it really extended to public figures. which has given rise to amorphous claims.

the absence of malice is the most exciting movie made about libel. he claimed that -- she said i wish he were a football coach, then they would always be safe. so the public -- has understood that has really changed. and not just quantitative change , but qualitative change in what it did with journalists and their subjects. host: so why are we talking about this today? we are talking about this today because two powerful judges in the united states, supreme court justice clarence thomas in earlier years and more recently senior judge lara silverman of the u.s. court of appeals in washington, d.c. have advocated

for overturning or getting rid of the new york times v sullivan precedent. i want to read what judge silverman wrote about this recently. and i want you two gentlemen to react. so here's part of judge silverman's dissent in a recent case. after observing my colleagues efforts to stretch the malice rule like a rubber band, i am prompted to urge the overruling of new york times the sullivan. justice thomas has already persuasively demonstrated that new york times was a policy driven decision masquerading as constitutional law. the holding has no relation to the text, history, or structure of the constitution and a constitutionalize is an area of law and revises over centuries of common-law adjudication. as with the rest of the opinion, the actual malice requirement

was simply cut from the clause. the new york times the sullivan case should be overruled. but i recognize how difficult it will be to persuade the supreme court to overrule such a landmark decision. after all, doing so would incur the wrath of press and media. but new considerations have risen over the last 50 years that make the decision, which i believe i have faithfully applied in my dissent, a threat to american democracy. it must go. what do you think of judge silverman's dissent? guest: i think what she read was the beginning of what i think of more as an op-ed piece then an opinion. silverman went on to denounce the press's behavior. to say it's a one party press. to say that the new york times

and the washington post were democratic broadsheets. the television news was skewed left. and on and on and on in a way that sounded to me less judicial and more like an angry partisan. for that reason, it was not a public service in the sense that one would want a serious, as silverman is, a serious jurist. in terms of the proposal, they are saying muska back to the old way. let's go back to the time when the press did not receive this protection. in my reaction to that was that we would have seen, with the last administration, a lot of libel suits against journalists

and the press, costing them a lot of money to defend, risking financial stability of the press . really putting us in a position where people in power, in the government and out would have much less restrained power. that is to say that criticism of them could far too easily lead to crippling and sometimes totally destructive libel suits. host: glenn? guest: it quite interesting to see the media treatment of silverman. there's actually three parts. part one is a lengthy and technical discussion of libel law where he thinks the other judges on the panel are wrong. in that he applies the analysis

and all of the classic libel doctrines. he said my colleagues got this wrong. if we are going to keep expanding the protections of new york times the sullivan -- versus sullivan, we should scrap it. he goes on to discuss that. and the reference to clarence thomas's argument that the sullivan case is inconsistent with the original understanding of the first amendment is -- the framer certainly had nothing like that in mind. but that's a lot of constitutional law. the third part, the talk of the media, it is unusual to see this in judicial pages. and it's fairly crude. the point i think he's making, for sullivan to the media monoculture is that sullivan was premised on the notion that we have this robust public debate.

proof would be found. and because we have a media monoculture, that's really not going to happen. that's the point he's addressing . and one of the advantages of being a judges is when you write a dissent, you don't have any editing. host: described for our audience by what you mean by media monoculture. describe for our audience what you mean by that? guest: it's obvious from observation and they pretty much admitted, but the vast majority of the press leans left. the people in the press on the right are worried. if you're in a place like the new york times, you don't lean left far enough to satisfy the woke staff and you get kicked out like beer he white and a whole list of people. you can get fired for what once

would have been an unacceptable act of running an op-ed by a, tom cotton, saying what most people in america think. when you get into that kind of environment, it's difficult to say that there's a dialectical truth seeking process that we would hope with more diversity, back when sullivan was decided, you would have multiple newspapers. you are frankly lucky to have one in a lot of towns. much as i love the alternative media, i'm a blogger, they don't have the kind of impact that the big media has. host: do you agree? we will get back into this as judge silverman gets to that issue exactly. guest: no, i don't agree area --

agree. the right in america is not silenced. they are heard. they have a norma's power. -- enormous power. in public life and the communicative process. it's true that a lot of that is now online. and for better or worse, that's the direction we are moving in. but where i really disagree is on this. the value of new york times again sullivan is not so much adding to diversity of news. it's protecting the press, and thus the public, against the power of people first in government, then just powerful people, being able to shut up critics.

for fear of libel suits. libel suits are really expensive. i can tell you. i've made part of a living defending journalists. it cost money to do that. it costs money of an industry, the press, which is really not prospering, there are fewer newspapers as is just been said. so more at risk of not being willing, if the risks are too high, to take on the rich, the powerful people who i would think we would all want the press to try to write about. and if they do something wrong, expose. my general reaction is that we

genuinely -- is that we do not live in a society where we would be better off if the press had fewer legal protections. we can criticize the press. and they can criticize each other. that's their first amendment rights. but i think cutting back on the protections in new york times versus sullivan would greatly impair the democratic process. which exalts the notion of criticism of those in power. host: i will let both of you know that i used to teach new york times the sullivan zen from the journalism side in my journalism ethics classes. i'm glad i have you two here to slain the legal side. explain to our audience with the malice test actually is. what actual malice is and what the test is when it comes to libel and losses?

glenn? guest: before i get to that i want to respond briefly to what floyd said. the application of what we today call the sullivan doctrine which reaches much farther then the case goes beyond that. like the case in which justice thomas argued was the key against cosby, a woman had accused bill cosby of rape, suing his lawyer for libel for things they said about her and being told that will cosby is a public figure so there's actual malice. my complaint was sullivan is not that the decision was wrong but that the coverage has been expanded to some anymore things and has turned people into public figures who really aren't. and the test the supreme court adopted, when made for a public

figure is unseemly. they talk about people who thrust themselves into the public debate. as if it's wrong for ordinary to participate in public debate and if you get above your station and you want to play with the big boys and talk about this stuff then you should lose your protection and have your reputation destroyed even though you are not powerful or a government official or a football coach. you might just be some flood with an opinion. that's a on free expression. when you're talking about government officials to shut up critics, that's one thing. but it goes way beyond that. actual malice, generally, is reckless disregard as to if something is true or false.

i will ask floyd that's what it means, but now it has been expanded which means there is some actual objective doubt. you have to show that there's actual subjective doubt. that's harder to do. especially hard to do without discovery. and it can be hard to get to the discovery phase. to show that something has actual malice. that's where we are now. host: and what do you say to that, floyd? guest: i can sign on to the

proposition that some of the people who have been deemed public figures, and thus both criticism of them is protected under new york times against sullivan and it may go far. i don't think protecting movie stars, that's the types of situation where the security of our democracy is not at stake. but i think judge silverman is after a bigger game than that. as is reflected by the fact that he didn't talk about people such as you did. there enough for you. but the entities that he thinks should not be protected are large newspapers who have political views with which he disagrees. that's unacceptable, to me at

least, as a basis for changing the law. yes, it's true, more of the larger newspapers with lesser power than they ever had because of the internet, but nonetheless , are more inclined to democrats than republicans. that should be irrelevant to what short of protection we afford the press. those things come and go. they change about who's on what side. who's in power, there's criticizing who is in power. the core of new york times the sullivan's that we need protection for critics of those in power. yes, that started, as it should enact case, with the government. it's gone beyond them.

i think going beyond that was a good idea because the government is not the only power source. so you wind up in a situation which is a matter of law and practice and the like does provide more protection for freedom of speech, more than any other country in the world. there are other ways to do it and still be free country. canada does it. but they wind up with less speech, and less free speech, and more threatened free -- threatened speech than we have here. i prefer our system. host: lets let viewers take part. we have our regular lines for this conversation. for democrats (202) 748-8000. for republicans (202) 748-8001. for independents (202) 748-8002. keep in mind you can text us at (202) 748-8003.

we are always reading on social media, and on twitter. let's start with deborah, calling from maryland on the democratic line. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i do have a comment in question. i don't agree with judge silverman that new york times the sullivan has been used primarily by conservatives. after all, if you look at the lawsuits by dominion and smart maddox, they all site new york times the sullivan to dismiss. the only when i have read is sidney powell but she cites it six times because she thinks the

company -- for her supposed allies about how they threw the election to biden. i think it is used solely by democrats to defend against libel. also i would like to know what makes dominion and smart maddox public figures. i doubt anyone had heard of those companies before this last election. they were anonymous. now they are public figures because of the libel. what do you say that? how do you make somebody a public figure by libeling them and then turn around and say they are a public figure. thank you. host: our callers are great because they jump ahead on questions that i was can ask. glenn, you take that first and then floyd can jump in. guest: i don't get true that nobody had heard of dominion. before the election there was a lot about not trusting computerized voting systems from

people on the left. we had democratic senator sending a letter to dominion, charging them with switching votes and were unreliable. usa today did a round up critics today before the election saying computerized voting is unreliable and listing a litany of problems. the new york times runs a piece. rather than using the machines and paper ballots, the machines are not trustworthy, and democratic senators publicly criticized dominion. if you go back and read them now, it sounds like what people in their publican party said although dominion did not sue them, stars i know. and i will yield to floyd on this. i write on the first amendment but i'm not floyd abrams.

voting machines are used in elections all over the country so i think that would pass any public figure test you are likely to come up with. guest: my reaction to that is that i think it's a close call in the sense. your caller is certainly quite correct in saying he had hurt this -- heard of this. this brought criticism from then-president and his supporters was heard. they were not a public figure in the sense of public recognition or the fact that the public knew that they existed. but at the end of the day, i do agree with the proposition that because of the role they played, they are subject criticism. what they make, these voting

machines etc. have, in our electoral process, from the very start, they would likely be considered public figures. and so your viewers are clear, what that means is because they are a public figure, there's more protection of entities criticizing them. in that case, the argument has been made by the company suing the charges against it are absolutely false and known to be false when made. if that's true, the requirements have been met. host: let's talk to nick, from

sarasota, florida, on the independent line. caller: good morning. i totally disagree with mr. abrams. he leaves a lot of facts off the table. number one, the democrats, about half a dozen of them criticized those machines several years ago. if you watch mike lindell's hour-long video where he has forensic analyst look at those machines, it's clear they were set up to get biden more votes and then they went back into the hand rios -- the hand recount which was enough to overcome the votes. on the 80 million versus the 75 million, that's totally pointless because we have the electoral college. so really only about 40,000 votes made the difference. i believe there was more errors in that than the millions that they try to attribute. also, the truth has to have something to do with these giant media truck -- companies. for four years i heard them last president trump with everything

that later comes out is live. but there's a lot of people who believe those mainstream organizations. and you hear it like with the first caller from massachusetts or wherever it was. these people don't need to be protected in the media, they are clearly left-wing bias and it's not just bias but lies are included. that's the problem. host: go ahead and respond, first floyd, then glenn. guest: i want to get too far down the rabbit hole of a political issue. what the caller said about the election itself, the fairness of the election, has been rejected by every source. rejected by every single court. putting aside the purely political side of it, here's a

company which was involved in a very central role in the election. because that's where the votes went to be counted. i have not seen anything to support the proposition that they did anything wrong, at all. or that they miscounted, let alone liberally created -- deliberately created for the purpose of misleading and leading to one side or the other of winning an election. and that was the things that the losing lawyers argued on behalf of president trump. they lost. because there was no proof of what they were saying. host: glenn?

guest: i certainly don't want to relitigate the election. most of the times they lost on factual disk -- dispute so i don't know how much value those judicial opinions have. but i will say that this underscores the problem. i agree with floyd, dominion is a public figure because of its role. there's been a fair amount of news coverage with complaints about voting machines but i don't think they were as unknown as all of that. but what i will say is that this goes to a point that i made and that the new york times was making in february of last year about paper ballots. it's extremely destructive to have a voting system in which people believe there's fraud. it doesn't matter if they're right or not.

the fact is, a system that people don't trust is dangerous. even if there's no fraud. people are skeptical, i think not irrationally come about the idea that there's a system largely run by politicians and affects the careers of politicians is going to be pristine, given our experience with other things regarding policy. i think it's important that we have a voting system that is more trustworthy and meets the standard of what seems to be pure and i don't think we have anything like that now. we should've taken our lessons and him something to try to make voting not only more trustworthy but more obviously trustworthy and transparent. we have not done that. we are talking about libel here. that's fine. i'm a law professor, that's what i do, but i don't think that's

our society should be focusing on. host: go ahead. guest: to add onto that, since we are talking about the subject. i think the system has been trustworthy. i think a significant amount of the public has been misled to think that it's not trustworthy. therefore it's very relevant to me that when a well-funded, heaven knows, campaign of president trump went to court around the country that they failed to persuade any judge that there was any problems certainly of a fraudulent nature. and indeed, there was a reluctance on the part of lawyers representing that side to claim that there was any fraud. because lawyers have certain obligations to the court and certain risks when they gate -- engaging misstatements. host: i was going to say come i

would love to hear you all debate the 2020 election but we are going to stick with new york times the celibate -- your times verse all of. many people seem to think that any criticism of any person is liable. can you tell us the difference between criticism and libel? and how you get from criticism to a libel suit? can things on the bad about someone that you don't like, so you don't like president obama or president trump or president biden, does that automatically equal libel? i'll take either of you on that. guest: it's only libel with its false. if it's a false statement of fact. forever that has been the law. that's nothing to do with your times versus sullivan -- new

york times v sullivan. i like this guy, i don't like that guy, no life -- liable in that that you -- libel in that situation. libel is an untrue statement of fact. those of the two main barriers to living in a society in which anyone who disagrees with someone can go and start a libel suit. host: glenn? guest: that's right. and it has to be defamatory. it has to make people think less of you as a result in ways that might harm you. it's a good thing for loss -- for law schools to exam. and another thing that's

important, there's a lot of difference between libel and slander. slander is a statement made and libel is broadcast. they go about this rather loosely, but with social media, which is not added to our collective iq is much as i'd like. host: has one of the first things i have to tell my journalist ethics students, the difference between libel and slander pray lesko back to the phone lines. richard -- let's go back to the phone lines with richard, in missouri. caller: i know these gentlemen are very intelligent. the president slander someone and now he's not president anymore. he called the black quarterback a son of a female dog and ruined his career and costing millions of dollars in playing football.

he's an individual now, he's not the president -- president of the united states. so i think you would have to prove that the man is a son of a female dog. and the people of georgia have just said the black people can't vote. and that's what an opinion is. host: wouldn't have you like to add anything? guest: i could weigh in, in libel law, there's a lot of tolerance -- this is not your times were sullivan -- new york times v sullivan. but there is a lot of overstatement, a general denunciation of someone, particularly when you wind up with those references, usually that does not rise to a libel

action because of the very nature of the words themselves. but i would have to agree with the caller. in terms of potential harm or actual harm in that case, because the president said, it was very real. host: anything to add? guest: a lot of colloquial expressions are not taken as a statement of fact. when you call certain names, you're not suggesting things about their mother, for example. as floyd says, hyperbole is understood. what's interesting about it, and i don't think it informs libel long black -- now, but back in the 1820's and before,

particularly, people were being called things like a scoundrel. that was an almost guaranteed to dual -- duel. people police their reputations using violence because they thought their reputations were very important. i wrote a chapter on this for a book on law and issues relating to hamilton. it's fascinating stuff. people thought their reputations were sunk readily important that they were willing to risk dying or killing someone. we don't tend to think of reputation as being as important today. i sort of wonder why. you have a credit rating, but

there's more to it than that. i'm not sure what the differences. -- the difference is. but huge proportion of what was said not only in social media but mainstream media today would have been considered grounds for pistols at dawn. host: let me ask you both this question. in his defense, judge silverman mentioned supreme court justice clarence thomas called for new york times v sullivan to be reconsidered way back in 2019. what would have to happen for the supreme court to reconsider ny tv sullivan -- nyt v sullivan and is it likely to happen? guest: what would have to happen is for a libel suit to come to the court and for there to be four votes of the nine two youth kate -- to hear the case.

it does appear that mr. thomas does not have the support for revisiting this great precedent. but all he would need are three other members of the court. and then it would be before them . then we could all right a friends of the court brief to try to persuade the court, one way or the other about what to do. host: glenn? guest: i don't thing there's much of any chance that the supreme court will simply reverse new york times v sullivan. i have an op-ed in the wall street journal this week and a much longer article in the tennessee law review thinking -- rethinking libel which comes to

the same conclusion. but there's a lot of trimming back the court could do that would be much less dramatic and would have the effect of getting rid of some of the worst excess in existing libel law. like going to a reasonable person standard in the cot -- in the context of actual malice. trimming back public figures, or even returning to the original to public official, and getting rid of the technical plea rules that let you dismiss a libel claim. early on in the preceding. there's a much bigger chance that there's five votes on the courts willing to make those changes. interestingly, some of the justices on the course, not limited to clarence thomas, have had enough experience with media tax -- attacks and dishonesty that they might be more

synthetic. host: talked to ray, calling from syracuse, new york, on the republican line. good morning. caller: two points. for mr. abrams, with all the respect, the lawyer gives a lawyerly of opinion in your response is that no judge or jury decision gave any credence to the argument of the election problems. that's not law. a lawyer would've said none of those made it to a court or jury because they were rejected on standing. number two, the sea that we live

in is allied against particular opinions. go on any social media, mention anything, literally anything about these issues of the election, or alleged violence from one side or the other, or actual facts that don't follow the left in your video will disappear. often immediately while playing the first time. all your videos on any of those platforms are disappeared, forever. that is the sea we are living in. so there's no opinions not approved. think about that for a minute. host: do you want to respond to that, floyd? guest: just to say that i agree that we have to have a level of tolerance for opposing views that we have been losing as a

country. i think that's on both sides. nonetheless, that's especially true and especially reflected, as the caller correctly said with respect to social media. which has exaggerated all the potential harms in terms of the society. one would like to think that people can debate each other with a level of courtesy and respect. one of the reasons for that is anonymity on the internet. but that's for another day. host: social media follower has a question for both of you, they would like you to address -- could the guests comment on flat losses and how they are unconstitutional? the suits go against our basic freedom of speech.

flat losses and libel. guest: slapp lawsuits is a strategic lawsuit against public participation. that's filed particularly by wealthy and powerful litigants to shut someone up by threatening them with expensive litigation. they are not unconstitutional. some states have anti-slapp laws that penalize people for filing lawsuits. interestingly -- i have not read the entire dominion complaint against fox. because despite the fact that several rulings have called for a short claim, it's for her 42 pages long -- 442 pages long. but i did look at delaware which does not have an anti-slapp law

in new york does pre-that's probably a strategic choice on their part. -- that's probably a strategic choice on their part. litigation in general needs to be controlled, that said, you do also have due process rights in court. you have to balance those things. i'm sure floyd has more to say. guest: i'm afraid i don't. i agree. i do have to agree with everything you said about this. there are lawsuits created for the purpose of suppressing speech. sometimes they very wealthy entities against people can barely get to court and in terms of having the funds to defend themselves. some states, new york is one,

have adopted new rules and regulations to make it easier to get rid of certain meritless lawsuits brought for the purpose of limiting public debate about matters of real public interest. in general, the statutes are important. they worked rather well. they can cut through a lot of the time and expense for really weak lawsuits, but destructive to regular people who don't have the sort of funding to defend themselves. host: what we have been talking about mostly this morning, and what judge silverman pointed out as well and his defense was the aiming of these lawsuits against what he called the liberal media

. the washington post editorial, a few days ago, i want to hear more from you both on this, they point out that this would also affect the conservative media. i want to point out with the post wrote in this editorial. in february, -- filed for 2.7 million dollars in damages over allegations of network anchors teaming up with trump lawyers to smear the company as a co-conspirator in a stolen election. when fox news filed its motion to dismiss the case, guess what argument advanced? that smart maddock was a public figure with a high burden of proof. so we get rid of the actual malice standard, it seems like according to the post, it will affect conservative media and liberal media. it would affect the entire landscape of the media. you both agree that that's true? guest: well it has to be true.

whatever criticism maybe aimed at the decision or in judge silverman's case against the press, the law and this area works the same way with respect to liberal and conservative media or individuals. if it didn't, we would have a lot worse and a lot more troubling issues in society than we have already. guest: that is of course, right. for me, personally is very much a statement against interest, i'm a blogger and i write a weekly column against the post. new york times v sullivan has been very good to me and is good for everyone who was there. it is probably understood that

it is something of a legal subsidy. by lowering the risk of being sued and losing a lawsuit for libel, it allows us to adopt a looser editorial model, reduces big schemes for libel insurance, etc.. it's a good thing for the media industry regardless of whether it is a left-leaning company, or a magazine about houseplants. host: so let's say the supreme court does walk back the actual malice standard. what's the effect that most people who watch the media would see, would have practical effects on the news we get all in our media in the united states? guest: there would be a lot less anonymous sourcing. you would see a lot more editorial review.

you would see a lot less pressure in media organizations and follow-up with corrections later. i think people would be more risk-averse and i think that would be good. that would create a better and more reliable story. you can see stories where -- . guest: i think you would see a lot less investigative journalism. it's high-risk. it's expensive. and i should add, we live in a society where there are fewer and fewer newspapers all the time. i don't want to say this is a dying industry but an awful lot of newspapers are dead and have gone away, to the extent that

you increase the risks on newspapers. and broaden libel litigation, particularly by powerful and well-funded entities come i think it would necessarily lead to less journalism. less good journalism. sometimes bad journalism. i think you have to use the cliche that we fall into, it would have a chilling effect on speech in america. host: john is calling from pennsylvania on the democratic line. good morning. caller: my question, in a number of right-wing commentators, there are questions about joe biden's cognitive abilities without any sort of medical basis. i have provided high care

service homes to 14 nursing homes in three counties. i've seen a lot of people with dementia, organic brain syndrome, sundowner syndrome, alcohol dementia, joe biden doesn't have any dementia. believe me. these commentators, can they be sued for making statements like that? can the president sue someone or someone representing the president sue a commentator or commentators like jim bohannon, sean hannity, tucker carlsen, laura ingraham, all of these people who mention his cognitive abilities. could these people be shut up about what they don't know and be sued? host: glenn? guest: there's a lot of enthusiasm for shutting people up. we did see speculation about president trump and there was no litigation.

i did notice that a yale psychologist professor who was remotely diagnosing president trump lost his job for the goldwater rule, that you are not supposed to diagnose people when you are not actually treated them. but that does not applied talk radio hosts. i would say the mental and physical state of the president is a matter of the highest public interest. so i imagine you would see the highest degree of protection. host: so are you saying that to criticize someone's mental acuity is not liable? guest: first, he's the president. if he has public figure standards, he's the ultimate public figure. and you would have to have actual malice. he would have to somehow know that you be saying something false.

but i think people are giving opinions from watching videos. and in many cases people have said the same thing about many other presidents. it's hardly unusual. guest: two things. the courts would say it's a matter of opinion rather than fact. the mental state and the like in the libel suit would have a hard chance of continuing on that basis. beyond that, if i were advising any president about whom charges have been made that they are not really all there. i would say for god sake, don't bring a libel suit. you make a point of discovery, you have to take tests about your mental acuity. no president once a libel suit

which puts at issue that aspect of their knowledge, personality, and abilities and the like. so in a practical matter, any lawyer giving reasonably good advice would say that's a terrible idea. guest: i agree. host: william is calling in on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. i'm a blogger who has successfully defended eight libel suits. defamation suits. i would not have been able to do that if professor reynolds had not written about my case in his blog, which allowed me to get pro bono legal explorer. so thank you very much.

but here in maryland, i ran into the fact that the actual malice standard has been adopted for all defamation suits, regardless of whether a public figure is involved or not. so my question would be, might that be a reasonable way of dealing with this problem, rather than dialing back protections? host: a quick answer, first glenn then floyd? caller: i do know a guy in maryland who is very enthusiastic about filing for libel. extending the actual malice standard to everyone would certainly reduce the work of the courts and libel cases. it would essentially get rid of

libel. host: floyd? guest: i agree with glenn. host: that is a short answer. would like to thank them for being with us today. we could go on for three hours that we are unfortunately out of time edelman, thank you. -- gentlemen, thank you. we would like to thank all of you for sticking with us on washington journal. tune in tomorrow morning at 7:00 for another episode. stay safe. wash your hands. have a great saturday. ♪

>> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. created by america's cable television companies in 1979. today we are brought to you by these television companies, who provide c-span as a public service. >> today on "the communicators," ne-yo, former t technologist with the ftc talks about antitrust perform. >> nixon was with -- was notorious for dangling the threat of antitrust cases over the right casters. he used that to get favorable news coverage when he was president. johnson did something similar. with the houston chronicle, there is a very interesting story around that, how he basically threatened the president of the houston chronicle, who was also involved in a bank merger, that he would block the merger unless