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so students get the tools any to be ready for anything. >> comcast supports c-span as a public service. giving you a front row seat to democracy. good morning. it is saturday, january 21, 2023. a new gallup poll shows ator the first time in 20 years, less than half of the respondents had a less than favorable opinion of the u.s. health care. we want to know about the quality of care yo receive. how d e you with coverage and cost? give us a call on lines divided by region. if you a in the eastern or pacific time zones

(202)-748-8000. mountain and pacific time zones, (202)-748-8001. we also have a special line set up for workers on (202)-748-8002 . i want to show you the numbers from that pole that i mentioned. 48% say they think u.s. health care is excellent or good. 31% say fair and 21% say poor. here is the poll with the headline, americans sour on u.s. health care quality. you can see the trends over the last 20 years. the green is excellent or good, fair in the middle, and here's

the line for poor. there is also a poll from gallup that says, record high in the u.s. put off medical care due to cost in 2022. these people did not have medical procedures done or care because of the cost. here is the trend from 2001 to 2022. you can see at the end is that spike up to 38%. that is where that is. i also wanted to show you a clip from yesterday's "washington journal" with reporter for kaiser health news. she was talking about social security and medicare and the cost of health care.

[video clip] guest: it is a lot. we have the most expensive health care system of all the industrialized countries. it is a long way between us and number two, which is switzerland. every other country limits how much their health care sector costs to some extent. this idea of importing prescription drugs from canada, it is not so much we are importing drugs, we are importing canada's price controls. the conservatives do not want to have our own. even democrats do not want to do that. in medicare, we have price limits on what hospitals and doctors can charge, but not that many and they are not popular with the providers. we have a much more heavily private health care system than

most other countries. not all of them, but most of them. it is something that we have not actually dealt with. people complain, if you look at public opinion polls, health care costs are a huge issue. we are seeing surprise bills that congress is trying to deal with and people are getting other bills. they may have $5,000 or $10,000 deductibles. it is going to be difficult to pay that annual deductible for health care. host: we are talking about your experience with the quality of the health you received in this you can give us a call. we were talking about the commitment to america, the gop agenda, in the house. regarding health care, here is what they are looking at.

th wt to increase personal re to provide affordable options and better quality, lower prices through transparency,hoice and competition, invest in lifesaving cures and improve access to telemedicine. we will go to the fit call which is robin in seattle, washington. caller: thank you for having me on "washington journal" this morning. i enjoy the program every day. i have a lot of experience being permanently disabled. i am in and out of the hospital a lot. my most recent experience was last week and i just want to share that experience as an example. i went in for a specific procedure to my doctor's clinic

and i had told them what happened. if they injected specific things, i highlighted the procedure because you have to go through all the paperwork before hand. i gave them four specific things that would not work out well and they did all the things i said would not work out. instead of just sticking me with this $600 fee i had to wait for an ambulance, and then when i got there there was weed smoke in my throat closed up, because i am allergic, and i am choking and having this response to the injections i should not have gotten -- because they did not read my chart. i am finally put in this split

room with another woman and she is describing her symptoms. she has this pain in her thigh and, like, i am not a trained professional but i know deep vein thrombosis when i know it. they have bedside scanners where they could have listened to the patient and scanned her. an hour later, both of us were still laying there and i heard her calling out for help. i heard her stop calling out for help. i heard her start having breathing problems and when her nurse finally came in, and her son was there, they started working on her. they did the scan. they said, you had a stroke. i am laying in that bed and i am

no waiting this woman -- knowing this woman, her life is forever changed because she was ignored. there were at least 20 nurses at the station making jokes. i could not help her. because i was incapacitated myself because of the damage that had been done to me. this is what the poor people in seattle deal with on a daily basis. host: why do you think that is? you said there were enough nurses. it was not a shortage of workers. do you think it was the administration of the hospital? caller: well, as a matter fact, yes.

there were not any actual -- from what i got while i was there for 10 hours that day because there was a lot going on with my body -- i paid attention the whole day. there were no actual doctor doctors in the er. they were all -- the nurses tried to give me anaphylactic food twice. read the chart. that is all you have to do. read the chart and see. it is very clear. yes, i think in an er situation,

especially in a busy seattle er, they see a lot and they have a contract with the state. they are probably dealing with a lot, gunshot wounds, stab wounds, crazy people. even in the waiting room there were violent people. i was terrified to be there at all. period. to be terrified to be in the hospital, not only from the environment and lack of security but the people who cannot tell that a patient is going to have a stroke or aneurysm or heart attack from a blood clot. host: i have got to get to some other calls but i am sorry you had that experience. julia in rockport, massachusetts. caller: good morning.

thank you for taking my call. i thought julie's segment yesterday on "washington journal " -- which i have watched her for several years. she does not lean either/or party, but my proposal today -- first of all, the theme she said yesterday struck a chord with me. the federal government is an insurance company with an army. let's go to the debate with the debt ceiling. it is about revising what is basically nondiscretionary spending. as we know, medicare and social security take up over 60% of the budget. it is not dwindling. it is getting more as benefits of increased. from my experience, i am a small business owner in business over 30 years. under massachusetts with governor romney, you may have heard of romney care, which was

obamacare, and we have the insurance partnership program. they sent a check if you are a small business owner and you qualified that would help pay your premiums, which i was paying large amounts of money, $400 to $600 a month for my health insurance. but i paid it and did not go for travel for me. fast-forward with obamacare and the subsidies grew exponentially. almost to the point where it was too generous. i think that is the problem. a lot of people who qualify for these subsidies are doing really well. but it is the people who are may be of a certain financial status where they might miss it by $1000 when they file their taxes. they are getting hit hard with deductibles. i have no deductible.

i have incredibly generous benefits and i think it is way over. i work. i can pay my own insurance. i am fiscally conservative, etc. i feel badly for that woman in washington. it sounds ago horrible situation but in massachusetts, we have the best medical system in the world. people come from everywhere to have care here. but for the people that live in rural communities, there is this dissolution of the hospital network. they have to travel two or three hours just to have a simple colonoscopy or, god forbid, an emergency. host: i wanted to show an article about what you said which was the rural hospitals. that is u.s. news had an article about that. hundreds of hospitals could close across rural america. hundreds of rural hospitals

across the united states are tea drink on the edge of closure with their financial status increasingly in peril. more than 200 rural hospitals are an immediate risk of closure because they are not making enough money to cover the rising cost of care. their little financial reserves leave little room for error. nearly 30% nationwide are at risk of closing in the near future. let's talk to dean next in louisville, kentucky. caller: good morning. these people talking about their not getting health care. i go to the v.a. and they are rationing health care right now. you go there sick and they give you medication. the last time he went to the

hospital, i was so bad. i had a room, i was laying there, and the doctors came in in the morning and then 30 minutes later, you can go home now. i just got here. they are getting bonuses keeping us from going to the hospitals. host: ed in ocean city, new jersey. caller: what would lower cost and improve care is if the public had healthy lifestyles. my father was a physician. he went to yale med. physicians charge too much money and then these hospital ceo's are paid too much. but the real pressure is the

emergency rooms where a lot of people who have unhealthy lifestyles are coming in and never paying and putting pressure on the system. host: let's look at another clip from julie yesterday. she responded to a question about medicaid expansion. [video clip] >> originally, every state was going to be required to expand medicaid to basically all people with incomes under 133% of poverty. right now, you only get medicaid if you are low income and pregnant, or low income and a child, or low income and have a disability. if you are a low income single adult who is able-bodied, you are not eligible because you did not meet the categories. what the affordable care act did his he got rid of the category and said if you are low income, you can have medicaid. the supreme court in 2012 said

that was to coercive so it was going to be voluntary. half the states started expanding and half the states, run by republicans, did not. in the years ensuing we have had both ballot measures where voters in the more conservative states have said, there is a lot of money coming from the federal government. the caller is right. they offered to pay 90% of the cost. a lot of even republican states have opted in but there are still a dozen states that have not. about a dozen because south dakota just voted to expand. georgia, florida, texas, and some smaller states that are red, alabama and mississippi. mostly the south and the very conservative midwest and rocky mountains states.

there are still some states that have not taken advantage of this money. they have not wanted to for one reason or other. some is they do not believe in giving health insurance to people who are able-bodied. host: we are asking you about your experience with the u.s. health care system. we are taking your calls. maria is calling from westville, new jersey. good morning. caller: good morning, amy. i hope i can expand this a little bit. i think we have to go back to the foundations of medicine. my brother-in-law taught medicine and he said since the 1970's the hippocratic oath has not been composed. they either not take it or they take a modified one. but what shocked me the most was where it said you could consider a person's financial background or emotional thinking if you are talking about further care. in other words, the old oath for

bait abortion -- forbade abortion and euthanasia and now it is becoming like canada. also, there is no real audit of where the medicare and social security is going. [indiscernible] i think the united states people are allowed to see where our money is going and have some big reforms. host: earl in albion, idaho. caller: good morning. i was thinking about what john f. kennedy said, it is not what your country can do for you, it is what you can do for your country.

when it comes to health care people have to do for themselves the best they can. but when insurance companies became involved in the situation -- i don't know the figures -- but it went up extremely more. and the fact what kennedy said, not what your country can do for you, it is what you can do for yourself is the problem we have got in this country. we have lost so much of our workforce here and dependency on others. this is what is kind of overflowed into the health care program. host: how does that relate to the health care? you feel like there is not enough health care workers? caller: no, ma'am.

for yourself, if you are not dependent on yourself and dependent to your country and keeping your country strong, then you are dependent on the health care system. host: ok. stephen is in lexington, kentucky. caller: good morning. thank you for having me. thank you, c-span, for allowing me to talk and share my thoughts. i think the health care system here is a joke. before i go into that i want to say all the health care workers out there, this is not your fault. you are just in a system that is bad. insurance companies have messed up the u.s. health system. different people are charging

different rates to get people in and out as fast as possible. in 2021, my wife and i had a daughter. i looked at the bill and you can read line by line, they are nickel and dining you. to hold your baby, $120 skin to skin. it is the mentality of the health care system and these insurance companies. i am putting the blame on them. and greed, honestly. we should be worrying about each other and people's health. if you do not have your health, you are done. host: let's check in on twitter. this one says, depends on where you live. in california, it is pretty good. the best doctors we have paid for by the rich people fleeing our state. even undocumented people get the best at hard-working poor people's expense. a text from kent, the quality of

u.s. health care is excellent and my insurance is about average. but due to medical services being short staffed the wait time needs improving and the cost of certain procedures, even with insurance, can be exorbitant. there is a lot of states facing problems with finding primary care providers. here is an example. this is georgia public radio and the headline says, nearly every georgia county faces a shortage of primary care providers. workforce data through september of last year shows georgia would need almost 700 additional primary care doctors to eliminate shortages. primary care physicians often work in family medicine as a patient's principal point of contact for medical issues and continued care. tommy is next in virginia. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call.

there was a recurring theme the last couple of callers and i believe insurance is the problem. my main thoughts are i believe that health care should be like the school systems, prisons. i have worked in them all. i am a registered nurse. it should be controlled by the state. i know that sounds radical but it should not be for profit. that is the problem. medicine is for profit and school is too expensive. doctors have to pay $300 an hour or more to become a provider. it is the money and it is the insurance companies and it should not be for profit. thank you for taking my call and you have a great day. host: let's take a look at

marilyn. she was a guest earlier and talking about the need to improve quality health care and affordability. [video clip] >> we need to have better quality but we need to have affordability. in terms of improving affordability, they have been talking about competition. that is in everything across-the-board. again, i bring this back to transparency because it goes beyond prescription drugs. people need transparency in the prices they are paying for services. they need to know what it costs and therefore what it is going to cost the insurance company. if they go to x hospital to have their hip replaced or to y hospital to have their hip replacement, it is just something they need to know.

we are part of a competition permanence. here one of the things we are concerned about is consolidation in the health care market space. this has to do with hospitals biding out other hospitals -- by buying out other hospitals. we have a real consolidation. we know that some of the health care markets in terms of hospitals, over half in the u.s. are considered highly concentrated. that means that there too built up. there are real concerns here. we are not sure how this happened and the powers in the

federal government allow consolidation. nevertheless, it is here and what we know about this much consolidation is that a lot of the time it results in raised prices. host: we are talking about your experience with the health care care system and taking your calls. karen is next in massachusetts. caller: thank you for taking my call. i was in a hospital in springfield. i had kidney stones. the second day i am sleeping and i have the thing in my arms so i could not go anywhere. two doctors are talking and i think -- two workers in the

medical profession. one says -- and i could not believe they were saying it -- she's fat. and i know they were talking about me. oh, she has a wire in her. on and on. why be there if you are going to be talking about patients? do you know what i mean? host: i hear you. caller: you are a professional. host: stephen in earlysville, virginia. caller: good morning. thank you. my biggest issue i am facing right now is not so much the care i receive but it is the cost. i am still paying off a bill and i agree with several of the

other callers. the cost, even though i have basic insurance, i am retired, i am still sick after five months and cannot get any help. everybody refuses to treat me like a human being because all they want is money. they charge $20 for antibiotics and i get 30 of them for $6 at the store. the costs are astronomical. impossible whether or not you have insurance. thank you for listening to me. host: it looks like jay sanders from twitter agrees. he says, our health care system is highly variable but overall it is a bad value. we do not have outcomes in proportion to what we spend. here is a text from mike, medicare is fantastic to read

six months ago i had total reconstructive shoulder surgery. the total cost was over $40,000 and i paid nothing extra. the shoulder is back to normal. d in next in california. caller: i am going to call and say this. i have been an insurance worker for 30 years. never in higher up, just a claims processor or customer service. i am going to be honest with you. in the last 30 years, you have no idea the change in everything that has gone on. the job was very easy to begin with. it has become more and more difficult because these

insurance companies, they take on third-party software to take over the system to audit for reckless charges by the doctors. that will come back three or four times. they do not interact with each other. one tries to override the other. and us insurance workers are going, this is crazy. we cannot even do our jobs to process a claim likely want to. we know how it should be paid. there is a system behind the logic of the computer system that insurance companies are using to outsource a cheaper product. the other thing is i want y'all to know when she was talking about pricing, there is

contracts with all of these entities. all these hospitals, all these doctors, they agree to accept a price. when you become a provider for the insurance company, ok? host: but why are the costs so high? one of our caller said antibiotics should not cost $20 for one pill. caller: aspirin is $50 by a hospital. host: but why? caller: there is a hospital here in california, a children's hospital, the local one, and it is huge. at my company, i process claims from all over the states. texas you will go and it will be 50% of a bill's contract. 50% of the bill would say they bill $1 million. they are going to get a stop

block amount and then they will pay the excess. and then they only get 50% of the bill. this one children's hospital is 90% of bills. i could go to one hospital in my area and their contract is 65% of bills. host: but still, the bill is pretty high. caller: because they take that money, the hospitals take that money when they get the contract. they bill a bill, we reduce it to 50%, and the hospital gets the write off. host: joseph in new york. good morning. caller: good morning.

very good information. it is always worth getting up early. i am a dialysis patient the last seven years. the cost is very high. fortunately for me, i could afford the best policy as an advantage plan which worked well. but as more time goes on there re co-pays,so i switched to a supplement. ost nt from $100 to $300 a month but it is worth it. i am 77 so i have medicare. unless you get the right policy for yourself and some people can afford it and some cannot, there is lot of confusion and very little help alonthe way. the person that helped me was from the office of aging. gave me an idea, i did the

research, and i could feel more comfortable as the bills kept coming in. the other thing i want to mention is i am there for about three days a week, t five three to five hours, doctors are shor we need improvement and we need to to single-payer. host: speaking of the workforce shortage, let's go back to marilyn. [video clip] >> the health care workforce is really struggling. during the pandemic we had problems with the nurses and we are also are having continuing

problems with the direct care workforce. those of the people in the nursing homes and rehab facilities coming to your homes. they are not nurses. they have less training than that but these people are taking care of people and we have a shortage of that. we do a lot of work in the rural health care space and we work with democrats and republicans to try to find common ground where they can come together to move forward. we visited maine and we understand that in rural areas in particular, the ability to see providers is very difficult. people in rural areas get most of their care through primary

care because there is even more severe shortage of specialists. there is a lot more on primary care. this is why we need to be focusing on the workforce, on improving the workforce, getting more people into rural areas and focusing on telehealth which is a big problem in rural areas. a lot of them do not have broadband access. but during the pandemic the federal government allowed a lot more flexibility for people to get services. that is possible in rural areas. host: talking about your experience in the health care system and taking your calls about that shortage. here is an article from the nebraska examiner about that state. the headline, a $10 million request and a new coalition take

a met health care worker shortage. 20 health and education entities have teamed up to put a full court press on solving the shortage of health care workers in nebraska. early conversations among the workforce collaborative had led to a $10 million request to the state for expanded clinical training sites for nurses. joe is calling from pensacola, florida. caller: good morning. one of the reasons things are so expensive when you go to the hospital is because they have got to make up for the people that do not have insurance. people are using the emergency room and then they walk out and never pay anything. i worked all my life. always had insurance and i am retired now. i got a medicare advantage plan

through united health care and i have had my shoulder operated on and i paid $145. i had my foot operated on and i paid $250 for that operation. i went to the best doctors. i was watching yesterday and some person called about how the insurance companies denied procedures. i have never had them deny anything for me. they go ahead and put the request in and they approve it. i am pretty happy with it. never had any problems but the biggest problem is people do not have insurance, they go to the hospital, and they do not pay. they have got to make up the money somewhere. thank you. host: brian in grand rapids, minnesota. good morning. caller: are you talking to me? host: grand rapids, is that

michigan? caller: it is minnesota. host: ok. caller: you said good morning. host: i did say good morning. [laughter] caller: thank you for taking a call from the land of ice and snow. subzero temperatures. host: and 10,000 lakes. [laughter] caller: it does not look like you have had any snow. host: not yet. what do you think of the u.s. health care? caller: what is that? host: what do you think of u.s. health care? caller: i am an old man over 65. i never had health insurance but i worked all my life. i was in the newspaper business and i made hockey sticks and other factory work. now i am retired. my only source of income is $900

a month from social security and deducted from that is $170 for medicare, medicaid, whatever they call it. host: medicare, yes. caller: i never had these health problems. i never had medical bills. $170 a month, isn't that a little pricey? host: i am glad you are healthy. mary in philadelphia, pennsylvania. caller: good morning. i just want to let people know i am a retired government worker. the highest cost for everybody in this country is medicaid and under the emergency medical treatment act. that was under president

clinton. we provide emergency medical care for everybody in this country if you do not have insurance. even if you are undocumented person in this country, they go to the emergency medical facility because a doctor is not allowed to even service you without some form of medical insurance. it is against their policy as a physician or as an emergency treatment dr.. we provide trillions of dollars based on that emergency medical treatment act. we need to make sure once we collect the data regarding people in this country who are not paying into the insurance

industry, it is a lot of independent contractors that go without medical. they do not pay taxes -- host: what is the solution? caller: my solution is they need to make sure once they go into the emergency treatment room that information goes straight to the states. and we have where they are working, not paying taxes, that needs to be processed and required either you pay the taxes required by law -- because you are making people pay for you -- and you are living scot-free without even paying for your own service in this country. and we have american citizens that work off the books. we have people employed by

various corporations that are listing themselves as independent contractors and not paying their taxes or their insurance. that has to stop. that is my suggestion. once we collect that data as a state and process your application through the state, we investigate and make sure that you pay the required taxes and stop having everybody else pay for you. host: got it. let's talk to leonard in north dakota. leonard, are you there? mark is in huntsville, alabama. caller: good morning. two points real quick. i am a veteran so i can go to the v.a. for different things.

it costs me nothing. it is all covered. but recently -- it is a long story -- but i work for the school system. i have insurance through the school system, through blue cross blue shield, and i had to go to a doctor. i had a lump on my neck. i go to the doctor and then i got a bill for a $35 co-pay. what i am getting at is if somebody pays insurance every month, i get paid once a month and they take the insurance money, $80 a month out of my paycheck, and then i get a bill for a co-pay. why don't they take that $35 co-pay out of the money they have already got that i've paid

in? the second point is i believe the insurance companies could do it like the irs does. at the end of the year, you paid all this money, whatever that comes out to be -- i think it is like $960 -- why don't they do it like the irs? host: get a refund. caller: get a refund on the money you paid in. host: that would be nice. caller: it would be. host: let's talk to debbie in elk grove, california, health care worker. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. i have been a registered nurse for over 40 years and i can tell you i started off at a county hospital. i do not want the participants

to be deceived at all. the insurance companies have been making a fortune off of health care. kaiser permanente has made over $8 billion in profits. what we need to do is convert to single-payer status. that means everybody has access to health care. in the time i have been working as a bedside nurse, never management, the costs have only gone up and we are providing fewer and fewer services. it is completely unfair. host: tell me more about providing fewer and fewer services. caller: primarily it is almost like denial of care.

in rural hospitals, if you do not make enough of a profit margin, they will close the hospitals down. primarily that is in lower socioeconomic areas. or heavily dependent upon some kind of medicare subsidies. that is very problematic. many insurance companies will actually pay more for you to go to the emergency room. what is happening is a lot of clinics are closing and that forces people to go to the emergency room for care. that directly impacts the emergency room. i spent over 20 years in the emergency department. people go there for simple ear aches, toothaches, when they actually need to be set up with a primary care physician.

shortage of physicians, shortage of nurses, but it is not like they are not out there because they are out there. the hospitals do not want to hire because that is where most of their budget, you know, 80% of what they pay is to staffing. the way to keep your staffing down is to keep not hiring nurses. there are new nurses graduating from school that cannot find jobs in their area when we know there is a shortage of nurses. single-payer is what we need to do. we have -- like the caller said before, we pay the most money. thank you for taking my call. host: let's check in on a text from joel in hartford, kentucky.

i live in the deepest red state of kentucky, the poorest state, in the poorest county and health care is practically nonexistent, but it is free because it is a welfare state. mitch mcconnell, rand paul and others fight this tooth and nail. they do not want you to have health care. very little taxes paid in my state. this is also a text from steve in ohio, i am a self-employed diabetic. the only health coverage available for me is under the aca. my income is just over the subsidy limit, so i pay $781 a month with a $9100 deductible. nothing is covered until i meet that $9,100 deductible. i have to ration my care even though i pay more than $8,000 a year for the aca plan.

jordan on facebook says, availability of care and insurance is no problem but i have three concerns. understanding what the provider is talking about, cost increase in cyber attacks on my health records. we will go next to charlotte in houston, texas. how are you doing? caller: fine. good morning. i live in houston, texas. i cannot complain about the medical here. we have some great hospitals. but a couple of things i wanted to point out. people seem to think people on medicare get everything free. we don't. we pay a premium which is $200 now with our little wage we got. then we have to have a supplement. those can cost up to $200 a month. that is one thing, we do not get things free. we are getting about the

elephant in the room. we have 2.2 million people that have crossed this border illegally. they do not have primary care doctors. they are going to use the emergency room's. when the emergency room's bills are not being paid we are going to have more hospitals close. and then we have to go further. there is an awful lot of things that need to be reconstructed in this health care system. the insurance with their three different prices when you look at their bill. one for this, one for that, one for this and then all of this medicaid. they are not paying anything, we are. they are not paying any premiums. it is all on the taxpayers. it is on the people that go to work every damn day and try to survive. this has got to stop. it should be, as that nurse in

california said, it should be single-payer. that is all i have to say. have a great day. host: robert in arizona, good morning. caller: good morning. i have -- that lady took part of my speech. i just wanted to inform people that border jumpers coming into yuma are sick and they go to yuma regional medical center. it is a good hospital but they cannot afford to absorb the $20 million the government owes the hospital to take care of these border jumpers. that is about all i have to say. host: let's talk to bruce next in chicago, illinois.

caller: the last two people hit the nail on the head from what i was going to say. i agree. the government does not understand that there is no such word as free. free is an elusive term. somebody is paying for your free and we have to get control of this. it was put very well by a famous senator from texas, phil gramm, there is more people riding in the wagon than are pulling the wagon. and we continue to pile people onto that health care system that are putting nothing into it. thank you very much. host: are you still there? caller: yes ma'am. host: i wanted to know how your health care was in chicago. caller: the health care is ok but somebody is paying for it. i just had an experience and i had no problem people paying for it. but i have also put a bunch of

money into the health care system and the last time my accountant said i had put more money into medicare than i had into social security. host: all right. ray in california. caller: hello? host: yes, we are here. caller: i am on the air? host: yes. but you have to mute your tv. caller: i just woke up. let me turn this down. how are you? is everybody good? host: everybody is good. go ahead. caller: my concern is i got injured and and and up going to emergency. at the time, i had county insurance and then medicare had just kicked in when i ruptured

my patella. all i could get at the time was humana. with humana what i did was specifically asked humana, all my doctors and nurses are in california. i thought everybody had health care, even if they did not work. when i started going to the doctors, humana is a non-contractor. now i got stuck with all of these bills. open enrollment came in, the pandemic hit, and that all kinds of other stuff crept up in there . in 2022 i got in line and blue cross blue shield popped up.

but it was so packed. we went through the questionnaire and got to the top and all the representatives were booked so i missed that enrollment. all because of other stuff happened but now i missed this enrollment. i am just going to call humana because i am stuck with a bill i did not pay. we will deal with that down the road but other than that everybody should be with some type of insurance. i thought everybody in the whole united states -- we should have some kind of health care. host: let's go to liverpool, new york. david, good morning. caller: good morning. our medical system is bad.

my mother broke her shoulder a couple of years ago and i was there to take her. they did an x-ray and i could see the shoulder was broken. but they had restrained her in a way that she broke her arm. that was one problem. the other problem is our system stinks. the great word is competition. there is no competition. the hospitals are biting each other. they are consolidating. that is not competition. and the immigrant problem, our hospital system was bad before the immigrant problem. that does not matter. again, we have heard it. we pay more than any other country in the world and i'm sorry, i thought of a fact.

we are at the bottom in infant mortality. host: not the bottom of the world. that is not true. we have run out of time. let me remind the viewers you can find the commitment to america at c-span.org. and you can watch our previous segments, including the party's plan for education, again today on c-span at 5:45 p.m. eastern. that is it for this segment. up next, steven mazie covers the supreme court for the economist. he joins us to discuss his recent piece in the atlantic about tensions simmering among the justices. later, our weekly spotlight on podcast series. tim storey of the national conference of legislatures discusses his podcast "our american states" and the top

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congress, on one thing you can be sure. c-span will be there thanks to the support of these cable and satellite companies. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. ♪ >> "washington journal continues . host: my guest is steven mazie, the supreme court correspondent for the economist. we are talking about his article in the atlantic about the supreme court and rising tensions among the justices. if you would like to weigh in or ask a question, you can do so on our lines by party affiliation. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independence, (202) 748-8002. thank you for joining us on our program. i want to start out with a quote from your artie.

it says the supreme court justices often geted with lawyers arguing before but six months after the court overturned roe v.ade, the justices are betraying -- portraying signs of patients and frustration with each other, sometimes bordering on disrespect. raker has always animated justices opinions, but it was limited to pen and paper. on the bench, civility rained. not anymore. you have been watching the supreme court for a wild what prompted this article, and why now? guest: i have been watching the supreme court for about 10 years and attending oral arguments and the biggest cases. i have always been impressed that the justices are able to hold it together to be quite civil with each other, even days after one has critiqued the other and the others legal reasoning in very harsh terms in

print. starting with his baseline of a car -- of a court that functions well despite the vision, i was curious this ball to see how they were going to be working together and what the vibes from the bench would be after people were now welcomed back into the courtroom for the first time since march 2020 when the court shut down for the pandemic. i was listening to the words, which are the most important things to take in when you go to a oral argument. i was also watching the justices. there were two new justices since i had seen them last. wanted to see how they were interacting. i wanted to see -- each time a new justice comes in, there is a shift of where people sit on the bench. the newest justices sit on the edges. the justices who have been there the longest sit closer to the

chief justice in the center chair. the 9:00 a.m. exchange. -- the dynamics change. what i saw in october and a important case pitting religious liberty versus gay-rights in december is a bench that i did not recognize. there were a lot of raised eyebrows. there were a lot of grimaces. there were instances of justices seemingly upset with or resentful of other justices sitting near them or across the bench. i thought it might be a good idea to let the people know, let my readers know, what the visuals are on the bench and not just what the words are. so, i decided to pay attention both to the words and the scene and try to capture some of what

i am seeing. host: stephen, there is a lot of workplaces people do not get a long and there is tensions and resentment. does this affect the functioning of the supreme court? guest: well, there are certain things we can point to and certain things we do not know. justices have their private meetings in their conference room, no one else comes in. no clerks, no employees other than the justices. we do not really know how their discussions are going in private. one thing which is objective and clear is this, the justices main job is to hear cases and decide them. they are hearing cases on schedule this year, but have not been deciding them on schedule. we finally got word in the last couple of days that next week, that is monday, the court is going to be releasing its first opinions of the term. this is the record long wait.

the previous record for time between first argument and first opinion release was 65 days, so about two months. if my calculations are correct, it is going to be 112 days, nearly twice as long as the longest wait in the past to get any opinions out. this is really unusual, because there are always a number of cases. about a quarter of the cases are relatively easy for the justices to decide, and they often come out 9-0. those are usually the cases decided first in late november or december. now, we are going to see our first session at the end of january. reasons for this weight may -- wait, maybe the court is not acting as efficiently as it used to. there may be other possibilities where we have a new justice. justice jackson just joined the

bench this year, there is some getting used to. drafting of opinions and circulating them. i think another probable reason for the weight -- wait is the result of the leak of the dobbs opinion last may and the tumbled that has caused inside and outside of the court. this is an unprecedented breach of supreme court norms were someone in the building and after a long investigation, the supreme court has not found out who the leaker was. someone in the willingly the dobbs opinion in may about six weeks before the opinion overturning roe v. wade was officially released. the investigators did not catch the leaker, but found practices of how the justices are moving paper around the building, who has access to what documents.

these have been rather relaxed. it is possible -- host: are you surprised that leak investigation after so many months and so much investigation did not find the leaker? guest: i am actually not that surprised. we heard about the investigation about seven or eight months ago, and then heard no news at all other than comets from a couple of justices saying there were reports coming out soon. we just heard some source the wall street kernel no about a week ago they had narrowed down the field of possible leakers to a small group. this week, they did not have any credible leads that led to anyone being tagged for that leak. with a number of people who had access to the dobbs opinion, it

was something like 82 people. law clerks and other employees in the building. i think it is very hard to keep track of a document like that and to figure out who might have been the person. one thing that is remarkable that we found out yesterday, and the courts of -- in the course of investigating the employees who had access to the document, they did not -- the person in charge, gail curley, did not subject the justices to the same ask as everyone else in the building. that is, everyone else was asked to sign an affidavit attesting they are not the leaker. the justices were asked questions by gail curley, they asked her questions and my impression is, they didn't set

formal interviews and were not asked to swear under oath. they did not release this opinion before the final one came out in june. host: steven, speaking of the staff, what do you know about how the staff of the different justices get along? guest: every little. -- very little. the clerks generally socialize, they have christmas party -- a christmas party each year. they have their lunch together. there is one thing i know about the post bush v gore era. the justices would not talk to each other for a period after bush v gore was decided in 2000. it was actually a source told me when i was looking into justice stephen breyer when he decided

to retire last year. it was stephen breyer who entered the lunch room and said, all right, everyone. let's mend things here. we have to move along, we have to decide cases and we should be getting along. host: now that justice breyer is gone, i wonder, are there any peacemakers? are there people saying, everybody, let's get along? guest: that is a good question. it is hard to tell. justice breyer, even though his jurisprudence is quite different than justice clarence thomas, the two got a long so well. they were chummy on the bench. it was evident in the old days, which means 2021 and before, justice breyer and justice thomas would whisper to each other all the time during oral arguments. they would laugh and smile.

that is one sign of how there was creech valley -- along the court. that lack of friendliness between conservative and liberal justices is evident today. host: let's take some calls. let's go first to greg in fayetteville, north carolina. good morning. caller: good morning. i have a comment and a question. first, the comment is, could the fact the legislative branch has this dysfunction and made the supreme court so important and their decision so important over the years, the legislative branch is not a functioning ash not functioning properly, that has increased tensions because so many important decisions in depth coming down to the supreme court and what they are doing. that has put them in the spotlight.

my follow-up question is, will putting cameras in the supreme court so everybody can see the deliberations, would that increase tensions, or would that alleviate some of the tensions, or would that make it worse? host: all right, greg. guest: two good questions. i think it is true, dysfunction in congress and the inability of the legislature to do a lot over the past years in washington has put more pressure on the courts and the supreme court in particular to resolve issues that are wrenching dilemmas among the american people. i think e too muchnds -- too much ends up at the court, which puts pressure on the nine justices. as for the cameras, i am a big proponent of cameras and the courtroom.

host: c-span is to, by the way. [laughter] guest: i am sure. it was a major advance to get audio livestreaming in the past couple of years, which c-span does so well. i encourage everyone. i'm sure many of you watching right now this into oral arguments using the c-span links. it is a great service. there is one irony about covering the court in the audio livestreaming age. that is, there are fewer eyes in the courtroom now for the very big cases than there used to be. that is because in the past, no one could hear or see what was going on inside the court other than the people who were inside the courtroom at the time. so, all the journalists would take their notes, run down the stairs and try to convey in a tweet or two what happened in this case and quickly write an

article to get the word out. now, everyone who cares to is listening in real-time. many journalists are choosing not to attend the oral argument, but stay home with their laptops and headphones and report live and analyze the oral argument live, rather than be in a court room and see what is going on. there is irony that in the most controversial cases, these are the cases where i think you see crack's into collegiality --in the collegiality in the justices. fewer journalists are able to see that and report on it and it is much more audio based. if everyone were able to see via camera, i think it would be much better. host: do you think the presence of those cameras would affect how the justices get along? guest: the justices have all said when asked about cameras, should we have cameras in the courtroom, they all say no and

have different reasons for it. sometimes, they say things will be taken out of context. justices will be recognized at the supermarket, that is a bad thing. there are very few, credible arguments against cameras have been advanced. but, i do not think the tension in the courtroom would get worse if cameras were trained on them. although, to pick up the sorts of things i report on in the article we are discussing today, i think you need a lot of different camera angles. it is about a eyebrow being raised, a gesture of justice kagan toward justice kavanaugh. one camera angle, which c-span is limited to again in congress, would not provide the kind of color you get then if you are in the courtroom wincing around and looking at the lawyers, seeing how their expressions are changing when they are being

asked questions by the justices. host: let's talk to james in matthews, north carolina. democrats line. hi, james. caller: good morning. i am depressed with what our government, the courts and everything now. i remember when the court had a certain speak, it was almost like camelot when i was a kid. i am a black individual. when the court turned their hat up and a era of righteousness, making things right, never had rights taken away. the dysfunction in court now is almost terrifying to older people. we do not it it. -- get it. the way the justices are appointed now, how they come up with the ranks. i remember when a republican appointed terrorist decided --

justice sided with liberals. the rule of all was more important than political persuasion, i would say. now, it appears the court has dysfunction because the political apparatus of the republican and democratic party is part of the court. it is almost as if they rule not according to rule of law, but according to rule of party. i do not know how to get out of -- i think once the democratic wing of the court is appointed, they are going to rule the same way. how do we get out of this mess? you are right about briar. -- breyer. he tried to smear -- speak amongst the liberals and conservatives and say --you've got clarence thomas. i do not know what this guy is on, man. his wife does what she wants to do, everyone acts like --

host: let's get a response. go ahead, steven. guest: sure. it is an astute note to think about how the court has changed in terms of the party of the president appointing each justice now matters more than anything else in terms of how the justice is going to rule. that was not always the case. there were a lot of republican appointees who would be conservative generally, but be open to persuasion from the left and to join the liberal justices in certain cases. the same is true of liberal justices sometimes siding with others on the right. i think one way to think about the dysfunction in the court today to the extent it is not functioning quite the way it did in your memory is that it is the

most conservative and least conservative court we have had in a long time. it is the most conservative because we have six republican appointees that are very conservative and making decisions generally as a 6-3 block, sometimes 5-4. and, affecting all kinds of change in the country. this is a sense it is less conservative. if you visit the supreme court, i urge everyone to do so. as my piece suggested, it is better to see them. the lines are not as long now because the audio is available. visit the court. when you visit the court, you will find a motif if you look carefully on the plaza in the building and in the guilt -- in the gift shop. that is turtles. there are turtles everywhere.

they are engraved into the walls. yes, you can buy them in the gift shop. why turtles? it is not because the justices look like turtles. a justice is supposed to be slow and deliberate. the supreme court and justices who make it up are stable to be individuals who value in serving what has been, and when changes need to be made to law and society, making them gradually, slowly, not shaking things up. there is no doubt from an objective point of view, whether on the left or right, there is no doubt this court is shaking things up. it is reversing constitutional rights. in the dobbs opinion, roe v. wade, a 50-year-old precedent. it has reversed other presidents -- precendents.

it may do that with affirmative action cases, balky originally allowed universities to consider race as one factor when deciding to admit. that is one thing. also, when they are not reversing precedents, they are making beijing -- major changes to the lot. the gun rights decision at the end of june greatly expanded the right to bear and keep arms under the second amendment, making it difficult for states to pass gun amendment measures. there is a new york gun law, a so-called shadow docket on the court, which the court refused to block it in the meantime, but i am sure that new york law and other laws are going to come up in the regular docket in the coming years and may be struck down. abortion, guns, climate change, the court in june made it more difficult for the federal government to regulate

greenhouse gases. and plenty more. there is a lot happening. it is motivated by ideologically conservative principles, but it is not preceding according to the conservatism of the turtles that are so important to what has been the role of the court. host: let's talk to michael next in cap him, new jersey. caller: good morning, steve. i appreciate your comments. i think a benefit of you, you should also indicate that the atlantic magazine from which you wrote this article came out against the dobbs decision. i am going to hold that for a moment until you address some of the questions i have, because i believe your word of tension essentially is being used uselessly to support those views. i would characterize it as

judicial discourse as opposed to tension. i will go down your arguments. you, first of all, have no direct access to any people on the supreme court. these are strictly observations you have made with the political bias i have talked about in the previous sentence. you have no access to senior staff. it is your observation given the political backdrop of your magazine and your article you indicated. beside essentially a law has got longer in the supreme court, you do not cite the fact the case level at the supreme court is at a record level which may explain why the decisions are being delayed. the third thing you site is basically, if you look at the sanction, you site to republican cases. gore versus bush. you site the dobbs decision.

both obviously decided on conservative merits, whether you agreed or not. those are essentially the court cases you cite to essentially strengthen your argument about dissent in a court. host: michael, there is a lot there. let's answer those. go ahead, steve. guest: i think there were three separate comments. let me see if i can address each one. first, you said i do not have access to senior staff or the justices. that is true. i was not claiming to. the point is to note what what i was witnessing and observing in the court on those days. and, to say it seems different to me then it was before. so, i am not claiming to know anything else behind the scenes about the way things operate. i think when you see crack's in the oral arguments, it is a sign things might not be copacetic behind the scenes also.

your point about the high caseload is the opposite. this is the smallest docket the court has ever seen. in the 1980's, the court would hear 150 cases a year. that went down the past couple of decades to around 60 to 70 cases. in the past 2, 3, 4 years, i do not have the exact numbers, but they are in the 50's. over the course of these argument sessions from october through the end of april, the court is hearing fewer cases than they ever have. i do not think that could be a reason for the delay. the third point i made reference to some conservative victories in bush versus gore and in the dobbs decision from last june. that is true. i think these were two of the major moments when the court has faced tension right afterwards. one of them decided a

presidential election, and the other withdrew for, maybe not the first time in the supreme court history, but maybe the second time, a major individual constitutional right. it is not something that happens every year. host: mason is next in minneapolis, minnesota. republican line. the morning, mason. caller: good morning. one question. you, with the court's investigation providing any evidence, do you think either the senate or house judiciary committee could potentially launch their own investigation into who the leaker was? guest: have not even thought of that. i feel like this is case closed now. there was a little hint there might be further leads they might pursue. but, just focused on the supreme

court internal work, they did not find anyone who by a preponderance of evidence, this was a standard they cited. would have been possible to be a leaker. through another political body in the congress to look into this, i think is very unlikely. we did have a comment from former president trump, the journalist to whom this draft was leaked should be held accountable and should be jailed or forced to give up the names of the people, person or people, who gave them that draft. of course, that is a clear violation of the first amendment. journalists do not have to give up their sources, it is part of our constitutional bedrock. i think this is probably the end of the story, not the end of the

tension. not the end of speculation. i think people on the right are convinced it was someone on the left, people on the left are convinced it was someone on the right. i have no idea who did it. if in eight months a investigation did not turn up anything inside the court and michael chertoff who was the secretary of homeland security under george w. bush reviewed this investigation and said it was done well, there was nothing as i would have done, this is terrific, i do not think anyone else is going to figure it out. host: regarding those tensions, what about chief justice robert? is he concerned about it, is there something he can do about it? guest: i'm glad you brought him up. he is a crucial player in this. he is known as a institutionalist on the court for a reason. he cares about what the public

thinks about the court. there was this brief period after justice kennedy retired in 2018 -- actually, from about 2020 to 2022 when chief justice roberts was the swing vote on the court and he floated to the left in some important cases, i think -- including in an abortion case prior to dobbs, where he had ruled one way in 2016 and then in --i am sorry, in 2018 rate he did not change his mind in 2020, but he sided with what he opposed on the principal -- back to turtles, back to lower conservatism, we shouldn't as a court overrule ourselves a couple of years

after we decided a case. he is a justice who, i think, cares more about the stability of the court and it is notable. i think a lot of people forget even though dobbs was a 6-3 decision, the decision to overrule roe v. wade was 5-4. justice -- wrote a concurrence saying, this is doing too much. we were asked whether a 15 week ban on abortion in mississippi should be upheld. i say, robert says, it should be upheld. but, we do not need to take additional and serious and revolutionary step of overturning it this year. he said, this is a serious jolt to the legal system. this is a conservative justice who is conservative in both ways.

at least, on some matters. he is ideologically conservative, but he sees the importance of not making major changes to the law were more incremental steps can be used. host: speaking of legal precedent, here is a portion from justice elena kagan. she was at a event earlier this fall at a university in rhode island. she talked about that. [video clip] >> what we are afraid of, the court has many decisions about story decided -- stare decisis. we started off with a sense of, a court not acting like a court. a court acting more like a political actor, a extension of the political process. when we see the composition of the court change and then the whole legal system being up for grabs and legal rules getting reversed here and there, that is what makes people worry.

that is what ought to make people worry that something else is going on here other than applying legal principles fairly and consistently. but instead, it just doesn't look like law when the new judges appointed by a new president come in and start tossing out the old stuff. host: that was justice elena kagan. we are taking your calls about the supreme court. lewis, katona, new york is next. democrats line. caller: good morning. thank you for checking my call. i enjoy watching c-span. this has been a very interesting discussion. it is one i have thought about for a while. i am an attorney. i am admitted to the u.s. supreme court, although i have never argued at the supreme court. one thing i have observed, this goes back quite a wild, is the level of extrajudicial activity

by the justices, which i as a lawyer have found increasingly seemly. i think it happens more on the right, you have justices giving lectures to groups like the federalists society, which although are composed of very accomplished, credentialed lawyers, have a specific ideology and agenda, you see it to some extent on the left, but not the same extent -- one, i think that has a very corrosive effect on the way certainly lawyers and maybe the public in general view the supreme court. also, i cannot help but think it has some impact on the relationships of the justices themselves. i wonder what your guest views are on that. host: steven, go ahead. guest: i think it is corrosive

and can have an effect on how justices view each other. we have not had a 6-3 court in a long time, at least a century. we have had a divided court, but have not had a imbalanced court. over the past 50 years, it has been a right-leaning court with a justice in the middle who would float left from time to time, whether it was justice powell, justice o'connell, or for a long time, justice kennedy and justice robert. now 6-3, you have a teacher taught her in such a way --peter taught her -- teeter totter in a way. going through the federal society and having a standing ovation after you overturn roe v. wade or doing other sorts of speaking, or as justice alito

did, take a victory lap in rome after his decision came out overturning roe v. wade last summer. there is some evidence that the majority is luxuriating in its power, that has got to be offputting to the three liberal justices who realize they are more desperate now that it is not just convincing one other justice to side with them in these big other cases. you need two. that is not going to be possible very often. the conservatives are going to win the big, devicive cases. the liberals are going to lose. that is why you see liberal justices being more strident. justice kagan using her brilliance with a sharper tone than she used to. justice jackson, the newest on the court is remarkable in how she has taken the court by storm

in terms of oral arguments. she is speaking more than any other justice by a lot. anymore words -- many more words, i think more power and passion then her colleagues. the liberal justices are not going down without a fight in these cases. they are making the cases clearly and as passionately as they can. i do think as you mentioned, this extracurricular work during the summer mainly, but not only during the summers, but mostly some of the justices on the further right, especially justice alito but also justice amy coney barrett and justice thomas have made some comments that seem to be along the lines that you mentioned. it has got to be upsetting for those who are not in the same position that they were a couple of years ago, at least being in

the mix of making an effort to try to win cases by appealing to a justice on the right. host: bernard is in elk grove, california. independent line. good morning. caller: thank you. that piece you played with justice elena kagan, that was a good piece right there. she was speaking to the politicizing of the court and the credibility. you've got a great guest there, steven. the thing is, mitch mcconnell -- it all started, they bring this stuff on themselves because of the things mitch mcconnell did and the way the court has been acting. when you speak about the credibility, i am not speaking

on justice thomas alone. for instance, he goes on television. i believe i have seen him on c-span. he is saying, it is unconscionable about judges hurting the credibility of the court. this is unconscionable. i am like, ok, well. does this guy have mirrors in his house something? your wife is out here trying to be involved in an insurrection, calling around to politician saying, i've got a friend. i mean, if that is the case, when you talk about credibility, ok. how do you work this? does this guy -- he is a good judge, he has to get off all those cases pertaining to january 6, you know the word i

am trying to say. i am a little nervous. host: we get it, bernard. let's get a response. go ahead, steven. guest: justice thomas, yes. we have talked about a lot of the reasons why the court might be more strained today. in the piece we are talking about, i mentioned dobbs as the main breaking point. there are a lot of other cases. there are internal politics. as you mentioned, there is a lot on the outside, outside the court across the street at the capitol. the ways in which the confirmation process has been politicized is remarkable -- in remarkable and resident in ways paired we do not talk about it much anymore. in 2016, justice scalia died and one hour later, mitch mcconnell said we are not going to fill this seat even though it is february and barack obama is president for 11 more months. this was the start of a major

escalation of the partisan war over the court, outside the court. it has gradually had an influence on the internal workings of the court. yes, it is remarkable and not much discussion happens inside the court building. one of the justices of the supreme court is married to a person who attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 election. when january 6 cases came to the court, justice thomas did not recuse himself. one of the strange things about the supreme court is how unaccountably ethics -- accountable the ethics are as judges, the way federal judges are not. i did not raise that right. other federal judges have a code of ethics, supreme court judges have no binding court of -- coda

methods -- code of ethics. if there is a apparent conflict of interest. even if justice thomas thinks his judgment on a january 6 case is not compromised by his wife's activities attempting to influence the 2020 election after the fact, clearly, he has to see there is at least an appearance of that. but, he does not recuse in those cases. by contrast, ketanji brown jackson in the harvard -- harvard affirmative action case were -- recused herself from that. in the recent past, she has been on the board of overseers of harvard. even though she does not have a direct relationship with harvard right now, she thought, well, there is an appearance because i was recently on the board, i was recently an overseer, some might think i am putting my thumb on the scale for harvard in this

case. so, i am not going to take part in this case, not going to hear the oral argument and decide on it. it is up to each justice to decide how to act. that is something congress can do something about. they could pass a judicial ethics law that makes -- that sets out terms, you must recuse when conditions a, b, c are met. this is something even though he wants the court to be perceived in a positive light by the american public, chief justice roberts a year ago in his year-end report told congress, no reforms necessary, we can do it ourselves. we can regulate ourselves and make sure we are operating well and operating justly. host: let's go to the republican line. ralph is in bass, maine. good morning. caller: good morning. i had a question for your guest. does your guest think abortion

is a constitutional right? host: steven? guest: as a journalist, it is not my main role to decide what is constitutional and what is not. i do not know if i should --it is opening a bottle of 00 at the end of the segment. even though there is a lot of discussion of roe v. wade as a decision was well reasoned, and many who do support abortion rights believe that the privacy rationale was maybe not the best one to ground abortion rights in this constitution, that there might have been other ways to do it such as by looking at the 14th amendment equal protections clause and what it means to treat women equally to men and what is necessary for women's autonomy in their lives, this might have been a better route. there are so many factors to

take into consideration when deciding to overturn a precedent. one of those is reliant interests. i wrote a piece on this for time magazine with kate shaw last may. when a court has an opinion that is deciding whether to overrule needs to look at how long-standing it is, but also how deeply entrenched in the policy and in society it is, how much people rely on it. and arguably, i think it is true that american women for generations have relied on the opportunity to end a pregnancy that is unwanted or is dangerous to them. it is a revolutionary thing for the court to take that away and give so little attention to the question of the reliance interest that americans have had on that decision since 1973.

we are only one day away from what would've been the 50th anniversary of roe v. wade. host: let's take one more call. miles and clarendon hills, illinois. democrats line. caller: thank you. i really like c-span and reading the economist in the morning. thank you for letting me ask you this question. i'm going to ask you, you can choose which one to answer. which thing do you think is contributing most to the erosion of -- the supreme court is contribute most to the tension between justices, or what reform do you think would be helpful to decrease tensions between the justices? thank you. guest: i think what is contributing most to the tension right now is that historic imbalance of 6-3.

not having a justice in the middle, but having basically a predetermined outcome for the major and controversial cases. i do not know what reforms could change that. the only one, i am not sure what the merit on both sides are, i have not thought about it too much. one possibility is that congress could always change the jurisdiction of the court. it could tell the court what types of cases it can hear. so it could take away from the court. this is called jurisdiction stripping. could take away from the court some of the more divisive issues that are stirring up more tension among the justices. but, there are a lot of arguments on both sides on that. to actually define what the jurisdiction would be, i think, is not that easy. there haven't actually been

legislative proposals that have gone anywhere on that particular question. host: steven mazie is the supreme court correspondent for the economist and the author for the atlantic article, the supreme court justices do not seem to be getting along. thank you for being on the program. guest: thank you. host: coming up later on 9:15 eastern, our weekly spot cast hearing. state legislatures discussing a podcast, our american state. top public policy issues facing states, but first is open forum. it is your chance to share political or public policy issue on your mind this morning. you can start calling now. the number is on your screen. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. ♪ >> there are a lot of places to

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c-spanshop.org. >> ♪ 10 days after 9/11, defense intelligence agency analyst was arrested by the fbi on espionage charts is for passing along classified information to the government in cuba, a crime in which he was sentenced 25 years in prison. she was released in 2023 after serving three years. sunday on q and a, investigative journalist jim bunk and author of codename, talks about the life and career of -- and the damage caused by her treachery. >> she didn't take documents out of the building. there he rarely would she take a piece of paper or a photo out. instead, she would memorize. her day job, study and memorization. then, she would go home to her apartment and now her night job

becomes -- begins where she would type in what she learned into her encrypted laptop, put it on a disk. day after day for nearly 17 years, she is aggregating this information and passing it alg. >> jim hawken with his book, codename blue ran -- wren. you can listen to q and a and all of our podcasts on our free c-span now app. ♪ >> ♪ book tv every sunday on c-span two leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. at 8:00 p.m. eastern, producer natosha rogoff details her attempt to launch a russian version of sesame street in the early 1990's following the fall of the soviet union. she is the author of muppets in moscow. washinon post columnist philip

bump, author of the aftermath, examines how baby boomers impacted the u.s. economy and political system and its effect on future generations he is interviewed by millennial action product president. watch book tv every sunday on c-span and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime on book tv.org. ♪ >> "washington journal" continues. host: welcome back to open forum on "washington journal," i am taking your calls on anything public policy or politics related. a couple of things i want to show you before we get to your calls, the first is this article in the wall street journal on the front page about google and google's parent company cutting 12,000 jobs. google's parent company says it will cut its staff by 6% in its

largest ever round of layoffs, extending a retrenchment among technology companies after record pandemic hiring. alphabet thanks says the cut would eliminate roughly 12,000 jobs across different units and regions. some areas including recruiting and product outside of the company's core businesses would be more heavily affected also, another article in the news from the washington post about the tanks ukraine is asking for. it says this. a headline, allies of ukraine split on tanks. dispute centers on german vehicles. the article starts with ukraine's western backers failed friday to resolve a dispute over which nations will supply kyiv with powerful battle tanks that president zelenskyy told them are needed to mount a new offensive against entrenched

russian forces. the disagreement debated hind closed doors among dozens of defense ministers at the facility centers on whether germany is willing to transfer its leopard to tanks to ukraine are at least authorize other nations to supply them. this is on the front page of the post, that march for life that was here in washington yesterday. speaking of that, i want to show you a clip yesterday from the president of the march for life indication of defense fund. he spoke at the first rally since the supreme court struck down roe v. wade. [video clip] >> our 2023 march for life team is next step, marching into a post roe america. leading up to today, we were asked frequently, will we still

march? let me ask you all, what do you think about that question? should we still march? i am sorry, i did not hear some of you in the back. let me ask you again, should we still march? friends, over the course of the past 50 years, the march for life has become the largest human rights demonstration worldwide. while the march began as a response to roe, we do not end as a response to roe being overturned. why? because we are not yet done. >> [applause] >> let me say that again. we are not yet done. >> [applause] >> while this year marks our most significant victory, the human rights abuse of abortion is far from over. sadly, this year alone in the united states, there will be

well over 7000 abortions and we know that in every abortion, one life is taken and at least one life is wounded. so, we will continue to march. we will continue to march until the human rights abuse of abortion is a thing of the past. we will march until abortion is unthinkable. host: it is open forum. we are taking your calls and questions. by the way, i want to let you know vice president kamala harris will be traveling to tallahassee, florida tomorrow. she will be delivering remarks to mark the 50th anniversary of the supreme court's roe v. wade decision back in 1973. it is scheduled to start at 12:15 p.m. eastern, you will be able to find it on our website c-span.org. let's go to the phones now. wilb is first in phoenix,

caller: good morning. it is actually theemocratic line. it is not good gmmar to modify one noun with another noun. host: thank you. caller: the wd republican can be used as both an additive and a nn. mocrat in front of a noun was first used as a pejorative and democrats still see that as an insult. host: how is it used as a pejorative? caller: a long time ago during the eisenhower administration that is when republicans started saying that and i think they were intimidated by the power of the word democratic since we are

a democratic nation. if you look back to english 101, democratic is the additive that describes -- democratic is the adjective that describes the democratic party. the republicans chose to say democratic party as a way to insult democrats. host: that is what you call to tell me? caller: that is all i wanted to say. host: jack is in maryland, republican line. good morning. caller: you are doing a great job.

i want to congratulate c-span for becoming my go to channel for entertainment. i cannot wait until the hearing starts. i hope you have them all on your c-span stations. i don't have any negative feelings from any of the hosts. i think you do a good job and i want to see these hearings. they will be the most important thing going on in this world. host: let's hear from steve, independent line, brunswick, georgia. caller: i am calling about two things. number one is the supreme court ruling on abortion and them not overturning the president and the justices that were picked by donald trump for political reasons to get votes from the

republicans. they said that they were not going to deal with a president. there was a 50 year president when they got into the supreme court. they changed their feelings but they also lied to congress in their interviews for the position. that is number one. number two, on medicare, the largest theft of money from medicare came from senator rick scott who stole under the hca $1.7 billion and now this guy is a republican leader for medicare. i think that is absolutely outrageous and this guy has come to prominence in the republican party and everybody should wake

up and see what is going on in congress. all of these thieves. the third thing is with justice thomas and his wife involved, do not tell me they did not talk about this. she was involved in host: the attack on the capital? caller: she was involved in the insurrection and she was involved in roe v. wade and she is not a supreme court justice and shame on her husband for his rulings. there is a term used and the second part of the term is whipped and he is whipped by his wife and that is all i have to say. host: henry is next in michigan on the line for democrats. caller: good morning.

i thought it was important to call in to try to distill a very important segment you just had on the supreme court. stephen was right to cite two major cases. the gore view bush -- the gore v bush and the roe v. wade decisions. they represent monumental foundational shifts in our judiciary. basically it is saying that conservatism, fascism is on the rise in america even in our judiciary. what is important about gore v bush is that it definitely took away, it was the first time that the federal judiciary, the supreme court had actually

quieted, told the florida supreme court that they could not carry on with your decision to count the votes so they stopped the votes and they basically selected a president. roe v. wade destroyed precedents. these are two damaging things to our democracy. if we cannot trust our judiciary , american democracy is going to be ruined. the conservatives, the republican fascists, are lower house now turned over to insurrectionists, two anti-american fascists, it is very dangerous to our country. i think stephen was trying to say that the court has changed because conservatism and fascism from the republican side has definitely done great damage to

our systems of government and americans need to start to learn how to research your candidates, see what they vote on, how they vote and pick the right candidates that are going to do something for you. especially in those people in the rural areas where the hospitals are closed, where you worry about your medical situations. wake up. host: got it. this is joe in minnesota. transparency and truth need to be forthcoming from the media and not all of the coverups that are being perpetrated. michael in florida. the top story is the shamelessness of ron desantis parading his children in front of the country while funding a bill stating that african-american history does not have educational value.

this guy wants to be president. finally, carroll in massachusetts, with no elected officials remaining in haiti, the country has spiraled into anarchy with gang violence and disease. how can the u.s. address the collapse of haiti? this is not being covered by the media. should these immigrants be given precedents considering the dire situation and true need for seeking asylum? let's talk next to howard in new london, ohio. republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. i have a crazy idea. america is so divided, it is not funny. anybody you talk to always tells you that the government divides us. well this is true. because in congress and in the senate you have republicans on one side, the democrats on the

other side. i don't know where the independence are. do they sit in the middle or what? wouldn't it be a good idea to show the american people not to be divided by everybody sit there. you have democrat, republican, democrat, republican. that way you have two republicans on each side of a democrat and you have two democrats on either side of republicans. that stops the divide right there. but they want to divide it before the conversation even starts. host: i like the idea. let's go to brian next. vacaville, california. independent line. caller: good morning. thanks for taking my call. two things. your first caller talked about democratic versus democrats. to his point, i was watching on

martin luther king day, the civil rights movement era video and they used the term democratic, not democrat. i just wanted to add that. the second point. the second thing i would like to bring up is your first news article about the tech companies , about google laying off employees, i saw that and i also saw an article about or news about microsoft doing the same thing. host: microsoft, amazon, meta, there are several of them. caller: they used to be technology related. the components of their business , the technology side is laying people off and that seems to be what the finance news is talking

about and what you brought up this morning. my question is this. the department of defense just gave a contract to tech companies. and now the tech companies are laying people off. my thought is perhaps there are financial reasons and the economy has changed a little bit. however, is there an evolution of technology that has occurred that we may not be aware of or it has been in the news and i have not seen it yet. that is a thought. host: i did not get that thought . by saying why are they laying off when they got money from the defense department? caller: a lot of the tech companies receive a large contract from the united states department of defense. host: i think you are talking

about the cloud contract. caller: the layoffs occurring within the tech industry are technology-driven, not necessarily manufacturing-driven like manufacturing plants or something like that. i have not read their quarterly reviews or anything like that but the point i would like to bring up is, the main question is has there been an evolution in technology in the united states that is changing the way technology companies are doing their business and they need different kinds of employees? many different types of technology. that is what stimulated a large contract by the united states government. host: i think that contract was

moving the data to the cloud. i don't think it is necessarily an evolution of technology. ron is in johnstown, pennsylvania on the line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning. yesterday i watched the c-span2 program book tv and there was an author talking to republican women. his name was nick adams. he was making comments about joe biden. he called him the most dangerous president. he made a comment that disturbed me. especially the one about the president having dementia. he went on a whole thing about the dementia. first of all, he is not a psychiatrist or psychologist and i have seen many people with dementia. i have worked in 14 nursing homes. also the v.a. nursing home. here in pennsylvania. i have seen dementia firsthand

and joe biden does not have dementia. but he has done more good things for this country in his two years in office than some presidents have done in eight years in office. he has done a lot of reversals of the environmental laws that trump put in effect. i get the publication from sierra magazine so i know what i'm talking about. host: let's get one more call from tom in illinois. republican line. good morning. caller: a couple of things on the supreme court. your caller said that these conservative judges, those judges were fighting to take these electric cases and they did not take them. kudos to roberts for holding

this thing together. the liberals saying the republicans are politicizing the court, let's start with joe biden. you say sometimes it took three hours. at one time it was an hour. the respect for the nominees went downhill from joe biden and the inspector who was part of the warren commission. the cia and the fbi led insurrection and the due process in the january 6 saying, this stuff with the supreme court, the politicization is not coming from the right. it is coming from the left. for your guest to sit there and take shots at -- the bizarre

thing, while cajun is slamming the right, is just bizarre. kudos to roberts for trying to hold this together. host: that is our last call. up next is our weekly spotlight on podcast segment. tim storey of the national conference of state legislatures discusses his podcast "our american states" and the public policy issues we are facing. we will be right back. >> book tv every sunday on c-span2 features leading authors discussing their latest books. at 8:00 p.m. eastern natosha rogoff details her attempt to launch a russian version of sesame street following the fall of the soviet union. she is the author of "muppets in moscow." at 10:00 p.m., philip bump examines how baby boomers have

influenced the political system. he is interviewed by an millennial action project president. watch book tv every sunday on c-span2 and find the schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at book tv.org. listening to programs on c-span through c-span radio app just got easier. tell your smart speaker play c-span radio app and listen to washington journal daily at 7:00 a.m. eastern. important congressional hearings and events throughout the day. weekdays at 5:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. catch washington today for a report of the stories of the day. listen to c-span any time. just tell your smart speaker play c-span radio app. c-span, powered by cable. pres. biden: the state of the union is strong because you, the

american people, are strong. >> president biden his annual state of the union address outlining his priorities to congress on tuesday, february 7, his first state of the union speech since republicans won back control of the house. we will take your phone calls come attacks and tweets. watch on c-span or online at c-span.org. over four days c-span cameras had access to the floor of the u.s. house as a california republican representative kevin mccarthy became the 55th speaker of the house. it was history with unscripted political moments from the house floor. we have for the past 43 years with uninterrupted coverage of congress. here is what people are saying about c-span. a hollywood reporter wrote c-span is america's hottest tv drama in 2023. the wall street journal says,

the house speaker drama has won winter. and from the washington post, c-span has become must watch tv. you might not knowhat will happen in the walls of congress. on one thing you can be sure. c-span will be there. thanks to the support of these cable companies. c-span, your unfiltered view of government. powered by cable. >> "washington journal" continues. host: welcome back. it is our spotlight on podcast segment and my guest is tim storey. he is the host of "our american states" podcast. he is chief executive officer of the national conference of state legislatures. welcome to the program. guest: thank you for inviting me. i am excited. host: tell us about the national conference of state legislatures . what is the organization's mission? guest: national conference of state legislatures, often called

ncsl in washington world, we are the organization that brings together legislative staff from all 50 states and the territories and the district of columbia to talk about their jobs as legislatures and what they can do to pass good laws where they can learn from each other. our mission has three pieces. number one, to strengthen the institution of the legislature. we believe in the voice of the people and the representatives of democracy and voters sending people to their state capitals to delve deeply into issues and make good public policy for the people in their state, especially respecting how different the states are across the country and making laws that are designed for the culture and the circumstances that are so diverse from one state to the next. the second thing we do is we bring legislators and

legislative staff together to talk about common solutions to common problems. right now one of the greatest issues facing the nation for the public sector and the private sector our workforce issues. we had a number of conferences recently on what state policies can do to help for both the companies as well as their own state government who are trying to solve the issue of qualified applicants and candidates. the final thing we do is we represent the state in washington to the federal government. anytime congress is looking at something, a lot of times it has a strong connection to what states are doing. the united states are the strongest subnational governments in the world. we are a nation of states. that is how it started with the constitution as i am sure you know. we are all about strengthening

the institutional legislature, bringing staff together to network and representing washington are 7386 step legisls plus another 200 in the territories and 30,000 legislative staff. host: how does it work with the states? do they become members of the organization and what is the funding like? guest: that is a great question. we usually don't have 7386 members. we have 50 members. the legislators themselves are the members. they actually do pay dues to our organization. i often describe our group as every other professional association. the american medical association for doctors. there is the association for truckers and farmers. every group has a group where they come together at the

national level. we are just like that. there are other groups like ours , the national governors association on the executive side of state government. the league of cities. the u.s. conference of mayors. the national association of counties. we work closely with those partners because a lot of times the state and local issues need to have a voice. a lot of times the states are leading policymaking in the country. we really do have 56 members. the states, the territories, the district of columbia. we have international members with parliamentarians from around the world. host: let's reminder our viewers if you would like to call in and weigh in with your thoughts or a question, call us on our lines by party affiliation. democrats (202) 748-8000. republicans (202) 748-8001.

independents (202) 748-8002. tim has several podcasts. one of them is called "our american states." tell us what it is about. guest: politicians know how to put their name on a ballot to get elected. you are not in it for the salary or the glamour. these are people who truly want to go deep. they get put on committees. they learn at the deepest levels about the complicated issues they deal with. when i think of "our american states" it is the policy geek podcast. we talk about everything states are talking about.

gene therapy, vaccine distribution, covid in the criminal justice system, the criminal justice system, minimum wage, the workforce issues, healthcare, mental health. if i want to talk about another one of the top four issues that legislatures are dealing with right now, the behavioral health crisis in this country and just about every legislature across the political spectrum are focusing on this issue. we have done a podcast about that. procurement issues for states. we also talk about civility and the institution and how legislatures have evolved. how they can be better institutions and serve the people that send them there. listening to constituents, responding to constituent and also how their committees are structured. stuff like that, really inside baseball about the institutions of legislatures. i could go on and on about the

issues that have been on that podcast but it really tends to be policy-focused. we have a unique situation which is that unlike congress, by the way, it occurred to me that every legislator in the united states is a member of ncsl. most of them are at the national level and do all kinds of stuff with us. we do not have the united states congress. that is one legislature that is not a member of our organization for a lot of reasons. what i was going to say is that in most states these legislators often wear two hats. they run a business in their district or they are a school administration or or a schoolteacher or they are retired and they go to the capital. a lot of times they drive to the capital. when it comes to the podcast, we find that they have these reviews. they have to drive in for

sessions on monday afternoon and go home on friday. we have a unique audience in the legislators and the legislative staff that have this pattern to their week where it is super crazy monday evening through friday morning and they have these plug-ins where they can listen to podcasts. host: you mentioned several times the workforce issue. i want you to comment on the teacher shortage but first take a look at kentucky governor andy beshear, a democrat. he gave his state of the commonwealth address earlier this month where he talks about that. [video clip] >> through hard work are commonwealth has become a leader and the rest of the country has noticed. in fact, kentucky led the country in new job creation in august and we tied for first in september. but it is not enough just to get to the top. we have to stay on top. that takes work and that takes investment.

today my state represented of derek graham filed a bill that should serve as a roadmap for where we need to go and blueprint on how we can continue to build. the first bill contains our education first plan which begins with a 5% pay raise for every public school educator. [applause] the passage of this bill is both vital and necessary to address kentucky's shortage of nearly 11,000 public school teachers. as a parent of two public school students i know the impact of not having an english, math or science teacher. i have sat beside my kids during distance-learning just like so

many of you did. a simple fact is you cannot address learning loss without enough educators. put it another way, you cannot catch a kid up on math without a math teacher. addressing our teacher shortage absolutely requires a pay raise. just over the last year kentucky dropped from 42nd to 34th in teacher pay. we must act. failure to do so harms our children and undermines public education. it is long past time for universal pre-k. [applause] universal pre-k helps young parents rejoin the workforce while ensuring every single kentucky child is kindergarten ready. our education first plan also

provides funding for education resources, mental health support for our students and loan forgiveness program for our teachers. together let's make kentucky a shining example of how to treat both are educators and our students. [applause] host: i am curious about your comments as to not just the teacher shortage. there are firefighter shortages, shortages in mental health professionals. what is the solution? what do you recommend? guest: that is a big question that we could do three or four segments on. it is a good question. my first observation is what you heard from the kentucky governor is what i heard in just about every other state in the state address. it sounded, when he started

i love the fact that kentucky is number one in whatever he said it, which is probably technically accurate. every governor had some line, we are leading the nation in this thing. it sounded very familiar. the fact that that governor elevated the agenda. the governor is the chief executive of the state. they do set the agenda. what people don't quite understand is the leaders have a bigger impact on the issues, the agenda the state will take up during the session. they do not go all here. the only go for part of the year. in a number of states, it's only three or four months. what can states do? one of my favorite sayings is

the best time to plant the tree is 25 years ago. the second best time is today. the policies that would've helped us not be in the situation we are in, we didn't do those 10 years ago or 20 years ago. this the situation we are in. there is a tremendous issue -- states are looking at setting up programs for specific occupations where they have problems. they are looking at licensing issues, recruiting workers. i've never seen so much competition between states. come to our state, the cost of living is lower and we pay our nurses better, we pay our teachers better. they're looking at the issues of salary, compensation, which is

much bigger. he talked about proposing an increase of teacher pay. another big theme of legislatures right now, the states are in strong shape. they are budget experts. there revenue experts have predicted how much will come in are looking at around the corner over the horizon and thinking if the recession comes, with is that due to state revenue. we had a massive influx of money from the federal government through a number of different plans. a tremendous amount of funds float through the state and the legislatures with the help of the governors. they have a strong say in how the money gets allocated. it's in all of the above approach. i think every state is looking at it.

most of these people have famous characterizations the states are a laboratory of democracy. this goes back to the 1920's. in the 1920's, i think that concept is as robust today as it was 100 years or 50 years ago. states are going to be looking at solutions. this is where our organization is so important. maybe they can't get the national experts to give them advice and every committee. host: one more question for me before we take calls, that is about fentanyl. i've got a headline from the texas tribune that says to texas lawmakers are warming to opioid harm reduction policies they

once opposed. what is going on with that? guest: number one, the crisis, a word often overused, is clear and present. when i talked to legislative leaders, this is one of those top-tier things. it is played out in the last three years. the pandemic has affected everything. one of the issues they are looking at, the pandemic has had a big impact on it. even some of the old issues around opioids that states dealt with seven or eight years ago. they have raised back priorities. it has connected to so many other issues. access to criminal justice issues.

i'm glad you brought up this particular issue. legislatures worked together. i am not optimistic that much is going to happen in this u.s. congress with president biden. i would like to be. i do not see them working together. one chamber is controlled by one party. the last time we had a divided government in washington, you had -- and a two-year span of time, they only passed about 450 pieces of legislation. the 50 states pass over 20,000 in one year. over 85% of the bills they passed are bipartisan. most -- i suspect that most viewers watch what happens in washington.

they don't spend a lot of time thinking about what happens in their state capitol. if all you do is watch washington, you've got partisan lines to call in. you think that democrats and republicans cannot work together. that is not accurate. in the state capitals, they are working together all the time. there are headline issues. i'm not going to say that it's all kumbaya and they hold hands on every issue. 85% of the time, they are working together to solve problems. host: mike is in california on the independent line. did morning. caller: my question is simple. why was a constitutional amendment required for alcohol prohibition, but not for drug prohibition?

host: what do you think? guest: why is the amendment banning alcohol sales and then it was repealed. the question is why? why is there not -- host: drugs. guest: you can address drug policy through state law in myriad ways. of course, the process to amend the constitution is extremely difficult. you have to have it proposed to congress, approved by three quarters -- two thirds of the states. we haven't amend the constitution in 20 years, since the last amendment to not allow

the congress to raise its own salary. that's been floating around in the states for a hundred years. of course, you could amend the constitution. that's the ultimate law. that's why it needs to be voted on by a super majority of congress. the governors don't get any say in amending the constitution. it's been a long time since we amended the u.s. constitution. host: let's talk to kathy next on the independent line. caller: i am calling in about the gentleman from kentucky, the governor from kentucky was talking about how he was going to raise pay for teachers and give students a better chance at an education. someone called in and said this

to him and talking now said all governors say that kind of thing. i believe that biden chose kentucky to put in a chip manufacturing company. that going to telephones, they require the chips. it's going to be made in kentucky. for the government to say that, he is going to have the money to be able to do that and get educators arrays of pay. guest: by thought there is the state budgets are multiple billions of dollars. state legislatures appropriate $2 trillion every year. it is competing priorities.

they've got difficulty with finding christian workers, finding bus drivers. all the other positions you need to get an education. states compete for the same talent that the other companies compete for in terms of i.t.. maybe that starts to change the equation on talent in that particular job. my point is when you are legislator, one big thing you do is pass the budget. states have to balance their budget. 49 of them have a requirement to balance the budget. philly one that doesn't is vermont. the other 49 do. vermont does balance their budget every year. unlike the federal government,

which doesn't do that. the point is when you have to pass a balanced budget, you have to put money into mental health and nursing homes and state parks. it is a very challenging job. these americans, a diverse group of people, they do it every year. some of them have two-year budgets. generally, they are trying to decide to give health-care workers raise. do we give the other people, the people who work in our state parks, it is very complex. host: there is a question from charlie in pennsylvania. why does the american legislative exchange council

right laws? guest: i don't think that's accurate. let's talk about what it is. they are organizing principle is conservative jeffersonian principles. their shorthand is alec. we do not do model legislation. we just provide information. one year, our president is republican, the next year our president is a democrat. this is a different organization. what they do is they go out with a position. they want the state to enact. we don't lobby in state. i think there is a perception they have.

if you did the analysis and said 200,000 pieces of legislation passing, they have some impact. i think it's an exaggeration that they write the laws. host: let's talk to janet next in new jersey. caller: good morning. i am calling in about the remark but didn't finish. that's about the fentanyl issue. we are talking about the opioid crisis. this is related to those that are addicted to opioids or any other substances. the people that are really suffering are people such as myself who have injured themselves. i worked as a medical professional and i was injured

at work. i am now bedridden because physicians are refusing to write for any opioids, anything that could help me. they are pushing for procedures such as nurse emulators or cutting the nerves. this is making more money for the people that are making the procedures rather than helping us with medications. many people are committing suicide. guest: i didn't catch the name of the collar. janet? my heart goes out to. i think your story is far too common across the country.

hopefully, our elected leaders at the state level are really paying a keen attention to this. i would say legislatures are a cauldron of interests and ideas. the most powerful voices in the process -- i truly believe this. the strongest voice are people like janet, contact their representative and do a zoom call. reach out to the people who represent you. a lot of times, it doesn't matter what your party is. they want your stories. when you are looking at the mix of possible solutions, you are right.

they are talking to legislators. the people are talking as well. in congress, there is a layer of staff. they are going to listen to. i would encourage janet and people like her to reach out and talk to your officials. they do want to hear from their constituents. host: let's go to midland, texas. go ahead. caller: this leads into what i'm talking about. they are concerned. i recall trump told black people, what do you have to lose. i took a trip to mississippi. that is the poorest state in the union.

they live off food stamps and government assistance. they don't have clean drinking water. they don't have jobs. they continue to vote republicans. we all know that the republican party cares nothing for the poor. they want to take away social security. i know the show is about to end. maybe tomorrow, maybe they can tell me why they continue to vote republican when they don't do anything for them. they don't even have clean drinking water. host: go ahead. guest: i appreciate his perspective. i understand the frustration of people have with both parties

and what they see coming out of the white house. i have had this tremendous privilege of meeting with thousands of these elected officials at the state level. i appreciate where he is coming from. when i talked to democrats and republicans, some them are hyper partisan, like the people who are the attention grabbers in washington. the vast majority of them do care. they want to do what is right for the people of their state. and i promise you you will get the response you want? there are 335 million americans.

sometimes if you reach out to people don't share the same views, you don't vote for their party. i would encourage you to give it a try. what can we do about it? can we find common solutions? putting aside the noise and the hostility, the toxicity, working together. i would encourage your viewers to reach out, go to the capital if you're able to in schedule a meeting. you might really be surprised. host: clyde is in it. -- oklahoma. caller: how are you doing today? host: we are doing good. go ahead. caller: i was wondering how come

it seems like federal laws are not being enforced. it's that simple. they've already got laws on the books, they're not smart enough to look and see if they have laws. now they are passing laws on top of laws that they already have. thank you. guest: i think he echoes what can be very confusing, the difference between federal law and state law. even your local town will have ordinances about minor track it -- traffic events. most criminal cases are state cases. he started the comment talking

about enforcement and these are complex things. we have a federal system that tends to put many people to sleep. it is unique to the world how we have established our governing systems. we live in an extremely diverse country. we've got a system that tries to get government close to the people. that's what the states are. go talk to your mayor. go talk to your city council, your commissioners. if you've got specifics, why aren't we enforcing this law? i think they will listen to you if you're making a case. host: there is a question from joe in pennsylvania.

why doesn't your organization have a liaison in congress to tell our representatives what is needed in all states? guest: that is kind of a great idea. we had legislators for that. they are often having close personal relationships. we have them go in it, you are thinking about passing this piece of legislation? you are going to override where you serve. that's not how this country works. our states have unique challenges, they are incredibly diverse in terms of their economy as well as the needs of the people, their history. that's why we have a system that

allows the laws to be uniquely customized for different state cultures. it's a great idea. we work pretty well as congress. we have had some terrific partners in the white house as far back as i can remember. i will also tell you we have been called out a number of times. why did the states he do working when the federal government is not working? there are a number of things to share about how to be more effective. this is the time we're in. legislatures are going to try to solve the problems in their states. i fear we are going to see more gridlike in d.c..

host: ramona is next in georgia. good morning. caller: how is everybody doing today? my question is this. you said your organization talks directly to the state representative. what are they saying about the ideology about welfare expansion, medicaid and medicare , which is given to them on the federal level, but they refused because of ideology. we just had a hospital close here in decatur. they refused the money. the hospitals are closing in rural areas and cities.

what are they saying about that? guest: that's an outstanding question. you are paying attention. the medicaid expansion passed in 2009. there was an element that had to be approved and there was a matching fund that came in from the state. at this point, 39 states have done that, including quite a number of republican-controlled states. a couple of them have done it through ballot initiatives. you are now down to 11 states. what our organization does, we provide information about the pros of expansion and it does cost additional money to the states. some say we want to do this, how do we fund it?

it's a tremendous expense, even with the majority of the money coming from the federal government. what our organization does, we say here is a lot of information. this is what the states before you have experienced. like i said, we are down to 11 states you haven't done this. several of them are looking at it in these sessions. host: it's a really important question. one more call from missouri. it good morning. caller: i have a comment regarding the teacher shortage. there is going to be an attempt this year in missouri to include

homeschoolers as far as receiving equity in state taxes the go toward schools. my family -- we all live on the same place here. there are eight of us. they have homeschooled ever since my granddaughter was in kindergarten basically. speaking with might representative here in missouri, there is going to be a move within the legislature to reward those homeschoolers by paying the same amount that the school system would receive if my grandchildren would go to regular school. what we have found in investigating this opportunity, there is discrimination placed on homeschoolers as far as

participation in high school sports. they are not allowed currently to play in high school sports. there will be a movement this year in missouri to deal with that. host: let's get a response. guest: this is a terrific example of how policy varies from state to state. this may not be the case in other states. school choice is a huge issue. they have to look at that big picture. there are all kinds of circumstances. they find the balance between limited resources. they are looking at their resource allocation and how they

provide a strong education system. this is where they are in the driver seat making education policy. this is a great opportunity. listen to what the people on the other side are saying. there is not one-sided side or two sides to this. there are usually 10 sides, especially something like school choice. other states have done things beyond what missouri has done. a number of done things that are not as advanced. it's a great point that they are dealing with these issues. they need a good education system. that is the backbone to a terrific way of life.

that's a great question. it sounds like you are really on top of it. they will listen to you. that's why encourager viewers to do. we probably have a podcast about school choice options. you can check out our american states. if you measure the amount of information, it's one of the biggest in the country or the world. host: tim storey, the national state legislatures. thank you so much. guest: have a great day. host: join us again tomorrow morning at 7:00 eastern. in the meantime, have a great day.

>> c-span's washington journal, everyday we are taking calls live on the air, on the news of the day, and discussing policy issues that impact you. sunday morning, a reporter from the hill talks about the military aid package to ukraine. amy littlefield on abortion access in the u.s. since he the supreme court decision last summer that overturned roe v. wade and talk about the 50th anniversary in the future of the pro-life movement with a government relations director for concerned women for america.

also a senior fellow at the brookings institution on the need the federal government to focus on issues impacting boys and men in the u.s. watch c-span's "washington journal" live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span or c-span now, our free video mobile app. join the discussion with your phone calls, facebook comments, texts, and tweets. >> today, a conference of mayors . in a conversation about the importance of reporting hate crimes to the national database. then, more from the conference of mayors with the conversation on ways to reduce gun violence. later, democrat wes moore, recently elected maryland's first black governor talks about annapolis. on sunday, vice president harris marks the 50th anniversary of the supreme court's roe v.