vegetables, including the lima beans, and take a nap when we're not tired and give our grandma a kiss even though she smells like old tupperware, and i am not going to do it! i am not going to have my health care decisions made by barack obama! or should i say broccoli obama? good morning, everyone. it is 6:00 on the east coast. welcome to "morning joe." it is thursday, march 29. with us on set, we have msnbc and "time" magazine senior editor mark halperin. we have howard dean. and willy is meandering. >> day three of the smackdown. >> the odds are already out. political ads. >> they are already out. >> but the smackdown continues. it doesn't look as bad for the white house today. >> not quite as bad. but then again, when you had that solicitor general on day two, start drooling, and then pass out -- >> stop. it wasn't that bad. i looked closer. >> he argued 18 cases before the supreme court. he just had a bad couple of minutes. >> yeah. it happens to all of us. not on the biggest day of our life. >> right, right. >> you know, it's just -- >> he is no rookie, though. they sent in the veteran, the big gun. >> no. he is very good at what he does. we'll see what happens with it. but a lot of things to talk about. and i just -- i guess we'll talk about health care first. but there is in new poll numbers out. >> yeah. >> that you hear a lot of times that national polls don't matter. this is a national poll that matters a great deal. and it's just not good news for mitt romney. >> yeah. that as well as mitt romney's latest kind of attempt at connecting humor. i think it might miss the mark again. i could be wrong. >> oh, come on. >> that coupled with the beach house and an elevator for the cars. i'm not joking. it doesn't work. it's a problem. >> well, you know, i think mitt romney's dad, and we'll tell this joke later too, he was a big henne youngman fan. take my factory, please, wisconsin. so mitt romney jokes about -- he said one of his funnier moments in growing up had to do with his dad shutting down a factory. >> hysterical. >> all right. but that's a tease. we'll get to that in a little bit. can i just say the biggest news, now, this is huge news -- >> what, what, what? it's got to be sports or something. >> a lot of times we talk about use will information, and i feel like paul simon that i can gather all the news i need on the weather report. this morning, that's not the point. willie geist, and we haven't talked. >> the breaking banners? >> because any dumb male in america knows that the most important news of today -- >> no. >> nee of this month, perhaps year, is what, willie? >> "anchorman" sequel. >> yes, you knew! the legend of ron burgundy returns. if you have not seen this movie, you hate america. >> uh-oh. >> that's breaking news? >> or not. >> well, you hate america, mika. >> i do not. >> and announced in style by ron burgundy himself last night. we'll play this clip later. it was a wonderful announcement. stylish. >> you know, very few things excite me. this, seriously -- >> yes. >> you read your twitter feed, and you're a little jaded. another poll comes out. but i shrieked when i got this. it's amazing. >> and i learned about it way too early, of course. today, the debate over president obama's health care law -- >> she hasn't seen it. >> i haven't. >> and she thinks "wedding crashers" is a boring movie. >> i walked out of that. >> as you told bradley cooper many times to his face. >> well, i think a lot of people probably tell him what he wants to hear. he should hear the truth. that was a bad movie. >> you told him you couldn't wait to see "the a list." >> what was that? was that "the a team"? >> yes. >> today, the debate over president obama's health care law moves behind closed doors as the supreme court now holds the final say over one of the most contentious national issues in decades. yesterday's argument focused largely on whether the rest of the law could survive if the government's requirement that americans buy medical insurance is ruled unconstitutional. conservative justice antonin scalia suggested that without that mandate, there is really nothing left to stand on. >> once you've cut the guts out of it, who knows? who knows which of them were really desired by congress on their open and which ones won't? my approach would be to say, if you take the heart out of the statute, the statute is gone. . >> but the liberal justices took issue with scrapping the whole thing. >> why shouldn't we say it's a choice between a wrecking operation, which is what you are requesting, or a salvage job? and the more conservative approach would be salvage rather than throwing out everything. >> here is the rest of it. you know, and when i look through the rest of it, i have all kinds of stuff in there. so what do you propose that we do other than spend a year reading all this and have you argue? >> still the justices seemed to agree that at least two provisions would have to be thrown out if the mandate fails. one bans insurance companies from refusing to cover people with pre-existing conditions. and the other limits the rates companies can charge. if the entire plan is struck down, a provision that allows young adults to stay on their health insurance plans until age 26 could be in jeopardy. and certain preventative services including free mammograms for women may also be overturned. the court's decision, of course, won't come until june, just before the conventions, right at the heat of the presidential elections. >> you know, howard, my twitter avatars is keep calm and carry on. and in part, i put that up to remind myself that every political battle is not the last political battle. we would always have these battles on the house floor, this is where we stand or die. and next week, somebody else would come up and say, this is where we stand. and after a while, you're like, this isn't such a big deal. everything will sort of work itself out in the end. but this week, this is one of -- i think one of the most significant weeks for our federal government in years. >> it's true. >> in decades. >> the problem with this is, this is the problem when you have nine people making a decision when they essentially know nothing about it. we have had community rating and guaranteed issue for 20 years in vermont without an individual mandate. it works fine. our insurance market is not much different than anybody else's. better than some. so here you have -- and i think that one of the problems here is that the administration got caught up in this. so they argued that the mandate has to be in there for the bill to work. they're getting hoisted on their own words. >> after the presidential campaign, and we have some words that attacked hillary for the individual mandate, isn't that the madness of this? >> it is. >> that somebody like you, somebody like hillary, wasn't brought in to the middle of this process to say, ok, if we don't do it with an individual mandate, what will we do? there's so many ways to do this. >> there's lots of ways to do it. >> without running afoul of the commerce clause. >> well, the academics that wrote it, and the insurance companies who want the mandate. this is ridiculous and has no effect on insurance rates. none. >> we are showing for those of you not watching your tv right now, but listening, barack obama had flyers out that attacked hillary clinton. hillary's health care plan forces everyone to buy insurance, even if you can't afford it, and you pa i a penalty if you don't. but going back to what you were saying, that's one of the things that always scares me when i hear people talking about overhauling the entire health care system, because we know we have to have health care reform. and curb costs over the next generation. >> and there is some good stuff in this bill, joe. but the problem is, if they throw the whole thing out, none of that will happen. it's very important so that the private sector can control costs, which is not happening either in massachusetts or nationally. >> so why did the administration as you said get, quote, hoisted on their own pe tard? why did they go down this path? >> because the same people who wrote romney's bill and the insurance companies were telling them too if you don't have an individual mandate, then only the sick people will get insurance at the last minute, and everybody else will have higher rates because of it. it turns out that's not true. it's a great academic argument. but as i say, for 20 years, and our community rating is much better in vermont than it is nationally. you can't -- if you -- you cannot be refused for insurance for any reason in the state of vermont. and you can't be charged more than 20% above the lowest rate that they charge for a policy. in the senate bill, it's 300%, which is basically gutting the idea. so the idea that the individual mandate is absolutely necessary to make this bill work is just he. h -- hooey. >> it's concocted by people on both sides of the aisle. >> i know. >> but that doesn't make it less hooey. >> it seems that that's what everyone ends up at. both sides. it's not like this is some liberal argument. it started with conservatives. >> sure. this is the heritage plan. barack obama's plan. >> newt gingrich supported it in 1993. >> i'm not attacking the right on this. i'm saying that both sides over years of debate, over years of consternation, years of battles with the white house -- between the white house and congress this is what they have ended up with every time. >> here is the thing, mika. it's not like the debate -- it's true, the debate has been going on for 30 years, more maybe. the problem is each bill is not a debate. each bill at the end of the day is whatever you have to throw in it to get it passed. and this bill passed essentially with a big democratic majority and not much republican support. so this -- this could have been fixed. it wasn't. and it wasn't for a variety of reasons. but if you look at the approach that was taken to build this bill, they brought every single interest group interest the white house and gave them something in return for something else. the individual mandate is what the insurance company has got. and i think it was a terrible mistake. hopefully it will not destroy the losing of the individual mandate will not destroy the whole bill. because the bill has got some very good stuff in it, and a lot of americans are going to be very sorry. >> i agree. >> that was another galling thing, howard, throughout the entire process we heard nancy pelosi say we are going to take these insurance companies down. the white house was being tough against the insurance companies. at the end, this individual mandate is forcing americans to buy from insurance companies, and the huge health insurance companies that are making all the money got exactly what they wanted at the end with this mandate. >> a ton of customers. >> there are even people like john shadick saying if i knew that we were going to force people to buy health insurance with an individual mandate, i may have supported some of the other democratic plans, the public option. >> right. >> it's -- this individual mandate, and mika is exactly right, it's a republican idea. >> here is the thing about the individual mandate. the truth is, it does have a minimal improvement. i mean, it does in fact create a case where nobody can free ride and cause other people's premiums to go up. but the problem is, the political calculation, this is a libertarian country. both democrats and republicans have a strong i don't want the government to tell me what to do. ours is about social issues and theirs is about economic issues, i guess. so the price of the political -- of the individual mandate is too high politically, and as i said, it was our experience in vermont -- >> that's a great point. >> you do not need an individual mandate to maintain the insurance market. and that's a fact. >> that's a great point. mark halperin, americans may not understand, none of us completely understand, and scalia yesterday said he didn't understand this 2,000-plus page bill. but they do understand when the federal government is compelling them to buy something that they don't want to buy. stripped down to its barest essentials, they don't want to hear legal arguments. they just know. it doesn't sound right. i don't want the federal government telling me to buy health insurance if i don't want to buy it. now, of course, we could all make the argument that in the end everybody is paying for everybody else's health care insurance anyway, because when an uninsured person walks into the emergency room, everyone around the table is paying for it. you could even make the argument this is the most efficient way to do it. but americans would probably side with the supreme court -- well, they do, two out of three, that the federal government doesn't have the right to force somebody to engage in commerce. >> in that way, we are unlike every other industrialized democracy in world, which has universal health care. something about americans, we just are not as committed to that. everybody sees we need lower costs, and this bill is supposed to deal with that. but it's also supposed to extend to -- not everybody, it's not quite universal, but almost everybody. people are not wildly enthusiastic about this. >> how many pages is this bill? >> 2,700. >> do you really think if you poll how people feel about a 2,700 page bill -- >> if you codify the current system, it would be that long too. >> they can't understand the 27,000. but they can understand the individual mandate. that portion of it, willie, just sticks in people's craw. >> yeah. >> where with the clinton health care bill, it was -- no, the clinton health care bill, the problem was that you were telling people that they couldn't use their doctors. people want their doctors. you know, at some point, we're going to have to come up with a bill, and dr. dean is exactly right, where you have democrats and republicans joining arms together, jumping off a political cliff, and telling americans some things they just don't want to know. >> i wonder when that's going to happen, though. because we just had a 14-month battle at the beginning of president obama's administration over this, and the result was contentious. a lot of people didn't think it got to the core of what either side wanted. and now it could possibly be overturned. on the other side of the individual mandate are some very popular things, as you point out. the pre-existing conditions. 26 and under on the parents. so that's all thrown out. >> and the other thing is, there's no cost control in this bill nor was in there in romney's. but the potential for cost control here is the aco. that is the vertical integration from top to bottom of health care. so one health care entity can now take payments by the patient, because that's the key to controlling costs. that would have worked great. but this is a legislative hodgepodge, it's true, but it would be a terrible sin, i think to throw the whole bill out for the sake of the individual mandate. it's too bad they saw it necessary to put the mandate in because it's really unpopular and really not necessary. >> the popularity that i want to ask you quickly about, we are going to get to the polls which are fascinating, but the cost of the individual -- forget whether or not it sticks in people's craw. >> it's pretty minimal. >> that's a point to be made if you're going to assess people's opinions of it. what is the cost across the board? >> the cost of not doing it or of doing it? >> of doing it. >> i don't think there is a lot of cost except for the individuals that have to buy the insurance. >> and how much do they have to pay? >> that depends on their income. if their income is less than -- i think it's 400%, they get help from the government to pay for it. >> just pointing it out. >> the individual mandate is not critical for a universal health care bill. i don't think this reaction is against having a universal health care bill. it's being forced to buy it. they could have just given everybody a card when they are born and now you have health insurance. >> many americans think it's an important matter of social justice, it's not a strong enough feeling that people are willing to fight for a way to get it. >> well, it's certainly not -- it's certainly not at a time when we're in the middle of a great recession. and i think even some people in the administration would admit privately to you, high up in the administration, that maybe they shouldn't have spent as much time on this health care bill as they did at the time that they did it. >> or they would say there's no good time. now to the presidential race. and new national polling out this morning with some positive news for president obama. according to a new cnn opinion research poll, the president now tops romney by 11 points and santorum by 13 points in head-to-head matchups. the two republicans also trail the president when it comes to favorability ratings. obama has a 14-point net positive favorability rating while romney is upside down by 12 points, and santorum by seven. romney's unfavorable number is still higher than santorum's, whose unfavorable marks having gone up every time cnn measured the number since last spring. >> ok. i want you to keep this full screen up and look at the middle number. mitt romney, who has long argued that he is the most electable, and who party leaders have long argued will do the best in the general election because he's not a radical reactionary, now has favorability ratings that are net minus 12. howard dean, boy, you just don't usually find a presidential candidate in that position. you know, whenever people would ask me, well, why can't sarah palin be president a year and a half ago, two years ago? i would say just look at the net favorability ratings. that they usually don't turn around. same with newt. the net unfavorability ratings were so bad, that rarely turns around. >> there's another problem with these numbers. not these particular numbers. the net unfavorability numbers are very bad. but this was a poll we showed on this show about six months ago, i think it was gallup, that showed that 70% of americans believe that mitt romney only cared about rich people. whether that's true or not is not the problem. the problem is that if that's what you believe, as you know, one of the most important polls, on any poll, and almost in every poll for a candidate is, does this candidate care about people like me? well, the american people think the answer to that is no by about 70%. so this is going to be hard to come back from for mitt romney. this is why citizens united is so outrageous. shelley adeleson did this. without a guy able to write $20 million worth of checks for newt gingrich, the guy is a winner after florida and he gets a good shot at the presidency. his shot has been destroyed by the fact that one guy can write $20 million for his opponent. >> super pac ads. and, mark, you look at the negative 12, and then you look at -- and i know a lot of people think we pick on mitt romney. well, we pick on everybody if they say stupid things or if they do stupid things. it is stupid to build a mansion in la jolla with a car elevator. in an election year. and have a single lobbyist for your mansion in la jolla, one of the most exclusive areas in america. that was yesterday. it's stupid to go on the campaign trail and say one of the funniest moments in your life was when your father shut down a factory in michigan. that's not -- i mean, it's -- >> and it's really not as funny anymore. they are not just gaffs. >> and by the way, i know there are a lot of people out there that support romney that will say something nasty, why are you always picking on romney? guess what, romney's own people when he