hi, ally. >> hi, hallie. right now, gop health care hurdles. two house committees pulling all nighters as republicans infight and democrats resist. this hour we'll hear from the speaker of the house, paul ryan, on what's next for the legislation. we'll bring that to you live the moment he takes the podium. and this just this morning, julian assange, speaking out about the wikileaks hack with an explosion of new claim as the fbi begins a criminal investigation and the cia scrambles to find the source of those leaks. plus boots on the ground. u.s. maroons -- march eeines ar in syria. i'm ali velshi. we begin with intense pressure on both sides other the republicans' plan to repeal and

replace obamacare with republicans out in full force today making their arguments. senate democrats led by chuck schumer demanded that republicans drop their health care plan while moments ago nancy pelosi is still speaking and meantime, they are trying to reassure colleagues against the health care plan saying it's going to be revealed in three process. >> remember, this is a three-stage process. >> over on capitol hill, two use panels, as i mentioned, pulled all nighters. they were markinup the bill. the ways and means committee approved it after 18 hours, giving republicans their first victory in the health care fight but the energy and commerce committee is still debating right now, passing the 24-hour

mark just a short time ago. these are live pictures of that hearing, which is still under way. we have all the angles of the story covered for you with our team of reporters and influence guests in the world of politics. we begin with the marathon going on on capitol hill. kasie hunt, what has been happening in these two committees that are voting on the same bill? why did they have to stay up all night for this? >> they had to stay up all night, ali, basically because house republican leadership are putting pressure on them to do this as quickly as possible. this is often a process stretched out over days, not crammed into this kind of a tight period. but that's what they're saying. so we know that the house ways and means committee has already approved the titles that are related to their bill. ways and means is a fancy way of saying taxes. that's the committee that writes tax law here in u.s. congress. and we have, i thisnk, a graphi we can show you included in their title of the bill.

they're dealing with obamacare taxes, the blake subsidies that helps people buy insurance, those new tax credits that they're going to replace those subsidies with and of course the expansion of health savings accounts which republicans say is a key part of this bill. now, of course democrats are spend being the day, there's not a lot that they can do to slow down this process, especially not in the house but that doesn't mean that they're not trying. we're down here in the basement of the capital outside of a news conference that nancy pelosi is holding. we heard from chuck schumer earlier today. take a look at what he had to say. >> drop this irresponsible plan, stop this efrt to repeal and we'll work with you to improve the affordable care act. but trumpcare is a loser for just about all of america. >> it's actually a pretty interesting way for chuck schumer to put this because we

know that he has really dug in and said from the beginning, look, democrats aren't going to help at all. there he sort of left a little bit of a door open. there are democrats who acknowledge privately at that there are a lot of problems with the original affordable care act that they would like to be able to fix. the political dynamics have been such that it hasn't been a possibility. they haven't wanted to open the door at all in a republican congress to making changes. now everything is on their head because there's now a republican in the white house. some significant challenges i would want to point you to are tweets from tom cotton, the senator from arkansas, essentially telling house republicans, hey, slow down, this bill isn't going to pass. >> tom cotton, a big trump supporter telling his colleagues to slow it down. i'm going to pick that up and talk about it a little more through the course of the show. kasie hunt for us on capitol hill. the white house also rolling out its strategy to get more support for this new health care bill.

vice president mike pence is taking center stage. he's done three local radio shows this morning. let's go to the white house where nbc's chris jansing is standing by. chris, a bit of a charm offensive on the president's part. we talked about this yesterday. he tweeted @rand paul, a sort of friendlyish tweet, tweeted out this picture of the president with cruz's daughters in the oval office last night, the two families having dinner together, trump bragged he was an expert negotiat negotiator. there's something going on. he's trying to convince as opposed to hammer them over the head with it. >> reporter: this morning they seemed to be doing a little bit of a shift. earlier they were talking about how the president was going to get out there to middle america, talk to people directly. he's still going to do some of that but the majority of it appears now is the strategy is

for him to continue to have these kind of smaller meetings, whether it's with somebody like ted cruz, who as you pointed out they were incredibly tough opponents during the campaign and he's come out against obamacare or some of the meetings like we saw yesterday with leaders of conservative groups and that is what he seems to be focusing on. i talked to somebody about how that meeting went. they said, look, not all the philosophical and specific differences have been bridged but the president has isn't a message. our sources tell us from inside that meeting that there are things he's willing to look at. for example, ending medicaid expansion in 2018 instead of 2020. and he is also going to have people out there in america, mike pence heading to kentucky, a place, frankly, where obamacare has been pretty successful in getting a lot of people insured. but in those radio interviews you mentioned today, his focus is on what the president's message was to people who are skeptical. we all agree on the fact, he

says that, obamacare is a disaster, that this is going to replace it. and there are opportunities to improve on it. that's a little bit different than what we heard from sean spicer at the briefing yesterday, who said this is more about the sell than it is about making adjustments. but everyone who has come out of those meetings that we have talked to so far, ali, has said that the president did seem to listen to their concerns. listening and actually adjusting to the bill to the point to where they could support it are of course two different things but there's no doubt about it. they're going to coin to bring it in mick mulvaney has a lot of ins with conservatives on the hill. reince priebus is going to deal with some of the outside groups and vice president pence who knows a lot of people outside the hill and was also for 12 years a governor, ali. >> i want to bring in business crystal, the founder and editor of "the weekly standard."

tom cotton tweeting out -- do i have it? no, i don't. yeah, i do have it right there. "house health care bill can't pass senate without major changes. to my friends, pause, start over, get it right. don't get it fast. >> i think he's trying to send donald trump a message. what are you rushing for? why is there this all-night session? we're not the end of the session where the budget we're about to have go over a cliff and there needs to be a continuing resolution or an omnibus. we're in march. calm down, take your time. there are some technical reasons they want to do it quickly but they have at least a month if they want to do a reconciliation but leaving that aside, what cotton is saying to donald trump is slow it down, think this

through. i think what donald trump is going to do is start to think this through and realize there a lot of good things can you do. there's some things that tom price, the hhs secretary can do in a regulatory way, there might be individual things he can do that he can get members to agree with, this huge bill jammed through this quickly, it not going to work. and if the votes aren't there in the senate, think if you're ahouse memba house member, do you want to cast a political vote that the hospitals aren't in favor of -- >> congressman elijah cummings, democrats peter welsh, they said said they had positive meetings with president trump. if you're president trump, you're thinking i'm having some positive meetings with some democrats. is there some busy can do with them on health care that doesn't

get me into this binary decision about this bill versus not this bill? >> it's always hard to interpret donald trump's thought process but if i could, he's thinking why am i in this mess? huge opposition, not clear if it's popular with the american public, a lot of it doesn't go into effect for three years anyway. >> he's talking about medicare -- >> drug prices and medicare. let me do that. led me see what i can do on medicaid. i think this thing could really move quickly now. the whole paul ryan bill could fall apart. and donald trump could say i'm going to do this piecemeal, let take our time and do this in a way -- think of areas where trump is doing well, the stock market, he's hasn't done any

huge regulations. i'm thinking why isn't that a pretty good model for everything? i don't have to pass some -- >> conservatives who don't like the tax credits in this bill, they don't want these extra entitlements, ultimately parts of obamacare have proved popular and there isn't a conservative answer to it because the bottom line is there nhere on this planet where purely market-based health insurance system has worked. it's a market failure for all intents and purposes. what if you're a conservative? can you face the fact that there's a market failure? it just doesn't work with you just give it to the insurance companies to handle? >> politically isn't that a reason for trump to put together different cove lagss for different parts of it, get expectations down. just for a political point of view, the day it passes, it's

trump's health care system. chuck schumer was smart to say trumpcare. >> brand new lawsuit directed against the trump family business. moments ago the onners of a d.c. restaurant announced they filed a suit alleging that the d.c. trump international hotel is operating with unfair and illegal advantage. they say businesses for their restaurant and others in the area have been hurt because those looking to gain favor with the president are taking their business to the restaurant at the hotel. let's bring in ari melber. this one sounds a little strange to me, arguing someone has an advantage because patrons are a restaurant are going there. >> well, strange things happen in court in is probably one of the stronger standing arguments we've seen. the lawsuit last january by emoluments was filed by public

interest lawyers. these people at least they can say they were harmed. and let's take a listen. >> we have all seen the president and members of his team encourage people to go there using the power of his office to influence people, to paonize hiestablishments, whichrings him unfair financial gain. like most watching events unfold, we seemed it but it hasn't been so. >> that is the key argument there, that this is a benefit, that there is a local law that restricts unfair competition and that this is in their argument, some of the most unfair competition, the negotiating power he continues to have over the lead. the use of the trump name while donald trump continues to serve as president is fd offin fair

competition in the market of the d.c. hotels. >> how much favor do you gain by going to somebody's restaurant? i get it if the government of dubai comes to your hotel. at some point it does feel a little preposterous. >> judges are going to say what's the big deal, a thousand dollars wine bottle here and there, it eventually opens up to real money. that are saying that basically that who should resign as president, which is very far fetched for a local d.c. case. i want to also reflect the president and his aides have not directly reso this is all in their view noise. >> very interesting. never a dull day. we talk about things i never thought we would talk about. same with you, bill.

>> all right. we're going to take a break. more over the battle over the gop health care bill. i'll speak with ohio congressman jim jordan. he introduced a clean obamacare bill yesterday, no replace. we'll be back after this. fun in art class.

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the largest transfer of weather from working families to the richest people in our country. robinhood in reverse. the richest 400 families in m america will get a $7 million tax break each year. that was house fierminority lea nancy pelosi blasting the plan to replace obamacare. no shortage of drama over republicans themselves with the administration today trying to tam many down gop opposition. i want to bring in congressman jim jordan of ohio, who introduced a clean repeal wednesday. he's a member of the oversight committee and co-found ier of t conservative house freedom caucus who calls the house gop plan obamacare-lite. you were mentioned this morning. >> jim's a great guy.

the things he mentioned purchase across state lines association health plans, providing more competition, all of those things are incorporated in the totality of the plan. remember, there are some things that will occur at the same time. >> tom cotton tweeted this morning that you guys in the house should just chill out, wait, slow down, don't rush it. should you just sit back and wait to see these phases that they're talking about now unfold before you make a final decision about supporting this bill? >> and that's what dr. price was referring to, phase three. my attitude is let's do it right. i think tom cotton is correct. we should do this thing right. and we should do it in a way that's consistent with what we told the american people when they elected us this past fall. we should do exactly what we told them we were going to do. so that's why i introduced yesterday something we all have agreement on, a clean repeal. because we all voted for it just about a year ago. we put it on president obama's

desk. of course he vetoed it. if it goes on trump's desk, i know he'll sign it. phase one will be clean repeal and then we can get to phase two but we can do it in a way that unites our party. >> in the meantime when you do a clean repeal, there are going to be a whole lot of people who are not -- >> the effective day is december 31st, 2018. there's a wind down. you need time to do a marketplace phase two and three. we know obamacare's a mess, fewer choices, higher premiums and higher deductibles. >> i have to stop you. i hear this talking point all the time. there have always been higher premiums every year. and under obamacare the premium increase has been lower. i heard you guys at your press

conference mincing word. there were higher premiums before obamacare and during obamacare but the rate of increase has been slower. >> no one is arguing that health care was perfect before. obamacare was more mandates, more taxes, mandate people buy it and if they don't, they get penal ooize penalized. >> let's bring back affordable insurance. >> there was never affordable insurance. i was saying to bill kristol, nowhere on earth is there a free market that works. it just one of those areas that a free market doesn't work. >> it will work much better than it's working now under complete government control for goodness sake. do you think people are satisfied now? how about people in the individual market who went from paying $200 a month $500, $600 a

month -- >> you know in all the developed countries that have single payor systems, happiness about health care is substantially greater than -- >> why do they all come here for treatment? >> they don't all come here. republicans say that all the time. >> people in canada, people in norway, people in the united kingdom, in sweden, in denmark, they don't all come here -- >> people in canada come here for extensive surgery. i grew up in canada, my entire family's in canada, pop do not come here. i'm sure a handful of people say that. you keep saying a free market works. name me one country where a free market system for health care works. >> we just had an election last november where this was a huge issue and we told the american people what we were going to do.

we said we were going to repeal it. we didn't say we were going to repeal it and take the medicare -- so let's repeal it. let's -- >> if your goal is to kill the taxes, the tax credit, the mandates, the medicaid expansion, what's the difficulty in doing that in a new bill which lets americans know what kind of health care plan you think the government should be involved in unless you think the government shouldn't be involved in anything? >> if we can great get agreement on all that, i'm fine with replacement at the same time. we've introduced a replacement bill. if they could be married, i'm fine with that if it's the right kind of replacement and i believe going to bring down the cost of insurance for working class and middle class families. >> do you have some sense of what that outcome looks like? are you comfortable that the government has some role in health care for those millions

of americans for whom the public markets doesn't work? >> of course. we've had medicaid and medicare for a long, long time. medicaid is supposed to be for the disabled, the really low extremely low income. it's supposed to be for specific populations. obamacare expanded it to, you know, able-bodied adults, able-bodied people. that i think is a problem. i would much rather instead of putting those people on a government program, i would rather bring back health care that's affordable. i want to pick that policy that fits my family's needs. that's our goal, our goal, the freedom caucus's goal. >> congressman, i'm enjoying the discussion with, i got to go. i would love it on some plan anywhere what is a free market government program that works. you can't talk about that as free market. it's a government progra you can't insult the government all show and then say you really

like medicaid. >> i didn't say that either. i said there's a need for medicaid for the disabled and traditional populations it's served. i don't think we should be expanding and saying putting more people on a medicaid program -- >> at least i got you to admit you sort of like government. congressman, good to see you. thanks for joining me. congressman jim jordan, congressman of ohio. self defense officials tell msnbc news that marines have arrived as part of an effort to accelerate the fight against isis. for more on this and what lies ahead for u.s. military involvement in the middle east, richard engel joins us. richard? >> reporter: ali, this has been a long time coming. the city of raqqa is what we're talking about.

raqqa is the isis capital of the world. it's where it is believed that abu bakring ing al baghdadi liv there, spends a lot of time there. who will go in and try to defeat isis in raqqa? there was talk that turkey would do it and talk that i think we're getting some clarity it will be a kurdish and arab force backed up by the u.s. military. that's why we have a couple hundred marines arriving with h howitzers, weapons that you fire from a distance to disrupt an enemy, to destroy targets. if you have the marines there working with the kurds and some local arab forces and they

already have howitzers, you get a sense that it's going to be that force that is going to be pushing on to raqqa. also there's this announcement coming from the pentagon that self hundred u.s. troops are going to also deploy soon to kuwait and they will be in a reserve capacity there, should there need to be more troops backing up the counterisis mission. so, yes, it has been a long time coming. >> knows the target. isis knows the target, the world knows the target about a force is required to drive the militants out and nobody really knew what force that was going to be. but now with maroons on the ground with those weapons, it just a matter of time at this stage. >> richard, help me through this. raqqa has been a stronghold. it is their capital, a place that all of those various forces have not been able to penetrate, however, it is a city under siege. is there some sense that without additional u.s. forces, the kurdish forces and others can actually take this? because this is the one that

isis will fight to the death for. >> well, it's frankly even more complicated than that. so -- because you're dealing with balancing regional goals and regional ambitions. so let's take the two big isis cities, the two main strongholds. you have mosul in iraq, which is a very large city, isis has dug in there and is fighting to the death to keep it, but in iraq at least there is the iraqi government. so american forces are helping the iraqi government to take back mosul. in syria, particularly in northern and eastern syria, there really is no government. so you have many different competing factions. you have turkish forces on the ground in syria, you have russian advisers working with the syrian military, you have a kurdish independence muovement, you have al qaeda, lots of different players. so there's always been this

degree of paralysis in syria. everyone knows raqqa is the target but who exactly is going to advance on it? the fact that u.s. troops is there working with kurds is an indication that it is going to be them who go on to the city. the kurdkurds, could they do it their own? potentially. would they want to do it? probably not. they're kurd, raqqa's an arab city, the u.s. will give them encouragement and it is backing up an ally with force and making a commitment that you will have their backs later on. >> richard, you've taken a complicated matter and explained it very nicely. richard engel in istanbul. >> explosive comments from wikileaks julian assange.

>> the cia developed a giant arsenal, what appears to be the largest arsenal of trojans and viruses in the world, didn't secure it, lost control of it and then appears to have covered up that fact. it is impossible to keep effective control of cyber weapons. so what does that mean? well, it means that if you build them, eventually you will lose them. they are just information. >> and i want to go right now, this is coming from the white house, president trump leading a national economic council discussion with ceos of small community banks. >> nearly half of all priv sector workers are eyed by small businesses. we we must ensure access to capital, community banks, the backbone of small business in america, we are going to preserve our community banks. you probably noticed i signed an executive order on regulation on

february 3rd, i believe it was and that's a big executive order and a very powerful executive order. it's taken a lot of the regulation away. you'll be able to loan, you'll be able to be safe but you'll be able to provide the jobs that we want and also create great businesses. so it's an honor to have you with us today and perhaps we could go around the room and we'll start with dorothy and say who you are and who you represent. >> thank you, mr. president. i'm dorothy savarise from cape cod 5 mutual company from cape cod, massachusetts. >> i'm leslie anderson with the bank of bennington, nebraska. >> sub sushs urbs of pittsburgh virginia. >> i'm rebecca from beautiful new mexico. >> [ inaudible ]. >> [ inaudible ].

from seattle. >> [ inaudible ]. >> good, thank you. >> i'm and ken burgess with first capital bank of texas in midland, texas. >> okay, thank you very much. thank you. >> document dump pr wikileaks, any thoughts? thank you, mr. president. >> trump once again ignoring the question asked by the reporter in the pool after one of these sprays, he invites the media in, makes a few comments, introduces a few ceos and then the media gets thrown out. however, he was talking about wikileaks. we can talk about that or at least he was asked a question about it. joining me is congressman steve king, republican from iowa, sits on the house judiciary committee. good to see you. thanks for being on the show. >> good to be back, ali. >> we played a piece from julian assange saying the cia lost control of its cyber weapons.

the cia has declined to deny the allegations. we don't really know if they're true, but what are the implications of the allegations that wk leaks ikileaks is makin the cia? >> it's a very, very heavy thing laying in front of us right now without much reaction from our executive branch or government in entirety. we know julian assange has delivered a lot of information out there that turned out to be accura accurate. i'm one that has read through the entire dossier, the releases by edward snowden. ifhisis worse than snowden, it's a very heavy thing indeed. it causes me to believe throughout the history of warfare, there's always been a defective mechanism to come up to protect against offensive weapons and it looks like we've got to go back and retool our cyber approach because of the

leaks that seem to be replete throughout our government, that noble people, patriots serving in each of our agencies but the problem that we have is some of them inside are allowing the leaks and sometimes it may be we're a little bit too easy on it. >> i want to make the connection between people wondering about the wikileaks stories and donald trump's allegations about trump tower being tapped. you said there could be a rogue allegation about trump was tapped. julian assange says something similar, mobile phones, tv, internet connection. >> i don't want to say i have a piece of intel and i'm more or less putting it out

instinctively. we know there's been classified information to the press, at least listen in on on general flynn's conversation. that appears to be a felony. but is it something that came from a fisa warrant that was denied? or did it come from the fias warrant that was improved. the other component of this is what happened outside the law that may be leaking information to the public sphere, which hurts this country lot. >> representative, good to talk to you. thanks for being with us today. >> republican steve king, republican of iowa. >> coming up north kore, member senate intelligence committee visit cia headquarters. i'll speak with democratic congresswoman maxine waters. what she wants as an

investigation into the russia ties to the election and to the russian ties to the white house. but we've never been the type to just sit back... not when we've got so much more to give when you have the right financial advisor, life can be brilliant. ameriprise

here's to the wildcats this i gotta try .. bendy... spendy weekenders. whatever kind of weekender you are, there's a hilton for you. book your weekend break direct at hilton.com and join the weeers. the first public hearing on russia's interference in the u.s. elections gets under way in the house intelligence committee in 11 days. this happens as top democrats and republicans from both the house and the senate intelligence committees travel to cia headquarters to review raw intelligence on russia's interference in the u.s. election. virginia senator mark warner spoke out when he returned.

>> a lot of what we saw today was the evidence underlying how russia manipulated the news, how it hacked into the dnc and john podesta and leaked out in favor of one candidate against another candidate. >> joining me now is california congresswoman maxine waters. she's been an outspoken critic of the trump administration, particularly on its ties to russia. congresswoman, good to see you. you seem to be playing one note on this. you think that donald trump should be impeached over russia and anything else -- any other discussion distracts us from that investigation. you still hold true to that? >> yes. i've always said that i believe if we get the investigations that need to be done, if we drill down, we're going to see the connections. we're going to understand the role that this administration has played during the campaign with russia. and when we see that, he certainly will be el igible for

impeachment. i do bleach thelieve that. >> are you satisfied the hearing are going to get under way in the senate and the house? >> not yet. i'm not satisfied yet. i'm worried about the republicans who are still standing up for trump, even in the face of growinginformation. so i still think the call for an independent commission is credible and that we should do that. let's see what happens. they're going to do the investigations and i want the democrats to be poised with all kinds of research and information to do the drilling down that i think is necessary to understand what trump has done in connection with the russians to undermine our democracy. >> you're calling representative adam schiff, says he's seeking

testimony of a former british spy, who wrote an unsubstantiated dossier of la alleged collusion between donald trump and russia. do you believe anything about that dossier? >> i think it should be taken a look at. i think they should really read it, understand it, analyze it, determine what's fact, what may not be fact. we already know about the part about the coverage they have on him with sex actions is supposed to be true. they have said that's absolutely true. some other things they kind of allude to. yes, i think he should go into that dossier and see what's there. >> you say you think them to be true. how are we all going to find out what is true and what isn't true? does it help that you think so? because unless you have information that we don't have, that's an allegation. >> but you understand that i am saying the investigations must be done, the drilling down must be done. we must get to the facts of what

it has been about. i don't think you can do the impeachment just because i think or others think. but i think if we do the investigations, that we will find the connections and i do think that impeachment will be necessary. >> who will initiate that? wherdo you think that will come from if there is an impeachment proceeding against the president? >> if the information comes out, any one of us will have the resolutions of inquiry. already you've had one that has been filed, poised and ready to go. >> but it's still a political process, right? you're still going to have to have a number of republicans who would support the concept that they would impeach a republican president after eight years of trying to get one. >> let just say what i really think about that. i think that even the most conservative of the members of congress, the republicans who are supporting trump now will not continue to stand with him if the facts come out that he

was involved in some kind of collusion with russia. i think that many of them are strong patriots and they are patriotic and if facts come out to show that he undermined our democracy and he worked with the kremlin, if he worked with putin and if they're involved in not only trying to make sure that trump got elected and undermine hillary and, as i add to that, that they're all about lifting the sanctions because all of this involvement with oil and gas and those around him will have all these connections with oil and gas and even the latest proposal that came out from mr. coy, his lawyer, and mr. seder, the ex-con that's been involved in developing the proposal that they took to mr. flynn, that proposal shows the connection and the involvement. it must be investigated. and i think there's enough there

to make everybody want to drill down and these conservative members won't stand by mr. trump when they get the facts to show that he's undermined our democrac in the interests of having trump president, who will lift those sanctions and turn a blind eye to the aggression in the ukraine. that's what it's all about. >> congresswoman maxine waters, thank you. >> in the bottom right of our screen, we are watching -- or we were watching, the weekly press conference from paul ryan. that's him walking up to the podium right now. let's listen in. >> good morning, everybody. i've got a few things i'd like to say. first of all, i would like to walk you through exactly what the american health care act is. i want to walk you through

exactly what this health care law is and what we're replacing and how important it is to repeal and replace obamacare, not just because the law is collapsing but because the law is going to get even worse if we do nothing. let me show you what our problem is and what we're trying to do. we are going to repeal and replace obamacare and we're going to do it with a three-pronged approach. number one is what we're talking about right now. this is what the ways and means committee marked up this morning, what the commerce committee is in the middle of right now. that's called reconciliation. that's the american health care act. there are only so many things can you do in that bill because of the senate floor rules reconciliation. you can't put everything you want in that legislation because if you did, it would be filibustered and you couldn't even bring it up for a vote in the senate. number two, administrative action. this law, obamacare, has 1,442 sections or instances that gives

the secretary of hhs enormous amounts of discretion to administer heare, meaning i don't think brack obama and nancy pelosi and harry reid ever thought donald trump would be president and tom price secretary of hhs. so number two, administrative action where the health and human services secretary deregulates the marketplace allowing more competition to come into the marketplace. number three. and this is where i think there's a lot of confusion all over the map, additional legislation that we feel is important and necessary to give us a truly competitive health care marketplace. so think of things like interstate shopping. that's a reform relowe long beld in, we think is important to give people more choices. association health plans. let a farmer buy her insurance through a national plan, or a

restauranture buy through the national restaurant association, buy through plans nationwide. we would love for this to be in the reconciliation bill but the rules don't allow that to happen. so we're going to move those bills independently through our process and bring those to a vote. unfortunately they'll have to hit what we call the 60-vote threshold. we have a three-pronged approach to repealing and replacing obamacare. let's get into why this needs to happen and why it needs to happen now. options are disappearing fast. this law is in the middle of a collapse and people are quickly losing their choices. in 2016, the amount of counties in america that had three or more insurers three or more carriers to choose from was about 2,000. in 2017 that number has ummeted. insurers are leaving the

marketplace, choice and competition is going away and people are having less choices. how many insurers -- how many counties in america that have just one insurer? a little overinsurer? little over 200 just last year. so in america, about 200 counties had only one plan to choose from, one insurer. this year in 2017, that number has skyrocketed to over 1,000 counties. over one in three counties in america you've got one plan to choose from. these insurers probably never intended on being monopolists, but they are in these counties. there's no choice, no competition, one plan to choose from. it's a 454% increase in american counties of people who are stuck with one option. now that humana has said they are going to pull out of the marketplace next year, there are going to be counties that have zero options. so here's what's happening under a law that is collapsing. premiums are going up at a very,

very fast clip. options and choices are going down. so what we're seeing in america is people who have to buy their own health insurance are getting far, far fewer choices, to the point one in three counties in america. take a look at what's going on around the country. this shows you the map of the premium increases just this year alone. minnesota, 59% increase in their health insurance premiums. pennsylvania, 53% increase in their health insurance premiums. tennessee, 63% increase in their health insurance premiums this year alone. over one year. alabama, 58%. oklahoma, 69% increase in their health insurance premiums. nebraska, 51% increase in their health insurance premiums. arizona clocked in at a 11 increase in their health insurance premiums with

obamacare. here's what's happening. "obamacare is in a death spiral. it is not getting any better. it's getting worse." that's the ceo of etna said this just a couple weeks ago. what is a death spiral? it's a weird term, kind of gruesome if you ask me. a death spiral is a system where in an insurance pool only sicker people who absolutely have to have the insurance buy it, and healthier people who want the insurance won't pay those really high prices because it's too expensive and they don't absolutely have to have it because they are healthy. in any kind of a pool, typically you have a healthy person playing premiums to subsidize the sick person, but obamacare is not working that way. so only the people that must have health insurance, the older and sicker person buying it, it's cranking up the cost of the insurance so fast that the premiums are spiraling out of

criminal and the insurers are losing so much money that they are pulling out of the marketplace. that's called a death spiral. it's literally a collapse of the insurance markets. that's what america is facing today. if we simply did nothing, just washed our hands of it, if we in the majority party said you know what, democrats gave us obamacare, let them live with it, the collateral damage in this country would be awful. more and more people would see even higher premium increases in 2018, would see zero choices. we can't do that. the goal of health care reform has always been one we all share. the goal of health care reform is people get access to affordable coverage. our goal is to get choice in competition, not government coercion and mandates. so here's what we propose. here's the american health care act, the bill moving through regular order today, the bill that's going to take three weeks

just to move through the house because we are following regular order. lower costs. more choices, not less. patients in control. universal access to care. these are the four driving principles that we are focused on. lowering the costs. giving people more choices. having patients in control, and universal access to care. let me walk you through how exactly we propose to do this. these are longstanding conservative principles that those of us who have been working in health care for about 20 years have been fighting for, dreaming about, working toward. now we have an opportunity to do that. how we do this, first of all, you have to repeal this law. you have to repeal the taxes in obamacare. a trillion taxes in obamacare that make it harder to make medical devices, make it harder to lower costs in health insurance, that drive up the cost of health care. the spending. the spending in obamacare is getting out of control. it's a debt explosion, but more importantly, the way the system works is it's driving up the

costs and the mandates. the mandates are arrogant and paternalistic. it is the government at the federal level telling people this is what you have to buy, it's going to be really expensive, you must do it. if you don't like it, tough. that's what the government is saying to americans today, so we get rid of the taxes, the spending, the mandates. the key thing that a lot of people want to know, when i talk to people with various disease advocacy groups, they want to know when we pass this, the next day we're not going to lose health insurance. that's not going to happen. we pass the law and a day after americans who have insurance aren't going to lose it a day after. we do not pull the rug out from anybody who is enjoying some kind of coverage they have today. so we want to have a stable transition. and if a few of the points i think are really important to

just bring peace of mind to americans who are concerned about all that's going on here, we want to protect people with pre-existing conditions. we think that's very important. that's been a cornerstone of republican health care proposals all along. in 2009, i along with congressman devin nunes, richard burr, offered the patients choice act, one of our alternatives to obamacare. again, like many other republican alternatives, we had an answer for people with pre-existing conditions, and we have one here. all of our alternatives have agreed with the idea of letting young people stay on their parents' plans until 26. we obtain that. what our goal is to do is provid univsal access to quality, affordable health care. here's another issue with obamacare. obamacare is not just the individual market that you think of the obamacare subsidies, it was also a taking over the medicaid program. here's the problem with medicaid.

medicaid is a program that is washington controlled and it is done in such a way that it stops innovation and experimentation at the state level. it makes it harder for states to customize the medicaid population and program to work for their particular states, and as a result, more and more doctors don't take medicaid. what good is your coverage if you can't get a doctor? and that is a huge growing problem with medicaid. medicaid is also growing at an unsustainable rate, so there's ballooning costs threatening the very viability of the program and our physical future, so what we propose is to modernize the medicaid program, along the lines that we as republicans have been talking about for years. i think it was ronald reagan in, like, the '70s when he was governor who said the states should take over control of medicaid. every budget we have had as republicans, when i was budget chair writing my road maps, every one of our conservative budgets said let's get medicaid

control back to the states in an honor to the principle of federalism, give the states and the governors the freedom and flexibility to customize the care for their low-income populations, how they think needs to occur. our problems in wisconsin are a whole lot different than the problems they have in new york or in nevada or in utah or california. so we propose more efficient spending. bring the spending on medicaid to something sustainable so it doesn't go bankrupt, and have a safety net for the most vulnerable. give local control to our states and our governors sotheyan craft and customize medicaid to work for their populations. how do you protect people with pre-existing conditions? i think this is probably the most important issues of them all. here is basically what happens today. under the current system we have costs driving up. on the current system, choices

are fleeting, prices are going up, and the fatal conceit of obamacare is we're going to make everybody buy our health insurance at the federal level, young and healthy people are going to go into the market and pay for the older, sicker people. so the young healthy person is going to be made to buy health care and they are going to pay for the person who gets breast cancer in her 40s or heart disease in his 50s. so take a look at this chart. the red slice here are what i would call people with pre-existing conditions, people with real health care problems. the blue is the rest of the people in the individual market, the market where people don't get health insurance at their jobs or buy it themselves. the whole idea of obamacare is people on the blue side pay for the people in the red side. people healthy pay for the people who are sick. it's not working and that's why it's in a death spiral. here's how we propose to tackle this problem. we want to have a system where we encourage states with federal funding to set up risk pools and reinsurance mechanisms.

so, for example, in wisconsin we had a great risk pool that actually worked so people with real high health care costs and diseases and pre-existing conditions could still get affordable health care. well, obamacare repealed that. they had a great risk pool reinsurance system in utah, a good one in washington state. all those are gone under obamacare. here's how they work and here's how our system would work. we would directly support the people with pre-existing conditions. let me give you a sense of this. 1%f the people in these markets drive 23% of the costs. 1% of the people in the individual health insurance market drive 23% of the costs. so reassurance program is to cover more than just the 1%, to cover the people with high health care costs. so by having state innovation funds to go to the states to set up these reinsurance program, we would directly subsidize the people with pre-existing