sorry, treatments. not doing much with testing or vaccines. [closing bell rings] liz: kevin we hear the bell. your last pick is xlv, health care select sector. thanks for joining us. kevin miller, e-evaluator funds. closing bell, nice rally. well off the session highs but still a tuesday after a holiday, folks will take it. join me 6:00 p.m. tonight @lizclaman man when futures trading begins. melissa: reopening the country, sparking a rally on wall street. the dow fighting a close above 25,000 as the new york stocks exchange partially reopens today. i'm melissa francis. connell: i'm connell mcshane. welcome to "after the bell." we were off the session highs for major averages but still really nice rally. still firmly in positive territory at the close. hopes for a possible vaccine being developed and certainly plenty of optimism about reopening the economy. so we'll cover it all. fox business team coverage.

blake burman is watching latest coming out of the white house. in fact we're expecting remarks in a few moments from the president in the rose garden. before we get to that, it is lauren simonetti on the market rally. lauren? lauren: a lot to get through. you don't want to complain. you have a 500-point rally the day after a holiday weekend but what took the market off bigger levels, the dow hit 25,000 for the first time since the lockdown began in early march. the s&p had topped 3,000. those levels did not hold on a "bloomberg news" report that u.s. officials were considering sanctions on chinese companies and chinese officials for their handling of the hong kong situation. so still a broad-based rally but we came off those levels as you can see. the nasdaq had been at its highest level since february 21st. there were hopes as the economy does reopen, as we noticed, this weekend, memorial day weekend there is hopes on the medical front too. 10 vaccines are currently in human trials. novavax is latest, the stock is

up 5%. merck, a dow component at 1%. they teamed up with partners to develop two coronavirus vaccines. look at moderna, down 16% own a report that one ever the humans in one of their trials had adverse reactions. so that didn't help, overall market at the end of the day today. if you look at beaten down sectors, cruise lines, airlines, retail, those stocks, many of them jumping into double digits as investors hunt for bargains. tough remember some of these names are now 50, 70% down this year so they did get cheap of the as america gets moving again transportation stocks rallied. knight swift transportation hitting a 52-week high today. as i said earlier this rally was broad. it took the economically sensitive sectors which started to rally as we discussed last week, to even higher levels. industrials in the drivers seat

today. as they say rising tide lifts all boats. investors ignored most of the day china news and pretty lousy economic data on consumer confidence as well as new home sales better than expected, but still bad numbers. so the question left to be answered, guys is, has the market bottomed after today's rally and type of rally we saw. renewed optimism certainly seeing. is it temporary? back to you. connell: we could go cliche, only time will tell, lauren, only time will tell. he will be in the rose guarden expected to deliver remarks on protecting seniors and there's the set-up. looks like we have a few minutes before the president starts speaking as we bring blake burman in on this. leaders of big drug companies will be there as well, right, blake? reporter: there was direct message getting back to the china story, a direct message from president trump today to hong kong warning against a crackdown, potential, to china,

rather, warning against a potential crackdown on hong kong. this was the message that was conveyed earlier this afternoon from the white house press secretary kayleigh mcenany. watch. >> i went directly to the president to get an answer on this and he said to me that he is displeased with china's efforts and that it's hard to see how hong kong can remain a financial hub if china takes over. reporter: which means what? would the united states change its relationship with hong kong? >> i have no further announcements as to the precise action the president will be taking but he did want me to share that with you this morning, this afternoon i should say. reporter: elsewhere today the president's top economic advisor larry kudlow also said the white house isn't ready to unveil the president wants to see, potential next step relief measures. that will potentially be a topic of conversation tomorrow as the president will sit down with new york's governor, andrew cuomo. saying he will talk to the president about using infrastructure to try to reignite the economy.

>> i'm going to go to washington tomorrow, scheduled to meet with the president, to talk, one of the things i want to talk to the president about, want to reopen the economy, let's do something creative. let's do it fast. reporter: keep looking at a shot of the rose garden as we expect president trump here any moment now. the announcement is going to deal with seniors with diabetes and insulin costs. connell and melissa, white house unveiling this afternoon they struck a deal with insulin manufacturers and health care companies they say will bring down the costs for seniors who have diabetes by average of $450 a year. back to you. connell: reporters now taking their seats in the rose garden. we'll keep an eye on that. thank you, blake. melissa. melissa: top economists in the obama administration is

predicting we're about to see the best economic data in the history of this country. "politico" piece saying that quote, trump could be poised to benefit from the dramatic numbers produced during the dramatic redown stage likely to coincide with the four months before november. here is dan henninger of "wall street journal." he is a fox news contributor. they went on to say the general election scenario democrats are dreading, basically the ideas we would see this big rebound right in time for the election but the timing to me, dan, is so precarious, because they would have to be an august, september, october, bounce with enough time for people to really feel the change in order for it to really work in the president's benefit. what is your thoughts on the timing? >> well i think the timing is pretty good in that respect. the economy is beginning to reopen. we can see that happening all

over the country. and i think what the former obama economist jason furman was suggesting is that, you know, it is a little bit like a nascar race or indianapolis 500. at the starting gate those cars are going zero miles an hour. the apocalypse scenario for covid in the united states shut down the economy, you know, effectively towards zero. so we're going to get started again. and acceleration rate could be pretty brisk, could be pretty swift as we move through the summer. that does not mean we're going to get back to anything resembling the economy we had before this was happening. but i think if the growth in employment and business activity does look strong, relatively strong as it accelerates, as it goes through the gears, you know, i think that could benefit the president indeed. that is kind of what people are looking at, whether the response from the economy, the one that we had before all of this happened is going to be real.

and so yeah, i think it would be a big plus for president trump. melissa: we've heard so many idiotic shapes bandied about, this could be like the nike swoosh. maybe it will be a w and all of these different ideas that we wouldn't have, sort of that v-shaped recovery that is academically thought to happen after a deep, you know, stall or, like this, that it could go along the bottom. in fact when you look at from your own "wall street journal." when you guys were talking i think it was this morning about some of the stats, disparity between the states, for example in florida, only 4% of construction workers lost their job compared to new york where 41% have? in other words there are a lot of bumps along the way. and that, i don't know, how do you address that within this scenario? >> well, i think the, i don't think, jason furman was suggesting, and democrats were afraid the economy was going to go through the roof or

accelerate quickly, adverse, democrats are really worries that the economy revives, which is a kind after sad thing that for a party to be in favor of. don't make a mistake, there are structural changes in the u.s. economy. the coronavirus affected the country in different ways. new york city, the hardest hit, new jersey, connecticut, the northeast. less so in rest of the country but nonetheless, the economy was shut down in much of the rest of the country and we saw what has happened to business travel, pretty much international travel, nothing going on. so i think it could take a while before those structural changes get addressed, whether people are willing to move around the country, get together in large groups, go back to work in large office buildings. that could be slow but nonetheless, would i expect the economy to show steady, upward movement. since the president still gets pretty strong numbers on his handling of the economy, i think

that could redown to his benefit. melissa: what do you think governor cuomo asks for tomorrow besides money? obviously he is going there with his hat in his hand asking for a contribution but this is just a couple days after he tried to pivot and pin on the president the fact here in new york state we've had, for example, five times as many deaths in nursing homes due to the coronavirus as a place like florida, which ostensibly has an older population, yet they had maybe 1000 people pass away in nursing homes versus in new york where the number is somewhere between five and six thousand? >> yeah, that's right. i was looking at some of those coronavirus, covid death numbers over the weekend and the drops have been precipitous in states like florida, georgia, texas. some are well below 10 a day. i think that is a number a lot of people look at, as opposed to say new york, which has a significant number of deaths. as we just heard in your report,

governor cuomo says he is going to go down and talk to the president about something like infrastructure spending. well infrastructure spending has got to be the slowest way to restart the economy imaginable. it takes years to get those kinds of projects going. i think a big question here is, if the democrats are worried that there could be a spurt in the economy through the summer, what are their democratic proposals going to be? what is joe biden going to propose as opposed to what president trump wants to do which is free the economy? you know the democrats on infrastructure, spend having been talking about things like "medicare for all" or direct payments to individuals, which strikes me as a fairly weak model. it kind of resembles the obama model of eight years when economic growth was relatively slow, below 2%. job creation was relatively slow as well. so i think they're in a tough spot. they seem to have separated

themselves, democrats, separated themselves from the private sector and they don't seem willing to do things to incentivize businesses to get back to work. melissa: yeah. i mean, according to the federal reserve the obama-biden administration presided over the slowest recovery in economic history. dan hen thank you. connell. connell: back on the floor today. governor of new york, andrew cuomo was there to ring the opening bell at new york stock exchange this morning. indeed some of the floor brokers did return to that floor for the first time in two months. to jackie deangelis live in lower manhattan with details on all of this. jackie? reporter: good afternoon to you, connell. that's right. one of the longest shutdowns of nyse floor on record. nine weeks to be exact as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. just to give you some perspective, four business days was the shutdown after 9/11, for example. now electronic trading did take place for that time period. the markets were functioning but

still having said that, this is an iconic symbol, if you will, of america and free markets. really a big deal it was closed. and a big deal a quarter of the floor traders were allowed back in today but things do look different. everybody is wearing masks. social distance something taking place. plexiglass dividers between the work spaces, that kind of thing. they will take it day by day before if they decide if media comes back in, if visitors come back in to ring the bell and if the regs of the team can join their colleagues and coworkers. having said that, it is a signal of strength in many ways. we were able to talk to the nyse president, stacy cunningham about that. she explained how important it was for this organization and for new york city and america to see the floor go live again today. listen. >> it was sounded right here on the street outside in 1792 where traders were meeting back when the country was being founded.

we were a constant. we've been tried before. we had challenges. we always rise and reopen. that is why the day feels so important for so many of us part of this community for so long. reporter: to enter the building today you had to sign a waiver, saying if you get sick or take the virus home to your family, that the new york stock exchange is not going to be liable for it. stacy cunningham that is to enforce among the people how seriously they have to take the measures, safety measures being implemented. having said that, many people say you know for the last nine weeks electronic trading worked fine. she told me the human element is key when you have complex trades and big ipos which is what the nyse is known for, guys. back to you. connell: all right. jackie deangelis live in new york for us this afternoon. melissa? melissa: reopening the u.s. for business. nearly 39 million americans filing for unemployment benefits in the last nine weeks. as local leaders grapple with

how to safely reopen their economies, including one former new york hot spot. we will talk to the mayor of new rochelle about his path forward for the region next. plus, tech in the fight against covid-19. details on a new sanitizing method that is gaining steam across the u.s. stick around. where will you go first? will it be familiar streets? or perhaps unknown roads? wherever you may go, lexus will welcome you back with exceptional offers. find a lexus for every road at lexus.com. no payments for up to 90 days on all 2020 lexus models. experience amazing at your lexus dealer.

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melissa: "fox business alert." "the wall street journal" is reporting that the department of justice is closing investigations into senators kelly loeffler, james inhofe and dianne feinstein for stock trading made shortly before the coronavirus market turmoil but is continuing a related probe into senator richard burr. connell. connell: once the epicenter of new york's corona outbreak, new rochelle reopening after governor cuomo set a containment area in the city. the mayor joins us now. mr. mayor, how do things, let me start with that, how do things go today. a small portion of your

businesses that were closed allowed to reopen in phase one. what is the update? >> things are much better than 2 1/2 months ago, that's for sure. having been one of the first communities in america to confront the coronavirus and having been in the national spotlight as a result, we take some special satisfaction having reached this milestone. we are cautiously optimistic we'll make progress and work all the way through the faces until we achieve a reopening. we want to do our part to make sure we have strong, robust recovery here in new rochelle and throughout our region. connell: it was in march 10th, that containment area, one mile radius was first put in place in your city. as you say, 2 1/2 months, sometimes it feels like 2 1/2 years, we've been all through it since then, how quickly things changed after that. what have you learned? >> i learned this is a tough and resilient community. it has been enormous to see how the people of new rochelle risen to the challenge.

they supported each other. they have been responsible taking direction from public health authorities. there has been an outpouring of assistance for the vulnerable members of our community, for businesses that have been struggling. so i am very proud of how the city has addressed an unprecedented challenge. it gives me confidences as we look ahead. to be clear, we're not out of the woods yet, an active cases covid in new rochelle. we can't let our guard down prematurely or the numbers go in the wrong direction. that is a credit to the hard work everyone is engaged in together. connell: some of the video is showing for days after, this is march 15th now. we were showing some drive-in testing centers you put in place early on before anyone else weren't in that direction. is the glass half-full or hat empty, mr. mayor, how you approach things? in other words are you optimistic about the economy bouncing back or to your earlier point are you more worried about

a resurgence of the virus? >> my nature i'm a kind of half glass full kind of guy. i always want to look on the bright side. the, no question the worst of this experience is behind us. numbers tell us the prevalence of the virus is going down. the construction, manufacturing, limited retail can begin today is a positive indicator for us. let's not kid ourselves. we are tens of millions of people throughout the country who are out of work. many families here in new rochelle who are struggling economically, financially, so there's a lot of uncertainty still ahead of us. we'll have to come together as a country in order to deal both with the public health challenges and with the economic challenges because those things are intertwined. connell: there has been some talk how quickly we move from phase one to two, to three, eventually to four in new york. will you be advocating with the governor and governor's office to move faster, maybe not leave two weeks in between faces? there was discussion over the

weekend whether that was necessary. the governor seemed to say maybe not if things go well. >> i think the governor put in place a sensible framework which monitors different metrics throughout each region, how much hospital capacity there is, how much icu capacity there is, what is the rolling average of new infections, what is the death rate, as long as we keep things moving in the right direction, it is my hope we will progress through different faces as quickly as possible. we're eager to get back to some semblance of normal live, if we do it too quickly, we will back slide. we are self-defeating. i'm prepared to listen to the scientists, to the doctors, listen to the health professionals that is the attitude most people in new rochelle have and most people in the country have. connell: as a final point, you say we're still in the middle of all of this and we're not quite through it yet. especially if there is second wave as many people fear. that said, have you started to look back over the last couple

months and take any stock how things were done and if so, do you think anything should have been done differently? >> well, i think anytime you go through an experience like this and you examine 2 1/2 months of everyone to some degree making it up as we go along because we don't have any prior experience of this scale, you can always identify things that could have been done differently and better. but that kind of assume as level of perfect knowledge which none of us had. overall i'm satisfied that the response was rational, logical, based on the facts that people had at the time. and also that, the general public responded in a thoughtful way. connell: even with nursing homes, mr. mayor, even with the way nursing homes were handled? >> look it is complicated way between nursing homes and hospitals the way people move back and forth between each location. each is enormously vulnerable, has a population, if the virus spreads can be deadly as we all know.

so, i'm not going to second-guess the choices that were made because i'm confident that everyone in this process was doing the best they could based on the information available. in some instances there is no good choice. and you're choosing between bad options. here we are, it is 2 1/2 months later. the virus prevalence is declining by the day. in our former containment zone in new rochelle there are literally zero active cases of covid-19 today, which is a good benchmark for us as well. we're all looking ahead to continuing that progress provided that we act responsibly and we stick together and do what is needed to be done in order to move ourselves to the next stage. connell: we may have not known it on the 10th of march, but we all ended up in the same boat with all of this. noam bramson, mayor of new rochelle, new york. melissa. melissa: one college student

transformed a volunteer food program into a nationwide delivery service. in about 24 hours spacex will launch its first-ever human crew into space. we'll talk to one local florida schiff about safety precautions ahead of this very historic flight next. >> this is a unique opportunity to bring all of america together in one moment in time, and say, look how bright the future is.

♪. connell: "fox business alert as we come back, the president has now come out. he is in the rose garden for this announcement we've been waiting for accompanied by heads of some of the major drug companies. the announcement is expected to be centered on saving money for american senior citizens who use insulin. let's listen to the president already underway in the rose garden. >> for hundreds and thousands of seniors enrolled in medicare

that's a big deal. participating plans will cap costs at just $35 a month per type of insulin and some plans may offer it free. so for everybody that is getting ripped off and paying tremendous prices, senior citizens, and sema, i want to thank you, you brought this to my attention long time ago, you worked very hard on this day, and the press won't even cover it but they will cover things that are unimportant but this is a big day for seniors. this is a tremendous saving and it allows people, if you don't take insulin, i just wrote this down, go blind, stroke, amputation, kidney failure, and other things. so we're getting it out, $35 per month it would be 50, 150, to

$200 a month. a massive cut. 60 to 70%. nobody seen anything like this for a long time. sleepy joe can't do this, in fact i can tell you it was his problem with obamacare that caused part of your problem. this will save impacted americans an average of minimum, $446 just on insulin cost as year. we're pleased to be joined by vice president mike pence and surgeon general jerome adams. i also want to thank sema again, thank you very much, for the job you've done helping achieve the incredible victory for medicare patients nationwide. in the past obamacare prevented insurance providers from competing to offer lower costs for seniors. it was no competition. there was no anything. they ran away with what took place and seniors were horribly hurt.

many people couldn't take insulin. they couldn't even think about it. as a result medicare beneficiaries with prescription drug coverage paid an average of $675 for a year's supply of insulin and sometimes as high as $1500, harmful laws also meant that seniors often paid a different amount almost every single month. they had no idea what they were paying they were billed. every month they were billed a different amount t was a massive amount. one in every three seniors on medicare are on diabetes. 3.3 million use at least one type of insulin. over the past 10 years, these seniors seen their out-of-pocket costs for this life saving treatment almost double. i don't use insulin, should i be? huh? i never thought about it, i know a lot of people are very badly

affected, right? unbelievable. that is why my at administration acted decisively. we slashed obama care's crippling requirements and opened up competition like they have never seen before. they have never seen competition like this, between transparency and all other things we're doing, nobody ever had a competitive situation mike we've done it. prices will come tumbling down. we brought all parties to the tables, insurers, manufacturers, other key players and reached an agreement to deliver insulin at stable and drastically low out-of-pocket costs for our seniors. i hope the seniors are going to remember it. biden is the one that put us into the jam because they didn't know what they were doing. they were incompetent. soon nearly half of all eligible part d and medicare advantage prescription drug plans will offer this low cost option and

when you say low cost, you're really talking low cost. giving seniors the freedom of choice to pick the plan that's right for them. nothing will ever stop me from fulfilling my solemn duty to america's seniors. i will use every power at my disposal to low are drug prices and my administration will always protect medicare and social security. and by the way, preexisting conditions. and we got rid of the individual mandate which is a disaster. the worst part of obamacare was the individual mandate. when we got rid of the individual mandate, essentially we got rid of obamacare if you want to know the truth. you can say that in the truest form. but we got rid of a horrible, horrible, condition called the individual mandate. we'll always protect you on preexisting conditions, much more so than the democrats. here with us today, is.bruce

brussard president after big, powerful mt. of health care company humana. i would like to have bruce come up say a few words. look how young he is. pretty young to be running such a big company. >> thank you very, mr. president. >> thank you, bruce. >> i work on behalf of 50,000 teammates that work at humana, we're thankful being here and honored. the demo that you are describing recently is an example of the strength of public/private partnerships and dealing with large issues such as the affordability of prescription drugs. insulin is by far the one that is used the most another great example is the response to covid and the crisis. i think one of our customers, gwen, recently we served.

was blind, to not have access to food. no one could support her, no one was in the vicinity to help they were. in addition didn't have access to prescriptions. through a strong private public partnership, we were able too offer her food and prescriptions delivered to her home. so i want to thank the administration for continuing to pick on large issues like this, and bringing in the private enterprise. thank you, sema, for everything you've done. thank you. >> what a job you've done too, really amazing job. >> thank you. >> you're also in the right business, right? >> we can help any senior we're always in the right business. >> that's good. that's good. you really helped. we appreciate it very much, thank you, bruce. we're also joined by tracy brown. the ceo of the american diabetes association. and a lot of bad things can happen without insulin in terms of diabetes and other things, please, tracy. thank you very much.

hi, tracy. >> thank you, mr. president. thank you administrator verma, for making this afternoon one we can focus on 34 million americans like myself, who are living with diabetes. seven million of which need insulin to live. 25% of these individuals have told us that they ration or skip doses of their medicine because they simply cannot afford it. and so, this effort, cmi, mmi, demonstration project that brings together the government, industry, and public health advocacy from the american diabetes association, is the right thing to do and we're thrilled to take this challenge head on. today, together, we are helping millions of seniors access insulin affordably. this is a very big deal.

the american diabetes association is the nation's leading organization that fights for people living with diabetes, and we are committed to continue to partner, to make sure, every american and especially our seniors, have access to the medicine that they need to live. so thank you, mr. president, an thank you administrator verma. >> tracy, are you surprised how much we've gotten the price down to what extent and to the level we brought it down to? >> this is a very exciting day for people living with diabetes and so any step to bring this lower is a good news. you know that we need to do more, but i'm so confident that together we're going to be able to help all people living with diabetes strife. >> thank you very much. appreciate it, tracy. i would also like to invite up, david rings, chairman, ceo of

eli lilly and company. very big and great company, please. another young guy. >> thank you, mr. president. >> thank you, david. >> pleasure to be here. really an who are no be a part of this announcement. improve lives of so many patients that live with diabetes in our part d program. for several years lily worked hard to improve insulin affordability this is piece filling in plan like companies like bruce's are here, seema verma, your administration, vice president pence, president trump, thank you for your leadership to make this happen. this is the kind of collaboration that solves real problems for people with serious issues like diabetes. today, if you take lily insulin, you will not pay more than $35, except in the part d program. we're pleased to add the missing part to that equation, starting next year, seniors will benefit from that same savings level, just a little bit more than a dollar a day for insulin.

that same spirit of collaboration is being applied to collaboration around covid-19 and i think everyone's aware, there are thousands of scientists working in our industry, along with nih and other experts to speed around the clock new therapies for patients suffering from covid-19 and to arrest and extinguish this pandemic. i've never been more proud to be a part of that effort as well, in the same spirit of collaboration being applied to that incredibly important crisis as well. together, by working together, i think we proved together we solved long-term problems. i hope he can come back some day to show we solved immediate problem of covid-19 working as an industry along with government. thanks for having me here. >> i think we will. thanks very much, david, appreciate it. really good job. i also want to thank the companies with us today for rising to the occasion in our fight against the invisible enemy. humana and other insurers agreed

to wave co-pays which is a very great thing to do. that is a big, that is a big deal. thank you very much. coinsurance, deductibles, coronavirus treatments, for most enrollees, what they did is really, people that are not in the business or even in business period they wouldn't realize how big after thing that is. it is a very big thing. we appreciate it very much. coronavirus treatment for most enrollees has been, we have been moving along. we're doing well. we're reporting on it in just a second. sanofi is working at breakneck speed to create a vaccine. eli lilly is developing therapeutics for coronavirus, expanding free drive-through testing operations. thank you all for the work. it's been great. we're battling the virus on every front speeding relief to our workers and pursuing therapies and vaccines at record

speed. we have many companies right now, i think we can say very far down the line on vaccines and therapeutics and cures, frankly. i think curse will be in there very shortly. manufacturing vast quantities of medical equipment, supplies, all of the different things that you need. we've, energized our military. our military is ready logistically to go out to distribute whatever it is we come up with and i think we'll come up with a lot. i think we're going to have therapeutic remedies and you think we'll have vaccines very shortly. i've been saying it, very shortly. i think i will be proven correct. if i'm not i'm sure the media will let us know about it. we're safely reopening our country while aggressively protecting the vulnerable, especially our seniors. we're telling our seniors to stay back a little bit, stay back. let this thing pass. we're not only keeping older americans safe from the virus

but we're also insuring they have the best medical care on earth at a price they can afford. that is what happened with insulin. nobody can believe it when they hear the price of the insulin. it has been amazing difference. sema will talk about that. that is not just like a 10% drop or 5% drop which in itself would be good, that is a really big drop. we approved a record number of generics, reversed the trend of soaring drug prices for the first time in over 50 years. first time we ever had prices go down. average basic part-d premiums dropped 13.5%, the lowest level in seven years. and we're going down very substantially from that level. it is going down very substantially. unless you have a new administration, in which case it will go up very substantially. that i can guarranty you. they have been doing it to you for years. average medicare premiums plummeted 28% in the lowest level in over a decade. despite everything that is

happening which would normally make things go up. we have more than, let's see 1200 more medicare advantage plans today than we did, think of that, two years ago. so we have 1200 more medicare advantage plans than we did two years ago. that's something. i signed an executive order to crack down on fraud in medicare and to give beneficiaries faster access to the latest medical devices and therapies and to take all of the fraud money, finding a lot of it, all of that money we're finding in fraud to reduce prices. we provided nearly one billion dollars in grants to support home delivered meals and in home care for elderly patients. and disabled people during the pandemic. we expanded telehealth which is really turned out to be very hot subject, right? people that never thought about it, people didn't like the idea, right, tracy? they're loving telehealth.

it is speedy and it is a lot less expensive. we expanded telehealth for medicare beneficiaries and number about of patients using it, has increased from roughly 11,000 a week to nearly 1.3 million. we went from 11,000 to nearly 1.3 million people a week. very birx you will be seeing it, price transparency. some people think, it is bigger than health care, when you look at it. it will be bigger than health care. price transparency. it was signed approximately nine months ago. it is going through the process. it will be here by the first of the year. so i hope you're going to remember me just in case the unthinkable happens. but nobody else would have gotten it but this administration. price transparency. it's a tremendous, going to cut your costs tremendously. and literally one of the biggest people in the field said, it will be a bigger thing, price

transparency, bigger than health care in a true sense. the cost of health care is going to come down very, very substantially. we're always working on preexisting conditions and saving you preexisting conditions. and as long as i'm president you will always be protected on preexisting conditions. surprise medical billing, something where people are surprised, never in a positive sense. we've written that out. that will be very quickly ended, so you will not be surprised, meaning badly surprised, very negatively surprised. it is a big thing. people go in for a operation. they end up literally losing all of their money, losing everything over something that should not happen. surprise medical billing. we're using every tool at our disposal to protect our nursing homes from outbreaks. you saw the disaster of how badly some of the governors

handled nursing hopes. it is a disgrace what they have done. what the governors, what some of the governors have done is a disgrace. we provided states more resources to step up inspections, added shipments of personal protective equipment to all 15,400 medicaid and medicare certified nursing hopes and issued a strict new guideline that every nursing home resident and staff be tested immediately and that all staff be tested weekly. so we're making it very, very tough. every day of my administration we're fighting for our seniors like never before. our seniors are very special people. all of our citizens are special, but our seniors, we have to take care of our seniors. our senior citizens have spent their entire lives working hard, supporting their communities and families and paying into the system. we will not rest until they get the kind of care and support

that they have earned and that they deserve. now i would like to ask vice president mike pence to say a few words and followed by administrator vermontma. i would like to thank you again for the great job you've done. we'll have you speak. mike speak. go ahead, mike. >> thank you, mr. president and, let me say, what a privilege it is to be here with business leaders and activists who have been standing with you, standing with the white house coronavirus task force from the very beginning. it truly has been a public private partnership not just a whole of government approach but a whole of america approach. and we see that evident today in this historic step for america's seniors. let me join the president to express profound gratitude for

the servant heart each one of you have brought and all your employees have brought. the response of today's announcement cannot be overstated, mr. president. as you observed early on we recognized that the coronavirus represent ad particular threat to seniors with underlying health conditions and diabetes being among them and today's step insures as we continue to insure to safely reopen our country, we're going to make sure that our seniors have access to affordable health care to insulin and treatment, to be able to meet that moment along with us. mr. president, we gather today with the news that more than 98,000 of our countrymen have succumbed to the coronavirus and their families are in our prayers and in our hearts but because of the cooperation and

the compassion of the american people who have heeded your guidelines foreamerica and continue to listen to state and local authorities, we know there are tens of thousands of american families that have been spared that heart break and loss and we express our gratitude to the american people, for your incredible cooperation, social distancing the steps you have embraced, willing to forfeit aspects of your personal freedom to put the health of others first. the good news, mr. president, because of the steps the american people have taken, heeding your leadership and the guide to state and local officials we're getting there. and, we're starting to reopen america as we speak, in a safe and responsible way. in fact, mr. president, every state in the nation is now taken at least some steps to reopen

their economies. 52 states and territories have reopened retail, curbside to go to with reduced capacity, 44 states. we're glad to know that we've opened up elective medical procedures in hospitals and clinics around the states. 38 states and territories have reopened personal care under strict hygiene protocols. 37 states have reopened restaurants. 34 states have reopened non-essential businesses and the list goes on. i think most meaningful to you, mr. president, is so far 30 states and territories have reopened houses of worship under guidance of reduced capacity while allowing people to come back together in fellowship and prayer. this is all been made possible because of the whole of government, whole of america approach, mr. president, that you initiated when you launched the white house coronavirus task force back in january.

and before i step down, let me, at least share a few encouraging words we shared with america's governors today, about the progress that we all have been making, because to, continue to safely reopen, we believe it is absolutely essential that we increase visibility by expanding testing across the country, so that we can insure that, that we can identify outbreaks where they occur. it is interesting as you watch the daily numbers, new cases are declining around the country. even more dramatically when you realize that a significant portion of new cases every day are actually in outbreaks, in specific businesses or as we've discussed today, in nursing homes or in meatpacking plants. but i'm proud to report, mr. president, because of the partnership that you forged with commercial labtoresries around the country, 14.1 million tests have been performed.

and i heard again today from governors across america how they have been in many cases exceeding the demand in the testing that they made available. in fact governor phil murphy of new jersey informed me promised the people of new jersey he would do 20,000 tests a day. but in partnership with the federal government as we've been partnering with testing supplies and resources, he told me they cleared 30,000 test as day in new jersey. most importantly in that state where at one point nearly 40% of those tested had tested positive for the coronavirus, now the governor of new jersey informed us they're less than 5%. but they are hardly alone, mr. president. 42 states are testing less than 10% positive rate. 20 states are testing at less than 5% of positive rate. reality is, now all 50 states,

with the support that we've been providing, sending swabs and test tubes and medium on a weekly basis at your direction, now all 50 states have tested more than 2% of their population. giving us a much greater capacity to identify outbreaks as they occur and protect our citizens. and the progress in evidence is clear. all across america, we see hospitalizations, continuing to decline. new hospitalizations and decline steadily in the chart you see before you from april until and most importantly, while the president off says that one loss is too many, we do, we welcome word that fatalities are declining precipitously all across the country. in fact, yesterday in america there were just 505 americans who succumbed to the coronavirus

x. that number had not -- we hadn't seen that number in daily losses since march. the reality is because of the cooperation and the compassion of the american people, we're getting there. we're getting there, america. and, mr. president, at your direction we're going to continue to work closely with states around the country to expand testing and resources. we're going to continue to make sure personal protective equipment flows. but finally what we're going to continue to do is focus on the most vulnerable. even as we bin to see -- begin to see evidence that we are starting to put this coronavirus epidemic in the past, a all the more we are going to continue to surge the resources and surge the kind of testing and partnership with states and health care providers to insure that our seniors and anyone with an underlying immune deficiency,

anyone that's vulnerable to coronavirus is immediately identified and protected by every measure that's possible. so, mr. president, i thank you for the opportunity. we hear enthusiasm from governors -- great enthusiasm from governors all across the country. we're making great progress, and i truly do believe that with the continued pickup that we have forged -- partnership that we have forged with the tremendous efforts of our health care workerses around america and with god's help, we will reopen america. we will continue to reopen our country safely and protect our most vulnerable as we do. so thank you, mr. president. >> thank you, mike, very much. i think i'll just add on to what mike said. if we didn't act quickly and smartly, we would have had in my opinion and the opinion of others 10 to 20, might be up to 25 times the number of deaths. we closed the travel from china,

that was a very big moment. as dr. fauci said, we saved thousands and thousands of lives when we did that. and that's true. but i think we would have had anywhere from 10-20 or 25 times the number of deaths if we didn't act the way we did and also if we didn't act swiftly. so we're very proud of our team and our task force and mike. great job. seema, please. >> good afternoon. i want the start with thanks the one person -- [audio difficulty] that's responsible for today's announcement x that's president trump. he's been ted fast in his commitment to lowering the cost

of drugs and protecting the medicare program and making sure it works best for seniors. it's the free market that leverages competition and negotiation, that that is what can lower cost and improve quality for the american patient. because of that, we've been working to slash medicare's anti-competitive regulations, and it's worked. in the medicare part d program, as the president said, we are seeing low premiums, a seven-year low. and in the medicare advantage program, we're seeing a 13-year low in premiums. so we're putting money back in the pockets of seniors. melissa: you have within listening to president trump and vice president pence speaking in the rose garden today at a ceremony called protecting seniors with diabetes, saying

that they have reached a deal to cap the cost of insulin for seniors at $35 a month and also saying that now 2% of citizens in all 50 states have been tested for the coronavirus as well as they talk about trying to move this country forward. that does it for us on a big market day. lou dobbs tonight starts right now. ♪ ♪ lou: the united states and china seem to be edging closer to confrontation over the release of the wuhan virus and the chinese communist party's cover-up.

xi jinping today