i'm going to turn this to you, uwe. what should we do about undocumented workers? and how does that figure in to your formula going forward? >> actually, if we had only undocumented workers uninsured, we could probably handle that the way we have always handled the uninsured. because to put in a law that says every undocumented worker has full rights, you could do it. germany doesn't have does it. it does send a signal for people to come and i don't think there is bipartisan support for that at all. [laughter] >> so i think we would just have two leave them, deal with them and pay this money and handle it through the back door or have neighborhood health centers for them. i do believe this nation would know how to handle that. if we have everyone who is legally here covered, this would not be an unmanageable problem at all. >> great. there are also several questions concerning the incentives for your program on what was in smoking sensation. in addition there is a separate question but related, do you do with anything with children with special needs? kind of a loa

and i'll pick up on some of uwe's points on that. uwe's points on that. >> i would think the chance of having really universal coverage even phased in i feel i would give that even lower than 40%. i think they will sort of stick around the 1 trillion number for the tenure cost and for that you can do probably 50 to 60% of the uninsured which would certainly be a huge improvement over what we have now and i would call that a loan, significant health legislation. then there are these other things that could even be legislated outside of the coverage bill. i wonder sometimes whether you couldn't separate and have it in one bill. but they could for the expansion of 1 trillion-dollar expansion they could use budget reconciliation alone. i think that would fly or they could even get bipartisan support for something like that. whether there will be a public plan or not i think that's very uncertain. and it's not even clear how important to everyone how important that actually is. and then the insurance market reform. they are actually far m

[applause] >> thank you, uwe. now we will open up to questions.e have a microphone here or if he would like to turn in your yellow cards to judy and carolyn are walking through. and while we wait why don't we go down the panel and handicap the chances for health care reform? and i'm not going to put you on the spot, while i won't put you on the spot first bob because you showed something while we were waiting. what's the smart money? you have to tell the group while talking about. >> there is a website on which economists generally but the public at large can express their opinions by buying shares of various from, you know, what economic growth and while i was sitting here and got an e-mail from a friend with the latest quote on significant health care reform and of being enacted by the end of 2009 and the price is 35% at this point, the person that sent to me because i was quoted in "the washington post" saying somewhere between one-third and 40% earlier. i won't say whether i actually said that, but the

and there is really no one better to speak about this than uwe reinhardt. he is an internationally known expert, and i'm sure known to all of you here in this room. he is well regarded for his humor, also for his keen insights and his ability, his keen insight and his ability to communicate these very important issues around access. >> thank you very much, nancy. first of all, i want to add my thanks to bob reischauer's remarks to you. these meetings take a lot of intellectual activity, is it important, someone has to frame it, and then invite the people who would present. and that's only half of it, and then someone has to figure out the logistics, get everyone on line, get the lovely room, get c-span. and what is remarkable about this, if you had to purchase all of this from a regular consulting firm, you would be talking big, big bucks. but most of that is provided sort of free or at or below cost. so the american people should sometimes think these washington outfits that lay on these things, to help reform the policymakers but also for the media and th

please, help me welcome judge uw clemmon. [applause] >> i'm going to take a drink of water. it's my privilege to be here this morning. since i made a change of career, i don't have to drive all night to get to washington and i am taking full opportunity full exercise of my newly found first amendment rights, and actually, i wasn't invited by the judiciary committee to come. i invited thoem to subpoena me but without them doing that i couldn't come without violating some of the ethical constraints. earlier on in my life i was an eyewitness to the sometimes tragic results of unwarranted prosecuti prosecutions. then the prosecutions arose out of police brutality cases in the birmingham area. outlaws in blue uniforms would often cloak their lawlessness in charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. it was out of this milieu that led me to law school, and my first legal career as a civil rights lawyer, often defending victims in unwarranted prosecutions. so i came to the federal bench in 1980, fully aware of and reflective of my background. i believe, with every fiber in

but cognizant of the fact that uwe reischauer, where is he, will appear later and regale us in one way or the other, i thought i might end with a little humor even though it be-gallows humor. what do i do? this is to make the point that fiscal futures can change both up and down dramatically in very short periods of time. when i was thinking about what i might say today, last night, i came across this chart which was from a talk i gave eight years ago. and at the time we were enjoying a four-year period of budget surpluses, and at that time there was a lively debate taking place about how the fed would conduct monetary policy once the public debt was paid off. the projection at that time was that, yes, in 2009, if we devoted all of the projected surpluss to paying off the debt, we would have no public debt at this point if we chose only to use the social security and trust fund surpluses it would take us maybe 2011 or 2013 to do this, and the question was, you know, how could the fed conduct monetary policy when all the public debt was paid off? and the answer that most economists gave