Clients might be able to endure. As long as they do not talk to their tpas even if the government does, that would not be a substantial burden or make them complicit in the provision of contraception . Is that correct . Right now, we are being prohibited by this regulatory scheme from entering into contracts with tpas that do not provide this coverage. I believe it would interfere with that exercise if there was a scheme that prevented us from contracting and telling them we do not want you to provide this coverage. You would not be able to do that. You would not be able to tell your tbas not to provide contraceptive coverage if you told the government you are opting out. Your role would and their. Im sitting here today without having my clients evaluated. It seems that would burn our exercise, not to be able with the tpas. It is predicated on our relationship. Earlier you said that, as long as you do not talk to the tpas, you would not feel you are complicit. I think the government could talk to another provider or set up a different scheme. But i do think, again, not waiting through all the facts, i am not a theologian. I took theology and catholic high school. The gist of your argument was that what makes the burden substantial and what makes it so objectionable is that, in order to obtain exemption under the mandate you are required to do an act, any act, the result of which is that the thing you object to is caused to happen through another route. By virtue of your submitting your objection on a piece of paper, that triggers the government taking actions which results in the provision of the coverage you object to to the employees. Isnt that correct . It is not any act. Our factual showing below was addressed to this situation. That is what our clients evaluated. It is this act. How would it be different if the act were a different act . For example, if you are simply being told you will be provided with a button. All you have to do is press that button. That will bring into play in the same way that this scheme is brought into play by your filing the objection, if you press that button, it will bring into play the government financing of the things you object to. How would it be different . If that were the case you would come before us and say well, when we press that button we are facilitating and bringing about the things we object to. We are complicit. I do not know that we would. If by pressing a button, the government therefore goes to some other administrator, not ours, to arrange for the services, we might not object. I do not know the answer sitting here right now. Secondly how would you relieve your conscience . If youre pressing the button is not substantially a different and at from filing a form . This is the kind of thing. Hobby lobby said these are difficult those optical questions that the court is not in the business of resolving. We are very much in the business of resolving questions like whether a burden is angel. Substantial. That is what we evaluate everything. If we made a factual showing of our bishops and theologians made a determination that it violates the legislates if pressing a button thereby has the government providing services to somebody else. I do not think we would provide that conclusion. If we did, hobby lobby instructs that is what the court has to accept. The government can litigate over whether we sincerely believe that. If it somehow demonstrates we do not really believe that, it is a pretext for a lawsuit, we would lose. But once the sincerity is not an issue, and it is not here your definition of substantial burden is anything that the affected persons as sincerely and considers to be a substantial burden. It is a substantial pressure. And the court can always look at the nature of the pressure being applied to modify believe. The government can litigate over the belief. That once the believe is set and here, that has to be accepted. The courts role is to not engage in our practice. That part of it is simple. Because you have these crippling fines. Thank you, counsel. You reserve three minutes for rebuttal. We gave a little extra time to the appellees. If you run on a little bit, i will not object. A few quick points. Primarily of clarification. One thing that particularly struck me about the appellees argument is that they make clear their objection is not to identify themselves as wanting an opt out. But to the government taking independent steps to ensure thirdparty administrators provide contraceptive coverage to what is, in this case, tens of thousands of dependents and beneficiaries. They object to them being not able to talk to their tpas. Under the revised accommodation, there is no requirement that the plaintiffs talk to their tpa. They cannot instruct them not to provide contraceptive coverage, correct . They no longer would be telling their tpa not to provide contraceptive coverage. They would be notifying the government that they would not like the tpa to provide coverage. This is an accommodation that the court found acceptable in hobby lobby. Acceptable in hobby lobby. And in the Wheaton College, the court made clear that the notice that Wheaton College was providing the government could be used by the government to ensure that women was even able range of contraceptive coverage under the act. That is essentially what the plaintiffs are being asked to do, notify the government that they are choosing to opt out. The tpas we are talking about our blue cross, blue shield, emblem. Very large thirdparty administrators. I do not think there would be an objection if the government contacted another tpa. Would that be feasible. Is that a less restrictive alternative . What is available under the revised accommodation, and i think it is important to emphasize that the government is not actually requiring a thirdparty administrator of the plaintiff to do anything because they have church plans. What occurs is that the departments notify a thirdparty administrator that there are incentives available to them through reimbursement from the federally funded exchanges. It is entirely voluntary on the part of the tpa to provide contraceptive coverage. The present regulations do not allow the departments to contact different thirdparty administrators. Again, the tpas we are talking about, blue cross, blue shield United Health emblem, they are large thirdparty administrators. And the plaintiffs are able to opt out entirely. They are effectively exempt as hobby lobby make clear. And as Wheaton College made clear, nothing about the plaintiffs providing notice to the government under revised accommodation should prevent or preclude the departments from ensuring that the tens of thousands of employees and beneficiaries receive the full range of coverage. Is there anything that prevents the plaintiffs from communicating with the tpas in whatever manner they choose . The plaintiff can continue to communicate with the tpas. I should also clarify that nothing in the they make a point that they are required to maintain a contract with their current administrator. That is incorrect. There is nothing in the regulations that requires them to maintain a current contract. Suppose they went to the tva and said, if you do what the government is inducing you to do by these plans, we will drop you as our tpa in the future. They could drop the particular thirdparty administrator. There is nothing in the regulations that precludes them from doing that. They could drop their thirdparty administrators. This issue was addressed in the proof for life decision. There are a limited number of pa tpas in the country. They would have to find one that administers a plan for a large number of employees, correct . That is correct. Again, they have thirdparty administrators administer these lands. The government is incentivizing administrators to our compelling interest in ensuring that women receive coverage. What if the administrator advertised itself as one specifically designed for religious organizations and the brochure they showed clients said we will never provide contraceptive coverage . And they found this person, this tpa. What with the government do . There is a case that prevents those facts currently pending. I think Christian Brothers association is a thirdparty administrator that does not provide contraceptive coverage. That case is being litigated. I would emphasize that what the government has done here does not require them to do anything. I understand that, but it is just one step from here to there. That is what happens with these cases. If the plaintiffs are successful year, should we not expect to see hobby lobby asking for the exemption rather than the accommodation as well . This is part of the difficulty in these cases. The Supreme Court made clear in hobby lobby, the reason it relies so heavily on the accommodation is it in short contraceptive coverage is still provided. That is unlike the exemption for images employers, as your honor pointed out at the beginning of argument. Here, the thousands of women who need contraceptive coverage to plan pregnancies popularly, to make sure that they are maximizing the outcomes for their babies and themselves from a health perspective, to achieve equality with men without paying 68 more for health care, all of those interests are satisfied with the accommodation which respects religious liberty is in place. Plaintiffs take advantage of the opt out, and the government can require or as otherwise incentivize administrators to make options available without costsharing. I just have one question. I do not know that you have the answer. How do we judge sincerity in believe . Sincerity in believe is not at issue in this appeal. The government does not contest the plaintiffs have sincere religious objections to providing contraceptive coverage. Again, it is the substantiality of the burden that is at issue. That is the standard they have not satisfied. If this were not the case would you say if decent 30 were not conceded in this case, would it be appropriate for the court to be judge sincerity of belief . I think that is a difficult issue. The court is not presented with it here, so it neednt determine sincerity of belief. But as the plaintiffs pointed out, it is a difficult issue. Again, the question here, the legal question, about substantiality of burden, plaintiffs are under regulations entirely separated from the provision of contraceptive coverage. Every effort is made to notify employees that their employer is not funding contraceptive coverage. That the coverage is separate. What plaintiffs are objecting to is the government incentivizing or regulating third parties to meet its compelling interests. That is certainly not allowed. Thank you both for good arguments. We will reserve decision. I will let you clear out. The next case on our calendar is martin versus the young concert honor incorporated. Thank you. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] the house is set to vote tuesday on a bill that would repeal the 2010 Health Care Law and instruct committees to develop an alternative. The House Rules Committee meets tomorrow at 5 00 p. M. Eastern to consider rules for debate on the measure. We will have live coverage on cspan3. Next, a look at the republican approach to the Affordable Care act and the potential legislative alternatives that could result from the boat. This is 40 minutes. Host philip klein is commentary editor for the Washington Examiner. Good morning. On tuesday, the house voting on repealing the Affordable Care act. The first vote in this congress, but the 60th since 2011. Guest i think we can expect it to pass. When they say 60 votes on repeal, that is somewhat misleading in the sense that a number of the repeal those have been to undo certain aspects of the law. There have not been as many that are full repeal. Either way, obviously, this is going to be vetoed by president obama if it passes the senate and gets to his desk. But you have a lot of new members coming in who have not have a chance to vote against repealing obamacare who ran and campaigned on repealing obamacare. It is a chance to get them the ability to vote against it. They will probably move on to more targeted legislation. Host the way that it has been written, not only repealing the act, but also instructing key committees in the account in the house to come up with alternatives. Can you explain . Guest i think this is unnecessary. I have this new book, overcoming obamacare, that looks at the specific brooches republicans and thinkers on the right have to try to have an alternative to the law and move things in a more free market direction. The problem has been, up until this point that there are fundamental differences among republicans on what the best type of alternative would be to obamacare. As a result of that, it has been easier to not release an alternative. And then unify around repealing obamacare, which everyone agrees on. However, as i argue, i think that is shortsighted and misguided because if obamacare and other Health Care Programs are allowed to go on autopilot that means government will take a larger role in the u. S. Economy. Eventually democrats, when they are in charge and have the opening to do so, will implement a more topdown, centralized Health Care System. If republicans are going to prevent that, they are going to have to present an alternative and start making a case for. Also quickly, there is a Supreme Court case coming up that is expected to be decided by june that has huge ramifications for obamacare. Depending on how that is decided, there could be a lot of pressure on republicans to have some sort of fix or alternative. This is the decision that could theoretically strip away federal Exchange Subsidies for millions of people. If that gets decided that way and republicans do not have an alternative to present, there are going to be forced intentionally into trying to sign on simple technical fix that would further entrench and sign on to obamacare. That is why i think you see a number of things that are now forcing them to the realization that this may be the year to present an alternative. Host i want to follow up on the president s comments in a moment. In your book, you talk about key players, including the new chair, paul ryan. What is he going to propose . Guest it is unclear. Paul ryan has, in the past, signed onto various alternative health care plans. However, that was before obamacare. Obamacare has changed the playing field. Because now, republicans have to deal with the question of what to do with the people who have some sort of benefit from obama for care obamacare. Regardless of the fact there are many losers from obamacare, there are people getting Subsidized Health insurance. When you have among republicans is a divide among several issues. Issues such as, can it be fully repealed . Does any sort of replacement of obamacare have to account for the beneficiaries . Whether it is some sort of transition or relief or if there is another way to subsidize people to Purchase Health insurance. Another big question is, what legit baseline to use. This gets a little wonky. As you know in washington, we have a way that the Congressional Budget Office in all proposals against a baseline of what taxes and spending would look like if those proposals were not implemented. Now that obamacare is in the book, the question for republicans who have opposed all of the taxes and ending, is whether they wipe it all the book and start from scratch or if they work against the baseline that assumes obamacares taxes and spending. If they do that, they could have an alternative that spends money and still raises money in taxes. However, it can be seen as a tax cut and spending reduction. On that point, paul ryan said that he thinks all the spending and taxes should be wiped off the book. If he sticks by that, that is going to affect what type of alternative you can produce. [video clip] bottom line, we have to make sure it continues to work. I hear republicans are holding their 60th vote to repeal or undermine the Affordable Care act. I have lost count at this point. Here is something to remember. If the bill reaches my desk, i will happily veto it. Host again, another veto threat by the president. You can sense the frustration in his voice. Guest this is part of the strategy and has to be part of the strategy for republicans looking towards 2016, which is that republicans have tos have to say what they are for. That is why i think it is important to advance an alternative. What republicans have to do, looking back to democrats as an example in 2000 x 2006, what they did is pass a lot of legislation that were popular. They made the case for them. Bush veto them. When the Hillary Clinton and obama and all the democrats were on the campaign trail, they were able to say, it you elect a democrat president , we will be able to sign these pieces of legislation. Republicans need to do that. That is what they are doing with keystone pipeline. I think they should do it with a number of other issues. I think they should do it with an obamacare alternative. You have to show people you are not just in there to oppose obamacare but actually you have an idea to make the Health Care System better. By giving them more choice. And republicans sort of talk about that a lot, but they have not had a debate. There is a recent kaiser poll that came out that said a majority of americans do not think republicans have an alternative idea on health care. They need to change that, even if obama vetoes it. Then you take the fight to 2016. Host philip klein is with the Washington Examiner. s work is Available Online at Washington Examiner. Com. Thank you for being with us. We will get your phone calls in just a few minutes. Here are the questions hes putting on the table. Does obamacare need to be fully revealed . How broadly should any alternative expand access to coverage . Should republicans return taxes and spending to preobamacare levels. How should the tax code treat Health Insurance . How should an alternative answer employerbased insurance . The questions we will focus on as we get your phone calls. Washington joins us on the independent line. Caller i want to say something. Host if you could turn the volume down on your set and go ahead with your comment. Caller people want the government to give them their medicare free. Why should i have to pay double car insurance, double medical and those aholes get it free . Guest clearly medicare is one of the largest components of the budget. This is a reason why republicans need an alternative. If they do not advance health care alternatives, medicare, along with medicaid and other aspects of the government controlled Health Care System are going to continue to be the driver of longterm challenges. So i think that i would not put it quite like the caller, but i think that medicare is in need of reform. Host our next caller is from chicago. Herman, the line for democrats. Caller good morning. I just have two comments. Every time the democrats come out with a social program, which Social Security is an medicare, the republicans have nothing. They never have nothing. They are so fixed on tax cuts. Like now, they do not have an alternative for obamacare. They just do not like the name obamacare they will have Something Like obamacare that will have a different name. That is disingenuous for the democrats who did something for the american people. Republicans, all they did was fault obama. American people, they just was tired of republicans rhetoric to get along and work with obama. Theyre going to make the same mistake in 2016. Hillary will be the president. Guest the caller bringing up fdr shows that the trepidation among republicans for expensive Government Programs has gone back a long time and it isnt just it doesnt just have to do with obama. I do agree that republicans should have an alternative to obamacare, which is why i wrote a book on it, but i think that the alternative is also is about bringing up the market. Right now, the government controls nearly half of the Health Care Spending and they have put a lot of restrictions on what type of coverage people could buy. I think there should be a system that gives individuals more control over their health care dollars. I think that if we had that type of system, it would improve peoples choices, it would bring down the cost, and it would improve quality over time. One distinction to be clear on is that it is not that republicans havent released any alternatives. There have been individual members of congress who have released many alternatives actually, over the last five or six years. The problem has been, for many of the reasons that i outlined in my book, republicans havent been able to agree on a single one. I think that is an important distinction to make. Host this weekend in the New York Times the New York Times, the white house seeks to limit tax troubles. The white house according to its assistant treasury secretary is saying that up to 6 million taxpayers would have to pay a fee. The fee is 95 . Guest 95 or as much as 1 of income. Host they could ask for an exemption and exemption rules continue to be pretty loose. Guest there are plenty of hardship exemptions that have been added. If you cant find Health Insurance that meets us are level of your income or you can go on the hhs website and look at the hardship exemptions. It is a growing list. The dilemma for democrats is that, on the one hand, they dont want all these headlines of obama having to issue all of these taxes on people who arent very wealthy, who are middleclass, when he is talking about middle class economics, if you are taking money from millions of middleclass people because they did not pay for Health Insurance, then thats a problem. On the other hand, if you are very lenient with the exemption, then it undermines the whole purpose of the mandate. The mandate is in place to try to encourage people it is a cudgel to try to get people to purchase insurance. The idea being that if they purchase insurance and there are enough a broad enough, large enough, diverse enough risk pool, with a lot of young and healthy people, then it could stabilize the Insurance Market and offset the cost of forcing insurers to cover older and sicker people and limiting how much they can charge. So, basically, either they end up taxing a lot of middleclass people or they end up undermining the central plank of their Health Care Law. Host our guest is the Health Care Editor for the Washington Examiner and the author of the book overcoming obamacare overcoming obamacare. Our phone lines continue to be open. 6. 4 million total enrolled for healthcare. Gov, the Affordable Care act. Thanks for being with us. [indiscernible] we will move on to jennifer in southern new york, independent line. Good morning. Caller good morning. A couple of questions. Interesting program. I do work with health care. This gentleman talks about trying to offer more choice in the market, for one of the reasons that he would like to repeal the act. My question is what about so many that dont have or cant really afford that health care . This is what we were seeing coming into the hospitals. This is what we were seeing in terms of patients not being able to take advantage of the tests that were ordered for them because they could not pay for them. And we have seen a difference, interestingly enough. So, that is my comment. My next comment is, when you talk about obamacare, are you talking about the entire act the Patient Protection and Affordable Health care act, or is there a particular portion that is really something you would want to repeal . Host thank you. We will get a response. Philip klein . Guest first, im talking about the whole Affordable Care act when i discussed obamacare discuss obamacare. One of the issues you raised about what to do with people who cant afford health care, there are two issues. One is that this is actually a big disagreement and debate within the republican party. How much of a role the federal government should play in trying to ensure people for affordable coverage. There are some people who say if the government is currently doing a lot of things that are driving up the cost of insurance and if you take them away and create a truly free market, that offers more choice and competition, then that would naturally drive down prices. If you look at the phone of the phone a lot of people carry around in the pocket, it can be a camcorder or radio or cd player, an alarm clock, many things that would have cost you thousands of dollars a short time ago. The point is that, over time innovation has driven down cost and improve quality. That hasnt been true in health care. In health care, we have a system where people assume that either the government or their employer are picking up the tab. The debate among republicans most people agree we want to move to more of a consumerbased system. The debate is how much assistance should republicans should the government be giving to people who cant afford it. Some people would say, well, it is good enough to move up move toward a system in which we have something that would be more like a catastrophic Health Care System, where you maybe give people who cant afford it healthcare policies that would prevent, in the event of some catastrophic case, going into financial ruin, but that wouldnt necessarily have to cover every routine expense. There are other people that say, it is a state by state function. The federal government should not be involved in trying to address this issue. Each state should have the flexibility to tailor their own solutions, such as high risk pools, which would be a way of helping to cover those with preexisting conditions in a less disruptive way than obamacare does. And so, those are some of the ideas. I dont know if it totally answers your question, but the point is this is something that is debated among republicans. Host the Los Angeles Times based on a kaiser poll, most americans dont feel the Affordable Care act has impacted them. Most still know little about it. Few want it repealed. Good morning. Caller good morning. Most of the people who are guests have health care. Their families have health care. Im 74 years old. When i went to sunday school, i saw that jesus taught for the poor to have health care. He was healing all the time. These people who dont want people to have health care are antichrist. Republicans have faith involved in everything they do, but it was said that the worst thing in the world is the see of ignorance and conscious stupidity. Host thanks for the call. A lot of comments, not many questions. Go ahead. Guest im not going to speak to jesus, but i would say that conservatives dont believe you define compassion by your willingness to use other peoples money to give benefits to a certain party. In the case of Obamacare Obamacare raises taxes by one dollar by 1 trillion. It is easy to be generous and say im all for spending when 1 trillion of other peoples money to finance health care. It is fine to say im willing to remove Certain Health medicare benefits in order to get people insurance. That is other peoples prerogative. Conservatives would define compassion by what you as a person individually do to help other people, not your willingness to spend and tax other peoples money. Host this is a story from the Washington Examiner. A quote from congressman kevin mccarthy, the House Republicans leader. We will begin the month on renewing our commitment to individual freedom and opportunity. Michael on the independent line, good morning. Caller my comment is, we subsidize congress. They have one of the best Health Systems in the country. I would like to have that. We subsidize some of the biggest corporations in america. There is too much profit in health care. It should be a basic right for all americans to have a good education and good health. Thats my comment. Thank you, sir. Host thank you for the call. Lets move on. Florida, independent line. Good morning. Caller good morning. My comment is simply that the obamacare really doesnt help the multiply disabled. It has caused more confusion. Having medicare, medicaid, then a supplementary insurance it is becoming more and more difficult for disabled people to get even the medications that they really need. So, where is obamacare doing its job . They have made it more difficult not less. Host philip klein, as you listen to these callers, what are you learning, what are you hearing . Guest i think there is sort of a mix of frustration with people watching, both with republicans and with the law. Health care is obviously a very personal issue. There is nothing more personal than how people interact with a Health Care System that has control over the health and wellbeing of themselves and their loved ones. It is obviously a very emotionally charged issue, which is another reason why it is constantly going to be an issue, and republicans cant really sit on the sidelines without having an alternative. Host lets go to hugh on the republican line from pensacola florida. Caller thank you for answering my call. I appreciate it. I have a comment on medicare tax i have a comment on medicare tax. At the moment, medicare taxes limited to ones income up to 118,500. If someone makes more than that, they are not held for medical medicare tax above that. That is a potential fix for medicare. Guest raising the cap is something that goes along with medicare and Social Security. It wouldnt necessarily be an easy fix. First of all, you would have the economic consequences of higher taxes. Secondly, you would have a situation that completely changes the purpose of the programs, which are medicare and medicaid, the idea that these are supposedly things that people helped pay into and finance as they went along. If it turned into and that has made them different and distinct from typical most other entitlements that are a simple transfer of wealth. The wealthier to the less fortunate. If you change those programs then medicare and Social Security would cease to be the sort of middleclass entitlement as we know them today and it would become another major redistribution of wealth. That would sort of change the dynamics of the program. Host let me ask you about the Supreme Court case you mentioned earlier. The ruling is expected sometime in june. This is the headline from talkingpointsmemo. Com. Republicans are at a loss on what to do if scotus nixes obamacare subsidies. What is the potential . Guest we can back up again. This gets a little tricky. And just explain what the case is. Obamacare expands Insurance Coverage two main ways. One is to expand medicaid. One is to set up these exchanges that we heard a lot about, where they give subsidies to people and people can go on them and use the subsidies to purchase insurance, regulated by the federal government. What happened is that, the way the law was written, it gave people the option of creating their own exchange it gave states the option of creating their own exchange or defaulting to the federal exchange. 37 states have defaulted to the federal exchange. The text of obamacare says the subsidy money can only flow to individuals living in states that have established their own exchanges. There is a big debate over the case over the case. It challenges whether or not the irs said subsidies should go to every state then acted illegally because they violated the text of the law. If the Supreme Court determines that these subsidies in these up to 37 states are illegal and in would and invalid, you have people who would be stripped of the subsidy money and exposed to the full cost of the insurance. This could be a talking point for democrats for republicans to clear up the language. Thats what obama would be pushing for. There are millions of people standing to lose subsidies. You can just fix it by passing this one page bill. However, the problem that republicans have is that there are a lot of other ramifications to the subsidies. One ramification is that the subsidies trigger the employer mandate. The employer mandate, which is the requirement that employers purchase offer insurance to their employees or pay a tax that is triggered if one of their employees gets Health Insurance on an exchange and receives subsidies. If there are no subsidies, there is no employer mandate. As i spoke about earlier, there are exemptions to the individual mandate based on the affordability of Available Health care. If the subsidies are strict, more people cant afford Health Insurance and thereby can claim that exemption to the individual mandate. So, what republicans would be doing by passing this socalled simple fix would be that they would be reimposing subsidy money that would cost 700 billion or hundreds of billions of dollars to restore all of the subsidies. It would also be restoring the employer mandate in all these states and reinstituting the individual mandate for many people. Host if you go back to when House Democrats passed the bill on christmas eve, 2009, the plan was to make some of these changes. Then losing that seat in january, the seeds going to scott brown, the seat going to scott brown, restricted them. Guest one of the key sticking points in the Supreme Court argument is going to be what the intent of congress was and whether or not they actually did intend for this to be withholding the subsidies to states that did not set up their own exchanges. Was that intentional, in order to provide states for a reason to set up their own exchanges, or was it an accidental drafting error . That is going to be one of the things that they debate. Just to sum up, republicans will be put between a rock and a hard place between obama pressuring them to have a onepage fix or on the other hand, passing a onepage fix the three institutes and reenshrines, and trenches obamacare a onepage fix that reinstitutes and reenshrines and trenches obamacare. It is good for republicans to have an alternative so they have something positive to advance in advance of the Supreme Court decision. Host the five biggest obstacles to republicans agreeing on obamacare alternatives. Recommendations being put forth by philip klein. A couple minutes left with your phone calls. The independent line. Good morning. Caller good morning, gentlemen. Last count, i think they figured it was over 1 million spent on this health care website. 1 billion spent on this health care website. They could have said every citizen in this country 1 million and we could have gone and bought our health care from wherever we wanted to for the rest of our lives. You could double that amount, and still not have spent the money they spend just setting up this website. Guest i dont agree with the callers math. Host we will go on to kevin in akron, ohio. Good morning. Caller good morning. Thanks for taking my call. Im just amazed at the republicans view on the free market and insurance. There is a free market, and it wont change. The problem is they are just upset at the obamacare. The Affordable Care act just allows people to be able to afford health care and doesnt allow the people providing it to strip to make it so high that you cant afford it. This just helps the market because more people are buying insurance, and republicans dont like it. Guest i disagree. One, i disagree that this is just about obama. It is certainly, during the clinton era, republicans opposed expanding Health Insurance through the government. Republicans and conservatives disagree with the federal government controlling Health Insurance. So, if you have a problem with that, that is fine, but i dont think it is consistent to just say it is about obama. On the point of obamacare making insurance more affordable, i have to heartily disagree. Obamacare does a lot of things that increase the cost of insurance. Covering people with preexisting conditions, for instance, however popular, what that does is it brings more people who are older and sicker into the insurance pool and it drives up the cost for everybody else. People might say that is equitable and fair. I disagree. However, it is not fair to say that it doesnt drive up the cost of insurance. There are also a lot of benefit mandates that obamacare has. About 1 trillion of taxes. There arent more choices under obamacare. Under obamacare, you can only purchase the type of insurance that the secretary of health and Human Services says is allowable. And i dont think that is how it should work in america. I think in america individuals should be allowed to purchase the type of Health Insurance that they want, not the way that the government tells them they have to purchase it. Host our guest began his career at the Washington Examiner. Before that, in reuters in new york. He is a graduate of George Washington university, earned his masters from columbia, and his commentary editor for the Washington Examiner. Republican line, good morning. Caller i dont mind a new name. Im opposed to obamacare. I think its quality Affordable Care act, yet it has very large deductibles, so i dont know how many people would actually get to use it and not pay huge outofpocket costs. The other thing im opposed to is hypocrisy of the members of our government. They seem to think, especially republicans, that the private sector should take care of everything, but they granted themselves subsidies that they were not entitled to after they couldnt exempt themselves from obamacare. The subsidies are 44,000 for single, 92,000 for families. Their income far exceeds that. Also, they think the private sector should take care of everything, so why did they grant himself Public Pensions . Grant themselves Public Pensions . Host we will get a response. Guest whether you like it or not, members of congress are employed by the federal government. I think there is a distinction between people whose employer is the federal government and the federal government is providing insurance to its employees just as in other industries the employer provides Health Insurance. That is distinct from people from the federal government providing Health Insurance to everybody. I think there is a distinction there. Host we will go to edward in jacksonville, florida. Good morning. Democrats line. Caller good morning, steve, and good morning, mr. Klein. Glad to be with you. Host we are glad to hear from you. Caller mr. Klein, it seems that government, everything gets subsidized, right . I imagine you can write a book on anything you want to write a book on, about how we taxpayers subsidize capitalism, part of it, corporations get subsidized, right . I see where you can pick and choose things you dont like within the government, even without congress. They tend to pass laws and exempt themselves from the very laws they have passed for everybody else, Insurance Laws and stuff like that. And im pretty sure you get some kind of tax credit when you file your taxes. We all kind of subsidize everybody. I would like to get your perspective on that. Thank you, steve. Guest i agree with you. I think we could have done a whole other show just on corporate welfare. I think we have, coming up shortly, a vote on the renewal of something called the Exportimport Bank. What this is, it essentially is the idea that it is supposed to help promote u. S. Exports, but it is basically a bank that gives taxpayer guaranteed loans to major corporations. Actually 2 3 of the loans that come out of the Exportimport Bank go to boeing, which i think could operate completely on its own. So, i agree with you that republicans should be consistent and they should go after corporate welfare. And there is plenty of other areas that deals with discussing corporate welfare that we could have gone over, whether it is agricultural subsidies or obamacare actually is another example of corporate welfare. These hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidies to Purchase Health insurance are ultimately going to Health Insurance companies. It also mandates that people purchase insurance. What business wouldnt want a law that says we are going to mandate that everyone has to purchase your product, and then we are going to give everyone subsidies to purchase that product . Host our last call is john from manchester township, new jersey, independent line. Quick question . Caller i wouldnt have an explanation as to why in the budget they put in fdic has to cover everything the banks are doing. They complain about the deficit, but that is going to raise the deficit even more by another bailout. And all they want to do is cut the Social Security disability by 20 next year . Everything for this country is just going to the corporations and not the people. Host thank you, john. Guest i mean, i would say there is a growing sentiment on both the right and the left that the government is doing too much now to help corporations, and i think that actually is an area of agreement where potentially the right and left could get together on ending corporate welfare. Host the book is called overcoming obamacare, and the opinions of philip klein, who is with the Washington Examiner. Thank you very much for being with us on this sunday. We appreciate it. From the next washington journal, we focus on the 2016 budget west english tomorrow. We will hear from john delaney a member of an Angel Services and economic committee. Congressman tom rice, a member of the budget committee, and william conklin, Senior Vice President of the bipartisan policy center. We will take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. Washington journal live at 7 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan. With the fcc focusing on Net Neutrality in ever worry, we spoke with two industry executives at the Consumer Electronics show. An engineer with mozilla and Vice President of at t, hank holquist. We believe the internet needs strong and effective rules to protect Net Neutrality or users and developers. Those need to include subject to management and they need to be effectively enforceable. The problem we have now with Net Neutrality is not focusing on the substance of the rules. Is focused on the fccs Legal Authority and what Jurisdictional Authority they should use. Our concern is that they are going to undo, potentially, a regulatory status enlisted now for over a decade. Monday night at 8 00 eastern on the communicators on cspan2. The Political Landscape has changed with the 114th congress. There are 12 new republicans and one new democrat in the senate and 108 women in congress including the first africanamerican republican in the house, and the first woman veteran in the senate. Keep track of members using congressional chronicle on www. Cspan. Org. The page has lots of his for information, including statistics about session of congress. New congress, test access. Tonight on cspan q a with neuroscientist dr. Frances jensen then british Prime Minister David Cameron takes questions from members of the house of commons. Later, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker talks about his states accomplishments and his views on governing. This week on q a our guest is dr. Frances jensen, neuroscientist, and author of the teenage brain. She talks about the most recent work going on in the study of the human brain and focuses on the development of adolescence and the reasons behind many of the behaviors parents and others see during these sometimes turbulent years. Host dr. Frances jensen, author of the teenage brain what impact did the fire in your house have on your life and your teenagers . Well, it brought us a lot closer together. It was one of those events that you certainly dont plan
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