>> donald trump and the republicans are already on the road to repealing and replacing obamacare. do they have something that's going to shape up to be a win or not in our area? let's get the inside story. ♪ good morning. i'm tamala edwards. welcome to "inside story." less than a week out from inauguration day. let's introduce you to our panel. first, nonprofit exec sharmain matlock-turner. good morning. >> good morning. >> gop state official val digiorgio. >> good morning. >> good morning. f&m pollster terry madonna. >> good morning, tam. >> good morning. >> and documentarian sam katz. >> hey, there. >> so, there's a lot of news made by donald trump this past week, and in there, he said he wants republicans to not just repeal, but repeal and replace obamacare pretty much at the same time. this is a law that affects 700,000 people in our area. we are hearing anecdotally that women are rushing to get certain

kinds of birth control, unsure if it will be included in whatever the replacement looks like. the first question that you start out with, particularly looking at voters in this area, people really care about their healthcare. was it a good idea to repeal and replace so quickly? some republicans even saying let's repeal and take our time to get to the replace part. val, you're the state official. what do you think? >> yeah, well, the challenge for republicans are if they don't put in place a plan that gives people some coverage -- there's gonna be transitional problems with putting a new plan in place, and if they don't put something in place quickly, they're only risking the 2018 elections of being in charge of a system that they now own that's not working. so, there's a little bit of pressure on the republicans in congress to put something together that works, and it's not gonna be easy to do. what's interesting to me is that we've had months, years to think about this, and there's not a leading plan yet in the republican party. >> why is that? >> i think it's 'cause it's such

a complicated thing, it's such a complicated system, and they have to get a lot of people in to get consensus on it. no one wants to lead with a plan. >> it seems like the kind of thing -- paul ryan is famous for showing up with whole budgets. this is a guy who likes to think that you say -- paul ryan -- in six months, you work with your republican caucus, we'll come to you in six months and do something then. like, this feels, to me, like that moment when bill clinton came into office, and he went for the big thing first. he went for don't ask, don't tell -- something that was tricky versus something smaller. this could be really tricky. >> fundamentally, it's easy to replace. you can do it with 51 -- a repeal, 51 votes. to replace, you're gonna need 60. now, here's the problem. once you get in to the loss of the revenues, when you get rid of the subsidies that people get, you're talking about the need to raise billions of dollars to keep all the people who are currently covered by the affordable care act -- billions, and so whether you use savings accounts to do it,

whether you use tax credits, the big problem is, how do you come up with the loss in billions of dollars in revenue in order to fund whatever you replace it with? and remember, the republicans have made it clear they're not gonna cut people off. their goal is not to reduce the number of people who are covered, and that's the major challenge. >> well, i want to talk about this, as well. republicans have said they want to keep things like keeping your kids on till they're 26, people with pre-existing conditions. by the time this is over, you repeal, you replace, but are they still gonna pretty much have obamacare, just trying to call it by a different name? >> yeah, a lot of the pieces that are there today are gonna need to be there. i mean, let's take a look at the fact that we're talking about 20 million people who signed up. half of the people who are on the aca are in republican districts. so there's no way that they're just gonna ignore those particular voters, and when you get into the specifics -- i mean, even secretary -- or soon-to-be secretary of health and human services price

has clearly some real proposals that he's put on the table over time, but the question -- we just talked about women. what do you do if you ultimately remove women being able to get care and being covered for maternity care or being covered for contraceptives? how do you ultimately deal with some of those questions? what are you gonna do when you look at the question of sort of charging younger people in healthcare less and charging older people more? what are you gonna do about the tax-credit situation? who's gonna ultimately pay for that, as terry said? so once you get into the details of this, that's when everyone's gonna start paying attention. >> well, sam, you've run for office. part of this that hits me is, her point about women, talking about losing some of this birth control, but republicans said, "we ran on this. we ran on repealing obamacare. we have to." they ran on defunding planned parenthood. they're talking about that. these are a lot of issues that women say, "that's where i go get my mammogram, that's where

i go get my pap smear." is this something that they should be a little careful with? that these are things that voters have said in their caucus that they wanted, but it could come back to bite them? >> well, i think val put his hand on the right word, which was "ownership," and the ownership of healthcare will be a republican condition. the judgment doesn't take place in the first 100 days, it takes place two years later. the affordable care act was enacted with virtually no hearings. there was no -- we never knew what was in the bill. remember nancy pelosi told us we'll find out after it's been passed, and we did, and it has turned out to be a premium nightmare, a monopolistic set of conditions, and while it now covers 20 million people who were not previously covered, it also does some things that are not very good. so i would encourage the congress to hold hearings to listen -- not to feel pressed to do this. >> right. >> the commitment to repeal the words of obamacare is a no-brainer. they have the votes to do that. the question is, can they put

in place something? and i think the community of women who are gonna be adversely affected by some of the messaging that went on in the campaign, whether it's related to planned parenthood or reproductive rights, contraception -- this is a big voting block, and not all of them are liberal democrats. so i would urge caution, and i would say the public needs to be engaged in this conversation because we have all been affected by the changes that took place very quickly in 2009 when president obama was elected. >> val, we'll give you the last word on this. do you think that republicans can get the space they want? the president-elect is saying, "i want this pretty quickly," but can they go to him and say, "give us a minute"? >> i don't know that they want a minute. the congressional leaders, congressmen i've talked to say they want to get this done quickly so that they can have a plan in place in 2018 that they can run on. otherwise, if they don't get it done till the end of the year, and then you need a year to implement, the thing could be a mess. they want to get it done quickly. keep in mind, though, that half of the people that are being covered now are not covered under aca.

it's medicaid expansion. >> medicaid. >> yeah, and so the system, as we have now, which about everyone can see, has been a failure in a lot of regards, that the exchanges are collapsing, that right here in southeastern pennsylvania, there's only one entity that's still covering people -- blue cross blue shield. it really needs to be fixed. no one is seriously talking about taking away women's reproductive rights, and even the speaker last night at a town hall said, you know, we could do this through federally qualified health clinics. just in pennsylvania alone, there are hundreds of them. >> or pre-existing conditions or keeping kids on -- they're gonna keep that. >> it's the bureaucratic nightmare that's been created by aca that needs to go. >> all right. we'll see very shortly what comes in its place. it was a big week for confirmation hearings, and the first one that opened everything up was jeff sessions, and we saw something unusual from a local senator -- cory booker. here's some of what he had to say. >> in the choice between standing with senate norms or standing up for what my conscience tells me is best for our country, i will always choose conscience and country.

>> so, usually, you wouldn't testify against another sitting senator, and he said that they are friends, actually they're collegial, but he took that step, and you heard the reasons that he gave. beyond this week, many people thought this was an opening of the door for cory booker looking to 2020. he said no, he was just speaking his conscience, but how did you all read that moment? >> well, number one, i thought it was important for him to stand up as it relates to senator sessions and really give his opinion, but i do think there's some politics involved, as well. i mean, people are already talking about 2020, and they're saying that there aren't really any strong governors in the country, and so they're really looking to the senate. there are probably about at least 10 democratic senators right now that are being considered seriously for 2020, and he definitely is one of them. >> there certainly aren't republican governors saying that. a lot are democratic governors. there's a lot of republican governors, though. >> i think booker made a bad choice in the venue that he

chose to do this. i think doing it at a confirmation hearing puts him in a very difficult position vis-à-vis his colleagues and what is essentially an insider baseball organization -- the united states senate -- and he could have made a public speech, he could have done a lot of things. doing it this way, i think it sets him apart from the way things are done in the senate, but whether that's a good thing for him when he needs legislation, i would have not done that. i would have done it in a speech. >> val, i want to ask you a question. one thing that we saw in the last year or two was interesting. republicans and democrats coming together to say, "we've got to make some changes in criminal justice," and the a.g., of course, will have a huge hand in that. do you think under this new administration we'll continue to see both parties say, "the system is broken. we got to make this better," or do you think that stops? >> no, i think that continues. i don't see why it would stop. sessions is on record saying he cares about those things. one thing about him, you know, arlen specter, who had voted against... >> right. >> ...voted against sessions for his judicial appointment a couple decades ago i guess it was... >> 1985. >> ...that he said that was -- of the 10,000 or more votes

he had made in the senate, that was the one he regretted as he got to know sessions. this is a decent man, and there was no reason to think that things like criminal-justice reform won't go forward. at least i'm certainly hopeful they will. >> let's talk about something else that donald trump did this week, and it affects us here in philadelphia. he said david shulkin, who is the v.a. undersecretary, will now become the v.a. secretary -- keeping an obama appointee from 2015, the first non-veteran to have this role. he's got deep ties to drexel, to temple, to the medical college of pennsylvania. does this tell us something that out of 100 people, donald trump said, "you know what? we're just gonna keep the guy that's there," that again, he's working from his own playbook and not sort of stuck in one thing? >> well, the major point here is, not withstanding who has the appointment, which is the consternation that people have about what's going on in veteran affairs. that has to be cleaned up, and trump made that a huge issue during the course of the campaign, as i think everybody knows. so at the end of the day, if they clean up, what trump

would prefer to do is to allow veterans to go to -- you know, go to private facilities to get their care and not wait for 15, 16 days to get a phone call returned -- some of the complaints. >> however, this is an area -- shulkin has some background in private practices. he's pushed as undersecretary to have more of that, but he said, "we cannot dismantle the federal system." we saw a lot of nominees this week kind of be a little bit a pace away from donald trump. >> a lot. >> is this gonna be an argument between him and david shulkin? >> this was the week of new-policy initiatives under a trump administration that had laid out a clear set of conditions, all of which have been virtually reversed in public, at least, by many of the nominees, and ultimately with shulkin and the veterans administration, this is one of the things that donald trump is going to need to have to be able to say we fixed. >> yeah. >> and, again, i think he was unanimously appointed initially for the position. his father was a psychiatrist in the army, and so he certainly

has some family experience in this area. i think this is probably one of the appointments that seems to get a lot of support on both sides of the aisle. >> trump will have no problem accepting the recommendations because he's changed his positions on a whole variety of -- i don't think he has an ideological commitment to very much. he's gonna be a lot more pragmatic than i think -- to go to your point... >> let's talk about something that exploded this week. a local congressman, brendan boyle, is saying there should be bipartisan hearings into this report that the president, vice president, and supposedly the president-elect were briefed on the idea that russia has gathered personal and financial information on donald trump to compromise him. word of this report had been out there for a long time. news organizations didn't go with it. they couldn't confirm it. the intelligence community saying they couldn't confirm it. so we can't confirm it, but we know the president was told about it. is this the moment for congress to get into this, or should they wait until there's more

corroboration? >> even joe biden said when they brought it to him and to the president, said, "why are you telling about that? what's the story here? this is uncorroborated." so, you know, this was a report that was put together by a political opponent on the republican side of trump where they hired some former british intelligence officer to do an investigation and have these unsubstantiated claims. you want to go have a hearing every time you do an unsubstantiated claim, you'd be running around chasing your tail in washington, but the other interesting thing is the irony is not lost on republicans like me. when we had substantiated claims of foreign governments potentially bribing the secretary of state who ran for president, you know, no one was running around. that's the time we should have had hearings. this is entirely uncorroborated. until you get some corroboration, there's no -- i think hearings are an overkill, an overreach. >> but i think one of the reasons that people are continuing to raise this question is because that donald trump seems to be -- or president-elect trump seems to be in a position where whenever you bring him information about russia, that whether it's hacking or other

kinds of issues, he tends to dismiss it, and i think as long as he's seen as not wanting to have a real conversation about what is agreed upon the facts are, people are gonna raise questions about why, and i think congressman boyle is asking that question, and the democrats are gonna continue to ask that question why. >> now, remember, trump did admit in his press conference that the russians had hacked into various american servers. >> at the beginning. >> at the beginning, but then he couched a little bit towards the end. >> well, no, what he admitted -- what he won't confess to is the effect that it had on the election, which he continues to deny. but i think he's now at the point where he accepts that there have been hackings. >> sam, we've got 30 seconds. should he say, "fine. have these hearings. i want this put to bed. go ahead and look at all of it"? >> in the scheme of what's on the agenda right now, a lot of focus on this is probably not where the country needs to be, but i do think that president-elect trump needs to recognize what all of the people he's appointed to

intelligence positions in his administration have said, which is that russia's not our friend, and vladimir putin is not a good guy, and we're not gonna look in his eyes and find something that prior presidents thought they saw when they looked into his eyes. this is a kgb agent, who's running a country, and who is bent on restoring a union of soviet socialist republics. that's what he wants to do, and if we let him do it, which we're on the verge of doing, we will pay a long-term price for this. >> all right. we're gonna take a short break and come back to more "inside story." >> "inside story" is presented by temple university. remarkable change isn't easy, but for those who take charge, it comes naturally. explore temple's impact. visit temple.edu/impact.

♪ >> welcome back to "inside story." i'm tamala edwards. this week our matt o'donnell sat down with governor tom wolf in front of the chamber of commerce, and it was a striking moment. he said he's not looking in the budget this year to increase the personal sales tax, to increase -- the personal tax or the sales tax, that he'd like to get somewhere on pension reform, but there was a time when tom wolf sounded really pugilistic in talking about the republicans. that is not what we heard this week. one, what has happened to tom wolf?, and, two, do we think he'll be successful? does this new tone, you think, they might actually get a budget this year on time? >> how many different ways can you spell or say 2018? i mean, the governor's up for re-election. we've not had a personal income tax or a sales tax in modern

history in an election year, so if they're gonna do it, they would do it this year. we have the most conservative legislature in modern history. i'm using that only as descriptive. the fact of the matter is that tom wolf may end up having more problems with the democrats. why do i say that? because he's looking at downsizing state government, he's looking at they have a hiring freeze, he's looking at consolidating departments. that's something that normally republicans tend to do, not democrats. >> well, he is gonna have a problem with scott wagner, who came out this week and said, "i am running," and very different guys to be from the same place -- tom wolf and his jeep, scott wagner and his trash truck saying, you know, "full-barreled, here i come." do you think by having such a comment this week that he has scared everybody else out of the pool, or you expect to see a lot of republicans run for governor? >> scott wagner certainly has a full head of steam. he's got a good message. he's very popular with the republican party, especially

out in the western part of the state. there are other people gonna get in. there are other people looking to get in. there's a very wealthy businessman named mango -- paul mango, right? -- from pittsburgh. he's already put $10 million in an account from what i heard. senator jake corman is looking at it, speaker mike turzai, dave reed, who's either looking to that or for senate, potentially jim cawley. they're all looking closely at this. it's likely gonna be a contested primary. it's interesting what wolf has done. is it politically calculated or is he boxing the republicans in by saying, "okay. you guys want no taxes? recutting." >> yeah. >> and there's not too many places left to cut, although scott wagner would say we don't have a tax revenue problem, we've got a spending problem. so scott's gonna have to put up a plan to show where he's gonna cut, and that's a double-edged sword. >> there are two numbers that are gonna overwhelm this conversation -- one is 1.5 billion, which is the projected deficit of the commonwealth of pennsylvania. the other one is 53 billion,

which is the unfunded pension liability. whenever i hear people use the word "pension reform," but don't mention the number 53 billion, i think they're delusional. pension reform is a few little nicks on contributions by employees or transitioning from defined benefit to defined contribution, but to solve a problem of this magnitude, which will go on for generations and get bigger, a tremendous amount of cash has to be infused into the pension system. that's true of philadelphia, too. >> it sounds like in this environment where everybody's running, nothing's gonna happen. >> nobody's talking about that. >> because the issues -- i mean, you talk about the two numbers, it's the three words. where are you gonna cut, are you gonna raise taxes, and what are you gonna continue to defer? and when you are in a year where you're looking at elections, a lot of deferrals get done. >> there's a $600-million deficit in the current budget -- let's remember that -- that has to be dealt with, and this is gonna be fascinating because scott wagner is trump-like.

he has a lot of the same mannerisms and characteristics that donald trump has, and we'll see about paul mango. i don't know as much about him, but this is gonna be a fascinating republican primary. >> this is off the subject of the deficit and the pension, but governor wolf made a very strong point of having put his assets into a trust. now, the question is, how does he get them out in order to help sustain his re-election campaign? he spent $10 million in 2014 of his own money. >> he's governor now. he should be able to raise the money. >> you think? >> he sold his company. >> well, speaking of raising the money, let's talk about comcast and women trying to raise their paychecks. city council voted unanimously to pass a law that would mean that when you go in for an interview, they can't ask you what you made 'cause usually they just offer a little bit more than that. they would have to come up with a standard, maybe, salary offer so men and women would make the same amount. it seemed as though it was going to sail through. now comcast is coming forward, saying it's a first amendment issue, that they should be able

to ask this, and sort of hinting if jim kenney signs this, that they will open up a major lawsuit and drain the city of a lot of money. should jim kenney sign this bill or not? >> yes. >> okay, simple answer. >> he's definitely taking a bit of a gamble because in a city in which there are virtually no large corporations, and, therefore, not a lot of largesse, comcast is a very complicated, tangling partner. i don't think he should. i don't think he should do things that are going to make it more difficult for philadelphia employers because we are not growing philadelphia employment. this is becoming a growth city for millennials to live in, but a flat city -- >> but he wants to run again, and he has run on leveling the playing field, and for a lot of women out there who know the guy sitting right next to them, from the very first paycheck, was making more, that's something to run on. >> no incumbent mayor in philadelphia who sought re-election has been defeated. >> but, tam, the politics may not be great, but right is right in this particular instance, in my opinion, and that is that

we need to make sure that women have an equal footing and that people of color have equal footing. quite often they start at different places, and it's very, very hard to catch up, and so i do think we should sign this. if you take a look at massachusetts, they've done it. i think they did a little better job of involving the business community, 'cause the business community is on board in massachusetts with their legislation. >> we've got, like, 20 seconds. you two, would you sign it or not? >> well, he shouldn't. i think it will be overridden if he does veto 'cause there's enough vote in council, so it looks like this is gonna become law. this is the straw that broke the camel's back for the business community. it's been a series of regulations and mandates on them, and we're trying to create jobs, we're trying to create wealth, and we're making it harder for businesses to do it. >> she's -- you're right. we do have a serious problem, and it needs to be rectified. the question is, is that the way to do it? that's the question. >> all right, jim kenney, those were the opinions from our panel. we're gonna take a break and come back to your inside story.

>> "inside story" is presented by temple university.

remarkable change isn't easy, but for those who take charge, it comes naturally. explore temple's impact. visit temple.edu/impact. >> welcome back. time for our "inside stories of the week." sharmain. >> tomorrow is king celebration, king holiday. whether or not you are volunteering or going on a march or actually participating in any way at the african american museum, we encourage you to make sure that you follow the dream and continue to celebrate dr. king. >> all right. val. >> congratulations to congressman ryan costello, who was not only appointed to the commerce and energy committee this week, he also was appointed by the national republican campaign committee to head up the subcommittee that's in charge of making sure the republican party wins tough races in suburban areas. so it shows his prominence is rising. >> terry. >> big mlk breakfast at franklin & marshall college tomorrow, but president obama has a big decision to make on pardons. lanny davis, who was bill clinton's counselor during monica lewinsky, has sent a letter to president obama, a friend saying

pardon him, let him off -- chaka fattah -- otherwise, 10 years. >> all right. we'll end with you, sam. >> tomorrow for m.l. king day, history making productions, my company, is showing a film called "cecil's people: the freedom fighters" at girard college. that film is available at historyofphilly.com. it's the story of the integration of girard college. >> oh, great story. >> and martin luther king came to philadelphia with cecil moore and spoke at the wall, so... >> i will check that out. thanks for joining us. i'm nydia han along with gray hall. >> coming up next on "action news," a taxi driver is shot a dozen times in west philadelphia. we have details about what the driver did before the trigger was pulled. >> an armed masked man robbed a woman in south philadelphia. details on where it happened. >> plus, several homes left without gas or water for nearly a week. we'll take you to the scene, as crews work to repair the problem. >> those stories, the exclusive

accuweather seven-day forecast and more next on "action news." > good afternoon it is

sunday, january 15, i'm nydia han along with gray hall. >> here's some of the stories we're following on "action news." a taxi driver is in critical condition after being shot in west philadelphia. happening right now, the search is on for the gunman. a