highest taxpaying area in the country and this developed due to a practice pattern in mcallen that is very, very wasteful, so what we want is good value, every american wants to live longer and healthier and we can do that and safe a bunch of money every career we are waists some $700 billion and that is billion billion with a b, bob, if we can just save a fraction of that we can solve the problem. >> cooper acknowledged as one of the real experts on this whole issue in the house and we will >> schieffer: with us now to talk about this controversy over the cambridge cop and the harvard scholar, michael eric dyson of georgetown university, among other things a biographer of barack obama, sociologist who has written a lot about politics and sociology and kathleen parker the syndicated columnist, i would say it is fair to say conservative columnist, in the washington post, although she is ambidextrous, she tells me. what should we make of this michael? >> well, obviously, it was a flare-up along a bigger trajectory of race in american society. the disagreement, the disgruntle., the disco

we have been hearing around the country -- some of you may have read the "new yorker," comparing mcallen, texas with al pastor, texas. that is the kind of thing we're trying to work through. and we're getting closer to consensus. >> it seems to have stalled. who was a mistake to lay down a mark before dealing with the blue dogs? >> i do not think we did that. i'm a fan of harry truman. i went to his library. he left the presidency 57 years ago, and the things he regretted not getting done was health care for all americans. he called on congress to do the 61 years ago. so we spent two years talking about the plans. we have had 79 hearings on health care, 45 hours of marked up in three committees. why would anybody do this when you had this kind of backdrop going home? i do not understand that. the fact of the matter is that we have been very slow and deliberate trying to put this together. " we have now is a caucus with 51 blue dogs, 40 to african- americans, democrats, progressive democrats, asians, pacific islanders. we of all these caucuses to deal with. the diversity of the country is

even though they have caps there in mcallen, texas, they spend about three times as much per person -- they spend about 30% more per person than they do in el paso, texas, which is also operating under caps. what that tells me is the problem of rising costs that does not simply have to do with whether or not liability is capped. what really has to do with it is incentives that are operating in various communities. e are some places like the mayo clinic that provides outstanding care, some of the best in the world. it turns out, they provide care much more cheaply than a lot of other health systems even though it is better care and part of the reason is they do some things that are common sense but unfortunately we do not do in the health-care system. instead of you going to your primary physician and that referring you to a specialist and then maybe you go to a third specialist, go to the hospital, they recast you, what they do at mayo clinic, when you meet with your primary physician, he calls in all of the specialists at the same time. they evaluate you, do all of the tests there, s

mcallen, texas, 107 degrees. but alexandria, louisiana, 102. mobile, alabama, 101.ver to the pacific northwest, they've had an unusually dry may and june. things start to cool off, however. portland goes to 91 today, to 69 on tuesday. that's below normal, believe it or not. and then, of course, severe weather. it's that season. on the east coast, we have colombia, atlanta, birming thanks so much. more on your sunday outlook later on in the show. bill? >> all right, marysol. >>> "the los angeles times" is reporting this morning that authorities investigating michael jackson's death, are focusing on at least five different doctors who prescribed drugs to the king of pop. this latest twist comes as the city of los angeles prepares for perhaps hundreds of thousands of people to descend on staples center for tuesday's memorial service. abc's ryan owens joins us this morning from l.a. with the latest. good morning, ryan. >> reporter: good morning, bill. here's a number for you. 1.6 million. that's how many people have registered online to try to get tickets to get inside

he went to mcallen, texas, to figure out why in the world, in that town, that small town the average spent on medicare recipients was $15,000 a year, one of the highest in the nation. he couldn't find a reason. there isn't a situation where there's a disease there or elderly people are sicker. what he found out was that the doctors in that town were billing everything imaginable. they were throwing in tests and procedures, piling one on top of the other because they got paid more. the more they do, the more they bill, the more they get paid. one of the doctors said it's defensive medicine. we can get sued. another doctor said that's not the case at all. texas has one of the tightest med mal laws in the nation, limits the amount anyone can recover from a medical malpractice suit and not many suits filed. the bottom line is these doctors have an incentive to bill more to the medicare system because they get paid more when that happens. now you go to a place like rochester, minnesota, at mayo clinic where the doctors are on salary, and their goal is not to pile up the procedures but to

that's six days in a row in mcallen where you had temperatures going up to record highs. again today. let's get prepared for that. we see the high temperatures we anticipate for today. 102 in dallas. 97 in houston. the humidity will make it feel much warmer. atlanta, 85. tampa going with 87. it's a lot of folks driving armd in the gulf coast with air conditioners on. a lot of people are going to be waiting in the terminals with the delays. like chicago, mention thunderstorms. a 15 to 30-minute delay there. atlanta, the same story. the low clouds could keep you again waiting at times 15, to 30. tampa, orlando, same culprit. a chance of thunderstorms at the stationary front and the rough weather possible in the western great lakes and in to the midwest. that's a look at the forecast. keep your fingers crossed for the afternoon highs and hopefully they'll get off of the launching pad just fine on saturday. back to both of you. >> have a great weekend. thanks. >> you bet, guys. >> you bet. >>> the thing about it is, if you look at the map, all the way on the southwest, it's b

been in texas when the high is 101 today, 95 in houston, austin usually in the triple digits and mcallenh day in a row that they've had highs going up to the triple digits. 113 expected for phoenix, 106 in vegas, 59 in san francisco, back in salt lake city up to 90. when you get to new york and boston, high temperatures mainly into the upper to mid 70s. overall a fairly nice day for parts of the northeast if you don't mind the scattered showers. that is a look at your forecast. we'll have more throughout the day so sit tight. back to you. >> thank you. >>> president obama addresses ghana's parliament at 84040 eastern this morning. we'll take you there live. >> we'll talk about how people are receiving him there. they are receiving him well. all of those details, live coverage, stay with us this morning. >>> hello, everybody, from the cnn center, this is "cnn saturday morning" on this july 11th. >> good morning, everybody. thanks for joining us. president obama is in ghana this morning. he's got a warm welcome. he's been there actually to speak not only at 8:00 this morning in our eastern

check out some of these numbers. 107 in mcallen, del rio 106. some of these places have seen temperatures over 100 all but two days of this month, and most of those have been record. certainly nasty weather for those folks. on the map, temperatures warm down across the south, that's where you're going to see the thunderstorms. back through dale, dallas you're starting to -- a few -- i think i got them lined up here somewhere. >> you remember how to work that? >> that's the problem. chew gum and walk, not me. laguardia, 35-minute delays. i guess dallas isn't on there. ground stop until 8:30 local time. we'll talk more whether in about half an hour. so nice to be back. >> welcome back. >> i did notice, absolutely. we'll check back later on, rob. thank you. >>> a new number to add to any formula for a health care overhaul. 870,000 americans turning 65 every month. can they actually be covered? our dr. sanjay gupta is looking at the bottom line. >>> a hot topic on our blog this morning, as well. there's an awful lot of talk about taxing the rich. to

mcallen, texas, had a report yesterday of 109, the fourth consecutive day with a record high.m the all-time record, hottest it's ever been in that city. ft. lauderdale yesterday up to 97, hopefully some of those florida temperatures will be cooled a smidge today. really hot here across the plains states, really cool across parts of the northeast. staying cool there, with a chance of storms today. we're also looking at heavy showers across parts of florida. look at all this wet weather into the gulf of mexico right now. you know where it's going, yeah, right into northern parts of the state. you've seen already between two and five inches of rainfall here. we could see another one to three on top of what you already have, and a couple of those thunderstorms could reach severe levels. we're monitoring the threat for severe weather. storm prediction center highlighting here a moderate risk across parts of the dakotas, so look for that rough weather to develop later on this afternoon. heidi? >> jacqui, thank you. >>> scientists say they have created human sperm in a lab. a closer

you look at abilene and even austin getting into the triple digits but check out mcallen texas three of that today with 104 expected in dallas and houston with 97 degrees and further north you go a little bit cooler the weather becomes like 89 degrees in kansas city and back over to chicago, 82. little bit cool in this area and one reason why is because the cloud cover we're seeing and not only the clouds, but a few scattered showers and few embedded thunderstorms. there's the chance, heidi, that some of this stuff could get fairly severe, especially along this area of low pressure and back into parts of the central plains and going to be that moist air that feeds up from the gulf of mexico combine would the daytime heating that could make for rough stuff, including some delays. if you're hoping to fly back to chicago, get your weekend started, you might have a few issues there. into parts of south and central florida, showers a possibility and we may see the rain drops stick around to tomorrow. we have the shuttle launch tomorrow evening and might have a delay there and as we make o

austin with 104 and mcallen, texas, take a look at this. they had six days in a row of record temperatures in that part of the world. so, hopefully, they'll get a break as they move into the weekend. what we're seeing no break in the action from the scattered showers and shuttle launch expected for tomorrow evening. i wouldn't say it is all that but a chance of rain in the forecast, only 40% chance of a liftoff. here is a 100% chance that you'll see tony harris coming up in a few minutes on "cnn newsroom." >>> moments ago sheriff tom dart, he is the cook county, illinois, sheriff held a news conference giving us the very latest information on this horrible scheme to resell burial plots. here's what he had to say just moments ago. >> i don't know what to say about the families. they are amazing people and gone through horrific grief and they're hanging in there and doing the best they can and our heart goes out to them having to go through this again. i can't tell you how difficult this has been on everyone involved with this. there is an ar

wichita falls 109 degrees, all the breaking records, over austin and mcallen. and we had the stories yesterday asking people to conserve electricity in houston yesterday because really they didn't know whether it was enough electricity for everybody. they said, please don't set your air conditioners down below 80 degrees, because at least it's running at 80. if we run out of power, they're not going to run at all. showers across chicago, back toward davenport and also into st. louis. although right now, ali, i can't believe this on a friday. we don't have one airport delay so far. >> wow! >> everybody getting where they need to be. >> not bad. >> it's not the fourth of july and it's not christmas and it's not thanksgiving so -- >> i hope the folks in texas are coping with the business of not putting your air conditioner below 80. because i think your point is right, the temptation is to keep it nice and cool because if the power goes off, your house is cool, but if it goes off, you have no air-conditioning. >> you got it. >> thanks a million. >>> the man that t

mcallen, 104. we have rain across florida. it is out there. we will get more in half an hour. >> thank you, mr. suburb man. >>> one of detroit's big three is getting ready to emerge from bankruptcy. but gm isn't out of the woods yet. ñ >>> more on our top story today. there are new claims about just how serious a drug problem michael jackson may have had. some of his former employees say that at one point, jackson took more than ten sedative pills a night, ten. richard lui, do we know how he may have got his hands on that many prescriptions? >> jackson apparently asked some employees to get the prescription sedative xanax under their names. that is according to a 2004 police document just released. it says that jackson also traveled to doctor's offices in other states to get the drug himself. this document contains interviews with two of his former security guards as well. one guard saying he was concerned about jackson taking ten or more pills a night but was told by his colleague that jackson was doing better because he was down from 30 to

austin, 106, lubbock 106, mcallen 105, midland 103. add the humidity to that number, and it's going to feel like 114 for those areas again today. charleston, south carolina yesterday, 4.15 inches of rain in just one single day. you'll see more of that coming in later this afternoon. look at the showers coming in northern florida. decent stuff basically north of tampa, but the flash flood watches are out there because the rain will redevelop in the same spots it hit yesterday. here's what it looked like in ottawa, kansas. most of what i could find in that area, it toppled over two semi trucks. >>> new this morning, thousands of people were evacuated from a world famous art museum. a brush fire threatened the getty center in l.a. yesterday. artwork by vint vincent van gogh is housed there. >>> we have news that jackson's brothers and sister once tried an intervention, but michael jackson would not let them. . >>> 11 minutes past the hour. michael jackson's family was apparently worried that he had a drug problem. our sister network cnn h

in some of these areas, right around here in mcallen and brownsville, texas, it's been a year since they'vethe worst in the country. all the way from austin to san antonio, lake travis, they're saying 55% below its normal volume. they even had a report of a sports car that was found in the lake because the water levels are so low, from 1988. it still had the keys in the ignition. so, not a lot going on there. temperaturewise, though, we've got quite a bit to tell you about. in to the pacific northwest. seattle, yesterday, a record high. seattle, you're going to be even higher for this afternoon. 93 degrees, going to be in the 90s again tomorrow. thursday, we tart start to see pull back a little bit. for seattle, a typical high temperature this time of the year would be around 81 to 82 degrees. 10 to 15 degrees above normal. not just there, but interior sections, john, kiran, looking at triple digits through thursday. a little bit of a break by this weekend. back to you. >> karen, thank you so much. see you later this morning. >>> winning the lottery once, that's lucky. winning twice in one

state, from region to region, even from a recent article, within a state, the difference between mcallen, texas and el paso, texas. that gives you another means of calculating what you could get the cost down to if you could get the waste out of the system. efficiency, improvements in the u.s. health care system, the president's council of economic advisors reports, potentially could free up resources equal to 5% of u.s. g.d.p. that's over $700 billion a year. so maybe it's $1 trillion, maybe it's $700 billion. per year, that is a big, big number. looking at the internal discrepancies, they note it should be possible to cut total health expenditures by by 30% without worsening outcomes which suggests saving on the order of 5% of g.d.p. could be feasible. looking two different ways at the same number, $700 billion a year. the problem is it's going to take some executive administration to get there. it's not easy. you don't just make your decision, flip up or down the light switch. it goes on and you don't have to worry about it. this isn't like the sniper who lines up his shot, pulls the