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Undecided Congressionals Under Pressure on Health Care; U.S.- China Spat Affects What You Buy; Catholic Nuns Back Health Care Reform
Aired March 19, 2010 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: Well, the CNN NEWSROOM continues right now with Ali, somewhere over there.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: Right here, T.J. Good to see you, my friend. Thanks so much.
As T.J. Says, I'm Ali Velshi, and I'm going to be with you for the next two hours, today and every weekday. And what I'm going to do is try and take every important issue that we cover and break it down with you -- break it down for you. Giving you a level of detail that will help you make important decisions about how you spend your money, your safety, your security, and today your health care.
It's a new hour. Let me show you what I've got on the run down right now. Undeclared Democratic members of Congress are the make-or- break group right now in health care. Each of their votes is crucial for those who support and those who oppose health-care reform, and none of those undeclareds is making it -- one of those is actually going to be making a declaration live right here on my show.
But first, I'm going to take my marker in hand and do some math, so you know exactly what we're talking about.
Plus, why should you care about the latest trade dispute with China? Look around you. Your kids' toys, your appliances, the clothes on your back, it probably says, "made in" -- well, I'll let you guess what it says. Christine Romans says U.S. ties to China are at their lowest level ever.
And we are going to continue our coverage of health care here on CNN. One of the things that we have to talk about is who is going to actually win the battle on health care, which starts on Sunday mobbing. So I'm going to get right to that in a moment.
Now, let me just show you the screen that we've got in front of us. These are 35 undeclared Democrats. Remember in the fourth grade, your teacher told you that, no matter what you did in life, you'd need to know math? Well, this is one of those instances.
In a little more than 48 hours, 431 members of the House of Representatives will make -- they'll cast make-or-break votes on health care. Most of them have made up their minds, but some of them have not. Now, these 35 have not made up their minds. They are all Democrats. And so far as we know, as of 1 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, right now, they are question marks. But I have to tell you, this is all changing very rapidly.
Get this: all along, we have believed that House Republicans would vote unanimously against reform. But now our Brianna Keilar has learned the lone House Republican who voted yes on the House bill in November is considering voting yes on Sunday. And he is Joseph Cao of Louisiana. So all of these representatives, and Joseph Cao, are possibilities. There he is. One -- one Republican is a possibility.
Now here comes the math. I want to tell you about this. I'm going to walk over to a white board, because that's the best way to explain this story to you.
Right now you know there are 435 members of Congress in total. There are four vacancies. So there are 431 members of Congress right now. I'm going to take a white board, a dry-erase marker to handle this.
There are, of the 430 -- let's just put it here, 431 members of Congress. OK? Now, of that, 233 are Democrats. All right, 253 are Democrats. I'm sorry, 253 are Democrats; 178 are Republicans.
Now, for the purposes of our calculation, let's just take Representative Cao out of the equation right now. For purposes of our discussion, let's just get rid of the Republicans. Let's concentrate on the Democrats right now. Two hundred and fifty-three are Democrats. Twenty-nine Democrats have said that they will vote no to the legislation. There are a whole bunch of others who are wavering and thinking about it and doing all sorts of other things. They're undecided.
But -- so when you take the 29 from the 253, you're left with 224. OK. So you've got 224 who are yeses. How many do you need to pass this whole thing? You need 216. This is a bit liberal to call it yes. But they're not nos. Let's put it that way. Undeclared is what we're going to call them.
All right. So we have 224 undeclared, undeclared. You need 216 to pass this or defeat it, one way or the other. So that means there are nine people who are in question. Eight people now in question, actually. because we've just had a change which I'm about to tell you about. All right. That's the magic number, eight people.
Now, let's take a look at this. House leaders can afford to lose eight from this board. This board are the Democrats who are undeclared, plus the one Republican who has not said that he is going to say no. So there are about 33 people on this board. The -- the Democrats can lose eight of these and still pass what they have to do.
Now, I want to put an asterisk next to one name, Joe Courtney right here from Connecticut. He's a Democrat from Connecticut. He's going to join me live an hour from now at 2 p.m. Eastern. I'm told that he plans to make an important announcement about his decision right here on CNN.
Earlier today President Obama took one last opportunity to fire up supporters, this time at George Mason University.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't know how passing health care will play politically, but I know it's right. Ted -- Teddy Roosevelt knew it was right. Harry Truman knew that it was right. Ted Kennedy knew it was right. And if you believe that it's right, then you've got to help us finish this fight.
You've got to stand with me just like you did three years ago and make some phone calls and knock on some doors, talk to your parents, talk to your friends. Do not quit. Do not give up. We keep on going. We are going to get this done. We are going to make history. We are going to fix health care in America with your help. God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: All right. After the break we're going to move away from headcounts, and we're going to talk strategy, tactics, impact, all of that with our senior political analyst, Gloria Borger. Stay with us. You're not going to want to miss this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: OK. Don't look for your congressman or -woman back in your home district this weekend. All 431 of them are expected to be in Washington for a huge, historic vote. Now, no matter how you feel about health-care reform, everybody agrees: this is going to be a huge, historic vote.
CNN senior political analyst Gloria Borger joins me now to do some handicapping.
Let's start with that, Gloria. Are we -- are we thinking this is the event that's going to happen at this point, it looks like, Sunday. This is the event that's going to result in either the defeat or the passing of health-care reform?
GLORIA BORGER, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, we do. And it's pretty tense on Capitol Hill right now. I mean, Nancy Pelosi has a very tough job. You know, in the best of circumstances, Ali, it's herding cats, right?
VELSHI: Yes.
BORGER: But this isn't the best of circumstances. And she's got a bunch of members right now going into her office and saying, "Look, I don't want to be with you. because I -- might cause me a lot of trouble in my district, but I also don't want to be the person who kills health-care reform for the Democrats."
So she has to figure out who she gives a bye to and says, you know, "You're in a tough district. You can vote against this." And the folks she's going to say, "I need you. You're going to have to vote with me on this." And so that's what they're trying to calculate right now. You know, the folks that they can say, "OK, vote against us. Maybe we won't need you."
VELSHI: Yes. Let's talk back to a year ago when the stimulus was passed, and it was, you know, not the same thing but a big, big bill--
BORGER: Right.
VELSHI: -- almost $900 billion now it turns out to be. And a year later not everybody is saying that was the bill that saved the economy. Some people are saying it absolutely was. So eight months from now, when we're in the heat of the election, we're not sure everybody is going to be saying this was the thing we needed to do or didn't.
BORGER: right.
VELSHI: So when these undecideds are making their mind up right now, what's the thing that's likely to sway them one way or the other?
BORGER: Well, you know, here's the interesting thing. Well, it's different arguments for different people, first of all.
VELSHI: Sure.
BORGER: You know, if you look at the cost calculation now, the Congressional Budget Office estimate of the deficit reduction, the cost was very good, for those moderates, right? Because it came in just where the Democrats wanted it to come.
VELSHI: Right.
BORGER: But you know, it's different calculations for everyone, Ali. And I think, you know, that's -- that's the problem that Nancy Pelosi has right now, because the arguments have to be calculated per district.
VELSHI: Yes.
BORGER: Right? And what goes in one district won't go in another.
VELSHI: That's exactly right. I want to actually -- go ahead.
BORGER: Well, I was just also going to say, the argument, the general argument they're making though, Ali, is that in six months from now, there are going to be certain things they call deliverables, OK?
VELSHI: Right.
BORGER: In six months from now you're going to be able to tell your constituents, "Your kids can stay on your policy until they're 26. Pre-existing conditions for kids will be covered. Medicare prescription drug benefits will be better for senior citizens."
And they're saying those are the things your constituents are going to see right away. And they're going to -- if they don't like the bill now, they're going to like it in six months.
VELSHI: All right. Take a look at the white board we're trying to keep. Boy, because this it, as you said, like herding cats--
BORGER: Oh, yes.
VELSHI: -- and like making book and all these kinds of things, all at the same time.
BORGER: Right.
VELSHI: We've got mostly Republicans -- mostly Democrats on this page. These are people who we're calling undeclared. They have not absolutely said they're voting no or absolutely said they're voting yes.
BORGER: Right.
VELSHI: And we have one Republican, Cao, from Louisiana. As we go through the day, we'll be putting lines through some of these people as they decide that they're either yeses or nos. But the bottom line is, this is the in-play list.
BORGER: Yes.
VELSHI: Are these people getting remarkable attention today?
BORGER: Oh, yes. They're getting remarkable attention.
What's interesting, though, is that the outside liberal groups, the Democratic liberal groups who are going to be putting an awful lot of pressure on those moderates and conservatives to vote for this bill in their district, some folks on the Hill, I'm told, have said, "Hold off. Don't do that yet, because we don't want to get people angry. You know, it can also work in reverse. If Democrats start pressuring Democrats too hard--
VELSHI: Right.
BORGER: -- some Democrats are going to get angry.
So right now what you're getting is a kind of a calculation here, where she's going to sit and she's going to look at all her -- she's going to look at all her members. And she doesn't want to lose members out of this.
VELSHI: Right.
BORGER: She doesn't want to change the political calculation for 2010. And she's a realist. So she's got to figure out who she's absolutely going to need, who's in a safe district. If you're retiring, she's going to say, "You know what? You've got to be with me here because you're retiring, right?" So--
VELSHI: I want to -- let me ask you this. We are really very concentrated and we have been on the content of what's going on in the health-care bill.
BORGER: Yes.
VELSHI: But this is -- this is the important time for this particular race. There's going to be one person who declares and says yes who is going to be the person that puts this over the top. As we get closer to that number, will momentum just build and someone's going to say, yes or no? There's going to be one person who's going to be the 216th vote?
BORGER: Yes, I think there is. And she may have -- and she may have some to spare. But, you know, nobody wants to be in the position that Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky was in, in 1993, when she had said she wasn't going to vote for Bill Clinton's budget that morning. And then that afternoon there was the budget vote and she ended up flipping and supporting him. And it cost her her job.
So I think you're going to see people trickling out now--
VELSHI: Right.
BORGER: -- declaring themselves. because the worst thing you can really do is surprise your constituents.
VELSHI: Yes, I hear you. We're going to have one of those declarations within the next 60 minutes right here on CNN.
BORGER: Can't wait.
VELSHI: One of the undeclared Democrats is going to come in and tell us which way they've decided to go.
Gloria, great to see you. Thank you. You'll be with us through this whole thing as we follow this story. Gloria Borger, joining us on health care.
Now, there is an ongoing trade dispute with China. You had to be living under a rock to not know that. But it has suddenly heated up. And Christine Romans, who follows this very closely, says U.S.-China relations are at the lowest point they have been in years. And that is going to affect you. We'll come back after the break and find out what she's talking about.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Economists smackdown. This is not normally something we talk about. Economists do a lot of things, but they don't usually get crazy heated with each other and throw accusations around and even introduce sports metaphors and violence in the same sentence.
Christine Romans has the drama that is the -- the world economic situation. This is quite something. The war of words between China and U.S. is heating up. But you know, you might think China and the U.S. are adversaries. You might think they're a husband and wife. You might think they're a couple on edge. I mean, use any analogy you want. But we're kind of stuck to each other a little bit.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's all of those things.
VELSHI: Yes.
ROMANS: It's the most important relationship in the world. It's the most financial marriage in the world. And it's been strained this week, Ali. Really more strained than I've seen it since back in 2006 when Congress was considering punitive action against China for its currency.
VELSHI: Right.
ROMANS: You're talking about that again. A Senate bill this week introduced. Chuck Schumer and others are very concerned that China artificially keeps its currency low. And that makes everything made in China more attractive, and it hurts everything made in the U.S.
VELSHI: Right. Because their currency is low, so their stuff -- so their stuff costs less than a toothbrush made in America--
ROMANS: Right.
VELSHI: -- or whatever the case is. And some people would like China to not keep its currency low so that American goods have a fighting chance on the world economy.
ROMANS: Right. And you'll hear a lot of people talking about leveling the playing field. And there's a lot of discussion about what does that mean?
This is not a foreign policy issue, folks. This is a domestic issue, because it means many people say you will have to pay more for your goods. It has to do with how much it would cost you to borrow money. I mean, this is a very big, important relationship. Would you pay more money to level the playing field and protect American jobs? It's a big discussion that's happening right now.
And this week, you talked about the economist smackdown, Ali. I've never seen anything like that. This week in the "New York Times," Paul Krugman, who won a Nobel Prize for economics, he is advocating that the United States be tougher on China and its currency. He says for six years Congress and the Treasury Department have been pretending like nothing -- nothing was wrong. They've been ignoring the obvious.
He says, "Chinese currency policy is adding materially to the world's economic problems at a time when those problems are already very severe. It's time to take a stand." He came on very, very strongly.
VELSHI: OK. It's strong but doesn't seem unusual as a perspective for an economist who believes that.
ROMANS: So here's another well-known economist's reaction to this. When asked by a TV interviewer whether that wasn't essentially taking a baseball bat to Chinese policy, Morgan Stanley's Steven Roche said this.
He said, "We should take out the baseball bat on Paul Krugman," which many of us who watch these sort of things were a little shocked at--
VELSHI: Right.
ROMANS: -- because usually you're talking about trade deficits, current account deficits, and, you know, interest rate parities and disparities. And suddenly, we're talking about the baseball bat.
Now, to be honest, he was asked, you know, is this taking a baseball bat to China's policy? He responded, "We should take a baseball bat to Paul Krugman."
But he said that the problem here is not blaming China. The U.S. needs to save more, and the Chinese have, as he said, an embryonic financial system that simply must -- should keep a peg for the near term in its currency.
But this is -- this is heating up, Ali. And it's heating up at a time when the U.S. economy is weak and the Chinese economy is very strong. So there's a lot to watch here.
VELSHI: And the Chinese -- and the Chinese are sort of, you know, standing a little tall about the fact that their centralized economy seems to have deployed stimulus money more effectively than the U.S.
ROMANS: Exactly.
VELSHI: -- and seemed to have had more result.
Here's something interesting that Paul Krugman also said. He said, sure, America may be the debtor and China may be the creditor, but if America -- if China were to start selling off U.S. debt, they would get hurt more than America would. So, in fact, Paul Krugman made the article -- the argument that America has China over a barrel and not the other way around.
ROMANS: Which is not what the conventional wisdom is. The conventional wisdom is that they're the banker, and we're the -- we're the guy out there borrowing all the money so that we can live beyond our means. So they're the ones with all the power.
I think what the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao said last weekend. Very, very strong remarks, by the way, Ali, about the United States. They're very angry about us selling weapons to Taiwan. They're very angry about the president meeting with the Dali Lama. This Google flap about Google potentially pulling out also adds a wrinkle. A lot of things happening. But what Wen Jiabao had said, he said, "Look, if the United States continues along this path, it's going to hurt the United States, and it's going to hurt China."
VELSHI: Right.
ROMANS: It's going to hurt both countries. And on that, everyone agrees.
VELSHI: On Paul Krugman's point, you and I were talking to Richard Quest earlier. And he, I think, made the best comment. He said when you -- when you owe the bank 100 bucks, that's your problem. When you owe the bank a million dollars, it's their problem.
ROMANS: And we owe that bank way more than a million bucks.
VELSHI: That's exactly right.
ROMANS: I was on Facebook, Ali, asking people about this. People are really fired up, and people really understand this relationship.
And I asked people, would you pay more for your products every day--
VELSHI: Yes.
ROMANS: -- if you leveled the playing field and protected American jobs, as some people say. And I want to read you one from somebody named Dilshad. She had a pretty astute analogy here. She said, "Over the last 30 years the U.S. has gotten addicted to the higher standard of living fueled by cheap things made in China. To be able to level the playing field," she goes on to say, "we're going to have to make some changes. Among them, we will have to get used to a lower standard of living and more expensive things. Are we as a nation ready to accept that? If we do not, it will be a major economic disaster waiting for us."
And really great remarks on Facebook on this.
VELSHI: Keep them coming.
ROMANS: People really into -- they know -- they know this is a domestic issue.
VELSHI: Yes.
ROMANS: This isn't some foreign policy out in the ether. This is a domestic issue.
VELSHI: We want to know, because this is one of those topics that Christine and I sometimes think that you guys, our viewers out there, think is boring, but it is important. We want to know if you want to hear this kind of thing.
ROMANS: Boring, boring, boring. ROMANS: Tweet Christine, @ChristineRomans, or go to her on Facebook. Same thing with me, @AliVelshi.
And by the way, you can watch both of us and much more of this specific discussion this weekend on "YOUR $$$$$," Saturday at 1 p.m. Eastern and Sunday at 3 p.m. Eastern. That's Christine Romans in New York.
All right. Let me give you a check of some of the top stories that we're following right now on CNN. There are lots of them.
The push for health-care reform has been going on for about a year. Now President Obama and House Democrats have about 48 hours left to try to twist some arms. The legislation set to come to the House floor on Sunday. Right now the Dems don't have the numbers to pass it, but House leaders say they are confident about the votes still in play.
As of the last count there are about 33 Democrats and Republicans who had not yet committed to a yes or a no on the vote.
Thousands of travelers' plans will be disrupted this weekend after talks between British Airways and its cabin crew union have broken down. The union says it will begin a three-day strike at midnight, with another walkout timed to hit Eastern week flights.
And Pope Benedict XVI has formally signed a pastoral letter apologizing for sexual abuse in the Irish Catholic Church. The letter will be made public tomorrow. The pope still has not tackled an abuse scandal that came to light in his native Germany.
Well, spring may start tomorrow, but winter sure isn't leaving yet. And the Red River keeps on rising. Chad is watching it very carefully. He'll bring you the details, straight ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: All right. Chad is working his way to the wall. He's always doing this, by the way. He's got something going on at the last minute because he's trying to keep us as up-to-speed as possible.
There's a lot of stuff going on. The Red River is the focus of it--
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes.
VELSHI: -- but really all through the upper Midwest. Flooding in a bunch of rivers.
MYERS: Yes.
VELSHI: What's the update?
MYERS: The update is that the numbers haven't changed. Isn't that a great thing that the numbers haven't changed. The numbers are still 38. VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: Ugly map, I understand. From the weather service, whatever. They don't want to spend all of your money making great- looking maps.
VELSHI: Sure.
MYERS: Thirty-eight feet, that's the stage. And record stage that we had last year, about 41 feet.
VELSHI: OK.
MYERS: Three feet below that. They built the levees and the sandbags to the level that they had last year.
VELSHI: Those are below that, we're OK.
MYERS: Now, there will be various outlying areas that will flood. You can't -- the way this river goes back and forth, you can't protect everybody.
VELSHI: Right, right. Hard to see here. But when you really look at it, it is windy.
MYERS: Here it is.
VELSHI: OK. There you go. Look at that. Look at this river.
MYERS: Yes. That is.
VELSHI: Crazy.
MYERS: The boundary between Minnesota and North Dakota.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: And literally, there are miles and miles and miles. If it would just go straight, you could just put barrier there and let it go all of the way up to Canada, let it go. But it doesn't do that. It goes back and forth and back and forth and back and forth.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: And so that's what they're protecting right now. Something that's helping: very cold air is coming into the Midwest.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: That's going to slow down the snow melt--
VELSHI: Yes.
MYERS: -- slow down the water rise, slow down that 38, going to 39, maybe up to 40. We do have this, though. Look at the numbers from Oklahoma City, with 12 inches of snow possible, all the way through the I-25 corridor there. Three feet of snow in the highest of elevations. And what I was doing, I was working on tower cam out of Denver.
VELSHI: Is that what you were talking about?
MYERS: But there's a reporter standing in the way.
VELSHI: I see. OK.
MYERS: There's no reason to do that.
VELSHI: Which way is that going? Is that moving -- heading from--
MYERS: This is a slow-moving -- going to come out of here. It's going to spin, going to do a loop.
VELSHI: OK.
MYERS: Remember what happens when you get loops?
VELSHI: Yes, yes.
MYERS: You get big bands of snow that last a long time.
VELSHI: Right. But, you know, I'm headed up to the northeast this weekend.
MYERS: The cloud is gone.
VELSHI: It's gone, right. You called me Pigpen last week, because you said it all, you know, just follows around me.
All, good. We'll keep a track on this and the flooding, as well.
All right. Listen, the abortion issue and health-care reform, the two have become intertwined. They've been very difficult to separate, which has led some Catholics and Catholic organizations to not approve of President Obama's health-care reform.
Well, there's a very unlikely supporter representing a group of people within the Catholic Church who's coming out in favor of President Obama's health-care reform. There she is. We're going to talk to her right after the break and ask her why.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: OK, in these final days of the health care marathon, the two main hurdles for supporters of reform have been cost and abortion. We're going to talk about the latter. We talk about cost a lot here and we will continue to. This week, a coalition of Catholic nuns came out in favor of the measure being voted on this weekend, the health care reform and that's significant because the U.S. Catholic bishops oppose it. They said it would liberalize a long-standing ban on Federally funded abortion, the so-called Hyde amendment. And I want to break that down for you.
Now under the bill that passed the Senate, which is up for a vote in the House, state exchanges could bar insurers that cover abortion. All exchanges would have to include at least one plan that excludes abortion coverage and no exchange would have to include any plan that includes abortion. Now, all of those covered policies, all those people covered by policies that do cover abortion would have to split their premium payments between regular care and abortion services.
Now, the House bill, which the bishop supported, went further. It said no one could buy abortion coverage even with his or her own money from any plan which accepted government subsidies. Enter the nuns. More than 50 of them representing almost 60,000 nuns across the nation are lobbying for the health care reform bill that faces a do or die vote in Congress on Sunday.
Now, they say it won't provide taxpayer funding for elective abortions and will provide historic new investments in support of pregnant women. This, they say, is the real pro-life stance. But I don't want to say it for them. Sister Simone Campbell represents the Catholic social justice group Network. She also happens to be an attorney and joins me this hour from Washington.
Sister Simone, thank you very much for being with us.
SISTER SIMONE CAMPBELL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NETWORK: It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me.
VELSHI: It must be difficult when somebody knows you're a nun and assumes you must be against anything in this health care provision that allows any Federal funding of abortions. Tell me how you came to this position.
CAMPBELL: I am opposed to Federal funding of abortion and this bill does not provide any Federal funding. We came to this position because we're -- when I read the statement from Catholic Health Association that said that this bill was a good bill, I knew that we as Catholic sisters who work with the poor every day had to stand with them. It's our dealing with people in deep need, the 45,000 who die every year because they don't have access to health care, that's why we're standing for this bill. This bill would be a bill that supports their lives going forward.
VELSHI: Well, the Catholic bishop, Cardinal Frances George, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has said this. The expansion of health care should not involve the expansion of abortion funding and of policies forcing everyone to pay for abortions. Is there just a difference in understanding of what's in this bill or is it a difference in position between you and the Conference of Catholic Bishops?
CAMPBELL: I'm truly puzzled by our bishops' position, because when I read the bill, I don't see that there is any Federal funding of abortion. It specifically prohibits it. So we agree with the goal. We just think it's included in the bill. Senators Casey and Nelson who are fine, upstanding, pro-life senators have drafted a bill that is very effective in keeping Federal funds away from abortion. We think they were successful. Therefore, we support the bill.
VELSHI: I'm going to read you just another statement from Cardinal Frances George. He says, because these principles have not been respected, despite the good that the bill under consideration intends or might achieve, the Catholic bishops regretfully hold that it must be opposed unless and until these serious moral problems are addressed. So I guess I want to be clear. You and the bishops are not on different sides of the issue of funding for abortion. You are reading this bill and the provisions differently.
CAMPBELL: That's the problem. And I don't know how they're reading this bill. I don't understand it. It seems pretty clear to me and that therefore, we are supporting the bill because of the broader life issue for all of the -- I mean, there's 50 million people in our country that don't have access to health care. This will be a significant step towards getting them access to a life-giving health care. It's important. We think we should support it.
VELSHI: Everybody is busy these days with their own work. I don't know if you've had a chance to have a conversation with the bishops. Have you been able to sit there and say, what are you see that we're not seeing?
CAMPBELL: No, not since they came out with their statement. It's just been really hectic.
VELSHI: Sure.
CAMPBELL: But I'm eager to have that conversation. They can call me if they want. This is something we're going to have to work outgoing forward. Right now the press is on. We've got to pass it.
VELSHI: OK. Bottom line for you, though, is it helps far more people than it even potentially could hurt?
CAMPBELL: Bottom line for us, it doesn't provide Federal funds for abortion. It doesn't change existing law. It does extend coverage to folks who desperately need it. These are the poor and we think that's where Jesus would stand, is with the poor. We are in favor of the bill.
VELSHI: Sister Simone Campbell is the executive director of Catholic social justice lobby called Network, joining us from Washington. Thank you so much, sister, for being with us today.
CAMPBELL: It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me.
VELSHI: OK. All right. People are out there using the food stamp program to rip off the government. That means they're ripping you off as well. It's an investigation that you need to hear about. We'll bring it to you right after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Beer, cigarettes, potato chips, would you believe millions of your tax dollars being used to pay for stuff like that? Here's CNN's John Zarrella.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Female's getting out walking towards the front door.
JOHN ZARRELLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): An undercover agent walks into a small convenience store in Tampa. Wearing a recording device, she approaches the cashier with a debit card.
AGENT: Can I get 100 back off of this?
ZARRELLA: She picks up about $12 worth of chips, soda and cigarettes, then presses the clerk.
CLERK: What you want?
AGENT: I wanted 100 back.
ZARRELLA: The clerk runs the debit card, allegedly keeps $100 for the store and gives the agent $100, plus the goods.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She is out, small bag in her hand.
ZARRELLA: What the store clerk just did, the Florida department of law enforcement officials say, is illegal and they say you should be outraged.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's directly stealing from the taxpayers of the United States.
ZARRELLA: The debit card the undercover agent used is called an electronic benefit transfer card or EBT which can only be used to purchase food. It's more commonly known by its old name, food stamps.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: See what they do is they charge the U.S. government $212.02. EBT food benefit, food balance, all that and they give us $100 in cash, cigarettes and chips for $212.
ZARRELLA: Bottom line, there's no requirement to itemize the receipt, so the convenience store allegedly got a $100 kickback of your taxpayer money. The recipient, the undercover agent, got cash back, also illegal. Authorities targeted 30 stores in the state of Florida. At 16, they were allowed to use the EBT cards. At multiple stores, the cash from those EBT cards were used to purchase lottery tickets. And at one store agents used the EBT card to buy the prescription drug oxycodone. If you think that's outrageous, listen to this transaction at a drive-thru store called Big Daddy's.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It looks like the clerk, it looks like he may have shaven his beard.
ZARRELLA: It was one of the stores targeted because in just the month of December, it did $34,000 in EBT transactions. Compare that to $1,000 at comparable stores. Here, the agents didn't get money back but they illegally got non-food items, beer, cigarettes, and this --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you have any Trojans in there?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Trojans?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I got these.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Do you have a three-pack? Yes, just give me two of those.
ZARRELLA: Wednesday following a three-month investigation, state agents hit the 16 targeted stores across Florida. At Big Daddy's, three people were taken into custody, the owner and two employees. None of them would comment for CNN at the scene. Authorities believe during the past year, the 16 stores alone defrauded taxpayers of $3.5 million.
KEN TUCKER, FDLE ASST. COMMISSIONER: If you multiply it nationwide, you know, I can't give you an accurate number, but it has to be in the billions of dollars.
ZARRELLA: The USDA, which administers the program, says nationwide, 38 million people benefit from the supplemental nutrition program. It estimates 1 percent of the $50 billion in EBT funds were lost to fraud in 2009. Authorities in Florida say the next phase of their operation will target people using the cards illegally rather than for what they were intended, food to put on the table.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ZARRELLA: Law enforcement officials say that because of the economy, in some cases the cash back these people are getting is going for things like rent and maybe a car payment. But in most cases, police say the money is being used for drugs and alcohol -- Ali.
VELSHI: John, thanks so much.
No matter where you stand on health care reform, you can all agree on this. This is going to be a historic vote this weekend. The situation is changing moment to moment. The people who are saying that they are undecided making decisions to support or object to this Sunday's vote on health care reform.
Stay with CNN. We're all over it. We'll bring you up to speed after this break.
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VELSHI: Let's get a quick check of the top stories we're following here at CNN. Just in, we're hearing now that the president will address House Democrats at the White House tomorrow afternoon as they make a final push for health care reform. Those Democrats are trying to round up 216 votes to pass the legislation. A vote is expected on Sunday. We'll talk more about this at the top of the hour.
In the markets today, new worries about whether Greece will be able to pay off its debts. Investors are wary after Greece said it might have to get help from the International Monetary Fund. That is if European leaders can't help with the bailout. Yesterday the Dow closed at its highest level since October of 2008.
In Iraq, unofficial results suggest a tight race between Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki's party and rival (INAUDIBLE) Alawi's (ph) party, but neither one is poised to win a majority in the 325 seat parliament. Workers are still counting votes from the March 7th election. Let's have that. There we go.
All right. I keep hearing about this March madness thing. I come from Canada. We play hockey up there. I don't really know exactly how to have this conversation and seem smart, so my associate producer Jason is here. He's got some basketball chat for dummies to help me and anyone else who needs it to fake our way through the tournament. I think this is going to be worth watching. Stick around. I'll be right back in a minute.
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VELSHI: We're two days into this March madness thing I've heard about and when I say we, I mean you guys. I'm Canadian. I don't know about this stuff. I know about the hockey and not so much about the hoops. But everywhere I go it's final four this and Cinderella that so I want to be able to at least bluff my way through until April or whenever it is that March madness actually ends. To use a basketball term I just learned, I would like to be able to fake.
By the way, I'm not sure I'm the only one who is hoops challenged. Clearly, this calls for team Velshi basketball analyst and associate producer Jason Reid, who, again just give me a sense of -- there we go. One of us is going to be better on the basketball court than the other. Jason, let's just talk me through a couple of these terms so that I can make my way through this for the next few weeks. Alley-oop?
JASON REID, CNN ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Alley-oop is when a person is dribbling down the court and there's a man near the basket, the person dribbling passes it to the man near the court, the man near the basket. Dunks the ball.
VELSHI: All right. That's the alley-oop. That's going to get me through that. The next one I think I understand, I'm a member of the press. Press?
REID: Now that's basically trying to stop the person with the ball.
VELSHI: OK.
REID: So let's say you have the ball. Here we go. VELSHI: Yes.
REID: And I'm going to press you and make sure you can't get past me.
VELSHI: I can get past you.
REID: It didn't work out that way, but "A" for effort.
VELSHI: Did you press me? Is that what you did? All right, you pressed me. Penetrating the zone?
REID: That's basically the zone is sort of defense for the defending team, so basically you just have to pass your way around the zone to get the ball close to the hoop and score the basket.
VELSHI: The offensive team has to get past the defenders in --
REID: Just like President Obama is doing right here.
VELSHI: Is that me or is that the president of the United States doing that, penetrating the zone?
REID: That's the president. You're in the crowd.
VELSHI: All right, I didn't think we'd have him in on the lesson, very good. Buzzer beaters?
REID: Buzzer beater, now, this is the most exciting play in basketball, some would say. So time's wearing down, you got three, two, one, and just before you hit one, the person shoots the ball and makes it, right before the buzzer hits.
VELSHI: Let's take a look at this. Take a look at this. Oh, look at that. So, the idea is you beat the buzzer?
REID: Correct.
VELSHI: This was from a game last night.
REID: Correct. Murray State and Vanderbilt.
VELSHI: And Murray State is a team that was --
REID: They were ranked lower than Vanderbilt.
VELSHI: Right.
REID: So, you know, the higher-ranked team should win the game, but unfortunately Vanderbilt --
VELSHI: Let me try it. Let me see what I learned here. Murray State penetrated the zone and pressed Vanderbilt for a buzzer beater.
REID: More or less. You know?
VELSHI: A little more swagger with that?
REID: You got to sound a little bit more confident with it. But I think you can fake your way through it.
VELSHI: How would I use buzzer beater in a sentence?
REID: Murray State beat Vanderbilt last night with a buzzer beater.
VELSHI: It sounds better when he says it, don't you think?
REID: Yes.
VELSHI: Why don't you just stick with me for the next couple weeks?
REID: I can do that.
VELSHI: Because I'm going to seem a little awkward as I go through it.
REID: The championship game is in April, not March, another twist of the March madness.
VELSHI: That would have confused me. I would have thought April 1st and I don't have to keep on carrying on about this (INAUDIBLE) are you glad that this March madness thing is finally over? Jason, good to see you, thank you buddy. Jason is -- what did we call him, he's our basketball March madness expert.
If you think that you are Fed up with red tape in this country -- Jason is getting a good round of applause -- try putting up with Beijing's version of bureaucracy. Our crew did and we're going to show you what that looked like when we get back.
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VELSHI: Time for back story. I love this. Bureaucracy in China can be a little bit different than what we experience in other countries. In fact for the media, getting a story often involves lots and lots of waiting. Michael Holmes is here. He's the host of "BackStory." He joins us now with a little bit more on this.
Michael, tell me what this is all about.
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You exhaust me, the basketball, I'm exhausted now. I need a time out.
VELSHI: Imagine if I could actually play, if I were actually an athlete?
HOLMES: Yes, you'd be dangerous. Again, when I first came to this country, I lived in England for a while, I thought their bureaucracy was bad. Try getting a green card here, (INAUDIBLE) Emily Chang filed a piece about just going to do the closing of the national people's congress, sort of like the closing of that house of parliament, easy to do, get your press pass, no, no, hours and hours. Go check out how early they had to get here.
Have a look at this story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
EMILY CHANG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.
It is before dawn on a snowy Beijing day. We've got a full house here. Jamie, our bureau chief, Joe will be producing, Mr. Lee, our trusty driver is driving and, of course, Brad is behind the camera. We're heading to the great hall of the people near Tiananmen Square where Premier (INAUDIBLE) will be giving his closing remarks at the end of the national people's congress and we have to get there early to stake out a good spot, so we are on our way.
This is a line that all the journalists have formed this morning to get in for the speech. It is still snowing/raining and unfortunately the doors don't open for another hour and a half. So, we're going to be standing out here freezing for quite a while, unfortunately.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Snowing at the moment.
CHANG: Yes, it's really coming down here, but we're still waiting in line, hopefully we'll be getting in soon. They seem to be letting people in in groups and apparently 6:00 a.m. wasn't early enough to get here, so we're still stuck outside.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The competition for spots is really quite tough, so if you're not in and not there early, you're not going to get a good seat.
CHANG: You ready?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ready. OK. The mad dash (INAUDIBLE) .
CHANG: All right, let's go. How's this spot?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is, um, not bad. I think the bad weather's kept a lot of people back this year. So, this is a good spot. This is fine.
CHANG: So the closing ceremony is going to be held down there?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right.
CHANG: All right, so this is the room where Prime Minister Wen will be speaking. The press conference doesn't start for another two hours now, but it's already filling up. We've got some pretty good seats here, in the third row. But this isn't a press conference in the traditional sense of the word, because the Chinese government actually asks all of the media outlets ahead of time what questions they want to ask and Jimmie, you actually got that call, right?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I did. I did. I told him we have a few questions that we want to ask and then what happens is after a few days they collect all these questions and then that allows the prime minister to prepare for all the different themes and questions. And then they narrow it down -- they narrow down the list and then they start to call people to answer the questions that they'd like to be -- they'd like to answer, basically.
CHANG: I mean, and this is pretty much the only time all year when journalists can directly ask questions of the prime minister.
OK, so the press conference is over. OK, so the press conference is over. Unfortunately, CNN did not -- we didn't get to ask a question, and I would say not a lot of surprises here.
What would you say?
JAIME FLORCRUZ, CNN BEIJING BUREAU CHIEF: Not a lot of big headlines today. Quite a few were expectable questions, and the answers were also quite predictable.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: Yes, it's a classic one of those where Emily's story, which ran on CNN International -- I don't know if it ran here, but it was a little minute story, a couple little sound bites. It was, like, a 16-hour day.
VELSHI: Right. Right.
HOLMES: Insane.
VELSHI: We do take these things for granted. Sometimes information just flowing to us easily and we have to decide what we're putting on TV, as opposed to going through all of that effort. But you do have to do it if that's how you're covering the news for something that, in the end, as she said, didn't have a whole lot of --
HOLMES: Not a whole lot of meaning to it.
VELSHI: But it could have.
HOLMES: It's a little bit of a behind-the-scenes look at what went into it, yes.
VELSHI: That's what it is, which is what you get on "BackStory," which we really enjoy.
If you want to see more of Michael and the "BackStory" team, check out CNN.com/backstory.
Thanks, Michael.
HOLMES: All right. See you later.
