first of all, heather howard is with us. she's the program director of the state health reform assistance network. that's a program funded by the robert wood johnson foundation. and it's dedicated to providing technical assistance to states. she's also a public affairs lecture ur at the woodrow wilson school at princeton university and faculty affiliatety center for health and well being. previously served as commissioner of the new jersey department of health and senior services and worked before that in the u.s. senate, the house of representatives, the domestic policy council at the white house and the health care task force at the antitrust division at the u.s. justice department. we're also delighted to have with us audrey heinoanes. she previously served as the senior vice president and chief government affairs officer for the ymca of the usa in washington, d.c. and then governor steve ba sheer who of course you saw at the state of the union address the other night appointed her to the kentucky cabinet, the cabinet and

we will start with an overview from heather howard, setting the stage for what we have seen to date in the state-based health insurance exchanges. heather, welcome. thank you for bringing us together. i have a few slides for the key takeaways. -- >> thank you for bringing us together. i have a few slides were the key takeaways. what are we seeing? despite the rocky start, we have seen that enrollment in state-based marketplaces is generally outpacing the enrollment in the federally facilitated marketplace. that is because most of the system glitches have been worked out relatively quickly in those state-based market places. it is also because we are seeing far more robust consumer assistance and marketing efforts in the state-based market places. an important also a seamless eligibility between the marketplaces and medicaid. it is worth noting, too, that there is a success story in five states, and this is just early on -- that have been doing what expeditedst-track enrollment for food stamp beneficiaries into medicaid. oregon, for example, despite their ongoing exchange implementation

we're going to start with an overview from heather howard, setting the stage for what we have seen to date in the state based health insurance exchanges. so heather, welcome. >> thank you. >> thank you, susan. and thank you to the robert wood johnson foundation for your work on extended coverage and for bringing us together to talk about early lessons from exchange implementation. i have a few slides to talk about some of the key takeaways. so what are we seeing? despite the rocky start. we've seen that enrollment in state marketplaces is generally outpacing enrollment in the federally facilitied states. that's because most of the glitches have been work out relatively quickly in those state base marketplaces. it's also because we have far more robust consumer marketing in those places. really seamless eligibility between the marketplace and medicaid. there's a success story in five states and this is just early on that have been doing what we call fast track, food stamp beneficiaries. so oregon for example, despite their ongoing implementation challenges have been able to enroll 121,

from the rhode island exchange, and to audrey haynes overseeing the kentucky exchange as well as heather howard from the state health reform assistance network. thanks to all of you for joining us today. we'll look forward to seeing you at our next re >> c-span, we bring public affairs events from washington directly to you, putting you in the room at congressional hearings, white house events, briefings and conferences and offering complete gavel-to-gavel coverage. watch us in hd, like us on facebook, and follow us on twitter. next live on woverl "washington journal." [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] ♪ there's new evidence that planes have been closed on the time. the evidence is not fully disclosed. several papers picking up on that this morning as well as the release of the state department assessment on the keystone xl. john kerry plans to consult with eight other government agencies before issuing and official decision on whether to go ahead.

from the rhode island exchange, and to audrey haynes overseeing the kentucky exchange as well as heather howard from the state health reform assistance network. thanks to all of you for joining us today. we'll look forward to seeing you at our next reporters roundtable. >> on the next washington journal, ron johnson will discuss republican's plan for the house on immigration. the program, a discussion about no nuclear weapons and materials are secured. we will be joined by william director. former beginning live at 7 a.m. eastern on c-span. tomorrow, treasury secretary jack lew will be at the bipartisan policy center in washington dc, where he's expected: congress to raise the debt ceiling. secretary loop recently -- lew letter to lawmakers, and we will have that live on c-span to guide you can share your comments during the event on twitter by using #cspanchat. the center for the national interest is hosting the event, we will have it live at 12:30 a.m. eastern -- 12:30 p.m. eastern, on c-span two. someone who grew in the office. human badly burned by the -- cuban bay of pigs experience. can l

heather: all right. thank you so much, howard kurtz, for joining us. we appreciate it, as always.hoping for federal relief as the record-setting drought drags on. their extremely dry conditions impacting farmers, ranchers and soon will hit all of us consumers as food prices are expected to soar in the coming months. will carr is live in fresno, california, right now. will? >> reporter: hi, jon. well, the president is coming to press know later today to get a sense of the drought's impact, and over the past couple of days we've gone out with farmers and ranchers, and they tell us it's about as bad as it can get, and it could cripple their industry which brings in $45 billion a year. it's one of the busiest winters on record at cattle market. >> about four to five times as many cattle as we normally would sell this time of year. >> as many ranchers are forced to sell off all or part of the herds they've worked for their entire lives. >> i'm about 50% or less of my normal herd. >> reporter: the worst drought in decades has left grazing lands barren and ranchers can't afford to keep b

howard's authority efforts the lawyer that led the fight (clapping.) but this is a tough day for me speaking about diversity a separate male. heather i knew george i loved george and i group together. if it would for george i won't have passed the bar he took me four days and asked me legal questions i learned 63 years in law school. what encountering brought to the city it's what heather brought not 9 the city of state but to the country george brought the neighborhoods into city hall. up until the time he was mayor the downtown groups and i don't say that in a negative way but they actually didn't control city hall but if you looked at every commission they almost all looked like me in her opinion all people from the more affluent parts of town that's with an a not an e. george was elected by the people in the neighborhood he made those commissioners allocating look like the city of san francisco and george was a guy it's really weird having you have to be my angel but it's lekts for mayor in 75 was literally seen by some as a fight for the soul of the city those who opposed george and what he stood for and harvey milk stood four