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American Morning
Strong Aftershocks Shake Chile; Senator's Stall Costs Jobs; Republicans Battle for Texas; Bye-Bye Postal; Shopping For Health Care
Aired March 02, 2010 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Well, good morning to you on this Tuesday. It's March 2nd. Glad you are with us on AMERICAN MORNING. I'm Kiran Chetry.
JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Jim Acosta, in for John Roberts today. Thanks for joining us.
CHETRY: Yes. And we have some top stories we're telling you about the next 15 minutes.
First, we're following the latest in the aftermath of the big earthquake in Chile. Looting -- a huge problem still. There's a curfew in effect. Military patrols are in place in the city of Concepcion, but still, looters roam the streets.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to arrive in Chile this hour, carrying the first wave of U.S. aid.
ACOSTA: And the check will not be in the mail for thousands of people starting this week, thanks to a move by outgoing senator, Jim Bunning. He took shelter in an elevator when he was asked about it by Dana Bash. She tries to find whether this is a right time to take a stand on deficit spending.
CHETRY: Also, big trouble in the south. A winter storm on the move, and it could dump several inches of snow across parts of Georgia. Already, flights are canceled. Our Rob Marciano is keeping an eye on all of it for us.
ACOSTA: And breaking news out of Dallas, Texas, this morning. A four-alarm fire burning, lots of thick smoke rising, according to reports there from our affiliate WFAA in Dallas. As many as four businesses, including two restaurants -- there is that burning video we were just talking about. Those businesses are burning at this hour.
We are told -- thank goodness -- there was nobody inside the buildings when the fire started, Kiran.
CHETRY: All right. We'll keep an eye on that this morning.
Meantime, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is about to get a firsthand look at the earthquake devastation in Chile. She is due to arrive in Santiago at any moment. Meantime, rescuers are continuing to search for people who may be buried in the rubble. More than 720 people have been killed so far. In the city of Concepcion, one of the hardest hit areas, looting is the major problem right now.
Our Soledad O'Brien is live this morning in the city with the latest for us.
Good morning, Soledad.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Kiran.
They've extended the curfew so that not many people out on the streets right now. What we have seen are the rescue workers, the bomberos are here, and they started working. Really, they were here through the night, too, but aftershocks kept them from making a lot of progress.
One of the saddest things to see, family members are starting to come by and when they get a sight at this building -- this is a building toppled over, you're looking at the underside of the first floor -- they gasp, they cover their mouths with their hands and they are absolutely devastated. There are 40-plus people inside they are searching for, Kiran.
CHETRY: And, Soledad, you talk about the curfew being in effect right now. Has that made much of an impact on the problem of looting?
O'BRIEN: Yes, certainly, the streets have been quiet through the night. And, right now, really, you see almost, you know, I'd say, virtually, no cars on the streets. So that has helped.
But there was a curfew yesterday, too, and you saw once the curfew was lifted, people started breaking in and climbing into and pushing their way into stores. And so, you had many store owners sort of set up barricades. They get together and they put a barricade on their block, and they would put tires and any debris that had fallen down in the earthquake.
And basically they are there with dogs and some sticks, and saying, "Listen, my store is here, my neighbor's stores are here, and no one is going to get past this barricade because if there's no one to protect us, we're going to protect ourselves." It was some, you know, tense moments. But with the curfew still in effect, that's calmed down a lot overnight.
CHETRY: All right. At least some good news there. Soledad O'Brien for us -- thanks so much.
And to find out how you can help and reach out to the people of Chile, you can go to CNN.com/Impact, "Impact Your World" site. You're going to find a list of approved charities and relief organizations -- Jim.
ACOSTA: They have jobs last week, Kiran, but now, thousands of Americans are waking up without a job this morning. President Obama says they have one senator to thank for that, retiring Kentucky Republican Jim Bunning. A man who once threw a perfect game in the Majors, threw what some in Washington are calling a screw ball, blocking federal highway funding that keeps people employed.
Dana Bash tracked down Senator Bunning to get some answers, but he wasn't all that interested in talking. She's live in Capitol Hill for us.
And, Dana, I think there might be some Republicans out there who'd like to call in a reliever at this point and bring the pitcher off the mound, as it were?
DANA BASH, CNN SR. CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. The problem is that they don't have the power to do that. It is the power of one senator. Every single person who is elected to the Senate has the power that Jim Bunning is using -- and right now, to keep the metaphor going, he is still playing hardball.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BASH (voice-over): It's a package of $10 billion to extend funding for laid off workers, road projects and more. But one senator, Kentucky's Jim Bunning, is blocking it, and he angrily refused to answer questions about why.
JONATHAN KARL, ABC NEWS: -- people who are unemployed?
SEN. JIM BUNNING (R), KENTUCKY: Excuse me. I've got to go to the floor.
BASH (on camera): Senator, could you just explain to us why you're holding this up? I'm sure you have an explanation.
BUNNING: Excuse me!
KARL: Yes. Are you concerned about those that are losing their benefits?
I guess we have our answer.
BASH (voice-over): Bunning's move is having a real world effect. Construction workers here started the morning on the job, rebuilding a bridge outside Washington. But as the clock ticked towards noon, workers on this $36 million project were told to stop and leave. The site locked up.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They told everybody to go home at 12:00, told everybody to go home.
BASH: The Department of Transportation says it furloughed 2,000 workers around the country because Congress failed to pass legislation to extend funding for the projects. The $10 billion measure Bunning is blocking also includes unemployment benefits for some 400,000 people, COBRA health subsidies for laid off workers and small businesses loans.
Bunning did go to the Senator floor and did explain. He is for extending them, but he wants to pay for them, not add to the deficit.
BUNNING: If we can't find $10 billion to pay for something that we all support, we will never pay for anything on the floor of this U.S. Senate.
BASH: Bunning even formally offered a measure to pay for the benefits, Democrats objected.
SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV), MAJORITY LEADER: But where was my friend from Kentucky when we had two wars that were unpaid for during the Bush administration; tax cuts that cost more than a trillion dollars unpaid for -- where was my friend and the Republicans' objective to that?
BASH: Democrats immediately saw the political benefit in playing up a GOP senator blocking legislation that would help hard hit Americans.
The Department of Transportation's press release carefully detailed for reporters examples of popular projects halted because of Bunning.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BASH: And Democrats could use Senate procedure to work around Bunning, but talking to Democratic sources, they have no plans to do that in the next few days. The bottom line is: Democrats see a political upside in the standoff. Now, Democrats in the Senate are planning a larger jobs related package that will include extension from many of these expiring benefits and programs. They hope to pass that at the end of the week, but it probably will be a few weeks before that would reach the president's desk -- Jim.
ACOSTA: And, Dana, yesterday, the minority whip, Jon Kyl, got into a little bit of a debate with Max Baucus on the floor there, and Jon Kyl at one point said that unemployment benefits -- and I'm not quoting him verbatim here, but the spirit of what he said was, that there are disincentive to people who are looking for work. How does that kind of message play in the political year, in an election year that we're in a middle of right now?
BASH: You know, it is one of the philosophical differences that you see between members of Congress here. That is the minority review. Some Republicans do believe that unemployment benefits are the wrong way to go. Having said that -- most Republicans wish that their fellow Republican, Jim Bunning, would not have picked this particular issue to help jobless Americans to stake his claim on the whole idea of fighting the deficit.
Besides Jon Kyl, Republicans have been remarkably silent in dealing with this. They know they can't really force him to stop -- to stop down but they wish that this political nightmare really for them would go away.
ACOSTA: Right. And perhaps retire early, so to speak.
Dana Bash, thanks a lot -- joining us live from the Capitol this morning.
BASH: Thanks, Jim.
ACOSTA: Good talking to you.
BASH: You, too.
CHETRY: All right. Meanwhile, it's eight minutes past the hour right now. We're going to check in with Rob Marciano. He's in the extreme weather center for us in Atlanta -- where you guys are actually going to get your share of some pretty rough weather today as well.
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, a little bit of rain, a little bit of snow, a little bit of everything in between. A pretty big storm is rolling across the Gulf States in the past day and a half. It started in Texas, moved across Louisiana, and then the northern fringes of it really kicking up not only some rain and snow, but heavy wind gusts.
It's going to be a windy day across the southeast. You see the radar, let's go up here and it expands all the way from southern parts of Florida where we see delays because of thunderstorms rolling through there, and to parts of Tennessee and even to Kentucky eventually as this thing moves off to the east and northeast.
Notice a little bit of pink and white mixing to some of the blues there, that means that wintry precipitation is trying to mix in. And it has done so in places like Mississippi and northern Alabama. And so, we do expected to see a bit of a change over as the colder air works and this thing moves up to the north. But just an inch or two of slushy snow expected this afternoon across the metropolitan areas of Atlanta, suburbs north will see a little more, two to four inches expected in some spots.
Temps will be colder in Atlanta than in New York today. It's a nice touch for you guys. Thirty-four degrees in Chicago. And another batch of storms rolling into the west coast. We'll start to focus on that one was we get rid of this winter storm.
You know, guys, March -- typically, March 1st is the beginning of meteorological spring, meaning that the winter should start to act more like we're -- more like spring. But that hasn't been the case just yet. We'll work on that for you. See you in about 30 minutes.
CHETRY: Yes, Jacqui Jeras tried that one on us yesterday. We're still not feeling it.
(LAUGHTER)
CHETRY: Maybe meteorological spring but it's real spring.
ACOSTA: We're not feeling it yet. Thanks, Rob.
MARCIANO: All right, guys. ACOSTA: And coming up in just a few moments, we're going to go down to Texas where they got a bit of a Texas Three Step going on down there. The Republican primary for the governor's race has three candidates going at each other and many of them down in Texas. Those tea party folks that we've been talking about a lot lately, they are watching this race very closely. Our Candy Crowley coming up shortly with that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ACOSTA: Welcome back to The Most News in the Morning. It is 12 minutes after the hour. Thanks for joining us.
And it's primary day in Texas. The polls are open, and all the attention is on the Republican contest for governor. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and Governor Rick Perry have been locked in a tough and personal battle.
Candy Crowley, host of CNN's "STATE OF THE UNION," is live in Austin, Texas this morning.
And, Candy, everything is bigger down in Texas. They got three candidates in this race. I didn't mention Debra Medina who is the favorite of the tea party folks down there. This race is really going to be an interesting one to watch.
CANDY CROWLEY, HOST, "STATE OF THE UNION": It is. And I'll tell you, it has had just about everything in it. Not just three candidates, but a candidate backed by the tea party, and another that courted the tea party, and a sitting senator who has really been bashed for her incumbency basically, for being attached to Washington -- because this was not just about one candidate against another, this was about everybody against Washington.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CROWLEY (voice-over): Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison has been out floating her roots.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) Texas and she's right now our senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison.
CROWLEY: Why does the great, great granddaughter of a man who signed the Texas declaration of independence in 1836 have to remind Texans that she's one of them?
GOV. RICK PERRY (R), TEXAS: When you spend the last 17 years of your life as a United States senator in Washington, D.C., when you voted for the bailout that in hindsight was an absolute atrocity, then you must go to the people of the state of Texas and explain to them why you're not a creature of the Washington culture.
CROWLEY: The race to be the Republican nominee for the Texas governor is all about Washington.
SEN. KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON (R), TEXAS GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: There is an anger all over America, and certainly all over Texas, about what's happening in government, the overreach in Washington. People think, "What on earth are those people thinking up there?" And I don't disagree with them, I agree with them.
DICK CHENEY, FORMER U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: And when it comes to being conservative, Kay Bailey Hutchison is the real deal.
CROWLEY: A year ago, Hutchison was the fave, a popular Republican seen as the establishment candidate who would broaden GOP appeal.
But that's so 2009, before incumbent Governor Rick Perry's year- long full embrace of anti-Washington, anti-tax, socially conservative rhetoric. And that includes a declaration at a tea party event that Texas should consider seceding from the Union.
WAYNE SLATER, DALLAS MORNING NEWS: That got an enormous response, not because Texans' want to succeed, but because they hear the word succession as code for, we don't like Washington, unbelievably successful.
CROWLEY: Perry now leads Hutchison by double digits. Not that it's that simple.
DEBRA MEDINA, TEXAS GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE (R): I'm here to tell you today we are going to win -
CROWLEY: Debra Medina has promised to abolish property taxes and ignore federal laws that she thinks are unconstitutional. A gun- owning nurse who home schools her children, Media is a tea party activist, campaigning as the real anti-spending, anti-Washington conservative.
MEDIAN: Boy they sing the song well during campaign season but don't legislate that way.
CROWLEY: Medina's presence in the race could force a run off if no one gets to the 50 percent threshold. But she took a hit recently and her numbers began to fall when she did not immediately repudiate the notion that the U.S. government was envelope in 9/11.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CROWLEY: And in fact, whether there will be a runoff, whether either candidate will get that 50 percent mark is really the only suspense that seems to be left in the race, every poll leading into today and the polls just opened this hour, every single poll has shown Rick Perry ahead by a substantial margin, Jim.
ACOSTA: Got to love Texas politics, Candy, thanks so much for joining us and we'll be watching again.
CROWLEY: Sure.
ACOSTA: Kiran. CHETRY: All right well our "AM" series "Prescription For Waste" continues today. Shopping for medical procedures. How is it that something like let's say a colonoscopy can vary so widely in cost based on where you go when asked? Elizabeth Cohen has a look.
It's 17 minutes past the hour
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: It's a pretty scenes from New York this morning starting with the Statue of Liberty in the New York Harbor.
ACOSTA: Yes.
CHETRY: Nice day out there today.
ACOSTA: Always pretty.
CHETRY: It is isn't it? And welcome back to The Most News In the Morning, we are 20 minutes past the hour right now. Time for "Minding Your Business" this morning. And Christine is here with news about the postal service for us. Hello, Christine.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Chetry. Hello, Newman.
ACOSTA: That's a Newman reference, ladies and gentlemen.
ROMANS: Yup.
CHETRY: We tried. It was funnier before when -
ROMANS: It was a lot funnier in the break -
ACOSTA: It was funnier in the break.
ROMANS: OK so the postal service obviously has some chronic budget problems and the postal general is trying to talk about how to modernize some of the laws and some of the circumstances that it operates under.
You know it operates under a set of laws from 1971. In 1971, there was three ways to communicate, telegraph, the mail. Why are you laughing? The telegraph, the telephone and the mail. Everything has changed, right?
CHETRY: Of course.
ROMANS: The buying of mail we are sending is down. And the post office, it doesn't fire people. It doesn't cut jobs, it doesn't cut roots, it doesn't cut branches, that's going to have to change. They are talking about five-days delivery. They are going to have to get, well they're going to have to get congressional approval for this. That means no Saturday delivery.
You know people really scream about this when you talk about taking away their Saturday mail delivery. And they scream to the congress members and they also scream when you say you are going to close branches. But most of these branches are not profitable. There are 32,000 branches, 26,000 don't make any money, they lose money.
They are also talking about adding more self service kiosks. You could see - what I think are pretty convenient electronic kiosks and other places outside of your - the lobby of your postal service. You know, they had to borrow about $10 billion just to stay afloat over the last few years.
Last year they had $6 billion in budget cuts. But this is the postal service saying, look, we need an independent commission to make recommendations to congress because we need to modernize. Everything is changing.
ACOSTA: Yes, you point all this out, we love our postal workers.
ROMANS: Sure.
ACOSTA: But at the same time something has to give, right?
CHETRY: No but I asked the question, after you did the story, I think it's a CNN.com -- CNNMoney.com, a port of page, a lot of people said we pay them to be there, no Saturday mail, yes I'd mind. Somebody else said it's the day a lot of us lose errands, so they would actually be losing revenue.
ROMANS: So maybe they would lose a Wednesday instead of a Saturday. They have been very poignant about saying five days of service, not six days. Everyone assumes that means no Saturday mail, but maybe it would be Monday, maybe it would be Wednesday, maybe it would be Tuesday.
A lot - you know we talked about this earlier. A lot of the grad school programs for management they look at the postal service and they say how would you fix it, and I would send in the CEO of FedEx, or I'd send - you know but they are a lot of Congressional -- this is an independent government agency.
You know it makes its money -- most of its revenues comes from stamps and postal charges but it's tied to the old, you know, you know how it works.
ACOSTA: Yes.
CHETRY: Right, it's so much easier to solve all our problems on paper doesn't it?
ROMANS: Yes.
CHETRY: Than actually putting it into practice in the real world.
ROMANS: Yes, but you can see, you know, these congressmen, I mean their phones light up if you start talking about changing anything, the way they defend routes, they defend jobs. CHETRY: Of course.
ROMANS: Six hundred thousand works there, half of them are eligible to retire over the next ten years, so attrition will be one way that they're going to try to make a leaner meaner smaller postal service so it can compete.
ACOSTA: Thank you, Christine.
ROMANS: Thank you, Acosta.
CHETRY: Thank you Newman.
(LAUGHTER)
ACOSTA: Well, moving on our AM series, "Prescription For Waste" today, shopping for medical procedures. Elizabeth Cohen reports.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Twenty-five minutes past the hour right now. Top stories five minutes away.
First, though, an AM original, something you will only see on AMERICAN MORNING. And it's hard to understand why, but the same MRI can cost you nearly $800 at one hospital and less than $250 at another. Our senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is in Atlanta to explain why perhaps some of us should be bargain hunting or at least doing some cost comparisons when it comes to our health care.
Good morning, Elizabeth.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Kiran.
Kiran, I think people don't realize that you need to bargain shop for health care, even if you have insurance with deductibles and your co-pays, you are paying a hefty chunk of the medical bill, so it really pays to bargain shop.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COHEN: Like anyplace, when you go shopping you can do price comparison whether you are looking for a car or pair of shoes. But what I think people here or anywhere else fail to realize you can go comparison shopping for health care services and save yourself thousands of dollars, so come on, let's go bargain shopping for a colonoscopy.
Our first off, it's the Southern New Hampshire medical center. They charge nearly $5,000 for a colonoscopy. Let's see if we can get a better deal. Come on. Here at the Country Ambulatory Surgical Center, a colonoscopy would only cost me about $2,800. Now remember, the most expensive place would set me back nearly $5,000, so by coming here, I save more than $2,000. See it pays to bargain shop.
I am so excited about how well I did with the colonoscopies that now I'm going to go bargain shopping for a hernia surgery. Here at St. Joseph's hospital, they charge $13,400 to repair a hernia. That is so expensive I'm not even going to get out of the car. I will find something cheaper. At Elliott hospital, they only charge about $4,500 to do a hernia repair, it's the exact same procedure, why does it cost $9,000 more to have the procedure here? I'm going to call these high priced hospitals and ask them why do you charge so much.
(voice-over): Hi this is Elizabeth Cohen calling from CNN. The hospitals would not comment.
(on camera): So I found somebody who could explain these crazy health care prices to us, her name is Heather Staples and she analyzes prices of health care for large employers in New Hampshire.
I go shopping for gallon a mill. And there's a huge price difference, I'm going to see it right there on the shelf but with medical service, people don't know because there is no price tags.
HEATHER STAPLES, CONSULTANT, NH PURCHASERS GROUP: That's correct. And it's even difficult for a consumers to call a facility and ask for price of services.
COHEN: So it's actually, the reasons for the discrepancies in some ways is pretty simple, which is just that when you go to buy a colonoscopy, there is no price tag on it.
STAPLES: That's correct.
COHEN: Give me another example of a procedure with - there is wild difference all in the same cities.
STAPLES: Sure. Knee scope. Dartmouth South, it's about $5,300. In the same region, at St. Joseph's hospital, it's about $10,500.
COHEN: So we all bargain shop for cars, and things like that. Does it pay to bargain shop for medical services.
STAPLES: Oh it absolutely does. I mean we are talking about $5,000 difference, it absolutely makes a lot of sense to do it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COHEN: No experts tell me that high price does not mean high quality necessarily and low price does not mean low quality. For example, in that example you just saw there, at Dartmouth the price of a knee scope was $5,000 less than at the other hospitals and Dartmouth is one of the best hospitals in the country. Kiran.
CHETRY: Amazing stuff that you got in. Elizabeth standby we are going to be digging deeper into this over charging at hospitals in just a couple of minutes, and we want you to weigh in on that.
Thanks, Elizabeth.
ACOSTA: Great stuff. It's 29 minutes after the hour. And that means time for this morning's top stories.
Secretary of state Hillary Clinton scheduled to arrive in Chile this hour for a first-hand look at the damage from one of the strongest earthquakes on record. A curfew in the Chilean city of Concepcion remains in effect until midday, part of an effort to crack down on looting, that's plague the city since the weekend quake.
CHETRY: Also, two remaining Americans being detained in Haiti may soon be coming home. A Haitian judge says he is likely to order the release of the missionaries, Laura Silsby and Charisa Coulter after a hearing today, the two woman as well as eight others face kidnapping charges for trying to take dozens of Haitian children to the Dominican Republic without proper documents.
ACOSTA: And 2,000 federal workers are temporarily out of a job this morning as Washington plays politics. Democrats are pointing fingers at outgoing Senator Bunning who blocked action on a bill to extend transportation funds, saying it would add to the budget deficit.
CHETRY: As we just learned, some hospitals do over charge for routine procedures costing patients thousands of dollars, and our health care adds up to billions of dollars being spent.
We are looking at the issue with Richard Clarke, the president and CEO of health care financial management association in Chicago. And of course we're joined again by Elizabeth Cohen, our senior medical correspondent from Atlanta as well.
Richard let me start with you, your take on Elizabeth's piece. She went shopping and saw differences to the tune of thousands of dollars for basically the same procedure. What about the huge discrepancy?
RICHARD CLARKE, HEALTHCARE FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION: Yes, it's frustrating for anybody to understand what their responsibility is for a hospital bill. It's very difficult for the average consumer to understand why there is such a difference in the prices.
CHETRY: You talk about how it does, sort of, I guess add up to making sense. But let's simplify it a little bit for people watching. Do hospitals charge more for uninsured patients, or do they charge more for certain things because they know they are losing money elsewhere?
CLARKE: Yes, all of those. On average a hospital makes four cents on every dollar they charge. What it does is compensate for the government, the Medicare and Medicaid programs, tend to underpay hospitals.
Hospitals also have charity care patients and uninsured patients that don't pay anything. So the mix of payers, the percentage of Medicare and Medicaid, that has an influence on how a hospital will charge. CHETRY: Elizabeth, in your reporting you found wild fluctuations in the cost of similar procedures, but you pointed out yesterday that example where a patient was charged for 41 bags of saline. What do people do about this?
COHEN: You need to get an itemized bill. You see what you are being charged for and if you used all of it. I think it's important to recognize that sometimes hospital charge a lot because they can. If a hospital can get $10,000 for knee surgery, they will charge that much. It's like any other law of economics, if they can get that money they will charge it.
CHETRY: Elizabeth brought up yesterday there is an easier process and in some cases you can look on the Internet to find out how much procedures will be charged. But in many cases you cannot find out ahead of time how much it will cost. Should there be more transparency when it comes to how much you are paying for and why?
CLARKE: Absolutely. One of the challenges is, of course, a patient may call and say I need a simple cat scan, a ct scan. Does that scan have contrast or without contrast? If they come in and say they need a colonoscopy. Is there a possibility they may be polyps found and they need removal.
So estimating what the cost will be depends on what the condition of the patient is a whole series of other issues. And they are working hard where they can give estimates on common procedures, and a colonoscopy is a pretty common procedure.
CHETRY: The state of Maryland regulates hospital price and has done it before, so it's a flat 20 percent over what the cost, I believe it is, whereas in some cases it could be 102 percent over the cost of the actual procedure.
Is that something that other states should be looking at as well? Is there a way to find out whether or not that would make sense for certain states and perhaps even sometime down the road on the federal level?
COHEN: There are other states looking to follow that Maryland model. Maryland has been doing it for ten years. They basically, to a certain extent, tell hospitals what they can charge for certain procedures. And you can you charge more if you are in a more expensive area or if you have higher operating costs.
People say it has worked relatively well. Maryland hospitals have a higher profit margin than hospitals in other states. So other states are looking to see if that would work for them.
CHETRY: Richard Clarke as well as Elizabeth Cohen, thank you for your insight today. We appreciate it.
ACOSTA: OK, Kiran, and when we come back, the latest on the investigation into that tragic accident at Sea World. Our Randi Kaye will have the latest coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ACOSTA: Welcome back to The Most News in the Morning.
A government safety group in California predicted there would be problems at a Sea World park if there were the continued treatment of animals that concerned animal rights experts. Randi Kaye has been looking into this and she has the story.
RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jim, Kiran, some experts say Sea World suppressed a report with dire warnings about swimming with killer whales in captivity.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KAYE (voice-over): Look closely, the whale trainer is in the fight of his life. A tourist took the video at Sea World in San Diego. Veteran trainer Ken Peters, gently rubbing a 5,000-pound killer whale, desperately trying to get the female orca to release his left foot from its jaws.
Just minutes before doing a trick, the whale trapped the trainer underwater for nearly one minute. He survived with some broken bones.
The attack prompted a major health and safety agency in California to release a scathing report on Sea World and issue a stern warning. In 2006, OSHA investigators predicted a whale trainer would be killed by a whale at the San Diego park, concluding, quote, "swimming with captive orcas is dangerous, and if somebody has not been killed already, it's only a matter of time."
DR. NAOMI ROSE, HUMANE SOCIETY OF THE U.S.: If they decide to act out, there will be nothing the trainer can do about it.
KAYE: Rose says since the 1970s, at least two dozen people have been injured by killer whales, and four killed. In 2004, this trainer at Sea World in San Antonio nearly drowned when the whale suddenly dived over him in a show, repeatedly forcing him under water. He eventually made it to the side of the pool.
(on camera): Back to the OSHA report. It also found trainers "recognize this risk and train not for if an attack will happen, but when." Sea World was furious and said the report was full of "speculation and inaccuracies." It convinced the agency to rewrite it without any predictions or warnings.
ROSE: They didn't want it to seem as if, you know, killer whales were inherently dangerous. They wanted it to seem like working with killer whales are safe.
KAYE (voice-over): Keeping them honest, we called Sea World to ask why it quashed the report. A spokesman told us the OSHA employee who did it was "uninformed and reckless." When we asked OSHA why it agreed to re-write the report, the agency said scientific analyses could not support the statements.
ROSE: It was unbelievable a commercial corporation was able to influence what should have been an objective investigation by an agency whose sole function is to protect worker safety.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAYE: The original report was 18 pages, the revised report, 10 pages shorter. What was lost in the rewrite our or biologist says, could have saved a life. Jim, Kiran?
CHETRY: Randi Kaye with that investigation for us. Thank you.
We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, our "AM House Call," Dr. Sanjay Gupta with some tips for President Obama after his one-year physical, his first year physical. The doctor noted that he is still smoking.
It's 42 minutes past the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: It 44 minutes past the hour.
(WEATHER REPORT)
CHETRY: All right, Rob, thanks.
ACOSTA: You want to know how hard it is to quick smoking?
CHETRY: Yes.
ACOSTA: It is so hard the President of the United States is having trouble kicking the habit. Our Dr. Sanjay Gupta will be back in just a few moments. He'll have some tips for President Obama on how to quit smoking.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: It's 50 minutes past the hour.
And welcome back to The Most News in the Morning.
It's time for your "AM House Call," stories about your health. And today we're talking about President Obama who sailed through his physical on Sunday although doctors noted that he still can't kick the smoking habit. His struggle could be a lesson to millions who are going through the same thing.
Our Doctor Sanjay Gupta joins us now from Atlanta with more on this. Did that surprise you to see that as part of his physical?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Actually it did not surprise me. We've known for some time that he was a smoker. He probably had a significant smoking history in the past and there's been rumors here and there that he's -- he falls off the wagon as people around him -- closest to him put it.
His doctor, as you know, Kiran, has urged him to quit, as other doctors have in the past. And there's been a lot made about how much he smokes and he continues to smoke in the White House -- on the White House ground itself.
Robert Gibbs -- the Press Secretary was asked specifically about this. Here is what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president continues to chew nicotine gum. And you know, I pointed to many of you and I would point you to the comments you made in June -- I think in this room in June of last year, that while he's quit smoking, he is -- occasionally falls off the wagon when it comes to that and like many who have struggled with kicking that habit.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GUPTA: You know, as it's said that many of his aides are walking around him carry the Nicorette gum in their pockets for the president to chew on as well, when he's quite busy. This could be perhaps the worse time for him to quit, obviously it's a very stressful time, in the middle of two wars and the health care reform debate, a lot is going on.
Robert Gibbs went on to say that he thinks the president is 95 percent cured, although, Kiran, as I think you're alluding to, either you are cured or you're not. This is an incredibly difficult addiction to break for a couple of reasons.
One is that -- much in the way that a lot of other addictive substances work, it binds to the pleasure centers in the brain, nicotine does and you start to crave those things and you get a certain sense of euphoria when the nicotine hits those pleasure centers.
There's also an oral fixation component to it, just having something to put in your mouth, back and forth, which is why people often gain weight when they stop smoking because they start eating instead.
There's a few different strategies to try and quit smoking. And a lot of them have to do with surrounding yourself with supportive people who are going to help counsel you through this. And nicotine replacement, even in the form of a patch or a gum, prescription drugs even in some cases.
And then, if you fail, keep trying sometimes it can take up to seven cycles of quitting and then, sort of falling off the wagon again and then quitting again. So it can take some time -- Kiran.
CHETRY: And the other question about the (INAUDIBLE) when you choose nicotine gum, I believe that there was some reference to possibly recommending patches. I mean you have to be more than an occasional smoker to need that type of nicotine replacement on a measured basis, correct?
GUPTA: Yes, I think that's probably pretty safe to say. What we're sort of seeing probably is someone in the later stages of trying to quit here. How much he used to smoke before and how regularly. Yes, if he is sort of weaning down off higher concentrations with gum or patches, then I think that's pretty safe to say.
But as part of the sort of incentive to quit, there are lots of them out there Kiran. What's always remarkable to me is on how short of time you can derive benefit from quitting smoking. Even within 20 minutes literally of quitting smoking, your blood pressure will start to drop. We talked about his blood pressure, still very much in the safe range, but higher than it was before. Within 12 hours your carbon monoxide levels fall
You can take a look at the list there, within ten years your lung cancer risk starts to come back down to relatively normal. Not quite normal but closer to someone who hasn't smoked. So I'm sure those are the things told to him as well this last physical.
CHETRY: There you go. The old adage, it's never too late to quit, right?
GUPTA: Never too late. That's right.
CHETRY: Sanjay Gupta, great to see you this morning. Thanks.
GUPTA: You too.
CHETRY: Jim.
ACOSTA: Thanks Kiran.
And coming up after the break, Jeanne Moos returns with a new killer app on how to deal with those Tiger texts. We'll explain coming up in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Developing story we are following for you right now. Just in to CNN, you are looking video right now of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arriving in Santiago, Chile, the earthquake-ravaged country. She is trying to offer not only moral support but also some material support as well as she brings much needed satellite communication equipment as well as a technician.
She is also, of course, providing support and meeting with both the outgoing Chilean President Bachelet and the President-Elect Pinera. So there again, video of the Secretary of State arriving in Santiago, Chile for her visit today.
ACOSTA: An important trip.
And it's time now for the "Moost News in the Morning". There's a new iPhone app that could have saved Tiger Woods a lot of trouble.
CHETRY: Yes. Not surprisingly. It's called "Tiger Text". It's tailor made for anyone who wants to see those incriminating messages self-destruct.
Here's Jeanne Moos.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When Tiger Woods was texting his alleged mistresses, he never imagined his messages will one day end up being animated for all to see.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Quietly and secretly we will always be together.
MOOS: But now the quietly and secretly part stands a chance. Introducing TigerText. They're slogan -- to cover your tracks.
JEFFREY EVANS, TIGERTEXT FOUNDER: I said wouldn't it be great if you can send a text and it would just self-destruct in 30 seconds.
MOOS: Sound familiar? Remember how the "Mission Impossible" team used to get their secret assignments.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This disk will self-destruct in five seconds.
MOOS: The makers of TigerText say their iPhone app allows you to automatically delete text messages from the sender's phone and the receiver's phone. You set the time from delete on read, the message disappears a minute after its read to a month later (ph). And it also vanishes from the server.
EVANS: When it's gone, it's gone.
MOOS: In a TigerText demo someone messages, "How'd the job interview go? The reply, "I told you, don't send me stuff like this." Don't worry I set it to "Delete on Read". There is a countdown until the message vanishes, replaced by Tiger paws.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know. Tiger texting? Maybe we can call it something else.
MOOS: The makers of TigerText say, they are not referring to Tiger Woods, they mean the ones with four legs, supposedly because they are hard to track.
PC World called it the app for spies and cheaters.
EVANS: It's not about salaciousness. It's about the need for privacy. Jeanne, how many times have you sent a text message and closed with the words, "please delete after reading"?
MOOS: And it's not just for the iPhone. TigerText is coming soon to a Blackberry near you.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Truthfully, I think it's very sketchy.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Very sneaky.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wow, I don't know. I kind of like it. People should be able to have their privacy. MOOS: The biggest catch is that both sender and receiver need to have the app for it to work, and if only Tiger had it.
TIGER WOODS, PRO GOLFER: Can you please take your name off your phone. My wife went through my phone and may be calling you.
MOOS: One Web site called TigerText the morning after pill of messaging.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think I'll get it.
MOOS: You have a guilty laugh.
Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
CHETRY: Good luck with that.
ACOSTA: Yes.
CHETRY: All right. Well, that's going to do it for us. Thanks so much for being with us here on AMERICAN MORNING.
ACOSTA: And thanks for having me.
Here is "CNN NEWSROOM" with Kyra Phillips. Good morning, Kyra.
