obama care. who's got the winning hand now? let's play "hardball."care. who's got the winning hand now? let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm joy reid in for chris matthews. leading off tonight, as mark twain once said, never let the truth stand in the way of a good story. for republicans, the story has always been a simple one. the affordable care act isn't working. it's a disaster. it's the worst legislation in the history of america. it's even been compared to slavery. it's the narrative that's whipped the base into a frenzy. the only problem, the truth.

despite a disastrous launch last fall, the president announced yesterday that they shattered their original enrollment goals. 8 million people have signed up. gallup says the number might be closer to 10 million. the mix of young and old is just about right. the law is costing less than even congressional budget office thought it would and the rise in health care costs all over the country is slowing. it's pretty clear the law is working and doing what it was designed to do, which is help people. as the president told republicans yesterday, it is now time to move on. >> they still can't bring themselves to admit that the affordable care act is working. they said nobody would sign up. they were wrong about that. they said it would be unaffordable for the country. they were wrong about that. they were wrong to keep trying to repeal a law that is working, and i know every american isn't going to agree with this law, but i think we can agree that it's well pastime to move on. >> the republican party's response, yeah, whatever, man.

"the wall street journal" has a remarkable story. they report that republican leaders are telling the party's house members that persistent criticism of the federal health care law is the best path to victory this fall regardless of how the law's implementation evolves ahead of the november elections. the washington post put it a bit more bluntly reporting that after intense polling and focus groups, they've decide that the ideal rallying cry is obamacare, grrr, which is pretty much what we saw after the president's press conference yesterday. >> this system is riddled with errors and destined for failure ultimately. >> if it's hurting the doctor, it's hurting the hospital, it's hurting the patient, it's hurting the economy it's going to cost a fortune. >> i just don't understand why he can't help himself to just lead and say, i have some good news to share with you, america. i'd like to take your questions. and leave it at that. people wouldn't say, why is he such a jerk all the time. >> republicans have their story and they're sticking to it no

matter what truth might stand in their way. david ford is the washington bureau chief with mother jones and chip salsa is a republican strategist. chip, i'm going to go with you. what is with this argle gargle refusism? the law is not working. >> i'm going to disagree with you. i know that's going to shock you and david. let's say he has 8 million signups. we know there will be -- if you look at what the consulting groups say, 20 to 25% of the people won't pay their premiums. let's be optimistic. that takes us down to 1.6 million. even though you said on your lead in that the mix is about right, the mix isn't right. they're underperforming on the most important demographic, which is the 18 to 34. those are the ones most likely not to pay their premiums. you need that group if you're going to sustain this long term.

i think the biggest problem is the proof is in the pudding. we don't know what the mixes are. we're saying they have 8 million enrolle enrollees. what comes out in the numbers will talk about the long term sustainability of the program. >> is basically your answer saying, hey, i finally got health care for the first time in 10, 15 years. is your answer, yeah, but, i know you think it's nice to have health care but it's really bad. is that your bumper sticker, chip. >> joy, that's not the bumper sticker because we don't know how many uninsured have signed up. many of these numbers are as low as 15%. a lot of these numbers are people that lost their health insurance coverage because of obamacare. >> here we go. >> but it's true, joy. you talk about the truth. this is the truth. >> david, you're a witness. david, your witness. >> chip, i know you'll be surprised that i do disagree

with you. one reason that you don't have the signups that you want is that your side has been declaring that obamacare is apocalypse and has been encouraging people under the age of 35 not to sign up. the bottom line is there are more signups than expected, than even projected. so obama is outperforming in that regard. it's true. it really is true we won't know the full ramifications of obamacare if not for a year, maybe not for two years or three years or four years but the signs at the moment are far more positive than they were six months ago and yet still, you know, not you yourself but others out there on your team are saying this is the worst thing that's ever happened to america, this is going to destroy the economy and citing all these apocalyptic consequences which have not happened. they haven't happened. one more point, joy. other than the 8 million people who have signed up, you have tens of millions of people who are getting benefits because now they're covered because they weren't before because of

pre-existing conditions. you have three million young adults on their parents' plan. 3 million people on medicaid. altogether if you put in those 8 million, several tens of millions of americans who are benefitting from this. >> chip, i mean, the problem is -- chip, let me ask you this question. >> sure. >> what david just cited were tangible facts. you have actual real living breathing human beings who have health care, people who are getting on medicaid who exist. what you have are theoretical horrible things that could happen in the future. what would you need to hear? what would it take to say i admit it? what exactly would you need to hear? >> i think it's pretty simple from what david was saying. a huge expansion of government health care is just what happened. >> people have health care. why is that a bad thing? >> government run health care doesn't run as effective. we know when we're running $17 trillion in debt, the biggest part of that is entitlement programs, how do we long term deal with that?

i was involved in ten care, which is a small piece of the pie that was a state-run health care system that obamacare -- that the massachusetts health care plan was and obamacare was. they preloaded it, they had health savings. you know what happened five or six years later? it was eating up every new state dollar in the state of tennessee and there was only one solution, the democrat governor of the state at that time had to turn away really hundreds of thousands of people in health care to make the budget balance. and i think as you look at this long term, adding everybody in the country to a government run health care program is -- >> hold on. david. i'm going to let you back in. chip, i actually want to go back. i want to play you an example of sort of what's going on in your party right now because essentially what you've just said is there's a government-run horrible health care plan. if somebody stands up at a town hall and tells you i am on that government plan, i'm on medicaid. your message is i promise to take that away from you doesn't sound like smart politics. here is a congressman attempting to discuss what the republicans

would offer that person instead. this is dennis ross. he is a florida congressman and he's admitting to his constituents this week that there is actually no way republicans can come up with an alternative. take a listen. >> you know what's unfortunate is for the next six months we're going to go into an election knowing we're not going to do anything to address health care. we've gone so far in two years that we don't have an alternative to say yes to. and i think that the american public and the government are going to look at that before they look at substance. >> chip, since when in politics can you replace something with nothing and succeed as a political message? >> i think it's a political party in the health care side of things. nothing much is going to move over the next six months. the law is the law of the land. the republicans need to have a message of what they want to do if they want to replace it, if they want to block grant it to the states which is what i'm in favor of. you're asking about the town hall questions.

the town hall questions i've been to with a couple of members from congress, it's a lot of small business people. how do i deal with this health care plan? i have to make the decision do i add employees or lose employees? the extra cost of obamacare is making me not be able to hire people. these are the 50 plus range group that have been spending thousands of dollars on accountants, lawyers, cpas to tell them what that means. i think the big winner of obamacare is cpas and lawyers. they are plowing through saying what does that mean to my small business. >> it sounds like the small business leaders need a pamphlet. david, i want to go to you on this because the other issues that republicans are facing is that people actually don't want this message of repeal. if you look at the polls and kaiser has done the best polling on this. they have discovered that only

11% of people want to replace the affordable care act with some nebulous republican alternati alternative. can republicans keep up the passion to say that even 1 in 10 want it repealed? >> they can keep up the passion. i think for a lot of republicans, conservatives and for a good part of the voting block the base of the republican party, this is not a question of rational politics. this is theology. obamacare is now the surrogate, the stand in for everything they hate about obama. it doesn't matter what the facts are, it stands in fee. he's for socialism, he's against freedom. he wants to destroy the country. all things that we've heard conservatives say for the last five, six years and they're not going to give it up because obamacare, the early signs are positive. this is about -- you know, we've talked about this, about this being a base election, getting the base riled up and republicans and party has moved so far to the right that they really can't come up with any plan because all health care

policy involves tradeoffs and difficulties and paying things. so they can't come up with a consensus plan they can agree with. all they can do is continue to claim that obama is a -- obamacare is apocalyptic. there may be problems in tennessee, chip. obamacare, otherwise known as romney care in massachusetts, is working. it would be great if republicans in washington would come together and work with democrats to figure out how to make this work in the long run if you have fears for what might happen five, ten years from now. >> david corn, chip salts man -- >> thank you, joy. >> baby steps. conservatives are concerned about hillary clinton won't run for president now that she's going to be a grandmother but have you heard anybody say jeb bush won't run because he's a grampa. we've had some fun with the welfare cowboy.

what that tells us about the power of the so-called patriot groups. plus, the leaflets in the ukraine telling jews to register or else. it's raised concerns about anti-semitism and skepticism. who was behind it? let me finish tonight with someone who has to make the biggest decision of her life all alone with the whole world watching. this is "hardball," the place for politics. positively radiant face moisturizer has an active naturals® total soy formula... one of nature's most effective skin tone correctors. it helps reduce the look of brown spots in just four weeks. now that's an idea you don't have to sleep on. [ female announcer ] aveeno® positively radiant. naturally beautiful results™.

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i would like to have a happy wife, and she won't be unless she's a grandmother, something she wants more than she wanted to be president. >> welcome back to "hardball." as the democratic front-runner, everything hillary clinton does is analyzed as a will she or won't she prism. it's no surprise that chelsea announced hillary is a

grandmother in waiting started a flurry of skepticism about what it means in 2016. >> mark and i are very excited that we have our first child arriving later this year and -- >> secretary clinton later tweeted, my most exciting title yet, grandmother to be. but could a baby in the clinton family take hillary out of politics? there was some wishful thinking among republicans and hand wringing among democrats that a new grandchild might cause hillary to rethink what everyone assumes is her plan to run. michelle bernard is the president of the bernard center. clarence paige is a columnist for the chicago tribune. i suppose we have to do it. i will go around the table. clarence, do you believe that hillary's grandmother to be makes her more or less likely to run? >> it doesn't hurt. it softens her image. it certainly helps everybody who's been a parent to identify

with her. i think it's marginal but it's fun to speculate about. >> michelle, same question to you. i guess as a woman, when you hear that, it softens her image, i wonder how that strikes you. that has been said a lot, that she needs softening somehow and this does the trick. >> she needs softening with some people but i think before we even get to that question, one of the things we should talk about is whether or not anyone would ever ask if jeb bush or mitt romney being a grandfather would somehow impact their decision to run for president of the united states. it's really to me very bizarre that people quite seriously are asking this question. pregnancy, motherhood and grandmotherhood for that matter are not disabilities and i tonigdon't think they'll have any impact on whether hillary clinton will run for president. the people, for example, who follow rush limbaugh and think hillary clinton is a feminazi, it is an important step.

it will show those people that hillary clinton is no different than them. it will soften her image. to some people, some voters, her image needs to be softened. in 2011 when we saw her get a little teary in talking about how hard it was, it was the first time that people saw her not as a quote, unquote, feminazi but as a woman. the other thing we should remark on, joy, this could do so much for women in the sense that it will show that she is -- sort of embodies the fruition of sort of second way feminism. she will show you can have it all. she has had an incredible political career, you can be a mother and you can be a grandmother and you can run for the highest office of the land and maybe even win. >> clarence, i wonder if it strikes you that sort of in a way that's the duality of the idea of a woman president. at the same time the thing that makes her more appealing is this notion that she could break this highest glass political glass ceiling but at the same time the fact that all of the rest of that is loaded into it. this need to soften her image,

showing she's a mom, the fact that her image is considered hardened because it lacks that sort of ma turn softness. that is the duality of running as a woman president. is it just inevitable or is it something particular to hillary clinton? >> it's inevitable and it's not just sexism. remember in '88 when everybody who was skeptical or hostile to jesse jackson softened up when they saw jesse jackson's family up on the stage with the democratic national convention and talked about what wonderful parents they've been. that's helped every politicians. it's effective to jeb bush when there was a drug addiction problem with one of their children. the public was wondering, will that be too big of a distraction if he were to run as president. this kind of speculation happens to everybody. hillary clinton, let's face it, her image is not as warm as her image. bill clinton is the master of projecting warmth, charisma. he came here just for me. hillary clinton has always had

to work a little harder at that as do most politicians. i still think she's the front-runner on the democratic side by a long shot. see it's still got a lot of great goodwill out there from people who wanted to vote for her back in '08 and didn't get the chance. >> i would just add one thing though. i'm going to push back a little bit. you know, it humanizes men and women to be family members -- to have family, but i think it's different for women. i'm no fan of sarah palin, that's not somebody i would have voted for, but in 2008 remember all the headlines were how is this woman going to be on the vice presidential ticket when she has so many children. when joe biden's woman passed away i have not found any headlines to say can joe biden be a senator when his wife passed away. who's going to raise his children? we're not seeing the same headlines as 2008 but it is still a question that is more difficult when it comes to a

woman in national politics. >> i don't think we have dialed down the pressure on hillary clinton to run for president but i do appreciate both of your thoughts, michelle bernard and clarence page. thank you. >> thank you. >> up next, you probably could have predicted this reaction to the far right of chelsea's comment. the rise of the far right birthers. this is "hardball," the place for politics. @ñ

on october 27th, you folks, you folks will continue to have the most open, honest, fair, hard-working mayor that this city has ever seen. >> and hard partying. time for the "side show." rob ford has been a familiar

face in the "side show" since his antics made him famous. now that he's officially declared his candidacy, we're likely to see more. next, texas gubernatorial candidate wendy davis hit greg abbott for his ties to a short lived political action committee with a rather unsavory name, boats n hoes pac. the pac borrowed its name from the will ferrell comedy "stepbrothers" but it drew more criticism than laughs, most notably from the texas democratic party regarding this scathing criticism. texas republicans say they want to reach out to women to be more inclusive but actions like this reinforce a pattern of disrespect. there's no defending the use of a derogatory and offensive term like hoes. how can women possibly take the gop rebranding seriously.

abbott publicly denounced it for its bad taste. the pac was officially shut down yesterday. abbott is leading in the polls but this certainly won't help him with women. finally, we saw the hillary shoe choosers talking about t. rush limbaugh said hillary staged it when a disturbed woman hurled a shoe at her on stage but now a new conspiracy theory is emerging. hillary birtherism. as unbelievable as it may be, the idea that chelsea clinton's pregnancy is politically motivated to help hillary in 2016. here's steve explaining that genius theory. >> i don't mean they're making up that she's pregnant, okay, but what great timing purely accidental, purely an act of nature, purely left up to god and god answered hillary clinton's prayers and she's going to have the prop of being

a new grandma while she runs for president. it just warms the heart. >> that's "hardball" for now. coming up, "your business" with j.j.ramberg.

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