i actually got to speak with lamar alexander as he was preparing to go to that lunch. what they don't say publicly some senators feel the president didn't do enough to help sell repeal and replace. i asked lamar lex lexer,, what he thought he would hear from the president. here is comment. any hope what you hear from the president. >> if he has any suggestions how we get a result, certainly welcome. reporter: dour think he will be angry with you all for failing to tack action on repealing obamacare? >> no. reporter: lamar alexander saying they want the president to be out front leading repeal and replace. he took a swipe you might say at dean heller in nevada. pointed out that heller actually did fall in line because he wants to remain a senator. there are the three senators who actually won't allow this thing to go forward. those are lisa murkowski, senator capito and of course maine's susan collins. those three senators don't face re-election in situation in 2018. one of them doesn't come up until 2020. perhaps the pressure isn't quite on them than others. here is wha

part, to lamar alexander from but that vote failed thanks, in part, to lamar alexander from maryvillee. he actually voted for that exact same bill in 2015, but today he was one of six republican senators to turn around and flip his vote to no. in philly today, senator pat toomey's constituents showed up to his office to tell him to vote no. dean heller's constituents turned out in carson city. senator heller was another republican senator who voted yes to repealing the aca in 2015, but he changed his mind today. in maine today, senator susan collins' constituents showed up to thank her for voting no, encouraging her to keep it up. republicans are nevertheless apparently going to make at least one more try to kill the affordable care act. the congressional budget office just released their analysis of what their next try would do to the country. it says 16 million americans would lose all health insurance and congressional staffers tell nbc news it would also result in a spike in health insurance premiums. tonight ten governors, six democrats and four republicans, have written to senat

lamar alexander, dean heller, john mccain, lisa murkowski, rob portman and susan collins of maine but which mcconnell got the goal of getting something to the president's desk. >> ultimately we want to get legislation to end the obamacare status quo. through congress and to the president's desk for his signature. >> reporter: mike hence acknowledging the difficulty of the task at hand talking to tucker last night. >> obamacare is dead. this system is collapsing around us. there is the old saying that it is hard to turn a big ship at sea. it is harder to turn a sinking ship. >> it appears now their best shot is turning to the so-called skinny repeal. this is a watered-down version that gets rid of the individual mandate and some obamacare taxes but chuck schumer said this doesn't attract democrats at all. >> we don't know if skinny repeal is going to be the final bill. democrats are not going to continue to try to amend the house plan that is already dead. we don't know what bill to direct our amendment to. clearly the senate bill, repeal and replace has failed. >> we are told the sena

lamar alexander and patty murray are already talking about doing that. i'm hopeful they can begin a series of hearings. nobody has said obamacare is perfect. nobody has said our health care system doesn't need fixing. the problem was, when they started -- when they tried to just pull the rug out from under the existing health care system. so change it, improve it, but don't just take a knife and try to destroy it and put nothing in its place. and, so we can work together. and i said that on the floor last night and a whole number of republicans who are usually more quiet and conservative came over to me and said thank you and they'll do it. on health care, i hope what john mccain did was a turning point, when the senate turned back from its partisanship and worked together. we long for it. we yearn for it. there are some forces that get in the way but i think sometimes you need a little spark that inspires the forces. and john mccain may have done that. and i intend to follow through. i am not finished. two other things i would say. president trump did a

there were seven republican nos, susan collins, shelley moore capito, rob portman, lamar alexander and lisa murkowski. surprising names in the group. >>> a double threat, fox news reporting iran is prepared to launch a missile into space while north korea may be a lot closer to having a long-range nuclear missile than we thought. melissa: plus, she was one of two republican senators who voted no to proceed with the debate on health care reform, she's caught with the hot mic. we're going to weigh in on that one. >> the tape is amazing. the president pushing ahead on tax reform saying the middle class needs a break even if it means the wealthiest have to pay more, what does that mean? rates are going to go up or lose deductions? blake burman asked that question of the president at the briefing at the white house. he joins us live from the white house next. >> reporter: does the president believe that the wealthiest americans deserve a tax cut? hello, this is adt, is everything ok? i could hear crackling in the walls, and my mind went totally blank. all i remember saying was, "my boyfrien

lamar alexander and patty murray already talking about doing that, and is hopeful that they can begin a series of hearings. nobody has said obamacare is perfect. nobody has said our health care system doesn't need fixing. the problem was when they started, when they tried to just pull the rug out from under the existing health care system, so change it, and prove it, but don't just take a knife and try to destroy it and put nothing in its place. and so we can work together. and i said that on the floor last night, and a hold number of republicans who are usually more quiet, or conservative came over and thanked me and said they want to do it. so on health care, but also innocent as a whole i whole i hope what john mccain did would be regarded in history as a turning point where the senate turned back from its partisanship and started working together. we long for it. we yearn to work together, and there are various forces, they call them centrifugal forces, that get in the way. but i think sometimes you need a little spark that inspires forces of coming together that outweigh the forc

i think the reality is, what john mccain said in his own statement, lamar alexander, patty murray. they're the top republican, the chair, lamar alexander, the ranking democrat, is patty murray on the health committee. and you are going to see the repair bill. and attempt a small repair bill. may even have a repeal of the medical device tax, which is something members of both parties don't like. usually for some sort of constituent reason, because some medical tech company is in their state, builds these products. but that may go. you will have some sort of attempt to help the insurance companies feel as if they can have a little more of a safety net if they go into rural markets where they may not have enough healthy people to sign up for -- on the exchange. so that's what you're going to see. a bill of fixes in some form or another. because they have to. the issue in rural america is serious. the issue of insurance companies walking away from these small markets is serious. they're walking away due to the uncertainty in the law. so that's where i think realistically this goes. and

i am thinking of lamar alexander, congresswoman virginia fox, luke messer. i would have said a few months ago senator patty murray of washington, but it seems like there has been a bit of a fracture in the bipartisanship that usually comes with education issues. where do you guys see them standing on moving education legislation through the pipeline? i am thinking maybe a career tech ed. there is some bipartisanship around that. what is realistic for us to expect? anyone can take that. >> i'll start. i think that there is -- i would have said pre-esa the opportunity was limited. i was surprised that esa made it through and was signed into law. it will be interesting to see if something like a federal tax credit. new national federal tax credit were to move forward. are there folks who don't play in the ed space who -- within the ed space we are not considering. there is a push on the part of the administration, i think correctly, to streamline the tax code, to lower rates. dos that run into a push for a new federal tax credit scholarship which could go in th

chairman lamar alexander, house ways and means chairman kevin brady, they urged that these payments be continued. as chairman brady put it, the payments are needed quote, unquote, quote to schedule the health insurance market and help lower premiums for americans. he added and i quote, insurers have made clear the lack of proposed premiums to rise significantly. now, we've heard from our constituents at home. we've heard from doctors, nurses, hospitals, particularly will hospitals, nursing homes, patient advocates, insurers, does constituents who are in the letter that it asked, the statement that it asked to be included in the record. they are pleading with us to set aside our partisan differences and work together to repair the affordable care act. and again, we know what we can do. it's not just the marketplace certainly act. there are other bills that event introduced that can fix the uncertainty in the market and allow us to address other issues with the law. bipartisanship should be this then its first resort, not the last resort. an excellent place to start is by committee gathe

lamar alexander / (r) tennessee01:05-01:12 - sen.26 - sen. john kennedy / (r) louisiana senate republicans are split over where to go next with health care.but tonight there are signs a so-called "skinny repeal" of obamacare may have the most support.the measure drops the laws requiring americans to buy health insurance.businesses would also no longer be required to offer coverage. but the measure leaves most medicaid funding intact. republican senator bill cassidy of louisiana tells us he's open to the idea."if the skinny bill moves the process forward, i am all for it, the individual market around the country is imploding, staying in this spot, is just not going to do it"even if the skinny repeal passesit won't be the end of the health care debate. instead republicans would force the legislation into a conference committee... also known as a smaller, more manageable arena.today on the senate floor, tennessee senator lamar alexander urged his colleagues to embrace the idea."it is not a solution to the affordable care act problems bu

this morning, i saw lamar alexander, the head of the help committee in the gym. we see each other just about every morning in the gym. i was wearing, i think, my syracuse t-shirt, and he wears his tennessee volunteers t-shirt. i said to lamar, if this skinny bill goes down, as it should, we will -- and i spoke to patty murray, our ranking member, we will sit down and work in a bipartisan way to improve obamacare. we know obamacare needs some work. we don't deny that. let's do it in a bipartisan way. instead of passing this hot potato back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and not getting anything done. and while we're -- while our leaders are passing this hot potato, insurers will be setting their rates for 2018. that means insurers will lock in rates for the next year with this massive uncertainty hanging over their heads, leading to huge rate increases or decisions to pull out of markets. skinny repeal is is a way to geo conference, is a recipe for disaster, and beyond that it's a shameful way of legislating. my republican friends should listen to the

lamar alexander (r) tennessee >"i don't think there are 40 votes to repeal and say to the american people, 'well trust us to come up with something in the next couple of years.' i don't think that's a good idea." "you don't think there are even 40?" "i don't think so." natcapitol police arrested health care protesters at the office of senate majority leader mitch mcconnell.senator bernie sanders say the g=o=p effort is doomed. "the reason that this republican bill failed is because it is something that was a disaster that the american people overwhelmingly did not want. (steve) arizona senator john mccain is battling an aggressive form of cancer. doctors say mccain has a brain tumor. it's associated with a blood clot he had removed above his left eye last week. the 80-year-old senator and his family are reviewing treatment options including chemotherapy. (grant) tonight, another example of airline passengers and flight attendants arguing. now a family who was kicked off a jetblue flight in south florida-- wants answers. they say

susan collins, shelley, john mccain, rob portman, lamar alexander, dean keller of nevada. i want to make sure the what te audience knows. >> dana: a skinny repeal. like oh, that sounds -- [laughter] >> dana: ten governors have just come out with a letter that says of appeal is not for us but i believe they will get something out of the senate that will allow them to get the conference. i think about these seven senators that you just read author names about their decision and peggy noonan said something very interesting about how when you are on the ground and in your own state, you are looking at the topography of the politics and in the last eight years, with president obama, lots of things changed. people have more anxieties and they don't expect change in washington to be good for them and so, i think what we end up with now is that there's really not a strong republican party of smaller government. its variations of bigger government and how it should actually work. that's disconcerting to a lot of conservatives who think we should just take this opportunity to repeal

senator murray of washington is the ranking democrat and senator lamar alexander is the chairman from tennessee. i respect and like them a lot. the two of them not to have h hearings on the bill to change the affordable care system and make it work better, bring down the cost of premiums expand health insurance coverage. i think that's what we should be all about. it's a basic difference and i will close with this. this is what drives us. answer the following question and i can tell you how you will vote on this bill. do you believe health care is a right for every american or do you believe it's a privilege that if you have enough money and you were lucky enough you can get it and if you don't you go without it. if you are answering thee question it's a right, should be a right america. then you have to reject this approach.e you cannot take helpless people some who are working hard in jobs, two and three jobs at a time but have no health care benefits and say to them sorry our system won't take care of you. one last point the irony of tham if you don't give a person health insurance

. >> if that repeal bill fails in the senate, chairman lamar alexander says his committee has responsibilityo hold hearings to continue exploring how to stabilize the individual insurance market. meanwhile the senate democratic leader is blaming the white house. >> president trump's blame game makes him look small and diminished. and people will begin to realize his lack of leadership and the respect for him and his office will diminish. >> as that luncheon at the white house breaks up we will be listening carefully to the tone of the senators to see if anything has changed after getting the full court press from the president. >> heather: we will see what happens, thank you so much. >> jon: the white house is now confirming a second meeting or conversation between president trump and russian president vladimir putin did take place on the sidelines of the g20 summit with president trump bashing media coverage of the news, tweeting this -- a russian spokesman had pretty much the same reaction, saying saying -- have to keep your answers short because we are going to get the tape play out from

today she was on the air singing that there may be should be a way if lamar alexander has suggested toring democrats then. deal with the medicaid funding, cbo report losing their insurance in the premiums could go out. so what you see if there is any, some compromise among the attorneys? >> let me first say i talked about the cbo and how they don't have the totality in different phases to health care is not going to be a one-shot deal. there is ongoing things that happened. i understand the pressures that some are repealing. i get that. that's not an excuse to have inaction they voted on a couple years ago. eric: insert interrupt their backlash from rand paul. he is saying it's a giveaway to the insurance companies. >> sure, if there's a rent party can't support this and susan collins can't support this in terms of what the party looks like in some of them may be saying when he democrats on there. okay, fast to pull repeal. they were forced to come to the table to hash it out. >> this could be a point of compromise. the white house is trying to win over moderates to use the medicaid se

. >> what i think we need to do and what i recommend to lamar alexander, who is the chair of the health committee, is that we start a hearing on how we can fix the many egregious flaws that do exist in the current law. >> reporter: so much work to be done and back to the numbers donald trump's lowest marks in a fox news poll come on the handling of healthcare, 42% approve of the job he is doing. heather: a lot of blame thrown around. >> numbers on healthcare are not good for anybody. >> donald trump get serious with senate republicans on healthcare or at least tries to. mike stein says the democrats are not the only ones hoping the president will fail. >> trump's main problem in a way is there is a republican party, significant parts of the leadership of which have no interest in seeing the trump presidency succeeded in a sense inflicting quite a lot of damage and obstruction on him and that in itself would be an interesting enough story for cnn to cover. instead they say he went to the g 20 summit and he was supposed to be sitting next to the argentine first lady and desert, he wandere

lamar alexander from tennessee. shelly from west virginia. dean heller from nevada.ka and rob portman from ohio. brian: keep in mind too. if they get a skinny version, it's to get something out of the senate. and then they go to conference, and house leaders who are supposed to leave tomorrow, they say they might stay until saturday. and i say to myself. how do you stay one day and come up with comprehensive health care reform? if this fails, i have to think they're going to come back and try to do maybe what senator mccain suggested a couple of days ago dramatically and he said go back to regular rules. and maybe there are people like joe manchin and john that are going to say. okay. republicans have already given it a lot by leaving certain in things place. maybe we should start giving in a lot and start by saying that obamacare has failed. ainsley: you're right, though. it is very confusing, and the message that i continuously see is that republicans can't get on the same page. do you think they ever will? brian: well, we're going to find out again when it comes t

this morning i saw lamar alexander, the head of the health committee in the gym, we see each other just about every morning in the gym. i was wearing my syracuse t-shirt and he was wearing his tennessee volunteers t-shirt. i said to lamar, "if this skinny bill goes down, as it should, we will, and i spoke to patty murray, we will sit down and work in a bipartisan way to improve obamacare." we know obamacare needs some work, we don't deny that. let's do it in a bipartisan way. instead of passing this hot potato back and forth and not getting anything done. >> jon: that's chuck schumer live on the floor of the senate expressing some of the democrats view on the republican efforts to repeal and replace obamacare. let's talk about what's going on with a.b. stoddard and vince colones a.b., it appears they're heading toward a vote for this so-called skinny repeal, but nobody seems to know a lot about what's in it, can you enlighten us? >> it's what peter told us is basically a repeal of the individual mandates. it would have certainly been one of the first things they attempted, democrats, to

and to do so, you know, the process -- going back to february when lamar alexander and i joined together health care working group with senators across the ideological spectrum from moderates to conservatives, working to get to yes, i think we got a lot of common ground. and i think we discovered the keys to u nighting the conference, the central key is focusing on lowering premiums. and you do that through expanding consumer freedom. i would note the current senate bill, not only does it have the consumer freedom bill that i drafted, in addition to that it also allows people to pay health insurance premiums from health savings accounts. that is a big, big deal. that's illegal under current law. what that means for millions of merks is your rates drop 3040% because you're paying with pretax dollars. if we keep focusing on lowering premiums -- >> that was a leadership decision. it may be -- better question for mitch mcconnell. >> did the president again mention -- >> that was senator ted cruz talking to reporters about the healthcare bill and how they need to get something done. bill, you

. >> speaking of congress, lamar alexander who chairs the health committee in the senate has just said he's going to set hearings in the next few weeks on how to stabilize the individual insurance market. >> yes. >> this is going to be a huge fight. >> isn't that interesting. >> and a lot at stake whether they bailout quote, unquote, obamacare now or not. >> we'll see. >> that's moving the market. take a look across some of the health insurers and hospitals. the dow is still down 5. a lot of the selloff, particularly this morning, sparked by the news that the senate's effort to repeal and replace obamacare has collapsed. russell down a quarter president and s&p and nasdaq are higher >> one biotech company received fda approval for a breast cancer drug details on that next. >> and on the heels of td ameritrade's earnings we'll ask tim hockey about the ongoing atmmission fee wars and if th's affecting new client growth stay with us (baby crying) ♪ fly ♪ me to the moon (elegant music) ♪ and let me play (bell rings) >> >>> welcome back td shares are higher after reporting quarterly net rev

lamar alexander and patty murray are already talking about doing that. hopeful they can begin a series of hearings. nobody has said obamacare is perfect. nobody has said our health care system doesn't need fixing. the problem was, when they tried to pull the rug out from under the existing health care system. so, change it, improve it, but don't just take a knife and try to destroy it and put nothing in its place. so, we can work together and i said that on the floor last night and a whole number of republicans who were usually more quiet and more conservative came over and thanked me and said they want to do it. on health care, but also in the senate as a whole. i hope what john mccain did will be regards in history as a turning point where the senate turned back from its partisanship and started working together. we long for it. we yearn to work together. there are various forces, they call them s call. sometimes you need a spark to inspire the forces coming together to outweigh the forces coming apart. john mccain may have done that. i intend to follo

seven republicans in total, including some surprises like lamar alexander of tennessee, rob portman of ohio, and john mccain of arizona. so when you have seven republicans right now that say they can't support a straight repeal, that means that mitch mcconnell needs to pull back at least five of them for this skinny repeal, whatever it turns out to be, if they hope to get the 50 votes necessary to get this bill to a conference. the senate republicans still feel that they is possible. but right now, we don't know exactly how they're going to pull it off. >> ryan nobles, thanks very much. i want to bring back in the panel. for a lot of people the details get in the weeds and mind-boggling, your head starts to swim. do you have a sense for what's going to happen? >> that so-called skinny plan to repeal and replace obamacare is probably the only that has a snowball's chance in you-know-where to actually pass. that's why the democrats are doing this tactic, because we do only have concepts, it's really basic, to get richard md of thee and get rid of the medical device tax. >> what's the ben

another former governor lamar alexander of tennessee announce that's he will convene hearings of the of ways to stabilize the insurance market, a sign that the process is moving to regular order, something his colleagues seem eager to do. >> a better approach to begin hearings focused on the problems in the aca, and let's try to get bipartisan support. >> the door to bipartisanship is open right now. not with appeal. but with an effort to improve the existing system. >> my guess is, we're now headed toward normal committee activity that will take 60 votes on the floor. >> we're going to be here in august, working on bipartisan efforts so, stay tuned, we may have more news later on that. >> white house correspondent for the hill jordan fabian. good to have you back. yesterday, the president renewed his call to let obamacare fail. and the insurance industry pretty much in limbo. do you get a sense there could be a plan "b" if they don't vote next week since we've moved down so many plans already. >> ayman, one rule that the white house has not ruled off is cutting off the subsidy payme

back into lamar alexander, the chairman of the senate health committee, has already indicated his willingness to hold hearings. we could divide this issue into separate bills and take a look -- these serious flaws in the affordable care act. >> the president wants repeal and replace. >> it is a motion to proceed to the bill that passed the house. that comes to the senate and we can vote once we get on the bill to amend it in various ways. lots of members have various ideas on how it should be best amended to replace what is a failing obama health care plan. >> when you talk about the motion to proceed, that means to begin conversation. some senators have expressed they will vote against that, not even begin talking. where does that stand right now? >> we are getting much closer to that. we are going to vote this week. until the vote is actually on the floor of the senate, some people might not really what they will do, but we all got elected to legislate. that is why we are here. people have campaign, republicans, over the years, to repeal and replace obamacare. this is our chance. it is hard

lamar alexander and patty murray are already talking about doing that, and i'm hopeful that they canegin a series of hearings. nobody has said obamacare is perfect, nobody has said our health care system doesn't need fixing. the problem was, when they tried to pull the rug out from under the existing health care, change it, improve it, but don't just take a knife and tried to destroy it and put nothing in its place. we can work together and i said that on the floor last night, and a whole number of republicans were usually more quiet and conservative came over to me and thanked me and said they want to do it. so on health care, but also in the senate as a whole, i hope what john mccain did would be regarded in history as a turning point. where the senate turned back from its partisanship and started working together. we long for it, we year -- there are forces that get in the way, but sometimes you need a little spark that inspires the forces of coming together to outweigh the forces of pulling apart. john mccain may have done that. i intend to follow to the finis finish. two other t

get the people in the house committee, senator lamar alexander beginning to have concrete conversations how this marketplace should go forward, how we can insure more people, but make it sustainable for generations to come. and in the interim to your point, let's make sure we fund the subsidies. let's make sure we mandate that folks stay in the market place so the risk pool is a risk pool that's workable. >> dan hilferty, thank you, i appreciate it. >> thank you, michael. >> i know there's a lot of feedback on twitter and my facebook page. let's see what we got. smerconish, let's ask ourselves if a tax hike to pay for single payer health care would be more than our current insurance premiums. i sure hope that people were paying attention to what health care ceo, elected by his peers, to handle the situation with white house and congress just said. i mean, the individual mandate, the requirement that everybody has insurance which was derided as, you know, big brother telling us what we need to do. if you don't have it and you're requiring insurance companies to pay for those with pre-exi

lamar alexander and patty murray are already talking about doing that, and i am hopeful that they canin a series of hearings, nobody has said obamacare is perfect. nobody has said our health care system doesn't need fixing. >> three republican senators voted against the is "skinny repeal" ," susan collins of maine and murkowski of alaska were nose from the beginning, and then at john mccain killed the bill. >> yes, it is a disappointment, a disappointment indeed. our friends over in the house, we think them as well, i regrets that our efforts were simply not enough this time. >> the reality is after spending a whole lot of time and energy on health care, other pressing issues will demand time from lawmakers, such as the budget, tax reform, it is back to the drawing board on health care. melissa. >> melissa: making manual, thank you. >> jon: new concerns of violence in venezuela could seriously escalate in the coming days, our state department has a message to americans there right now. and attorney general jeff sessions says that the president's criticism of him has been hurtful, a lo

traffic, while other protesters flooded the offices of ohio senator rob portman, tennessee senator lamar alexander, and arizona senator jeff flake, where activists yelled "you are killing people" as they were arrested and forced from the building in handcuffs. [indiscernible] amy: if passed, the republican senate healthcare plan could cause 22 million americans to lose their insurance over the next decade. cnn reports at least 10 senate republicans oppose the healthcare plan in its current form. president trump has heavily backed the effort to repeal and replace the affordable care act. "the new york times" is reporting president trump's son, donald trump junior knew before , agreeing to a meeting with a kremlin-linked lawyer promising damaging information about hillary clinton that the material was part of a russian government campaign to help his father win the u.s. election. "the new york times" reports trump jr. was told this information in an email sent by publicist rob goldstone, who helped arrange the meeting in june 2016. on monday, donald trump jr. hired a lawyer amid increasing calls for

he called for the senate to return to regular order, where lamar alexander, and patty murray, take up the health care bill, and hold hearings and get to it the way he believes it should be. on the right of your screen, that's the rose garden, that's the american and lebanese flag, president trump and mr. saad are walking out now, they have been giv talking about refugees and the relationship between lebanon and the united states. let's listen in now to the president of the united states. >> please, i'm very happy to announce that with zero of the democrats' votes, the motion to proceed on health care has just passed. and now we move forward towards truly great health care for the american people. we look forward to. this was a big step. i want to thank senator john mccain, very brave man, he made a tough trip to get here and vote. so we want to thank senator mccain and all of the republicans. we passed it without one democrat vote. and that's a shame, but that's the way it is, and it's very unfortunate. but i want to congratulate american people because we're going to give you great h

even lamar alexander just said to betsy devos, you're misreading the law.y: i want to ask about the -- npr is reporting wayne johnson will be the new head of office of federal student aid. this is according g to the department of education. in agency responsible for administering one point virtually no snow standing student loans from 42 million borrowers, plus aid programs for millions of college students, not mentioned in the press release and first reported by buzzfeed, johnson is currently the ceo of the union financial services corporation, a private student loan company. >> right. i don't think saying the fox guarding the hen house is enough to describe what is going on. you basically have people from bilkdustry that built -- ed kids that have had predatory practices now running the student aid programs. and it is -- again, it is this preference, this out and out preference for the lenders, for the for-profit colleges that we have fought for the last several years. the two can't give worthless degrees and leave kids holding the bag with unsustainable

and what we need to do is to remember my friend, lamar alexander's words. he says that congress doesn't do comprehensive well. we need to go back to committee, to the health committee, the finance committee, identify the problems, carefully evaluate possible solutions through hearings and then produce a series of bills to correct these problems. the most serious of which is the pending collapse of the insurance markets. and i certainly hope the administration does not do anything in the meantime to hasten that collapse. >> as you note, the president is also threatening to cut off what he calls bailouts for insurance companies, presumably referring to the payments the government makes to insurance companies to reduce the costs for low-income americans. the trump administration has threatened to withhold this money before, which has led to uncertainty among insurance providers. if president trump were to officially withdrawal that funding, would that affect your vote on health care? >> it would not affect my vote on health care. but would set an example of wh

chairman lamar alexander, kevin brady, they have urged that these payments be continued. as chairman brady put it, the payments are needed quote unquote quote to stabilize the m health insurance markets and help lower premiums for americans. he added and i quote insurers have made clear the lack of certainty is causing 2018 proposed premiums to rise we've significantly. now, we heard from our constituents at home we heard from factors, nurses, hospitals, particularly rural hospitals and nursing homes, patient advocates, insurers and those constituents who are in the letter that i asked just like the statement i asked to be included in the record. they are pleading with us to set aside our partisan differences and work together to prepare these affordable care act.ot again, we know what we can do. it is not just the market place bills that have been introduced that can fix the uncertainty in the market and allow us to address other issues with the la law. bipartisanship should be the senate's first resort, not the last resort, an excellent place to start is by coming toget

and senator lamar alexander at the lunch told us afterwards he thinks that they wouldn't even get 40 senators onboard with a plan that just repeals and doesn't replace. senator ted cruz at the lunch said he thinks the president's message was well received and he thinks it's helpful that president trump brought the whole conference together. >> it was good, productive meeting. it was a candid meeting. i think we're close. there's a lot of common ground. there were discussions about areas that still are differences. we're making progress. we came from that meeting with a renewed commitment to keep working. >> we also learned that a few hours from now the hhs secretary tom price is coming to capitol hill for an evening meeting with some republicans who are still not onboard with their party's proposal. and majority leader mitch mcconnell said leadership wants them to vote yes on the motion to proceed. so the bill can be debated and amended on the floor. >> this particular type of bill is totally open for amendment. there's no way i or anybody else could prevent members from having amend

seven senators, including some surprises like lamar alexander of tennessee and rob portman of ohio, you- these seven senators, six of them back in 2015 essentially voted for the same exact piece of legislation. but that, of course, was when barack obama was in office. and this really demonstrates how difficult it's going to be for mitch mcconnell over the next several days as they now move to their next plan, which is this skinny repeal of obamacare, which will take out some aspects of the obamacare affordable care act, but leave the big vast ma jord -- majority of it in place. this is so they can get to some correspondent of plan where they can build consensus. with this vote today, wolf, they can only afford to lose two republican senators. they lost a total of seven. so there's going to be five republican senators, at least, that mitch mcconnell is really going to have to lean on to get the votes necessary to get that skinny repeal passed. >> yeah, we're looking at live pictures. you see senator bernie sanders speaking right now. the debate continues. so, they rejected the house vers

senator lamar alexander said prior to this vote that, you know, if the bill didn't go through, you would hold hearings. look on to that as a starting point. it's not clear they would have to go back to the drawing board. senate republicans, they want some reassurance. they want to know ramifications and putting a major bill like this forward just to say that they have some -- they've passed something, isn't necessarily the best option. nor is it -- nor is it different than what the democrats did when they were in power. >> we're going to talk about that cbo score in just a second. we heard chuck schumer sort of referring to mitch mcconnell as his friend. he said, look, this is not a sbrat other time for us either. we're both at a loss here. do you think the two parties over health care could actually come together? we also heard some democrats on msnbc last night sort of coming to the table with ideas now, but do you think it could work? >> well, they do have ideas, and actually if you saw that clip when mccain voted no, and he did his thumbs down, you could see chuck schumer in the back

john mccain of arizona, lamar alexander of tennessee, lisa murmurkows murmurkowski. ten republicans tanked this. it's challenging to get all the republicans on the same page. they have the policy divides for months, even though they talked about obamacare off stage for months. they can't get everybody, at least a majority on the same page. you fix one thing and break another. now what this signifies is there's been two major votes in about 18 hours here on this healthcare bill. they both failed. the cruz amendment failed last night and now this paul amendment, which is the straight repeal has failed as well. a lot of people thinking the only thing that could pass is what we're calling the skinny repeal where they take away a few parts of obamacare, the medical device tax, the individual mandate, employer mandate and pass something so the house has passed something, the senate has passed something and maybe they can work something out. they have to have a resolution to this probably tomorrow or friday. this special process they're using only allows 20 hours of debate.

the problem is that congress as my friend and colleague lamar alexander has often said does not do comprehensive well. what we need to do is to go through the normal process, identify the problems, have hearings, hear from experts, hear from all the stakeholders, and produce a series of bills to fix the real flaws in the affordable care act. first on my list would be to stabilize the insurance markets to make sure that people access to insurance. >> are you confident, though, that secretary price at hhs is implementing -- is trying to keep this law afloat, that is doing everything he can to create certainty, or are you concerned that there are some aspects of hhs implementation right now that are actually undermining the law, attempting to create more problems in order to, say, force congress to act? >> i'm troubled by the uncertainty that has been created by the administration when it comes to the subsidies that are given to very low income people to help them with their co-pays and their deductibles. i hear this described by some as an insurance company bailout. that's not what it is. it is vi

there are people working, lamar alexander, susan collins, democrats are working with them on this andre are ways to shore up the markets. we've had a learning curve on 9 affordable care act which k50eu7 of suggests too things. people like it and it needs some tinkering that's mostly around the edges. >> woodruff: i want to leave this on a positive note so we're going to stop right there and by next forty we'll know more. ruth marcus and david brooks. thank you both. >> thank you. >> woodruff: finally tonight, linguist deborah tannen has written a new book on women's friendships, "you're the only one i can tell," and tonight, she offers her humble opinion on the new language of "liking." >> for a book about friendship, i interviewed over 80 women, ages nine to 97, and heard a lot of worry that people are getting more self-absorbed, constantly texting and posting pictures of trivial things, like plates of food. one woman complained, "i don't care what somebody had for dinner. all this stuff out there that nobody needs to know." i'm a linguistics professor, so you might think i'd lament