They just were so violently ill. I just knew it had to be the mussels. Sreenivasan those are just some of the stories were covering on tonights pbs newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by supported by the john d. And catherine t. Macarthur foundation. Committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. More information at macfound. Org and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. And. This program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Sreenivasan our lead story tonight the problems implementing the new Health Care Law were front and center in washington. Both sides scrambled to address the failures and the possible fixes. Newshour Congressional Correspondent kwame holman begins our coverage. The rollout of obamacare is nothing srt of a debacle, and the American People are now fearful of their healthcare. Reporter the house returned to work for the First Time Since the Government Shutdown ended, and republicans quickly turned to the balky website where uninsured americans are supposed to enroll for Health Insurance. G. O. P. Leaders posted this video reenactment of a new jersey mans experience with the site. You have no way to assist those who ask for help . Dont run with scissors. Why is there even a chat option on the page if you cant look up an application and assist . Reporter majority leader eric cantor said the problems are so bad, the administration should delay the penalty for those who dont get insurance. With so many Unanswered Questions and the problems arising around this rollout, it doesnt make any sense to impose this 1 mandate tax on the American People. Reporter Speaker John Boehner promised there will be investigations with one hearing already set for tomorrow. I think the biggest part of congress job is to provide proper oversight of the executive branch of government, and whether its obamacare or issues over at the department of defense, its our job to hold them accountable. Reporter on the other hand, democrats including Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said the priority should be getting the system up and running. Well, there certainly is accountability internally in terms of what decisions were made when on all of this. But i think that our focus and energy should be used to fix it because the American People are depending on it. Reporter while Party Leaders here at the capitol jousted over the Obama Administration ramped up efforts to fix it. On c. N. N. Last night, secretary Kathleen Sebelius said president obama was unaware of the extent of the problems before the website premiered. No one could be more frustrated than i am and the president that this isnt smooth. People are signing up every day, the president did say that he was angry about this. I mean do you know when he first knew that there was a problem . Well, i think it became clear fairly early on. The first couple of days, that. So not before that, though . Not before october 1st . No, sir. Reporter the administration also has launched a kind of fixit surge to be overseen by jeffrey zients, former head of the office of management and budget. And, officials have set up call centers, as a substitute for the website. In the meantime, the president is urging supporters not to despair. Weve got people working overtime in a tech surge to boost capacity and address the problems. Reporter also today, the Washington Post reported some of the Nonprofit Health insurance coops created to foster competition are struggling to survive. And starting tomorrow, the department of health and Human Services begins a new effort to try to address problems quickly by giving daily briefings on their activities. Sreenivasan well have more on this, after the news summary. German chancellor Angela Merkel complained directly to president obama today, over reports of u. S. Spying on her conversations. She telephoned the president after learning the National Security agency may have monitored her cell phone. A spokesman called it completely unacceptable. At the white house, press secretary jay carney did not directly deny that the u. S. Captured merkels calls in the past. Instead, he said i can tell you that the president assured the chancellor that the United States is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of the chancellor. The United States greatly values our close cooperation with germany on a broad range of shared security challenges. Merkel is the latest in a string of foreign leaders to complain about n. S. A. Intercepts of phone calls and emails. The president also spoke today with the Prime Minister of pakistan in person, at the white house. It was the latest effort to improve strained relations. Chief Foreign Affairs correspondent Margaret Warner has that story. We are very glad to be able to partner with the people of pakistan and the pakistani government reporter in the oval office today, president obama and Prime Minister nawaz sharif took pains to emphasize their desire to turn around the rocky relationship of recent years. The United States considers pakistan to be a very important strategic partner. We believe that if pakistan is secure and peaceful and prosperous, thats not onlied any for pakistan, its good for the region, and its good for the world. We also discussed a common vision to build a robust, bilateral cooperation, a broadbased stable and Enduring Partnership founded on the principles of mutual respect. Reporter but there is a long way to go. Relations between the two countries hit a nadir two and a half years ago. In early 2011, pakistani protesters took to the streets after a c. I. A. Operative shot and killed two men in lahore. Then, in may, u. S. Navy seals stormed a compound in abbottabad, killing osama bin laden. Also that year, u. S. Troops in afghanistan mistakenly killed Pakistani Soldiers in a border incident. For a time, pakistan halted nato supply convoys through the khyber pass. Now, the pentagon hopes to use those routes in withdrawing from afghanistan next year. Its against that backdrop that newly elected Prime Minister sharif, whos held that post twice before, returned to the white house for the first time in 14 years. Both countries have an incentive to restore relations. The u. S. Wants pakistans help in negotiating an end to the afghan conflict. The pakistanis need aid. But the u. S. Is frustrated that talibanaffiliated groups still use western pakistan as a base to hit u. S. And Afghan Forces in afghanistan. Just yesterday, human Rights Groups reported u. S. Drone strikes in that region have killed dozens of civilians. And sharif denounced the u. S. Drone attacks. I useless brought up the issue of drones in our meeting, emphasizing the need for an end to such strikes. Reporter before todays visit, u. S. Officials signaled they would unfreeze 1. 6 billion in military and economic assistance aid to pakistan, suspended two years ago. Sreenivasan in iraq, at least 16 people died in a new wave of bombings and shootings in and around baghdad today. Dozens more were wounded. That followed overnight attacks on police in Anbar Province that killed 19 iraqis. The violence has surged since april, with at least 450 People Killed this month alone. Pope francis has temporarily banished a german bishop from his Roman Catholic diocese for spending 43 million on a new residence. The vatican said today that bishop franzpeter tebartzvan elst of limburg was ordered to leave, pending an investigation. The bishop has defended the expenditures, but theyve provoked an outcry in germany. The future monarch of Britain Prince George was christened today. The royal family marked the occasion at a small ceremony in london. We have a report from tim ewart of independent television news. Reporter he was briefly in the background but not for long. George alexander louis, prince of cambridge and third in line to the throne is now three months old and clearly growing fast. There was a little help from his father with the royal wave but as he arrived for his christening, it is apparent there is now another royal the cameras will love. This was the start of what will be a very public life. It was in fact a very private service. The queen and Prince Philip were driven into st. James palace, the briefest glimpse of royalty for people whod gathered outside, a few camping overnight. The queen and the duke of edinburgh headed a small royal contingent with charles and camilla and prince harry, low key was the order of the day. This christening is another sign of the way things are changing within the royal family. William and kate are quite happy to break with tradition and to do things their way. There were just 22 guests for a service conducted by the archbishop of canterbury and the bishop of london. Of the seven godparents only one was from the royal family, princess annes daughter zara, herself expecting a baby. Prince george of course is blissfully unaware of the relentless attention from which his parents hope to shield him. Christening over, it was time for tea. Sreenivasan theres word that fewer people died from tuberculosis in 2012. The World Health Organization reported 1. 3 million deaths, down 100,000 from the year before. But, the w. H. O. Warned theres a growing risk from drugresistant strains of t. B. , and from people not getting adequate treatment. Of all infectious diseases, only h. I. V. Kills more people than t. B. The city of detroit began presenting evidence in court today to prove it is actually bankrupt. Detroit filed for chapter 9 bankruptcy protection this summer, but unions and Pension Funds said the city acted prematurely. They want a federal Bankruptcy Court to reject the filing. Well hear more on todays arguments, later in the program. On wall street today, the Dow Jones Industrial average lost 54 points to close at 15,413. The nasdaq fell 22 points to close at 3,907. Energy stocks were hard hit as oil prices slid below 97 a barrel, the lowest in four months. Still ahead on the newshour challenges of fixing healthcare. Gov; the soaring cost of Higher Education; the fight over detroits bankruptcy goes to court; kids in the motor city find a voice through poetry; toxic shellfish in some northwest coastal areas and psalms fit for a president. Sreenivasan now, a Technology Focused take on the troubled launch of the Health Insurance exchanges. The Obama Administration conceded today it did not adequately test the website beforehand. It announced new tests are underway. White house officials also said other changes are being made to the sites basic architecture. We look at those possible fixes and what has gone wrong with, two Software Experts who have been looking at the problem. John engates, chief Technology Officer at rackspace, a Cloud Computer service company. And bill curtis of cast software. Thanks for joining us. Bill, i want to start with you. Youve seen a little bit of what the Administration Says theyre doing. In plain english, is this the right direction . Will it be enough . Its the right direction, and theyve got an awful lot of money to fix things but theres an awful lot of fixes ahead of them. Its going to take quite a lot of time to fix the entire system. Its not just a web interface problem. There are a lot of problems were seeing behind the web. Early on there was this analysis that it should be easy to compare Government Insurance plans as going online and comparing prices for Airline Tickets and i think critics seized on that. Whats the difference between this web site and what were used to seeing and doing online . What the difference is that when you go online to a web site like amazon or your airline, the data behind those web sites is completely under the control of that one company or thats entity. In this case, you have a massive Integration Project that spans across numerous states. There are 30plus states, plus multiple federal agencies, and, therefore, youve got data spread all over the place. And you have to pull all that data together to actually execute one of these transactions to get somebody signed up. Sreenivasan bill curtis, there is a leak of congressional testimony planned for tomorrow and you already see the basis of finger pointing from one contractor to another. What is the challenges of pulling together 55 different contractors and was the h. H. S is in a good position to lead them and pull them all together . The challenges are enormous, all the coordination. They didnt have enough time to make it all exphap get it tested adequately. They basically let the American People do the testing. They didnt have the time to pull off a system this big and complex. Its wrong to say its a system. Its a sufficiency systems. Were trying to integrate an awful lot of systems, as you just heard, from a number of different sources and its a huge implementation problem. In many cases the government doesnt have people used to managing that level of complexity. Sreenivasan bill curtis, staying with you for a second, if the users that is all the American Public that has tried to log on have been the user testers have, they broken everything that could be broken and is it that mean the worst is over and we could have more information to fix it . No, theyve just broken the problems at the web interface. Any time there is a system this big, once you fix some problems it oppose up a whole new wave the problems that sit behind it. Well see more problems with data integration, coordination problems among all these different systems and were just now starting to get into that part system. Sreenivasan jawrng how much of this is trying put Software Development into a political timeline . Theres an october 1 deadline. Theres a december 15 deadline. A march 15 deadline, that are very important for the American Public but thats not necessarily how Software Development works. Right. Software development is a complicated process. Its hard to accelerate that process by throwing bodies at the problem. Oftentimes, that can actually slow things down. So its a difficult challenge to meet somebody elses timeline, especially if you have changing requirements along the way. And i understand that some of those requirements were changing. In fact, one of the requirements changed right up near the launch, which is basically changing from allowing users to browse the choices without actually going through the transaction process, to actually requiring them to go through that signup process first, before they are able to browse. And i think that one change right there could have actually saved a great deal of load and strain on the system, and if that changed really soon, right before the launch, that could have been a major challenge for the contractors involved to really meet that requirement in that short time frame. Sreenivasan th so bill curtis, what about being held off until an election, the right kind requirements not coming into play but having the end goal still being the same point, regardless, and all the Software Engineers having to perform that task . Well, just as you just heard, youre not going to get a youre not going to get a baby in one month using 9 women. Its going to take a full nine months. And thats the problem. They tried to do it too fast. My guess is they were well aware of many of these technical problems. They were hearing about them from the g. A. O. And the insurance industry, and this was a political plil decision to keep driving against this line to get something in place so they had a fait accompli. Its there. People were using it. Its hard to back up. And theyre willing to pay the cost, ask its going to be exorbitant to get all of this fixed and working over the next some period of months. We dont know how long it will take to get it pulled together glart administration has assigned a point person, calling in from the silicon valley. Theres a Software Principle called brooks law that stays adding more people doesnt necessarily make things faster. Are they likely to complicate themselves or can we actually meet these december 15 and march 15 deadlines . Well, you know, there is that saying about too many cooks in the kitchen, and i think you have potential for that here. So what probably needs to happen is the original contractors need to sort of take a backseat and let the new folks in on the system. The only challenge there is the new folks dont have really the history with the system. So its