captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> ifill: new jersey governor chris christie said he was "embarrassed and humiliated" to learn a top aide ordered lanes closed on a major bridge for political revenge. good evening. i'm gwen ifill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. also ahead this thursday, a different governor warns of a "full-blown heroin crisis" in his state. we get two perspectives, including that of the vermont democrat peter shumlin. >> ifill: plus, jeffrey brown and poet laureate natasha trethewey continue their travels to find "where poetry lives." tonight, how doctors are using verse to provide better care.

>> someone is dying alone in the night. if we do anything with patients we're really i think immersing ourselves in their stories, really hearing their voices in a profound way. and certainly that's what a poem, i think, does. >> ifill: those are just some of the stories we're covering on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us.

>> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> and the william and flora hewlett foundation, working to >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: there was talk of a senate compromise today on resuming benefits for the long- term unemployed. democrats proposed funding the program into late fall. they said they'd pay the $18 billion cost with cuts elsewhere, as republicans demanded. but ohio senator rob portman and other republicans said they also want various reforms in the program.

>> let's sit down and talk. we're adults. you know, we have been elected by millions of people to represent them, and it's our responsibility and indeed our commitment to them that we would sit down across the aisle and work these things out as you would in any other relationship, in your marriage, in your business, with your neighbors. >> woodruff: democratic majority leader harry reid rejected that appeal. he said it's one more example of republican stalling. >> nothing is ever quite good enough. they always want more amendments. they always want amendments. but the issue is here before us. is this body going to vote to extend unemployment benefits paid for... and with structural changes, or are they going to turn their back on people who are desperate? >> woodruff: by day's end, the two sides remained deadlocked. the number of first-time applications for unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week. and on wall street today, the dow jones industrial average

lost about 18 points to close at 16,444. the nasdaq fell nine points to close at 4,156. new jersey's republican governor chris christie apologized today in a brewing political scandal. he said he'd had "no knowledge" that part of the traffic on a major bridge apparently was closed in order to punish a democratic mayor. he also said he's fired a top aide for lying about it. christie is a potential presidential candidate for 2016. we'll take a closer look at the scandal after the news summary. the president of afghanistan, hamid karzai, has ordered the release of 72 prisoners over u.s. objections. he said today there's not enough evidence to hold them. american officials say the prisoners had killed or wounded dozens of coalition troops. u.s. senators have warned that releasing the prisoners will hurt u.s.-afghan relations. a suicide bomber in iraq blew himself up at a military

recruiting center in baghdad today. at least 21 people were killed in the attack. it appeared to be retaliation for the military's push to retake two cities seized by al qaeda fighters last week. one of the cities, fallujah, saw a lull in fighting today, and some people claimed things are returning to normal. >> i call upon residents of fallujah to come back home, the security situation is now stable. state offices and banks have opened their doors. offices have started giving salaries to civil servants and policeman have started working as usual. >> woodruff: meanwhile, the speaker of the u.s. house, john boehner, said the u.s. needs to do more to secure iraq, with equipment and other aid. but he said there's no reason to consider sending u.s. troops back in, at least for now. in egypt, courts convicted 113 muslim brotherhood supporters on charges stemming from protests last year.

they had been accused of attacking police and rioting after the military deposed president mohammed morsi in july. 63 of the defendants were given three-year prison terms. it's the largest mass sentencing yet in an ongoing crackdown against the brotherhood. the u.s. nuclear force suffered a new blow today. defense officials said two missile launch officers been implicated in an illegal drug investigation at an air force base in montana. that follows a series of security problems in nuclear ranks. the news came as defense secretary chuck hagel appeared at a missile base in wyoming. 16 leading u.s. food companies have in the past several years cut the calorie counts in their products by about 78 calories a person, per day, if spread across the entire population. the robert wood johnson foundation reported today that's four times the reduction they promised by 2015.

the savings are roughly equivalent to an average cookie or a medium-sized apple. it's part of an effort to reduce obesity nationwide. poet, author and playwright amiri baraka died today at a newark, new jersey, hospital. he began as a beat generation poet in the 1950s. in the years that followed, he evolved into a leading black militant voice and a provocative cultural force. his work influenced a generation of artists and anticipated rap and hip-hop. amiri baraka was 79 years old. still to come on the newshour: new jersey governor chris christie gets snarled in a scandal; warnings of a heroin crisis from vermont governor peter shumlin; the n.f.l.'s $760 million concussion settlement; doctors using poetry to provide better care; an update on implementing the new health care law; plus, a former middle- eastern diplomat on the arab spring's uncertain future.

>> ifill: now, the traffic jam that's jammed up a governor and possible presidential candidate in new jersey. republican chris christie spent nearly two hours today responding to allegations that his closest aides have been punishing his political foes. holman begins our coverage.e >> i come out here today to apologize to the people of new jersey. >> reporter: governor christie started with a "mea culpa" that the scandal happened on his watch while insisting he was "blindsided." >> i am embarrassed and humiliated by the conduct of some of the people on my team. i had no knowledge or involvement in this issue, in its planning or its execution, and i am stunned by the abject

stupidity that was shown here. >> reporter: the issue unfolded in september at the george washington bridge, one of the busiest in the world. it connects fort lee, new jersey, to new york city. without warning, several vehicle lanes were shut down for four consecutive days, triggering backups that stretched for miles. the governor says he was told the closures were for a "traffic study." but newly revealed e-mails and text messages suggest it was aimed at punishing fort lee's democratic mayor, mark sokolich, for not endorsing republican christie's reelection. in one message, the governor's deputy chief of staff, bridget anne kelly, wrote to a port authority executive: several weeks later, that executive, david wildstein, a close personal friend of the governor's, ordered the closures. christie at first had denied it was an act of political vengeance. this morning, he fired kelly, saying she lied to him.

>> i've had a tight-knit group of people who i trust implicitly. i had no reason to believe they weren't telling me the truth. it is heartbreaking to me that i wasn't told truth. >> reporter: new jersey's state legislature has been investigating the traffic tie- ups since allegations of political wrongdoing first surfaced four months ago. and today, the u.s. attorney in new jersey opened a separate inquiry to determine whether the bridge lane closures violated any federal laws. wildstein, who resigned in december, invoked his fifth amendment right against self- incrimination today, refusing to answer questions at a legislative hearing. as for the alleged target of the closings, the fort lee mayor, the governor said he's mystified. >> mayor sokolich was never on my radar screen. he was never mentioned to me as someone whose endorsement we were even pursuing. >> reporter: sokolich had his own take a few hours later in fort lee. >> this is a complete disruption

of our lives, politically, professionally, personally. it's been a rather trying period. i never knew that i could possibly garner this much attention, especially for something i didn't do as opposed to something i did do. >> reporter: the mayor said he found it all "appalling," but he welcomed what he called christie's "decisive" action. later, christie visited fort lee and apologized in person to sokolich. the governor brushed aside any talk of a possible presidential bid in 2016 or how the scandal might affect his chances. so who knew a traffic scandal could attract this kind of national attention. for a look at how chris christie became the country's most closely watched governor, we turn to stu rothenberg and michael scherer, washington bureau chief for the "time" magazine, he wrote the magazine's november cover story on christie. so was this two hour tour de force today, michael, vintage chris christie. >> it was, i think he did very well. he did what he had to do

which was to company out, be con trait, take responsibility. but also to distance himself from what is clearly horrific acts of public service that took place. the question now is whether the facts as they continue to come out, we don't know the full story now. match what christie told the people of new jersey and the people of the republican party who will decide the 2016 nominee. and if they don't, if they continue to be drips and drips of information that come out, christie is going to continue to have a big problem. >> ifill: what do you think, stu, what do you think his performance today and the whole run raveling of the-- unraveling of the scandal tell about his gopher-- governing skill. >> i think his performance was quite good, he was contrite. and when was the last time you associated the governor with being embarrassed and humiliated. i means that's something for him to say that. this is a guy we think of a

as-- as-- as sometimes a bully, even. but he was humiliated and embarrassed and con trait. you know-- contrite. what mike said is exactly right. today was a very good performance. i think the governor seemed sympathetic. i think he seemed like he was shocked and saddened. he said that repeatedly, he was saddened. the question is what happens tomorrow. democrats are not going to let this sit. i'm already getting e-mails from democratic members of the assembly and from democratic talking heads, saying the governor needs to company clean. >> ifill: but here's the thing that seemed to be missing in that press conference which i couldn't take my eyes off of either, is that even though he was contrite and sorry, he was sorry that he got lied to that his staff. the underlying actions, the question remains do the people who work for him work for a man who they believe he would approve of such a thing. >> there are two story lines, assuming he continues to move toward running in 2016 we will hear pore about both

of them. for chris drisie, he is a straight-talking, no-nonsense, nonblow-dried tell it like it is guy. >> ifill: he almost said that word for word within for the democrats he's a bully. that is the story he wants to get out it is clear from the governor's record that there are plenty of times as governor where his office has exacted retribution on people who haven't, in government, people who haven't vote add long with the governor. that happens a lot in government. most people in government do that. there are ways of moneyishing people. the different in this scandal is the retribution was exacted not on an official but on the people of the city of fort lee, people getting on a road. it's a big difference to lay someone's jude-- delay a judician nominee than stopping people from their daily commute. >> ifill: everybody gets bad traffic. >> so i think the question is whether, you know, these two competing narratives, which develops. and really the facts will tell us. i mean chris christie is still very much an unvetted candidate on the presidential level. and there's a lot more to

come. and how he weathers it. i think he did very well today. but he is sort of at the mercy of the fact pattern. >> this is not a one-day story or 1 week story or one month story. this is going to go on for an extended period of time. >> ifill: take us back. explain why chris christie is considered to be such a formidable 2016 candidate. >> well, i think some people consider him to be more formidable than i do, actually. i've written, i think that, i'm not-- well, i think he would be a great general-- i just don't think can get there. i think there are parts of the country, republicans in the critiquely the south and parts of the west, the more they see him the less they'll like. but look, he just was elected and re-elected easily in a democratic state. he has a reputation as somebody who is not your typical politician that is a wonderful image to have these days. and when you look at the early polls, he's very well-known. so shockingly, he tends to be at the front, top of the polls. so all those things make him a very interesting figure.

and just personally, he is an interesting guy. and i think that gets him a lot of attention. >> ifill: but he is he the kind of candidate that conservative republicans don't like because they seem too blue state to to them and the democrats don't like because they fear his electoral capability? >> i mean all sides. >> he actually won a significant share of democratic voters in new jersey in his re-election. so he has a proven ability to get democratic independent votes at least in new jersey. conservative republicans don't like him but it's also worth saying that those are sort of ideaological purist republicans who are ascendant now in the party. but it's also true if you look at most of the recent cycles, the eventual nominee of the republican party has significant problems with the idea loll core base, i mean mitt romney was not a purist. so there is a path for christie, it's going to be messy. >> they campaigned to some extent as purists, certainly mitt romney went out of his way to emphasize the

conservative credential. the purists didn't always believe that. they distrusted him. the question is will chris christie, i will use a controversial word, will he pander to them, and if so, doesn't that undercut his entire -- >> actually, i think that's the key to christie in the next days, weeks, months, years. he has to be able to maintain his greatest asset now which is this idea that he just is who he is. he said in the press conference i am who i am. i am not a bully. the first part he said lots of times before, i'm not a bully. i can see that showing up in attack ads. >> ifill: is he a pragmatist or visionary in this kind of thing, he is the kind of guy, he said i don't know what a traffic study is. on the other hand he doesn't seem like someone ho has an overarching view of how the world should be. >> right. he doesn't-- he doesn't market himself as an ideaologue or visionary but as a pragmatist that gets things done. he will say to the people we have a lot of problems, are

you up set with how things are going. i have prove then new jersey i can at the time go stuff done, i will get stuff done for you, that is his message. >> an this is why as a governor he has an advantage. he doesn't get caught in the washington d.c. weeds, he will say it's about delivering it it's about getting my from point a to point b. now they had a problem from getting to point a to point b so they have a problem with that it's about the nuts and gots of-- bolts of government. >> ifill: he recovers unless what. >> unless more things come out he didn't tell the truth, he knew things that he suggests he didn't. that somehow he was part of the plan of this, any of those kinds of things within i think the issue is this idea that he's a bully. that he goes beyond what is acceptable to get his way. and even on this issue, in this traffic sure, if there are other scandals that come out in which there is documentation of him exacting retribution that people see is beyond the peal, it will be a big problem. >> ifill: michael scherer of "time" magazine, stu rothenberg of the political report, thank you both.

>> thank you. >> thank you. >> woodruff: a governor broke with tradition yesterday and devoted his entire state of the state address to drug addiction. peter shumlin, the governor of vermont, urged residents to open their eyes to the growing problem in their front yards rather than leaving it only to law enforcement, medical personnel and addiction treatment providers. shumlin argued the facts speak for themselves. in vermont, since 2000, there has been a 770% increase in treatment for all opiates. he stated: it turns out vermont is not the only state facing this crisis. according to the white house's office of national drug control

policy, the number of deaths involving heroin surged 45% between 1999 and 2010. for more on this, i'm joined by vermont governor peter shumlin and "huffington post" washington bureau chief ryan grim. he's also the author of "this is your country on drugs." and gentlemen, we thank you both for being us. governor, i will start with you, a full-blown heroin crisising how serious is it? >> serious. i mean obviously it's no more serious than the other states around us. i think, i hope that the difference is that i'm willing to confront it as governor, taking it on head on. and listen, here's the challenge. we had lost the war on drugs. the notion that we can arrest our way out of this problem is yesterday's theory. and you know, the one thing vermonters cherish is our quality of life, our safety, the fact that we're a state where we take care of each other, and that we know that our communities are safe and

that we have a good quality of life. and this compromises it. so as far as i'm concerned, this is one of the real battles that we are a's facing, that we've got to win and we've got to do that by changing the discussion and changing the policy, so that we say that what heroin addicts and folks that are addicted to opiates are facing is a public health issue, not a crime issue. and we've got to be willing to fight it from that vantage point. >> woodruff: and why did you decide to devote the entire, virtually the entire speech to this? >> well, because i feel that strongly about it. you know, really this is the issue that nobody wants to talk about. nobody. governors don't like talking about it because we're afraid that when we move our policy from law enforcement, the belief then, the fantasy that you can beat this just with law enforcement, and in fact have to treat it with treatment and with services that will help those move from addiction to recovery, that something will go wrong.

and that therefore we don't dare take any risk. so i say the risk for vermont, frankly the risk for the other states around the country is, we've got more people dying from opiate addiction and from drug addiction than is killing us in automobiles, killing us with guns, killing us with all of the other things that we keep talking about. so let's start facing this as the health crisis that it is. and change our policies so we can start actually making progress and moving people from addiction to recovery. >> woodruff: all right, ryan grim, as we heard the governor say, this is not just a problem in the vermont, not just in northeastern u.s., it is all over the country, how much worse has it grown across the country? >> it's gotten bad. and you have two main things going on here, and they're both going in the wrong direction. supply and demand. so on the supply side, as a result of the u.s. occupation of afghanistan, you've seen a surge in poppy production. and that heroin is going to go somewhere. it's going to find a market. there is no question about it. it's moved into mexico and

up through mexico, it's come here. we've seen since 2008 even a fourfold increase in seizures at the mexican border. on the demand side there has been this intense decade long crackdown on what they call pill mills which has also targeted regular doctors and pharmacies who no longer want to do any business in dispensing narcotics to people who might legitimately need it. that drives more business, legitimate business to these pill mills which makes them get bigger. the feds then knock those down. and so then these people go out looking for something that they need. whether these were legitimate addicts or what to begin withment, they're now addicts, they go out and find heroin, they are inexperienced users and it is a terrible combination. >> woodruff: you're talking about people who originally were looking, many of them, not all of them, were looking for pain medication, not able to get it, turned to the illegal. >> sure. many, many people who-- who have had some type of injury, elderly people to people who are 18 years ol and were hurt on the football field,

they will get a prescription. some of those people will become a dikted. and if you don't allow them access to these opiates, some of them, not all of them, a small percentage, are going to turn to heroin as it is cheaper and more available. >> woodruff: governor shumlin s there a profile-- go ahead what were you going to, i was going to ask if there is a profile of the person using. >> well, just quickly answer that question. the answer is everybody. we tend to live under the fantasy that we're talking about folks who are only growing up in poverty and have no opportunity and no hope. now listen, that's a problem. it definitely affects folks who have no opportunity and no hope. but it also afflicts people who have huge opportunity and who are wealthy. so it crosses all economic lines. and what ryan just said about the economics of this challenge, listen, right now here's how the economic works in vermont. a bag of heroin can be bought for 6, $7 bucks, new york, philadelphia, big citiesing south of us. in vermont it sells for $20

or $30 a bag. so you can do the math. a short drive up the interstate, and you are going to see a huge profit. so the challenge we're facing is that as this did begin as an oxycontin and prescription drug crisis, now heroin is cheap ear than-- cheaper than oxycontin on the streets and it's frankly more available. so that's the challenge that i'm facing as a governor. now the question is how do you deal with it. and the answer for me is, i've got people who are ready for treatment. the biggest challenge with opiate addicts, an op yuma dict, a drug addict, they're the best liars and best deniers you're ever going to meet. but there is a window of opportunity, all the research suggests, where you can convince them that treatment is the best option. and it tends to be when they're busted, when the blue lights are flark and when you have an opportunity. now the problem with my judicial system and probably everyone in the country, is, that there is a huge gap between that moment of opportunity to talk them into treatment, and the

court process that it takes weeks or months to wind your way through. so i'm changing the judicial process that i give my prosecutors an my judges a third party, independent assessment to go right in, right upon the bust and figure out, you know, who we should be mad at, disappointed in, and who we should be afraid of. >> woodruff: let me bring ryan back in here to ask you, ryan, what is happening around the country in terms of-- you just heard the governor say it can't just be law enforcement. that's part of it. it has to be prevention an and-- prevention and treatment. >> unfortunately, not a ton is happening. i mean there are a lot-- there are some grass roots efforts going on, for instance kentucky is starting to treat this in a much more humane way because they're seeing a similar problem as in vermont. what you are seeing in areas, poor, rural areas, particularly where oxy was a big problem, that's where you're seeing this heroin surge more than other places. you're also seeing it in some of the urban areas. but it's more of a rural

problem. but overwhelmingly the rhetoric around the war on drugs is still very mill tarristic. and there is still-- mill itarristic. >> that there is a war. >> right, we're going to stop this at the border, we're's going to lock people up, we're going to shut down these cartels. and we've been doing this for close to a century now and it just hasn't worked. >> woodruff: and governor, i hear you saying that the treatment side, getting these people into treatment, preventing it in the first place has to become a huge focus. >> you've got to change our thinking about this disease it is no different than cancer, no different than kidney disease. when you're sick and you want treatment, you've got to have it available to you. and that's what i am going to make possiblement and you need a judicial system that moves you into tra treatment right away, monitors your progress. and if you succeed, keeps you out of the criminal justice system all together. >> woodruff: well, we would like to end on a positive a note as we can. but it is a tough story, governor peter shumlin of vermont, thank you, ryan

grim, we thank you, very much. >> thank you. >> ifill: this has been an important week for pro football. on the one hand, more people are watching than ever. wild card match-ups drew record ratings, averaging 34 million viewers. one game, between the green bay packers and the san francisco 49ers, attracted 47 million viewers. but the n.f.l. is also trying to deal with the impact of concussions and head injuries. this week, the league went to federal court to file the details of a $760 million settlement to retirees with head trauma. but is even that whopping amount enough? hari sreenivasan explores that from our new york studios. >> i'm joined now by mike pesca from in addition public radio, the sports correspondent and he brings us up to speed. so if people haven't been paying atension wa, were the dehail shall did -- details of this nfl settlement

between players that was announced a couple days ago. >> right, so in august they said there was this settlement, big dollar value was attached to it but who would get what. so that is what this next step details. mostly what they've done is taken ail ams that could occur from head trauma and assigned a dollar value to it. there are a few moving parts of this. one is what is the ail am. so als, lou gehrig's disease, if you are a player who played in the league for four, five years, you're 45 years of age or under and you have als, you get $5 million. then there are sort of lower grades, so if you had type ii demeant ya, you would get less money, i think $3.5 million. also, if you are an older person you get less money. the idea being the payment is made in one lump sum, so over the course of your life, you'll need less money. i think the smallest amount is if someone, an nfl player played the recognize businessity number of years, is 80 years or older and has low level demont ya, it will be $25,000. all these gradations in between. >> is there a distinction between age, say, for

example, a player like junior seau who might have killed himself because of this, or has been proven that he had this versus somebody else at a different age that might have done this to themselves. >> there is and one of the parts of the settlement is that the-- a deceased player, if they can show that they had ct arc, chronic, traumatic encephalopathy, then their family would get millions of dollars. the age of the player, that actually is affected, and the number of years they play also affects the payout. but it's important to note that they, the players, their families do not have to prove a causation. and that is really important. if you could just show that cte was present, this settlement will pay you those millions of dollars. you don't have to show that there was a connection from football. which in a sense is a relief to the players and the family. but also it's what the nfl wanted. because they kind of don't want to have anyone to prove that there was a definitive connection. >> so the retired players don't have to take this. they can take their chances.

>> right. so part of the settlement is that they're allowed to opt out. and then there is a judge, and what she has to do is she has to decide if she is going to certify the settlement and allow it to go forward. but if a number of players opt out, she might say there are too many players that are against this. and you guys have to go back to the drawing board. and there has been some rumblings. players aren't very happy. there are two big reasons. one, they say the nfl is a $10 billion industry and this is a settlement worth less than a billion dollars, you know, 900 million if you include the attorneys fees. the players themselves will be getting around, you know, 800 million if all is paid. and that is a fraction of what the nfl earns, they think that is a small amount. other players who are unsatisfied with it want the truth to company out. so part of this settlement is the nfl will not be opening its books. it will not be revealing what they knew and when they knew it. so some players are more interested in the truth coming out than money. the other side of that, you have players who are really suffering right now. and they don't want this to drag out any longer.

and they even acknowledge, maybe we could have gotten more money, but now me an my family, we're going have 4 million. we're going have 3 million dollars an we're to the going to have to wait for years and years and years maybe to never get it. >> and this is a settlement that was reached relatively quickly when you talk about the nfl not having to open its books. they want to get there behind them as fast as possible. >> they announced in really a week or two before the season start. they wanted to-- exactly you what said, get this behind them. they don't want the cloud hanging over the nf, will. and it still will be, but if it's less of a story in newspapers, if they can show a bunch of players who benefited from it, that will make their business, they feel that will strengthen their business. >> you know what, finally, the current players, we're still seeing incredible hits, in a very dangerous way in the nfl and even these play-off games. >> it's important to note. this settlement does not-- in players there is a good rational. i think the nfl is saying these players should snow what is going on now. also we introduced concussion proto coles and you see players getting head

trauma, getting concussions, argue, their way back into games. it's human nature, the warrior mentality it isn't maybe clearly these are good guys and these are bad guys, these are victims and these are prerp trait-- perpetrators, it is a little complex. >> mike pesca from national public radio, thank you. >> you're welcome. >> woodruff: now, jeffrey brown continues his series with u.s. poet laureate natasha trethewey, called "where poetry lives," taking us to places where poetry and literature connect to everyday life. in past stories, they visited a program for alzheimers patients in new york, and one in detroit that encourages young students to write about themselves and their city. tonight, a different kind of connection, through the practice of medicine and healing. >> brown: outside boston's beth israel deaconess hospital on a recent frigid morning, natasha trethewey met up with a former poetry student of hers from emory university.

do you remember her as a teacher? >> of course, i do. >> brown: and natasha remembers "sam"-- samyukta mullangi-- fondly, as well. now you get to see her as a budding doctor-to-be. >> yeah, and she looks like the best, too. seeing her talk about not only the work of being a physician but also how poetry and language have a role in that. >> brown: sam is a fourth-year student at harvard medical school, but poetry is still a big part of her life now with a new mentor who believes poetry can benefit every doctor's education and work: rafael campo... >> i agree with sam, totally clear. >> brown: ...doctor, professor and a highly regarded poet. his sixth volume, just published, is titled "alternative medicine." >> "someone is dying alone in the night. the hospital hums like a consciousness.

i see their faces where others see blight. the doctors make their rounds like satellites, impossible to fathom distances. someone is dying alone under lights." poetry is in every encounter with my patients. i think healing really in a very profound way is about poetry, and if we do anything when we are with our patients, we are really immersing ourselves in their stories, really hearing their voices in a profound way. and certainly that's what a poem does. does anyone know frank o'hara's poem? >> brown: campo worries that something important has been lost in medicine and medical education today, a humanity that he finds in poetry. to that end, he leads a weekly reading and writing workshop for medical students and residents, and, on the night we joined, the group explored one of campo's central themes, the occasional disconnect between medical "facts" and human "truths."

>> sometimes facts become all consuming in our work as "docs" and we may risk losing sight of some of the "truths" of the experience of illness, particularly from the perspective of our patients. >> it's interesting to think about a roomful of surgeons who perceive one truth from this case and the family who want everything done, everything done. and they were living with a different truth, right? this was their family member, and they wanted any day extra possible with this person. >> brown: campo thinks medical training focuses too much on distancing the doctor from his or her patients, and poems like one he brought for his students to read-- marilyn hacker's "cancer winter"-- can help close that gap. >> "the hovering swarm has nothing to forgive. your voice petitions the indifferent night 'i don't know how to die yet. let me live.'" >> there's a confrontation with mortality.

how does the poem make it happen? >> we have this universal experience with mortality, and the reader begs us to grapple with it. >> the way she shows us the landscape transformed through the lens of a diagnosis. to know this now means you see ruin. >> brown: third-year resident andrea schwartz was one of the workshop regulars who read her own poetry. >> "the whiteness of her mother's knuckles while i told her we couldn't promise her a cure. after the call, i imagined the translator hanging up his receiver into the silence of his office, unable to break beyond the role to offer condolence or hope." >> brown: the next day, natasha and her former student compared notes. >> one thing we talk about is the way poetry connects us to other human beings. and i think i saw it in wonderful detail in some of the poems we read in the workshop last night.

>> i was thinking about this yesterday, and i think that, outside of writing itself, there's no other profession other than medicine that produces as many writers because i think there's so much power in the interactions between doctors and patients when they are at their move vulnerable and at their most human. >> brown: natasha and i, of course, are typically in that "patient" role when we meet doctors, and this was a rare look behind the medical curtain. >> when i heard that dr. campo talking yesterday about taking histories from patients and what's necessary to hear, i thought about language and the way that we use language in poetry to try to get to something precise, to try to find a way to describe what is happening inside the body through the kind of precise language. it's not just the scale of pain that they keep talking about but also using metaphor to be as precise as possible about what we are feeling as a patients. if i could describe the pain

metaphorically like, you know, being hit by a truck or having a knife go into my abdomen. >> reporter: that's like poetry. >> that's what poets do. >> brown: not everyone's convinced that's what doctors should do, though. i saw in an essay you wrote where you said, early on, it was hard for you to admit to other doctors that you were a poet. >> ( laughs ) yes, i sort of had to come out as a poet. i was afraid of how people might judge me actually and how my colleagues might perceive me, you know. another ethos in the medical profession, as many people know, is the sense that medicine is all consuming and that we must always put the kind of clinical emergency first. >> brown: you are not going to write a sonnet then. >> i'm not writing a sonnet at that moment. but, you know, often that kind of intervention results in a bad outcome. the family is sitting by the bedside, the patient hasn't survived the arrhythmia.

don't we still have a role as healers there? >> "could live carefree again..." >> brown: in a poem titled "health," campo writes of the desire to "live forever in a world made painless by our incurable joy." he says he'll continue mentoring students, helping patients and writing poems, his own brand of "alternative medicine." >> ifill: we have more of rafael campo's poetry on our "artbeat" page as well as a conversation jeff had with three medical students about the role of poetry in their lives. and, for students and teachers, we've posted a lesson plan on our web site that helps young people find poetry in their lives and use it to navigate difficult relationships and stressful situations, like visiting a doctor. >> woodruff: it's been just over

a week since some americans first started getting health insurance coverage through the new marketplaces. the federal web site and the government's enrollment efforts seem to be working substantially better, but there are still a fair share of questions and complications, including for some people eligible for medicaid going online at healthcare.gov. and there have been troubles for some of the state-created exchanges. sarah kliff is following all this for the "washington post." good to you have back with us. >> woodruff: thank you. >> so sar a let's stipulate that things as we said do seem to be generally going better for the signup process. that's your understanding. >> yes. >> woodruff: but let's talk about, for example, people ho are eligible for medicaid, going on the federal web site and some of them are having problems. tell us about that? >> the problem that they're having is their information isn't getting transmitted to the state. so they go on to health care.gov, find out they are he linlable for medicaid, they think they ren rolled but that information never makes its way to the state

medicaid office. and this is due to some technology they had hoped would be ready, to the being ready in time. so what's happening instead susie state medicaid offices making phone calls and telling people actually the fastest way to get signed up is go to your state medicaid office, that healthcare.gov isn't actually the best path to getting signed up. >> woodruff: that what they are doing to rectify this. >> they are really trying to reach people. we should mention it is a smaller subset of the medicaid eligible. we to about 3.9 million have been found he linlable formedicaid and we think this universe of people is about 100,000 people. so it's a subset, but they're trying to reach these people by phone calls and by letters to tell them go to your state office. >> woodruff: are they having success doing that? >> we're still seeing that right now. they're still right in the middle of that outreach. >> woodruff: so let me ask you about the state exchanges. some of the states have apparently had a smooth process, but then there are some states, maryland, oregon, among others, where

there have been real problems. what are you learning about that? >> the thing that some states that really wanted the affordable care act to work, especially maryland and oregon are two that you mentioned that have really had the most severe problems who volunteered to build these exchanges and just really couldn't get them off the ground so you're seeing a lot of work arounds in those states. oregon has really relied on paper applications, they've processed it out, 20,000 enrollments into private insurance, largely on pen and paper. maryland is looking at some emergency legislation to let people who tried to sign up but ran into technical issues still get those policies in january. >> so it's essentially a different story in every state. >> it is, yeah, you've seen one state and it's nothing like other states. washington next to oregon, for example, is having a great experience in signing lots of people up. >> now the other thing you were el iting us is that now some people are signed up and are starting to actually take advantage of this coverage. you're turning your attention to what their experience is, tell us about that. >> right, so now that you've got about an estimated 6

million people signed up, the thing we want to know is that going well for them? are they liking the coverage and the doctors and the copays that they're experiencing. for the first time, so for the past three months this has been a story about enrollment and technical glitches and getting signed up. going forward there will still be some of that but it will also be a story about health care and doctors. and are people liking the products that they're buying through health care.gov. >> ,-- healthcare.gov. >> woodruff: and that is what are you able to look at. >> right, we are just getting a trickle it will be a little whi, about a year until we learn the largest impact. we're starting to hear some stories about about how it is going. >> woodruff: everyone is impatient about how it is going. the last thing i want to ask you about is what the republicans are doing, they have tried repeat leed to overturn the law completely and other methods, one of the things they rolled out this week is an effort to look at how secure the federal web site is. explain what they're trying to do. >> right, they're definitely trying to put a spotlight on

healthcare.gov and in light of all the technical issues it raises concerns about the security of the site, since you do have people entering information like their address and their social security number. one thing they will be voting on is an effort for more reporting about breaches to the web site with the-- which the obama administration said today they oppose this legislation, they think there is more than enough reporting. the white house does say they believe the site is secure. that there have been no breaches to speak of so far and that they think it stands up to the security test that they have put it through. >> woodruff: is there any sense of how successful the republicans are going to be? we know numbers are different in the house than in the senatement but was's your sense of that. >> right. it probably is better odds in the house than in the senate. like most of the attacks on the affordable care act, they tend to pass through the house but in the senate run into difficulties. and the interestingly the white house said they oppose this legislation but they did not issue a veto threat which would be the more aggressive step to take. thats with one interesting nuance in how the white house is reacting to this.

>> i know will you keep watching it and we will too. sarah kliff, thank you. >> thank you. >> ifill: finally tonight, what's become of the arab spring? in 2011, there was great hope that democracy would replace authoritarian regimes in a number of countries in the middle east, but that's not exactly what's happened. chief foreign affairs correspondent margaret warner examines why. >> warner: as the fourth year of the arab spring begins, the middle east is seeing fresh waves of violence of widening scope. in syria, sunni-led rebels long fighting president bashar al assad's forces are now battling jihadi extremist units, as well. in iraq, where sunnis are protesting the shiite-dominated government of prime minister maliki, militants linked to al qaeda have seized key western cities. and in lebanon, spillover from the syria conflict has triggered car bomb assassinations of top

sunni figures and bombings of shiite neighborhoods in southern beirut. marwan muasher, former foreign minister and deputy prime minister of jordan, takes a long view of all this in his new book, "the second arab awakening and the battle for pluralism." we sat down for a conversation about it at the carnegie endowment for international peace. marwan muashering thank you for joining us. would you call the second arab awakening has so far seemed town leash, basically, chaos and violence in syria, and in libya, and new forms of undemocratic rule in egypt, even tunesia, why is that? >> it is a process in history that-- a short three years, the arab world is to different. at rab world was living under a state of artificially induced stable for a long time. nondemocratic government,

islamic opposition which promised-- more, was not put to the test to deliver on any of its promises. now that the lid has been taken off, all kinds of issues are coming out. so i think while it was simplistic to call it an arab spring right after it occurred, expecting, you know, autocracies to evolve into democracies overnight t is equally simplistic to think that this is an arab-- and this this is necessarily how the process will end. >> warner: so do you think that this region will move to some sort of stable but also open and democratic rule? >> i think what we have already seen is the bankruptcy of both the secular regimes and forces that are attempting to rule without a system of checks and balances. and of a religious opposition which is promising-- that has not delivered on results. that vacuum, if you will, that bankruptcy of both the secular and religious forces

has not been filled yet. obviously radical forces al qaeda types in syria and other places are attempting to make hughes of that, to their own advantage. so far what we have not seen are third forces which are, you know, for democracy, for pluralism, assert them is ofs in this new transformation, and to present themselves as credible alternatives. both to the religious opposition that is there in the arab world and to the secular, both regimes and forces who are also behaving in an exclusionist manner, and not really putting in place institutions that would assure a democratic and plurallistic culture. >> warner: do you think there's anything in the sort of arab culture or cultural dna

class people who came out to tarhir square demanding that mubarak go, said this is what they wanted but yet proved incapable of doing the hardwork of building parties and they lost the election. >> this is a natural process that will, i think, take its cures course in egypt. maybe 14, 15 years before we see stability come again and before people realize that pluralism needs to be the underlying foundation, operating system for everything that can be done. >> warner: the other split, of course, we're seeing and it seems to be growing wider and wider is shine sunni and shi'a. who's going to resolve that? how will that get resolved? >> again this is, i think, a result, a direct result of the lack of pluralism. because the sunni shiite divide in the arab world is not just a religious divide. it's also a political divide. >> it's about power. >> well, yes. and groups, particularly shiite groups in at rab world have lived as

second-class citizens for a long time. they were not given equal rights, in my view if all the ethnic religious political groups in at rab world are treated as equal citizens, a lot of these problems would just disappear. but this is not going to be automatic or immediate this is going to take decades of work in which you have to do things to the educational system, the value system, that exists in the arab world. in other words, there are no shortcuts to democracy. >> but in the meantime as you pointed out, extremist elements, violent jihadi elements are taking advantage of this vacuum. the u.s. made clear it's not going to intervene in the classic military sense. what will, i mean other than hoping that plurallistic forces get their act together, what will bring this region to some sort of stability? >> i think the jihadi sort of phenomenon is transient in the arab world. the radical element in syria

now are being fought by the moderate islamics themselves. this is a fight that needs to go on. but the overwhelming majority of the arab world do not subscribe to al quite types, do not subscribe to this jihadi radical thinking. in the end, the street in the arab world just as the street in any other place in the world, cares about job, about improving their lot. they don't care about ideology and radical forces. >> warner: and overcoming that has to be done by the people on the ground, not by outside powers. >> absolutely. this is a responsibility of arabs themselves. no one else. >> warner: marwan muasher, thank you. >> ifill: again, the major developments of the day. senate democrats pressed a new bill to restore long-term jobless benefits, but the effort stalled. and new jersey chris christie said he'd had "no knowledge" that part of a major bridge was closed in an apparent bid to

punish a political foe. he said he's fired a top aide for lying about it. >> woodruff: on the newshour online right now, as democrats and republicans debate how to tackle income inequality in this country, one author insists that the war on poverty wasn't just a liberal initiative. conservatives helped institutionalize much of what president lyndon johnson laid out 50 years ago, and this bipartisan investment has made america a stronger nation. read that argument on "making sense." all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. >> ifill: and that's the newshour for tonight. on friday, the latest jobs numbers, plus the new national ambassador for young people's literature. i'm gwen ifill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. we'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening with mark shields and david brooks among others. for all of us here at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

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