boston, not for world series game six, but obama care. the person he put in charge for launching the program was grilled on capitol hill. it is where mitt romney signed his state's health care reform in 2006. mitt will not be there today. keep a number out for this number, 123, the total number of people who enrolled in the commonwealth's case in its first month. as we know, enrollment later spiked and that's one message the president will push as an indicator that obama karen rollment might be off to a slow start but will pick up. joining him on the stage, deval patrick and state workers. kathleen sebelius answered questions from frustrated lawmakers on the botched rollout. what's next for the site and millions of canceled subpar plans. >> let me say directly to those

americans, you deserve better. i apologize, i'm accountable to you to fixing the problems. >> is he keeping his promise to them? >> congresswoman, they can get health insurance. they must be offered new plans. >> some people like to drive a ford not a ferrari and some like to drink out of a red solo cup. >> hold me accountsable, i'm responsible. >> they never asked you to delay the launch date. >> they did not. frankly, i think it is not valuable at this point to do a lot of pointing blame, fixing the blame. what i want to do is fix the problem. i told the president that we were ready to go, clearly i was wrong. we were wrong. we knew that in any big new complicated system, there would be problems. no one ever imagined the volume of issues and problems that we've had. and we must fix it. >> and on other side of the

hill, the senate health committee announced the hearing for today with chief marilyn tavenner round two. luke, tell us about secretary sebelius and the wizard of oz? >> reporter: well tour'e -- sorry, ari. you guys look so much alike and both red sox fans too, right? because kathleen sebelius is former governor of kansas, some wanted to throw out the proverbial we're not in kansas anymore wizard of oz reference. that was done by joe barton who said we were having this parallel universe like the wizard of oz because of problems with the health care rollout. you saw the reference to red solo cups by representative blackburn. then midway into a rather aggressive grilling from house

republicans, take a listen. >> the president is ultimately responsible for the rollout, ultimately -- >> no, sir. we are responsible for the rollout. >> but who do you answer to? >> i answer to the president. >> right, so is the president not ultimately responsibility like a company ceo would be? >> sir, he's the president of the united states. >> it is the president's ultimate responsibility, correct? >> you clearly -- whatever, yes, he is the president and is responsible for government program. >> will you tell the american public i will go into the exchanges next year like everyone else? >> sir, the way the law is written -- >> it's a yes or no. let's say you're wrong on that. yes or no, if you're wrong, will you? >> i don't want misinformation to american public. i don't want to give misinformation -- >> i want you to research -- if you're wrong -- will you go into the exchanges? >> if i'm wrong -- >> if you can, will you?

that's a yes or no. >> reporter: those are the two being pushed out by the rnc rapid response team, circling in on the answer by sebelius where she says whatever, that is something which you're ever before a congressional committee you never want to say because it will go viral quite quickly. it's a very contentious issue on capitol hill right now because a lot of members are going to enroll staffs in the d.c. exchange and they want to have the same standard for the administration and that's why she got hit hard with that. overall from conversations i've had with republicans and democrats, the general consensus is at a sebelius kept her head above water and took fault for what happened and accepted blame. she said it was a debacle. she said it wasn't acceptable. some points of interest, they will not release the enrollment numbers until somewhere in mid-november, saying they want to get the data information correct as well as moving

forward. they believe the exchanges should be up and running by the deadlines they've set. and lastly, the problems are relegated to a specific subset of contractors who are not properly equipped to do the job. that's what we learned today and not properly equipped to get the websites up and running. a little information about what went wrong, a lot of apologies, this is what we did and this is why we should be blamed. >> luke, a lot me to say to you, whatever. >> reporter: whatever. go red sox, tour'e's hometown, boston red sox. >> we'll let him know. dana milbank has been keeping an eye on all of these hearings and you've seen much such hearings, h hypocrisy is not unique to today, also a grain, almost like a sabotage cover-up, they were

trying to do things to prevent the same program they are talking about today from working. two examples here from congressman elmers as said previously if any of congress's work ended up in a delay to enrolling people, i wouldn't be unhappy about that. another one, congressman said if you want to sign up, you've got to call hhs. we'll say, look, call kathleen sebelius' office if you want to figure that ouxt that was pursuant to something called navigator in the last few months. the bottom line, you have people saying i hope you have trouble signing up. what's the difference today? >> i think actually if anything today there was less venom than usual because i think sebelius disarmed them a bit with the taking of responsibility, the apologies that luke was talking about there. they were just not set for that. so instead they seem to be casting her as dorothy in the wizard of oz.

i don't want to -- there's a spoiler alert here but it turns out okay for dorothy in the wizard of oz and not so well for the flying monkeys, which is pretty much what the republicans were looking like today as they went after her. i think it set some of them back on their heels because they were expecting to have her pointing fingers this way at the contractors or this way at somebody else, whereas she was saying, yep, we screwed it up and sorry about it. the rest of it is intact. it was a interm i hadable three and a half hours. but she seemed to have been relatively unscathed. >> dana, i have to tell you, i'm sitting here in front of a derveg and want to bang my head up against it. when i'm listening to luke replay clips from the hearing which i watched almost entirely as well, it strikes me that yes, we have problems with the website, no doubt about that, everyone on the democratic side

at least wants those to be fixed. but republicans are folk ug s on things like whether or not kathleen sebelius will buy insurance on the exchange not designed for her because she already has employer health insurance. democrats on other hand are trying to defend the website. it just left me asking the question, and i don't mean this to be snarky or simplistic, but what are these hearings actually accomplishing? who are they really for? are they actually doing any good in solving the problems that we're facing with this law right now? >> no, but they are doing something in terms of perpetu e perpetuating the problem. that gets back to the previous question. there has been an element of sabotage in slowing these down, the exchanges are not working in states where there are republican governors not participating in the exchanges. in the larger picture here, if the republicans continue to cast doubt on obama care, make it look like a disaster in all

areas and all its manifestations, it means the young people they need to get to enroll in the program don't want anything to do with the disaster an it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. so there is logic to having hearings and complaining about the thing, regardless of what they are complaining about and they were pretty much throwing the whole kitchen sink in there. >> dana, that logic works out in the short term, the republican party gets to score some political points and cast seeds of doubt. but in the long term, isn't the big -- the real problem for the republican party because they don't -- where's there alternative? does the republican party have an alternative for what comes after they say they repeal the affordable care act, obama care? will they grow to rule the day they did it that people realize all of the protections they have now as a result of obama care are stripped away? >> well, that's the big question. if obama care succeeds they'll

regret the effort to be campaigning against it. just as they -- republicans back long ago regretted the effort to try to repeal social security. but they are gambling that democrats only healthcare now, just not obama care but if anything goes wrong anywhere, if you don't like your doctor or hospital, they are going to blame obama and obama care. if -- health care costs continue to go up as they very likely will if people continue to lose their insurance, as they always have, people will figure they will blame obama care. they are making a long-term gamble that the program won't work and trying to ensure that. >> this period, if you think about it, should be a blissful moment for the president who has been fighting for health care reform for five years now. that day has come, it's here, you have the exchanges open in 50 states. you are more and more governors seem like they are embracing the health care expansion for the poor. this has been one of the

toughest weeks since the bill was signed three years ago. you have to ask the question, he has got to explain a lot in this speech later today. obviously kathleen sebelius took a lot of blame this morning saying i'm responsible for this. is this the moment for the president to say, you know what, i'm at fault here. do you think this is the time for him to take the blame? >> i don't think he wants to get in an argument with kathleen sebelius trying to blame herself and president trying to blame himself. ultimately it doesn't matter who is taking the blame or what the president says up there in boston or what the secretaries say. if this program is not fixed in the next six weeks or so, they have a huge problem. they can say whatever they want now. what's really going to determine the outcome is whether the thing actually gets fixed and gets fixed quickly. if that can be done, all of this will be remembered as a blip. if they can't get that fixed, nothing that they can say now is going to prevent them from a lot of misery down the road. >> you don't always know if it's

a blip when you're inside it, but we move away from messaging into the policy impact. dana milbank, thanks for your reporting today. >> pleasure. >> we turn from the politics to the technical side of things. the website having some extra troubles even today. we're getting ready for the president's health care remarks as the cycle rolls on the day before halloween 2013. ♪ [ fishing rod casting line, marching band playing ] [ male announcer ] the rhythm of life. [ whistle blowing ] where do you hear that beat? campbell's healthy request soup lets you hear it in your heart. [ basketball bouncing ] heart healthy. [ m'm... ] great taste. [ tapping ] sounds good. campbell's healthy request. m'm! m'm! good.® rely on unitedhealthcare for their medicare coverage. if you're looking at your options,

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it will take until the end of november. it isn't fair for the american public to take our word for it.

i have to fix this problem. >> you have confidence dm november 30th? >> i do. >> it was testing -- temporary authority -- >> yes or no. yes or no has an end to end security test on healthcare.gov went live, yes or no? >> i will find out exactly what testing they are doing. i know they are doing simultaneous testing as new code is loaded. >> kathleen sebelius this morning on the website's. technicali technical issues, the system was down again today. they were suggested to apply by phone instead. a new poll on the rollout shows 37% of americans think these glitches are short term technical issues and can be corrected. another third fear they are long-term issues with the overall design that cannot be corrected. 30% say it's too soon to know for sure. for the real story of what's happening with the tech issues and repairs, we turn to dan ackerman at cnet.com. someone who understands the

technical side of this better than myself or any of us at this table. help break this down in terms of glitches with the website. what do you see as most problematic and likely the longest to fix and what do you see as more promising? >> i think that the problems we've seen are kind of systemic for whenever you launch a really big high profile popular web property. anyone who has worked on any sort of project management for something like that, knows launches don't go smoothly. we're enough weeks out into the live site now that it's a little disturbing that they don't have more of this under control. i actually went on today to click around and see what the experience is like and i ran into the same error message you just showed showing that i couldn't sign up. that's a pretty ridiculous message to give someone this far into it. >> the administration has been firm, we play the clips of kathleen sebelius, november 30th, she feels confident the website will be fixed. when you have a big technical challenge like this, is it

realistic that you can sort of set a date and know for certain that the problems will be fixed by that time, or do you think that's more optimistic thinking? >> it's hard to set an exact date and say we're going to have exactly this stuff done. you can set a date and say let's figure out what the top priority things are to fix by then to let people complete the first few steps or what we call a minimal viable project and that's where they should have started from, decide what that kind of minimally viable product, actually work on game one and work on that point. maybe let people sign up and register and leave information there and e-mail them later, come back and complete the process when more resources are available. maybe they should work towards that for the november date so no one gets locked out. >> on september 6 kt, cgi sent a memo to hhs warning that there were quote, open risks involved

with the website. the question is, if say you were at hhs and advising the secretary about what to do and you got that memo, would you have advised the government to go ahead with the october one launch date knowing what was in that memo? >> i'm kind of the consumer media side of things. when you want to launch a property, sometimes you have a hard deadline, maybe something sold against it or promised to somebody really high upstairs and can't move that. that being said, you do pay attention to warnings you get. what you have in this case, a lot of different contractors and departments, one group is doing design, another doing the database and another doing policy for it. and they weren't quite all working together as smoothly as they should, maybe because they didn't have a head task master keeping everybody on track and keeping everybody communicating. that's such a key thing. it's hard to say if you have a particular warning from one guy that there was a problem with this or problem with that that you stop the entire train in

order to do something about it. >> you know, another piece of this on the one hand, people can really freak out when the website doesn't work and facebook went down recently, people lost their minds and didn't need it for like health care or something really big. they went to twitter to complain about it and i heard from adults, not just young people. on the other hand, if you compare what we've been covering today, a certain level of obsession from some members of congress there in the political class and some the media to where the country is at, the new poll we have out today, nbc/wall street journal shows when you total up the number of people who think it's short term and too soon to tell, the vast majority of the country says give it time. what do you think of that reaction versus the way people feel when they are looking at the website that's not exactly as fast as they expect it to be? >> the internet and technology works great until the one thing you want to do is not working, whether that's facebook or twitter or want to buy a concert

at ticket master and the site is down. this is a scaleability problem for the internet. it's almost impossible to launch any kind of web tool or online property that's going to be able to scale to the massive amount of people on day one and at the same time just have it work in a normal way for everybody the rest of the time. a great example, the first day you can preorder a new iphone, try going to the at&t website, it's not going to work for you. even better example, grand theft auto 5, made a billion dollars and when they turned on the online service, it didn't work for weeks. it's almost impossible to scale up like that quickly for that first day rush. >> i spent hours online trying to get grand theft auto -- >> ari will make fun of facebook but he was throwing a tantrum in the office it went down. >> you saw me, i was freaking out. i could hear him screaming in

washington. >> thanks for the tech inside. we appreciate it. facebook fans have their own opinions whether or not kathleen sebelius should be fired over this. no, but oversight management training would help. and ryan insists, fire her, if this was in the private sector, she would have been fired right off the bat. make sure you check out our new website, thecycle.msnbc.com. the 50 greatest brake throughs since the invention of the wheel, spoiler alert. the health care wnt website is not one of them. we'll go live to boston. stick with us. huh, fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. everybody knows that. well, did you know that when a tree falls in the forest and no one's around, it does make a sound? ohhh...ohhh...oh boy! i'm falling. everybody look out!

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we continue to track the president in boston. he's going to speak soon. president's speech is aimed at highlighting the parallels

between his law and romney care. a bit ironic considering how romney distanced himself from it during the campaign will be on it. we spent a lot of time talking about tech no logical failings, but this month's cover story focuses on the 50 greatest inventions since the wheel. they assemble a 12-person panel. and came up with a top 50 that covers everything from sanitation and refrigeration, to the nail, electricity and the printing press, which claim the top two spots. but how do you rank them? i mean, i love the internet, which is number nine. but i think i would rather have indoor plumbing than google, though imy want twitter more than plumbing. science is hard. >> science is hard. >> here to explain the process is nicole allen, senior editor of "the atlantic" which highlighted the inventions and

inventors that shape our world. >> thanks for having me. >> what surprised you most? which are the 50 surprised you most? >> i have to say that i was probably most surprised by alphabetizati alphabetization, one of our panelists, joel, an economist at northwestern pushed it hard. his argument that without alphabetization, we would have no way of ordering knowledge and searching the information that's available. so imagine you know, try to have an index in a book without it or trying to order a library. he argued it led to the rise of societies that had phonetic letters over ones with -- >> did you find there were certain time periods or even societies that were particularly fertile breeding grounds for

inno vacation and did they share characteristics? >> absolutely. the first one that comes to mind is the industrial age. so many of our innovations were clustered in the industrial revolution and leading up to it and now the information age as well. everything from the steam turbine and nitrogen, to semiconductor electronics and today the internet as well. >> you mentioned agriculture. we think of the midwest as a place that's natural for farming. reading this piece it turns out that without the plow which came in the 18th century, there won't be much of any farming out there. >> it's kind of crazy and also true of northern europe. both climates have harder ground that we really needed the molboard plow, it dug soil and turned it out. >> turned it over, yeah. >> internet which we talked about and tvs, which changed the scale and speed of

communication. em people don't think about 1800s, the telegraph that really changed communication that led to radio, and the telephone. tell us more about that. that really is responsible for changing the way we communicate forever. >> the telegraph was definitely one of the innovations that received the most nominations from our panelists. all of them fixated on the fact that for the first time we had instantous communication and that's something we so take for granted today. at the time it was absolutely revolutionary and had these geopolitical implications, it became easier to maintain control over vaster areas of the world. >> before that it was horse back riding? >> pigeons, all of that. >> nicole, what was the oddest invention that didn't make the list? >> oh, interesting. what was the invention that didn't make the list.

well, certainly a lot of them were recent inventions that we think about as being absolutely essential to the way we live our lives today did not make the cut. for example, social media, or smartphones and i think one thing that we were all struck by while assembling the list is -- when you look at innovation over a broad time line, things that feel ail important right now, actually have ant seedants further back than you imagine. >> we want to talk about some that weren't so much a scientific brake break through but something to think about. paper, which wasn't necessarily that hard to make with parchment and leaves and money, which is the idea. a lot of things that exist can be used like money. what did you think about either of those? >> paper had this fascinating back story where there was a bit of debate among the panelists between the printing press and paper and which should rank higher on the list. the printing press obviously

received the number one slot. but a few panelists were lobbying hard for paper, it wouldn't occur to anyone to print something if you didn't have anything to print it on. so having a ready supply of paper was really key to that. >> nicole, outside of the technologies that you've highlighted, you've also highlighted a number of inventors who will have the greatest impact of the country. co-founder of pay pal and tesla met motors, why did you think elan musk would have such an impact? >> we compiled take list of inventors by reaching out to people already well established in the technology industry and in science and in business. and he received the most number of nominations. i think the reason that is is because he not only has a depth of innovation, where he's really

changed several industries but he has incredible breadth as well. his ambitions are enormous. he took on commercial space flight and managed to make a difference in all of industries that he's tackled. >> ari, i'm shocked you're not on this list. >> what would i be, abby? >> i have no idea. >> the last thing to ask you, there seems to be like a bias for good things, which i understand because i was reading, this is good, that seemed like a breakthrough. did you all or the people you were consulting, i know you had a panel of experts, did that come into play? is gun powder and nuke checlear weaponry, were they less likely to be picked in any way? >> well, one thing we were really struck by all of these innovations that seem to have really good immediate consequences also lead to these second effect, second order effects which can be less in the

long run. climate change being primary among there. so many innovations on the list led to increased use of fossil fuels and now we're at this phase where we have to innovate a way out of problems that our history of innovation created. >> i want to find out who came up with the whole scheme for the type writer. thank you very much. >> thanks for having me. >> we continue to keep our eye on boston where the president is set to push and defend his health care law. up next, something most anyone can relate to, overworked? stressed out abouty you are family? worried about money? how do you simply keep up? a reality check from a working mom next. in case you're wondering where tour'e is, he's in cleveland. will be back tomorrow. i am jonathan capehart. [ male announcer ] this is claira.

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about a year ago an amazing departure memo went out at the major law firm. this is the sender of that departure memo's daily itinerary as listed in the very memo. if it looks insane, that's because it is. it's the kind of daily checklist that resonates with many women struggling to quote have it all in both professional life and personal life. as you might expect it went viral as women across the country recognized parts of their lives in the impossible 21-hour day which was followed

by the word repeat. our next guest was 37 with her dream job, three kids and a loving husband when she had a nervous breakdown on her way to pick up diapers. a whole generation of women has been bred to smash into the same wall repeatedly and blame themselves for their inability to as they say cope. in the guest spot today is katrina al corn, uses research with her own personal story, maxed out, how our society is setting moms up for failure. katrina, thank you so much for joining us. one of the things that -- by the way, i'm a mother of two children, i saw myself very much in your book, a little bit too much i think. one of the feelings i had reading this was realizing how much of a hard time we give ourselves about failing to live up to work expectations and home expectations, all the way holding ourselves to what is essentially an impossible standard comparing ourselves to

other women who we think are doing it all perfectly. one of the questions you ask in the book, do you compare your insides to other people's outsides? tell us about that. >> yeah, it's funny that that whole piece in the book came from a conversation came from a friend who was complaining that she was comparing her insides to other people's outsides and coming out short. what will it look like to see people's insides. i described very capable women i knew and then they listed the terrible things they were going through. part of this is we get so wrapped up in women's personal choices when we talk about lean in or opt out or any of these things. we're not looking enough at the culture and the society and the systems around us that are like you said, setting us up to fail. >> that's exactly right. we put so much pressure on ourselves. another tough thing i think for women is admitting that we're

having a breakdown or a potential breakdown. we were so quick to judge ourselves and you tell your own story in the book. you have this perfect life with a loving family and kids and husband and great job. walk us through what happened to you. how this breakdown actually happened and how that really impacted writing a book? >> well, on the surface, everything was going great for me. like you said, i had all of these things going for me. when i returned from maternity leave after my last child was born, i was just falling apart on the inside. and i was having a lot of problems with anxiety and started to have panic attacks and insomnia. and this went on for months. it kind of culminated one day. ironically i was on the way to target to buy diapers and i broke down. i had to pull over to the side of the road. my car was fine but i was a mess. i called my husband and said i can't do this anymore. something is wrong with me. i literally can't do it anymore.

so the book sort of started from there but then i started to write a blog. i heard from all of these women around the country with similar stories and that's what made me write about this. >> wow, and you talk about that explicitly from your own personal feelings and emotional feelings inside. you've worked as a writer, film maker, and also as sort of a content strategist among other things at the startup. very different environments. how do these different sectors range in terms of their treatment of women and especially women as mothers? >> it's funny so since the book has been out, i've literately heard from thousands of women around the country with these similar stories of maxing out. they are in every single industry you can imagine. i mean, there are architects, doctors, nurses, social workers, engineers, scientists, people

who are barely getting by financially, people who have a big mortgage. they really run the gamut. i think -- i've heard that health care is supposed to be better, although i do get messages from people in health care saying they are struggling. i think it's pretty u bik qui tus, we work the longest hours of any developed country in the world. and that's just part of our problem. >> katrina, what you just said relates to the question i was going to ask you, do you think the book you've written speaks to all working moms or is it targeted to more upper middle class working moms? i ask that because a lot of working american moms i know, my mother before she retired and my aunts and grandmother, they've been on the brinks for decades. >> right. i wanted to write this book for all of us. i really believe -- i'm a middle

class professional mom and i am telling my story, but i really tried to bring in stories from many of my friends who kind of run the gamut on income and different jobs. and also to bring in the research because what the research shows is that women at every income level in this country are struggling mightily with being able to manage a career and children. and we struggle in different ways. lower income women often end up being in these terrible situations where they can't afford child care and they have to work very rigid schedules. more upper class women tend to be in situations where they are expected to work ridiculous hours and travel all time and never unplug. we're all looking at different pieces of the same problem which is we need time to be able to take care of our families and also to be people and be healthy. >> katrina, one of the things i really like about the book, it doesn't just focus on the

problem, but also offers some tips for women, existing in the structure that we have as well as a focus on how to change the structure. one of the tips that you have that really resonated with me, something i have trouble with, is saying no. how do you say no to people without feeling bad about it? without hurting their feelings and getting behind at work? how do you say no? >> i had a feeling you were going to pick that one and that's the one i'm struggling with too. we're in this together. i think it's a daily practice. i got that from my husband. my husband is very structured and he likes to make lots of to do lists. and he also struggles with saying no. i think men do struggle with a lot of this work life balance stuff too. he put it on his to do list every day for a few weeks and it really helped him. i'm not good at following a to do list so i just have to keep reminding myself. >> all right, katrina, great stuff.

it's a very good book and helpful to me. thank you so much. >> thank you. >> up next, we will take you to boston for the live remarks from president obama as he makes his latest pitch on health care live from boston. keep it right here on "the cycle." ig goals: help the gulf recover and learn from what happened so we could be a better, safer energy company. i can tell you - safety is at the heart of everything we do. we've added cutting-edge technology, like a new deepwater well cap and a state-of-the-art monitoring center, where experts watch over all drilling activity twenty-four-seven. and we're sharing what we've learned, so we can all produce energy more safely. our commitment has never been stronger. avo: sales event is "sback.hen drive" which means it's never been easier to get a new passat, awarded j.d. power's most appealing midsize car, two years in a row. and right now you can drive one home for practically just your signature.

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minutes away from his speech on his significant health care law. he is expected to emphasize that massachusetts's own state based health care plan also got off to a slow start. that legislation was signed into law by none other than mitt romney at the very same place where we find the president and our own kristen welker this afternoon. the obama team spent so much time contrasting the president to mitt romney and now what we're seeing is some sort of pitch linking these two health care programs. explain that to us. >> reporter: well, i think the goal today ari, is the president will be drawing parallels between his health care law and mitt romney's health care law, which passed here in massachusetts. and he's going to make a couple of important points. one, he's going to say that there was a slow and somewhat rocky rollout here in massachusetts. 123 people signed up in the first month. that number started to swell

over time. and then he will say, look, massachusetts is an example of universal health care that works. 97% of people here in massachusetts now have health care. but of course, there are some big differences rollout wasn't quite as rocky. you didn't see all of the glitches that we are seeing with the president's health care law. of course. >> it was servicing smaller group of people. so that is one of the reasons. but another key difference is that the enrollment process was really something that took place over phases. people had a year to sign up, which is a longer period than folks have with the president's health care law. and then a big difference is that there was bipartisan support for the massachusetts health care law. you had a democratic legislature which passed a bill, which then republican governor mitt romney signed into law. so i think you will hear president obama encourage more bipartisan support. you'll likely hear him make the

argument, if more people were working on this, this rollout could potentially be going more smoothly. but the person behind the health care law, mitt romney, has issued a statement. i'll read part of it. he said, quote, had president obama actually learned the lessons of massachusetts' health care, millions of americans would not lose the insurance they were promised they could keep. millions more would not see their premiums sky rocket, and the installation of the program would not have been a frustrating embarrassment. health reform is best crafted by states with bipartisan support, and input from its employers, as we did without raising taxes and by carefully phasing it in to avoid the type of disruptions we are seeing nationally. now, of course, that statement comes on the heels of the glitches that the obama administration has been dealing with over oh the past several weeks and also on the heels of the latest allegations and criticism of the president he has misled people will i saying if you like your health care plan, you can keep it.

of course, we're seeing that is not the case. the white house defending that by saying, look, about 5% of people don't have health care plans that meet the basic standards. and the new federal standards that are going to be put -- come into play under the president's health care law. on a lighter note, i can tell you that president obama, who arrived here in boston, was greeted by a number of the officials here, governor due value, patrick, boston mayor tomini. there is another big headline, world series game six set to take place tonight. mayor tom menino gave president obama a boston red sox hat. we don't think he put it on at that very moment, but he talked about the fact that he received this hat and was happy to get this hat. in keeping with the sports tradition, he then went to get a sneak peek of the statue of bill russell who is, of course, the celtics' legend here in boston. so a little bit of a lighter

note. you can hear the folks starting to cheer as they anticipate the president's arrival. and waiting to hear what he has to say this afternoon. back to you guys. >> thanks so much for that rundown, kristen welker. we could see in the footage there, bill russell taller than the president. we're looking at deval patrick, the governor, speaking. we'll go back and bring in dana mill bank from the "washington post oh." how are you, dana? >> okay. i'm excited about this speech as the world series. >> yeah. how everyone feels. look, kristen raised several things. we only have a little time but she spoke with bipartisan unity that may have helped not only the mood but the actual enrollment numbers in massachusetts and that the president has to address criticism while dealing with that. >> well, and of course it would have happened and that's the avenue the president went down originally. didn't get a lot of support and decided to go on his own.

it's sort of interesting that mitt romney is back to defending romney care which he was running away from readily during the campaign. but, of course, if you have everybody pulling in the same direction, things work out a lot better. it's no coincidence that the states that are having the most problem with obama care are those with the republican governors who are refuse to go participate and dumping everybody on to the federally run program, which is not going as well. >> it's interesting to know, this is the very same stage back in 2006 when mitt romney was joined by a beaming ted kennedy. it was obviously visible, the bipartisan support. but dana, there were some differences that mitt romney alluded to in his statement, beyond just the bipartisan support. i mean, they did ease out the health care law there, and it was much smaller group of people that had to sign up for the exchanges. how do you think president obama will parallel that? i know we talked to kristen about this earlier. how do you think he will play with the mitt romney version of the health care plan, standing on the very same stage that mitt romney rolled his on, 2006?

>> probably fairly gently. i wound expect a side by side comparison. he'll say yes, people had bouts in the early days, people weren't signing up and just as they will do now. that's probably true. it doesn't -- but, of course, it doesn't excuse the various mistakes, the self inflicted mistakes they have made with the website and, of course, now with the -- this often stated promise that you can keep your health insurance. they could have known at the time that that wasn't really a plausible thing to say. but they couldn't be bothered at the time to qualify it. well, and for some context, republicans, i think it's fair to say, have been pretty historical about this law, since it was initially debated. they said it would lead to rationing, lead to death panels. they said that everyone's premiums would sky rocket. et cetera, et cetera. so they have hardly been honest in this debate. at this point, though, dana, how much has their over the top rhetoric undercut their ability to make an effective argument

regarding the real problems that we see in the law right now? >> well, the rhetoric has certainly undercut obama care to a great extent. if you don't have validaters out there in both parties, encouraging people to go along with something, that's why you have the division. so they have encouraged this division that we have right now. in terms of, you know, credibility in terms of offering some alternative that clearly hasn't happened over a long time. maybe finally now paul ryan is going to come up with some sort of a plan. but that, of course, will be too little, too late. the slogan was always, repeal and replace. but it just came out as repeal, because they have not offered any sort of a viable alternative. >> they have been really into that part, though. >> really into the -- they got that down. >> dana, what you just said, anticipated the question i was going to ask, which was at what point does pressure build on the republican party to offer its alternative, and you mentioned congressman paul ryan, head of the house budget committee, who

is going to i guess at some point present some sort of republican vision for health care in the united states. do you have any ink willilingin what he could offer? >> well, it's protecting you from the preexisting conditions -- >> waste, fraud and abuse, right? >> but they don't actually pay for it. >> right. and you also have the narrative around the millions of americans that have to change their plans when over and over again the president has said if you like your plan, like your doctor, you can keep it, period. this is something he has not addressed, something he will likely have to address in a few moments. dana, what do you think he'll say? how do you reassure the american people that he wasn't dishonest about this? >> well, i hope he'll do better than jay carney did. he reformulated, you can like your plan if under the following exceptions and x, y and z. the truth is, he was talking about a small sliver, those on the individual market, as

opposed to the corporate market, or rather the other way around. it's going to be hard for him to make that face and it's not going to fit on a bumper sticker. >> yeah, and goes to the complexity of a market that everyone knows was not perfect to begin with. that's something krystal was speaking about in some depth yesterday. the notion that most people are on their employer based coverage. and those are the people he was talking to, make some sense. it's been cloudeded -- definitely clouded, i think, disingenuously in the sebelius exchange today. what is she going to do when they know exactly under the law what happened to those folks. in fact, that was the whole discussion in congress, as well. about all of their employees. dana, thanks for spending time with us this hour on the speech. >> my pleasure. >> all right. i think that does it for us. we're going to take a dip in to devalue patrick here, introducing the president. we'll see you tomorrow. >> it's been insuring people against a medical catastrophe.

it's about being our brothers and sisters keeper by helping others oh help themselves. the website glitches are invent and annoying. they must be fixed and i am confident they will be. but i hope you know, mr. president, the same folks who pretend to be outraged about the website not working didn't want the aca to work in the first place. the urgency of fixing what's not working is as we all know about the american people who need simple, reliable and convenient access to information about coverage. not about silencing critics who will never be silenced. you and congress looked for a model, and how to help them lead better, more productive lives.

as you turn to the vital work of making that federal i.t. system work, we also want to be a model for how to keep your eye on the prize. and how you put people first. people in this coalition totally get that. so mr. president, welcome to the capital of red sox nation. and welcome also to the future of affordable, accessible health care for everybody. ladies and gentlemen, the president of the united states.