act. because if we don't, we are effectively saying that even though we may condemn it and issue resolutions and so forth and so on, somebody who is not shamed by resolutions can continue to act with impunity. >> the other big story we are following. expecting live remarks from former president bill clinton in little rock. the secretary of explaining stuff stepping up to the plate to tackle obama care with a major portion of that law set to take effect on october 4th. the biggest breaking news story of the day. convicted kidnapper and rapist ariel castro found dead behind bau bars. a live report on the ground moments away. major developments this morning as the president seeks congressional and international support for military strike against syria.

in stockholm, sweden, today, president obama explained in no uncertain terms the stakes for the u.s. and world if no one acts. >> when i said in a press conference that my calculus will bwhat is happening in syria would be altered by of use of chemical weapons which the overwhelming consensus of humanity says is wrong, that wasn't something i made up. i didn't pluck it out of thin air. there's a reason for it. my credibility is not on the line. the international community's credibility is on the line. and america and congress's credibility is on the line because we give lip service to the notion that these international norms are important. >> on capitol hill, hearings on tap today to convince lawmakers

to authorize the use of force. secretary of state john kerry and james clapper testifying at one hearing while secretary of defense chuck hagel and martin dempsey are testifying at the other. both appear at an open hearing by the house foreign affairs committee that begins an hour from now. this hour, the markup begins in the senate foreign relations committee on a new draft resolution and set a 60-day deadline for military action in syria. it would also bar u.s. boots on the ground. >> it tries to capture the balance of the views expressed yesterday by members of the committee that i think are reflective of members of the senate. it is tailored and narrow in both scope and breadth and assures no american troops on the ground and has a time limitation. >> aside from a filibuster threat.

kasie hunt reporting that senator john mccain appeared to be the president's biggest ally in arms says he won't support the senate resolution. political director chuck todd is traveling with the president in sweden. nbc's kasie hunt joins us live from capitol hill. i want to start with you on why senator mccain might now be changing his tune. >> reporter: senator mccain is okay with many of the limits that were included in this resolution, but he says that it doesn't do enough to focus on his priorities. he wants to see something that says that the goal of this is to change momentum on the ground. and he wants to support specifically the syrian, free syrian army which is one of the rebel groups he has been working closely with. he told me, as he went into that classified briefing, because those things aren't in there, he can't support this. that really is a surprise because throughout the hearing yesterday, mccain was somebody who was clearly and is clearly supportive of the idea of intervening in syria.

they are behind closed doors right now discussing the process for this and figuring out some of the things that we are going to see at that markup that is set to start at 11:30. we could see some surprises in that hearing, thomas. >> that certainly throws some water on it here at home, chuck. syria dominated the president's remarks there in sweden. he certainly made a passionate plea. was very resolute, if not beleaguered by the situation in syria. what does it say of senator john mccain back at home does not support this resolution? does that take out a linchpin the president hopes he has already from home to take that message abroad? >> reporter: thomas, this is a delicate dance here and we are trying to figure out how to correctly word this authorization that the white house wants from congress. you know, the draft they sent to congress was something john mccain could sign on to. if you look at it, a lot to the draft that could have made it much more open-ended and much longer and why you have some folks that are on the fence

about whether to support air strikes or not against syria, wanting to narrow the authorization. but the more narrow you get it, the less likely you'll get a lindsey graham or john mccain. but is that the price you have to pay in order to get a majority in the house? so i think that is the calculus here is what does it take to win 218 in the house and there are a lot more conceskeptics about th scope and scale than in the house and the senate and if you look at the pre's calculus here it may be worth to lose mccain if he can still get the 60 but get the 218 in the house if he gets that. going back to what the president said here. i think the biggest takeaway here is the president trying to depersonalize this. this was something that the white house has been pushing back all weekend, somehow if he had never said the phrase red line, would we be in the situation we are in now? a question i posed to senior aids over the weekend. they said, no, this is not about

the president's red line. this is about the chemical weapons treaty and international norms and they are referring to the chemical weapons treaty. you have the president depersonalize it and why? in war authorizations in the past, the party of the president usually loses support among the opposing party in the house and senate. we saw clinton lose republicans back during kosovo in the mid '90s and what the white house is faring some republicans who might be overall supportive of the intervention but because obama's name is attached to it, they will not vote for it. they were trying to depersonalize it and hope it would polarize it. >> taking the personal out of it as the president is on his way to the g-20 right now. we know the president doesn't have the best relationship on the sidelines with vladimir putin. there is a lot going on and a lot of moving parts to that relationship. but putin gave an interview

today saying he would support u.s.-led inventitervention if t was proof that bashar al assad was responsible for using weapons against his own people. again, it has to be proven to him. the administration says it's got the proof that over 1,400 people were killed in that attack on august 21st in this damascus suburb. will they try to have bilateral talks to seek the full support? >> reporter: they continue to say there is no scheduled meeting between the two but considering putin's comments in that interview with the associated press and russia's channel 1, it's as much of an olive branch you'll ever get from putin. he talked about what he said about assad. he also said he didn't believe

any military strikes against syria were legal unless the united nations passed a resolution calling for them. so he also threw that caveat in there as well. i guess one country on the permanent security council can veto any resolution like that and, so far, russia said it intended to do that. the proof, from my understanding and our reporting at nbc news, the proof that ties it to assad is that it was assad's brother that ordered. the question is did say sad make the order? that is about the only chain of evidence that the united states doesn't have. they know it was assad's brother. >> let's talk about the chain of evidence because, right now the u.n. chief is warning it's premature to go with any type of military action unless they have had time to analyze their investigation results. kasie, talk about where we stand with the vote on the senate side of things. from your reporting, is it going to be 51 majority or do you

think a filibuster and they need to clear the bench at 60? >> senator rand paul hasn't ruled out a filibuster. it's up to the senate par men tearian how many votes are needed for this resolution. as far as getting to where they need to be in the senate and the house to go back to what chuck was saying about depersonalizing this from the president, i would say there are some lawmakers up here who are urging him to, in fact, personalize it. house democrats in some ways have the opposite imperative as the house republicans who need distance. you've heard several members call for the president to sit in the oval office and address the american people. they say their constituent calls are overwhelmingly negative. everything they are hearing is saying don't do this, don't do this. they think that part of the reason why is that americans don't understand and they want the president to explain it to them. >> chuck, let me ask you quickly. the president that we saw today speaking from sweden, to me, as i was watching it, as i said,

was resolute, but seemed absolutely beleaguered by having to make these decisions against assad. he is not a neocon. he has drawn down afghanistan and iraq and led the arab league to play out what happened in egypt and we know what happened to gadhafi in libya. what was your impression? >> it's funny you say that. look. i agree. i think he definitely -- you could tell this is wearing on him a bit, but to go to kasie's point whether the president should address the nation before congress votes on this, you're hearing from a lot of leaders on both sides of the aisle and i'm hearing the same thing, they want him to do this. for the longest time the white house insisted they didn't need to do something like that, something that big. but this was also at the same time that the white house insisted they didn't need degree of medical -- congressional authority. i won't be surprised if the

white house changes its mind to put the president out there in a formal prime time events that captures 30 million viewers to make his case one last time before congress votes. >> guys, thanks so much. we move on to the breaking news overnight. a deadly end to one of the sensational crime stories in recent memories. the ruling just out in the last hour from the coroner after an early morning autopsy that convicted kidnapper and rapist ariel castro hang himself with a bed sheet in his jail cell. castro's attorney appeared on the "today" ahead of that ruling from the autopsy and the coroner and had this to say. >> i understand that the public, in general, is probably going to say, we will good riddance, but this is a human being. we are in a civilized society. and we expect that the person will be protected when they are institutionalized.

there is an obligation on the part of the prisons and i doubt that the prison officials would dispute that, that they have an obligation to assure there wouldn't be a suicide or anything else and we pray there wasn't anything else. >> nbc's john yang is in cleveland. we have this ruling from the coroner. as that attorney points out there it is a catch-22 when we think about trying to have compassion for a convicted rapist and kidnapper, the likes of ariel castro. what information are you hearing from your sources about how he likely died? and was given the opportunity to have that 30-minute window to be able to pull this off. >> reporter: that's right. thomas, the coroner says that the injuries were consistent with using a bed sheet to hang himself. and as the attorney pointed out, he was in protective custody. he was kept in a cell by himself. there was a guard coming by every 30 minutes on a staggered schedule. so he did know exactly when the guards were coming by to check on him. but attorney wants to know why

he wasn't on suicide watch when he was being held awaiting trial in the county jail. they wouldn't give him his reading glasses because they were afraid he might harm himself. there was no suicide watch when he got to the state prison. the attorney wants to know more about the psychological evaluations that were going on. and that sort of thing. but most of the attention, i think, or the reaction is that people don't want to draw more attention to ariel castro. the three women in this case, moon amanda berry and michelle knight and gina dejesus say they are not talking and i think this attempt to not put more attention on ariel castro is reflected in a statement from cleveland mayor frank jackson who says our focus remains on the well-being of the survivors of seymour avenue, the street in

which the house once stood. it is our sincere hope they will continue to heal and recover. the women, the three women have not been very visible. two of them, gina dejesus and amanda berry said they don't want any more to do with this. michelle knight did confront castro at his sentencing earlier in august. >> you took 11 years of my life away. and i have got it back. i spent 11 years in hell. now your hell is just beginning. >> reporter: we have now gonted a statement from cuyahoga prosecutor who says these molesters are cowards, they con and capture vulnerable children. this man couldn't take even for a month a small portion of what

he had dished out for more than a decade. thomas? >> it was such a strong statement there from michelle knight. john yang reporting for us, thank you. john, thg going to lead us to the big question today based on your story. for all of you out there, do you think that ariel castro's suicide has deprived his victims of justice? we are getting the statement in there calling this an act of cowardness he wasn't able to maintain longer than a month what he inflicted on his victims for years. weigh in on twitter and ourbook page. we continue to follow developing news in arkansas this hour. we are awaiting live remarks from former president bill clinton, the unofficial secretary of explaining stuff, set to give obama care the type of backing only he can give it. with another part of that to kick in october 4th is when open enrollment begins, we will bring you that speech as it happens.

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president bill clinton. he is giving his speech this hour from little rock, arkansas, on obamacare with another major portion of that law taking effect in a matter of weeks. a month from today to be exact. former president clinton his unofficial role as the secretary of explaining stuff. we will bring you those remarks as they happen. in the meantime, how effective will the secretary of explaining stuff be? it is our topic for the agenda panel today. corey is a contributing editor for the root and igor is of pink progress and laura is a reporter for the huffingtonpost. forgive me if we break away because president clinton has come out to start his address.

we want to talk exactly what the purpose of this is. corey, let me start with you because the white house is bringing out the big guns back here at home with president clinton to talk about how this will change american lives for the better. again, this is going to be happening over the next several weeks to try to inform everybody as early enrollment or enrollment starts on october 4th. you're comparing this to the full political campaign that might be a sign of desperation for the administration that they can get people on board with what obamacare means. >> it's not quite desperation yet but it is ironic that president obama is relying on bill clinton to rely on obamacare after 20 years their health care reform was not able to be passed 20 years ago. he is taking this complicated law and making it plain for the massive of americans that need to get on this program. so over the next six months,

you're going to see clinton, you're going to see the first lady and other surrogates go from state-to-state and push this program so that enrollment, open enrollment the next six months continues to increase. >> corey, you make a great point but the clintons are the grandparents of obamacare. igor, national committee has launched a month-long campaign to show the americans real cost of obamacare and shag the rnc will hold voters accountable in 2014 by hiatal the facts from now until election day. the right not going down without a fight over this. >> it is the latest example of this huge misinformation campaign about obamacare that we have seen since 2010. thomas, opponents spent about 500,000 on tv ads alone in trying to talk about obama care and claiming that it will throw

grandma off her medicare and there is death panels and this and that and the other thing and trying to now to overwhelm community groups that are enrolling people with paper work so they don't do it. it is really something. it's good to see for the administration, clinton now out and explaining this. the last time he did it was during the democratic national convention and he went point by point by point. because he is not in daily politics i think he raises baboe some of that noise and can be really effective. >> a study shows 51% of those surveyed didn't have enough information about the law to understand how it's going to impact them and their families. igor points out there has been so much money spent on misinformation campaigns and tv general managers love those commercials because it rakes in the bucks for them. it really might be steering people down the wrong road to know exactly what this means for them, how it can benefit their family, if they choose to learn

about it. >> i think that's exactly the problem. it's not that people don't like obama care. it's that people don't understand obama care and what it means for them. i think of that same poll. some people were responding they thought the supreme court had struck down obamacare or it had been repelled. this confusion runs really deep. i think it's really important for the success of the law that young, healthy people enroll, that businesses and employers enroll and participate and that is going to be a big factor whether the law is successful and whether the costs go down. i think the gop strategy right now is to sort of poison public opinion on the law so that nobody enrolls own so that it turns out to be a complete failure. that would be a self-fulfilling prophecy. >> as we are talking about the dnc, the president clinton made a blockbuster speech there. we just saw him speaking the other day at the 50th anniversary of the march on washington and, again, really kind of laying it out pretty

basically for people as they can understand. igor, should the administration have tapped into his abilities earlier? >> i think so. i think if they would have explained this better, we wouldn't be in the situation where as laura points out, half of the people don't know if it's law any more. i think the key, though, for president clinton and for others is not to talk about in terms of this great big obama care. but to go provision by provision by provision, the preexisting conditions exclusion and keeping kids on your plan and that is what people like across the board, republican or democrat, they have to break it down, i think. >> corey, who does bill clinton pre resonate with most now? we look at the kaiser foundation family poll, who is he speaking to that is then going to inspire them, as laura points out, to learn more and educate the themselves what it means and the supreme court doesn't strike this down, it exists. >> news flash. the law is still the law.

clinton is the unique thing about clinton. his popularity is across the board. he is particularly popular in middle america and in the south. but also across generations. the obama administration really wants young healthy people to get on board and clinton still has a strong image in his humanitarian work and has definitely helped him among those younger people who don't remember him as president. he has wide aplplicable ability >> i think hillary clinton might have to distance herself from obama care the way a lot of democratic candidates are won on. grimes in kentucky is trying to distance herself from obamacare because it seems to be so unpopular this states like that. i think that if clinton can -- if bill clinton can successfully sell the law right now and it turns out to be a success, she won't have to distance herself in 2016. >> we will have live coverage of

bill clinton's speech when it happens. thanks to our agenda panel. you can find more from them on tv.msnbc.com. follow the link to my name. another developing story this hour happening on capitol hill. the senate foreign relations committee is set to meet and discuss its own version of the president's official request to use military force in syria. joining me in a few minutes to talk about that is general barry mcqcaffrey and former ambassado christopher hill. ♪ ♪ we go, go, we don't have to go solo ♪ ♪ fire, fire, you can take me higher ♪ ♪ take me to the mountains, start a revolution ♪ ♪ hold my hand, we can make, we can make a contribution ♪ ♪ brand-new season, keep it in motion ♪ ♪ 'cause the rhyme is the reason ♪ ♪ break through, man, it doesn't matter who you're talking to ♪ [ male announcer ] completely redesigned for whatever you love to do. the all-new nissan versa note. your door to more. ♪

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♪ now you can give yourself a kick in the rear! v8 v-fusion plus energy. natural energy from green tea plus fruits and veggies. need a little kick? ooh! could've had a v8. in the juice aisle. we are expecting another packed day on the capitol hill. the foreign relations committee will meet in the next few minutes on a markup session on a version of the resolution to authorize the use of force. this follows the committee's three hour hearing yesterday afternoon. in half an hour, the house foreign affairs committee will hold that chamber aers birs

hearing on t first hearing. hagel and kerry and dempsey expected to testify again. the president made the case for force in syria. take a listen. >> the question is after we have gone through all of this, are we going to try to find a reason not to act? and if that's the case, then i think the world community should admit it. >> the president's next stop is the g-20 case taking place in russia. a stern warning this morning from putin. in a tv interview he is saying the u.s. and allies should be warned against launching a one-sided military attack in syria and putin says he is not ruling out u.s.-led action in syria if he gets concrete proof that the assad regime carried out the alleged attack. a chance he and obama could meet

on the sidelines of the g-20 and an opportunity for the president to get russia on board with military action. joining me is general mccaffrey and chris hill. gentlemen, good to have you here. ambassador, vat putin says russia will continue to supply the assad regime with weapons and just to point out that russia has a military repair base for its navy off of the syrian shores. so how likely is it that president obama can get him to join others and the international community in its plans to strike against syria? especially since putin seems very determined that any information he sees is truly a red herring by syrian opposition, planted to make bashar al assad to look bad. >> i think the likelihood of enlisting him in any strike against syria is pretty nil. put in knows he can assess

intelligence as well as anybody and he knows if there is is information and intelligence that syrian forces used banned weapons. he knows that. i think he has made a decision that russia is going to try to stay with assad. he is trying to making a bet that assad will probably prevail in syria. i don't think he can enlist him into that cause. i do believe that it is worth talking to putin. it is worth going through the evidence and it's worth sort of getting over the snowden affair to try to do something with that relationship. at the end of the day, our main problem in syria is we have no political strategy in syria. we have no diplomatic way forward except to say that assad won't go. >> so, general, let me ask you if the plan doesn't consist of getting rid of bashar al assad and it is just about military strikes and degrading his military capabilities to use chemical weapons, is this a failed plan to begin with? >> sure. right at the start.

i think ambassador hill has it dead right. the problem is what is our political objective? if it is just to deter the use of chemical weapons and we are not joined by the sunni nation around and if the people oppose a strike and use a limited attack why would we think this would do anything but provoke escalation which is a likely will happen in this process. >> i appreciate all of your insight into this. i know we will talk more about this in the coming days. thank you, gentlemen. as we have been telling but this morning, we are waiting for president bill clinton to be addressing a crowd there in little rock, arkansas, talking about obamacare. it's just over a month now or exactly a month that people will be able to start enrollment in joining obamacare. former president clinton will be

kicking off that effort today and explaining what it means. joining me is dr. zeke emmanuel and a special adviser on health policy and is one of the key architects of obamacare. forgive me in advance if i have to cut you off if the president comes out. we want to take this from the very beginning. >> go to clinton rather than me? >> it wouldn't be my choice, zeke. but my producer said i must. let's talk about the recent survey by the kaiser family foundation showing 51% of those surveyed say they don't have new information to understand how it's going to impact them. right now, with president clinton coming out, is the onus really on him to try to really -- i hate to use this, to dumb it down? >> no, i don't think it's a matter of dumb it down. i think it's a mapt matter of communicating to people what in it for them and why it's a good bill for them.

one of the things i think many people don't understand is that, in fact, that they will get subsidies is there. >> governor, senator, mrs. pryor, speaker carter and senator lamaro and mcdaniel, all of the other officials who are here and my friends of many years, first, i want to thank marah for her introduction and sharing a little of her story. today, the work my foundation does on health care in america largely concentrates on the issue of childhood obesity and the role that plays in dramatically increasing type ii diabetes, type you get from living, but we can never forget that there are people like mara

who are born with conditions that lead to type i diabetes and that these two conditions combined account for an enormous percentage of health care spending because of the consequences that they bring to the people who bear them and their families. and if not adequately treated, can shrink, rather than increase, the horizons of our gifted young people. so thank you for being here. my work today on health care is mostly, as i said, in trying to contain and reduce childhood obesity and trying to improve the health care of the baby boone generation so we don't bankrupt all of the rest of you. but around the world, i work with people who have no money, no health systems, no nothing, all of the things that we take for granted.

however, all of this work began when i was attorney general worrying about the kault of health care in arkansas nursing homes or when i was governor, trying to deal with the fact that there were still substantial numbers of rural communities where people had virtually no access to health care. where it was not possible to deliver a baby safely. where the infant mortality rate was well above the national average. so i've been involved in this subject for a long time. and i have believed all my life that the role of government was the work with the private sector and the nongovernmental groups and communities and ordinary citizens essentially to empower people to have better life stories. and that's what this whole issue

is about. i have agreed to give this talk today because i'm still amazed at how much misunderstanding there is about the current system of health care, how it works, how it compares with what other people in other countries pay for health care and what kind of results they get and what changes are actually occurring now and are going to occur in the future. so i have done something unusual for me. i actually wrote this whole thing out. i am going to try to use very few adjectives, explain how this works and what has been done and what has to be done and talk about the remarkable work that has been done in arkansas, thanks to the governor and the leaders of the house and senate

and bipartisan coalition here and what lies ahead. and i'm going to argue, as best i can, that we will all be a lot better off, whether we support it or oppose the health care reform law, whether we like it or don't, we would all be better off working together to make it work as well as possible and identify the problems and to fix them. instead of to keep replaying the same old battle. that's my belief and i hope i can persuade you that that is correct and we should support leaders like the governor and the leaders of the house and senate here all over america who are just trying to figure out what is best for the people and get the job done. in 2010, nearly a hundred years after president theodore roosevelt first proposed

affordability health care, president obama signed the affordable health care act. the bill was designed to address the two biggest problems of the american health care system. its extraordinary costs and its lack of coverage. and to do so in a way that improves, not weakens, the quality of our health care. before the bill passed, just 84% of the american people had insurance coverage and we were spending almost 18% of our gdp, 17.9% of our gdp on health care and that is about $2.5 trillion. other countries at our income level cover everybody and do it for far less cost, between 9% of gb gdp, that is japan, and 12% of

gdp, that is the netherlands and switzerland with germany and france in the middle. the difference between 9% and 12 is 12 trillion a year that could go to pay raises or to high new employees or to make investments that would make our economy grow faster. or to provide more capital to start small businesses or expand others. or to support diversifying and strengthening agriculture. you name it. a trillion dollars is a lot of money to spot our competitors in a highly competitive global economy. it would be worth it if we got a trillion dollars better health outcome, but that's not what the

research shows. it shows we rank first by a country mile in the percentage of our income we spend on health care and no better than, in all of the surveys, 25th to 33rd among all nations in our health care outcomes. health care costs keep wages down, business profits down, economic growth down. accounted for 60% of the personal bankruptcy filings before the economic crashed. and every single year for an entire decade now, they have been going up to three times the rate of inflation, manifesting thems to oer themselves in higher premiums and higher dededuct ibles. the cost is so high for several reasons. almost everybody pays health care providers for each procedure. medical device or service. not for the overall quality of

health care. in most states, health insurers have almost no competition. in 80% of our states, one or two companies have 80% of the market. therefore, there is very little constraint, either from competition or regulation, on limiting prices or their ability to not cover people with preexisting conditions, or to do so at unaffordable prices. the paper work costs of our system, because there are so many different people paying into it and are incredibly high. about a dime on the dollar higher than the next most expensive country in the world. that's a lot of money. and we all pay for that. we also pay more for drugs than people in other wealthy countries. about $70 billion a year more.

as i said earlier, our lifestyle has led to a higher number of preventable problems than citizens of other countries have, especially diabetes and the conditions related to it. now the affordable care act is designed to address all of these issues. by making health care coverage available and more affordable to all americans, by improving health care delivery and paying for it based on its quality, not the number of procedures performed and products provided, and by creating more affordable apgs for uninsured people and small businesses. that's what arkansas governor beebe and the legislators are leading the country in, i think, bipartisan efforts to do. the law has generated a lot of opposition, as we all know. it's been attacked from the left, believe it or not, for not having a public option, that is for leaving the insurance

companies with too large of a role in health care and it's been attacked from the right for increasing the role of government in health care delivery. people who are already insured have been told they are about to lose what they have in life. small businesses have been told they will be priced to insolvency. poor people without coverage have been told they won't be able to afford it when it comes. in congress, there have been 40 votes to repeal this law but no real alternative is presented to fix the current system. opposition is fierce in many states which matters because states are given a very big role in implementing this. something i like. they are eligible for a substantial increase in medicaid funding to provide income to workers for lower funds and to run marketplaces to allow

uninsured businesses and small businesses to shop for policies that are adequate and more affordable. several states have declined to participate in either the medicaid expansion or the marketplaces or both. leaving money on the table for other states and the health insurance marketplace for the federal government to set up and run. as i said, i think we should all work together to implement this law whether we support its passage or not for several reasons. number one, as i'll try to demonstrate in a minute, it's better than the current system. which is unaffordable and down right unhealthy for millions of americans. number two, it gives states the chance to devise programs that work best for them and their populations. number three. not cooperating mean the state's taxpayers will pay for this and the money will go to somebody else somewhere else. with consequences, which i will

outline. number four. the problems with the law and there are some, you can't change a complex ecostructure like american health care many much without creating some problems so there are some. but they can best be solved if we all work together to fix them. number five, this does give us the best chance we've had to achieve nearly universal coverage, provide higher quality health care, and lower the rate of cost increases, which we have got to do in a competitive global economy. and, finally, it is the law. and i think we have -- we have all got an interest in trying to faithfully execute the laws. if you get one of these elected jobs, you actually take an oath to do that. so i'll do the best i can in

plain language to say how the law works, what has happened so far, what has to be done now, what the unsolved problems are. and why we are better off working together to fix those problems than continuing to fight to repeal the law or even worse, to make sure its impli s implementation is a failure. several provisions of this law, talk about where we are now. several provisions of the law have already taken effect. as a result, more than 3 million young adults under 26 like mara now have health coverage on their parents' plans. 6.6 million seniors pay police for prescription drugs as the law closes the doughnut hole in the medicare program. 105 million americans have seen the limits, the lifetime limits on their insurance coverage abolished and preventive care is

less costly for them. 17 million children with preexisting conditions. 17 million can no longer be denied coverage or charged higher rates for it. almost 26 million women and almost 26 million men -- excuse me, 27 million women and 26 million men, have been extended preventive benefits with no cost sharing, including mammograms, cervical cancer screening, colorectal treating and cholesterol and blood pressure tests and stop smoking programs and prenatal and child care visits. 12 million people have received rebates from insurance companies because companies must now spend 80% of your premiums, depending on the size of your pool, on your health care. not keeping profits and promotion.

this has also been a major factor in keeping rates lower than they otherwise would have been and slowing the rate of increase. total savings from rebates and lower insurance rates rebates a lower insurance rates are estimated in 2012 to have been $3.9 billion. what does this mean for arkansas where nearly 500,000 people are uninsured, including about 25% of our working age people, one in four of them? well, 865,000 people no longer have lifetime limits. more than 32,000 seniors have seen a reduction in their drug price. 35,000 young people are now covered on their parents' plans. more than a million people are eligible for preventive services without a deductible or co-pay, and more than 120,000 ar can

sans -- we've been listening to president bill clinton. he is going to bat for president obama to get people up to speed about enrollment for obama care which begins on october the 1st. i had said october the 4th before but it's october the 1th. today is september 4th. i've been up way too long. i have dr. zeke manuel with me listening. zeke, you were one of the key architects of obama care, so when you hear that, one of the biggest numbers we got out of that from 2012 alone as this has started savings wise, over $3 billion in savings effectively americans have begun to see. they'll start to feel that even more. as we get through this, and the president said that we best solve this if we work through this together to fix the problems that are going to come with this, you admit there will be glitches with obama care as we start to understand what it

means? >> yes. >> i just lost you. zeke, can you still hear me? >> now i can. >> good. there would be glitches with obama care as americans start to live through it? we've got to live through it to figure out what they are? >> right. and i think the fact is that some of the websites are going to have some problems. we're not going to have all of the selection of insurance companies we want, but we're going to fix the website. it's only a technical problem. we are going to get more insurance companies coming in as they gain experience. i think we're going to get through this. you don't have a big launch and try to redirect $2.8 trillion of the economy without some glitches. almost every company when they launch a new product faces glitches, that's why they do beta testing. we are going to have some of those. we can solve them. they're not major rocket science

problems and i do think that's going to be the key. the important point is president clinton has pointed out, a lot of people are already benefitting. the problem is they don't realize it's from the affordable health care act. we have -- it is the affordable care act that gave them the right to get them on their parents' plan, gave them the rebates. that has been a communications issue. we should distinguish the communications problem from the actual substance. the substance has been good by most americans' view. >> one of the other numbers that the president pointed out there was that 17 million children now have coverage and they can't be denied for pre-existing conditions or suffer a jacked up rate because of those pre-existing conditions, but the other thing that i thought was really interesting, the president starts to talk specifically about arkansas. what you know about the state exchanges and how states are coming on board with this, how quickly do you think the states -- are they going to meet the requirements that they need by people for october the 1st?

>> well, first of all, you have to be a little clear, and i think we need to be clear. you're going to be able to shop on october 1st but you don't get coverage until january 1st. so any time between october 1st and december 31st you can shop. you don't have to shop on october 1st to get the coverage on january 1st. as a matter of fact, you can shop all the way to march 31st, three months into the year, to get the coverage in the exchanges. i think being ready, if october 1st there are glitches, you'll have a chance on december 1st, december 15th to get your coverage in and to lock in your insurance plan with the subsidy from the federal government. and i think that -- so we shouldn't put too much emphasis on october 1st as the d-day. that is really for shopping and for the delivery of the good, that is the insurance plan, that's a january 1st deadline. any time before january 1st we will get a lot of americans on that website and we should remember that the congressional

budget office projects 7 million american getting insurance on the exchanges. the exchange expect more people because they think it's going to be largely a good bargain for most americans. >> shopping starts on october the 1st. people can learn more about it between now and then. dr. ezekiel manuel, thank you for your patience. really appreciate it. >> i'm glad president clinton is explaining this. it'll help everyone get a clearer picture. >> zeke, thanks again. that will wrap up this hour. now with alex wagner is coming up next. she is also our unofficial secretary of explaining stuff here at msnbc. >> deputy secretary of confusion. >> alex, have a great show. >> thanks, thomas. as the senate foreign relations committee prepares for a key vote on sir yeah, president obama and the white house both press the case for military action. we will talk resolutions and red lines with chuck todd, dexter fill kins and jacob white birg.

we'll ask jeremy bash about the latest strike on chemical weapons. and explainer in chief bill clinton settles into his new role of white house health care salesman. we will discuss the obama care rollout. all of that when "now" starts right after this. and the walmart's super savings event is here! like this xbox 360. on rollback: you save $20. and this huffy cranbrook cruiser. on rollback: you save over $9! get more for your money at walmart's super savings event. a man who doesn't stand still. but jim has afib, atrial fibrillation -- an irregular heartbeat, not caused by a heart valve problem. that puts jim at a greater risk of stroke.

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international but the president's message was aimed at a domestic agenda. >> when bad stuff happens around the world, the first question is, what is the united states going to do about it? i do think that we have to act because if we don't, we are effectively saying that even though we may condemn it and issue resolutions and so forth and so on, that somebody who is not shamed by resolutions can continue to act with impunity. >> but if the white house has said that the president will act unilaterally shouldn't affect the dictate and that the choice to gain congressional approval was his and his alone, today the president pushed back on the notion that this is his responsibility to bear. >> i didn't set a red line. the world set a red line. the world set a red line when governments representing 98% of