Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Charles Schwab report before the bell. And well hear from netflix after the close on the day. We should tell you that squawk has an extension today, because we have interviews with jamie dimon who will be with us later on sidewalk on the street, and loyal blankfein will be with us later as well. Dont miss that. When nbc has a saturday game, its thursday night football a lot of times on saturday. It may be in the 9 00 or 10 00 hour back on the east coast, but its still squawk box. Were just extending this. Yeah. Extending the programming. Lets not confuse anyone at home. Normally we have the futures in the red. Rarely do we get the thermometer in the red. Its actually minus below zero. Is it right now . Minus 3 celsius or fahrenheit . No, minus 3 fahrenheit. But sunny and beautiful. Tobey cosgrove in the sun. Look. Hes glowing. Lets turn now you cant see him. Youll see him in a moment. Turning now to the agenda, which is on capitol hill. Just two days away from president elect Donald Trumps inauguration. Confirmation hearings continue today in washington for many of his cabinet picks. Among the names to watch, scott pruitt, trumps choice to run the epa. Governor nikki haley, up for consideration to be u. S. Ambassador to the united nations, and commerce secretary d designee, wilbur ross. He will say hes not antitrade but the billionaire investor will argue that the United States should not allow for malicious practices or unfair subsidies from foreign trading partners. He has promised to sell a stake in his private equity firm, divest other assets and resign from corporate boards. He will keep interests in mortgage lending and shipping. Yesterday lead story in the wall street journal, president elect breaking with longterm convention and saying a weak dollar may be good. Sending the dollar down. A lot of the take on that is saying out loud what administrations have thought for a long time. But when youre president you always need to have a weak dollar. Hes broke with a lot of convention. My favorite thing about yesterday, president of china warning that no one country should be out for themselves. They should be global and not pursue their own interests as much as maybe the United States might try to do now. Leading by example, as china always does in being a global citizen. Never looking the other side of that, people looked at that speech as not just what were doing, but what we should be doing. Stepping into the vacuum with the United States. Fair is foul, foul is fair. The world is topsyturvy. I was quoting Abraham Lincoln. Exactly. For the people, by the people. Its a repressive regime there. Lets tell you about a new nbc news wall street journal poll out this morning. According to that poll, 44 of those surveyed approve of how president elect trump is handling the transition. 6 52 disapprove. And 98 still expect hillary to win the election. Thank you, joseph. Some stocks to watch this morning. Shares of csx, the rail, dipping in the premarket after the Company Posted missed quarterly results. Profited declined in the Fourth Quarter as the railroad firm said they felt the effects of lower commodity prices. And the strong u. S. Dollar, which maybe wont be as strong in the future. United airlines out with disappointing numbers, lower fares, and an increase in labor costs led to a 5 52 decline. And the botox maker, allergan will pay a 15 million penalty and admit to wrongdoing after being accused of failing to disclose their 2014 merger talks with activist investors. Wait. Did you Say Something about botox . What was that story . Caught your attention . Botox, allergan. Trying to buy activists. I just heard caught your attention. Yeah. Needles in the forehead. Your face is looking smooth. With botulism. With food poisoning. Cosgrove knows about that. Not that you used it. As a doctor. You might have, represent you like 75 or something . Older. We talked about that before. Youre our idol. Among the issues at the top of trumps agenda, we have Health Care Reform. The president elects pick for health and human services, secretary tom price designee tom price will face the senate today amid questions about some of his stock transactions. Joining us now, dr. Tobey cosgrove, president and ceo of the cleveland clinic. You will not be serving as director of va. It was reported that you were first picked. Do you know . I dont know if i was first picked, but i was offered the position. When it came down to your decision, it had to do with the cleveland clinic. You know, i have made a substantial commitment to the cleveland clinic. We started a lot of new opportunities. One of those is a medical school that combines the latest in technology and bringing together doctors, nurses, dentists, p. A. S, all in one facility to teach team play. And with a lot of technology that will be incorporated in that, including holograms, which we will teach anatomy now without cadavers. And also opening a facility in london. Thats a major investment for us. I think i have to see some of those things through. Do you know the gentleman that that the president elect picked . I dont. Lets get to obamacare, repeal and replace. My first question to you, as we hear a lot of the other side loves this issue now because trump will own their albatross, lets say that we did absolutely nothing. Let it go for 2017. How many exchanges would be left in most states . What would the premium increases be across the board . If we did absolutely nothing . I think if we dont do anything, well see fewer exchanges. How many fewer, i cant say. Would it collapse eventually . The exchanges . Obamacare. I dont think so. Under its own weight . I dont think so. Going from volume, paying for value, it has done some good things, but clearly with any 3,000 page bill, its not going to be perfect the first time around. Ive seen the way to get around the individual mandate is to do it with large groups. So that everyone is able to get in for a certain price. Is that viable or is the the mandate didnt work any way because a lot of people didnt buy into it. It was surprising that more people didnt buy into this. Thats the problem with the exchanges. Mandate seems to be a bad word. Most insurance look at car insurance, you cant drive a car without insurance. You stop and think about it, why would you not have to have some sort of healthcare insurance . That requires mandates. How do you do that . The penalties werent enough this time around. How do you force people to do that . You can tell people if theyre driving a car without a license, you will throw them in prison. And you choose to drive a car. Clearly there are other ways to do this, but the important thing is reforming healthcare. There has to be a couple things that we like to see. I think they like to see the number of regulations decrease. We have 3,000 pages of regulations right now, which is just tremendous burden for us. And a lot of things we have to report. We also have a limitation on how we can consolidate. Every other industry in the United States has consolidated over time. Theres not enough push to keep people well. And to begin to decrease the burden of disease across the United States. Do you have any idea of what this will look like in practice . I dont think any of us do right now. I think that hes said that come monday he plans to announce something. Ive seen detailed stuff from the house on how they are planning to do it. Rand paul has a detailed plan. Rand paul has a detailed plan. Very few of us in the Healthcare Industry know what that bill is about. Now its by april, is that the time frame . Do you know tom price . I do not know tom price. Any feelings about i dont know enough about him nor are yis he too antiobamacar . To anti i would hate to see this whole bill completely wash away without various a major replacement. You have 20 Million People being covered. A lot of those were covered and are now covered by this. I havent seen what the actual net number is. I see a lot of numbers thrown around. Im not sure how the majority of those came from medicaid, because it got expanded. Exactly. I think we picked up 750,000 in ohio. Do we know what net addition was in terms of insured people . Everybody has a different number. Supposedly 20 million. What would happen if obamacare was repealed and there wasnt a replacement . It would throw our industry into chaos. We would lose a lot to of reimbursement. Hospitals across the country are running in the red right now. Even with the reimbursements. Each year its come down. And ive been talking with several of the major hospitals here, each one of them has seen a decrease in their net this last year. Were down to about 2 . Those payments from the government from obama care were supposed to increase as years went on. You guys took a hit in the beginning with the promise of payments going on down the road . No, we had decrease in what doctors are paid substantially each year. We see what were being paid from the hospital portion of it coming down. Private insurance is paying us less and less. Weve taken 700 million out of an 8 billion organization, our costs, we figure we have another 700 million to take out. Thats why you point to consolidation as the only way to negotiate with Insurance Companies . I dont think a lot of people talk about the fact if you consolidate, you can negotiate better. 60 of our payments now are medicaid, medicare or no pay. So theres no negotiating with that. Those payments are going down. Similarly the payments from the private insurers are going down. I dont think youll see a major jump in the ability to negotiate if we do. You think about book stores, accounting firms, all of whom have consolidated to get rid of competition. Pharmaceutical prices what is the true narrative . Theyre the best deal in town because they treat chronic conditions without hospitalization . Theyre wonder drugs . Or the other side that we hear, they spend all this money on marketing, extending protection on pat tents and we dont negotiate prices with the government being a big buyer. Which is true . We saw our pharmaceutical bill go up 19 last year. Which is a huge jump for us, particularly as we are getting less and less to look after patients. Part of that is the bad actors, the valeants, epipens. Weve seen pharmaceutical drugs go up 10 a year. If medicare and lets say the government starts negotiating for lower prices. Is that what should happen when you have a large buyer in a free market . Is that the government exerting some type of pressure . How are we supposed to think about that . You know, i dont think theres anything the matter with competition. Is it competition if the government is dictating that we want to lower prices if youre going to get our business . Exactly. I think we should negotiate with the pharmaceutical company. Its still free market. You stop and think about what has gone on right now with the va, the va has the lowest drug prices, substantially lower than the rest of the industry. How much lower are we talking . 20 . I cant tell you the percentage. I dont honestly know. But they have a guarantee of the lowest of the prices. If you know that clearly the pharmaceutical industry is a tremendous industry for the United States, great exports, grade innovation, great research, but on the other hand we are supporting the rest of the world in terms of drug innovation. The rest of the world pays substantially less for drugs than we did. You said it was genetics why you look so good at your age. But your parents are not alive, are they . No, theyre not. The mekpresident elect said want one guy, i wanted cosgrove to run this, in a speech to the entire country. It would have been nice for them to see that. It would have been nice. You would have liked that. How proud would a mother be. Thats what i mean. Im surprised theyre not alive looking at you. You have good genes. Thats what you told us. Its not your lifestyle, right . You know, i exercise, dont smoke, take care of myself a bit. Get the weight under control. You have that research at the cleveland clinic. If you go in for a test, it comes back in an hour for you. And theres a programming noted here. Well talk much more about healthcare with the ceos of the mayo clinic and kaiser pe permiente. We are just getting started. Larry summers recently told us the markets were on a sugar high and its only a matter of time before disappointment sets in well talk to him about that and more next after the break. First, look at this date in history. So if you have a flat tire, dead battery, need a tow or lock your keys in the car, geicos emergency roadside assistance is there 24 7. Oh dear, i got a flat tire. Hmmm. Uh. Yeah, can you find a take where its a bit more dramatic on that last line, yeah . Yeah i got it right here. Someone help me i have a flat tire well its good. Good for me. What do you think . Geico. Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. Tadirectv now. Stream all your entertainment anywhere anytime can we lose the all. Theres no cbs and we dont have a ton of sports. Anywhere, any. Lets lose the anywhere, anytime too. You cant download onthego, theres no dvr, yada yada yada. Stream some stuff somewhere sometimes you totally nailed that buddy. Simple. Dont let directv now limit your entertainment. Only xfinity gives you more to stream to any screen. Theres no denying theres been a spike in confidence from many businesses since Donald Trumps election, nfib, even consumers. But the view beyond the shortterm is unknown. Our next guest is arguing in a new Financial Times column that were likely in the midst of a sugar high. He says we could be in for disappointment, disapproval and disillusion down the road. Were joined by Larry Summers, the former treasury secretary of the United States. You wrote a piece on davos recently too, right, larry . Were all davos men one and all. I think theres a lot to of anxiety here. A lot of anxiety about whats happening politically in many parts of the industrial world, brexit vote, elections, and what the election of president elect trump of the United States means. Theres no doubt that animal spirits are running high. Some of that is a welcomed correction to probably was some feeling that had become overly punitive in some sectors. But i think theres also a deep concern about populous policy. Particularly populous nationalist policy that lurches into protection. Thats a real risk hanging over the global economy. If its not put to rest, theres the risk that as is so often the case in the past, that the p populist policies were pursuing will have shortrun benefits, ultimately more uncertainty, reductions in confidence, a bit of a downward spiral. Theres always a chance that as a dealmaker who has built a business and negotiated, that instead of it ending up in protectionism, it just ends up in he wants the United States to succeed. He wants to export goods. He wants to be a president that, you know, that helps the economy. S this a chanctheres a chance lot of this is posturing to extract deals. Sometimes it seems we get taken advantage of. I have no doubt at all about his sincerity for wanting a better economy for all of the american people. No question at all. Its just a question of which strategies are most likely to be effective. It needs to be recognized that the consequences of rhetoric so far has been a 15 appreciation in the mexican peso, that makes every business decision 15 more favorable to mexico, relative to ohio. And thats a big step against the economic interests, against the workers who are an important part of the president elects constituency. This is not all hypothetical. Were seeing some of the direct consequences of it. He said hes in favor of a weaker dollar. Hes in favor you would have never said that. I would have never said that. I would have never said it. I think it courts increased uncertainty over time. But i think what needs to be very, very careful about pursuing policies and rhetoric that are indirect contradiction. Fiscal expansion coupled with monetary tightening, coupled with increased protectionism, coupled with a border adjustment tax is a policy prescription for a stronger dollar. So it pursue across the board policies that will push the dollar up and then to use rhetoric about a weaker dollar, i think is to leaf tef leave th confused. If theres clarity that the boarder tax is off the table, that will happen. But if you take the border tax off the table, you wont get the 15 , 20 rate. I think the world would be okay if theres no 15 , 20 rate. But the flip side is he may have to do the 15 , 20 rate and not be neutral if he doesnt do the border adjustment tax. If that happens you will see substantial increase in deficits, to no great benefit many terms of spurt investment and that will have consequences for the economy that are not likely to be so to be so favorable. I have a feeling this Corporate Tax reform debate will be more complex and contentious than many suppose. And the process may take a while. Did you see president xi quoting Abraham Lincoln yesterday in davos . I did hear i did hear about it. All things are possible. Certainly not something that one would have expected a decade or two ago. Certainly i hope that the United States will not abandon its role as a principled supporter of an open cooperative Global Economic system. I think chinas professing adherence to those norms as a welcomed development. There are steps they have to take to go beyond professing adherence to actually adhering. He said no one country should be out for itself. Thats my favorite part. No one country should be so single minded to pursuing its own selfinterests. Hearing that from china is a direct dig at trump. Do what i say, not what i do. Get real. I think there was an important concept some years ago when zelleck spoke about china as a stakeholder in the Global Economic system. China, when it was a poor country, it was fine for it to be focused on itself. With the passage of time and with gaining economic strength, they do need to do more to uphold the system. We need to encourage them in that and recognize that its not our system, its everybodys system. And well have to be prepared to engage in a spirit of compromise. Hopefully no