Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20131223

Obamacare could collapse under the weight of itself if there are continued problems, said one u. S. Senator. There could be continued problems and the whole thing could collapse. What has your experience been with the Health Care Law . Here are the numbers to call. State or federal 1. 202 585388 medicaid, 202 5853880. All others, 202 5853882. Here is the headline. Manchin warns obamacare could collapse. [video clip] so much more expensive than we anticipated and the coverage is not as good as we have had, you have a complete meltdown at that time. This transitional year gives you a chance to adjust the product to the market. Sayo they have to go on and , here is this information about me and then you have to buy it . Yes. Willingall america is to pay and are the getting the best product . Dont say this is what you have to buy what you like it or not and you will have to pay more whether you didnt think you were or not. I think that is where we are. Can you move the ball forward . Can i get more people healthier . Agree that those are worthy goals to get rid of and move to a healthier populace for a healthier workforce . Otherwise this thing falls at its own weight . The cost becomes more than we can absorb, absolutely. Host still pushing for a one year delay of the individual mandate. There were some support in the senate for that in some places. We want to get a larger update on health care. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you for having me on. Host explain the key deadline today. The firstay is deadline that consumers who want Health Insurance under the law have. Time p. M. Eastern standard is the deadline for insurance by january 1. The deadline on the west coast is 8 59 tonight. Deadline. S the final host describe the rush that others have written about. How do you think it is going at this point with this current deadline . Guest healthcare. Gov really faced a tough first two months when it rolled out. It was in repair mode. Officials said they were working on it. And roman reports for those two months were pretty dismal. Enrollment reports for those two months were pretty dismal. But enrollment has spiked since. The president said that more than one Million People had signed up for Health Insurance on the Exchange Last friday. More than 4 million had been for Insurance Options made available for low income families. It is still far below the initial estimates from the congressional budget offices 7 million signups in the first year needed. Todayld see a huge rush and how healthcare. Gov is going to face a huge rush, how they will do with all of that traffic kind of remains to be seen. We will see whether it holds up. Sub headlines one in another paper that says healthcare. Gov can handle this rush, according to officials. What have they said about this possible rush . As thathey have said, paper sites, that they can handle the rush. The reason they are saying that is because they have enabled a queuing system. The site can handle 50,000 users at a time 800,000 users per day. When the site exceeds that traffic, that is when they enable a queuing system that enables them to Contact People and tell them when they can come back and sign up for Health Insurance. They have enabled us system before and it has worked before. That is why they feel confident that if they exceed those numbers, which ensure they expect to do today, that they will be able to handle that. Host we are talking with clara ger from the National Journal. She was part of the writing team here. Today is your last chance to get insurance o. Meant us of the allowance announcement last week. Guest sure. Administration did a little mini one of their own last week. They announced that for all of the consumers who had received cancellation notices and we dont really know how many consumers that was, there were estimates in the millions for the consumers are received Health Insurance plan cancellation notices, because their coverage did not meet the coverage requirements under the law, those people had two options. Either next year they do not have to shine up for Health Insurance and would not face the individual mandate penalty or they were now newly eligible for catastrophic coverage. That is barebones coverage, a lot cheaper. Then your typical bronze or silver plan on the exchanges. Those people were given somewhat of a reprieve. That is really important. A significant portion of consumers would be affected. The administration did announce earlier that day that they estimate roughly 500,000 consumers received land cancellations and still had not picked a new plan on the exchange. We are not quite sure how many people will choose to opt out. It could be a significant portion. Host are there other potential reprieves ahead . Guest it is very tough. Thought that the administration would stand pretty hard line on a lot of these deadlines especially the individual mandate, one of the key components of the lot that is critical for its success. Tell. Hard to it is hard to tell if they might and this did come at the request of a handful of senators , a handful of Democratic Senators and an independent. If they were to receive enough pressure again, who knows that they might do another reprieve for other people. Host what else should we know at this point . Guest what is important to look 23 ising beyond december we are going to want to watch to see whether the people who wanted this january 1 coverage were able to sign up in time. We dont know what will happen the rest of today with healthcare. Gov. Knownt know if people when the deadline is. With the number of deadlines that the administration has set. December 23 is the second deadline. Initially, people had until december 15. See whatoking to people are selecting, which plans they are selecting, which is most popular, whether they like the coverage they are getting we will start to hear those stories be on january 1. Host thanks very much. We know you are on the west coast. Thanks a lot. Guest thank you. Host we want to hear your experience. Here is one facebook posting by jessica. That its on jessica. Is from jessica. Cathy from michigan. Caller i have the document from the Health Insurance marketplace in front of me. It is dated the fifth of this month. Application. F my you may be eligible for medicaid. Off since it on and lost my private insurance through an employer a couple of years ago. The beginning of this year was 786 a month. Completely ridiculous. It went down to 300 and something. I became eligible at the first of november for straight medicaid. The first of the year, i will be on a Meridian Health care plan. I have talked to people who dont have insurance and they go through Northern Michigan health land plan. Afraid to gouite onto the website and they are afraid of the data the government is collecting. I found that i had to submit very little. It was an easy process. I asked that everything be sent to me through the u. S. Mail. The big problem here it is just Health Insurance in this Country Health care the Insurance Companies are so preventingin not disease, but in making money off of people, keeping people sick. It is not a model that will ever be successful. Stitch that is not affordable. It is ridiculous. In fact, perverse. We need to move to a single payer plan that follows the medicare and those dollars have to be washed on the reimbursement for medications. The Overall Health of each and every patient host i want to follow up by mentioning senator tom coburn. First, another caller. Paul from georgia. Good morning. Caller good morning. Happy holidays. The Affordable Care act to be unconstitutional for some people if people dont apply, they get find a penalty. Fined a penalty. I am working part time. I probably make 200 per week. That is not enough to pay my rent. I talked to another guy and he is 65. He cant even afford to pay how canof his people pay for coverage if they cant pay for coverage . Be like 450ing to per month. I cant even cover that. How can it be constitutional or legal . Host thank you for sharing her thoughts. Your thoughts. Taoist. M radical here is tom coburn. One of the headlines says that the republican from oklahoma said that republicans should focus on Health Care Solutions at this point. Here is what he had to say. [video clip] i think they ought to talk about health care and what we than continuing to talk about what we are against. Causesre, right now, people to spend more money, have less choice, have a higher deductible, and have less freedom. Behindlout and the ideas the fact that the federal government could manage appropriately 1 6 of the economy is proving itself erroneous. What i would say this that we need to change health care. But what they have done you cant fix this mess the regardlessndustry, of what you think about the Insurance Companies, it is on its year now. Ear now. Host rich from pennsylvania. Good morning. What has been your experience so far . My story is exactly the opposite of what senator coburn said. My first couple experiences were a disaster. I waited until the beginning of december and i went on and i got all the way through the application i had to do it through the Insurance Company. I had a catastrophic plan because i couldnt get insurance anywhere else. 100 78 per month through Blue Cross Blue Shield. Much better plan through obamacare and it was 280 five dollars per month, loaded up tables, low out of pocket monthcosting me 9. 70 per. More of the stories need to be told. I am just above the line. Told. Stories have to be go on the website or call the 800 number. If you qualify for a tax credit premium, i 285 only have to pay 9. 70. Get on the website, call the 800 number im 55 years old. I was paying 178 for a bare bones plan. They better not try to take this away from us. Thank out. Host lets hear the story from dorothy in baltimore. Called the man that just before me sort of answered one of my questions. And i wasnt sure of this, but i did hear that if the Insurance Companies do not spend 80 of the money on your health care then they have to send you a refund. I am assuming that if i do have to get on the exchange and my Prices Higher than what it is with my employer, then they would have to send the money back. That may make the next year of my payment go down. Really am a little confused because i dont know how we can tell what the health care is going to do and it hasnt happened yet. The democrats really need or anybody else that will tell us exact we what the plan does and dont do, like how much it is going to cost you and how much they go by your income, because i dont even know that part until the gentleman said that. And also about the refund. I did hear that they need to justify that because i dont even know that is true, but if it is true, they need to let it out. I use the computer some time, but i was wondering if i did have to get on it, can i mail it . What about the mail . I would like to not put use my personal information on the computer. Understood, dorothy. Thank you for your thoughts. A couple of other experiences via facebook. Shelton, connecticut. Caller good morning. I signed up and my insurance will begin january 1. I have insurance through my wife. On insurance expires november 28. In Insurance Company told me order to keep the cam policy same policy i would have to pay 1200 per month. My copay with the old insurance was 30. Now it will be 10. The problem is the Insurance Company. I have been trying to see how can i help to promote this agenda . This new notion of health care i work in four states. I have mobile stores working in massachusetts and new york. Me or tose to hire work as a volunteer a lot of us do not have health care. Finally, one of the major problems of the system that i am hoping that members of the , we are on the we need to boat. March together to fight the status quo. We need health care in the United States. Host more of your calls and tweets and facebook postings. Usa today below the fold. The government expects to be able to handle the volume created by this new deadline today. Today is the deadline for coverage beginning january 1. Healthcare. Gov can handle at least 800,000 people per day. If the system begins to run slowly, eight viewing system allows people to receive an e receive ans and update when the site does become available. You can see what they are doing for the efficiency problems. We are taking your calls. State or federal exchanges , 202 5853881. Medicaid, 202 5853880. All others, 202 5853882. Story that is getting a lot of coverage around the country. Sticker shock worries experts. We just heard about some positive pricing experiences by people. As the key says enrollment date hits, many people sizing up policies on the care policies are picking the cheapest one. Experts are becoming concerned that many of these buyers will be in for a shock on the get medical care next year and discover that they are on the hook for most of the initial cost. Pulled out ofe we Huffington Post but it is in a lot of papers. Avid, huffingto caller it didnt take hardly any time on the website and i just had to come to the conclusion that this country must people full of people that are illiterate or not computer literate because it is andimple to get on their you can just scroll down the page and look at different plans. How much deductible you want, all types of different plans. I took the plan with no deductible. The Insurance Company, Blue Cross Blue Shield, they already emailed me my plan, which will be in effect january 1. And a colonoscopy all of those things our furry. Are free. No one has to pay for them anymore. ,f people go on the website they need to get their children to help them with it or something because it is too easy for people to be acting like it is something difficult. Host thanks for calling. One other experience via twitter. Mike, richmond, virginia. I have to say i may have misunderstood the beginning of this thing about what the format was. The screener decided to let me on anyway. Mosthing that i object to greatly about all of this it was prompted by the first gentleman that called and talking about the subsidy. In talking about the subsidy. What was created here is that the federal government is taking on a debt the likes of which is just staggering. The gentleman was saying that Everybody Needs to get on there and get their subsidy. Where is all the subsidy money supposed to come from . Where thesituation country is already 17 trillion in debt and there are many more trillions in unfunded liabilities projected generations into the future, the dollar has been completely undermined, and what are we doing . We are saying we are going to go and borrow the money so that people can get subsidies for their health care. The last gentleman was saying we are going to get free colonoscopies. I have news for that fellow. Someone is going to pay for them. Is only question is how it going to be extracted from people. We are looking at this thing generations into the future of debt that cannot be repaid and a collapsing dollar and the Health Care Plan is only accelerating this process. Host ok. Another voice over the weekend was a republican congressman. He delivered a weekly radio address for the gop side. Here is a listen. [video clip] put the people helped president in office. With this Health Care Law, he is punching them in two less choice among fewer opportunities, and larger bills. This is not how it was supposed to be. Everywhere i go, people come up and say im a you should do something to stop this law. They are right. We up to scrap it and start over with an approach that focuses on lower cost, more choice, and more freedom in competition. We should make it so that young people pay their fair share for health care and nothing more. Us d of washington tell telling us what to buy, but get back every american choosing the plan that is best for them and their family. Every time i am asked what washington can do to connect with millenniums, my answer is that we should give government get government out of the way. Hard work and a good education will take you further than any government program. Its give young people the chance to build confidence, give them an incentive to work and save and invest, take risks to him and rekindle that sets this country apart. The president s Health Care Law does nothing none of this. It only sets things back and makes things more expensive. I know and you know that we can do things better. Host we have this email. Cant wait to get older to qualify and that is pretty desperate. At journal c us span. Org. You can post a comment to facebook, tweet us. At facebook, diane writes somerville, massachusetts, donna. Caller good morning. Im already enrolled under the federal employees benefit plan, plus i have Medicare Part b. I was wondering if the Affordable Care act whether i i hade to enroll the federal and loyalties Health Benefit plan. I was wondering if i have to change and enroll in the Affordable Care act. Maybe i am already under the Affordable Care act. What is wrong with the republicans . There is nothing wrong with the Affordable Care act. Maybe they just dont want to pay. If they are just trying to get out of paying, thats all. Host arthur, from queens hill, north carolina. Caller hi. This is my first time calling and. In. My family was trying to enroll two weeks ago, and it worked pretty good for us. My daughter ended up getting the insurance and it costed her 24 per month. Wantingy wife, we was to be enrolled in it, but the problem we had was that the last couple years, we hadnt filed no taxes because i am on Social Security and she is too and we just got on it and since we didnt file my taxes, we was intelligible. My daughter had no insurance for years. Host what is next for you and your wife . Caller that is what i am trying to figure out. I would like to get on and get the plan. I think it would be better than medicare as. Money todraw in enough really afford anything. Problems and i have to spend about 200 per month on my prescriptions. It is rough trying to make it on Social Security. This is what they got. It is really great for us and people just dont know it. They need to call in and find out what is going on. I would love to get on it, im trying to figure out how to get on it without filing taxes because i dont work, i dont have no income access for Social Security. For Social Security. I just had to call in and let everybody know what was going on. They just dont know. Host thanks for weighing in. Orwill do this for about 10 15 more minutes. We are asking about your experience so far with the Health Care Law. A key deadline is today for those who want to sign up on the eederal or kate stat exchanges. Todays the day to sign up. We have tam from union city, ohio. Time from union city, ohio. Caller i have had a really good experience from president s out care plan. S Health Care Plan. Hasaughter is married and two kids. My stepdaughter has had a good experience. The president is trying to help people and he has made some good changes and kept us out of a war. For the gentleman from north carolina, there is a plan he can sign up for to get medication from a pharmacy. I am on Social Security disability myself. To help get his medicine at no cost. It would be through fits her or fizer or whatever medication he is on. Host one other facebook posting. Chuck schumer, the senator from new york, the democrat we will hear from him in just a moment after we take a call from barbara from key west, florida. Good morning. I am 76 years old. I had to go to the hospital last week and there was a couple from europe and they had no insurance. Paye i am paying a 275 co wondering where i am going to eat for the next couple of weeks and they have nothing. That is my question. I wonder what these people are going to do in our country that have no insurance. Hampshire new nebraska. Go ahead. Caller hi there. Im retired. Im on medicare. Through my work i have dependent coverage for my wife and daughter. My daughter is 23. She just got dropped. Obamacare. About that has no effect on retirees it is only for fulltime employees who can stay on until theyre 26. My daughter no longer has insurance. My doctor dropped me because he is no longer going to take medicare. I have been trying to find doctors that will take medicare and everybody is telling me that they are limiting their practice to 30 medicare because of the cut rates coming up. Host how far will you have to travel possibly . Caller travel is not a problem. I am right next to omaha. There are a lot of doctors. I have tried five doctors and no one will take medicare. In with a Nurse Practitioner couldnt find a dr. And she is taking the right now. But she is also limiting her practice to 30 medicare because they cannot afford it. I had to gobe to the hospital, emergency room up the that ran medicare bill because i do not have a doctor to go to to get my stuff. From nebraskave to new york city. Good morning, alex. How was your experience been . Caller mind has been very good. I was on a program in new york state last year. My premium was 330 per month. Now have signed up for a premium that has a higher deductible, but the premium the tax credit will only be 80 per month. I think it has worked out very well. When we talk into this echo chamber thing, i dont see where the logic is that if they have a big illness and they cannot afford it, they go broke and they go on medicaid. That is what this obamacare stops. Audience isto the that that seems like such an essential thing. That unlimited coverage. That is my point. Host thanks for calling. Siler city, north carolina. Caller good morning. I have heard a lot of people ing questions about qwest medicare and medicaid. Obamacare. Not go on you already have health care. People need to investigate this and just find out what and who really qualify for this. I haveom new york experience with other people. 2500 premiums. The biggest problem with this plan right here is that people are not checking into it like they should to see if they qualify. To see what types of premiums and what types of benefits they are getting. Host how would you educated yourself on the program . Caller i do have a life and Health Insurance. Jeff from siler city, north carolina. Chuck schumer now was on meet the press yesterday. He talked about health care and the 2014 election. [video clip] i would just say one other thing with all of the focus on obamacare. The number one issue in the 2014 election is not going to be obamacare or the deficit. It is going to be who can get the middle class going again. Who can expand middleclass incomes. Who can create jobs. Chuck schumer there from yesterday. Emanuel from california. I just wanted to basically say that i am only 21. It is a great deal for americans and citizens all over. I heard a guy previously state that how will people pay for it . How will the money come and Everything Else . If we can pay for wars and everything of that nature, then it should be easy for us to pay for people to have health and to live longevity, great lives. So the kids will also have something to fall back on. Host what do you do in oakland . Caller i am getting back into school and everything. To go backing myself to Community College to get myself together. Host what do you do for health care . Caller i did not have any health care until i found out what he was doing and i signed up. When i signed up, i am waiting for to roll through like the previous gentleman said. Once it comes through, i will be life, for the rest of my i believe, i will be set, good, i will not have to worry about that. Host what do you make about the younger crowd who may not be thrilled with this program . Caller it is basically anything in america that can help us, we are not told about, we are not aware about. We have no knowledge of it. Things are not shown on television. A lot of things are hidden from us. A lot of things are not spoken to us. We are not educated about a lot of things going on. When things do come out, it is just shoved down our throats. It is not explained. It is never explained. It is something that is good for us, but most people will not get the benefit because they dont know where they are unaware. Most people who were older than me came on your show and spoken it badly they are unaware. The gentleman will spoke lifefe insurance insurance and Health Insurance are two different things. It is about the education level. If our parents arent educated, how can we be educated . Host it is one of the themes on the show. Yes, and that is the biggest problem with us in everything we have going on in america today, in the world. We are not educated. We are very uneducated as people. Host thank your for calling. Coming up in a little bit, we will get some economic news, get the latest on how things are doing in the country, not just health care, but Economic Conditions overall and some year and it tax tips. A sum of the news this morning russia sending armored trucks to syria. Toy sent 25 armored trucks syria to help transport toxins that will help be destroyed under the international agreement. That is from the defense minister in moscow this morning. Eva you are on the line from louisiana. Caller yes, i am. I have medicare. I was wondering if i need medicaid. Because i went to the doctor and they asked me, did i have medicaid along with medicare . I am just wondering if i need medicaid to go along with my medicare. I am 70 years old. Host what is your next move going to be . Caller i dont know. I dont know if i should try to get some more insurance or what. My husband passed away one year ago. Im on medicare. Why if i to know needed medicaid to. Oo. Host alexandria, virginia. Caller good morning. Have been with my company for eight years. I have been a truck driver for 25 years. Per week with a 500 deductible. It has been that way until the federal government started talking about insurance for everybody. Host your costs were flat all these years . Caller yep. 75 paid by the company am a 25 paid by me. After the government started talking about it and insurance went up to 100 per week with a 2000 deductible. It went from top one coverage to medium coverage. Now that the law is being implemented, Blue Cross Blue Shield and my company sent out letters stating, sorry, but the costs have gone up because of new regulations and new coverages, so now i am paying 200 per week, with a 5 500,000 5,000 deductible with bare minimum coverage. The only question i really have the nobody has even touched on is the homeless in this country have skyrocketed because of the economy taking a tank. How are they going to get coverage . Host that is steve from alexandria. Twitter. Port st. Lucie, florida. Bob, good morning. Caller good morning. I cant hear what youre saying, no one shoulde have the ability to make us ever pay for Health Insurance for the rest of our lives. Two, how many hip a lots of been aa laws have been broken . If obama has to go to jail, he has to go to jail. Host thanks for calling. To the south sudan story. Perhaps we will hear more from the pentagon about what has happened over the last couple of days. The New York Times reports that americans are evacuating from south sudan. After a local rebel commander provided assurances that would be no interferences. This evacuation involved about 15 americans. This came one day after American Special forces tried to evacuate americans, only to turn back after the aircraft ran into said heavy heavy small arms fire. Continuing to report on that story. One more call. Gail, new jersey. Caller good morning. I hear all the people talking about medicare. Guess what . Ago, theand a half goal of the obamacare was to kill off the white middle class in this country. That sue is getting hurt the most. Give a free ride to the freeloaders in this country. Host thanks for all your calls these last 45 minutes. We will shift to talks about the health of the u. S. Economy. Our guest will be gregory ip of the economist. A little later, kevin mccord of kiplinger will join us. Year and tax tips. Yearend tax tips. What we know of the founders is that the guys who were against the constitution with the religious conservatives of the day, the antifederalists, and they included Patrick Henry at the time who wanted to have the founders were the cosmopolitans. And yet, most of them were bible believing christians. Why did they take the approach they did . Why did they come down where madison came down . Because no faith was beyond faction, they believed. They believed in a multiplicity of sects. Thereve been important developments in the law over the last couple decades in terms of government funding and religious institutions. I would say that there were some real issues to work through and to figure out. The rules that governed this area during the clinton years were different. Some people think that was a good thing and some people think that was a bad thing. That are important issues people fight about and fight about with legitimate disagreement. , theristmas day on cspan separation of church and state at 12 30 eastern. Book tv and illustrated account of the great war. That is at 5 00 eastern. Follow bob hope as he traveled across the pacific for his annual uso tour of Southeast Asia including stops in southeast a be a non. Vietnam. Washington journal continues. Host at the table, gregory ip of the economist. Guest good morning. Host lets take a temperature of the u. S. Economy. How is it doing . Guest it looked very similar about a year ago. Growing around 2 . But even though the raw numbers are very similar, the outlook is quite different. When youre ago, we were heading into a period when we were trying to get through a number of crises. We still had to get to the fiscal cliff. A year later, we have absorbed the shocks to the system and it looks like things are looking up. Employment growth seems to becoming more entrenched. The Unemployment Rate is dropping. It lookse people like the stock market is quite buoyant. I think next year would be the best youre we have had since the recession ended in 2009. Host whats the lease to be worked on . What still needs to be worked on . Guest we still have austerity in the pipeline. Higher taxes and reduced Government Spending will reap deuce reduce half a percentage point. We have not seen the full absorption as the Federal Reserve dials back stimulus programs. We could see higher Interest Rates and that could weaken the housing markets. We could see a pullback in the stock market. Forecasts we have given the same forecast every year for the last 34 years. We need to be aware of things that could come along to set us back. Host the phone numbers are on the bottom of the screen as we take a temperature of current conditions. What is working, what still meets the work on, what next year would be like. We also have a separate line for the unemployed. 202 5853883 we will take your tweets and comments by email as well. Has written about the 100th anniversary of the formation of the Federal Reserve. Here is a look at the the economist story. Tell us more of the significance. Guest there is an old saying things that two can get congress to act crisis and christmas. The solution was to create a central bank. There was a great deal of debate over what shape that bank should have. Forcedil Woodrow Wilson the two sides to compromise, were they ready to compromise. Because someting things never change. We are still having many of the same fights we had 100 years ago. Our bankers to powerful . Is it doing enough for main street . For wall street . Host we will hear from ben bernanke in a moment. Important is the tapering and what are the next moves . I think we could call this the beginning of the end. If you go back to 2008, when the crisis was at its worst point, the Federal Reserve through all its conventional wisdom had it. At it. So they initiated quantitative easing. They did that into subsets of rounds that did not succeed. They began a third round, last september. That became known as qe3. In the last few months, ben bernanke and his colleagues concluded that that benchmark had been reached. The economy was Getting Better and they could begin dialing this thing back. They said they would not be going to zero. They did not say they would raise Interest Rates. They are merely saying they will loosen it at a slightly lower right. Hopefully by a year from now, the whole process will be done. Host lets hear from ben bernanke. [video clip] know, we have been purchasing 85 billion per month in treasury and Agency Mortgage backed securities. In january, we will be purchasing 75 billion per month. It is important to note that even after this reduction, we will be still expanding our holdings of longerterm securities at a rapid pace. We will also continue to roll over maturing treasury securities. Our sizable and still increasing holdings will continue to put downward pressure on longterm Interest Rates, support merging mortgage markets, and make conditions more accommodative. It should help move inflation back toward the objective of 2 . Reduction in the pace of asset purchases reflects the belief that progress toward the economic objectives will be sustained. If the indications support, we will likely reduce the base of securities purchases and further gathered steps measured steps at further meetings. Future adjustments to the pace will be deliberate and dependent on incoming information. Host what does all of that me to the average american . Mean to the average american . Of the themes of the Bond Buying Program is to hold down a longterm treasury yields. Because Mortgage Rates are rates inked to bond , theyhe last eight months began to sell off bonds. Thatmr. Bernanke hopes is i gradually continuing the process, that there will not be continuing upward pressure on Mortgage Rates. I think it is his foot of confidence in the durability of the recovery. In the of confidence durability of the recovery. Host and that made the markets go up. Guest the fact that they were going to buy back had been the subject of talk for weeks. All the selling had been done by the time they finally did it. Host barbara, kalamazoo, michigan. Good morning. Caller good morning. I have been washing you folks for quite a while watching you folks for quite a while. You talkike to know about the bonds and the things and people buying them more and get involved more we have lost enough money out of all of this nonsense. Dont quite know how people,t all of us everybody is saying we have had all of these jobs Growth Service may be. On cant make a living mcdonalds or pressing close or babysitting. You cant do that. Host she is touching on many different parts of the economy. Speak about minimum wage. Guest lets talk about the nature of job growth. We have created roughly 7 million jobs since the bottom of the economy in 20082009. On the surface, that sounds like good news. Beneath the surface, there are troubling aspects. It is the case that we have created jobs and the producing sector. To recover forin huge loss of jobs that occurred in the years prior to that. Many of the jobs created pay very little wages. The rate of wage growth has not been even enough to cover the inflation they have experienced. Have madeh we progress over the last 45 years, it is disappointing relative the historic and smart. Benchmarks. We have a long way to go. Host lets dig a little deeper into the unemployment numbers. In november, the Unemployment Rates were as follows. Tell us more. Guest the differentials you are identifying, those disparities have existed for a long time. They existed when the economy was strong. Those groups did suffer more as the economy worsened, but those things have come in in the last couple of years. People talk about the underemployment rate. The Unemployment Rate does not count people dropping out of the workforce, parttime jobs they look at this expanded Unemployment Rate and that is still over 13 . That has still come down since the peak, quite a few percentage points. Even though there are still a lot of hidden unhappiness because of these different numbers, we believe that that hidden unemployment is also coming down. One of the puzzling things is that a lot of people have dropped out of the labor force. Not looking for work. We dont know why they have dropped out. This into every tired, i dont know, conduct of school perhaps they wanted to stay home with their children. We do not believe that a lot of these people who disappeared from the labor force are ever going to come back. Host duane, upper marlboro, maryland. Caller good morning. Thanks for hearing me. I appreciate your show. I wanted to touch real quick on the direct things i dont see emphasis i dont see put on americans who have lost their ,obs in the field of finance the car industry. I lost my job in the finance industry. The Company Closed down. I went back into the car hour,ss making 12 an working 60 hours a week with the hope of a Commission One day. Everyone has information on cards now but a salary needs to be made. That is i think on the border of slave wages. When the information wasnt out there on how to buy cars. Everybody needs to save money but something needs to be done for the employee in the company. Right now i am totally struggling not even making 1 3 of what i made five years ago. The attitude is that the economy never affected anyone. Where is the emphasis on that direct point, the person within that field that was directly affected . Host thank you for calling. Guest even though a lot of jobs have come back, they are not paying what they did four or five years ago. Speaking, the Government Support programs have not been aimed at specific industries. You could say the bailouts for wall street did save some jobs in the finance sector. It is not the case back in the late 2007. We had people and it was not sustainable. Ge toig three were too lar cut those jobs back. We are looking around for ways to retrain those who are not employed or underemployed. Carrl salesman a salesman is dealing with a different kind of consumer. It is not easy to say how we aim our resources. Host then they get your perspective on some other host does that surprise you at all, the manufacturing number . Guest that comes around a lot. Insights . Guest you have picked up on some relatively important trends. Education and health care. Andre an aging Society People are consuming more health care. Those are areas people are unable to cut back. Manufacturing was hit hard during the recession. The construction numbers i find most encouraging. One of the biggest obstacles has been a lack of housing as a springboard to faster growth. In this case, housing held it back. Homebuilders are more optimistic that traffic is picking up in model homes and more and more people can get mortgages is encouraging for that sector. Government has been a major drag on the economy since a program expired. Quarter, the federal government stopped the traffic of economic growth. I am relatively optimistic that next year will be a better year. We will not have that you nor enormouse that you nor ms. Weight of the federal government. Host ed on our line from georgia. Caller i think gregory should travel around more and see america. There are a lot of malls that are doing badly. A lot of strip malls that are empty. A whole bunch of businesses are closing and not reopening. Yesterday i found out that the poor people who are going to be having to depend, forced to take medicaid are going to be subject to confiscation of all their property after they die because it is a Welfare Program and states will have to recoup their money. They wont even be able to leave an Old Television to their children. Guest i am not from a year with what he is talking about. Right that there are a lot of pockets in the economy that have not recovered. Is dealingsector migration ofrowing retail sales from brick and mortar to the internet. We are still seeing strong growth in the online sales while retail continues to struggle. Host doug, independent caller. Caller good morning. There are so many people talking about the Federal Reserve. People are starting to wake up. Guest issure why your carrying water for the fed. The Founding Fathers knew that Central Banks would ruin this country. Thomas jefferson believes the Banking Institution is more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. The banks and corporations will go up around while the proud people [indiscernible] understoodg fathers 200 years ago how dangers these institutions are. People do not understand that the fed is a private bank. Woodrow wilson lamented the fact that he allowed the Federal Reserve to come into being. We had a first and a Second National bank of the United States. Andrew jackson got rid of it. I do not understand why your guest is carrying the water for the Federal Reserve, which is unconstitutional. Host let me jump in. What was it that he said that got your attention . Caller he is not telling the people the truth. He thinks the economy will get better even if they dont have any kind of implicit knowledge of economics. They can look at this economy and the Federal Reserve keeps printing money. Host let me jump in. There is a little bit of trend on our tweets about the fed, mostly negative. Here is one more. Go ahead. Guest what these callers need to recognize is that we try that. It is ironic Thomas Jefferson complained about that. Int is exactly what happened the absence of a central bank. Private banks issued their own currency. And so the years without a were frequently subject to panics. 1907,was the panic of which did stop until private tanks put private tanks put an end to it. The Federal Reserve is not perfect but better to the alternative. It is the case the Federal Reserve has not always done the job adequately. They allow the Great Depression to happen. What we have seen in every country, absent some Public Authority to control the issuance of authority, panic happens. The caller is wrong to say the Federal Reserve is a private bank. That is not true. They have no say in the appointment of the president. Policy is controlled by the lord of governors in washington and they are appointed by the president and confirmed by the senate. Host it looks like janet yellen will be the next head of the fed. Guest she will be one of the most qualified individuals ever named to this position. She has spent many years on the Federal Reserve itself, the last few years at the elbow of ben bernanke. She will have extraordinary experience and ability and she will bring continuity. When the Federal Reserve is in the policy that is something that would be valuable. To the extent you think the current leadership has missed something, that is not in appreciative of the limits of then janet do, yellen will have that same blind spot. Ust our guest is gregory ip,. S. Economics editor at the economist. Educated at Carleton University in ottawa. Our next call is from al from detroit, a democrat. Welcome to the program. Turn the sound down on your set if you can. We will hear you much better. Caller thank you. How are you doing . Host welcome. Turn the sound down on your set. Caller i am sorry. Host we will ask other folks to do the same. Caller can you explain to the people that most of our businesses went overseas . That is the reason why we do not have any jobs here of any significance . All of the jobs that used to pay that amount textiles. We do not make anything. Everything is gone. That is where our middle class went. Can you explain to them that nixon went to china and the republicans they have had opportunities with lower wages or no wages at all and that is where our businesses went to. Guest if you look over the grand sweep of time, the size of the Manufacturing Sector has shrunk in overall relative to the rest of the economy. This didnt just happen over the last 12 years but it has been going on over the last few decades. It takes far fewer workers to make a car or a pair of shoes today. Some of these countries did take jobs away making textiles because they could do it more cheaply. The people who might have been making shoes found other jobs ready xrays reteaching Early Childhood education. There was a very large off shoring movement. We believe that has now slowed down significantly. A lot of the most obvious jobs have gone. Labor costs in china have gone up. It has slowed to a trickle. Some companies are bringing jobs back. Look at the imports. It has been slower than the growth of exports. We seem to be making some progress. Host the timing of this part of the conversation is interesting. There is an article in the New York Times. Clothing iseas the headline. Working conditions can be harsh. Year this country factories. Eign it goes on and on. Host not sure if you had a chance to see that story. Guest it is interesting. A large factory in bangladesh collapse killing over 1000 workers. Diplomatic and trade pressure was applied to bangladesh to improve conditions for workers to prevent recurrence is of this. Industries who outsource manufacturing of apparel to factories in bangladesh have been asked to take more seriously the code of conduct. Administration has taken a tougher stance because organized labor has been pressing for this type of, these types of demands to be made on bangladesh. Factories were able, were brought along to come up fully to the expectation with labor safety, it would not bring any jobs back to the United States. From tom is on the line colorado. Thank you for waiting. Caller good morning. Thest had one comment about Federal Reserve. I am not against the Federal Reserve. I am concerned about how Monetary Policy is used to be a de facto taxation when they drop Interest Rates and take money from people who are on fixed income and redistribute that two people who are trying to get out from under their homes. That is not under the purview of the congress is concerning. I just wanted to wish everybody a happy hundredth birthday on the 16th amendment. The country has changed quite a bit in 100 years. We talk about economic fixes. The republicans talk about cutting spending and the democrats talk about raising taxes. You do not hear people talk about the third option of taking the income tax out of the price of products overseas and heading that to the tax of the products sold within the United States, which would be the fair tax act of 2013. I like to hear the guests thoughts on that. Guest i am not familiar with that bill. A lot of people have talked about the value added tax. That would be levied on Domestic Production and on imports. It would be excluded from anything that was exported. That would help the export competitiveness of the United States. I do want to touch on one thing the caller touched on, how the Federal Reserve is punishing savers. The Monetary Policy is a very blunt industry. It cannot pick and choose who it helps and hurts. The question to ask is not whether it hurts or helps others but whether the country is better off. There was enough additional demand for goods and services and put people back to work, people earn more money and they can accumulate savings again. It helps ang term, majority of the country get jobs and to save. They may be wrong in the end. I think they are probably right. Host congress did not extend the Unemployment Insurance. In the wall chart street journal. which states would be the hardest hit . A little bit in the central, especially illinois, and several states back east. Want to speak more to the prospect of an extension of this jobless insurance . Guest patty murray and the administration had hoped to include an extension in a budget agreement and that was not possible. The republicans have taken a strong view that there should not be an extension to unemployment. It would have been about 25 billion. That would have busted through the spending caps. More budget negotiations in the new year with how much the federal government may borrow. There has to be an agreement to raise the limit. The administration went like to see additional uninsure ance. Benefits increased a case could be made you still want additional purchasing power. The political system is not there yet. The democrats do not want it badly enough to have a big fight. Tweetergging in from a on the under employed. Guest there is quite a few ways of measuring this question. Population at the over the age of 16, roughly employed. Of them are that means we have 40 who are not employed. Why are those people not working . A lot of them have retired. And a lot of them have disability or some other thing keeping them from working. A lot of them are the officially unemployed. They are looking for work and tell the government when asked they are looking for work. There is a chunk of people that are not officially unemployed but do not seem to show up in any category and we do not know what is happening to them. Some of the people are working parttime and would like to work longer hours. Ofer people may have run out an insurance Unemployment Insurance and would like to apply for disability. Once you are on disability, you cannot work. You are not allowed to work. This Program Becomes a disincentive to get back into the workplace. Doesnk the way the country retraining programs to get some of these people to keep working. Right now there are not a lot of jobs waiting for them. Hopefully we will find a way to get these people back in the job market. Host randy in sacramento, welcome. Caller yeah. I havewant to say that been working for the past couple of months, couple of years. I just started a parttime job. I tried to apply for the health program. They said i am qualified for the Health Insurance. And also, i have been a truck driver for 20 years. Going all over the u. S. Delivering all types of produce all over the u. S. I get to the warehouse, up to illinois and idaho, these huge namebrand warehouses, there is generally 99 of the time it has been all illegal mexicans who are working in the warehouse is and just one or two white guys in charge. They do not even speak english. You ask about Social Security and they do not understand that. Work andcome here and we send our money back to mexico. ] all of th seasonal jobs, it is the same thing. They work during the season and go back to mexico but they still collect unemployment from the u. S. The government is not trying to find out about these people. There is a lot of people out there who could have a lot of the jobs if they would get the illegals out of their, or at least find out whether they will be living in the u. S. Or mexico. Host he left a lot on the table. Guest this has been a hot button issue for a number of years in this country. It is the case there are a lot of immigrants, many of them, undocumented working in this country, especially in agriculture and construction and the like. Those are job some of the people would perhaps be working at if the undocumented were not there. Stronglyrom pew suggest the number of undocumented immigrants coming into the United States has drastically declined over the past four or five years. Apprehension has stepped up considerably in the last four or five years. The economy has been week in several sectors. Mexicos economy has been doing quite well. The economic imperative for people to leave mexico is not a strong as it once was. The birth rate in mexico has plummeted. The average family in mexico is not much larger than it is in the United States. The pool of people is much smaller than it was before. A lot of the things that have exercised people about this large pool of workers, a lot of those forces will have dissipated. Host we have an email from greg. There is a number of aspects that do not add or subtract money but move it around. A lot of young people will be paying for insurance plans that they perhaps would not have wanted or needed absent this law. The extra profit to subsidize the plan of older and sicker people. That does not attract or add money in the economy. There were a number of taxes put in place earlier this year designed to help pay for the program. That will take spending power and a ghost to pay for Health Insurance and health care. It will be kind of a wash. There are some additional effects. People with Health Insurance might be able to move more easily and not worry about losing a job. Some people who used to work when not feel it is as necessary to work if they are just on the borderline. They can now get lowercost Health Insurance through obamacare. That could force the labor force to shrink. Host jw, welcome to the program, an independent. Jw, are you there . Caller what would happen to [indiscernible] was a trust fund set up for my father. What would happen today . Guest that sounds like a question of trust and state law. Host lets move on to sharon from texas, republican. Ander hey, good morning merry christmas. Thank you. I have a question about the Federal Reserve. Ourre coming to the end of 100 year charter with the Federal Reserve. I would like to know if we signed another one or not. A newrstand that this is system with fiat currency. We do not have the money because it is not back light gold and silver. The government has the authority to coin our money without interest, so we are paying the Federal Reserve interest to print our currency, fiat currency. I hope people will get behind campaign for liberty and rand paul and forcing an audit of the fed. Do you know if we are stuck with the Federal Reserve for another 100 years or so . Guest when the Federal Reserve was first created, it had a 20 year charter. That charter was repealed to come up for renewal. To the point we would be better off with a different currency, i do not believe that theory supports that at all. We had over 100 Years Experience with the gold standard. We had many severe depressions and panics. When times are good, even at finance system backed by good lens too much. The Financial System collapses. Whateverially, Monetary System you have, one day youll wish for another one. That was the case when money was backed by gold and silver. For all the mistakes the fed has it is not august for me that the period we had without the fed was any better. Host i regressed has been greg ip our guest has been greg ip. We will turn to taxes to get some taxes vice from kiplinger. Our guest is Kevin Mccormally. He will explain how to prepare 013 and what is2 ahead for next year. We will be right back. The cspan student camp competition wants to know what is the most important Issue Congress should address next year. Make a five to sevenminute documentary. 100,000 in total prizes. The deadline is january 20. Get more information at studentcam. Org. If youre offering services, there is one set of rules. If it is over the air one way, yet another. The marketplace has converged beyond that. These are 80yearold concepts. Follow the technological trains and all digital businesses. The first i would observe is the dramatic shift from hardware to softwarecentered systems. The minute youre able to do the more, i think the full creativity of Software Engineering comes into play. Five years from now, what is the concept of a channel . How many of us watch Linear Television in real time, other than for sports activity. Now you are seeing this device shifting. I made recorded on my dvr but i want to watch it on my tablet. Experts on the future of television, tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan2. Washington journal continues. Focusing this morning on your tax money. We have a full our duty your comments about tax policy for this current year and also for 2014. Our guest is Kevin Mccormally with kiplinger, editorial director. What are the most important couple of things we should know about taxes . Women ate men and the the capital are not going to change the law. They passed a bill that was signed into law affecting our we know what013, the rules are. The Government Shutdown slowdowns the work on their computer programs. They have to deal a house soon they will start sending it refunds. This will affect the early filers. Theyre going to have to wait and probably will not get there refunds until mid february. Host as people think about getting their taxes prepared, how critical are these last couple of days for tax filers . Guest for most people they are not critical because the books are closed. There are opportunities abound this time of year. End contributions, a big deal. Something we love is the kid ira. We encourage parents and grandparents, this is a perfect holiday gift. 2013,hild had a job in they can have an ira. The last thing a teenager is going to do is put away money for their retirement. If they get money from mom or dad or grandma or grandpa, a ghost into an ira. Power of camp finding compounding is absolutely astounding. That is the kind of thing you can do it year end. Anan go until april 15 for 2013 ira contribution. Host lets put the phone numbers on the screen. Eastern and central, call 2025853880. If you live at west, 2025853881. We are going to walk through things that are expiring at the end of this year and look ahead to next year. Lets talk about the expiring tax breaks of 2013. Guest there are a lot of them. We think congress will reinstate them. The one that has been extended is the fact that teachers can deduct 250 from classroom and supplies. It is not going to affect your return. 50 bonus depreciation for businesses. It is an asset that should be depreciated over five years. Instead of getting 20 depreciation the first year, you can have 50 and 20 for the remainder. It is part of the stimulus brand. We want businesses to spend money. To reinstategress this incentive. Host state and local sales tax. Guest in effect for 2014. We have been able to deduct our state and local income taxes. The people in states without income taxes thought this was unfair. Basically the loose states the blue states get a break and the red states do not. You get your choice. We have a higher tax rate in the district of columbia. Texas and florida, it is a nobrainer. It expires at the end of the year but it will be extended for 2014. Host so far everything will be extended likely. Guest everything was up in the air but right now things are pretty settled. You can start gathering your information. Another one is for people who are over 70 and a half. They have to take money out of the account by december 31 if they have iras. Otherwise 50 , the irs will take from you. You to get your required minimum distribution out. You should probably give your book rich a call to get that done. Host status on a couple of other things. Mortgage insurance premiums. Expires you can see, these are the expiring provisions. It is in effect now. You dont need to worry about it. Host remodeling homes for Energy Efficiency and electric vehicles. Those are things on our list of tax breaks. Guest on the home, that one will probably go away. That allows a 500 dock read it for windows and doors. Throughr is in effect 2016 so that one is safe. Host jimmy from texas, good morning. Caller hi. I watch thisto say every year. It is very helpful. Thank you very much. Situation. Mplicated contractordependent and look forward to what that entails. [indiscernible] behind. Ill got forms or whatever. My taxey did not know broker. I still owe for Social Security. I do not understand. Every single one of my dollars are spent kind of in my business as a consultant, which is also a self employed individual. Is not that in america people are trying to make corporations into people. You have to be a corporation to be a person. Taxt unlike the income when you get an exemption, the Social Security tax applies if you make more than 400 a year. Owe is probably why you Social Security taxes. You are going to pay as an independent contractor 15. 3 . That is why you get that big deal. Because youre independent contractor, that is where that bill is coming from. Host mary from new york, good morning. Caller i have got an ira, my husbands ira and it earns all most nothing, a pittance. Ien i take it out to live on, have to pay tax on my income, which is more than the dividend. This irate is not something that is going to last me. Is not a good thing for my lifetime. Out having to take money regardless of whether you need it or not. If i am so looking to not need money from my account. I just feel like this is my money. Who is telling me what i have to do with my money . Guest here is the deal. It is not your money. Your husband made a deal with the government. He let that money in any deducted on his return. He said to uncle sam, you are now my partner. Grow sam said that can taxfree until you are 70 and a half or when youre widow starts to take it out. At that point i want my share back. The government wants 25 of what when in. This is why congress created the roth ira, for people to say i do not want the government to be my partner. No deduction going in, no taxes coming out. You do have to take the money out. Congress does not say you have to spend the money. Half, they70 and a want you to take it out so they get their share of the taxes. You can put it into another savings account. I am sorry about the low Interest Rates. You probably want to shift some of that money into a stock fund, not a lot because you are probably older. The market is up 30 this year. Host joseph from roanoke, virginia. Caller merry christmas. Afeel like im watching saturday night live sketch. No idea how to prepare federal taxes for next year. And chaing weight and ball. Nobody knows what theyre tax preparation is going to be next year. Obama tells us the economy is doing great. Then he tells us he is very unsatisfied with republicans because they did not extend the unemployment tax dividend insurance. How can you quantify both of those . Guest we are talking about 2013, filing this years taxes. Host next year we have no idea what is going on, in his view. Guest that is baloney. The law does not change that much from year to year. Congress is not going to put another tax increase on us next year. Fed,n bernanke leaves the he is saying if congress hadnt been in our way, the economy would be great. 2 s year started with a increase on every worker in america. A lot of people thought congress would never stop that tax break. They did. The income tax is going to be there. It keeps changing and shifting but it is tiny penalty for people who do not have insurance. I think we pretty much know what the tax break is going to be. Your wages are going to be taxed. You could pay a surtax on your investment income. We know how to plan to reduce the tax burden. That is what we talked about at cap ledger kiplinger. Host we have a tweet. Can you speak to what Congress Might be up to next year . Guest absolutely nothing. Senator baucus, congressman camp, these guys have been going around the country for the last two years, we have to have tax reform and we are going to do it. Camp is term limited. Paul ryan says he wants to be the chairman of ways and means. Every thing is going to be slow down again. We need tax reform. 1985,n covering taxes in leading up to tax reform. That is 30 years ago and we have not come back to it yet. Host do not look for anything in 2014. No action. It started in 1984 and it went nowhere. We had a second one in 1985. It rarely started moving. It takes a long time. The tax code is very complex. It is going to be tough. Illinois. In bradley, caller good morning. I have a unique question about other income. I work for a farmer and he paid in grain sale of about 2000. Should i put that under other income or should that be on a schedule f . Guest i do not know the answer to that. It is probably not other income. I think if you are being paid for Services Rendered on a farm, it probably has to go on either f or schedule c. I find very few things that can be put there the jimmy lee. Rarelyused but i would say f or c. Host good morning. Caller thank you. Purchased a lot to build on. We did not have purchased another home instead. If i pay the property tax in the 2013 calendar year for both of on mycan i deduct it federal income tax for both my lot at home . Guest yes, you can. There is no limit on the number of properties you can deduct property tax on. Caller thank you. This is the first time that we will be able to deduct since the 1980s. So we willd a car, be doing sales tax. This has to do with the state of michigan. If i get a refund from the federal government and deduct income tax, i friends get a 1099 from them. If i deduct sales tax, will i get a 1099 from the state of michigan . Guest i do not not i do not 1099 for state gives a sales tax. Are you sure you want to do sales taxes . Is that going to be higher than the income tax you paid in michigan . Caller i think i want to do it. We are over 70. Yearl be doing my rmd next and i want my income down because we really do not need the income. We live very cheaply. Convert as much as i can to a roth to leave it to the children. Guest ok, that makes sense. Host we have a list of the most overlooked tax deductions, according to kiplinger. State sales taxes. Guest if you are in a state ist does state income taxes, based on your income and state and will show you how much you can deduct. In addition to what it says, if you buy a car or boat or airplane, you can and that specific dollar amount to the calculated amount. People take the dollar amount and they are done with it. Be sure your and that or youre going to shortchange yourself. Host also the refinancing ports on a mortgage. Guest when you buy a house, the points on a mortgage are completely deducted in the year that you buy it. Points on it refinancing have to be deducted over the life of the mortgage. 30 each yearct 1 for a 30 year loan and it is up to you to remember it. If you refinance a loan that you be recently refinanced, the points you have not deducted are suddenly deductible because that loan has ended. You have to be careful not to overlook that deduction. Host Student Loans interest paid by parents. Guest you can only deduct interest if you own it and pay it. There is an exception when it comes to student loan interest. Child gets tohe deduct what the parents paid in interest. The irs says we will consider the parents gave the kids a loan and the kid pays the interest. Host jobhunting costs. Guest a lot of people are looking for work. What you spend can be deducted. That includes if you fly. That is deductible. You get to deduct this whether or not you get a new job. It is a miscellaneous job. They are deductible if they exceed 2 of your gross adjusted income. The agi is going to be low and they will get this tax break. Host baggage fees. Guest well hate them. If youre flying on business, that is a deduction. Host where can people find out about these . Guest a lot of other publications and websites. I recommend people check out our kiplinger. Com. We try to make it easy to learn. Host james, welcome to the program, newark, new jersey. Caller thank you. Ive been doing business with wall street since 1981. The percentage of people not paying taxes at all is 400,000 people, 100,000 of them pay zilch in taxes. Knows that sident president of apple is paying 520 taxes and 9. 4 taxes. Paul ryan andand, other people in washington have been doing business, 30 straight across the board tax for everybody. How do you think that idea sounds to you . Guest the flat tax idea . Is interesting what happens when it comes up. Great ideak it is a until i start thinking about what they have to give up, their mortgage Interest Deduction and the state income deduction. Stick in a tax break here in a tax break their. On hundred thousand people, call the irs and give them names. If you are right, you get a bounty. Host tom in minneapolis, hello there. Caller can you hear me all right . I have two questions. One is really short. The important one is this. About 11 years ago, i was working as an independent consultor. I do this for four or five years. One year i deducted i received a refund but i realized i had a 1040 x or something i did not deduct my withholding from my that is a clear, clear blackandwhite deduction. That is a business expense. Died. Irs owesy short, the me about 2000. I am sure they would not contest it. I have been working with one other agents from kansas city. I was dealing with one other agents back and forth, back and forth. It was excruciating. I was supposed to file my business return for that year and i never did file that business return. They let it go under the bridge and figured it was water gone. They are not going to ticket up or bother me after 10 or 11 years. If i were to go back and file dos, is is some chance i i have an additional right to a deduction . Or no chance of the world . Guest no chance in the world. You only have three years to make a claim. The statute is over. Every year we run a story. There are millions of dollars in owe peods that they ple, like you. You only have three years to claim a refund. I am afraid youre out of luck on that one. Host interesting tweet. I dont necessarily expect an answer on this one. Guest i think shirk is the wrong word. The brakes in the law were put in there for good reason. We want to encourage Home Ownership in this country and it is good for the economy and communities. Is it shirking your duty to take full advantage of it . I do not think so. You can be a patriot and pay the minimum amount of taxes you owe. Host we may have touched on this before. This is from chris. Guest i am not sure. The key credits have all expired. The plugin hybrid, though might be one. Host here is another one. Guest no. I am sure that will be included on the short form. I am sure it will be on the 1040 a. That form has not been completed host heres one more email. I bought a car this year. Will i get a 1099 from the state of michigan like people who deduct income tax . Guest i do not think so. We had a similar question. 1099tates do there is a that states that give refunds the fact that you deduct sales tax does not matter. You end up getting a refund from the state. There is a gop for that. In deduct those expenses 2012. A refund in 2013, you say that i deducted too much in 2012. They make you go back and file that amendment. In reported that his income 2013. If you itemize, that is taxable income. 10 of people do not itemize. They claim the standard deduction. If they claim the standard on the fed, it is not taxable. If the itemize, they can deduct it. It is taxable. Host big question the new Health Care Law. What else should people know it tax wise about this and how it will affect them . Guest the vast majority of people, it will not help them affects them at all. If they buy insurance on the exchange, the subsidy that they get from the federal government is for low income. It is handled by the irs. The Affordable Care act the irs is in charge. When you apply on the exchange, you have to show them your income. They verify that with the irs. They say that you deserve a credit this year. We will send 100 per month to your Insurance Company. Reduce the premiums that you have to pay. This time next year, when you file your return, they will see what you really earned. If you earned more, they will say that you have to pay back some of the subsidy. If you earned less, they will give you a tax credit to true things up. This year as a piece of cake compared to next year. Host we will have you back next year. Marjorie from saint simons island, georgia. Thank you for joining the program. [no audio} host marjorie, are you there . Lets try ken. We will try to get back to her. Ken from colorado. Caller yes, thank you for taking my call. I am retired. I have a traditional ira. I want to withdrawal to buy real estate. I plan on doing the work and basically my son will buy it from me at the end of this year. How much tax what i pay on that traditional ira and some of the remodel that we will do . It will be Energy Efficient and things like that. Mainly, what i want to know is with that money, and the work i will do, what is the tax implication . Money outn you take of a traditional ira, every nickel is taxed. It is as if you have not made any hundred patients. If you take out 20,000, youll have to report that under tax reform. That will add to your tax bill. , if you do with that money you do end up selling the house to your son, the money that you invested on improvements will increase your basis. That will produce a loss when you sell the house or reduce the gain when you sell the house. That may have some impact in the year that you sell the house. If you withdrawal in 2013, you have to report that income on your return. You might ease the loss if you can delay a little bit. Make their withdrawal in january, then you do not have to report until you file into 2014. That is especially true for people who retire in the first two years. The penalty for underpayment can be waived. You may have to make payments based on the withdrawal in january. You will not have to pay the whole bill as you would if you take the money out in 2013. Host anything coming down the line in 2014 that we should know about . Guest i do not think so. The mortgage Interest Deduction is probably secure. President obama has talked about tax reform capping the value of deductions. People who paid taxes at 39. 6 to not get the full benefit. We do not think it is coming up in 2014. Second homes you can read duct more you can deduct mortgage interest. There has been talk about allowing people to deduct interest. We think that anything that happens will be grandfathered for people who purchased before the change happens. We do not expect big changes there. Host lets hear from muncie. Blaze is on the line. Caller kevin, you spoke to a fellow who was asking about future taxes and what we come up for. What might slow the economy in 2014. You are saying that there will be no new taxes. What is being avoided and what i never hear on these morning shows are the regulatory stifling of the economy. I am in the Automobile Industry and we employee 600 people indirectly. What is happening with this cfpb , who is overseen by congress. Y simply decide interrogate, regulate, and fine. They are saying things that are not necessarily true. There is no way to get to these people to talk to them. This is what we are talking directly about. Financing automobiles to dealerships. This cfpb, if you are not talking about regulation, taxes may not. These are things that people are not talking about are paying attention to. Theyre really slowing the business. Were deathly afraid of new acquisitions. Tightening of the controls that they put on mortgages. You need to talk to some bankers to really listen to the chokehold that theyre putting on mortgages. Have an expanding economy, but we have this thing in washington. Nobody is paying attention to it and nobody wants to talk about it. Guest i think a lot of people are paying attention to it. The mortgage thing we just refinanced our house. Our thumbprints were taken. I asked what this was about. There was a scandal in the mortgage and should. But i said that that was caught by the thinkers and oversight. Why does the borrower have to prove identity . It is true that it is covering mortgage now. A lot of people think that that is a good idea. Andas the wild west of 2006 2007. That led to the crisis. I am not sure what the colors talking about regarding the protection board and automobiles. The Auto Industry had a great year. They went way up. They were providing the economy i do not think auto sales are being stifled. I am not aware of the roles. Host this is something you mentioned earlier. Roth ira. Are they still planning to convert to roth . Guest a lot of them are. Some depends on converting money from a traditional ira to a roth ira. You have to report that as income. If you do it right now, you have to add 20,000. The advantage is that once you put it in the roth, all future earnings are taxfree. Not taxdeferred. Planners like the idea of diversification taxation. You will depend on the traditional ira or the roth ira. I talked with a couple in california. They were using roth ira to increase their subsidy. They are below 65. They are not on medicare. Most of their income comes from Social Security. Most is taxfree. They are drawing out of their roth. Their tax income is very low. The subsidy is very high. This is the kind of opportunity that people have in retirement. If they have diversity of really haveey will the flexibility to hold down the tax bill. Host is the deductible can you deduct Financial Planning . Guest it is like jobhunting expenses. It is a miscellaneous expense. It is deductible to the extent that it exceeds two percent. It has to do with earning income. The government is more than happy to help you earn income. Host they protect taxpreparation . Richard, new york city. Caller hi, how are you . I live in a condominium in new york city. Are charged a capital assessment fee for the repairs done on all of the yards of the unit. Can i deduct that capital assessment fee from my taxes . I pay over a fouryear. Period. Each year, i deduct for each of those four years. Can i do that . Guest i do not know the answer. I looked at that years ago and i cannot remember. I am trying to imagine what the deduction would before. I would think not. I assume that that would add to your basis. If it is capital improvements, i am pretty sure that is what it would do. You would take 20,000 over the four years. It would increase your basis and reduce your profit when you sell. That is not how it used to be. I do not negate can be a deduction. I do not see what category it would fit under. Host 450 more minutes, maybe 20 minutes, we will talk to Kevin Mccormally on the year end tax advice. We will talk about what congress is not doing in the area of taxes. You can continue calling in and send in your tweets. Thingseaks touched on already. Can you tell me what is on the list . Host they talk about a couple of things. Add more money to your 401 k . What are the roles . Seven 2500 can go in. The problem with that is that it is really too late for that. Unless you have another paycheck coming in in 2013. We got our last one must week. If you have one coming up next week, you could ask your employer to shift more money into the 401 k to reduce your tax bill. Host another big one is conversion to the roth ira. It mightone is make sense in 2013. If you do it in 2013 coming up to pay the tax for 2013. If you wait until january, you will in 2015. The reason you want to do it earlier is because of the dual role. Youou do it and lose money, have until next october 15 to say forget it. Return and you can get back to traditional. That is the advantage of doing it now. I hope people do not do that next year. If you wait until january, you have until october 15 to make that same change. You will not lose it, but the only reason to do it is so that you can undo it if you have a problem. Host linda is calling from schenectady. Caller thank you for cspan. I have received retirement incentives. I was wondering if that is eligible for conservation of the ira . Is it considered earned income . Guest it will be reported on your 1040 under w2 form. I am 99 certain that is the income. Host what will you do beat be doing with this . Caller i will do in a roth ira if possible. Guest i am 99 certain you could. It will show up under w2. That is one of the definitions for deductibility. Host caller from durham, north carolina. Go ahead. Caller good morning. Thank you. I needed some property. Over three stages, three different years. It was 10,000 per year. Now, i am selling the property. I need to get an idea of what kind of tax i will have. Guest i understand. When you receive a gift. You also receive the donors baby. You need to know what the donor paid for that property. , it waswas given to you worth 100,000. You are silly and now for 120,000. You will pass on more than the 20,000 difference. You need to find out what the donor paid for it. What was their tax basis . That is what you subtract from the proceeds of sale to is 15 to 20 depending on income. That goes up to 80,000 on returns. Youll have to figure out your game based on what the donor paid, not what it was worth. Host we have nick from salisbury, maryland. Mother claims my brother and i as adult children. We do not work. We are in our 30s. She is claiming us on our taxes. She got a letter back asking for just no forms to be filled out. It is about be sharing custody with another parent. Stuff that would not apply to the situation. To know if that is a legal deduction that she is making . Are there extra forms to fill out . Guest there are two types of dependence you do not qualify because youre too old. Than 24, youder have to have less income than the consumption amount. All,u have no income at she pays 40 of your bills, it is a legal deduction. Go to the irs website. Search for dependents. They have a publication that will explain all the rules. Theres a difference between qualified children and other qualified individuals. I believe these forms that they will ask you to go out i have never seen those. Host is there anything that we need to know about the operation structure and strength and power of the irs moving forward . Guest it is a very troubled agency. They have all of these issues. They really get squeezed when it comes to appropriations to run the place. Theyre given all sorts of responsibility. The Affordable Care act enforcement is going to be incredible. That is why it will be a difficult year. A lot of people hate ira. I do not. They are not overpaid. They work hard. They have the best interest of the country at stake. In mind. It will be a tough year for them. Squeezeess continues to what they paid for the federal government, it will get tougher for the employees. I think they will continue to do their job. Host we have jenny on the line from maryland. Says north it dakota. Do a have that right . Caller yes, you do. Host go ahead. Caller if a person puts on steel siding on their home, can you use that as a homeimprovement eduction for 2013 . Guest i do not know if steel siding would qualify for that energy conservation. You can go to epa. Gov. That is where they list what is available and what counts. I am not sure if that is or not. It is a relatively modest tax credit. Not a deduction. But you can do is add it to your pieces of the home. It increases the basis of your home. Again, that is not as important to you. Most is still taxfree. Host we find another tax smart way to give as we had out of 2013, you talk about people writing checks. You also talk about donating stock. Guest is a terrific break. You still have time to do this. 10,000 before the end of the year, you write a check and get it deposit eduction. If you have stock they bought five years ago, and you give your alma mater 10,000 of stock , you can still deduct 10,000. You never have to pay tax on that 5,000 appreciation. Asset. If you own the you deduct the full fair market value, no one has to pay tax on appreciation. Or should call your broker fund to start the process. Ask about theto Government Shutdown. You are saying that the day that they will accept tax forms is still delayed . Guest it is 10 days now. Is the last day of january that they will start. Host what about that april 15 deadline . My daughter gave birth to a baby boy on saturday. Parents 2000 of tax breaks by coming 10 days early. Host tax advice, right . When, from oregon. I get a gift from my mom through the year, monthly. It amounts to 9,000. Is that an earned income . Or is that taxfree . Does she get to take that opportunity is as well . Guest gifts like that are taxfree to you. Your mom does not get to deduct them. They only deduct gifts to charities. You can give up to 14,000 this year. You dont have to worry about the gift tax. There is a gift tax. Can to an individual she deduct it . No, she cant. Host new york hello. Caller i am retired. I want to know if when i reached age 60, will they take out taxes . Guest the only thing you get is your standard deduction. The difference between 59 and 60, no interest at all. No difference is all. No difference at all. Caller this is a pension. Why should they take out when i am retired . As if i was working . Guest there is a form called the w14 for pension. This is a big change. Between working and retiring. When you work, the government says your employer has to withhold taxes. Once you retire, it is up to you whether or not your withholding. A lot of people use withholding so they do not have to make quarterly estimated payments. If you are taking out more than you owe, then file that w4p. Host jacksonville, florida. Good morning elaine. Caller i would like to find out i have an old irs. I have been paying for two years. They set up a payment plan for me. They continue to charge penalties and interest. I am wondering why this continues. I am on a payment plan. It seems like it is not going down. Is there anything that i can do . Guest the law forbids them from waiving interest. I think the penalty is either one half or one quarter of what it would be otherwise. If you think it is too high, i would contact and ask them to explain it. The penalties can still go on installment plans. It is reduced over what it would be if you were not on it. Host we stay in jacksonville for fred, who is on the line. Caller good morning. I would like to find out about annuities. I have a trust fund and an annuity that my dad have left us with. He passed in 2009. If there is any percentage difference versus 2012 or higher you have to get in my figures as far as the closing figures for 2013. We will normally see them in january. From my metlife annuity, i get checks monthtomonth. They are about 320. Aboutre i have taken out 35,000 from my trust fund annuities. That is to metlife. I am 54 years old. Really t it can when i turn 59 in 2014 or doer it is later on you know of any percentage increase that there might be in 2013 as opposed to prior years . Guest with an inherited annuity, that is considered income. The process that you have to pay tax on that income. Just like your father would have. The annuity was aftertax money. Part of each payment will be a tax return. Part will be investment. The Insurance Company to send you a 1099 at the end of the year. That is what you will get in january, explaining what is what. There should not be a change as to the percentage of one to the other. There is no tax law change. Host lafayette, indiana. Wesley, go ahead. Caller i have been working and i have two parents. Both of them are on retirement or disability. Neither one of them piled taxes or an income or anything. My question is, i have been making improvements on their house, both underneath with wiring and plumbing and on the outbuilding. As in, roofing and electrical. My first question is whether there is any way to file that on my taxes or not. Guest i do not think so. That kind of improvement wouldnt prove the basis of the home. There is no tax advantage there. You are providing more than half of your Parent Support it is possible they could qualify as your dependent. Below 3900as to be each. I doubt there is a tax break here at all. That does increase the basis of the value of the home. Host is there anything we have not talked about . Guest i think we have covered a lot. Host we will see with the next couple of callers have to say. Michael and pennsylvania. He will be the last call. Caller my wife passed away this year. I received a Life Insurance policy of 42,000. Is that declared as income . Guest first, my condolences. Also, they are taxfree. Host anything else . Caller thats it. Host our thanks to Kevin Mccormally for coming in. We will look ahead to next year. The place to go for all sorts of financial stories involving taxes and the Health Care Laws and on. Host we need people to subscribe to the magazine too. Host thanks again for your time. Guest thank you. Host we will take a short break and then we will come back and take some open phones. We will hear what you have to say about happenings here in washington. We will be right back. Cspan, we bring Public Affairs events from washington directly to you. When you in the room at congressional hearings, white house events, briefings, and conferences. Offering complete gaveltogavel coverage of the u. S. House. All as a Public Service of private industry. We are cspan, created by the cable tv industry 34 years ago and funded by your local cable or satellite provider. Now, you can watch us in hd. As 2013 wraps up, we are here at the u. S. Capitol to tell you about our year in review series. A look at five important issues that we have covered over the past year. Heres the lineup. Tonight, immigration laws. On tuesday, Senate Filibuster rule changes. An essay surveillance on wednesday. Thursday, a look at thomas. We wrap up the week on friday with the u. S. Budget and the federal government shut down. Starting tonight at 8 00 eastern. Washington journal continues. Host we will spend the last part of this Program Hearing from you about health care specifically. The earlier part of the show, we wanted to know what your experience was so far. Numbers are laid out for you on the screen. I had a good run with fewers earlier. We want to hear more from you. The obamacare care reaches a critical enrollment deadline. This is a headline from the National Journal. Do you want coverage on january 1 . Today is your last chance to get appeared well talk with a reporter shortly about all of that. There was one story about the deadline today. The deadline is today for coverage on january 1. This of head of this piece says that healthcare. Gov can handle the rush. Today marks the last day that you can sign up through the federal and state Health Exchanges to have coverage starting january 1. Government Officials Say that the site can handle a lastminute rush of consumers. There is still fear that the word may not be getting out to people who most need to enroll. It is certainly important to people who are used to having some health care coverage, because they want to make sure there is no gap in coverage. This is from the director of families usa. The concern is that it may be inadequate or unaffordable or they may have been in high risk pools. It is absolutely a priority. Debbie is calling in from everett, washington. What has your experience been so far . Caller i am very happy. 714 pering 700 month for Health Insurance. That one of those letters they canceled the policy and wanted to put me on a yucky one. I went on the exchange and i am saving 300 per month. I get a better policy that covers more. Host how was a getting into the system . The dougal on the website . Caller yes. I had a problem. I did not want Health Insurance for my have has been. He does not need it. When i went to deduct and claim our income, it would not allow me to do that. I had to call on the phone. A told me where i made the mistake and they fixed it immediately. I finished filling out my application online. I had no problems. It took me a long time to be able to get through. Me a couple of hours. Finally, i called them and they called me back. They let me leave my phone number for them to return the call. Host thank you for weighing in. We appreciate that. Bill, tampa, florida. Hello, bill. Caller yes, hi. Host go ahead. Caller i have been working since 5 00 this morning to enter my information on the health exchange. I have been bumped off five times. When i do go back in, i have to restart. There is a considerable amount of information. The site is not very userfriendly. It is not that i am not computer literate. I have a degree in computer science. It is extremely frustrating. I have been up since 5 00 eastern trying to enter the information. That is my comments. Host thank you for sharing your experience with us. In addition, we give you those phone numbers there. There are other ways to weigh in. Go to twitter. We will continue to read your tweets if you want to send those in. Vote atalso continue to facebook. Com. You can go there or also email us at journal cspan. Org. Lots of ways to get through this morning. We have a reporter that we spoke with this morning. She is at National Journal and is a Health Care Reporter there. We asked her to explain why the deadline is today for insurance for january 1. Why is this so important . Guest today is the first deadline that consumers who want Health Insurance under the law really have good 11 59 is the deadline. If you happen to be on the west coast, your deadline is 8 59 tonight. The last day is march 31st. Today is just the deadline if you want your coverage to start as soon as possible. Host described the rush that others have written about here. How do you think it is going at this point . Guest healthcare. Gov are really faced a health first two months. The first two months, it was in repair mode. Officials were working on it and trying to make it easier to get in. Enrollment reports were pretty dismal. We do know that december saw a huge spike in signups. The first two days alone some more enrollments in the entire month of october. And at a press conference on friday, the president said that more than one Million People have signed up on the exchange. More than 4 million have been found eligible for medicaid. Is still far below the initial estimate. They would need 7 million signups in the first year. With more than one Million People signed up to date, we could see a huge rush today. Face a huge rush and how will they deal with all of that traffic . We will have to see how it will hold up. Host there is one sub headline in one of the papers that says that healthcare. Gov can handle this rush, according to officials. What have they said about this rush . Guest they have said, as that paper sites, that they can handle the rush. They are saying that because there is a queuing system. 5000 can handle 50,000 users at a time. About 800,000 users per day. When the site exceeds that traffic, that is when they enable this queuing system. It enables them to Contact People and tell them when they can come back. They have enabled that before and it has worked. That is why they feel pretty confident that if they see those numbers, which they expect to do today, they will be able to handle at. Host were talking with clara ritger, i Health Care Reporter at the National Journal. The headline says that they reached critical deadlines. If you want coverage on january 1, today is the last day to get it. Talk about the announcement late last week chris remind us what that was. Host guest sure. Joe manchin wanted an individual mandate delay. The administration did a miniature one of their own. For all ofced that the consumers who have received cancellations, we do not know how many that was. I have seen an estimate as high as 15 million. The numbers of consumers who received plan cancellation notices the coverage did not meet the right requirements those people had two options. They would not have to sign up for Health Insurance or face the individual mandate penalty or they were now newly eligible for catastrophic coverage. That is a barebones coverage and is a lot cheaper. Typical bronze or silver plan on the exchanges. They were given somewhat of a reprieve. That is important because we know a significant portion of consumers would be affected. The administration did announce earlier that they estimate roughly 500 consumers 500,000 consumers received cancellations and still have not picked a new plan. We do not know how many will itose to opt out, but could be a significant portion. Host are there other reprieve the had . Are there other reprieves ahead . Guest its tough to say. One of the key components of the law is to get people in these exchanges. It is hard to tell. Request ofme at the a handful of senators. If they were to receive enough pressure again, who knows if they might do another reprieve for other people. Host what else should we know at this point . Guest at this point, what is important to look forward to going beyond december 23 is that we will want to watch to see whether the people who wanted the coverage were able to sign up in time. We do not know what will happen. We do not know whether people know when the deadline is. We can only do so much from our Public Information standpoint. It is so tough with the number of headlines that they have deadlines that they have set. People initially had until december 15. Were waiting to see if we have anecdotes of people who wanted coverage and did not get in time. We are also looking to see what people are selecting. Which plans they are selecting. What are the most popular. Do they like the coverage that theyre getting . We will hear those stories going beyond january 1. Host thank you very much. Early on monday morning and you are on the west coast. Thank you a lot. Guest thank you. Host earlier today, we were taking your calls on your experiences with the Health Care Law. We will get to more of your calls. Since that interview, speaker boehner, sent this tweet. Republicans have seized on these daily, unfolding problems with obamacares full implementation. There is a corresponding story with the hill. Several corresponding stories, actually. We want to give you a taste of what republicans were saying over the weekend about health care. They are out there, as you could imagine. A weekly address was made by aaron shock of illinois. He spoke at Eureka College about health care. Heres what he had to say, particularly about young people. [video clip] young people helped to put the president in office. He is pushing us into years of less choice, fewer opportunities, and larger builds. This is not how it was supposed to be. Everywhere that i go, people come up and say that we should do something to stop this law. Their right. We have to scrap it and start over with an approach that focuses on lowercost, more choice, and more freedom and competition. We should make it the young people pay their fair share for health care and nothing more. Instead of washington telling us what to buy, lets get back to letting every american choose the plan that is best for them and their families. Every time i am asked what washington can do to connect my answernnials, is that we should get government out of the way. Hard work and education will take you further than any government program. Lets give young people the chance to build confidence, give them an incentive to work and save and take risk grid rekindle the entrepreneurial spirit that sets this country apart. The Health Care Law does not of this. It only sets us back and makes things more expensive. I know and you know that we can do better. Now, south bend, indiana. Caller happy holidays. I wonder if the congressmans freedom and liberty is included for me. We were looking for a public option. We didnt want to go through wall street and all the problems. The only people that are getting healthy from the Affordable Care act is the u. S. Top five health insurers. I do not know if you know, but it is the end of the year. All of the profit statements are soaring this year. Freedom and liberty, i did not have. To answer your question, what is mikes parents. I wanted to buy into medicare. That was the public option. It was not in there. They made sure to kill that. My liberty and freedom does not count. I am forced to go through wall street for my health care. That terrifies our family. Were are tired of being gouged. Ceos make hundreds of millions per year. I would like to suggest that you do an investigation of Health Insurance profits. Host lets try milton in bowling green, kentucky. Caller hi. Happy holidays. I really enjoy cspan. I try to listen to it morning, noon, and night. I went through the kentucky website. We have a Good Government here. They put a website and for us. We have a new coop. Here and i was paying 1500 a month for me and my wife. About 760, which is half. The only other option was anthem, that was in kentucky. I am very pleased. I hope that all of the other states look seriously at their state government. I think that is the big problem. I would rather have a singlepayer. This is a hybrid system and we will see if it works. It is a free market based system. If you do not like this, you will hate socialized medicine. Host mischa . Los angeles. Go ahead, please. Lets try georgia. Mark from georgia. Caller good morning. Wife,erience is my where she works, she had a really good policy that covered her and myself. With good deductibles and stuff. An International Company bought them. They were switched to a garbage policy. I am selfemployed. I had called up about getting my own insurance instead of through hers at work. What it was is that it will cost way too much money. I will have a 4000 deductible. We just barely get by now. Construction,in this to me is taking one class of people out of going to the emergency room and putting another class back into the emergency room. I talked to a few other people. This is what will take place. Me and my wife will be forced into getting divorced. When i do have to go down to the emergency room i recently had to and i got builds over 3500. I do not want to have to pay that. I do not want nothing for nothing. We went from one set of problems to another set of problems. Do not garnish my wages. Were going to have to get divorced. We still may live together. This way we will not lose our house or have a big credit rating. We always have excellent credit ratings. It, with this health care, went from one set of problems to another. It is a different class of people. That is my experience. Host i will a goat grid we are running out of time. We appreciate you weighing in. The hartford current reminds folks there of the deadline. That is today. Deadline looms for residents. Today is the last day to sign up for coverage that will be effective on january 1. Next should this paper, we have the front page of the state in south carolina. Theyre running a story that many other folks are running about the socalled sticker shock with health care. They write that it is a key enrollment deadline. Many people without coverage have been sizing up policies on the new marketplace. They are making what seems like a logical choice. Theyre picking the cheapest one. Increasingly, experts in Health Insurance are becoming concerned that many of these firsttime buyers will be in for a shock. They will discover they are on the hook for most of the initial cost. That is the story there. In politico and elsewhere, joe manchin from West Virginia is making news today. He was on a morning show yesterday talking about obamacare. He wants, according to this headline, that i could still collapse. He says they could collapse under its own weight if there are continued problems. Heres a look. [video clip] if it is so much more expensive than what we anticipated and the coverage is not as good as what we have, you have a complete problem. This gives you a chance to adjust to market. See if the market will absorb and buy the product. You cannot tell someone to give me all of your rivals and i will a shot. They have to go on and say heres all this information about me. Then you have to buy it. They come to the realization that this is all america will pay. This is what theyre willing. Are they getting the best product . Dont say that this is what you have to buy. That is where we are. I would like to say, can you move the ball forward . Can i get more people insured . Do a have to p. M. Able to a have to have people in trouble . Can we not agree that those are worthy goals to get rid of and move to a Healthy Workforce . Otherwise it falls under its own weight . It becomes more than we can absorb, absolutely. Host heres is a new poll that is out now. Support has dropped to a record low. This is a new National Poll that cnn is reporting. It is a survey released today. It indicates that most americans think that the Affordable Care act will actually result in higher prices for their own medical care. Only 35 of those questioned say they support Health Care Law. It is a five percent drop in less than one month. Ins is up from four points november. Nearly all of the opposition is coming from women. This is according to a poll reported on by cnn. Mike has been hanging on the line from orange heart, florida. Caller thank you very much. A minute or two i was on the line. It tells the story and asks the question. This was passed three years ago. Why has it taken three years for the media to recognize what a lot of us saw the day the law was passed . That is one question. The other i have for the people that are calling in. Talking about how they signed up and say dollars money. How do they feel about taking those subsidies and Cost Shifting to those of us who have to bear the brunt of this . Especially the young, who are just trying to start out. How do they feel about making them pay for their new Health Care Plans under the subsidies . Thank you. Host michael, live oak, florida. Caller good morning ann merry christmas. Host what is your experience . Caller i signed up two weeks ago in a public library. That the dayd out i was supposed to go in to go into finish the setting up process, i had an appointment at 1 00. I got a call at 9 30 asking if i was going to buy insurance. Nevertheless, the fee is very reasonable. I just retired. I had no insurance for five years. I was laid off. The economy went south. Are therance gurus richest people on earth. Host thank you for calling. Tom coburn from oklahoma was on meet the press yesterday. He talked about the republican objection and heres what he had to say. [video clip] ought to talky about health care and what we are for rather than continuing to talk about what we are against. Now, causesight people to spend more money. They have less choice and have a hired adoptable. Theres less freedom. , the ideas behind the federal government managing isropriately the economy proving itself erroneous. What i would say is that we need to change health care. What they have done, you cannot fix this mess. ,he Insurance Industry regardless of what you think about the companies, it is on its year now. Host time for a few more calls on this topic. Is it daleen from hudson, New Hampshire . Caller thank you for taking my call. I am a Senior Citizen myself. Who try to payus claims that we need to pay already. We will not ask for help. I also have children. They cannot keep their house warm. The price of the oil that is out there i am so concerned about them. They cannot afford to buy. They cannot afford to buy insurance. Host anything else you want at . Caller there is something that is there an Obama Health Care out there that would provide for them or help them in any way . Host thank you for calling in. Fargo, north dakota. Caller good morning. Host what would you like to say . I am on Social Security disability. I have been a hard worker all my life. My way of thinking is to work. To always work. Missing my left arm above my elbow. I have a serious back injury where it hurts to walk. I walked with a cane. I want to go back to work, but there is no one that will hire me. I am quite capable. Law is kind ofe good in a lot of ways. It will enable me to continue to get myself taking care of. Host thank you for calling. Viewer via twitter responded to the clip that which is played. Yes, it would be nice to hear anybody from the gop talk about what they are for related to health care. William, indianapolis, you are on the line. Caller nobody can tell me to hate obama. You just have to look at what he has done. It is allhis about this mans legacy. Put his head on mount rushmore. Cut us loose from this fiasco. Additionally, what people do not understand is that this will make target look like nothing. Us whatl tables tell the price of insurance should be. You do not want this in the future. This is embarrassing. I try to get a 5,000 deductible. I tried i could not even finish a project. The price is out of whack. Americans are so naive. Obviously, i am old enough to know that your independence and intellect pretty much dictate your future. The millennials do not understand that. Theyre told to surrender their pajamas and eat and drink hot chocolate. Weyou cant see it, maybe need to shut up all the High Technology and teach people to read and study issues. Host thanks to everybody who called in. Nearly 80 folks weighed in. We will be back tomorrow, just like every day. 7 00 eastern time. We will now take you to the floor of the u. S. House of representatives. They will have a brief pro forma session. No major legislative business. No business at all. Theyre out for two weeks. When they come back, it will begin your it. They will be talking about the budget spending bills over in the senate. Enjoy the rest of your day. Happy holidays to you. We will have this brief session and be on with our regular Program Schedule for the day. Enjoy the rest your day will be back tomorrow. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2013] the speaker pro tempore the house will be in order. The chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker