michael duffy of "time" magazine. and david westle of the "wall street journal"." >> award winning reporting and analysis, covering history as it happens. from our nation's capitol this is "washington week" with gwen ifill. produced in association with national journal, corporate funding for "washington week" is provided by -- >> we know why we're here. to give our war fighters every advantage. >> to deliver technologies that anticipate the future today. >> and help protect america everywhere from the battle space, to cyberspace. >> around the globe, people of boeing are working together to give our best for america's best. >> that's why we're here. >> there's been a lot of market ups and downs lately. but annie and mike made it through. they stuck to their plan. now they're thinking about what's next. as their financial advisor i reviewed their complete financial picture. they're reallocating some of their assets so they don't have to rethink their dreams. >> with you when you need a financial advisor fully invested

and michael duffy from "time" magazine. happy new year to all of you. >> happy new year to you. >> chris: let's start with healthcare reform. section 1233 of the obamacare law would have mandated government payments for end-of-life counseling. that was dropped out in all the furor over the death panels, but now we find out that the obama administration intends to -- in fact, promulgated hhs medicare regulation to do the same thing through regulation they didn't do in the law. anything wrong with that, brit? >> sometimes you can do that, but not very often and not to a great extent. the problem of doing things by regulation is if congress has not authorized it, the agency, whatever it is to do it, it's subject to court challenge. and may be barred. so, if it were easy to do a great deal and put in place a sweeping agenda of any kind by regulation, the president wouldn't have spent the last two years going to congress to try to get all these things of things done. if you look at the rules that have been put in place with the

duffy and paul ryan. thank you very much. i want to thank all of the candidates to step up and offer themselves to this task. i want to thank chairman michael steele for his leadership over the past two years. thank you. and i want to thank all of the rnc members who believed in my vision and understood there is some some good work we need to do on the committee and it has to get done. we have to get on track and together we can defeat barack obama in 2012 together, unified as a committee. [applause] with the election over, now is the time for the committee to unite. we must come together for our common interests, for the betterment of our party and our country. with that in mind, i want you to know that i am here to earn the trust and support of each and every one of you. i told you i would serve in humility and work hard. i will start working right now as your chairman. we all recognize that there is a steep hill ahead of us. the only way we will be able to move forward is if we are all together. we must never forgets why we all do this. -- forget why we all do this. as reagan said, our nation is that shining city on a hill. we must work