Dismantle the Affordable Care act . Where you stand on the issue its more taxes. May depend on where you sit. The people that want to repeal, you go without insurance and tell me how you feel. Following the republican midterm wave. Can democrats reassemble their Winning Coalition in 2016 without president obama on the ballot . Im chuck todd. Joining me with, chris matthews, helene cooper, car whethlene an Sylvia Burwell are here. Welcome to sunday. Its meet the press. Good morning. We begin with grim news from syria. Intelligence officials are investigating a video that was posted online purportedly by isis that claims to show that captured u. S. Aid worker peter cassick has been killed. He was 26 was working as a humanitarian aid worker in syria when he was captured in october of 2013. He was born peter cassick but changed his name after converting to islam while in captivity. The National Security council has released a statement. Im joined by Richard Engel in istanbul where he has been based to cover this war. Richard, it seems as if the government is assuming this video is authentic. What do you know . Well, ive seen the video. Unfortunately, it does appear to be authentic. We see the same now familiar militant dressed in all black with a distinctive london accent saying that peter kassig has been killed. You dont see the beheading. You see the militant and then what looks to be peters head at his feet. It was a long video. It shows the beheading of other hostages, a group that are allegedly syrian soldiers. If, in fact, its confirmed that kassig was murdered, he would be the fifth western hostage killed by isis. The reason they said they killed him is because he was a former soldier who served in iraq before he changed his life and went to syria to help provide some humanitarian and medical relief to syrian victims of war. Speaking of iraq, again martin dempsey, the chairman of the joint chiefs, he made a surprise visit to iraq yesterday. I think he is still there. He is supposed to get a look at the Iraqi Military. We have advisors on the ground. Theres talk ta maybe more have to go. What is the state of the Iraqi Military, and how are they doing in the fight against isis . I think its very mixed, frankly. There are some units of the Iraqi Military that are making progress. They made advanced north of baghdad in the last several days. But the military is infiltrated. Just a few weeks ago, in fact, a unit from the Iraqi Military backed up by militias and killed some isis but then they went back and butchered sunni civilians in the town. This was an act, according to officials i have spoken to, directly carried out by an iranianbacked group within the Iraqi Security services. So i think its a very mixed record of success so far. The kurds are making advances. Some units of the iraqi army are making advances. Others are running back death squads. This is the iraqi army that we are supposed to be guiding, advising and leading in a fight against isis. Looks like its a longer slog than anybody wants to deal with. Richard engel this morning, thanks very much. Now i want to switch gears, get to domestic politics. Immigration reform. Democrats now want it. Republicans, not for what the president wants. Then president obama says he is going to go ahead with or without the gop. The other is healthcare reform. Its president obamas signature achievement, his place in history. Here come the republicans. They want to take it apart. There are two issues so important to each side that neither is willing to give any. Defy the side and you are declaring political war. Thats whats happening. Fasten your seat belts, its going to be a bumpy night. If republicans thought a wave election would humble the president , he didnt show it. Promising executive action that would stop deportations for millions of undocumented immigrants, a lightning rod for the gop, the president doubled down. Thats going to happen. Thats going to happen before the end of the year. Were going to fight the president tooth and nail if he continues down this path. So much for the happy lunch at the white house last month. Theres healthcare. Yesterday marked the premiere of season to of obamacare. The president now playing sales man and chief. You can go online or call 18003182596 and get covered for 2015. New website, new cast and this Time Administration officials hope a new story line. After a disastrous debut last year. Nobody is madder than me about the fact that the website isnt working as well as it should. 7. 1 million americans signed up and paid by the end of the first Enrollment Period hitting projections. This time around, the government expects a total of between 9 million and 10 million for 2015. Thats over 3 million less than the governments original projection of 13 million signups. Yes, the future of the law remains somewhat cloudy. 13 states plus d. C. Run their own Health Insurance exchanges. 38 states, mostly with republican governors, havent set up their own exchange and rely on the federal government. But what the Affordable Care act is doing for the cost of healthcare, this map shows the change in premiums from the lastest slast e largest cities. Its up in some and done in others. In january, the new republican majority takes off promising to dismember the law. I want to pull this law out root and branch. The Supreme Court will hear another case this term about those exchanges which could cripple the law. Im joined now Sylvia Matthews burwell. Welcome to meet the press. I want to start with we heard the president earlier this morning or yesterday or tomorrow, however you want to talk about australian time. 23,000 new applications. Do you have any up to date numbers . It seems as if new applications went well. People trying to get to old accounts struggled. Yes, i do. Yesterday, we had 100,000 folks submit their new applications. And there were over 500,000 people who logged in effectively yesterday as well. So i think the vast majority of people coming to the site were able to get on and do what they were intending to do. Do you have an issue with people getting on to their old accounts . Is that an issue that you have identified, or is this just user error . With regard to that, we think the vast majority were able to. Thats what we see in the 500,000. In some of those, were tracking them down. Thats part of what i said were going do and what we want to do. Some people people forget user names. Some people are renewing their passwo passwords. Our Customer Service folks are ready and able to help people. There were over 100,000 calls yesterday. All right. Let me ask if you guys have things the uninsured rate has dropped, the average premium has gone down for 2015, medicare sol v sol vensy has increased. The publics opinion hasnt changed. Still more people think its a bad idea than a good idea. Why is that . I think why hasnt success translated . One of the things is we need to translate the success. When you ask the American People about those things individually, or when you ask the American People about the importance of no longer being held off healthcare because of preexisting conditions or the fact that their children up to the age 26 can be on their plans, thats 3 million. When you ask them about the substance of the issue, the American People respond positively. Thats what i think we need to do more about. I think what we need to do is make sure were communicating clearly and we talk about what is the substance instead of something thats one word descriptions. Actually, what this is, this is about three things. Affordability, quality and access. And when you talk about as you just did the measures against those things, thats what we need to do more of. Why did you need to downgrade expectations of how many people would sign up . You are looking at less than 10 million. The original projection was 13 million. The 13 million was the original scoring. It is done to determine they were accurate about year one. With regard to that, what we have done is when i got to hhs, i asked the team to look at the up ins and lets figure out what we think the target should be. It has two pieces to it. Reenrollment and new enrollees. With regard to the reenrollment, what we did was went out to the marketplace, what is the general reenrollment of this type of thing . They created a range 70 to 90 . Many of the people were in the 80 to 85 . We chose 83 . Then what we did was build the number that way. In setting our target what we did was take the information from last year, including the fact that when cbo did its estimates and others did estimates, they thought more people would switch from employerbased care than did. You think thats one of the reasons, that employers havent dropped people . This is the first year the employer mandate, do you expect to see employers drop people now . With regard to the number, we think its a number of elements. As we made the number that we chose, that 9. 1, we said there would be 28 growth. We believe in the second year of a new marketplace, 28 growth is strong and healthy. I got to ask you about the comments from jonathan hooper. He is an opponent of the Affordable Care, have been pointing to the comments all week long. Hes an mit professor. Hes an adviser to the healthcare law and people that wrote it when the administration was working on it. I understand you didnt work with him very closely. I do want to have you take a listen and get you to respond. This is how he explained taxing highend cadillac Health Insurance plans and doing a little oakie doek. We tax the insurance companies. They tax us. Its a very clever exploitation of the lack of economic understanding. Lack of transparency is a huge politicale ed advantage. Basically, that was really critical to getting the thing to pass. What does this do . This bill takes what i call the spaghetti approach. Which is takes a bunch of ideas that might work and throws them against the wall and we see what will stick. He is playing into every fear that many had about this bill, its not transparent, that there are things in it that people dont know. This cant help a credibility gap. I have to start with how fundamentally i disagree with his comments about the bill and about the American People. Since ive been at the department, one of the things i focused on is transparency, making sure all our numbers come out whether good or bad. The law is based on the issues of transparency and belief in the American People and choices in the marketplace. This past week, since we have had window shopping on, over a Million People have come to the site and done window shopping. They are comparing based on premiums. They are comparing based on deductibles. When you give the American People to choices, they will do that. From the issue of the consumer to the fact that we have put out information so that people can see what providers are receiving from pharmaceuticals. He said spaghetti at the wall. He said that with it was the week the healthcare law passed. Is that what this bill is, to see what works and what doesnt . This law is a piece of legislation thats about three things. And these are things that have bye pa bipartisan agreement. Affordability, access and quality. Thats what the American People want. And theres bipartisan agreement. The bill has different pieces. You touched on many of them people know about them, whether closing the medicare doughnut hole. There are 8 million american seniors that benefitted from that 11 billion. There are so many parts of this law that target those three things. Is he welcomed back as a consultant . Certainly right now in terms of the work that were doing at hhs, were doing our work and focusing on what we are doing and our modelling. Hes not welcome back . With regard to mr. Gruber and his comments, i think ive been clear. Thats something we disagree with. Thanks for coming on meet the press. Thank you. Now joining me since the Affordable Care act was implemented, 23 states have ned. What does it matter . Let m let me show you an example. Arkansas saw their uninsured rate decrease. In louisiana, the rate was reduced by less. Lets go to the number. Look at arkansas your neighbor to the north. I i know you dont want to talk about arkansas considered what happened last night with lsu. Expanding medicaid, would you have more people off the uninsured rolls. Democrats and republicans both want to represent the vulnerable, want to help people get healthcare. Medicaid is not the right way. The problem with expanding medicaid and obamacare is that it chooses a top down closed approach where the government is running your healthcare. Medicaid is a program with bad healthcare programs. They showed there was no improve with physical outcomes. It was designed to take care of the disabled, vulnerable children. It was never designed to be there for able bodied adults. The Affordable Care act, the president is doubling down on a failed approach to providing healthcare. Why arent you here is the thing. It would cost your state nothing. You may you have your own fiscal problems with the deficit issue. Would you have more money from the federal government. They are paying for it. Its not going to cost state money. Why not do it until the while the law is active in. Thats a great im glad you asked that. One of the things i love is when democrats say this is free money. This is not free money. Every dollar we dont spend on medicaid is another dollar we dont have to borrow from china. This is the reason we have nearly 18 trillion in debt. Lou lou t louisiana taxpayers are federal taxpayers. We have to stop acting like all of of this money is free money. Secondly, when you look at the best way to help folks, its to decrease the cost of healthcare. I propose a plan to replace obamacare. If the president were serious, why not give states more flexibility . But he has. Look at indiana why is john kasich wrong . They did get the federal government to approve a different plan. Why not negotiate with the government and do something that you want to do . If we were to expand medicaid it would cost my taxpayers 1. 8 billion over ten years. We would have to get more than one person out of private insurance. I know this president likes to define success as more people depending on government. Would have to take over 200,000 people out of private insurance and put them into medicaid. 200,000 people not insured at all. Im saying for every uninsured, you take more than another person out of private insurance. In louisiana in particular, we inherited a Public Hospital system. We had ten state operated hospitals through the private sector. We have improved Healthcare Access and outcomes for one example. It used to take ten days to get a prescription filled. Now you can get it done in ten minu minutes. We reformed our program. Over 80 of our my point is, there are better ways to provide healthcare to the eventuvulnera. Its not for the government to run healthcare. The answer is not to expand a failed program, a one size fits all like medicaid. You think its a total failure . I think when it was targeted for the disabled, for children, in louisiana we cover over 95 of our children have coverage. I think it could be improved with more flexibility. This wasnt a conservative study. The harvard study showed when you expanded medicaid, there was no improvement in physical healthcare. Giving them a doctor without giving them access to doctors, hospitals, doesnt improve anything. On immigration, if the president goes through with the executive action, do you think republicans should use the power of shutting down the government to stop him from doing it . I dont think the president should shut down the government to try to break the constitution. The reality is you think the president would shut down the government . You do want republicans to fight him on this . I dont think the president should shut down the government. You are twisting my question. Lets step back you want that show down . The president said i want to break the law. He said im going to wait until after the election. I know its not going to be p p popular. We had an election. He said his policies were on the ballot. He lost in red states, purple states, blue states. The people rejected his policies. Now he is saying, im going to break the law. Talk about arrogance. Where was this president said elections have consequences, we are talking about how can the Congress Force the president to follow the law . I would expect democrats who may agree with him on substance to say the right way to do this is to follow the constitution, follow the law. We shouldnt shut down the government. But republicans should do everything they can to force the president to follow the law. Lets secure the border. The president shouldnt shut down the government. I want to ask you about president ial ambitions. Majority in louisiana disapprove of your job. Why is that a launching pad . I dont care about poll numbers. I never have. I was elected in louisiana to make generational changes. Look at what we have done in louisiana. Now we have cut our state budget 26 , cut the number of state employees 34 . We have the best private sector economy in a generation. Our economy has grown twice as fast as the national economy. More people working than ever before at a higher income than ever before. We transformed the charity house. Thats the third wheel in louisiana politics. State wide school choice. If i were to run i havent made that decision. If i were to run for president , its because i believe in our country the American Dream is at jeopardy. This president has defined the American Dream as more dependence on the government. We need to restore the American Dream. Its more about opportunity and growth and not redistribution. One part of your record you have nearly a 1 billion hole in your bu