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Health Care Reform Without GOP Support; Rescue Effort in Chile; Stimulus Spending on Education

Aired March 01, 2010 - 12:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Time for your top-of-the-hour reset.

Hi, everyone. I'm Brooke Baldwin in the CNN NEWSROOM. It's the 1st of March, 2010.

Check the clocks.

2:00 p.m. in Chile, where rescuers are rushing to pull quake survivors out of piles of wreckage.

It is noon in Washington, where Democrats look set to begin their push on a health care reform bill without Republican support.

And all across the Northeast, crews struggling this hour to get electricity back to tens of thousands of homes and businesses.

Let's get going.

First up, health care reform appears to be headed for a showdown. Democrats, they're considering this end run around Republican opposition. They're pulling out this controversial tactic. We've been talking about it. It's called reconciliation, pulling it out of their playbook, ready to roll on.

It allows, essentially, a measure to pass on a simple majority. That is 51 votes.

We have the story covered from two different angles -- Senior White House Correspondent Ed Henry and Senior Congressional Correspondent Dana Bash.

And Ed, I just want to begin with you, because we just mentioned the simple majority, the 51 votes. Is the White House confident they can even get that?

ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's still an open question, Brooke. And, you know, when you talk to top White House aides about this notion of going ahead with only Democratic votes, no Republican votes, they essentially say look, we've been trying for a year to get some Republican votes. There were limited numbers in the early stages of this debate but, by and large, this has been essentially a Democratic-only effort because they feel here at the White House that Republicans haven't been willing to meet them halfway. Now, obviously those differences were aired out last week at the summit, where you heard a lot of Republican pushback on that notion. But I think the bottom line is that we're going to hear from the president, we're expecting on Wednesday, about what is his sort of way forward, what's the next move?

Reconciliation does seem like the most likely scenario where they'll need just a simple majority. But it's unclear whether they have those votes.

I think the most honest and candid admission we saw on the Sunday talk shows yesterday was Nancy-Ann DeParle, the health care czar here at the White House, saying on NBC, ,when pressed I think three times, "Do you have the votes now?" She kept saying, "We will have the votes," which is clearly dodging whether they have them now, but confident that they will down the road. But as Dana knows full well, they've got a lot of work to do yet on the Hill to get those votes.

BALDWIN: All right.

Dana Bash, I know you're on the Hill. You've been banging down doors, talking to your sources.

I mean, what are you hearing about where these votes may be?

DANA BASH, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: They still aren't there yet. Ed is exactly right. And first of all, let's start in the Senate.

They need 51 votes. They believe that they are going to be likely OK there, but they're not 100 percent sure. But ironically, the biggest challenge is the House, where Democrats have a huge majority. But there are a few issues here.

First of all, the issue of abortion, which has been a vexing issue on this health care debate between Democrats for some time. Bart Stupak, he is an anti-abortion Democrat from Michigan. He says that he has maybe a dozen or more Democrats who say if they go down this path -- and that would be to accept Senate language on abortion that they say is not restrictive enough -- that they'll lose a number of Democrats.

And then you have Democrats who are vulnerable, who are in very tough re-election races, and they're in swing districts. They're hearing from their constituents about this, and they're jittery.

And then the last thing, this is, again, back in those weeds, Brooke, that you and I were in, in the last hour. There is a lot of mistrust in the House among Democrats of the Senate.

So, one of the things that they are trying to work out, and it will depend whether they can get votes, is who goes first. Will the House vote for the Senate bill first, or will they do this package of changes first? House Democrats say that they just don't trust that the Senate will actually pass those changes if they go ahead and approve the Senate bill that they don't like. BALDWIN: So, there is mistrust. And as you have outlined, Dana, there is certainly some controversy within some of the key points within the bill itself.

So, Ed, given that fact and, quite simply, the fact that there's a lot of controversy just over the idea of reconciliation, talk more about what kind of controversy -- I mean, the backlash that this -- that Democrats specifically would see is massive, potentially.

HENRY: There could be a backlash. But when you talk to senior White House aides, they look, they basically relish this fight because they think the facts are on their side. That while reconciliation is sort of rarely used, it's not something that you see every week on the normal course of business, they point to almost two dozen times in the last 30 years where Republicans have used reconciliation.

To give viewers a recent example, it was used twice by the most recent Bush administration to pass major tax cuts. So, when you hear Republicans saying how are you going to remake one-sixth of the economy through health care reform through this process? They say wait a second, it was almost $2 trillion in tax cuts that were passed by the last administration, and they used this very maneuver.

So, the White House is ready to fight that battle.

BALDWIN: Right. I'm glad you brought up that point. I was talking to Suzanne Simons, the fact that those eight Republican senators who were at that health care summit last Thursday, in the past all eight of them have indeed cast votes for reconciliation.

Dana Bash and Ed Henry, thank you both.

HENRY: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Here's a question for you. Would you be willing to pay 140 bucks for one Tylenol pill? One pill? That is precisely what a hospital charged a patient.

Later this hour, senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen begins her special reports on hospital waste and how it ends up costing every one of us.

But first, let's check today's other big stories.

A bill that would extend jobless benefits is now stalled in the Senate. Kentucky Senator Jim Bunning says he's blocking it until he hears how to pay for it.

What that means is that just about 400,000 Americans lost unemployment benefits today. The bill also funded highway projects. The Department of Transportation furloughing 2,000 workers and halting construction on a number of sites nationwide.

In Chicago, a funeral is being held this hour for veteran animal trainer Dawn Brancheau. She died last week when a six-ton killer whale, Tilikum, dragged her under water at SeaWorld's park in Orlando. The whale has been linked to two previous deaths. The Labor Department now looking into whether federal workplace standards were violated.

Searching for survivors here. Take a look at these pictures coming out of Chile. That is really a top priority, security and rescue, two days here after one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded.

CNN special correspondent Soledad O'Brien is at the scene of a major rescue effort in the city of Concepcion.

Soledad, I can tell it's loud. I know there are rescue efforts going on behind you involving some firefighters. Walk me through what's happening right now behind you.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, let me describe what's going on behind me because it's really hard to hear you.

As you can tell, they just brought in the drills. And what they're doing is they're drilling these sort of triangular cuts into the wall there.

That wall is actually an apartment building that was standing straight up and has now fallen on its side. And you might be able to make out those numbers -- two, three, four, five. Five is where they're doing the drilling right now. Six, you see somebody climbing into six hole by seven.

Those are floors because this apartment building has tilted over completely on its side. They're trying to make their way in floor by floor, but coming in right through the ground here.

They're drilling because, of course, that area is where the most damage is. That's where the impact was with the ground, and they're very concerned about that. It's a 15-floor apartment building.

There are 48 people who they cannot find in this building, eight confirmed dead. Sixty-three, by their count, got out alive.

Now they're cutting these triangular shapes, because what they're able to do, they're about a meter by a meter by a meter triangle, which means you can fit a stretcher in if they in fact can find somebody inside who is alive and they need to bring them out. What the guys will do -- and I should say "guys," meaning men and women -- are tunneling there in and then working their way through the entire building.

There are sort of windows on the other side. And they're doing this from the other direction, too, to see if they can pull out anybody at this point. There are two sub floors, as well, and where they tell me most of the dead were found were in those sub floors, because this building basically landed on its own sub floor.

I want to also -- Woj (ph), if you'll pan over to the right a little bit, let me show you another little complicating issue here for all the rescue workers.

This building which is under construction, you look at it and you say, well, it's 20 stories high and it withstood the earthquake. So that's good. They're very concerned about its continued standing because we've been having numerous aftershocks, up to a 100 by some counts. And so they're very worried what would happen to this building if indeed we get another sharp aftershock.

So, that's what's happening here. They're working very aggressively, and it's Chilean teams.

Chileans are well known for their ability in search and rescue. In fact, they're the same team, 80 percent of the guys who are here, the same people who are working -- and I should say men and women who are here, same people who are working in Haiti doing search and rescue, having come just straight there.

But they are -- when I asked what's the likelihood of finding somebody inside this rubble at this point, they said, you know, we've got to tell you, we just really do not know at this point. But they're going to keep trying -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: All right, Soledad. Thank you.

Forty-eight people she said still possibly trapped inside, 63 walking out alive.

We'll check back in with you. Hopefully we'll see some progress and some survivors.

Soledad, thank you.

Almost $3 billion stimulus spent on education in one single state. Are taxpayers actually getting their money's worth?

We're digging deeper on the Stimulus Desk.

First, though, our "Random Moment" in 90 seconds.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Hey, guess what? Mass nudity happens. And oh, yes, when it does, you can bet it's our "Random Moment of the Day." Take a look with me.

Five thousand naked Aussies carpeted the grounds of Sydney's opera house with goose bumps today. Thankfully, TV cameras keeping a proper distance. You can still see a whole lot of skin. Can't we?

The naked display came at the request of the American photographer Spencer Tunick. He's made a name for himself by snapping groups of nudes at iconic locations around the world.

Brr.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BALDWIN: Educating children to compete in the global economy, President Obama is targeting $900 million in stimulus money to help fix failing schools. He made that announcement at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce just about two hours ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Government can help educate students to succeed in college and a career. Government can help provide the resources to engage dropouts and those at risk of dropping out. And when necessary, government has to be critically involved in turning around lowest performing schools.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So, talking about education, we have Josh Levs over at the Stimulus Desk.

And Josh, I know you have this first point you want to make how the stimulus money has affected education jobs in particular.

JOSH LEVS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. You know, when people hear "stimulus," Brooke, a lot of us think of those shovel-ready jobs out on the street.

BALDWIN: Right.

LEVS: But the fact is, education is by far -- there's no comparison -- by far the biggest recipient of jobs from that massive pile of stimulus funding that came out a year ago.

Let's do this. I want everyone to see how you can get this information yourselves, and I want to show some of it right now.

We're going to go to the Web on this computer behind me. I'm showing you CNN.com/stimulus. And our control room can take this full. You're going to see what we've got up for you here.

We link you to recovery.gov. Now, this is the main Web page that shows people lots of information about the spending.

And what we've done in here is we've gone to the section called "Agency Reported Data." It's looking kind of light on your screen. I'll go fast with this.

But basically, when you look at these words over here, it shows you who gets the most money to go out and spend from the stimulus. The Department of Education is way up there. It's the third thing on the whole list.

And let's go to this full screen you guys have that's going to show how the jobs break down. Check that out.

Stimulus jobs, top agencies, no comparison. You have 10 times more education jobs that have been funded by the stimulus than those shovel-ready jobs out on the street, about 410,000 education jobs funded by the stimulus. And when it comes to the transportation jobs so far, you're looking at 41,000.

So, Brooke, this is a good example of what we've been seeing in this respect, that this is a place in which a lot of the stimulus money is going out. It is getting teachers back to work. People can argue about whether this is a good use of public money, ,about all the debt we're going to pay and all those borrowed dollars, but the fact is, right now, there have been billions of dollars that have gone into education to pay for teachers to be in schools -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: My mom was a teacher. We need our educators. Don't we?

LEVS: Mine was too.

BALDWIN: Give me an example, John, of how one state was affected by all of this.

LEVS: Yes. There's one that's particularly interesting.

When we look at the stimulus spending, we often like to look at Michigan, because Michigan is by far the most struggling state out there. Michigan has the highest unemployment rate. We know what's been going on with Detroit, we know what's been going on in general with this economic slump so much of the country is suffering through.

Well, you're seeing on your screen right there, Michigan got $2.8 billion for its schools. And when we look at the job creation, Brooke, there, you've got numbers. They are telling us they have funded more than 9,000 jobs in education from that stimulus money so far.

And, you know, the stimulus money, most of it still has yet to be spent. So we are going to be seeing all over the country more and more examples of lots of teachers being paid for out of that will stimulus pile.

And ultimately, really, one of the big questions about all this is, sure, it's a good use of money. You can often look at funds and say it's good to have teachers in schools. Long term, is the Recovery Act going to be getting this country out of the recovery? To me, that's the big, big question, Brooke, and that's what we're going to be seeing in the years ahead.

BALDWIN: All right, Josh. Thank you.

LEVS: You bet. Thanks.

BALDWIN: When winter howls, power lines come a tumbling down. Thousands across the Northeast welcomed march in the dark and the cold.

(WEATHER REPORT)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: So, first it was the earthquake. Now it's a race against the rains in Haiti. Quake survivors desperately needing a roof over their heads, and soon. Deadly downpours have already started.

Our David McKenzie reports from the capital city of Port-au- Prince.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Reeling from tragedy, another layer of misery in Haiti. In Les Cayes, southwestern Haiti, rains hammering the people, leaving at least eight dead and a warning of the coming rainy season.

More than six weeks after Haiti's devastating quake, hundreds of thousands are still stranded. Anger and frustration spill over in one of the biggest tent cities they've been waiting all day to get registered to move. But moving half a million people seems unrealistic.

MARK TURNER, INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION OF MIGRATION: Well, the scale of the problem is absolutely enormous. It's really hard to actually explain how big it is until you're in a place like this. And you really get the sense of we have an entire city that needs to be basically reconstructed, rebuilt.

MCKENZIE: Rudi Aine waited all day to register. He has no idea how it will help him, but he's clinging to help.

"I don't know what is going to happen. Only God knows," he says. "They told me to come and register. What happens afterwards, I don't know."

Rudi isn't alone in his confusion. At first, the government said it would move people to large camps outside the city. Now they say they want to send them home or to smaller camps.

But displaced Haitians just don't know their fate, so I put the question to the man charged by the government to rebuild Haiti.

(on camera): They're not hearing anything from the government. Why is there not this communication to the people?

LESLIE VOLTAIRE, HAITI RECONSTRUCTION: I think that the government is not very good at communication, but they are working very hard to get material.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): He told me that the government is holding on to tens of thousands of tents until structural engineers can assess which buildings are safe and which need to be destroyed. Most Haitians are too afraid to move back inside.

(on camera): If the government wants to fix people's homes before they move there, they'll face an uphill battle. Just here in Fort National neighborhood alone, there are hundreds of destroyed homes. (voice-over): One of those homes belongs to Rudi, who lost his business and six relatives in the quake, including his 2-month-old daughter. He says he relives the quake every time he comes back.

"When you look at it, you shiver," he says, "because you see it's a disaster. It's like a desert because there's nobody around."

Rudi says he wants to stay in his tent. Like thousands of Haitians, the only thing he can salvage from his home is painful memories.

David McKenzie, CNN, Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: The importance of being counted, the message coming from a historic African-American church as the government kicks off the census.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Hey, just a quick reminder. CNNMoney.com, always a great resource to check the latest numbers on Wall Street. And since we're talking about it, let's show you some of the numbers.

Nasdaq up 31 points right now. Dow Jones Industrial up 76 points. Let the rally continue there in New York.

Well, you should be starting to receive your Census forms really any day now. The bureau is kicking off its 2010 count today, and a whole lot of people avoid the census for several reasons, especially minorities and illegal immigrants.

Tony Harris takes a look at a historic African-American church pushing for everyone to be counted. This is the first of our weeklong series on the Census.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TONY HARRIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For more than two centuries, this church in Savannah, Georgia, has been a cornerstone of support for African-Americans, who in this nation's early years literally did not count.

REV. THURMOND N. TILLMAN, PASTOR, FIRST AFRICAN BAPTIST CHURCH: If we knew our history, that at one point in history we were only counted as three-fifths of a person, and that's all you could be counted was three-fifths of a person --

HARRIS: And now, with the 2010 Census, First African Baptist Church has a mission to make sure they are counted. Built in the 1800s by slaves, the church claims to be the oldest black Baptist church in North America.

KAREN WORTHAM, HISTORIAN, FIRST AFRICAN BAPTIST CHURCH: The country here is 233 years old. First African is 232 years old. The oldest information that is held here at First African Baptist is scratched into the side of the pews up here in the balcony. And on the side of each of the pews you can actually see written in a language of cursive Hebrew.

HARRIS: Karen Wortham has been telling the history of the church for seven years.

WORTHAM: And beneath the floor is where slaves hid as part of the underground railroad.

HARRIS: Today, it's a place where many African-Americans gather to work for change.

TILLMAN: I see the faith-based community as being a tremendous part of awareness, making everyone aware how important it is to participate in the 2010 Census.

HARRIS: Pastor Thurmond Tillman is keeping in step like the pastors he's followed, working with the Census in 1990, 2000, and now in 2010.

TILLMAN: We're making people aware in our congregations that the Census is safe, easy and extremely important.

TILLMAN: We're making people aware in our congregations that the census is safe, easy and extremely important through our literature, we have put it in our bulletins.

HARRIS: In early February, the church also opened its doors to host a pre-census rally.

MCGUIRE: This is a bedrock for getting everything else done. This one really makes a difference because when people fill those forms out and send them in, that determines the amount of money that comes back to their community and it also determines representation.

HARRIS: Many church members also get the message of this decennial census.

PATRICIA ROBERTS, MEMBER, FIRST AFRICAN BAPTIST CHURCH: The pastor has done a tremendous job of educating us about the census and allowing us to become informed so that way not only are we informed, but we can go out and tell others.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If you opt out, if you don't participate, it's going to be another 10 years before you get to be counted, before your voice gets to be heard. That's going to have an impact. It's only 10 minutes. Participate, be honest, be accurate and stand up and be counted.

HARRIS: With this church's rich history, it is no wonder that its latest mission is to make sure every African-American is counted.

MCGUIRE: It's a self-enumeration. One of the main messages is that it is safe, that it's OK to fill the forms out.

HARRIS: It's just that simple.

Tony Harris, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Iran's nukes, peaceful purposes or deadly intentions? We will have a live report as international watchdogs discuss uranium enrichment in the Islamic state.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Is Iran working on a nuclear bomb? That is the focus of International Atomic Energy Agency meet this week. CNN's senior international correspondent Matthew Chance is following them from Moscow.

And, Matthew, with the IAEA meeting in Vienna for the next four days, how concerned are they regarding Tehran's nuclear program?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it seems that the IAEA, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, is very concerned indeed about the possibility that Iran is, in their words, currently working on plans for a nuclear war head. They haven't presented any evidence for this specifically, any new evidence that is, but they have cited repeated refuses by Iran to answer questions regarding the nature of its nuclear program. And the new director general of the IAEA, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, Yukiya Amano, spoke very clearly of the need for the Islamic republic now to open up its nuclear sites to greater levels of inspection and to cooperate more fully. Let's listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

YUKIYA AMANO, DIR. GEN., INTL ATOMIC ENERGY AGENCY: The agency continues, and there is comprehensive safeguards agreement with Iran, to verify that non-diversion of declared nuclear materials in Iran, but we cannot confirm that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities because Iran has not provide the agency with the necessary cooperation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHANCE: Well, Iran, for its part, denying that it has any kind of secret nuclear weapons program. Saying instead, its nuclear program is designed purely for peaceful purposes. They intend to build nuclear reactors and generated electricity, according to Iranian officials. But that doesn't sit well with many countries in the west, led, of course, by the United States, deeply suspicious of Iran's ambitions and calling now for much tougher sanctions against the Islamic republic at the U.N. security council.

Brooke.

BALDWIN: Sure, as the suspicions grow. And you mentioned sanctions. Perhaps that's possibly the next step. I mean what happens when this meeting is concluded after four days in Vienna? CHANCE: Well, we're expecting to see some pretty critical comments from various parties at these meetings in Vienna about Iran's controversial nuclear program. The organization itself won't make any decisions about sanctions, about what measures to take against Iran, if any. That, as I mentioned, will be taken by the U.N. security council. But the words that are spoken over the next few days in Vienna will very much inform that debate about whether or not tougher sanctions are appropriate, what kind of sanctions should be used against the Islamic republic.

In the past, Russia and China have been very much opposed to tougher sanctions against Iran, but there are signs that at least here in Russia, the situation is changing. The Kremlin growing much more impatient with Iran's failure to cooperate with the U.N.

Brooke.

BALDWIN: Matthew Chance, we'll be watching those meetings the next couple of days along with you. Matthew from Moscow, thank you.

A billboard in downtown Newark, New Jersey, getting a whole lot of attention and grabbing a lot of things, including just that, attention. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And my daughter asked me what that girl was doing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How did that make you feel as a mom?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Bad, because I don't know what to explain to her. She's just five years old.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Whoa, have you seen the billboard? So whose company is behind this bold billboard ad for the blue jeans?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: I need you to reach out to the program. I need you to talk to me directly. A couple of ways that you can do that. First of all, CNN.com/tony takes you directly to this, bam, our blog page. If you'd like to send us your thoughts on Facebook, here's what you do. TonyHarrisCNN and post your comments here. Here's my Twitter address, TonyHarrisCNN. One other way for you to contact us directly, talk to the show. Call us. Pick up the phone. 1-877-742-5760. Let's have more of your views, more of your thoughts on the program. CNN NEWSROOM with Tony Harris.

BALDWIN: We'll get more of your views on that billboard in just a moment. First, top stories.

More than a million Americans who receive federal unemployment insurance could see those benefits end and end soon. An extension expires today. The Senate could vote on benefits this week. Keep an eye out for that.

Also, western Europe picking up the pieces after a deadly storm swept through at least six countries. Look at the water there. France hit the hardest. Fifty people were killed. A combination of hurricane-force winds and high tide swamped parts of the coastal region there.

And, guess what, more delays are ahead for folks flying into New York's JFK Airport. The busiest runway, it will be closing today for four months of reconstruction. It is hoped this $376 million project will ease a little bit of the traffic congestion at one of the world's, of course, busiest airports.

And now time to take a look at some of the stories generating a whole lot of buzz today on the Internet. And Ines Ferre joining me now to talk through this.

And, Ines, I've got to guess, still the story happening pretty hot in Chile. That has to be a pretty big trending topic I imagine on Twitter.

INES FERRE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, hi, Brooke, that's one of the top stories that we're looking at. We're starting with Twitter and one of the most linked stories on Twitter you'll see it's after that tremendous tragedy that happened in Chile. Google has created a person finder. A way for folks trying to find loved ones to post their information on the search engine. Well, now, some are trying to find out how they can remove that information. There isn't a way to do that yet. But you can update the information to say you've found someone, for instance. And also one of the

BALDWIN: What are -- Ines, can I ask can I ask you, the different red dots, are those just different missing people?

FERRE: Right, and basically on the left you can put if you're looking for somebody or if you -- or if you have information about somebody. And this is the kind of thing that the people can update right now.

BALDWIN: Got you, got you, got you. Just curious.

FERRE: And one -- yes, no, no, definitely. And also, one of the most e-mailed stories on CNN.com, it's about that unusually powerful winter storm that you were mentioning, Brooke, that slammed western Europe this weekend.

BALDWIN: :Yes, France.

FERRE: Well, if you log on to CNN.com, you'll find a photo gallery of the devastation left behind by Cynthia. And this storm battered at least six countries, knocking out power and bringing planes and trains to a standstill. At least 58 people lost their lives.

Also, we're going now to New Jersey for a story that's prompting a lot of conversation. Take a look at that billboard. It's an advertisement for, hmm, blue jeans from a clothing line by rapper T.I. But, some, Brooke, are saying that it's really hard to tell what it's selling. And as you can see

BALDWIN: Her hands in some places and

FERRE: The woman in there, she looks like she's pulling down his pants, or maybe she's pulling them up.

BALDWIN: I don't know.

FERRE: Well, you can judge for yourself.

BALDWIN: Yes. So we've been asking a whole lot of people, you know, what do you think of this ad? You see this woman, you know, one hand kind of between his legs. Another kind of maybe pulling them down. And, yes, you said it, the ad is for blue jeans, but some people in that neighborhood of Newark saying, hang on a second. Get this billboard, right, out of the neighborhood?

FERRE: Yes. Yes. And the mayor of Newark saying, you know, I've got a problem with kids that are -- have their pants on too low and that they're using inappropriate language and this is really not the kind of ad that we want here.

BALDWIN: Yes, now take a look at this.

FERRE: So he says he's going to -- yes, he says he's going to see if city council can do something to try and prevent these kinds of ads from going up in their area.

BALDWIN: Well, we'll see if he's able to take it down. But I want to share some comments from viewers. Ines, thanks. Some comments from viewers from the NEWSROOM blogs. We've been posting this picture and we wanted to know what you thought.

Let me read this first one from Fefe. She says, "the truth is, the billboard is only suggestive and though it is not something I would want to see, I have to look at it as art and art is subjective."

Got another one from Jessica. Jessica writes in, "I'm not sure why this billboard is getting negative attention, and 1,000 other ads that are much worst (as far as objectifying women) are construed as normal." Jessica, thank you.

We've got another one from Chasity. "It is a shame that advertisers think they have to go to this level to sell a product. When your 8-year-old son asks a question like, 'mom, why is she pulling his pants down?', how does one answer that? Shame on advertisers."

Good points, everybody. Thank you for writing in. Want to keep that conversation going. All you have to do is log on to CNN.com/Tony to share your comments.

It is enough to give you a headache. We're talking about this hospital that is apparently charging $140 for one Tylenol. One of those pills. Senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen examines how your health care dollars are wasted on outrageous charges.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: President Obama went to the doctor over the weekend, had his first physical since taking office. The prognosis? While the commander in chief is in excellent health overall, his cholesterol numbers are creeping higher. The doctor recommends a small change in eating habits and he would like to see the president quit smoking.

We have a new story to tell you about. Medical waste. And we're not talking about used syringes here. We're talking about $1,000 for a toothbrush. Consider this. For every dollar you spend on health care, 50 cents is wasted. Senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen here to kick off her new series "Health Care: A Prescription for Waste."

$1,000? You've got to be kidding me.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: No, I'm serious. That's what a hospital charged a patient was $1,000 for a toothbrush.

BALDWIN: For a toothbrush. Wow.

COHEN: It is incredible. When we started looking at medical bills, the examples that we found, there was no shortage. And what it all adds up to is that in this country, a trillion dollars is wasted on waste.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COHEN: When you or I go shopping for a toothbrush, how much do we pay, $2, $3, maybe $4? Well, guess what one hospital once charged a patient for a toothbrush? $1,000. Can you believe it? $1,000 for a toothbrush. And you know who ends up paying for that, you and I. We end up paying for it. It comes out of our pocket in one way or another. And that's not the only crazy hospital cost I've run into. Come on. Come with me.

And at the store, how much does a bottle of Tylenol cost? $10 for 100 pills. Well, we know of someone who at the hospital was charged $140 for one Tylenol. Can you believe it? $140 for this.

Now here's a box of disposable gloves. When you buy them here at this store, they come out to 24 cents a pair. But I know of a hospital that charged $53 for a pair of gloves. That's right, $53 for a pair of disposable gloves. What the heck is going on here?

So I'm here in the home office of a medical billing advocate. This is Cindy Holtzman. And she helps people comb through all of these crazy charges. And she has all sorts of examples.

I've got to tell you, Cindy, this is one of my favorite ones. This is just like a little alcohol prep swab. We've all had these. How much did a hospital charge for these once?

CINDY HOLTZMAN, BILLING ADVOCATE: $23 apiece.

COHEN: $23 for this little tiny piece of cotton.

HOLTZMAN: And on one bill there were 44 of them. Becomes very expensive.

COHEN: Oh my goodness. But this isn't even the craziest thing you've ever seen. Tell me about one of your crazier charges.

HOLTZMAN: Well, recently I had somebody that was charged for 41 IV bags when she went to the ER for a two-hour visit.

COHEN: Oh, yes, you heard that right. A woman went to the emergency room with a migraine headache and they gave her one bag of saline and then they charged her for 41 bags of saline to the tune of $4,182. Now, the really crazy thing about this is that her insurance company actually paid this bill. They didn't even question it.

So why did her insurance company pay for this when it was obviously wrong?

HOLTZMAN: There's not many people working at these companies anymore and they're very busy and usually any kind of bill that's under $100,000, they don't look at the details.

COHEN: So they just write a check.

HOLTZMAN: They just write a check.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: All right, so you did you your due diligence. What did the hospital and the insurance companies say after this.

COHEN: All right, the hospital that made this erroneous charge, they did eventually fix it, but they declined to speak with us. And the insurance company that paid for this erroneous charge said they couldn't talk about it for privacy reasons.

BALDWIN: Can we mention something that I had read earlier, the fact when we're talking about the presidential -- moving along, the president still smokes. I didn't realize this.

COHEN: I know. A lot of people thought he quit. But apparently he hasn't. He is still smoking. He's using some kind of nicotine replacement to quit.

BALDWIN: OK.

COHEN: But I know a lot of people are saying, what's going on here, dude?

BALDWIN: So on "Rick's List" at 3:00, you guys are going to be talking about what specifically?

COHEN: We're going to be talking about, what's going on here, dude? Why you still smoking?

BALDWIN: Dude.

COHEN: That's a quote from someone who reacted to a blog on CNN.com. That's not me. But, yes, it's like why is he still smoking.

BALDWIN: It is not cool.

COHEN: It is not cool. He's obviously got all the resources he could possibly have to try to quit. And at 3:00, Rick and I will be talking about this.

BALDWIN: Interesting. All right, Elizabeth Cohen, thank you.

COHEN: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Thank you. Thank you.

Beyond the politics of health care reform, the battle hits home for a Georgia couple. They're among American who have fallen through the cracks in the system.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HARRIS: Democrats in Congress will be trying to pass health care reform without Republican support. You see, they're turning to this process known as reconciliation that only requires a simple majority, that is 51 votes. Now the health care reform battle hits home for so many people, including a couple we met here in Georgia. The Hartshorns make too much for Medicaid, but they aren't old enough for Medicare. Tony Harris has an update on their story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TONY HARRIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Where's Miss Robin (ph)?

GARET HARTSHORN: She's in the kitchen.

HARRIS (voice-over): My first visited at Garet and Robin Hartshorns 17 months ago for a homemade chili dinner. At the time, the family was struggling but they were still in good spirits.

G. HARTSHORN: I mentioned blackberry cobbler --

HARRIS (on camera): You did?

G. HARTSHORN: But I got peach.

HARRIS: OK.

HARRIS (voice-over): Garet's been looking for work for nearly two years. He was a veteran of Ford Motor Company, making good money as a quality control engineer, when the plant shut down.

G. HARTSHORN: We could produce a car at 15.7 hours per unit.

HARRIS (on camera): You're still proud of that.

G. HARTSHORN: I am extremely proud of my friends and everything that has to do with that plant.

HARRIS (voice-over): The downward spiral was just starting. Soon after Garet lost his job, his wife, the mother of their two children, developed serious health problems.

HARRIS (on camera): Tell me what you're dealing with.

ROBIN HARTSHORN: I'm dealing with losing like three pints of blood that -- and I have -- I'm a diabetic. High blood pressure. But finding out why I've lost the blood, we just don't have the insurance to do that. We have to meet a real high deductible first.

HARRIS (voice-over): Their deductible was $2,200. Part of Garet's severance pay from Ford.

G. HARTSHORN: We just spent $200 of real important money to go have us checked out. You know, you see -- you see how white she is. She's anemic now. I've got to find a way that I can produce enough cash flow where she can be taken care of. And I will. I'm very close right now.

HARRIS (voice-over): How close he was. Listen to what he's doing now.

G. HARTSHORN: I talked to underwriting. Everything is fine. All they need is your doctor's -- your doctor information.

HARRIS: It sounds like he's on the phone arranging health care for his wife. But he's not. This is Garet Hartshorn's new job, arranging health care for other people. He's a health insurance agent. But like so many other independent contractors, his job has no health insurance benefits.

Garet is living a much lonelier existence since his wife's health has gone downhill. Robin stayed in her room when we came to talk to her on camera She wouldn't come out.

G. HARTSHORN: She's not the girl she wants to be, that's for sure.

HARRIS: A year and a half after Robin Hartshorn's doctors told her to check herself into a hospital to get the necessary tests, Robin still hasn't done it.

G. HARTSHORN: Her blood cell count keeps going down. She gets cold at night. And her -- it seems like her circulation is not all that good in her hands and feet and legs. And I'm concerned about that. Because her hands are like ice and, you know, and she's sort of like, I don't know, she's sort of like a real old woman now.

HARRIS: Garet Hartshorn can't even write a policy for his own family. The insurance broker can't afford the insurance he sells. G. HARTSHORN: In all honesty, that's $1,000 a month. And because of our diabetes, a pre-existing illness, and that's just the way it is. And right now, $1,000 a month is like a million dollars. I'm a half a month behind on my house payment and two months behind on my credit cards. And have exhausted my 401(k).

HARRIS: Garet tries to stay positive. He reads self-help books on positive thinking. But he is very angry at Congress.

G. HARTSHORN: They've failed miserably. Both sides of the House, and Independents, too. If they can't -- if they can't realize just how serious this is, then they don't need to be elected officials. They need to go home and build cars or doughnuts or whatever they're good at because they're not very good as legislators.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: CNN NEWSROOM continues right now with Ali Velshi.

Hey, Ali.

ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, Brooke, thanks so much for that.