Transcripts For FBC The Willis Report 20141120 : vimarsana.c

FBC The Willis Report November 20, 2014

This is the administration that promised transparency. Whats going on here . Yeah. Gerri, thanks for having me. They appeared to double count the number of people who had dental coverage. Those people were counted as those who had Health Insurance and dental coverage. Its a big problem. It speaks to the level of misleading approaches that the administration is taking. We saw recently in grubergate, that they were willing to tell not full truths when came to getting the law passed. In trying to promote the law and make it look good, theyre relying on misleading approaches. Gerri well get to gruber in a second. I want to hang with the story. It came out just moments ago. Darrell issa saying, the claim this was only an accident strains credulity. Do you agree . Again, i hate to go back to gruber, theyve lost a lot of credibility because of gruber. I think the gruber thing makes the credibility problem more acute. I was talking to a former government economist this week, he said maybe theres some intentionality. If you reduce that number by 400,000, you get under the threshold. They got credit for passing the 7 million threshold. Theyll get credit by an increase larger than really . He wouldnt put it pass them. Gerri wheels within wheels. Thats taking misleading people to a whole new level. . the problem is so serious that health and Human Services secretary is apologizing the mistake is unacceptable. I will be communicating that clearly to the department. She said that on her twitter account. I have to tell you, i dont know about you. Youve spent a lot of time looked at obamacare. Weve reported on the lie, you can keep your coverage. You can keep your doctor. Prices arent going to rise. All of that turns out not to be true. At this point, i think there are so many people out there who are thinking, obamacare lets just get rid of. Thats reflected in the polls. Fiftythree to 67 opposed. And thats before the grubergate story hit. Theres a lot of dissatisfaction with the law because people who lost plans. Premiums continuing to rise. Gerri have you spent time analyzing looking at numbers around the cadillac tax. Probably the best discussion of the cadillac tax, which is in obamacare, one of 20 taxes which taxes those really Good Health Care plans offered by employers. One of the best did he dissipats was in your op he had. You brought up gruber. His comments about the lack of transparency being a good thing for the administration. He was relying on the stupidity of the American People. How deceptive was this administration about the cadillac tax . we put out this report that you mentioned. The report had three main conclusions. One, the cadillac tax was done in an indirect way. Number two, that it will hit more individual americans while they were claiming that it just hit companies. Three, it will hit more and more meme over time. If you look at the gruber comments, he corroborated every one of our findings in saying we have to do this in a deceptive way and it will hit individuals and not companies and then it will grow and grow and hit more people over time so the revenue will be so great so we wont be able to get rid of it down the road. Gerri youve come up with an estimate of how much it will cost people. Weve found a couple of ways in which it will cost people. One, if your company reduces the amount of compensation you get in terms of the size of your health plan, then you could potentially see Something Like 6,000 reduction overall in the value of your Health Care Plan without getting a compensating wage you could see taxes rise on you because the wages are taxable whereas your Health Insurance is not. Theres a double hit going on there for the american worker. Gerri theyve singlehandedly put a knife in the back of the most Successful Program in the country that is the program offered by employers. Theyre making it less and less possible for employers to offer those programs and its a darn shame. Thanks for coming on the show. Great to see you. From one intent Government Agency to another. Nhtsa, the national Highway Traffic Safety Administration has failed to protect you from takatas exploding air bags. We talked a lot about this on the show. Today in a senate hearing, nhtsa chief had to face the music. Clarence, executive of the auto safety. Ralph, a consumer advocate and author of unstoppable. Ralph, ill start with you. Got a big apology from the folks at takata from the head of their global division. However, they might have they might have apologized, but theyre not going to do what nhtsa is asking which is recalling all autos. What do you say . I think they have to. The media is on them. The congress is on them. Theres a criminal investigation by the Southern District of new york. Us attorney. More and more is coming out. They had secret settlements with victims of these defective air bags in order cover up the information and keep it from going public to the media and to people around the country. So i think takata is going to go bankrupt if they dont level on this. They will have to agree there will be other manufacturers of the air bags to replace them. They cant ramp up enough to replace 20 25 million cars with air bags. They dont have the manufacturing capacity they cant continue to resist that. They have to come clean. Gerri they say. They dont have to ramp up the recalls, that they can cover it. Which is, i think still in question. I want to turn to clarence, for a moment. In this hearing today, in front of the senate committee, we had a very graphic illustration of just how big this problem is. One of the victims was shown, and her injuries shown behind her in the photo. If youre watching the show and you have small children in the room, you might want them to go somewhere else. Its pretty greask. Ilgraphic. Look at this. This is what happened to this poor woman. Shards of metal in her eye. She will never be the same. She testified today. Clarence, to you. Do people understand how serious this is. Shouldnt americans be demanding new air bags that these fixes be made . Absolutely. This is one of the most gruesomemost grewsome defects wn and particularly worse for women sitting close to the air bags. Its like a grenade going off in your face. Hes absolutely right. Gerri ralph to you. Big debate overt accelerant, used in these bags. The fear is that takata used an inferior product. Do you believe that to be the case . What went wrong . What is the real culprit . They cut their cost. They got a cheap compound. Very sensitive to temperature changes. This problem does not occur unless theres a collision. So, number one. But number two, this is what happens when the media gets on the back of government regulators and hammers them because they think theyre overregulated. Its the lack of Quality Control feedback by Auto Companies who bought these air bags from takata. Where were their Quality Control engineers to spot this . Gerri last night we had on former nhtsa chief. Joan, she said its the fault of nhtsa. They dont think of themselves as the cop on the beat. Whats the cup ability of nhtsa here . Its extreme. This is a defect thats been on the road since 2003. And nhtsa treats the industry as its partners. Theyre not its partners. Theyre the regulated industry. . even today, nhtsa would not step up and say, were going to use our authority and force takata and the Auto Companies to go to other suppliers, to make the air bags faster. So it wont take two years. Because thats what were looking at. Were looking at two years for a National Recall to make enough air bags. The motorists when they get that recall notice from their dealer in their community. They have to get there fast. Half of the motorists dont go down to get it fixed. And its free. They have to get down there when they get that recall notice. Gerri but, ralph, i have to tell you, i cant see these air bags even being available. Even if you do find other suppliers, they have to figure out how to make that bag for that particular make and model. This will take forever. In the meantime, people will be driving all over this country with these lame air bags that are dangerous. Well, clarence is the engineer. Clarence jump in on that and how fast it can be done. It can be done you can if you put triple shifts on, work seven days a week, you can make enough parts for this in six months. But the companies today, honda said, we will provide loaner cars. We will give you a free rental car. Consumers should demand. I dont want to drive this car. Give me a free loaner or rental. Gerri theres an answer right there. Thats the first time ive heard someone saying that. Clarence ill repeat it. If you know your car has a problem, you know you have these air bags. Go to the the clear, say i want a car that i can drive tonight thats not one of these makes and models. We have those on our website, gerriwillis. Com. You can go there. Thanks so much for coming on the show tonight. Well continue to follow the story. Yeah, the story will get stronger legislation in congress so out of tragedy can come an opportunity. Gerri a lot more to come this hour including your voice. Your voice is important. We want you to facebook me or tweet me at gerri willis fbn. Send me an email. At the bottom of the hour ill read those. One state is taking matters into its own hands and filing the first lawsuit against gm over the deadly ignition switches. The man behind it general tom horn joins me next. Stay with us. Gerri mini vans have a reputation for being safe and reliable, but some new crash test by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety show otherwise. Here with more is russ. Thank you for coming on the show tonight. I have to tell you, i was blown away by this. You test for mini vans and only one passes. Tell us first, what were you testing for . Well, gerri, this is the small overlap crash test that the institute introduced in 2012, after research showed that about a quarter of the serious injuries and deaths that occur in frontal crashes are in these small overlap impacts. Thats where the front corner of the vehicle catches another vehicle on coming on the highway that drifts over the center line or hits a tree or telephone pole. Its a devastating kind of crash. There was a gap in crash testing. Gerri well, apparently so. You couldnt have that much more correct. So lets look first at the ones that managed to pass this test. Tell me first the mini vans that did well. Well, in this is group, the Toyota Sienna earned a high rating second highest. Toyota beefed up the front structure for the year. Its structure didnt hold up great. But taking everything into account, it performed reasonably well. We tested the honda mini van which was great. Gerri you had some bad ones. Tell me. Really terrible. Including the nissan quest. One of the worst performers weve seen in this. Nissan quest absolutely collapsed the occupant compartment collapsed around the driver test dummy. It was so bad that the steering column and air bag were pushed into the dummys face. There were high forces on the dummys left leg and its right foot was entrapped by its gerri youre looking at this right now. There was so much collapse, the engineers had to collapse the driver seat out to rescue our crash dummy. Terrible performance. Gerri wow. The pictures are unbelievable. To remind people, what were talking about is a frontal crash, but on the side of the car a little bit. Its off to the side. Normally you test that front of the car. This is different. Lets move on to the dodge car avan. And chrysler town and country. What happened with this tests . We tested them as its twin. And, again, we had some major structural collapse. Not as bad as the quest, but the parts of the lower part of the cabin came backward toward the test dummy. And, in fact, on the left leg of the test dummy. Crash test dummies have tough skin. Much tougher than human skin. . in this case parts of the vehicle actually gouged the left leg of the test dummy. The parking brake pedal was embedded in the skin of the lower leg gerri we saw a picture of that. I want to show that quest video again. That to me is unbelievable. Somehow, these mini vans have had a great reputation all these years. This is the thing to get your family into and travel all over the country. I guess not. Well, its important to remember, gerri, that these mini vans do well in other kinds of crash tests that are done. This is a new test raising the bar for safety. And if youre looking for the state of the art safety in a mini van. You ought to be looking at the Honda Odyssey and the Toyota Sienna rather than these other vehicles that did poorly. Gerri i have to ask you that quest accident, that crash that made the whole thing into anna cordian. If that dummy were a real person, would they have survived. We dont know if it would have been fatal, but certainly seriously. Those leg injuries mean if it were a real person, they would not have been able to walk normally again after they recovered from their injuries. Gerri wow. Thank you for bringing us this important information. Well, weve got a lot of car news obviously. Up next, arizona is the first state to sue gm over those deadly ignition switches. Arizona attorney general is here. Another storm, it could bring the total storm in the buffalo area to around 9 feet. Well have the latest. Stay with us. Gerri more trouble for auto giant general motors. The Arizona Attorney general has filed a lawsuit against gm saying the car company purposefully put the public at risk by concealing safety defects. Tom horne. Welcome to the show. Weve talked a lot on the show about the defects about this ignition switch. Why are you filing this suit . How much money are you seeking . Well, were seeking 10,000dollar penalty for every violation which would be every sale of a car. We filed the suit because the case was brought to us several months ago i had people analyze it. They analyzed it and said this isnt a lawsuit worth bringing. They said this one, yes, theres a lot of good details here. The case is wellsubstan chicago aided. So we did request for proposals giving law firms a chance. Chose one. Chose the one that brought it to us and proceeded. Gerri so Something Like 48 attorney generals i think you might have at one point been part of that. Why go out on your own . Why is it important to do that . Well, the the attorneys general had a task force which we were a part of. They dont have a lawsuit at this point. They might in the future. When this case came to us. We analyzed it. The case is there. It seemed i my job was to protect the state of arizona. Gerri what youre trying to protect them from is not getting hurt from a crash, but financial loss. You maintain that essentially gm has reduced the value of gm cars on the road with this defect. Let me read you. I believe we can tell you what gm has had to say about this. Their response to your lawsuit is this. He misrepresents the facts to ensure the safety of customers. We intend to vigorously defend ourselves. What do you say to that . Thats what you would expect. You wouldnt expect them to say, we hold up our hands and surrender. You expect them to pursue it. Maybe there will be a settlement and maybe well go to trial. I dont know if youve had a chance to see the complaint. Its over 100 pages. Lots of detail in it. I think the most interesting part of the debate starts at page 35. We detail the individual cases. First one back in 2005, 16yearold girl named amber who her car went off the road. She ran off the road was killed. Other cases where people went off the road and hit a utility pole and so on. You have a family grieving for someone who is dead and someone who is injured. Gerri absolutely true. Youre not seeking damages on that basis. Right . Your suit is a totally different thing. Im not saying its i i illegitimate, but you have to prove they have lost value. Right . Thats part of the case. But really biggest part of the case is that gm misrepresented the safety of its car and it hid rather than disclosing the problem and having recalls which would have saved lives, it had those facts. Gerri your suit is very far going. Much further going than i understood. Yes, very wideranging. Gerri weve covered this and its basically seeking 10,000 per per car in penalties, which is provided under the arizona Consumer Fraud statute. Gerri thank you for coming on this show. Go right ahead. Finish your thought. I was going to say. Other damages we seek such as the lost property. 10,000 per car. Awful lot of cars. Quite a major case. Gerri thank you so much for coming on the show tonight. Thank you. Gerri coming up, will contract negotiations stop west coast ports from operating . What will that mean for Christmas Shopping . Next, roofs are starting to collapse under the weight of all that snow in buffalo. More is on the way. Well have the latest. [announcer ]startupny. Its working for new york state. Already 41 companies are investing almost 80 Million Dollars, and creating 1750 jobs. From long island to all across upstate new york, more businesses are coming to new york. 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