But tonight, we will celebrate his true legacy. He was a key proponent of Economic Growth and an inspiration for supplyside economics for decades to come. Just check it out. Listen to this. It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low. And the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now. You cant tell me he wasnt a supplycider. Well have all these stories and more. The kudlow report begins right now. First up tonight, a lot of news on obama care today. Lets get to dominic chu for all the details. Good evening, larry. Lets start with the doctors because there is new increasing concern about how much they will be paid under obama care. Now, its very difficult to get exact figures on what doctors charge. But through interviews with doctors, a news service came up with these useful estimates. A doctor might be paid 100 for an office visit of a complex nature. Medicare pays 90 of that. But for the same thing, the Exchange Plans are offering around 60 to 70. More upsetting to some doctors, they feel these rate reductions arent being clearly spelled out, not being transparent. Separately, the Obama Administration is pushing back the enrollment dates for the exchanges by eight more days. This means the new deadline to sign up is now december 23rd. Anyone picking up a plan by then will be covered as of january 1. Next years deadline will be november 15th, 2014, instead of october 15th. There are some cynics that say the pushes in enrollment pushes it right back to after the midterm elections. Instead, larry, of just before it. Back over to you. Gee, you think it has something to do with the elections . How about that . Dominic chu, cynic supreme. I want to start on these dramatically slashed doctors fees. Every day the true cost of obama care becomes clearer. Here the doctors get squeezed performing the same services for bargainbasement prices. So much for keeping your doctor if you like him. I dont know. I fear the death of the medical profession. Lets ask our guest. Here now is dr. Bill grace, also with us tonight, democratic strategist chris cofinas, heather and Jim Pethokoukis from the American Enterprise institute. Bill grace, let me start with you. Are they just pricing doctors out . Is this a deliberate strategy . 20 bucks a visit or thats crazy, absolutely crazy. They thought they had everything worked out on the front end of this whole deal. And you know what a disaster these turned out to be. I dont think they had any idea what they were going to do on the back end. But no one thought we were going to get more money from this. We were all thinking this was going to be if you remember two months ago, i said this was medicaid plus. Slightly better reimbursement than medicaid. Theres a longterm trend here. Both for medicare and medicaid, to keep slicing an slicing and slicing down. Hospital reimbursements, doctor reimbursements. This is part of that trend. Why . Why wont they reward doctors . Basically they compare the price of physicians in europe to the United States where we do get more money. However, they get free medical education in europe. They dont have the tort issues we have here with unreasonable medical malpractice suits that increase the costs tremendously. And the training is much longer here. It takes us an additional eight years of cost and very poor incomes before you actually go out and start a practice. How much is this going to knock down the pool of doctors . Lets say this stuff goes through. How much will this take down the pool of doctors . Were already 15,000 doctors shy of primary care specialists that we need. And this will eliminate many because i think a lot will go into concierge practice and others who say, im going to retire early. I want to get my panel in on this, too. But employerbased plans pay a little better, is that true . Is that fair . They do pay a little bit better, oftentimes a little better than medicare and sometimes a little worse. Were going to go Heather Higgins, what do you make of this . Whats going on here . Nothing that one couldnt foresee, unfortunately. The problem of physician shortage was already predicted to be acute. And this is going to make it worse. This is just one more form of redistribution. And it is one more example of the antithesis of that jfk wonderful quotation which you had at the beginning. He understood the paradoxes that make economies and markets work. The people who are in government right now think that they can just issue things by fiat. Poof, well have a website that works or, poof, were going to slash costs and they think its going to happen without secondary and tertiary consequences. But those of us who live in the real world know there are painful consequences to these. Whos the real culprit here . Some say the Insurance Companies are shaving down costs, right . Is obama care forcing the Insurance Companies to do that or are the Insurance Companies just making a conscious decision that costkucutting can come ou of doctors hides . Dont forget that obama care came about as part of a sweetheart deal between large Insurance Companies and the government. If you look at, for example, the whether you want to call it a tax or a penalty that people will pay for not being adequately covered under the definitions of this administration, that money goes to the insurers, to the Insurance Companies that are going on the exchanges. If you want to talk about a wealth transfer that is seriously unjustified im not going to feel tremendously sorry either for the Insurance Companies. Im also not in the lets keep doctors salaries high businesses. I think you could have a lot of people Nurse Practitioners doing a lot more. That will help stop up some of that demand for doctors. But, listen, the president could have never sold this plan if he would have sold it and said, this is medicaid plus. It would have never gotten through. Youre going to have Narrow Networks which could end up being a ton of lawsuits from people who dont think theyre getting Proper Health care because they cant go to the great local Community Hospital and its too far away and they cant get the preferred service. And then youre going to have potentially huge rate hikes at the end of this year. Its not looking very strong right now. Bill grace, one point on this, you do have as jimmy was referring to, i think, you have these storefront medical places. Theyre putting them up in walmart, for example, and other places. Whats that going to do to this whole story . That will drive prices down, for sure. But theyre going to appeal largely to people who are very poor and people who have very poor reimbursements. Those are the people who will be able to find their care there. With all due respect, however, some of this stuff doesnt require doctors, experienced nurses could do it, is that fair . Yes, i do it in my own office. Flu shots are given by my nurses. And youll get a lot more telemedicine as well. These are things we should want. These arent bad things, to have people Nurse Practitioners, medical assistants doing more of what they can. Theres a lot of crony capitalism where you have doctors trying to prevent that from happening. Chris, let me ask you i know youre a defender of obama care. What do you all have against doctors . Thats my first question. What do you have against doctors. And, remember, these guys and gals got 300,000, 400,000 in debt to pay off because they became doctors. Why are you trying to to destroy the doctor profession . Not trying to destroy the doctor profession at all. But thank you for that loaded question. Jim made a lot of valid points. The logic here is to try to bend the cost curve. If youre going to do that, youre going to you have to cut payments to some degree. This is, by the way, a phenomenon thats been going on for years, this tension between the Insurance Companies and doctors and how much they pay doctors. So thats nothing new. Obama cares probably added some new pressure to that. Theres no question. One of the things where the actual doctor makes a really good point. My friends who are in the medical profession are very valid, they come out of medical school with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. And they have to go into their residency programs where theyre not really earning an significant amount of money, to say the least. That puts them in a hole. I respect that. Thats something we need to address. All because we have to have socialized medicine, thats all that is. Socialized medicine means bad doctors. Come on. Theyre not going to get it. The pool of doctors is going to go down. The training of doctors is going to go down. You know what . Heres my thought. Chris, just came to me. I dont know why i didnt think of this earlier. Team obama wants doctors to be like in the federal service, gs14s or gs16s. As someone who was formerly in the government, i dont think thats true. I was in the government, too. The really good doctors are going to go into concierge medicine. Youre going to accentuate the difference between those who can afford quality care and those who cant, which would be the antithesis of those who want it want its going to be much, much worse. And anyone who understands economics knows the only way you bend the cost curve downwards is to introduce freedom of markets and get rid of some of the regulation which has kept the prices high. Lets not pretend like the Health Care System was perfect before. It wasnt. Im no defender of the Health Care System that was before. But the problem with obama care is it takes a broken system and it puts it on steroids rather than actually fixing it. Jimmy pethokoukis, the government starts messing with this stuff, jimmy, the government starts setting quota and price rationing and the rest of it, youre going to get more class warfare, not less. The top tier will go into concierge medicine. If that doesnt work, theyll give me a nice room at new york presbyterian. But thats not the way it works for most people. Im grateful to have that. But thats not the way it works for most people. The president said about the exchanging that the product is good. He didnt say, this is going to be a lot like medicaid. Good luck finding a doctor. It may be an hour drive away. Thats not a good product. People going into these exchanges, you have other companies dumping their employees in exchanges, thats what theyre getting, a notgood product. You got it. Many thanks dr. Bill grace, jimmy, heather, chris are going to hang around. Dont forget, the Nuclear Option fallout on capitol hill, i say this about harry reid, it might make things a lot nastier for things to come. Thats the end of the filibuster. Free market capitalism, still the best path the prosperity. The kudlow report is coming right back. However, ive got some free market inspirational quotes from president john f. Kennedy this evening. Here he talks about the british socialized medicine system. I understand that theres going to be a program this week against this bill in which an english physician is going to come and talk about how bad their plans are. It may be. But he ought to talk about it in england because his plan and what they do in england is entirely different. In england, the entire cost of medicine for people of all ages, all of it, doctors, the choice of doctors, hospitals, from the time theyre born till the time you die are included in a government program. But what were talking about is entirely different. 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. Welcome back to the kudlow report. Broadcasting live from cnbc headquarters. It was announced today that the deadline to enroll for coverage under obama care exchanges has been pushed back from december 15th to december 23rd. All right. Despite still not fully functioning healthcare. Gov, americans will get an extra eight whole days to sign up. But get this. Next year, obama care enrolliee will have an extra month. The white house says it gives Insurance Companies more time to determine rates. Maybe so. Critics say the white house doesnt want voters to see the premium prices before midterm elections. Lets ask our guests. Back with us, chris cofinis, Heather Higgins and Jim Pethokoukis. I have to start with you, chris. People are going to know the premiums are going up. I dont care what the due dates are. Listen, if this was done for political reasons, im not sure its that smart politically speaking. At the end of the day, its not like the Affordable Care act is not going to be an issue in the midterm elections. We know that. If its a question of moving it a month or a few weeks past the election, im not sure its going to make much of a difference. Either the program is starting to work and the websites fixed and people are seeing some positives that they can clearly embrace by the middle of next year and the early part of next year going into the summer or the fall, however you want to describe it, or not. And if its not, then i dont care when the deadline is, its going to be bad political consequences for democrats. Thats as simple as it is. Thats fair and honest. Heather, on this very point, i dont see what a week really does. You have all these democrats in the senate worried about reelection. They want to push it back many, many months. For the life of me, i dont understand why the obamacons dont do that. Why are they so stub bourn . Whats one week going to do . If the darn things not ready to go, its not ready to go. I would think they want to do the same thing because they want to seem competent and reasonable and at the moment, they seem neither. They seem very dogmatic and ideologically rigid and determined to force everybody into something they dont want to be in. Kaiser just came out with a poll that said it was down to 33 approval on this law. Its really, really turned. And people are seeing the real consequences and how they were frankly seriously misled about what was involved and whats really sad here is that this is only the beginning. There is so much more to come. Nobodys yet talking about all those people with preexisting conditions where their statebased highrisk pools are closing after december and they have not much place to go if these exchanges arent working. And even when they get there, they will discover how expensive they are. Youve got studies touting these wonderful subsidies. But the subsidies for many people will not begin to cover the massive amounts of premiums theyre going to have to pay for coverage they dont want. Jim pethokoukis, can i be a cynic about this . Oh, please. I want to link it back to the filibuster business we had yesterday. The filibuster is gone. Does that mean Kathleen Sebelius is gone . They can fire her and they have a filibusterproof replacement for her whereas previous to that, it would have been touch and go . Sebelius finished now . Is that one of the implications . Whats interesting, before, good luck getting anyone confirmed other than maybe Rick Santorum to be the head of h. H. S. It also plays in well with the whole ipab. That was called the original death panel. The group of bureaucrats is going to try to lower medicare costs. Now its going to make it easier for obama to fill those positions. Previously, even if he had not been able to fill those positions, it would have fallen to sebelius to be the one woman ipab. He couldnt fire her then. That would completely ruin it because he couldnt get another h. H. S. Secretary. It gives him a little bit more latitude. Chris, how long sebelius going to last . I think we ran it again tonight. Shes going out, shes in someplace around the country, talking to somebody and theyre trying to dial up the system and the system breaks down while shes there, the system breaks down. Theres a limit to how many times i believe this is it. Maybe im wrong. How many times can she tour around and go online and have the system break down in full view of all the cameras that are following her . Well, if this website isnt humming by early december, to say the least, i think the pressure is going to grow pretty severe for the president to hold someone accountable. And i think secretary sebelius will be the top choice. My perspective is when Something Like this happens, youve got to send the American People a message. Nobody likes to be held accountable. But thats the job. You go into public service, im sorry, thats the job. When you screw up, you have to hold someone accountable. The president in this case should. If i was the president , i would have fired her. The president has held somebody accountable, john boehner. Hes held john boehner accountable. The republicans accountable. Hes already checked that box. He held the republicans accountable. Chris, i admire. What you said was very honest. I think the best politics would have been to fire at least sebelius if not other people. I really agree with you. In terms of obamas perspective, a firing would have looked really good, should have happened a month ago. Just as a contrarian point of view, anybody else he brings in wont have an obligation to defend this mess the way she does. And whoever he brings in might very well be arguing for a much longer delay or a total scrapping or a back to the drawing board kind of a deal. Maybe hell get hillary clinton. She has a lot of health care experience. Maybe theyll put an outofwork doctor in maybe you, larry. I dont know. Cabinet secretaries, they make about 170,000 . I have to get out. Chris, heather, jimmy, thank you very much. Another record close on wall street today. The rally wont die. Well talk about that with two stock experts right up ahead. But first, honoring the memory of president kennedy this evening. Listen to