on capitol hill. thank you for watching our coverage of the presidential news conference. i am bret baier in washington. "the o'reilly factor" start right now. . i'm bret baier, the "o'reilly factor" starts now. bill: how do you think president obama did tonight, that's the big story tonight, and that is the subject of this evening's talking points memo. his intentions are good. he wants to clean up the health care mess match that's hurting millions of americans. what's wrong with that? nothing. but his plan is chaotic, and the expense ill-defined. but the president sees great urgency. >> this debate is not a game for these americans, and they can't afford to wait any longer for reform. they're counting us on to get this done. they're looking to us for leadership, and we can't let them down. we will pass reform that lowers cost, promotes choice, and provides coverage that every

american can count on, and we will do it this year. bill: probably not. dick durbin says it will be fall before any meaningful debate takes place in the senate. tonight the president faced a rather docile press corps and buried them with rhetoric. >> you may not see it because if you have health insurance right now, it's just being sent to the insurance company, but that's raising your premiums, it's raising everybody's premiums, and that money one way or another is coming out of your pocket, although we are also subsidizing some of that because there are tax breaks for health care. bill: i think my head is going to explode. i don't know what he's saying. i'm not being a wise guy. i've often said the government needs to control the medical industry, but after another hour of barack obama explaining his program, i still don't know what it is. the man is incapable of breaking it down so that we, the people, can understand it. that's the crux of the matter. it's supplemental.

it's elemental. it's whatever you want it to be. it's crazy. if president obama wants americans to support an overhaul of the health care system, he's got to pull it in bullet form. he's got to get the chart so we know what's going to happen and who's going to pay for it. otherwise this is not going to fly. and that's the memo. the top story tonight, is the president losing the support of the folks because of the health care fob? and why was the press so passive? joining us now from washington, associate editor of the hill, and sam young, another correspondent who was at the press conference. sam, i'm going to go to you first. sam, what is with the press? i mean they're asking these long, detailed questions, serving it up for him so he can just give a lecture. look, maybe i'm a dumb guy, but i do this for a living. i don't know what the plan is. do you? >> well, i think the questions might be detailed, but the

answers certainly aren't. we're hearing the same thing we've heard every day since he got back from overseas. bill: do you, sam youngman, a trained correspondent sitting there after listening to the president for an hour, watching him -- do you know what he said? do you know what the program is? >> well, i'm going to try and make some sense of it after i get done talking to you here, but i think -- bill: you just answered the question. you salt there and now you have to go home and try to make some sense of it. that's not the way you do it, miss stoddard. people just gave an hour of their lives to sit there and watch president obama go all over the place, say a million things, but i still don't know what he's going to do. miss stoddard. >> i agree with you, bill. although he gives a -- he makes a good case for his general principles and how he wants health care reform to fit into

the larger context of fixing the economy, but what he doesn't like to do is talk about how he'll pay for it. he wants congress to figure this out. what i thought he was going to do tonight was get up and embrace a pay for, an actual payment plan to offset the costs of a reform plan and tell democrats directly in the congress this is what i think is the best fix. you're with me or you're against me. show some leadership and really kind of come to the table as he's been promising to do for months. he made a reference that he thinks his payment is the best, to limit the payments for the wealthy, and that has appeared for some bills early. so he did not actually back a specific plan in the congress, and he didn't tell them what to get to. bill: look, his poll numbers are dropping. after this i predict tomorrow -- it was 55%, mr. youngman. this week's gallup poll doesn't like the way he's handling health care.

tomorrow it goes to 60, and who can blame the folks. the folks are sitting there. they want health care reform. they want to feel secure in this area, and they don't know what the hell the president is saying. i don't know what he's saying. you have to go home and digest it, and a.b. says what i'm saying, he's all over the place. so i'm saying it goes to 60, and now unless you're a zealot in the house and senate, you've got to question whether this thing can fly ever. mr. youngman. >> well, clearly the president -- they were hoping tonight's audience hadn't been paying attention to the same things he's been paying attention to the last ten days because there was just nothing new here. this is a president that's trying to regain footing, and i don't know if he did that. bill: key question of the night, a.b. the president is going to lose massive amount of credibility in this whole deal unless he pulls the proverbial rabbit out of the hat. people are starting to lose

confidence in his leadership because this is his signature issue. ok. how bad is it right now as we talk about it right now for mr. obama? >> i think it's bad because it doesn't look like he is going to get this over the finish line before the august recess. bill: that's not going to happen. >> he did not give members of congress the big fight. it looks like it's bleeding into the fall. he says we're going to have it this year. that's what he shed definively. this year. once you get into september, as you know, bill, and they try to pass the appropriations bills and get very much closer to the holidays and an election year, it becomes much harder to pass it, and i think if he doesn't pass it, it's a big problem for the rest of his presidency. bill: we appreciate it, guys, thank you very much. again, i just want everybody to know i have no partisan dog in this hunt. i want everybody to know that. all right. i'm not coming at this like obama's some socialist nitwit. that's not what i do here. ok. i am wanting to understand how

president obama is going to improve your life and my life in the health care, the vital health care realm. i want to understand. i have a master's degree from harvard university that cost me $30,000 to get. i do not understand what the man is saying. next on the rundown. dick morris has some thoughts on the press conference. maybe he gets it.

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>> if somebody told you that there is a plan out there that is guaranteed to double your health care costs over the next ten years, that's guaranteed to result in more americans losing their health care, and that is by far the biggest contributor

to our federal deficit, i think most people would be opposed to that. well, that's the status quo. bill: with us dick morris, the author of the very big best-selling book "catastrophe," it hit number one on "the times" list. ok. i don't want to be obnoxious about this, but you saw the opening. i don't understand what he's talking about. do you understand what he's talking about? >> yeah. you've got to read into his vocabulary. it requires a redefinition. bill: do you think most americans are reading into his words? >> no. bill: just treat me as a guy from levittown. i'm making $55,000 a year. ok. and i want to ensure my family, my wife and two children. is obama's plan going to help me? >> no. obama's plan is going to kill you. bill: how is it going to kill me? >> because it will take away your doctor's ability to decide

what care to give you. bill: ok. let me stop you. >> how old are you when you're in levittown? are you over 65? bill: no. stop. so you say that i'm in levittown, 55 k, two kids and a wife. that now i lose control over what procedures can be performed by my doctor because the government says yes or no. that's number one. do my health insurance premiums go down? >> no. your health insurance premiums go up because you have to pay for the cost one way or another of insuring 50 million people that aren't covered. bill: how do they go up? do i pay more -- do people take money out of my check? >> your employer either has to give you health insurance or he has to pay 8% of your income -- bill: but that doesn't affect

me? >> obama said that health care is gobbling up the money that employers should give to their workers. he's gobbling up 8% of it in payroll. bill: you're saying it will cost me money because i won't get a bigger raise because my employer will have to be paying for extra health care insurance. >> not for you. for the 50 million other people. bill: that's a theoretical argument, not a direct argument. now, my health insurance in levittown is through my employer fox news, and they give it to me. can i go to the doctor i want to? >> yes, you probably can, but the doctor can't make the decisions he wants to make. bill: he has to check with the feds. >> the federal health board which has never met you is going to decide whether you can get a hip replacement as opposed to your doctor. bill: my health records which are now in the hands of my private records and nobody else sees them. my health records, they're going to be in washington. >> yes. bill: so every malady that i have is going to be seen by people in washington.

i don't want that. do you want that? >> no. bill: are you sure that's going to happen? >> of course, it has to happen, because they have to design protocols of care and ensure that they're being implemented across the board. bill: it's going to say william j. o'reilly, polo lane, levittown, has the following conditions. >> they're going to collect the data about william j. o'reilly, and then they're going to put that together with all the other stuff and come up with statistical data as to who in the country has what, and based on that they'll model who ought to get what treatment. bill: but on a computer disk in d.c. will be what's wrong with me. >> yes. bill: based on my medical history. >> right, next to your social security number. bill: that makes me very nervous. these are simple questions that i need to have answered. so he says, president obama says, that when they get through in congress, it's not going to

add to the american debt. we're all on the verge of bankruptcy now, as everybody knows, all right, but this will pay for itself. >> first of all, nothing in health care has ever paid for itself. secondly, the congressional budget office which is bipartisan -- bill: cbo. >> experts, incredibly well-informed, has gone through each of these cost savings he's talking about, and refuses to score them. which means they refuse to say this will save 100 million, this will save 50 million, this will save 10 billion because they don't believe there's any proof that that savings is going to take place, and when he says he's determined it's not going to add to the deficit, charlie rangel's bill, which he's working with, has $550 billion that he can't account for. bill: so you think that over $500 billion in a ten-year period will be added to the debt we already have. >> i can't be sure. oh, yeah, $500 billion, yes. bill: in your book,

"catastrophe," you list a number of unintended