>> peter welch, would you answer that? s of congress, it's a basic question of fairness t chairman hensley asks a pointed question. peter, what's your responsible to that? i want we are subject to the same rules as everything else. those of us in congress are required by law to be in the exchanges. we are not on the same health cause as before. and there's an employer-based cry bugs that federal employees get. you can argue about obama care even senator grassley said his goal was to have -- not to deny employer-based contributions -- >> before that was changed by the stroke of a pen coming out of the white house, peter. >> that's right. >> and you're still eligible. for huge subsidies. that i think is troublesome. it's not huge subsidies. it's employer-sponsored subsidies. this is not about the members of congress, but about health care for all americans. >> all right. >> hold it. it's also about how do you change or pass a law? you have to get the votes. in the house, you've got to get them in the senate. keep in mind we h

peter welch, brad whenstrup. jared bernstein, cnbc contributor, he is a former chief economist to vice president biden. doug holtz aikin and former cbo director, and dan holler of heritage action for america. dan, let me begin you. neither of our representative representatives that we had on the show seem to be willing to go for a total repeal of obama care. what is your take on is that. >> the fight is going to continue. i think the american people kmpt expect their lawmakers to continue pushing this. we know it's a bad law. we know it's hurting people. the question is what do we do next? and i think from here over the next few months, you're going to see the people who are responsible for passing that law, they're going to own this. and people like kay hagan and mark pryor and mark begich, they're going to have to explain to their consistents why they stood in the way of efforts, legislative efforts that would have spared their constituents. >> and you advise -- you advise members this was a key tonight in the

. >> i want to bring in peter welch, democrat from vermont. good to see you, congressman. good morning. >> good morning. >> i know you were listening to ted cruz, who's about to go into a meeting with the president at the white house, and i just wanted to get your reaction and i'll ask you the same question i just posed. is there still a strong enough group of conservatives to shut down whatever progress seems like is being made on getting at least the debt ceiling done, if not reopening the government? >> well, senator cruz is unusual. i mean he's somebody who when he's in a deep ditch, he just decides the plan is to keep digging and that's what we heard. second, on the -- the republicans, i think, are ready to work with the democrats and we're certainly ready to work with them. we've taken using the debt ceiling as a hostage off the table. frankly both parties should renounce that because the damage that can be done with that tactic is enormous. second, we've agreed that the health care bill is the law of the land. that means we can focus on addressing some of the legiti

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we have to deal with those type of issues now. >> congressman literary of nebraska and peter welch ofanks to you, as well. this three and a half hour hearing was historic, very important. we're going to continue our analysis of what happened. thanks very much. and to our viewers, i'm wolf blitzer in washington. we're covering these historic hearings that took place today up on capitol hill. kathleen sebelius clearly in the hot seat today. answering questions from members of congress, democrats and republicans, some very, very testy questions, all of our reporter and analysts are standing by. dana bash is up on capitol hill. gloria borger is here with me. so is elizabeth cohen. we've got our white house team in place. we're going to have full analysis right now. let's go to dana bash up on capitol hill. you watched these three and a half hours, dana. give us your thought how this went down because as i say, i this i a lot of people were watching. >> well, certainly people who are genuinely interested i

joining me is democratic congressman peter welch of vermont. good morning, sir. >> good morning.want to play the blame game, we've had 16 days of that. i want to talk about something with far greater implications, that would be trust in government. congressman, why should americans have any trust at all in congress, in you? >> on the basis of what we've done the last several weeks they shouldn't. that's in fact you're right, the casualty here aside from who's responsible is that the institution was created to serve the american people and it has to make decisions that help people be successful in their own lives back home, and what we've witnessed is the last several weeks and months, really, is a debate where the premise was it was okay to not pay your bills and that's bizarre amongst americans. you owe your plumber, you don't stiff your electrician. you pay your mortgage. we have done a lot of damage with this debate and in fact my hope when we get this behind us and we finally do raise the debt ceiling and reopen government we're going to get down to the basic issue that we ha

now democratic congressman peter welch was scheduled to join us, he last minute, to attend a cheerleadingi call cheerleading session with nancy pelosi. a little rah-rah to keep the stalemate going. everyone is watching right now. they're fed up with all the nonsense. we here we think everyone should get a time out and start over in couple of days. >> tracy, how are you doing? is this for me? tracy: yeah, please. help us. >> first of all, got to tell you, i would rather be with you than with nancy pelosi. thanks for having me on. listen, our conference, republicans in the house, we're bending over backward, trying to find a deal with democrats. we have, we moved off our position three times trying to find common ground. last night we were trying to open up our malls in washington, d.c. and make sure our vets are covered. they're saying no to everything. we even said, hey, let's open up the government for a week. and, as we negotiate this out. and they said no to that. i think they believe that this is great politics for them. this is really bad for america. we have to sit down and figure t

. >> we have matt welch, editor in chief and peter pitts. thank you, gentlemen. may i go to mr. gruber, please. welcome to the program. you heard my little intro. with all due modesty, those are my intro. what say you? >> you're repeating the same uninformed right-wing talking point people say all the time about this law. you're not understanding the law. this law is a private based expanse of health insurance based on ideas developed bit heritage foundation in the early 1990s. >> with all due respect, the heritage foundation never had these elaborate controls and planning and you may have label me a right-winger, i understand, all is fair in love and war, you look where the insurance plans are one size fits all, no distinction between them, i don't see how this is not government run, jonathan. that's all i'm saying. >> how can you say there's no difference between them? have you looked at the massachusetts plans all run by private health insurance plans. you really aren't giving a fact based perspective on the law. that's the problem. people need to know the facts of what this

dagen: peter, thank you for that. we also have matt welch and rob reynolds, chief executive officer, good to see you. we will probably have to break to go to that house speaker every week now. bu do think the market is factoring in that this deal will get done and by this kind of deadline on thursday? sorry, bob. we're going to interrupt, here is house speaker john boehner. >> good morning, everyone. our leader team met with members today trying to find a way forward in a bipartisan way that we continue to provide fairness to the american people under obamacare. there are a lot of opinions about what direction they're going to go. there has been no decisions about what exactly we will do. but we will continue to work with our members on both sides of the aisle to try and make sure there is no issue of default and to get the government reopened. >> this point we talked to our members. it has been very clear all along what we has republicans in the house have wanted. we wanted the democrats to sit down and talk to us so we can work out our dif