tv Happening Now FOX News March 9, 2017 8:00am-9:01am PST
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shown online, giving those comedians some publicity. we need to go go cart racing. >> we're going bowling next wee week. >> "happening now" starts right now. >> jon: the republican plan to reshape how we pay for medical care for millions of americans crosses first hurdle in congress, the measure to replace obamacare approved by the committee with a second committee still going strong after more than 24 hours. are you glad you're not a congressman? the speed to the, energy, and commerce committee approving the plan. many republicans are not behind it. it can serve want to toss the affordable care act altogether,
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while many medical industry groups including the ama oppose the current plan. >> jon: lets go live to john roberts for an update. >> good morning to you. the president continues with a hard-sell on the bill here at the white house. groups like americans for prosperity, freedom works, club for growth, heritage action, tea party patriots, a number of different groups, it doesn't look like he changed any minds. an email sent out by the president "i'm furious. for years these frauds have lied to our faces. they promised to repeal obamacare and know that they are in power, they're starting to back down. this is outrageous." conservatives like the tax credit, they think that's another entitlement. i don't like the fact that there is no provision in phase one to sell insurance across state
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lines. nothing to bring on the cost of drugs, medical care. americans for prosperity say they want the tax credit killed and they want to separate out all the other provisions and have congress vote on them separately. house speaker paul ryan the other day guaranteed that he will get the 218 votes necessary to repeal in a place obamacare. sean spicer on the right there basically said the same thing yesterday. this morning, hhs secretary tom price said he is optimistic as well. listen. >> i believe it's going to pass, i do. we are working with every single person trying to address the concerns that they have. i've had meetings in the past two weeks, i've got more meetings this week and today. met with the governor's last week when they were in town. we're trying to address all those issues in a positive way so we can get to patient centered health care. >> just this morning, big problems in the senate look like they are rearing their heads.
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tom cotton, who has been described many issues as being a presidents wing man tweeting out a series of tweets this morning, basically saying it's dead on arrival in the senate. " going on to say, g.o.p. should and act like -- the cbo score isn't due out until next week. what matters in the long run is more affordable health care for americans, now . it looks like the congressmen have their work cut out for the them. >> jon: fascinating to watch this process. john roberts at the white house, thank you. opposition to the current g.o.p. health care bill is really coming from all quarters.
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democrats, conservative republicans, doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, and some older americans. what are its chances? executive washington editor for "the wall street journal" is here. it's a start of the big question first, jerry, what are its chances? >> it's really hard to know at this point. i think the bigger problem is the one john mentioned at the end, the opposition that's developing in the senate. there is almost no margin for error, this will only have to pass with only republican votes. tom cotton came out against it. if there are some moderate republicans on the other side of the equation who are thrilled with it either, because of concerns that major medical groups have come out against it. if they get it through the house, which is possible, i don't know that it's got a path to passage from the senate right now. if you have to start over in the senate, you have to start over in the house later on. one thing to keep in mind, every
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problem with health care also translates into a problem with tax reform and a tax cut, because the way the legislative calendar isn't set up, they have to deal in the house with health care first so they can get a budget so they can move on to a tax cut bill. one of the promised on the road for the public in and for the white house is that problems and health slowdown tax reform. >> jon: there have been threats, i want to look long term here. there've been threats that if this thing doesn't pass, to leave obamacare the way it is, let the thing collapse and then pick up the pieces later. is that realistic? >> apparently there were reports of the present invention that in his meeting last night. it's realistic may be. the problem is at that point, republicans on the whole problem. this is been a classic problem with health care. whoever is in power, whoever tries to fix it owns it. that was a problem for the obama administration, it will not be a problem for the trump administration. you get credit may be for fixing
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some things, but you also get blamed for anything goes wrong in the system once you're in charge of the reform. i think letting the system collapse that having a replacement, that invites problems out in the states where republican governors want a system that keeps the process safe. >> jon: last question on this, clearly they're not in any mood to make changes to the affordable care act, obamacare, there were some 12 hours as i understand spent in committee considering one democratic amendment which was to change the name of the bill. if people want things to get done in washington, do they enjoy this kind of petty arguing or are democrats saying to themselves, we're just doing what our people -- our supporters want? >> they're making a point. they're not arguing so much about the title of the bill, they're making a point that
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they're not going to sit back and let obamacare go away. that's the pressure from the grassroots right now. on this subject and on some other ones, they have the ability to make a point, but not to win the argument in the house, so they're going to try to win the arguing points because they can't win in the end of the final vote. that's why the people to watch are not so much democrats, but the republicans. >> jon: you had an inch in column in the journal the other day. from the battle of her health care to the firestorm over wiretapping and cyber hacking, democrats are calling for an investigation into ties between the white house and russia, while president trump accused his former president obama of wiretapping him at trump tower with no proof far. can republicans in congress lead a fair investigation of either issue? that's her question. >> in the long run, while they really want to? this is an enormously complicated and explosive problem.
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it's been dumped in the lap of the republican leaders in congress, they didn't ask for it obviously. they're stuck with this. i've moved on to deal with it with the foreign affairs committees, and all-around warmth, they're not supposed to decide whether the president of the other party overused his investigate of powers against that nominee in 2016. that is a hot potato. the question is going to be, whether at some point republicans in congress decide, what we prefer someone takes this away from us, let the justice department appoint someone and turn it over to that person it and let us get on with the business we need to focus o on. a spin on that document on from wikileaks that laid bare some of the cia's most secret electronic hacking methods. >> i think the question there is going to be how did i come out?
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what's the path by which that leak occurred? i do think that's something if you're running the intelligence committees, you do want to get to the bottom of. i don't know if that will factor directly into this russian question, and might. all in all, it's a pretty difficult job, per particulater the intelligence communities. they got a tough assignment, and i think they'll also have to maintain this idea that intelligence committees have to be bipartisan, not partisan. >> jon: you've got a pretty nice job there, would you like to trade place with any republican member of congress right now? >> not at the moment. be careful what you wish for. you control of government, this is what you get. you discover that this is a thankless task and your forming health care as of thankless task too. that's what they sign up for. >> jon: we just have to talk about it. jerry, thank you very much. please issues, no doubt will come up later when bret baier
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sits down with vice president mike pence. i will be a ground breaking interview. the vice president's first and his senate office, that's tonight. a special report, 6:00 p.m. eastern time right here on fox news channel. >> melissa: did that just end, effexor's exclusive on the shocking revelation about our military readiness. if that 101st airborne division considered our premier assault unit is now operating at half strength and could not stand combat within hours if needed. this is all due to budget cuts. national security correspondent jennifer griffin traveled to fort campbell and during those live from the pentagon with what she's learned. this is a scary story. speak out we've carried on a number of exclusive investigations into the past year, looking at readiness on the force. here's what we found. the same 100 101st -- may not e
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able to conduct those operations today after six years of budget cuts. >> we used to have two aviation brigades here come over 200 aircraft, numbered down to just one aviation per grade and 100 aircraft. >> if you do move out tomorrow and do a brigade level assault, could you do it? >> we could not. >> the army cut one of fort campbell's aviation brigades in 2015 because of cuts. they forced the sport came a brigade to deploy to afghanistan without their maintenance crews. 1,000 highly trade helicopter mechanics lost nearly a year of training as a result. their now it takes them nearly e
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as long to fix their helicopter helicopters. >> are maintainers left back here didn't have aircraft to work on. >> the military had to spend millions of dollars to pay contractors in afghanistan to do the job of fort gable mechanics. it is not just the sort of the group of experience, maintenance is crumbling spread over across 170 acres leading to more inefficiency. >> you can look at the ceiling, you can sear the water damage is causing the wood itself to begin dry running out. >> for the last two years, there's been a freeze on spending any money on building maintenance on these army bases. it will have more the story throughout the day. >> melissa: will be watching, thank you for that. it later this hour, we are going to speak with the chairman of the house armed services committee. >> jon: a dangerous outage
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>> jon: some new information now about a major 911 outage affecting wireless customers at at&t. the fcc is investing what caused the outage. it prevented at&t's customers from dialing 911 for their cell phones. it took some five hours to resolve the issue and it's still not clear what caused it. at least 14 14 states and washington, d.c., affected. at the outage appeared to be clustered mainly around major cities. >> melissa: right now, tensions with north korea are escalating after the u.s. refusals to negotiate. u.n. ambassador nikki taylor
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saying kim jong-un can't be taken seriously. >> can you tell us what are some of the options of the u.s. is now considering? >> i think all the options are on table now. we have not seen any goodwill at all coming from north korea. i appreciate all of my counterparts wanting to talk about talks and negotiations. we are not dealing with a rational person. >> melissa: michael is the director of japan studies with the american enterprise institute, also author of the book. ifyouagreewithwhatshejustsaid? >>close web
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.com >> melissa: that's somethig there only to be focused on right now, is she right? >> absolutely. but they've crossed the line of an attack of a missile on south korea on its territory in japan or let alone the united states. north korea is very wildly and what they've learned is we don't really have a lot of well to try to confront them, so they just keep figuring out how far they can go. in the meantime, by the way, as we sort of figure out if negotiate civil work again, they get better and better at these missile tests and the nuclear tests. as a huge problem. >> melissa: you said they haven't done it, but their goal is to be able to reach u.s. bases in japan. how close are they to that goal in your mind? >> there probably already there. they have a range of media and ballistic missiles, short range glow stick muscles. what we are really worried about are the long-range ones i could
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hit hawaii and alaska and the west coast. we watched these missile launches go over japan already, they could hit our bases in japan, they could also hit japan's population centers. >> melissa: on top of all that, if you look at the story we just saw about kim kim jongs half brother killed without nerve agent, demonstrating both of they have it, that they're willing to use it, after all that happened at an airport, does that trouble you? >> that's crazy. they brought a weapon of mass destruction into a public arena. when it tells us, first of all, is they have a huge network of agents that they're willing to insert into third countries. they plan's operations, they're ready to go basically at the top of a hat. quickly very concerned about that, as our allies do. we need to help our allies another country's root out any north korean networks that may build their countries. what it says is that if you are perceived as a potential threat
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to the dictator, you better be watching over your shoulder every step of the way. >> melissa: ready rank them in terms of enemies? unfortunately, there's ice is, there is russia, there is iran, where do you put them on the list? >> there a high enemy, but i think we have to understand that the only thing this regime wants us to survive. they're not going out there to kill americans in shopping malls, they're not trying to figure out ways to destabilize governments, they want everyone to leave them alone, but they want to be able to blackmail us and they're doing it by destabilizing the region and using weapons of mass destruction. >> melissa: if that's the motivation, what's the right response? >> harder sanctions against a financial interest of the family, number one. making sure that we develop capabilities of our allies who knocked on missiles that may be sent their way, and number three, making it clear to north korea that if you do step over that line, you will cease to exist.
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maybe they will start digging that they should be testing where that line is. >> melissa: great stuff, thank you for the insight. >> jon: a shocker on the highway when a big rig on the open road suddenly tips over. what caused it and why it happened to them more than a dozen other trucks in the same area. plus, growing concern about our military readiness with fears about missile shortages and key weapon systems. we'll take you in-depth.
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causing power outages throughout the area. >> jon: breaking now and the wikileaks documents and dump. a former cia director michael hayden has his own idea about that. >> the russians actually commit the theft and this may be what wikileaks said it was, and insider. i'm pretty close to the position that wikileaks is acting as an arm, as an agent of the russian federation. >> jon: joining us now, republican from texas who is chairman of the house armed services committee. what do you think about that position from former nsa director michael hayden? could wikileaks be an arm of the russian? >> that's the way it's
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operating. if you think about it, we have never seen wikileaks release information about russian or chinese or other countries intelligence systems, they only disclose information about hour hours. it's another form of attacks designed to weaken the united states. who is trying to do that in a variety of ways through cyber, through various forms of propaganda, the russians. i think whoever actually stole and leaked certain material, the effect is an attack on the united states. >> jon: some of our viewers might have read the story, might have read the content of what wikileaks released and said oh, my gosh. the cia is turning on my television to spy on my house, or turning on my iphone to find out where i go during the day. how do you address those concerns? >> of course, no one can verify or say that those were legitimate documents.
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what you can verify is the cia does not spy on americans and does not spy on americans certainly here at home. their job is to learn information overseas that helps keeps us safe. there is a variety of checks to make sure that they are doing their job overseas. as the fbi under court supervision who conducts information gathering here at home. >> jon: if there is no way to verify that the documents were authentic, they certainly have caused a lot of consternation at the cia. they seem to be treating it like it's authentic. >> they should. my point is if you have classified documents out there, you cannot say they are or are not true without violating further classification. clearly, this is a problem. the cia to check should take iy
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and they are. we've got to do a better job of defending ourselves and pushing back. >> jon: what is your overall take on russians links to united states? >> they are using a variety of tools to attack and weaken and divide us. again, going back to these leak leaks, number one, it tells the enemies of some information -- it discloses information to them. secondly, a discombobulated sauce. the russians are very simple fist sophisticated. sometimes they do it through military, sometimes i do it through information inside. >> jon: i know that you have some real concerns about our military readiness. earlier, jennifer griffin had an exclusive report on military readiness in this country and
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concerns that the nation's premier assault unit, 101st airborne. it comes as a group of generals told lawmakers about the shortage of missiles and ammunitions for key weapons systems. what do you say about the current state of our army and our military overall? >> it's been damaged a lot in recent years. i think the fox news series has really helped uncover how deep some of this damage is. if you think about it, we cut our military budget 20%. the world and not get 20% safer, and we did not ask our military to do 20% less. what they had to do was take parts off what airplane to give another one flying. they did the same with ships and they did the same with people. what's happened at fort campbell as they have taken people out of some units in the 101st in order to make other units able to deploy overseas. sooner or later, that comes home
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to roost and it has done deep damage to our military, which we've got to fix. >> jon: that said, there is a new cnn poll that says 50% of americans do not favor spending more on the military if the money has to come from the state department or another domestic priority. how do you argue to the american people that we need more money for our military? >> i think to remind everyone that the first time of the federal government is to protect us. the estate of herman has a role in that, but as the military that's on the lead. secondly, you remind folks that it is morally wrong to ask the men and women in the military to go perform a mission for which they are not fully prepared and fully supported with the best equipment that this country can offer. their lives are at stake. this is not some theoretical numbers exercise, and it literally is a question of life and death.
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so we need to fulfill our first responsibilities first. then, of course, there will be other discussions about other parts of government and other functions as there should be, but we have to keep number one number one. >> jon: will have you back to talk about some of those other issues down the road. thank you. >> melissa: we have some new video just and right now. this is president trump as he leaves a listening session with the ceos of small and community banks, really the lifeblood of small businesses around the country. reporters asked him a question about wikileaks, he did not respond though. we are seeing here him at the ceos of those small and community banks. republicans feuding over the plans to replace obamacare. one key committee already approved it, but some lawmakers are angry that their colleagues are backing away from pledges to kill obamacare completely. and an accused cop killer in court today.
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that. now those leaders are trying to sell the plan, which keeps some popular provisions of obamacare in place. >> this is the legislative tax of that plan that we ran in 2016. tom price is now the secretary of hhs, the architect of it. 12 caucus numbers for the cosponsors of that bill as early as december. we are going for what i would call the typical growing pains of being an opposition party, fighting barack obama and nancy closely and harry reid to a governing party. i'm really excited. a spill must talk about it with cory elaine, who served as communication advisor. he's a big fan of obamacare as it stands now. i have that right, don't i? >> you absolutely do.
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>> jon: as you watch republicans try to dismantle obama's former legislation, what you think about the struggles in their own party? >> i think it's ironic, because as we seem at this his political party, this is another pain point they're inflicting on themselves. they didn't have to do it this way. there's no reason to wash this through through at this moment and undo obamacare as we know it now. let's think about this, let's take a step back. this is a campaign promise has been in the making for six years, took more than 50 symbolic in the house to say they want to rollback obamacare and now they're in the middle the night, no one to be a part of it, no one in the public has seen it. folks on the right are concerned about the fact that the cbo hasn't scored it so they don't know what kind of hole it's
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going to put in the national debt. there is a real concern here and this justifiable to be sure. >> jon: the scream of the conversation, the other side of the argument, a columnist. kristin, republicans control the senate, control the house, control the white house, and president trump has said he is solidly behind this legislation. why are they having so much trouble pushing across the finish line? >> i think donald trump has always been a pretty pragmatic, rather than ideological type person. he wants to get a deal done. he wants to take what he can that people like about the existing law, change the things that he thinks aren't working, and that's quitting situations where folks who are pretty ideological, who is to hold strong conservative principles. they are at odds. what's going to be interesting for a lot of these house freedom caucus folks, the folks were more vocal coming out saying
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they have concerns about this bill, they are coming from districts where donald trump did extremely well in the presidential election. for a lot of these members, how are they going to go back to their constituents and say, donald trump supported this bill, but i oppose it. how are they going to split the difference? that's a big challenge that they'll have to deal with. >> jon: the problem seems to be, correct me if i'm wrong, the concerns are that the poorest americans who are currently covered under obamacare might get tossed off the roles on this proposal. how do you answer that concern? >> this is a been something that's been intentioned and that has a lot to do with the medicaid expansion. they were offered additional money to provide medicaid coverage to people who were the poorest in their states. some are plug-in governors said i don't think it's a job with her own government to be
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expanding this. some are public and governments turn that away. this bill wants to wind that down four years from now. the debate now and some conservatives have been pushing to wind that done sooner. that's what donald trump was talking to the tea party leaders about yesterday. do you wind down some of that funding, do you change the way we do that federal funding, giving the money as a sum to the states rather than directing how it's spent at a federal level. all of these are details that really have to do with what is the government's role in providing health care coverage to the poorest? there is not total agreement and how that should be executed between the white house and most conservative folks in congress. >> jon: paraphrasing ronald reagan, he once said something like if you want proof of eternal life, look at any federal program. want to give people a benefit, it's pretty hard to take it away, isn't it? >> that's absolutely true. the thing we need to realize is
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that the reason people like obamacare is that it provides them access to care that they didn't have previously. if you're going to talk about reforming health care, let's be clear. even barack obama himself said that obamacare, the affordable care act is not perfect and it's going to be retooled and tweaked over time. no legislation is perfect when it comes out the door. what we have right now is on health care bill, it's a tax bill at the end of the day. once again, as most tax bills due under conservatives, they support and reward those at the very, very top of the economic state and they put real pressure and pain on the folks in the middle and bottom. that's why you'll see seniors being hurt by this bill at the end of the day. the young people will be hurt. the working poor will be heard as well. those people who actually support it donald trump. >> jon: i want you to answer this if you can, democrats and one of the committees spent 12
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hours forcing an argument about the name of the bill. they want to change the name of the bill and they kept the committee tied up for 12 hours working on that. is that good governance? >> at this point, you have a divide. you have some folks were all about trying to get things done and you have folks who are committed to the resistance. both of them have valid points, i believe. especially when they see legislation that's being like this, i will complete the undermined people who currently have health care, if not our entire health care system because of the radical way is being developed and being pushed through. >> jon: kristen, last question. it will republicans find a way to come together and get the thing passed? >> at this point, it's looking like it's pretty dicey. because you have some the concerns from very many local members. if you talk to house leadership, they are confident that it will come through at the end of the day and they're glad that the
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white house has taken a vocal stand in being behind this bill. if the bill was trump care, it puts those conservative members and difficult position to vote against it. >> jon: will continue to watch watch. thank you both. >> melissa: the presidents twitter in the media, should reporters play close a attentin or should they tune him out? that's next ♪
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>> melissa: a new development when it comes to president trump's already strained relationship with the media. some of the press now saying they are tuning out mr. trump's tweets. joining me now as howard kurtz, the host of media buzz. what do you about that? >> it's a dumb idea for the media. anderson cooper said he mutes the president on twitter.
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>> melissa: we've got breaking news. sorry to interrupt you. it will go to speaker ryan right now. >> how important it is to repeal and plays obamacare, not just because a lot is collapsing, but because the law is going to get even worse if we do nothing. let me show you what our problem is and what we are trying to do. we are going to repeal in a place obamacare and were going to do it with a three-pronged approach. number one, is what we're talking about now. this is what the committee marked up this morning, what the congress committee is doing right now. that's reconciliation. there are only so many things you can do in that bill because of the senate floor rules reconciliation. you can put everything you want and that legislation because of you dead, it would be filibustered and he couldn't even bring up for a boat in the senate. number two, administered of action. this law, obamacare, has 1,442
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instances that give secretary of hhs an enormous amount of discretion to administer health care. meaning, i don't think barack obama, nancy pelosi, and harry reid thought tom price would be secretary of hhs. number two in our three-pronged approach, a ministry of action for the health and human services secretary dee regulates the market place and allows more choice and competition to come on the marketplace. number three, and this is where i think there's a lot of confusion all over the map, additional legislation that we think is important and necessary to give a truly competitive health care marketplace. think of things like interstate shopping, that's a reform we long believed in, that we think is important to give reg literary competition, to give people even more choices. association health plans. let a farmer by her insurance for the national farm bureau plan or a restaurant tour by his insurance for he and his employees the.
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let small businesses by their insurance nationwide. we would love for this to be in this reconciliation bill, but the rules in the senate to allow this to happen. we're going to move those bills independently. we're going to move those bills at the same time through our process and bring most of the vote. unfortunately, they'll have to hit will be called the 60 vote threshold. we have a three-pronged approac approach, to repealing replacing obamacare. let's get into why this needs to happen and why it needs to happen now. options are disappearing fast. this law is in the middle of a collapse and people are quickly losing their choices. in 2016, the amount of counties in america that had three or more insurers, three more carriers to choose from was about 2,000. in 2017, that number has plummeted. insurers are leaving the
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marketplace, choice and competition is going away, and people are having less choices. how many insurers, how many counties in america have just one insurer? a little over 200 just last yea year. in america, about 200 counties had only one plan to choose from, one insurer. this year, and 2017, that number has skyrocketed to over 1,000 counties. over one and three counties in america, you've got one plan to choose from. these insurers probably never intended on being monopolist, but they are in these counties. there is no choice, no competition, one plan to choose from. it's a 454% increase in american counties of people who are stuck with one option. now that humana has said they're going to pull out of the market place next year, they're going to counties that have zero options. this is what's happening under a law that is collapsing. premiums are going up and going
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up in a very, very fast rate. options and choices are going down. what we are seeing in america is people who have to go by their own health insurance are getting far far fewer choices to where they have one (the price they pay for that coverage is going up and up and up. it take a look at what's going on around the country. this just shows you a map of the premium increases just this year alone. minnesota, 59% increase in their health insurance premiums. pennsylvania, 53% increase in their health insurance premiums. tennessee, 63% increase in their health insurance premiums, this year alone. over one year. alabama, 58%. oklahoma, 69% increase in their health insurance premiums. nebraska, 51% increase in their health insurance premiums. arizona, 160% increase in their
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health insurance premiums with obamacare. here's what's happening. "obamacare is in a death spiral. it is not getting any better, it's getting worse." that's the ceo who said that just a couple weeks ago. what is a death spiral? it's kind of gruesome if you ask me. a death spiral is a system where in an insurance pool, only the sick are people who actually have have the insurance buy it and healthier people, who want the insurance, won't pay those really high prices, because it's too expensive and they don't have to have it because they're healthy. in a pool, typically have a healthy person subsidized for a sick person. with a set up obamacare, it's not working that way. only the people who must have health insurance, the older and sicker persons buying it, it's cranking up the cost of insurance so fast that the
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premiums are spiraling out of control and the insurers are losing so much money that they're pulling out of the marketplace. call a death spiral. it is an actual collapse. that's what america is facing today. if we simply do nothing, just washed our hands of it, if we in the majority party said the democrats give us obamacare, let them live with it, the collateral damage in this country would be awful. more and more people would see even higher premium increases in 2018, more and more people would see zero choices. we can't do that. the goal of health care reform has always been one we all shar share. the goal of health care reform is people get access to affordable coverage. here's what we propose. here's the american health care act, the bill that is moving through the committee process today, the bill that will take three weeks just to move to the
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house because we are following regular order. at lower costs more choices, not less, patience and control, access to care. use of the four driving principles that we are focused on. it lower in cost, giving people more choices, having patients and control and universal access to care. let me walk you through exactly how we propose to do this. these are long-standing, conservative principles that those of us who have been working in health care for about 20 years have been fighting for, dreaming about, working towards, now we have an opportunity to do that. how do we do this? at first of all, recall this law. repeal the taxes and obamacare, the trillion dollars in taxes and obamacare that make it harder to make medical devices, they make it harder to lower costs and health insurance, then drive up the cost of health car health care. the spending. the spending and obamacare is getting out of control. more importantly, the way the system works is it's driving up
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the costs. in the mandates. the mandates are arrogant and paternalistic. it is a government at the federal level telling people, this is what you have to buy, it's going to be really expensive, you must do it, if you don't like it, tough. if that's what the government is saying to americans today. so we get rid of the taxes, we get rid of the spending, we get rid of the mandates. the key thing that a lot of people want to know, when i talk to people with various diseases, they just want to know when we pass this, the next day they're not going to lose their health insurance. that's not going to happen. we pass this law in the day after, americans who have insurance are going to lose it the day after. we need to have a stable transition to conservative health care reform and that's what we're doing is that we do not pull the rug out from anybody who is enjoying some kind of coverage they have today. we want to have a stable transition. a few of the points that i think are really important, to bring
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peace of mind to americans were concerned about all that is going on here, want to protect people with pre-existing conditions. with eventually important. that's been a cornerstone of republican health care all along. in 2009, i, along with devin nunes, richard burr, offered the patient's choice act. it was our alternative to obamacare. we had an answer for people to prison conditions, and we have one here. all of our republican health care have agreed with the idea of agreeing with young people to stay on their parent's plans until their 26. we retain that. what our goal is to provide universal access to quality, affordable health care. here's another issue with obamacare. obamacare is not just the individual market that you think of health care subsidies, it was also a taking over of the medicaid program. here's a problem with medicaid.
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medicaid is a program that is washington controlled and it is done in such a way that it stops innovation and experimentation at the state level. it makes it harder for states to customize medicaid population to work for their particular states. as a result, more and more doctors don't take medicaid. what good is your coverage if you can get a doctor? that is a huge, growing problem with medicaid. medicaid is growing at an unsustainable rate so it's polluting costs are threatening the viability of the program. warrior proposes to modernize the medicaid program. modernize it that we, as your publicans have been talking about for years. i think ronald reagan in the ' '70s said the states should take over control of medicaid. every budget we have had as republicans, when i was budget chair about writing my road map road maps, everyone said let's
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get medicaid control back to the states. give the states and the governors the freedom, the flexibility to customize the care for their low income populations, how they think it needs to occur. our problems in wisconsin are a whole lot different than the problem they have a new york or in nevada or in utah or california. so we propose more efficient spending, bring the spending on medicaid to summing that is sustainable so does go bankrupt, and have a safety net for the most. give local control to our states and our governors so they can craft and customize medicaid to work for their populations. how do you protect people with pre-existing conditions? i think this is probably one of the most important issues of them all. here is happens today basically. under our current system, we have costs driving up. options are going away. choices are fleeting, prices are going up, and under the current
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system, the fatal conceit of obamacare is that we're going to make everybody by our health insurance at the federal government level, young and healthy people are going to go into the market and pay for the older sicker people. the young healthy person and it is going to be made to buy health care and for the person who gets breast cancer in her 40s or gets heart disease in his 50s. take a look this chart chart. the red slice here are what i would call people with pre-existing conditions. people who have real health care problems. the blue is the rest of the people in the individual market. that's the people who don't get health insurance at their jobs where they buy it themselves. the whole idea of obamacare is a beep on the blue side pay for the people on the red side. the people of our healthy pay for the people who are sick. it's not working and that's why it's in a death spiral. here's how we propose to tackle this problem. we want to have a system where we encourage it states, with federal funding, to set up pools and reinsurance mechanisms.
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in wisconsin, we had a great risk pool that actually worked so people with real high health care costs and diseases and pre-existing conditions could still get affordable health care. obamacare appealed that. they had a great risk pool in utah. all those are gone under obamacare. here's how they work and here's how our system would work. we would directly support the people with praises and conditions. let me give you a sense of the spirit of 1% of the people in these markets drive 23% of the costs. reinsurance program is to cover more than just the 1%, to cover the people with high health care costs. by having estate innovation funds to go to the states to set up these programs, we would subsidize the people. tech support for the people of pre-existing
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