0 over the years and not for the better. get a copy of my book over the weekend "tip and the gipper. kwael "and that's "hardball" for now. "all in with chris hayes" stats right now. good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes and a very happy friday. you might have done a double take if you saw the "new york times" front page news analysis today. the paper of record headlining its lead story online, quote, health law rollout stumbles. draw parallels to bush's hurricane response. of course, obama's katrina is such a lame, played out right wing mean that it was already a daily show punch line all the back back in 2009. daft, semantically bankrupt, you hear any time anything goes badly in america since 2009 in america. >> it's been called obama's katrina. >> is this obama's katrina. >> president obama's katrina. >> crazy. it's like no matter what happens during the obama administration, there's the perfect bush [ bleep ] up. for the occasion. >> good health care could be obama's iraq? >> is this as some are suggesting, barack obama's enron. >> this could be obama's 9/11. >> are we now watching obama's mission accomplished speech? >> they have their heck of a job up brownie moment. >> this is obama's my pet goat moment. >> the crazy part is, it's conservatives and republicans that are in the biggest rush to make the comparisons. remember that terrible thing that bush did that we thought for eight years to convince you wasn't bad but actually good? well, now we use those very incidents as the low-water mark for your guy. >> the katrina comparison specifically deserves a five-second rebuttal. we do it by showing this handy chart from media manners of deaths in katrina compared to those from the affordable care rollout. so no, "new york times," no katrina. obama care is very much its own thing. it's a long brutal battle to make more real the promise of a decent society for all. if you're anything like me, you have watched the last several weeks unfold with a potent mix of rage, frustration and exasperation. as i follow the coverage, i find myself pitted off at just about everyone. i'm angry at a white house that failed to properly implement the single most important law they have ever passed or that anyone has passed in a generation. that handed their idealogical and political enemies ammunition which they're now gleefully firing off at anything that moves including allies and politicians who backed the white house and vouched for the law with voters. for us on the payer single left, the spectacle is maddening since many of us spent years noting the drawbacks and complexity of the romney care mandate and subsidies model. we worried insurance companies would use the law to manipulate and panic consumers. those of us who worried about that but ultimately embraced and celebrated the oohaca as a mass step forward in the long step for justice. i'm also angry at mainstream media which has managed to elevate the stories of a very small sliver of the health insurance market into a national panic. while largely allowing the names and faces and falts of the millions of poor people who will be denied health care by republican governors to remain anonymous and untold. but most of all, i'm quite simply appalled as i watch a republican party and conservative movement not even pretend to hide their glee and schadenfreude over problems with the law they have done everything in their power to sabotage, destroy, and discredit. a law that at its base makes sure that tens of millions of our fellow citizens are delivered from the terror and anguish and hardship of a morally bankrupt status quo to a modicum of care. jonah goldberg comes out and sedz, quote, if you can't take some joy, some modicum of relief in the unprecedentedly spectacular beclowning of the president, then you need to ask yourself why you're following politics in the first place. because frankly, this has been one of the most enjoyable political moments of my lifetime. i read that, and i thought, what the hell is wrong with you? that's why you're in politics? that's why you follow it? to point and laugh at becloning? to work out some weird adles nlt infear yourty comblex. it's bracing to see conservat e conservatives stop pretending to even care about the plight of the people they were pretending to care about for expediency's sake just a short time ago. even conservatives i like, even philip cline, a conservative reporter i like and follow, he tweeted this. great new said from alaska, parnel won't expand medicaid. this is how it's done. great news. no health care for up to 40,000 poor alaskans. that's great news for conservatives. those of us committed to a humane future of support and solidarity and compassionering that's what we're up against. and finally, i'm angry at democratic politicians who are starting to go wobbly. >> it's really disappointing to all of us, to the people that we serve, that it hasn't been rolled out better. >> there are provisions that need to be fixed. >> many americans don't feel well served. >> i have been frustrated from day one. >> i will never forget the morning of january 20th, 2010. a fight for health reform was not over. the house's more liberal bill stelneeded to be reconciled with the senate's more conservative version, but scott brown had just declared victory in the race to replace ted kennedy. i was walking on capitol hill to my office, and there wads this horrible depressing blanket of quiet. it felt like a day of a funeral. i ran into a member of the progressive caucus from the house and he was walking on the street, looked like he had been crying, stumbling around in a dades, and he shook his said and said, well, it's over, and he walked away. what happened next is basically nancy pelosi met with her caucus and told them to get it together. that they would pass the law as is, no matter what it took, and for democrats attempting to abandon the mission, she reminded them it was too late to dismantle the law. everyone had already voted for the ing. the same is true now. there is no separating yourself from this law. that goes for all of us on the left. if you think the aca can go down and leave you unscathed, you are sorely mistaken. we are all on the same boat. this law has had near death experiences more times than i can count. i have covered a dozen of them, and it's not just bad luck or that the law is cursed or the people pushing it aren't good at their jobs. it's because it's hard. health care is 20% of our economy. there are trillions of dollars on the line, and shareholders and companies and workers and doctors and medical device manufacturers and hospitals and patients. people, health care is something every sigil person used, and every time in every country, a society has decided to reform the delivery of it, it has been done against the kicking and screaming and sabotage and backlash and rage of entrenched interest and reactionaries. there is a reason almost a century's worth of presidents and congresses tried and failed to pass health care reform. all is a reason passing and maintaining the affordable care act has been so arduous. because it's the most ambitious piece of social legislation in this country in a generation. amidst the deserved criticisms and bad press and the undeserved hysteria and shameful gloating, one thing is clear. the only path left for those of us committed for health care for is forward. no retreat, no surrender, no going back. the only way out is through. this won't be the last battle. others will come, and there will be more after that, and there's ever, ever going to be some calm final equilib rium where everything works. because nothing worth doing ever came without. joining me now is former governor of vermont and former chairman of the dnc, howard dean, and dean nichols, the-co author of dollarocracy. i have been interested to hear your comments. what's your reaction to the news today about the house getting about 30-plus democrats to vote for this bill that is going to allow people to keep their old plans and the president meeting with insurance executives? how are you seeing all this? >> pretty much the way you are. a bunch of democrats going wobbly and getting nervous. i looked at the list of people who voted, some of whom i like and some of whom are fairly progressive, but they're all in tough districts. this is what they do in washington. my view, chris, is much more long-term than that. i, like you, prefer at least a public option, and i have to say had we had at least a public option, we wouldn't have this problem because i signed up for medicare last month and it took one final thing i would say is all of these plans have always, always been hard to do. >> yes. >> social security was a fight. medicare, medicaid was a fight. the americans with disabilities act, you go back and read the stories from 20 years ago, and there's so many similarities with people saying, oh, this is going to bankrupt everybody. it's going to be a crisis. look where we're at today. >> howard, the other thing i found remarkable watching everything unfold is you started to see republicans be like, we have to talk about what our alternatives are. it's just so patented disingenuous, i want to pull my hair out. your alternative was romney care, the thing that we passed. and it absolutely -- >> right. >> if anybody came around and said, okay, we're going to pass your thing, that would be socialism. >> well, the thing about this is so interesting is that the president's ratings are at an all-time low, and they're still 30 points higher than the republicans' ratings. the republican party is a negative party. they have no constructive solutions to talk about. the ones they do talk about are half crazy most of the time. and so they're not really -- you don't take them seriously. this bill that they passed, today, was a joke. all it did was gut the health insurance. they might as well have just passed for the 47th time a bill about abolishing obama care. they're not serious people. some of them are serious people. they don't behave as if they're serious people and the american people know it. so we're in this on our own to fix it. it ought to be fixed. this tech problem is not anything special. it's not a surprise that this got screwed up, but it can be fixed if people are willing to work hard to do it. >> that's part of what is so remarkable about this particular political circumstance, is that there just is no -- you know, the president said this the other day, in normal times i can get on the phone to the speaker and say let's fix this. you heard a lot of people make mention of the medicare part d expansion. there just is no help on the other side, right? i just -- i just think that in the sort of macrosense of this, in what is good for one's soul and one's outlook, getting people health care, which is at the root of this whole thing, that is the project. the project has bib apodesed. the project has to be seen to its completion by hook or by crook. >> that's the interesting thing. it's so fascinating to see this because what it means is there's still one party trying to move forward. maybe we haven't got the right solution. maybe people are upset, but we're the party that believes america can do better. the republicans are the party that essentially are rooting against america, and it's kimming them. they are not benefitting at all because of our problems. >> former dnc chairman howard dean and john nichols. thank you both. coming up -- >> i get a bill from my insurance company telling me that the ambulance ride was not going to be paid for because it wasn't preapproved. i don't know exactly when i was supposed to preapprove it, you know? like after i gained consciousness in the car, before i got in the ambulance, or i should have grabbed my cell phone off the street? and called while i was in the ambulance. i mean, it's just crazy. >> what millions of americans already known about insurance companies the obama administration is now finding out. i'll explain ahead. ♪ [ male announcer ] more room in economy plus. more comfort, more of what you need. ♪ that's... built around you friendly. ♪ that's... built around you friendly. isn't good enough for you?rware have -- have you seen it? yes, i have seen it, and it looks -- you gotta look better. ladies, breathe. cascade kitchen counselor here. it's not your silverware. it's likely your detergent. see, over time, cascade platinum's triple cleaning formula delivers brilliant shine finish gel can't beat. it even helps keep your dishwasher sparkling. find something, mother? no. 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