cigna is in five markets. united is is in about a dozen. they have an advantage to not getting into the exchanges. if you sell products inside the exchange and sell products outside the exchange, you have to treat it as one risk pool. inside the exchange, you have sicker, older members you have to price the premiums for the plans you sell outside the exchange the same way. if you don't play in the exchange at all and sell plans outside the exchange, you can price those relative to the risk pool you generate outside the exchange. the reason they wrote the law the way they did, they didn't want selecting healthy members out of the exchange. they never envisioned plans wouldn't get into the exchange at all. there's an advantage to staying outside the exchange selling bronze only cheap plans and select the healthier members. >> bob, is this going to hurt their profits? these are big publicly traded companies. is this going to hurt their profits? originally, as i understood it, some people, i won't name name, but some ceos thought the obama care

yes, at cigna several years ago, the company was migrating its membership base from old legacy computer systems to the new platform, and it took months in planning and there were glitches in the rollout. it's just almost inevitable. the administration should have known and prepared for these glitches. it's not something that cannot be prepared, but they should have been prepared for this in terms of how to communicate with the american public about what to expect and to give the public guidance as to what to do while the problems are being fixed. >> we've heard an awful lot from politicians, from policy makers. you're the first industry insider to be on our program. does the insurance industry want what is frequently referred to as obamacare. >> it depends on what company you're talking about. it's not an industry that speaks with one voice anymore. there are many health insurance companies that will benefit and do a good job under obamacare. some of the biggest ones like the ones i used to work for, cigna, aetna and united, may not fare to well and not eager for it to be a success. the

that's according to "the washington post" which cites blue cross and blue shield and cigna as having these type of problems. cigna can't trust the information from the health care exchanges that's supposed to indicate if a consumer qualifies for tax subsidies to purchase insurance. this leads to more confusion for americans who are facing penalties next year if they don't have health insurance. >> now they are trying to do this with threat of the fact that you're going to get fined and pay a fine for not being able to successfully to do something you can't do. why don't we delay the fines. delay the individual man date as you did for big business. the employer mandate. you can work to get this together. it's unfair to put the american people in a position that they simply can't succeed or win. that's what's happening. >> reporter: the obama administration says the sheer volume of people trying to logon and shop for insurance plans indicates how important the law is to the country. and the white house acknowledges that glitches were to be expected. >> i'm not saying that this is a sit

firm orbital scientists launched the cigna last front. the freighter delivered 600,000 tons of flood, clothing and other supplies. the capsule undocked carrying more than one ton of waste, all of it burned up during reentry. the people at orbital scientists have a contract with nasa worth nearly $2 billion. they're scheduled to launch eight more capsules, the next one in december. it's the second privately developed spacecraft to take supplies to the space station. the u.s. venture firm space x's dragon was the first. >>> pakistani leaders have seen hundreds of civilians killed in u.s. drone strikes on their country. the strikes have ratcheted up the tensions between the two countries. and pakistani prime minister shar sharifsays the strikes have got to stop. he pressed obama on the drones. >> i also brought up the issue of drones in our meeting, emphasizing the need to an end for such strikes. >> we agree that we need to continue to find constructive ways to partner together, ways that respect pakistan's sovereignty, that respect the con

cigna says they can't get reliable information whether a consumer qualifies for tax subsidies. republicans lawmakers say setting up this website cost taxpayers $100 million and cost much more to make it work. >> i know in kansas we haven't had one person yet have the ability to sign up for the program. so you got the providers, you got the servers, can't get past the home page and then on the insurance companies they have no confirmation. i don't know how much this is going to cost to fix it. what a trillion dollars >> one problem that may have been rectified it's now possible to shop stay round on the website and get general price quotes for health insurance plans without going through what had been a time consuming task of trying to create an account. >> what's the response so far from the white house? >> reporter: the white house had said that it anticipated there would be problems as the website went life and president obama had been briefed on the issues plaguing the system this week. >> i can guarantee you he knows in great detail how the website works, what the issues ar

. >> cigna and united. >> anybody watching the hearings or the president's speech today would also be stunned by the big brother, washington knows best, the experts will decide what kind of health plan you get. the secretary told congress several times, well, we promised you could keep the plan you like, but now we're telling you, you had a plan that was a scam, that was garbage and you were too stupid to know it, so now we're forcing you out of that plan. >> can i just go back to that point because i think this is so important. the president completely glossed over it in the boston speech as i thought he would. sebelius, on the other hand, has to cope with it. so they knew going back march 2010. >> they knew before the law was passed. that's right. >> and they knew as time went on that they were creating such tough regulations that the grandfathering clause would no longer hold up. so, in other words, somebody like yourself or other experts who follow the fine print, you probably saw this a couple of years ago. >> it was in the june 14, 2010, federal register, but the fact is most am

the dmv should also take steps that providers are legitimate and their cigna /kphurs are valid. this will increase the chances for finding placard issuance fraud . the committee also recommends clarifying the eligibility criteria on the application, but not removing any of the existing eye tier criteria and this would ensure they're issued to people with a functional need for them. >> we'll get to the two that are paired regarding meter payment and use of those funds. california's one of only 15 states that exempts blue placard holders from meter payments. thirty-five states still require placard holders to pay at a meter. those states include arizona and florida, big havens for retirees and for people who age beyond 80. the meter exemption as been around since 1980 and it was started when various veteran's groups pointed out that the parking meter technology was inaccessible, that the meter head was too high if you were in a wheelchair you couldn't read the signs to know how much to put in, how much time you were getting. you needed to be able to grasp a coin and put in a speci

. >> you don't have etna, you don't have united health care, you don't have cigna. those are all national carriers who are not playing in the illinois federal partnership. >> reporter: and why are they snot. >> they didn't want to take the risk. >> reporter: the risk of not knowing how many customers they will have. aaron galvin, a realtor and one of fawn's clients, got a letter from his insurance company earlier this month. >> "by december 15 i need to go online to a web site that has been down the couple times i try to go on there, i need to view my options and choose a new plan. >> reporter: it's a new plan he didn't want with basic but required coverage like maternity care he doesn't need. galvin and his wife don't plan on having more babies. rich fawn wonders whether the law needs to be changed. >> it's fixable, but it might take some time and some people to give in to make those fixes take place. >> reporter: and he says he expects nine out of ten of his customers will be paying more for their health insurance. dean reynolds, cbs news, chicago. >> pelley: we n

. >> coming up, the head of health care giant cigna joins us to weigh in on the debate.e back after a break. y talk. it grabbed the patient's record before we even picked him up. it found out the doctor we needed was at st. anne's. wiggle your toes. [ driver ] and it got his okay on treatment from miles away. it even pulled strings with the stoplights. my ambulance talks with smoke alarms and pilots and stadiums. but, of course, it's a good listener too. [ female announcer ] today cisco is connecting the internet of everything. so everything works like never before. [ female announcer ] today cisco is connecting the internet of everything. bny mellon combines investment management & investment giving us unique insights which help us attract the industry's brightest minds who create powerful strategies for a country's investments which are used to build new schools to build more bright minds. invested in the world. bny mellon. to prove to you that aleve is the better choice for her, she's agreed to give it up. that's today? [ male announcer ] we'll be with her all day to

two, why some of the biggest companies in health care insurance like aetna, like unitedhealth, like cigna, seem to be tiptoeing in here timidly. why? >> right. that's exactly what they're afraid of. they're afraid that we're going to see a great divergence in the types of people signing up and that the underwriting risk associated with those pools could be difficult. so they've chosen to focus on the markets where they have very strong presence. a lot of leverage to drive price concessions with hospitals and doctors. and so you're seeing those companies which happen to be the ones we're recommending be much more selective as to where they're going and what exchanges they're participating on. so i think, again, that's sort of a cautious way to play this. >> all right. a.j., thank you very much for being with us. and helping us out there. a. jrchl a.j. rice is health care facilities analyst at ubs. >>> on wall street today, it wasn't much, but it was just enough to chalk up another record-breaking session for the s&p 500. the major indexes were little changed after a mix of third quarter ea

cigna reports that it saw no enrollments and a congressman from kansas claims not one person had successfully signed up on day one. >> this is one of republicans can claim as one of their successes. they try and destroy and destroy and destroy. they denied fundi ining request then we have these snafoos of course it doesn't work you have been trying to dose troy it all along. >> isn't this why it should have been delayed. >> is it the republican's fault that they have a website that doesn't work? if it was blue cross or blue shield that had to implement this system they would have done it like that. but the government is suddenly par of part of it. >> i have to wrap it up there. sally, michelle thank you for a fiery debate. >>> growing backlash over ted cruz over the shutdown. this is harry reid's shoulddown because he wanted it and and because he refuses to listen to the american people. >> our next guest grover norquist. and a major storm targeting the gulf coast. will it become a hurricane and will it make handfall. rur male power panel gets real today about what ladies are wearing in the w

>> absolutely, i spoke with aetna and cigna, and health insurance providers, they were i -- they said that had anecdotal numbers, they could not give me hard stats and, ehealth said they cannot by nature release the numbers. neil: all right, did you get any sense of whether they are reflective of what the administration is called, incredible demand to get on and get covered on the part of folks, that is partly why the systems crashed. because so mean people are trying to get coverage. >> ehealth said that sites seem to be improving every day, and the demand is there. neil: demand, i want to be clear, there is enough interest out there, hey, we want to see what this is about, but technical numbers is limiting the numbers? >> president obama said 20 million people have visited healthealth care. gov in first3 weeks. neil: how do we know that. >> we do not. they say 476,000 have completed. >> 20 million trying to get on, 400 something odd thousand. >> just completing applications, that is the thing, we don't have a actual enrollment number. we will probably not get them from administratio

public integrity and author of "deadly spin" in which he wrote after leaving the corporations with cignat of what you wrote for "huffington post." most of the attention this week will be focused on the glitches that will inhe have itably occur when the switch is flipped and the snafus will be resolved and people will realize it will provide better protection and less after the tax credits and subsidies are factored in. how long before people realize how much it's going to cost or save them? >> i think we're talking about a matter of days, keep in mind, this is the beginning of a complete restructuring of the het insurance marketplace that will be in place from now on. it makes a lot of sense and it also brings to an end some of the most pernicious practices. i do believe it's been primarily because of the great pent up demand. people will go back online over the next few months and be able to shop and make a purchase for the insurance they need start being january 1st. >> latest poll at the beginning of the week, 51% were worried about obama care, 49% were confused about bobama care. wha

when i received a letter in july from my provider, cigna, they told me don't worry about anything. you do not need to take any action at this time. in october we will give you all the october you need and it's almost november 1 and i have not heard a word but they are cancelling my policy at the end of the year, 2013, and i can't get on a website that works. i'm that 5% that he was talking about, but i'm also a new mom and i have a business that keeps me going 50 hours a week. he may think that it's okay for us, you know, well you're going to be fine. i have less than two months with a website that doesn't work and my own insurance company that's going to drop me in two months. guess what? they're not giving me any information. they told me don't do anything, you just stay back. that situation, i'm a little worried. >> these stories are troubling. we have got a lot of earnings that we have got to get to. we are trying to get to the bottom of this as well as talk to as many real people as we can who are actually experiencing the reality out there. thank you, ladies. we appreciate it

united health care, aetna, cigna all gaining.f day for enrollment in the affordable care act or obama care, michelle, as it's more commonly known. >> even the president calls it that. thank you, dominic. the government may be closed today but the health exchanges are open for enrollment. bertha coombs is at a call center in albany, new york, see how it's going. bertha? >> reporter: the shutdown had no impact today on the open enrollment start of obama care. but technology has been part of the problem. we're at the new york state of health call center and they have been busy here today. as of 2:30, they took 5,800 calls. they have 300 workers at three different sites, and it's a good thing they had that backup system. the majority of those calls coming early in the morning. because this morning when they kicked off at 8:00 a.m. on the site, they had a number of issues, they had more than 2 million hits on that website in the first two hours and the volume overwhelmed their capacity, they're trying to add server capacity. we had a

for more, let's bring in the former vice president of corporate communications for cigna health insurancewendell potter. mr. potter, good to have you with us tonight. i'll take the liberty to say that you know obama care, you know the affordable care act better than anybody. and i appreciate your time here tonight. i want to know about these people that are getting the phone calls. i'll go to you, the expert. who are the people getting the phone calls that their insurance isn't going to be any good anymore. he is plain that to our viewers tonight. >> well, frankly, they're people like my daughter, who got a notice that her plan will be discontinued. and here's why. it's because her plan was among those that are inadequate. the commonwealth fund recently did a survey or study showing up to 30 million americans are in plans that are inadequate. as soon as they sign up for these plans, they're in the ranks of the underinsured. meaning, as you said, if they get really sick, they're going to be on the hook for a lot of money. >> your daughter had junk insurance, mr. potter. >> she did. >> okay

more worryingly, if anything, that the data then to the insurer, you go and buy a plan from aetna or cigna or blue cross or whatever, that website needs to show what you bought in this plan. we're hearing widespread reports of that data coming in wrong, garbled, glitchy. if that keeps happening, that's the most dangerous of all the glitches. it's one thing if you can't get in. but if you sign up for something and then you actually don't have it when you get sick or you don't have the right thing when you get sick, that is a huge betrayal of faith. >> so those are two very separate and distinct issues here. one, as you say, not being able to log on or get in to start that process. but if you've completed that process to then find out some type of incorrect or switcharoo. that's a big problem. this morning we had eugene robinson on "morning joe" talking about what might be the best option for the website. take a listen. >> if it's 10-year-old technology, why isn't another team, like a team of overcaffeinated 20-year-olds, building a new website based on current technology? >> so how long, ez

cigna says it cannot trust the information from the health care exchanges, that it's supposed to indicate if a consumer qualifies for tax subsidies to purchase insurance. all this is on top of the problems that everyday americans have had just in trying to log on to the website. republican lawmakers say setting up this website cost taxpayers $100 million. and now it's going to cost much, much more to make it work. >> i know in kansas we haven't had one person yet have the ability to sign up for the program. so you've got the providers. you've got the servers. you can't get past the homepage. on the insurance companies, they have no confirmation. i don't know how much this is going to cost to fix it. what, $1 trillion? >> the white house says the system, the servers, were overwhelmed by the number of people who wanted to shop around for a new health care plan and that glitches were to be expected. >> i'm not saying that this is a situation that doesn't need fixing. it does. which is why we're making inprovements every day. people are working overnight to make those improvements to the webs

strong profits of the insurance company, cigna, it's up 3%, that's a nice gain.y it again, i've flat-out had it with the fed watching and jerked around about de jour why the stock is up or down. and michelle is with me because i'm fed up to the back teeth with all of this rumor at 4 being and sends the market down and then speculation at 9:00 in the morning sends it back up of the it's hopeless. >> especially on a couple fronts. especially as a fed watcher, my hat handed to me by the blind siding, we were ready and raring for it to go. we keep talking about will they, won't they? and the truth is that nobody really knows. the fed has been, i think, very hard to, you know, predict and therefore, with any confidence can i say they won't go in december and they will go in march? that's out the window now. >> all of this rumor mongering and speculation makes it so that the federal reserve is the key to the stock market. it is the stock market regulator. >> right. >> it's in charge of the stock market. it's not supposed to be like that. >> exactly. and to some extent,

cigna said it had strong performance in all of the business segments.e earned $1.69 a share for the third quarter, 4 cents above estimates. it's been hurt by increased programming fees. and shares of avon products taking a hit in the premarket trading. avon earning 14 cents a share for the third quarter. that was 5 cents short of estimates. with the ceo saying that the quarter was tough. they were hurt by continued weakness in some of the company's north american businesses as well as macro economic head winds. >>> facebook suffering from teenage angst. more teens are dropping the social network. joining us now with reaction is tom forte. managing director at the advisory group. good morning to you. >> good morning. >> the numbers were good, but seems like the teens are tuning out. what do you think? >> the numbers were fantastic. and if you looked at the after hours trade, there were two things that happened that brought the stock back to even. first the disclosure, they had a decrease of teens on a sequential basis and the second being they're not goi

i did talk to an official from cigna and he says they are starting to see some of those applicationsome through and people enrolled. he didn't tell me how many, but given what's in the pipeline, it's just a trickle. >> sounds like they have problems and they're going to sort it out. bertha, stay there. there's a couple stories i'd like to get your views on. the first one, buy two, get a steak lunch. brooks brothers is planning to open a steakhouse just around the corner from its flagship store on madison avenue. the firm says it's looking for next summer for a possible opening, but it's still way out. it could serve as a like of branded restaurants. brooks brothers has been around since 1818. it comes with a button down, i think. >>> wheen meanwhile, you were planning to go somewhere to watch the next giants game this week, you'll have to check one place off the list after the football team lost on sunday. they now haven't won a game this season. sorry to remind you, folks. manhattan club ricks cabaret has decided it won't show giants games for the rest of the year. customers turned

cigna, aetna, et al? >> now you're going to come to me for some real news? >> yes. >> all right.is morning by a couple cents. when you look at some of these stories that have come out, guys, you realize one thing. the insurance company lobbyists probably helped write this bill as everybody has talked about, right? this bill could turn out to be very good for them because when you go through the stories, at least those quoted, premiums have gone up. you've got more people that are going to be insure sod the insurance company stocks have all soared since it was enacted a couple years ago. aetna beating the street today. that's going to be the next big story. >> the affordable care act, which no one uses an acronym arnold here. >> my question is when is the justice department going to take a peek at insurance industry? >> okay. cnbc's brian sullivan. >> can't have that. >> joe. >> you know, mika we'll never get those two minutes back. >> never. >> on your deathbed, on our deathbed, you know? we'll be thinking about this. >> yep. okay. so, joe, i'm just telling you right now, and thi

you can't drive through hartford without seeing signs from at night denied health and cigna from theroad but those companies are participating in the connecticut program. do you find that odd? >> some are participating in individual markets. >> no they are not. >> there in the commercial market. >> exactly but they have opted out of it but it would seem strange that connecticut would sit by and see these huge corporations that dominate the state not participating and i was wondering why the government of -- the governor of connecticut hasn't put any pressure on them to participate. >> if i know the governor he may have but they have made that decision for the short-term. we will see what happens but somewhere in individual markets and some r&b commercial markets. decisions are not cast in concrete. they may reply that i'm sure the governor has had conversations and that is where it is at the moment. >> is the choice not to participate essentially because they were sinking too low for premium rate on the exchange? what would they consider too low? >> it goes back to your earlier point

of infogigs, which handles data integrity issues for many major insurers including wellpoint and cigna as well as multiple blue cross blue shield affiliates. experts said that if healthcare.gov success rate doesn't improve within the next month or so, federal officials could face a situation in january in which relatively large numbers of people believe they have coverage starting that month but whose enrollment applications have not been processed. it could be a public relations nightmare. insurance told his company that just one in 100 enrollment applicants being sent from the federal marketplace have provided sufficient verified information. the article goes on to point out, one insurer reported a better but still stunningly low rate of enrollment applications containing enough data to process coverage. it's about half of what we received, a source at that insurer said. we're getting incomplete data, about half the applications we haven't been able to process who used the word corrupted to describe the batch of applications received. so the article goes on to point out, what a huge