Has been going on for the congress has said. Guest sure. Obviously the botched rollout of healthcare. Gov did not help anything, but people have been having mixed experiences. Some are going to the Doctors Office and they are fine, they are using their new coverage without issue, others are encountering problems when they call their Insurance Companies. I think it will take several months for all of this to shake out and for people to understand how their plans work, first and foremost. There are different providers within the system who can adjust. There is a lot of shake up right now and no one really expected it to go perfectly in the first few weeks. Host what about the administrations response to those mixed results . Guest first, they are saying to call the Insurance Companies. In fact, many new people who have voted in the obamacare who have enrolled in the obamacare plan, they may have gotten a packet in the last few weeks from their Insurance Company that contains a lot of information. Health insurance is complicated, so there are people who are having to go to these companies with these providers to make sure they understand what is going on. The administration also set up a tollfree number to help people navigate those problems and they have caseworkers to help people with personal issues. Persistent issues. Host tell us what you will be watching in january. Guest people do not need to have paid for their coverage to begin. Some people are using coverage that they still have not paid for. We will be watching that. Many opponents of the Affordable Care act believe that we should not be counting the 2. 1 Million People on private plans as currently enrolled, because not many of them have paid their first premiums yet. We will be looking at that. Down the line we have the march 31 deadline that ends the initial enrollment. That will be the deadline for the Obama Administration. We will be watching how many people enrolled in those private plans or medicaid, how stable are those distressed pools Going Forward . Host we are talking about health care this morning from with elise viebeck, from the hill. Our numbers this morning host talk us through what you are hearing from members of congress, particularly from republicans, who are obviously very focused on this law. Guest the house gop is already planning another obamacare related vote this week. They will be bringing up the latest security concerns that somehow healthcare. Gov requires the administration to notify anyone who has personal data that is compromised because of the healthcare. Gov security issues. We dont know that has happened yet. The administration has strongly rebutted any assumption or allegation that healthcare. Gov is making peoples personal information vulnerable, but the republicans are going to try to draw attention to that this week and undercut the law as we start the election season. Republicans are working to make this law their main issue in order to protect their seats in the senate. Host one piece from the hill, talking about aca insurance spiking right now. Guest it is interesting, people were not able to use these claims until january 1 at the earliest. People often do not use Health Insurance on day one. You may not need to go to the doctor. Healthcare care providers told us on the hill that they expect things to begin starting this week. Obviously there is a holiday lag that has gone away. People are back to work, back in their normal lives, getting their needs met at the beginning of the year. Host our first call comes from new jersey. Henry is on the line for democrats. Henry, are you with us . Caller yes, i am there. Host go ahead, you are on with elise viebeck, of the hill. Caller good morning, how are you . Yes, i am. Host turn on your television, turn down your tv. We will be happy to chat with you. Turn down your television, we will be happy to chat with you. Caller let me tell you how happy i am to be part of obamacare. My wife and i were both laid off from a job the downsizes. She did not have no insurance for a while. I did not have none. Cobra costs weighed 800 apiece. On october 1 we signed up and kept on every day with every hour our calls. I did not have much problem, ok . I wish people would go into the system and see how it works, ok . I am living proof of how well the obamacare works. My wife got sick a couple of days ago. We were praying a few days ago that we did not get more from the regarded insurance. She got the payment slip, we did not have the card yet. Everything was in the computer. At the drugstore they picked up the medicine. It costs seven dollars for the medicine. My wife and i, we are very happy with the health care. I wish that everyone would look into it and give it a fair shake. The way these people are talking about it is not fair. Thank you. Guest henry certainly has a success story. He and his wife are the kind of people that the administration was hoping to help. It is possible that that family is receiving a tax credit in order to make their coverage more affordable. In the state of new jersey we have seen a lot of people reporting positive experiences. It is important for viewers to remember that this law affects every american in a completely different way. One of the reasons that the backlash has been so negative is that any negative story, it is presumed the administration is going to have to immediately fight back like it is an attack on the law. There are people like henry, who are having success. Host West Virginia, george, democratic line. Caller thank for cspan, we can get the news and the truth out. I do not think that this young lady is telling the real truth about obamacare. Do you belong in obamacare . Guest in obamacare . Caller do you belong to obamacare . Guest i have employerbased health care. I know a lot about obamacare. Do you have a question . Caller people cannot even get a telephone call in West Virginia to get the ok to get the treatment in the hospital or from the doctor. Not only that, you are not going to get the 7 Million People needed to make this thing work, for one thing. And then the emergency room is quadruple already with people going to the emergency room, using this here what you call it because they cannot it into obamacare, you put them into the medicare what you call it. It has almost tripled the people going to the emergency room. Where are you saving money . You date spending more money because of these people that did not want to buy insurance. You people are now giving it to them for practically nothing. That is why they are happy for it. I have always had good insurance that i have paid for out of my pocket. Not only that, i am also a veteran. As far as that goes. But this obamacare is going to selfdestruct. The republicans do not have to do one thing to get rid of it, it will selfdestruct itself, mark my words. Within the next year. Guest obviously, there have been many, many problems with obama care for people across the country. Peoples experience tends to be based on who they receive insurance, and what state they live in. For people in the state of West Virginia they would have many problems, which does not surprise anyone in washington. Host that number that the administration was hoping for by the end of march, do you have any idea how on pace they are . Guest we know the 2. 1 Million People signed up for rival plans under obamacare under federal private plans under obamacare on both federal and state exchanges. Certainly, that was a major expansion based on what we saw in october and november, two very troubled months at the beginning of the enrollment. I still think the administration has a lot of catching up to do to reach that benchmark. In fact, we know that, the white house has since pushed back and said that 7 million was not their goal, even though we know it was their goal in some places, but it does not mean that the law cannot survive with fewer enrollees, but it will be a major reach for them to get there by the end of march. Host fairfax, virginia, on the line for democrats. Caller i just wanted to say, obviously, there are a lot of problems with obamacare. She is right about that. Everyone knew that that would happen. Health care is very complicated. Unfortunately, the Insurance Companies are alternately still ultimately still really in power, although there are some steps, like preexisting conditions, things like that, but what we need is single payer. I am so tired of the republicans who, first of all, they do not even want to take a step away from the broken system that we had before. You know, they just want to keep things the same. We have to move in some direction. I had a young son who, when he was under two years old, had what was called baby asthma. It was very common and it usually just kind of goes away, but after he was diagnosed with that the Insurance Company sent me a letter saying they would no longer cover anything having to do with his entire respiratory system from that point on. That is the kind of crap that has been going on out here. We have got to understand that the health of human beings should not be a basis for someone to make a profit on. Guest for many progressive democrats, the law did not go far enough. We have to remember that these marketplaces are all about connecting uninsured americans with private Health Insurance. Not government run, but heavily regulated and it still remains in the hands of private insurers. There are many families out there today who are thankful for the Affordable Care act a cousin because it banned discrimination based on pre existing conditions. For his son it was something as minor as baby asthma, and for others it could have been acne, sleep apnea. Many people think that those issue should not have been discriminated on and the Affordable Care act no longer allows that to happen. Host delays have been announced for various portions of the law. Do you expect more of that . Guest yes. Perhaps before the end of march as the Administration Seeks to reach as many potential enrollees as possible, the entire sixmonth enrollment. It could be slightly delayed, that march 31 deadline could be pushed back. We will see larger adjustments to the law as well. Insurance companies will be receiving receiving more money to shore up the risk pool, and it is possible that people may see relief under the individual mandate because of problems with healthcare. Gov and for people who would have otherwise qualified for Medicaid Expansion but lived in states that were not supported. Host how is healthcare. Gov working now . Guest it is working better, in fact. They performed the tech surge, the white house called it. I remember being here at cspan to talk about it, i had gone on that morning and it was clearly not working well that morning and it turned into an enormous firestorm for the white house. Now it has turned the corner. A former microsoft executive is now heading up healthcare. Gov. I think that the administration is very focused on making sure the website irks Going Forward, works Going Forward because , it was such a disaster. Host port st. Lucie, florida, frank is on the line for republicans. Caller how are you . Guest good. Caller i was wondering, this is a tax that people have to pay to stay in the country, now. It used to be that you did not have to buy insurance to stay in the country, but now this is a tax that you have to pay to stay in this country or you will get fined. You do not have to pay Health Insurance you do not have to have insurance, but now you are forced to buy in. And it is not affordable. If they will not correct the problem, i think they should start with the hospitals, doctors, and Insurance Companies to charge too much. 45 for an aspirin to go to the hospital . I went for a toothache and they said they could not help me, that they were not equipped. They charged me 4700 and said they could not help me. Guest the caller brings up an important point. Anyone participating in the American Health care system knows about this, it is price inflation. Anything at the hospital, the inflation, it will cost more than what it would at the local drugstore. Hospitals are seen as charging enormously huge prices between them. If you compare hospitals in your hometown with other places, a procedure may cost more at one place compared to three miles down the road. There is certainly a lot of support within the public to get more transparency about these prices so that people can make choices that are better for them. Often when we need our Health Care Needs met, we are not thinking about the price and many people wish that those prices were out there in the public. Host ohio, darlene is on the line for independents. Caller good morning, ladies. Guest hi. Caller a couple of questions. They are easy. Are we headed for universal health care . Second of all, why was the various state insurance departments not involved in the process prior to the Affordable Health care . My third question is do you know anything about ohios magi . I may be saying that wrong, so i will spell it. M a g i. Also, is there a possibility that our politicians could be regulating hospital billing practices and letting us know how much we are charged for various services . Take you so much. Thank you so much. Guest some people believe that obama care represents universal health care because, as the previous caller noted, everyone is now required to pay insurance or face fines. There are a variety of extremes in getting that coverage, you might get it through medicaid or private insurance tax credits. It depends on how you define universal health care, but certainly it is a law that help attempts to achieve that in several ways. Second, state insurance departments are heavily involved in regulating the insurance. And they were before the passage of the Affordable Care act. Some of them are working heavily with the federal government to implement this law. Others have not been as involved. The magi issue in ohio is not one i am particularly aware of because i cover the federal government, but i would encourage her to reach out in ohio, they should be able to answer her question. These billing practices are the ones i was talking about earlier, desiring transparency, the Obama Administration has sought to increase that by publishing reports from data on those prices. Host we are speaking to elise viebeck, from the hill. Lets go to our democratic line. Caller over three years ago i was involved in a car accident. I thought i was set with my health care through work. Before that i injured in a car accident has been injured again. Health care in 2012, we put out almost 20,000 in health care between the copay and paying the insurance direct. I put out somewhere, not sure exactly, between 17,000 and 18,000. On the limited income that we got, that was 67 of our income. We have paid our savings out of the ira to supplement this year. My wife is not in the process of getting on obamacare. Insurance has changed drastically, slow down, stop. This could happen to anybody. You could be hit headon with a car. Life changes in a fraction of a second. You do not know what is going to happen tomorrow. Thank you for your time. Guest any american, any person can run into an Unexpected Health crisis, as the caller said, which is why many people feel that Health Insurance is so important, it prevents the kind of medical threat, but even if you have Health Insurance you are sometimes overloaded with terribly onerous outofpocket costs. That should improve for some people under the Affordable Care act, but not necessarily everyone. Host you recently wrote a post called top five obamacare stories to watch. What are you watching now . Guest we are watching enrollment numbers very carefully. They are going to suggest how successful it is likely to be in the future. We know the 2. 1 Million People signed up for Health Insurance plans through healthcare. Gov in december. Obviously the administration wants that number to be much higher by the end of march. We will be watching that. But what we really want to know is the age of the people signing up for the healthcare exchanges, which the administration has not said they will not publish the data, but they certainly have not put it out yet. We want to know whether the risk pools will be balanced. This is a concept of insurance that if you have enough young people do not subsidize the cost of your sick or patients, it will move altogether. If you do not have that, if it is only 60 people signing up, if it is mostly sick people signing up, the administration could be in trouble, so we will be watching it. There are many strategies in the pools that are not in good shape. It is not that all is lost if it is older or sicker people enrolled, but we will be watching as it will be a problem for the white house of that is the case. Host scarborough, maine, republican line. Caller good morning. Guest hi. Caller do you suspect, now, that everyone going to the hospital and to the doctor has insurance . I know that in the past people would go to the emergency room because that was their only outlet. That was our most expensive place for them to go. Now that everyone has Health Insurance, instead of the hospital billing out 69 dollars for a band aid, it is now . 69. That may be the wrong number, but i think that got paid out to Insurance Companies who wound up paying to the hospital that amount of money. Someone had that much money. Do you suspect that now all of that is going to drop . And the immigrants that are not documented people, they are going to end up in the emergency room. Who pays that bill . Thank you. Guest these ar