ameriprise asked people a simple question: in retirement, will you outlive your money? uhhh. no, that can't happen. that's the thing, you don't know how long it has to last. everyone has retirement questions. so ameriprise created the exclusive.. confident retirement approach. now you and your ameripise advisor can get the real answers you need. well, knowing gives you confidence. start building your confident retirement today. thanks for disrupting your afternoon. i'm karen finney. coming up, the politics behind the equal pay fight and a pepper mint patty in a child sex ed class. will you want to hear more on that one and it is all coming up. the irs, fast and furious, and of course benghazi. >> the american people have not

been told the truth about what happened at the irs. >> only tea party and conservative groups were targeted. >> whether there was white house involvement has not been proven true. >> this is about 2014 elections and 2016 elections. >> across the country republicans have led efforts to pass laws making it harder, not easier, for people to vote. >> protect being the right to vote. the action that truly makes our nation an exceptional one will continue to be a priority. >> to those two men, race has been both a shield and a sword. >> we're not going to go into november with people not understanding the restrictions that are being placed on their right to vote. >> we all know what this is about. this is a way of restricting the franchise after 50 years of expanding it. in your forecast today, two

contentious topics that will heat up as we head into the 2014 elections. republicans played to their base with efforts to ramp up their investigation into the so-called irs scald, while democrats move to make voting rights ooh central part of their 2014 political strategy. first up, now that the obamacare enrollment has been a success, the gop is in the market for a new boogie man to fire up the base for conservatives. meanwhile, democrats are fighting back against voter suppression efforts around the country with a strong renewed push to get minority voters to the polls next fall. in a sign of how big a priority this is, as, frankly, it should be, some of the parties' biggest stars are talking about voting rights and highlighting efforts to disenfranchise voters. >> last year in when the supreme court cut the heart of the out of the voting rights act, it opened up the floodgates to voter suppression. vote suppression efforts

nationwide. >> is this what martin luther king gave husband life for? is this what lyndon johnson employed his legendary skills for? >> across the country, republicans have led efforts to pass laws making it harder, not easier, for people to vote. so let's be clear. the real voter fraud is people who try to deny our rights about making bogus arguments about voter fraud. >> our panel, joe walsh, editor at large for salon dot cook, james peterson director of africana study at she lie university. vivian lotata, and josh barrow, correspondent for "the new york times." joan, james, josh with are all msnbc contributors as well. i just love saying that. my "j" crew. so i want to start with the irs hearings. joan, start with you. it was pretty clear this week and this morning on some of the sunday talk shows that they are not going to let this go. they are going to go after miss

lerner pretty hard. it is kind of a double. now that they've referred the case to the department of justice, they can actually plame it on eric hold per. >> right. there is an investigation. i found is to so striking that the other day they shut out the media, shut out the public. dave camp has taken to acting like darrel issa. he shut down congressman levin. there is this attempt not only to create -- or inflate this scandal but also to shut down the democrats who are asking legitimate questions but also want to get to the bottom as well. >> part of the problem with this investigation all along -- this is what congressman cummings has raised several times -- issa has selectively released pieces of information. that's kind of what the last round between the two of them was about because he had released sections of an e-mail that would look one way, or if you looked at the whole e-mail

it would look another way. they haven't been able though, to connect it to the white house. >> right. what's interesting about that is that president obama was very forceful in getting the acting commissioner of the irs fired, in addition to that, all of the leadership has been released. there is no question that there was gross mismanagement and that lois lerner is at the center of it. what would be so much more effective is if the republicans could use their power and efforts to encourage procedures that would be in place so that organizations don't take advantage of tax exempt status, whether from the right or left. >> i want to read something from one of the e-mails. lois lerner -- okay, guys, we need to have a plan, be cautious so it isn't a per se political project, more a c-4 project that looks at levels of lobbying and political activity along with exempt activity. that doesn't sound to me like a woman who is targeting conservative groups only. >> you have a mix of things. obviously the list of key words that they come up to look for

those groups ended up having a lot of key words that were weighted toward the conservative side. was the effect of the investigation db seems pretty clear the effect of the investigation was weighted towards particularly looking at tv groups but i think what republicans thought going into this was that they were going to find this went all way to the top. they really believed that president obama had ordered this thing down into the irs to go after these tea party groups. by the way, they also overrate the extent to which the tea party groups were political important and damaging the president. one of the key stories of the 2012 election cycle was that these groups didn't have nearly the political effect that they expected to. now with a they have as lois lerner, they are going after her as hard as they can because they view this scandal as something th that energizes the conservative base. and she appears to have possibly done something wrong. >> another issue we heard a lot

about this week sort of on a different side is votie ining r and race. the president was forceful. former president clinton. joe biden. it really has become kind of a seer centerpiece of the democrats' strategy to talk about this leading up to the election because we know it was such a catalyst in the last election. i want to play a little something chris wallace had to say about it this morning. >> i think it is fair to say that this is widely seen, these kinds of comments, as an effort by the obama administration to try to mobilize black voters. you also have president obama going to the national action network this week and complaining about photo i.d.s and efforts to restrict voters access to the polls. >> how dare he. but also, we're talking about voting. we're not talking about a fake scandal that they are trying to gin up. we're trying to make sure people get to vote.

>> the reality is that a lot of the measures taken up by legislatures at the state level affect the voting accessibility of a certain population of folks. when you curtail early voting, when you challenge voters to produce a state issued i.d., all those things can be skewed along the lines of race and they are generally speaking. we can act like that's not the case but the reality is the efforts on the part of the republicans at the state level to improve the voting process has certain consequences that affect certain groups of people -- elderly, people of color, poorer people and those of the folk who have to to overcome some of those challenges when it comes to the next voting cycle. >> this narrative that seems to be emerging from the republican side, that democrats are using race, that democrats are making this a racial issue. i want to play something brit hume had to say. >> to those two men race has

been both a shield and a sword that they've used effectively to defend themselves and to attack others. i think it is depressing at this stage in our national life after all we've been through on this issue and given the overwhelming consensus on the issue of civil rights that this kind of stuff is still going on. >> so basically the tactic is, don't worry about all the stuff that we're doing over here to disenfranchise voters, you guys are just making this a racial issue. >> for brit hume to sit here and tell us what life is like for these two african-american men is really quite ridiculous and it is standard over at fox but it just makes you laugh and wince all over again. what's happening here is they would not have a problem if they were not trying to disenfranchise these groups of voters. i would also add youth and women to the people who are sometimes put out by these new requirements. there you've got the full obama o li

coalition. there is not a democrat pushing any of these restrictions. no democrat is trying to make it harder for the older white coalition to vote. it is only going in one direction. it's really taken off since the president's first election and there is no way to see it except to leave out a lot of voters, largely -- but not exclusive because of race. >> and we do not have consensus on civil rights. if you look at how muslim americans are treated, women's access to health care, lgbt, qia communities. we do not as a nation have consensus on civil rights. here is my question -- so what if it is a dog whistle? so what if it actually motivates people to go to the polls? >> that's what i was going to say. i think it is absolutely true that this is an issue that democrats see as being a good issue for mobilizing voters. i think you saw in 2012 some of these laws already came into effect but we still had re tifl

strong back turnout from 2012 from 2008. it made communities that saw themselves as being attacked by these laws -- >> which wrkere being attacked. >> it can be a useful issue. >> if this issue would go away, the democrats wouldn't have this luscious, wonderful issue if republicans weren't trying to discourage and disenfranchise their voters. >> if i could just jump in here. let's talk about the dissonance between the national party. we all know the money, time and resources that have been put into these national autopsy reports. for this republican party to survive, they're going to have to attract women, millennials, hispanics, african-americans voters. yet you have these really restrictive measures. there is total dissonance. think about this is although the

democrats are really smart to be laying the foundation for certainly 2014-2016, and into the future, the real issue is mobilizing turnout. not just registration. we wouldn't even be having a conversation about immigration. it would have been passed by now. >> that's key thing, people actually going out an voting in mid-term elections. my panel is sticking with me but first we have an update on breaking news that we are following out of kansas. two shootings have been reported in overland park just south of kansas city. one at the jewish community center there and another at an assisted living facility. nbc affiliate is reporting one victim dead and another in critical condition at a local hospital. crean crime scene investigators are on the scene and we'll continue to update you as we get more information. for now, stay with us. we'll be right back. ore impresse than the research this man has at his disposal

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well, you know, i'm paid very little. my secretary doesn't respect me because i make $71 more a week than she does. >> maybe we need to get you a cheaper secretary. >> paul kinsey does the same work i did and not as well sometimes. i don't know if you read in the paper, but they passed a law for women who do the same work as men will get paid the same thing. equal pay. >> it's not going to happen, peggy. not now. >> the final season of "mad men" starts tonight. while lots of things have changed since the smokey gin-soaked era in which the show takes place, sadly, for us, ladies, full pay isn't one of them. full equal pay, sorry. but pay equity has become a key issue for democrats heading into

the 2014 elections and contrast between the two parties couldn't be clearer. senate republicans blocked a vote on the paycheck fairness act which would have increased accountability and transparency in the private sector. is the debate over equal pay good policy, good politics or both? i'm back now with my panel to help answer that question. viviana, start with you. something that ruth marcus wrote this week that i think really chapg challeng challenged this issue. the level of hyperbole, demagoguery that democrats have engaged in here is revolting. it's entirely understandable of course -- the senate is up for grabs." smart politics and smart policy?

>> i think it is both. if you think about it, for example, some kind of equity pay would allow these women and many of them are struggling, head of households, to be able to make smart kitchen table economics. we know what the gdp increase would be if there were more parody for equal pay. what that translates into, communities around the country is more peace at dinners, more money infused into restaurants, into school supplies, for example. into stores. that's what's truly missing right now. that kind of a tone-deaf approach saying that this is a bizarre obsession, it is not a bizarre obsession if you think about the women across the country at their kitchen tables trying to figure it out. >> we've got some numbers on the impact that it would have. the shriver report of said that if women earn equal pay to men, the u.s. economy would produce an additional $447.6 billion in income. sure sounds like a good thing to

me. >> it is good for women, it is good for men, it is good for husbands, good for male children of those women. republican hypocrisy on this is really staggering. i respect ruth marcus. but againvy another liberal. kind of tone policing the democrats because maybe the rhetoric has gone a tiny bit too far on this. but the truth is republicans are against anything that could make this gap smaller. it seems to me one of the west best things you could do is raise the minimum wage. republicans say one reason there is a gap is because women are aggregated at the low end of the wage scale at low-wage jobs. that is truly true. seems to me both sides could agree. you are worried about that lower end, raise the minimum wage. two-thirds of minimum wage workers are women. they say this doesn't exist, then they give lip service to it, then say it is not as bad as we say it is and they have no

answers. >> josh, part of the point here, too, is that this has become a -- another political issue. right? it is another place where it is policy and probably good politics. how potent of this issue of equal pay, how potent is that for 2014? >> it is potent but i think it is also an being a tract issue. people don't like income inequality. they perceive that as increasing and that that's bad. i don't think people always have a concrete sense of what politicians will do to change that in a way that personally impacts them. the president sees it as something that motivates people but not every household sees that as something that impacts them. if there is no minimum wage work other close to that in the household, they may perceive that as something that doesn't affect their income. it makes sense for democrats to focus on this but i think they need to key in on specific

policy impacts. part of what's gotten lost in this discussion, people talk about it as a work place discrimination issue, but many factors drive this pay gap. full-time women workers work fewer hours than men. republicans tend to talk about that as you adjust those things out and the gap is a lot smaller so it doesn't matter. those things do matter. there is a reason women end up in lower page jobs. >> let's follow up on this. part of the argument we've heard from republicans is one of the things we heard this week, it is going to lead to litigation, trial lawyers, that's another one of their favorite buzzwords that they brought out. you have even had some women saying women don't want equal pay, they don't need equal pay. but the republicans at least this week seem like they were trying to be prepared.

the corresponding radio address tried to say, hey, we think all you need is better training. that's kind of their answer to it. >> that's not a real answer. the reality is that the policy is so strong. both economically and in terms of social justice that it should not and political issue. if we went into the system and really thought about the reasons why women are working less or why maternity leave or family leave is skewed toward women, if we look at apprenticeship in certain tech sectors, there is a lot of work that has to be done to address this pay gap. it is much more complex than it seems. president's position though is that we're going to try to create an atmosphere where the secrecy around salaries and where the sort of retaliation by companies that try to close some of these gaps can be mitigated from the process so we can move forward. but this is a very complicated thing to actually close this gap that ultimately requires a better sense about gender equity across a number of different

issues. it is not just about who gets paid what, it is about how we socialize folk, how we identify certain fields with certain genders. it is a lot more sophisticated and complex than it seems on the surface. >> i've heard this argument time and again from conservatives about litigation and that's going to gum everything up in the courts and all that. if you are unequally paying your workers and if i have a right as a woman to get paid the same as a man and then i sue you, so what? that's my right. >> what's crazy is wherever you are, we know latino women are making one cent more than women were making in general 50 years ago when president kennedy signed equal pay into law. one cent more. or whether you are on the higher income, younger women at 93 cents to the $1, the fact is women should be paid if they have the same education, the same experience and the same technical credentials as men. the thing is, going back to what josh said which i think is super important, there are some

sociocultural elements that aren't addressed. for example, we know that the tech sector s.t.e.m.s are the career of the future. but we also know start-up culture and tech culture is one big bro fest. this doesn't address it but it is a step in the right direction that the president is taking. and secondly, republicans' response to this, well, there's some kind after bizarre obsession. there's just a lot of dissonance here. >> it is interesting though because i agree that there are these underlying issues that feed into this. at the same time i think from the perspective of the 2014 election it is much simpler to talk about equal pay and you are seeing that in a number of campaigns and it seems to be a winning strategy for a number of campaigns. you have mary burke running for wisconsin governor. >> because scott walker himself signed the law that made it harder to sue. took wisconsin backyards. >> it will be interesting to see how potent this

breaking news we are following out of kansas. nbc news has learned three people are dead after two shootings have been reported in overland park just south of kansas city. one at a jewish community center there and another at an assisted living facility. crime scene investigators are on the scene. we will update you as we get more information. es my fico® credit score. yup, you get it free each month to help you avoid surprises with your credit. good. i hate surprises. surprise! at discover, we treat you like you'd treat you. get the it card and see your fico® credit score. ...we'll be here at lifelock doing our thing: you do your connect to public wi-fi thing protecting you in ways your credit card company alone can't. get lifelock protection and live life free.

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peppermint patty's once part after sex ed curriculum? you heard that right. that and more is coming you up. salesperson #1: so, again, throwing in the $1,000 fuel reward card is really what makes it like two deals in one. salesperson #2: actually, getting a great car with 42 highway miles per gallon makes it like two deals in one. salesperson #1: point is there's never been a better time to buy a jetta tdi clean diesel. avo: during the first ever volkswagen tdi clean diesel event, get a great deal on a jetta tdi. it gets 42 highway miles per gallon. and get a $1,000 fuel reward card.

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i got this. [thinking] is it that time? the son picks up the check? [thinking] i'm still working. he's retired. i hope he's saving. i hope he saved enough. who matters most to you says the most about you. at massmutual we're owned by our policyowners, and they matter most to us. whether you're just starting your 401(k) or you are ready for retirement, we'll help you get there. the following headline put mississippi in the national spotlight again this week. that's right, the state's mandated sex education curriculum allows instructing

students that homosexual activity under the unnatural intercourse statute is illegal. teachers are allowed to opt out of that part of the curriculum. i should mention the law is completely unconstitutional thanks to a 2003 supreme court decision. another part of the curriculum is not optional -- teaching abstinence. while unnatural gay sex is illegal, you shouldn't even think about having natural married. unless you're straight married. it gets even sweeter than that. i mean that literally. "los angeles times" reported last week a lesson plan in one local school district in mississippi included according to a parent cuesing a quote "peppermint patty to show that a girl is no longer clean or valuable after she's had sex. that she's been used." the superintendent of that mississippi school district spoke out saying the curriculum mentioned in the "l.a. times"

article was part of the initial and only state approved plot pilot three years ago. we've been teaching an entirely different curriculum in the last two years. okay. but that does not change the fact that someone actually thought it would be a good idea to pass around a dirty chocolate to demonstrate abstinence, nor does it change the fact that according to the latest cdc numbers, mississippi ranks third in the nation in teen birth rates. joan james and viviana are back joining us. communities director of advocacy, sanford johnson. thanks so much for joining us. >> thank you so much. very happy to be here. >> so tell us a little bit about what's going on in mississippi. i have to say, i was initially -- the idea of teaching kids that gay sex is illegal, which is obviously not true, and then we saw -- i know the peppermint patty is not currently being used but it sounds like there are some real

challenges in mississippi to getting all of the information out. >> well, first let me tell you about the law that was passed in 2011. house bill 999 requires all school districts to adopt sex education. that it was the first time we ever had a requirement in the state. every district was required to adopt either an abstinence-only poll youcy or an abstinence-plus policy. abstinence-plus is what the legislature decided to call it. it is more comprehensive and can you get into information about contraceptives. we worked with the state department of health to create the creating healthy and responsible teens policy which our goals are to delay the start of sex for teens who have not started having sex and for sexually active teens we want to reduce the frequency of sex, the number of partners and we want to make sure that teens are using condoms correctly and consistently. the district that you mentioned is actually one of the districts that adopted our policy back in 2012 and they have been great partners ever since.

we're very happy to have them on-board. right now we have 32 districts that we are working with and with the money that we received through the prep funding which came from the health care law we have been able to provide evidence-based curricula at no cost along with teacher training and technical assistance from the state department of health. >> but what you are saying is you are assisting in making sure that there is full information available to teens, that it is still okay in a lot of parts of the state to not give teens the full information and to teach abstinence only. >> well, there are some districts that decided to go with abstinence-only. unfortunately, some of those districts maybe using curricula that include shaming tactics such as the peppermint patty. we've also heard about toothpaste, rose petals. there are a lot of other things happening in the curricula that other districts are using. what i can say for districts

that are part of our charter program, they are using evidence-based information about contraceptives, teen pregnancy, sdss andmakering sure teens know how to set boundaries, communicate boundaries and respect the boundaries that other people set. >> joan? >> yes, karen. >> here's the thing. i hadn't heard the one about toothpaste but there are -- we kind of checked this out. it is not just mississippi. it is not just chocolate. other things that they've used -- not they specifically mississippi but that have been used around the country in abstinence-only curricula -- used tape, chewed up gum, a cup of spit and a rose with no petals. essentially the rose is passed around, everybody pulls off the petals and you are left with this ugly, thorny thing. how is it in 2014 we don't feel comfortable making sure that teens have being a is the information? we are talking about medical information here. >> we know that many many places in the country they do.

even many places we are learning it in mississippi -- i want to thank mr. johnson for his really hard work on this tough issue because it is so important to be there. the other side of the coin, is that there is this known desire to stigmatize women. it is all about shaming women, not men. the men aren't the dirty peppermint paul or whatever. and then the other part of it is that it is so tragic. we've had great success in this country bringing down the teen birth rate. we've had great success. mr. johnson and many educators across the country, even in mississippi, we know what it takes to provide comprehensive sex education that includes some abstinence training and it really works. we know when, where and how to do it and we are deliberately not doing it and we are consigning these kids to shame, to poverty, to sexually transmitted diseases. it is so immoral. >> yet, james, as joan was say, it is essentially the girl, the woman who gets blamed. right?

there is no talk of what is the responsibility of the man. that -- i hope that's part of abstinence only. but i think it important that we not just shame women. we see this now women getting shamed all the way, all through the ages. and it starts really early here. >> it is a pattern that our society maps on to the lives of women all through their education, through college. it would be great to see some gender equity and gender balance in the ways around instruction. but i would suggest that we take shame out of the process. i don't think that shame works either psyche lonlically a ipsy think in some cases it gives us the reverse effect. we have to give them the tools to navigate things in a gender equal way. you're right, when we see these played out at the college level in particular, we see a lot of gender negative issues go on

around sexual assault that grows out of the absence of education in some of these high school classrooms. >> i actually worked with teenage girls. it was my first job out of college. the idea that abstinence was going to -- it is just so unrealistic. right? literally some of these girls -- this is sort of backed up by a cdc study. many of these girls were pregnant and they didn't know about birth control. then this cdc study this week that says essentially teen pregnancy is down but we need to have sex education earlier as in before they have sex. kids are learning about sex education after they've had sex in some instances. and it may be because they either got pregnant or something else happened. but this idea that how about we give them the information on the front end? >> disclaimer. i am the aunt of three beautiful nieces and if it were up to me i'd lock them in a closet until they are 25 years old and not allow them to date. but here's the thing -- cdc has

talked about how the level of teen pregnancy has gone down. but what they are recommending is earlier intervention because the link between education and positive life outcomes is strong, including reducing teen pregnancies. think about the negative life outcomes that come when these young girls are getting pregnant. they are dropping out of high school. that means they have to go into low paying careers and it also means that they're going to rely more on public assistance. i want to know where this religious agenda is to help these women and their babies when they are stuck in that situation. another thing that's interesting along the lines of awareness, how is it there have been these real innovative approaches to getting teen pregnancy down in the form of mtv teen mom series.

relationship building and conversation between these young girls and their moms. >> one thing that strikes me, it feels like this is a part of maybe a war on science. again we are talking about not giving fully accurate information and then, on the other hand, which is the first headline that really caught my attention, we are talking about giving misinformation suggesting that gay sex is illegal. either way we are teaching ignorance to kids. >> we are keechg ignorance and we are also trying to circumscribe the freedom of yum! young women, trying to force them into marriage, trying to make marriage the only way he they can wind up with male support. it is related to wanting to end the contraception mandate because women should get -- if they want help getting birth control they should get it from their husband. society shouldn't play a role in providing that for them. it flies in the face what have we are doing in the rest of the world. what we know in the rest of the world when we talk about global

poverty and global development, that if you help a young woman, get her educated, get her to postpone having children, her outcomes are betting, her fom's outcomes are better, the community's outcomes are better -- the whole country does better. . there we have data in this country that suggests the exact same thing. we know what to do. we just aren't doing it, unfortunately. >> one of the things that i was going to point out when we've been doing advocacy in the state of mississippi is that we not only made it a public health issue but we also made it an economic issue. some places you can show the teen birth rate and you can show the std infection rates and they are off the charts. but in some communities we were able to show the economic data. how much teen pregnancy costs taxpayers. based on 2009 numbers we were able to determine that over $150 million was going towards teen

pregnancy. that's enough to send 97% of 4 year-olds in mississippi to pre-k. because we are failing to invest in certain areas we have to spend in certain places. when people ask how come we don't have money for pre-k, part of that money went to teen pregnancy. >> you are doing great work. keep it up and thank you for joining us. the panel will be back. still ahead, i'll talk to one woman caught in the shameful political game a number of gop governors are playing with the affordable care act's medicare expansion as millions are being denied care. if you're living with moderate to severe crohn's disease, and it feels like your life revolves around your symptoms, ask your gastroenterologist about humira adalimumab. humira has been proven to work for adults who have tried other medications but still experience the symptoms of moderate to severe crohn's disease. in clinical studies, the majority of patients on humira

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efforts to expand medicaid in maine were dealt another blow this week when the republican governor vetoed a bill spob tored for the third time. it would have provided health care coverage for some 30,000 mainers currently cot in the medicaid coverage gap which means they don't make enough to afford subsidies in the federal exchange but make too much to qualify for medicaid. in virginia the recently elected governor terry mccall likaucall fight i fighting to provide coverage. as of today it is 1 of 19 states to flat-out reject the

expansion. five others are discussing their options while four others created hybrid models. nearly 6 million americans are being denied coverage as gop governors and state legislators block these funds. let's bring back joan, james and josh. also joining us from miami is mary mcneal, one of the millions of americans caught in this coverage gap. mary, thank you so much for joining us. >> you're welcome. >> mary, as i understand it, you fall into this medicaid coverage gap. can you tell us a little bit about your story? >> okay. i worked for a company for 32 years and they had a layoff in 2009. that's when i stopped working. so i was getting unemployment for about couple years, until that exhausteexhausted. then april, this year right here, april be a year that ien

working as a school crossing guard. it's something like a season job. when there's no school, no pay. holidays, no pay. teacher work day, no pay. >> in terms of your health care, it is my understanding that because of your work situation and the amount of money you make you essentially fall into this gap as if the state were to accept the expanded -- the money that you actually would be able to qualify for health care coverage. >> yes. but i don't make enough money to qualify for obamacare. >> your son actually has signed up for obamacare, i understand. >> yes. he just signed up. >> thanks, mary. you know, josh, what strikes me about this is, this story

infuriates me because they anticipates problems like mary's where people would fall into this gap. so they said okay, we'll do this medicaid expansion not intending for governors to say, you know what? barack obama, we dislike you so much we're unwilling to accept the money. >> this issue is dividing republican officials at the state level. there is tremendous opposition at the conservative base to obamacare and a lot of desire to oppose it in any way you can by rejecting what's more or less free money from the federal government to provide health care to needy people. jan brewer in arizona, famous nationally mostly for her antiimmigration positions had this knock-down, drag-out fight with her same-party legislature

trying to force medicaid expansion through. hospitals previously have gotten these big payments for providing care to uninsured. those are getting cut because you aren't supposed to have nearly as many uninsured. there is a lot of pressure to stop doing this pointless thing. >> most of the studies indicates state by not taking the money are leaving monoon t omoney on not just people uninsured. >> it is bad policy. what this makes me beingangry a this is not about the affordable care act, we didn't get the option in the first place. these kinds of sort of political in-fighting that's going to go

on forever, i think, because for a long time people on the right will oppose obamacare. could have been avoided if we'd just have gotten what we needed from a policy perspective from the beginning. >> part of this is i would hope someone like rick scott, if he met someone like mary mcneal would actually find the courage to go ahead and do it. >> you would hope that but you would probably be really disappointed, karen. you know? when this law was passed i don't think anybody anticipated the extent of the republican opposition to accepting the money. it is free money. it is stimulative money. it's good for the economy. it's good for hospitals. there are lots of interests that in addition to mary and the people we should care about, there are lots of interests that it was always assumed would stand up and demand it. this is another picture of how extreme this republican party has come that you had this organized backlash to taking

money that once would have been a no-brainer. >> i think in florida, a ppp poll conducted for moveon showed rick scott's refusal to expand medicaid is hurting him. crist is running on a pro-obamacare message. this poll finds crist at 49%, scott at 42%. more than half of voters support expansion and think that rick scott should have taken the money. a high percentage are more likely to vote for crist because is he pro-expansion. this suggests to me this is also a potent political issue. >> this is something you see often in polling on obamacare. obamacare as a whole polls pretty badly. you poll individual provisions of the law. most others poll pretty well. medicaid is a popular program. people opposed cuts to it at the federal level so it is not surprising people think they are safe to take it if you explain

to them what most probably don't know, that the federal government pays for almost the entirety of it. >> thank you, mary mcneal and my panel this afternoon. that does it for me. thanks so much for joining us. please keep it here on msnbc for the latest on the shootings out of overland park, kansas. i will see you back here at 4:00 p.m. eastern. have a good night. [ hypnotist ] you are feeling satisfied without standard leather. you are feeling exhilarated with front-wheel drive. you are feeling powerful with a 4-cylinder engine.

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