for today's health minute, i'm elizabeth cohen. >> back-to-back fire alarms, just horrible news in east baltimore today. here we are at kennedy krieger today, children who are fighting deadly illnesses got a visit from a group of firefighters out there spreading holiday cheer. this is part of the seventh annual city firefighters tour for kids. not only do the firefighters collect toys for charities but all for the kids stuck in the hospital. >> certainly makes you humble to be able to give something to these children and make their holiday more happy. these children are in the hospital for the holidays. it's a humbling experience for us and joyous for the children. >> great guy. firefighters will visit three other hospitals on the week. >>> with the chill in the air it's feeling like christmas. we've got something to get you in the holiday spirit. make the season brighter for a child in need. we're asking for new unwrapped unopened toys for the kindertime toy drive. we've teamed up with the baltimore symphony orchestra. to donate we have a list of dropoff locations waiting at abc2news.c

i'm joined here by cnn's senior medical correspondent elizabeth cohen. we've got jeffrey toobin on the phone. at issue, the provision to make people pay for health care has been deemed illegal right now. kelly, we got jeff on the phone right now? we'll get to jeff in a second. let's start with elizabeth. this is central. the judge, the last line of this ruling, which i know you've been reading and i've got here 42-page ruling actually says this is section 1501 they're talking about and says in the final analysis, the court will grant the plaintiff's notion for summary judgment and deny the motion. the court will sever section 1501 from the balance of the act and deny the plaintiff's request for injunctive relief. it's gone. so the part that says you have to buy insurance is gone. >> let me back up for a minute. because i think, you know, this is very complicated stuff. an expert i talked to said, elizabeth, imagine the three-legged stool and you chopped off one of the legs, falls over. that's what's going to happen to health care reform if this decision

for today's health minute, i am elizabeth cohen. >>> the holiday season, it's easy to get lost in the lights and sounds and parties and presents and it's easy to forget billions will wake up each morning hope to survive the night. >> beginning this friday, abc news will take a closer look at the global health crisis and highlight those working to make a difference including a group from here in baltimore. they will focus on women health. a group of american students turn personal experiences into a movement that is making a huge impact. >> it's cost 50 cent a day to treat someone with hiv in africa. >> it gives us energies was frustration and anger at having a friend die without access to treatment. but today, we have spent time with some of the patients who are thriving because of efforts of young americans. >> if you hear more about the face aids organization and their work to battle the aid epidemic this friday at ten and be a change, save a life sponsored any part by the bill and melinda gates foundation. and we will profile the local organization that played a big role in the abc

our senior medical correspondent elizabeth cohen is joining us now with more. und out, elizabeth? >> wolf, you know, we hear more about living organ donations when someone's alive they donate an organ or part of an organ and usually it's a happy ending. but sometimes things do go wrong. here's the story about two things going wrong at one hospital. >> reporter: this is a risky surgery. ryan arnold donated 60% of his liver to save his brother chad whose on liver had failed. shortly after this operation, ryan died. now cnn has learned ryan isn't the only liver donor to suffer complications at the university of colorado hospital. >> i thank god every day i'm alive because i know that could have been me. >> less than a year before the arnold surgery, laura fritz gave part of her liver to her mother. laura was fine before the surgery but says soon after she became deathly ill. >> i was really pale, my lips were turning blue. no one at the hospital said i was going in to organ failure. but my mom's a nurse and put two and two together when they couldn't get a read on

t.j., back to you. >> thanks to our elizabeth cohen.is back. he's back at the white house after an unannounced visit to afghanistan yesterday. we're waiting to hear from the president and a live briefing expected sometime later this morning. to talk about the newly announced trade agreement with south korea. we will, of course, carry the president's comments live for you right here when that does happen. >>> also, they are trying right now to get planes going again in spain and trying to get people out of the airports after air traffic controllers went on a strike there. the airspace in spain has been closed since yesterday. possibly, it could be closed all weekend. but the air traffic controllers are in a dispute right now over wages and working conditions. if you don't have air traffic controllers who are essentially out there 0, they're traffic cops, if you will, directing traffic in the skies that essentially cannot fly. the military has moved in and taking over air control towers. >>>s a, child advocacy groups are criticizing mexic

elizabeth cohen gives us a dose of reality on this one.e all over social media, but do they know the impact of this? that socializing online? a candid look ahead. rance. feels nice going into the holidays. ohhhh.... will you marry me? oooh, helzberg diamonds. yeah, well he must have saved some money with geico. reminds me of the gecko mating call. really? how does that go? shoo be doo be doo. geico. 15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance. but i knew that i was going to need a day job. we actually have a lot of scientists that play music. the creativity, the innovation, there's definitely a tie there. one thing our scientists are working on is carbon capture and storage, which could prevent co2 from entering the atmosphere. we've just built a new plant to demonstrate how we can safely freeze out the co2 from natural gas. it looks like snow. it's one way that we're helping provide energy with fewer emissions. try cortizone 10 intensive healing. the strongest itch relief medicine now has three vitamins and seven moisturizers.

>> how about that, elizabeth cohen for us. >>> next, casey wian is in las vegas.g for this man that made off with $1.5 million chips from the bellagio. >> reporter: the robber pulled up to the bellagio hotel parking area about ten minutes to 4:00 in the morning, parked his motorcycle outside of the doors and walked in. he walked past the cage where all of the cash is kept and walked up to a table and demanded that everybody stay still and he took $1.5 million worth of chips. police also suspect that this robber is the same man who committed a robbery at the sun coast casino off the strip about 20 minutes away last thursday. in that instance, he was also on a motorcycle and wearing a helmet. this time, though, he walked up to the cage and took somewhere in the neighborhood of $20,000 in cash. they are going to be reinterviewing the witnesses at that table because the level of sobriety of some of those folks who were witnesses to that robbery at ten minutes to 4:00 in the morning was slightly questionable. brooke? >> casey wian for us in las vegas, thank you. >>> an

elizabeth cohen standing by. >>> also we're waiting, looking at pictures of the beautiful u.s.hat the charlie rangel vote, will he or won't he receive censure. stay tuned. a lot of breaking stories this hour on cnn. amazing technology. and we fill them with inspired design. and now your chevy dealer wants to fill them with as much good will as we can. come see how chevy is giving more. right now, get no monthly payments till spring plus 0% apr financing and fifteen hundred dollars holiday allowance on most chevy models. see how your dealer is giving at facebook.com/chevrolet. . >>> weight loss surgery. you may think it's only for those who are extremely obese, but hang on a second. it may now become available to those who are well less heavy. the fda panel will vote tomorrow about how obese a person has to be to qualify for lap-band surgery. so right now you have to be morbidly obese, 100 pounds overweight or have serious health problems to get this. our senior medical correspondent elizabeth cohen is here to break down what the changes could mean. what's the deal? >> if you wa

it sounds like it's getting complicated, so that's why we brought in elizabeth cohen. more about this. what did a virginia judge find unconstitutional? >> what they found unconstitutional is the specific part of the bill that said hey, you, kyra, you, elizabeth, every american, you have to have health insurance because right now it's your choice, right? if you don't feel like forking over the money for health insurance, you don't have to have it. let's look closely at what happens if you don't buy health insurance under the law. if you decide to buck that order and say, i don't want health insurance, i'm not going to get it, what happens is you'll get a penalty of up to about $700 of 2% of your taxable income. so that is a pretty hefty penalty. so you have to go out and buy health insurance or face a penalty of up to $750. that is what the virginia judge found unconstitutional. other district court judges said it was fine but he said it was unconstitutional. >> and you pointed out that americans were being forced by hcr to buy it. have there been any other scenarios wh

. >> we will be talking to elizabeth cohen about this ruling and how it affects you later in the broadcast. >>> a surprise just last hour, a london judge granting bail for wikileaks founder julian assange. assange is fighting extradition to sweden where he is wanted on rape charges. the judge essentially order him placed under house arrest. australian tv quoting assange from jail today saying his arrest has only increased his determination to publicize secret government documents. >>> hot online this morning, cnn launches its ipad app. where is derek dodge? derek, give us a quick show and tell if you would, please, sir. >> tony, if you're an ipad users like me, the first thing you did this morning is down loan the cnn ipad app. look how stunning the images are. this is the broadsheet view. it's an amazingly beautiful way to explore the news. you have all these thumbnail images. but say you don't want to broadsheet view. we have three different ways to explore cnn on the app. you can do the broadsheet. maybe you want quick headlines. check this out. this is a beautiful way to sit back and f

and elizabeth cohen has all the details. so what's the change here? can anybody go in now? >> no.t go in if we wanted to loose fi to lose f. but currently you have to be quite heavy in order to qualify if the fda dwre dchld degrees guide line, you have to be heavy, but maybe not so heavy. let's say you're 5'8". right now man or woman, you'd have to weight 230 pounds or more to qualify for this surgery. under the new proposal, you'd only have to be 197 pounds or more. so 197 pounds, 5'8", that's what the new guide lines would mean if they're passed. >> if you're a big weight lifter, obviously you can't do that. okay. so these are only guidelines. is are a ththis really a big de? >> technically a doctor can do any kind of surgery they want on anybody. but insurance companies care about guidelines. so right now if you weigh 200 pounds and you're 5'8", your insurance company likely will say no or give and you really hard time. if these pass, your insurance company will be much more likely to say, yes, we will pay for it. if these pass, your insurance company will be much more likely t

elizabeth cohen joins us now. so what exactly did they do here?hat even about if this isn't the cure for hiv, which it's not, it's still a mazing what these doctors in germany did. they took a patient who had hiv and also just by chance also had cancer. and he needed to have a stem cell transplant. they blasted his immune system, radiation and chemo, so they took the immune system from a donor and gave it to him. basically he adopted the immune system and in guy is now cancer free and hiv free. >> so why doesn't it work for everyone? >> you'd everyone would be getting this right now. and here's the reason. let's go back for a second to this donor. this wasn't just any donor. this donor is one of the very, very, very few people out there who is resistant to hiv. he has some kind of a gene that makes him resistant to hiv. could you try to give to him and you couldn't do it. so he got a very special immune system and they sought this donor out for this guy. so in order for this to work for everyone, you'd have to find one of these very, very few peop

. >>> not long ago, i heard an interview with elizabeth edwards talking about some of the rough times in her life. and she quoted a leonard cohennthem." it said, "ring the bells that still can ring. forget your perfect offering. there's a crack in everything. that's how the light gets in." as you know, she died today, and we wanted to revisit some of the lessons she said she learned, this mother of four children, her oldest, cate, now 28, and wade, by the way, was the son she lost 14 years ago. >> keep running! keep running. keep running. there you go. there you go. score! for me, it's not as scary. in part, because, i have to believe that there's a chance of reunion of some sort with wade and so death offers me that, which life can't offer me. so death doesn't -- i don't fear it in the same way. except that i fear it for my family. i fear what happens to them. my children understand that the cancer has come back. we didn't try to prettify that in any way. this is the way it is. but we also said at the same time, you know, everybody who is sitting at this table who is not going to die, raise your hand. and they realize that we'