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Snow Batters Stadium; Foods and Mud In the Northwest; Virginia Federal Court Rules Individual Health Coverage Requirement Unconstitutional; Mexico: Not Latin America's Most Dangerous Country; U.S. Federal Agents En Route to Stockholm to Assist with Suicide Bombing Case
Aired December 13, 2010 - 12:59 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, buddy, that's an excellent story.
Hey, Tony, we've got some breaking news. You've been following it, too. I'm Ali Velshi. Following big breaking developments in the last 30 minutes that could affect your health care. A federal judge in Virginia has ruled that part of the Obama administration's health care law is unconstitutional. And it's a key part. I'm joined here by CNN's senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen. We've got CNN's senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin on the phone. At issue here is the fact that the provision to make people pay for health care has been deemed illegal right now.
Kelly, have we got Jeff on the phone right now?
OK, we're going to get to Jeff in a second. Let's start with Elizabeth.
Elizabeth, this is central. In fact, a judge -- the last line of this ruling, which I know you've been reading and I've got here, a 42 page ruling, actually says this is section 1501 they're talking about, and it says in the final analysis, the court will grant the plaintiff's notion for summary judgment and deny the motion. The court will sever section 1501 from the balance of the act and deny the plaintiff's request for injunctive relief. It's gone. So, the part that says you have to buy insurance is gone.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Let me back up for a minute. Because, I think, you know, this is very complicated stuff. An expert I talked to said, Elizabeth, imagine the three- legged stool and you chopped off one of the legs. What happens to the stool? Falls over. And he said, that's what - that's what's going to happen to health care reform if this decision stands.
VELSHI: Because this is how it became practical to pay for it, that everybody had to buy insurance.
COHEN: Exactly. Again, to back up again, health care reform does this wonderful thing of getting insurance to people with pre- existing conditions. Which has been this huge problem in this country. It's extremely expensive to insure someone who has cancer or heart disease or something like that. How do you pay for it? Well, the way you pay for it is you tell healthy people who don't have insurance because they don't want insurance. You tell them, hey, buddy, you've got to get insurance. You've got to fork over the money for insurance or else we're going to tax you or penalize you financially. And once you say, no, you can't do that, once you say no, you can't make those healthy people get insurance, you have no way to pay for those sick people.
VELSHI: Right. Right. And this was what this court - what the case hinged on, and Jeff will know more about this, is whether this was a tax, which the government would be able to impose under the constitution, or whether it is a penalty for not buying the insurance. And the attorney general, the state of Virginia, and other states argued that it's a penalty. And the judge bought that.
COHEN: The judge bought that. It's a penalty. Now, what's interesting is that the penalty or tax, depending upon whichever you want to use, that you would pay if you don't get insurance is actually cheaper than insuring you, which is --
VELSHI: And you make a good point. So, this is what would happen if you didn't buy insurance. It's not that you can't impose the insurance, it's that you can't impose the penalty for not doing it.
COHEN: You can't say, hey, you young, healthy guy, you've got to get insurance. This decision says you can't do that. And once you can't do that, you can't pay for the whole thing.
VELSHI: Let me read a quote from Henry Hudson, who is the district court judge, who says, despite the laudable intentions of congress in enacting of comprehensive and transformative health care regime, the legislative process must still operate within constitutional bounds. Salutatory goals and creative drafting has - have never been sufficient to offset an absence of enumerated powers. When he says enumerated powers, he means enumerated under the constitution.
OK, let's take the judge at his word. Let's assume that the US government is going to appeal this. But, at the moment, how does this affect what was going to happen with health care?
COHEN: Right. Very few provisions of health care reform have already gone into effect. Let me talk about the two big ones.
Right now if your child has pre-existing conditions, which, unfortunately, a lot of children do. The insurance companies have to insure them. So, that's new and different.
The second thing is, if your child has graduated from college and I'll say he's is 24, 25, your insurance can't kick them off. They - he or she should be able to stay on their parents' insurance. Now, the expert I talked to at NYU, Andrew Reuben, who I know you've talked to many times, he said it's his understanding that those two things stand. This does not cancel those. So, if you got insurance for your sick child last month, or you're your 25-year-old insured, you're OK for the time being.
VELSHI: For the time being. But as you said, the three-legged stool - with two stools, everything gets affected by this some way or the other.
COHEN: Well, because, you see, you've got to pay for it.
VELSHI: Some insurance company will say, look, I can't pay for it now if this other provision doesn't go into effect. So, I can't do this on this side. This complicates everything.
COHEN: It does complicate everything, but at this moment - and I'm addressing the people who, at this moment, are thinking, oh no, I just got my kid insured, and my kid has cancer. What am I going to do? It stays the way it is for the moment. It's not as if those things get cancelled.
VELSHI: Right, because the thing that has been severed, as the judge says, that section 1501, hasn't gone into effect and wasn't going to until 2012.
COHEN: Right. The requirement, where they said to every American, hey, you have to get insurance whether you like it or not, that wasn't going to happen until 2014 anyhow. So, you and I may be talking in a couple of years and some court may reverse it.
VELSHI: Right.
COHEN: It's absolutely possible.
VELSHI: OK, so, for the moment, if you had been struggling for the last six months with how to handle insurance, for the moment, nothing changes because nothing was going to change. This provision that's been struck down was not going to come into effect. So, if you're at work or trying to decide on your coverage, you should do everything the same for now?
COHEN: Right, for now you should do everything the same. But I will say that people have come to me and asked me for advice and said, hey, but, you know, my wife has this illness and I know starting in 2014 -- if you're planning for the future, it's going to be tough.
VELSHI: OK. So, everything the same. But if you're planning for a future that you thought involved coverage, you may now have to go back to where you might have been earlier this year.
COHEN: Right. For example, let's say you have coverage for your sick wife because you work at a company that gives insurance. And you were thinking maybe I'll quit my job my job next year and go work for some little company that doesn't give insurance.
VELSHI: Because this provision was going to come in.
COHEN: Right. Because the federal government. President Obama has made sure that my wife will be covered. You might not want to move so quickly.
VELSHI: Right. OK, so, you want to - if you have a situation where there is a pre-existing condition or you have coverage from an employer and you were going to make a decision, based on this new coverage coming in, you might want to hold off on that. You might want to reconsider that.
COHEN: You might want to realize that the future is, perhaps, murkier than we thought it was several months ago.
VELSHI: OK. So, what remains to be seen, now, is whether the chopping off of this leg as Andrew Rubin at NYU said, topples the stool or whether there's something - whether there's an appeal, which we think there might be, and whether there's some reworking of this. I mean, I don't want to think of how complicated that could be. But some reworking of this penalty or tax that says that if you do not get insurance somehow, the government forces you to.
COHEN: Right. It would have to be -- look at how long it took them to come up with this solution. I mean, you and I, I think we were doing segments, like, ongoing for years, right? I mean, it certainly felt that way, certainly for months. I mean, to figure out another way, a different way to pay for this besides this tax, that's going to - that's going to be incredibly hard.
VELSHI: Let's go to Nancy DeParle at the white house handling health care. Let's talk to her.
Nancy, thank you for joining us so quickly.
Elizabeth and I have been sort of guessing as to what this means to people who were counting on the idea that by 2012 everybody -- most people, would have to be insured in some fashion and that was going to pay for everybody else who had pre-existing conditions or expensive insurance costs.
What's your early analysis on this right now? What does this mean for people watching us who thought, wow, in 2012 something's going to change for me?
NANCY-ANN DEPARLE, DIRECTOR, WHITEHOUSE OFFICE FOR HEALTH REFORM: OK, well, first, let me put it in context, because today's ruling is one of -- there's about 20 court cases in the federal district courts around the country challenging the constitutionality of the law. This is one of those 20. And the - we've already prevailed on two others. In other words, two other federal district courts have held that this provision is constitutional. So, it's important to keep that in mind.
Secondly, the way you've been talking about it, as I've heard, is though - is the tax that will raise money to pay for the health reform. And that isn't exactly right. The provision just says that if people can afford it, then they need to have health insurance. And if they need help with that, they'll get tax credits or subsidies to help them afford it.
So, why is that in there? Well, that's in there because we need to be able to ban this insurance company practice of saying that people can't get coverage because they have pre-existing conditions. And that happens right now all over the country. And you can't ban pre- existing conditions unless you -- pre-existing conditions exclusions unless you get everybody into the system. And that's why we need to get everybody in the system and that's what this individual responsibility requirement is all about.
VELSHI: OK. That's an interesting distinction. So, you're saying that whether it's a tax or penalty as the court has ruled, the issue is not that that's the money that's used to pay for the coverage of everyone else, it's the money used to ensure that lots of lots of people are covered so that the insurance companies can then spread that risk and insure people who had pre-existing conditions?
DEPARLE: Right. It's not about raising money. It's about whether or not you can require everyone to be in the system. That's the core of the issue.
VELSHI: Right. Except that the ruling --
DEPARLE: You have to do that.
VELSHI: The ruling, in its 42 pages here, does speak very specifically to the distinction between whether or not this is a tax, which the government would be allowed to levee, or it's a penalty which, according to the court, the government wouldn't be allowed to levee. So, if it's not about the money, how else can you get people -- can you compel people to get insurance so that the risk is spread in a way that everybody can get insurance?
DEPARLE: Well, we believe the law is constitutional. We believe that it is constitutional to say that everybody needs to be in the system, everybody needs to be -- to have health insurance if they can afford it. And if they can't, they get help doing it. And as I said, there are 20 federal district courts looking at this issue. Two have already ruled the same way I just said, that it is constitutional. Today, we had one that ruled the other way.
VELSHI: What is - what action are you discussing taking at this point?
DEPARLE: Well, the lawyers, at the justice department, are the lawyers who are handling this, and they'll be making decisions and analyzing it and making a recommendations as to how we move forward.
VELSHI: So, if we had these other cases that move forward and you're confident, at this point, that rulings may go in your favor, as Elizabeth and I were discussing, what should our viewers think? I mean, if you were making plans now, and I said 2012, I meant 2014. If you're making plans and thinking about the future and how you are likely to have a different basket of options for your health insurance, post work or in your future life, what are you supposed to think as a result of this sort of ruling? What would you recommend that our viewers do in terms of their planning? DEPARLE: Well, first, there are a lot of benefits in this law already. If your viewers are small businesses, I would say, take advantage of the small business tax credits that are already available.
If you're Medicare beneficiaries, I would say, take advantage of the fact that the donut hole for you is going to be closed next year. You know, for children with pre-existing conditions, this law already provides a benefit. For people who have children who are up to age 26, the law now says that your health plan has to let you keep your children on your health plan.
So, there are already a lot of benefits for people who are at risk of losing their coverage or have issues about their coverage like some of the scenarios you talked about. That's my first message.
VELSHI: OK.
DEPARLE: And my second message is, don't worry, there's plenty of time to get this resolved between now and 2014. This only comes into play in 2014.
VELSHI: I'm going to ask you this, the last line, page 41 of this judgment, says the court will sever section 1501 from the balance of the act and deny plaintiff's request for injunctive release. Severing 1501, that's the requirement to insure. Can the rest of this health care reform exist if that stays severed? In other words, if you don't succeed on appeal, if some of the other court case don't go your way, this analogy, that somebody who Elizabeth was just talking to, used to say that's it's a three-legged stool and one of the legs chopped off. Can this exist without that and how do you go forward if you can't get the 1501 to stay?
DEPARLE: Well, as I mentioned, there are a number of provisions in law that we're already implementing and we're working with the states to implement many others. So, yes, a number of the provisions can go forward, and I think that's what the judge is alluding to.
I think the issue here, though, there's a critical provision of this law that bans insurance companies from excluding people, based on the fact that they've been sick in the past or they're likely to get sick in the future, the ban on pre-existing condition exclusions. And the issue is, can that still go forward? Can we still have a ban on pre-existing condition exclusions if we don't have a requirement that everybody who can afford it get into the system? I think that's the issue.
VELSHI: That is the issue. And we look forward to having more of a discussion on this with you to figure out how we resolve that.
Nancy-Ann DeParle, thank you very much for joining us. Nancy- Ann is the director of the white office for health reform.
Again, interesting distinction she makes. She said that the tax and/or penalty, depending on how you want to look at it, it's not about paying for it, it's about getting everybody into the system, as you say.
COHEN: Everyone agrees that this country needs to take care of people with pre-existing conditions. It's not fair and it's not good for anyone that if you've had breast cancer no one will insure you. Everyone agrees that's bad. So, you want to get those people insurance, that's really expensive. How are you going to pay for that?
You're going to pay for that by bringing everyone into the system. The millions of Americans who say, I'm healthy, what do I need health insurance for? You bring them in, and their premiums help fund care for those people with pre-existing conditions. If you can't bring everyone in, if you can't order those healthy people to get insurance, you're kind of stuck. I mean, it's a problem.
VELSHI: All right. We will continue to study this. I know you're reading through it. We'll keep talking about it, Elizabeth. Thanks very much.
By the way, the ruling is interesting. It does discuss a lot of these issues. So, to check out the complete ruling, head to my blog CNN.com/Ali, I will link you to it.
OK, one of the other stories today. Half the country knows this already. Crazy weather across the country. We're going to tell you, break it down, tell you how long it's going to last on the other side of this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: OK, another big story we're covering today. It is bitter cold. The wind cuts like a knife and it is blowing snow. And that's here in Atlanta. Up north, eight full days before the official start of winter. It is crazy cold in the wake of a weekend blizzard. As we speak, a CNN crew is making its way across northwest Indiana where dozens of cars have been trapped in snow drifts for hours. In some cases all night. State police there say they've rescued more than 60 people so far, but tow trucks are getting stuck in the snow too. And this area could get 10 more inches of snow today.
It's not alone. Check out the big map. There's snow on the ground all over the country. Even if you're in the clear, you may be affected by an air traffic logjam that could take days to clear up. Lots of cancellations. Take a look on the right side, the northeast part of the map there. And even that's not the whole weather story.
Train travel in the Pacific Northwest on hold because of flooding and mud slides. We've got people and cameras all over the country, of course. Our coverage begins in the upper Midwest. CNN all-platform journalist Chris Welch is inside the Minneapolis Metrodome. If you have not seen this, you should. The Metrodome is not supposed to be an open-air facility.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRIS WELCH, CNN ALL-PLATFORM JOURNALIST: Well, the blizzards moved out of Minnesota, but not without leaving its mark. And you can see quite vividly that mark. Yesterday morning, folks woke up around the country basically reading news online, seeing it on Twitter or Facebook, the reports of the Metrodome roof collapsing.
Crews will be arriving on the scene today to really assess these three damaged Teflon panels. It basically all just kind of came crashing down. But the facilities director here says it looks worse than it really is. They expect to be able to fix it hopefully in a matter of days, make weeks. The Vikings have another home game December 20th. We'll see if it will be up and running before then.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VELSHI: The good part is that they can repair that structure. It's happened before. Never like this. Never caught on camera the way it is now.
Over in the super saturated Pacific Northwest, CNN all-platform journalist Patrick Oppmann.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN ALL-PLATFORM JOURNALIST: The skies over Seattle finally began clearing Monday morning after several days of near non-stop rain. The region is no stranger to wet weather but hasn't experienced a drenching like this in quite some time. In about nine different counties, rivers actually topped their banks causing widespread flooding.
Several hundred people had to be evacuated from their homes. Some of them actually plucked from the porches by hovercrafts. This weather system is nicknamed the Pineapple Express, but there's really nothing tropical about it as for several days the rain just -- apparently didn't seem to stop.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VELSHI: OK, that was the weekend. Remarkable weekend for weather. Now we want to talk about the present and the future. Part of the problem with the past is that it killed a lot of air travel.
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Absolutely.
VELSHI: And so we're still catching up for this and there's still cancellations.
MYERS: And we're not catching up like we should.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: We should have about 6,000 planes in the sky.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: I know that looks like ants on candy, but there's only 5,200 planes there. VELSHI: OK.
MYERS: That means 800 planes that aren't in the air should be somewhere. They're digging them out. They're shoveling them out. They're deicing them. Whatever they're doing. They are at least on a slight delay today.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: Temperatures are cold. Could you imagine being the worker that has to load the bags on the planes at 16 in Cleveland. But that's not the story. It's the wind, too.
VELSHI: Wow!
MYERS: It feels like 3 below zero in Chicago. And that is the high of the day so far.
VELSHI: Yes.
MYERS: I've seen minus 17 for a while there this afternoon. So it has been cold. The snow is still east of Chicago. We expect those streamers to remain there. This is a lake effect event now. This is because the lakes are still unfrozen and the -- do you ever go on to a lake and it's nice -- it's in the morning and you're having your coffee and you look at the lake and it looks like there's steam coming off?
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: Well, you know the lake's not 100 degrees. It's not really steaming.
VELSHI: Right, it's just warmer than --
MYERS: Warmer than the air.
VELSHI: Right.
MYERS: This is warmer than the air. The steam comes up and snow comes down.
VELSHI: Got it. So this is, as opposed to being a weather pattern, as opposed to being a weather system, this is weather that's being generated by the immediate circumstances.
MYERS: Compared to what collapsed the Superdome -- or the Metrodome.
VELSHI: Right. When are we looking at improvement in general weather conditions?
MYERS: April.
VELSHI: It's winter -- not winter yet. It's still -- it's several days before winter. OK, we'll keep an eye on travel. We'll keep an eye on weather for you.
Boy, we have a lot of news today. We've got this, we've got the health care. We also have another big deal coming up a little later on today. We're counting down to today's Senate showdown on tax cuts. When all the wheeling and dealing ends, what is it going to cost you? Important answers next in "Your Money."
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: In just under two hours, the Senate is going to take up a test vote on the president's tax cut deal with the Republicans. Test votes mean if it fails, it doesn't mean the bill's failed, it just means that they can or can't get enough votes. Suddenly it looks like last week's opposition to this deal won't stop it from eventually passing. So, today on "Your Money," let's talk about exactly that, your money. This is how much it's going to cost the government, us, to foot the bill for the deal.
When you combine everything together, the cuts amount to $801 billion. But if you recall, in a deal to get the cuts, the government wanted to extend unemployment benefits for those people for whom it was expiring. The benefits extension costs about $57 billion. So you add it together, you've got $858 billion.
That's a pretty hefty bill. And you're probably wondering what we're getting for our money. Let me tell you. It's going to cost $544 billion for the two-year extension of the cuts themselves. OK, that's the big one. But then you start adding on the payroll tax holiday. That's going to cost $111 billion. Another $8 billion for tax breaks for low and middle income earners, which include credits for kids and their college costs.
It doesn't stop there. There's also a raft of business tax breaks, including those for research and some energy credits, even a measure that will allow businesses to write off 100 percent of their expenses in 2011.
And one of the hottest political potatoes has been that one, the estate tax. Some people call it a death tax. If you don't like it, you call it a death tax. If you like it, you call it an estate tax. If this deal goes through as is, we can expect a lower estate tax with a $5 million exemption. In other words, you don't pay it on the first $5 million of your estate as opposed to $1 million. And a top tax rate of 35 percent on your estate instead of 55 percent. How much is that going to cost us? $68 billion.
As I said, whether you're buying a TV or giving tax breaks, the only way to do it right now is to borrow money. Doesn't matter whether you put it on your Visa or your AMEX or the government borrows it from China or Europe or you, it doesn't. What matters is that the government is borrowing to pay for these things.
For the government, there are only two ways to do that. Either you print your own money -- if the government needs money, it can either issue bonds, it sells these bonds, gets money, and pays interest. Anybody can buy those. China can buy it. You can buy it. Other governments can buy it. And when you start making money again, when the economy is doing well, you buy those bonds back from whoever owns them. That's it. Or you can print money, which the government knows -- we know that the government is doing right now.
By the way, the reason people buy our bonds is because there's interest on them and they think they're going to get paid. So that's how you continue to get more money, you -- maybe you offer more interest on your bonds or people think American bonds are more stable than other countries. That's why we can borrow money.
OK, there's plenty more of that if you want to discuss it on "Your Money." You can join me and Christine Romans Saturday's at 1:00 p.m. Eastern, Sundays at 3:00.
Let me bring you up to speed with breaking developments on our top stories this hour.
President Obama's health care reform law is in jeopardy. A federal judge in Virginia has just ruled that a key provision is unconstitutional. Judge Henry Hudson says the government has no right to force individuals to buy health insurance. The Obama administration is expecting to challenge the ruling and the fight is likely to end up in the Supreme Court.
The huge pre-winter storm that dumped snow from Minneapolis to Chicago over the weekend is moving east today, leaving travelers stranded on highways and at airports. Forecasters say Cleveland could see 9 inches of snow before it's all over. Behind the storm, dangerously cold temperatures. Minneapolis public schools called off classes today. Minneapolis called off classes. I mean they're used to winter up there.
Five people are confirmed dead, 17 more are feared dead after this South Korean fishing boat sank in the icy water off the coast of Antarctica. Twenty people were rescued, but authorities are scaling back the search for missing sailors. They say the water is so cold, it's unlikely any of them could have survived for more than 10 minutes.
President Obama signed the Child Nutrition Bill into law today. It will provide more money to subsidize free meals for low income children. It also gives the government more power to set standards for food sold in school vending machines.
And as we've been reporting, a federal judge in Virginia has just ruled against part of the health care law. Ed Henry is on the stakeout at the White House. We'll hear reaction from Washington when we get back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: All right, back to our breaking news. A federal judge in Virginia has struck down part of the president's health care reform law. Ed Henry on the stakeout at the White House with the latest on this. We just spoke to Nancy-Ann DeParle of the Office of Health Reform at the White House. She down played this, Ed. She said it's -- they've already won two of these. There are many more. They think it's constitutional, regardless of what this judge -- federal judge in Virginia said. He was pretty clear. He said, it's not constitutional to impose a penalty on people for not buying health care.
ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Right. Basically and that it exceeds constitutional powers. And that's what it's going to come down to, does this -- you know, is it constitutional or not? And as soon as Nancy-Ann DeParle was finished with you, she spoke to our colleague Dan Lothian, who was telling him that she's going to be on the phone with the Justice Department this afternoon trying to figure out exactly what is their next step here.
It's not a surprise to the administration that this ruling was coming out. They knew the ruling was coming. They knew it was likely to head this way. But it should be noted that there have been other rulings on this very provision that have gone the administration's way. And so what I think the bottom line here is, from a political standpoint for this White House, is they know it's very likely to go to the U.S. Supreme Court and be decided there.
So, in the short term, nobody really knows what kind of impact it will have on consumers. The real question will be, what kind of long term impact will it have on consumers because as you know and as you've been reporting, there's a lot of time between now and 2014 when this provision and many of the other key provisions are going to actually kick in.
VELSHI: Right.
HENRY: But I think in the short term, politically, there's no doubt that it gives Republicans a lot of clout as they're about to take over the House of Representatives, they're about to, you know, pick up the number of seats they have and shrink the Democratic majority in the Senate. You have the incoming House majority leader, Eric Cantor, just put out a statement saying they're going to pass legislation, which they'll have the votes to do it in the House once the Republicans take over in early January, to just flat out repeal the Obama health care reform.
Now, Harry Reid in the Senate is not about to take that up. So that's not going to repeal things. But symbolically, the Republicans are going to have the wind at their backs with this court case and if there are other court rulings in the future.
VELSHI: Right, and ultimately if this doesn't go the administration's way, they're going to have to find some workaround, because while it is just one piece of the healthcare reform, it is the central piece. Because it's the piece that spreads the rest --
HENRY: It's a vital piece.
VELSHI: -- to everybody so you can insure the people who were not otherwise uninsured. HENRY: It's sort of like that string your suit. You keep pulling, you keep pulling and then all of a sudden there's a big hole in the side of your jacket.
I mean, this is not just, as you say, any provision. This is the key part of it, in terms of the individual mandate that people have to be covered. If that part winds up being unconstitutional, they're going to have to, you know, dramatically reshape the Obama health care reform. Or they're going to have to scrap it altogether. We're a long, long way from that. But this shows you what kind of stakes are involved.
VELSHI: Ed, let me ask you, a little while from now, there's going to be a test vote in the Senate about this tax deal that the president cut with the Republicans that so many Democrats are not in favor of.
What's likely to happen?
HENRY: Well, it seems likely that the president's going to have the votes to clear this procedural hurdle. One of the best vote counters we have is Dana Bash our senior Congressional correspondent. She seems to think it's heading that way. And I think that's important for the president because not just then does it clear the procedural hurdle in the Senate, in a couple of days they'll probably have final passage on it, but it puts pressure on the House Democrats to fall into line.
And I think what was most noteworthy, if you were to take one thing out of the Sunday talk shows. Is that after last week, the House Democrats said they don't even want to bring it up for a vote. Now House Democrats are saying, we don't like it, but it's going to come up for a vote. They hope to change it but it's likely to pass. It's a lot different from where we were last week. The bottom line is, this week the president seems to have the momentum. He's very likely to get this tax deal. It's not done, but it's likely he's going to get it.
VELSHI: All right, Ed. I suspect we're going to be talking again later this show. It's too bad we got breaking news. I could have spent a whole minute talking about the coordination between your pocket square and your tie. Excellent job.
Ed Henry, our senior White House correspondent. You've done a nice job. We'll check into that.
We are continuing to follow this breaking news that Ed and I were just talking about. A federal ruling declaring that part of the health care law is unconstitutional. But it's a key part. Elizabeth Cohen has been reading through the judge's ruling. She'll join me with her findings on the other side of this break.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) VELSHI: Happening now. A federal judge in Virginia has ruled part of the sweeping healthcare reform led by President Obama is unconstitutional. This is the first federal court to strike the law down contradicting other recent rulings that said the law was permissible. The key issue here is the individual mandate requirement that most Americans must purchase health insurance by 2014.
Meanwhile, in about 90 minutes, the Senate's scheduled to hold a cloture vote on the tax compromise deal between President Obama and GOP leaders. This is the deal to extend the Bush-era tax cuts. Basically this is a procedural thing, a test to see if there's enough support to move it forward. As Ed Henry was telling me, there likely is.
And it is bitter cold throughout much of the country. In northwest Indiana, dozens of cars have been trapped in snow drifts for hours, in some cases all night. And this area could get 10 more inches of snow today.
OK, back out to the breaking news. A federal judge in Virginia has ruled part of the Obama administration's health care law unconstitutional. But it's an important part.
CNN senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins me now. So, Elizabeth, it's not that it's unconstitutional for the government to tell everybody to insure themselves. It's unconstitutional to penalize them if they don't.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Right, because obviously you don't want to just tell everyone to insure themselves. There's got to be some consequence or else people will say, forget it, I'm going to stick with this.
So, here's the big picture of what's happening. One of the main goals of healthcare reform was to help people with pre-existing conditions. Because right now if you have a pre-existing condition, if you have cancer, heart disease, asthma, or really anything, and you want to buy your own insurance --
VELSHI: Good luck.
COHEN: -- good luck. You will either be told no, or you'll be charged a zillion dollars.
VELSHI: Right.
COHEN: OK. So, what they said was -- the government said in effect, well, wait a minute, here's a way to pay for it. There's this huge group, tens of millions of healthy Americans are sitting around without insurance. That's tens of millions of people who could be paying premiums into the system.
VELSHI: Right.
COHEN: And wouldn't that be great because that would help fund all these sick people who need insurance. Well, requiring those healthy people to get insurance, this judge in Virginia said no, you can't do that. Unconstitutional. Specifically violates the commerce clause of the constitution.
VELSHI: Right. Which would allow the government to collect a tax, but does not allow them to impose a penalty. And basically this judge is saying that this amounts to penalty.
COHEN: Right, because what the government said with health care reform was, you've got to buy healthcare insurance, which means you're forking over premiums. Or if you don't, you've got to pay this tax. Some call it a penalty, others call it a tax. Legally speaking, I guess that's an important distinction. But the bottom line is, if you didn't do it, there would be a financial penalty of some kind.
VELSHI: So we spoke to Nancy-Ann DeParle from the White House half an hour ago, and she said, look, we've had two ruling in our favor and there are many more to come. They felt confident that this would go in the government's favor over time. And these are provisions that aren't going into effect until 2014.
COHEN: And you know what, maybe that's why these aren't going into effect until 2014, is that they knew there was going to be these lawsuits and they would need time to adjudicate it. This is -- you know, I can't see how this won't go to the Supreme Court.
VELSHI: OK. So, what does this affect right now? You know better than anyone that there are some things that have taken place already that have gone into effect with this healthcare law and there are some that won't.
COHEN: Right, exactly. What's gone into effect already, a couple of provisions and here are two of the key ones. Is that when someone has a kid who's like 25-years-old, you want to keep them on your insurance, you can now keep them on your insurance until they're 26. That's a huge change from before.
Also, you have a child with a pre-existing condition, you should -- you can now get them insurance. Now, I've been told that those provisions stay. This decision here said it is those provisions stay, we're not getting rid of those.
But the question is long-term how do you keep up these expensive provisions if you don't have that funding source?
VELSHI: Right. OK. We'll stay on top of the story.
Thank you so much, Elizabeth.
COHEN: OK, thanks
VELSHI: Elizabeth Cohen our senior medical correspondent.
Thirty thousand. That's the number of people killed in Mexico since the drug war started four years ago -- 30,000. And by the way, that's not even the most dangerous country in the region. We'll find out which country is even worse after the break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Time now for Globe Trekking. First stop, Stockholm, Sweden, where just this hour we've learned that U.S. federal agents are en route to Stockholm, to assist in this weekend's suicide bombing. We also know more about the man blamed for the attacks.
Now two explosions happened on Saturday in an area full of Christmas shoppers. A car exploded ahead of a second blast which killed the suspected bomber. Authorities now think the second bomb went off early before the bomber made it to a more crowded area. A Swedish news agency tells CNN they received an e-mail threat 10 minutes earlier from the man they believed was behind the attack, but they have yet carried out DNA testing. He was the only person killed. This was Sweden's first suicide bombing.
Now to Mexico, we tell you about an awful lot of murders tied to the drug war. But it might surprise you to know that it is not the most dangerous Latin American country.
Here's CNN Rafael Romo.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RAFAEL ROMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's a country at war. After four years of a government offensive against drug cartels, more than 30,000 people have died in Mexico. Some call it the most dangerous country in the world. But is it true that the U.S. neighbor to the south has one of the highest murder rates on the planet?
KEVIN CASAS-ZAMORA, BROOKINGS INSTITUTE: Not even close. Not even close.
ROMO: Kevin from the Brookings Institution says Mexico's murder rate is not even among the top 10 in Latin America.
CASAS-ZAMORA: ales in significance when you compare to the murder rate in places like Guatemala, like Honduras, like El Salvador, even Colombia that has seen its murder rate gone down quite significantly. It's even much lower than the murder rate in Brazil.
ROMO: On a per capita basis, El Salvador with 71 murders per 100,000 people; Honduras with 67; and Venezuela with 49; all have murder rates higher than Mexico's 14. In the United States, the murder rate is fewer than six per 100,000.
The study by the Brookings Institution also shows that Mexico's violence is highly concentrated. Sixty percent of all homicides have happened in four states, including Coahuila and Chihuahua, which share a border with Texas.
CASAS-ZAMORA: If Chihuahua was a country, it would have a high murder rate in the world probably at this point.
ROMO: The U.S. Secretary of State compared Mexico to Colombia in September. HILLARY CLINTON, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: These drug cartels are now showing more and more indices of insurgency. You know, all of a sudden car bombs show up which weren't there before. So it's becoming -- it's looking more and more like Colombia looked 20 years ago.
ROMO: But Mexico is not fighting a guerrilla movement, nor have cartels shown any intentions of toppling the government.
CASAS-ZAMORA: They want certain decisions made by the Mexican government in ways that favor their elicit activities. But that's a different matter.
ROMO: And what about President Calderon's argument that homicides have increased because the cartels are lashing out made desperate by the barrage of government attacks?
CASAS-ZAMORA: The situation in Mexico in a slightly strange way resembles a lot of what's happening in Afghanistan. You know, it's -- it is to some extent a war that has to be fought but nobody really knows in a clear way why, how, and until when.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMO: And Mexico will end this year with almost 11,000 drug- related executions, which, Ali, is really quite extraordinary because only three years ago, there were about 3,000 per year. It tripled in the last three years.
VELSHI: Interesting the point that the gentleman you were interviewing made. And that is, this isn't political. They only want -- the drug cartels only seem to want to influence the political process insofar as it allows them to conduct the commerce they want -- it's not an ideological war, like as in Colombia.
ROMO: Exactly. It's all about the money, really. And the reason why we see violence concentrating in the two states that we saw south of Texas is because that's the most profitable drug route in the entire country. And that's where cartels are trying to fight for territories. It's a turf war, and that's where the violence comes from.
VELSHI: Very interesting perspective. I must say, I was quite surprised by that. Rafael, good to see you as always. Thank you.
ROMO: You too. Thanks.
VELSHI: OK. A new way to stop a disease in its tracks before it becomes an epidemic. Today's "Big I" is all about putting prevention on the fast track. This one you'll want to see.
(COMMERICAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Everyday on the show we do a segment called "The Big I." It's all about big new ideas and innovations. Today's "Big I" is about saving lives in a really big way. Before we get to about that, let's talk about the cholera epidemic in Haiti. So far, at least 2,000 people have died from the outbreak, More than 100,000 people have become sick from cholera. And finding the source of the cholera could keep it from infecting other people.
Well, scientists at Pacific Biosciences have done just that. And they developed the new DNA technology to figure out where these diseases come from faster. Let me tell you exactly why this matters to you. This technology will help track diseases very quickly, help prevent an outbreak, and better treat those who are infected.
Joining us now from Mountain View, California is the Dr. Eric Schadt. He is the chief scientific officer for Pacific Biosciences. Eric, good to see you. Listen, we're just monitoring the White House press briefing, which is going to start in a few minutes. So, I may have to interrupt you to find out about the White House's reaction to this health care ruling.
But let's talk about this. You have figured out very quickly that the cholera in Haiti came from south Asia. Tell me about that.
DR. ERIC SCHADT, CHIEF SCIENTIFIC OFFICER, PACIFIC BIOSCIENCES: Right. Using the Pacific Biosciences third-generation sequencing technology, we took samples from Haiti for cholera, samples from Latin America, and samples from south Asia. Completely sequenced the DNA of those different bugs, and then could unambiguously resolve exactly where that Haitian's strain was derived from. And we've pinpointed it to a South Asian strain.
VELSHI: Now, some people say what difference does it make where it came from? What has to happen here is we've seen all these people sickened, and 2,000 have died. Why is it important to know where it came from?
SCHADT: Right. It's not just important to know where it came from, but what's the structure of the bug. What are the types of mutations it carries that could affect treatment? Is it more virulent? So, you want to be more aggressive in how you treat it.
And not only that, but how do you prevent the spread? It's definitely not about laying blame. It's about getting the best treatments and preventing spread that we can. You and I know if you are sick and step on an airplane that you can be across on another continent within a day and giving that sickness to others. The same sort of thing could have happened with the south Asian-derived strain in Haiti. It could have been someone from south Asia going to West Africa, and then from West Africa to Haiti. We don't know. It's a global problem. The aim is how to best treat it.
VELSHI: Right. You haven't gotten patient zero yet. But here's the interesting thing. Because normally -- we talked a year ago, almost, when this earthquake happened about the fear of cholera. Normally we associate it with brackish water or water which is not clean and that is used communally. But in this case, if it came from south Asia, then it lends to the hypothesis that somebody brought it over. It came on a plane.
SCHADT: That's exactly right. And if somebody brought it over from a plane to Haiti, then the same type of -- then it could spread from Haiti to other areas. So, one of the main aims and one of the main things being proposed is should we be aggressively, say, vaccinating people in Haiti to prevent it from spreading throughout Latin America or certainly to Haiti's neighbors.
VELSHI: What's the advance in the technology that you actually used to sequence it, because one of the things that struck me as a nonscientist was it was very fast.
SCHADT: That's right. So, the two things that matter most in this type of problem for infectious diseases are the speed. The speed with which you can generate that data, and then the speed with which you can analyze and interpret the data.
What the Pacific Biosciences technology provides for the first time ever is the abilty is take the entire genome of a bacteria same day, within just a matter of hours, get to the complete genome sequence -- not only generate that data quickly, but generate it in such a way that it's easy to analyze. These are like putting puzzles together, these problems we're trying to solve. And if you have very big puzzle pieces, then that problem is much easier to solve. So, not only does the Pac Biotechnology generate it quickly, but big puzzle pieces but not tiny puzzle pieces that would be difficult to assemble.
VELSHI: Eric, good to talk to you. Thank you so much for that.
Eric Schadt with Pacific Biosciences. To check out other research being done there, head to my blog, CNN.com/Ali.
Right to the White House briefing. Robert Gibbs.
ROBERT GIBBS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I picked the umbrella and I'll leave the crickets alone. Go ahead, sir.
QUESTION: Thank you. Two topics. On the health care ruling, the passage here which makes it -- the judge says with unchecked expansion of congressional power (inaudible) minimum coverage provision (inaudible) exercise (inaudible) federal police powers. And this is not about -- just about health care, but it's about (inaudible) doesn't this vindicate or validate the central argument of skeptics, which is that, despite your intentions, you can't require people to participate in a law like this?
GIBBS: Well, I think a couple of important things for perspective. First and foremost, obviously, the administration argued on the other side of this case and disagrees with the ruling.
I do think it is important to keep some perspective about the fact that there are now 20 or so cases making their way through federal courts. A -- the court -- this was the eastern district of Virginia. A hundred and fifteen miles away, the western district court of Virginia ruled November 30th to uphold the same provision that the eastern district and its judge had ruled against. So I think the other court -- the eastern district of Michigan, October 7th, ruled in favor of the law as it was passed.
So I -- again, we disagree with the ruling. Obviously, the individual responsibility portions of the Affordable Care Act are the basis and the foundation for examining and doing away with insurance company discrimination on the behalf -- on behalf of pre-existing conditions.
Obviously, without an individual responsibility portion in the law, you could not -- you could not find yourself dealing with pre- existing conditions, because the only people that would -- would likely get involved in -- in purchasing health care would be the very sick. And, obviously, that would be enormously expensive.
QUESTION: So given that it is so fundamental to the -- to the whole law and you have these different court rulings, is it clear to you that this is going to go to the Supreme Court? And if so, how...
GIBBS: I am not a legal scholar. I think it is safe to say that, because there are several other cases in the pipeline and because of -- again, you've got disparate court rulings 115 miles away -- that the -- the -- the bill will continue to have its day in court.
I do think it is important that even this judge ruled that the bill continues to move forward in terms of its implementation. And, obviously, the individual responsibility aspects of this legislation weren't to go into effect until 2014, so there's some time to work this through.
QUESTION: Well, just to wrap up this part, what gives the White House confidence that ultimately it will prevail, if these -- this case continues...
(CROSSTALK)
GIBBS: Well, again, I think -- I think -- and -- and I've certainly not been a lawyer in terms of the legal arguments that underpinned each of the briefs, but I would say that challenges like this are nothing new in terms of laws that have come before the courts in the past, in which -- in which our position has prevailed. We're confident that it is constitutional. And, quite frankly, of the three courts that have rendered decisions on this question, two have ruled in our favor.
QUESTION: Real quick question on the tax deal. Democrats in the House are -- are talking of targeting the estate tax provision that they're unhappy with and maybe dealing with that in an amendment or legislatively trying to change that language. Is the White House urging those Democrats not to do that, out of fear it could cause the whole deal to unravel?
GIBBS: Well, I'll say this. You know, obviously, the Senate is going to vote on -- have a procedural vote a little bit later on this afternoon. I think the president is -- is encouraged by what we hear in the Senate and believes that the legislation will pass that hurdle and be one important step closer to passage.
In terms of -- I'm not going to get involved in sort of what the amendment process might be in the House at this point. I think you have seen -- whether it was in here on Friday, with President -- former President Clinton, or whether you have seen just this morning that this is something that is -- has broad bipartisan support in the public, it's a -- it's an excellent -- it's a good agreement. It's an excellent agreement on behalf of million of Americans -- millions of Americans who won't see their taxes go up.
Those that are impacted in -- in having lost a job in this recession will have the security of knowing that their unemployment benefits won't fall victim to politics. And the middle class will enjoy a significant tax cut in -- in -- in the payroll tax portions of this bill. So we are encouraged that we get closer and closer each day to having this agreement become law.
QUESTION: Can you talk about the initial reaction to the health care ruling? Were you surprised by it? And how concerned are you about the fact that there's a lot of other lawsuits out there?
GIBBS: Well, again, you know, I -- this is the third federal -- this is the third federal court that's rendered a decision on this portion of the Affordable Care Act, and two of those courts have upheld it. So I think we are -- we're confident that -- that the Affordable Care Act is -- will be upheld.
QUESTION: What's the next step for you?
GIBBS: Well, I -- you know, the Department of Justice, obviously, is going to have to make some decisions about appealing this particular case. My sense is that appeal decision is -- is something they'll likely make, but I would point you over to them.
QUESTION: OK, and just a question. Larry Summers gave a farewell speech today at a think-tank. And I'm just wondering how the decision-making is going on his replacement. Do you still hope to do that before the end of the year?
GIBBS: You know, look, I will say that it is -- I'm not sure that -- that that's going to get done by the end of the year. Obviously, a whole host of legislative -- lots of legislative work around the lame duck, with -- with the budget, taxes, START, "don't ask/don't tell," the DREAM Act, there are a whole host of things that have taken up a bunch of bandwidth and a bunch of time. And it's unclear to me that -- whether that will get done before -- before the end of the year.
QUESTION: It appears that one of the main reasons why the judge ruled this way -- ruled
VELSHI: OK. That's White House press secretary Robert Gibbs responding to questions about the ruling that has declared a very key portion of the Obama health care reform unconstitutional. We're going to continue to report on this. As we have told you already, a Virginia judge - a federal judge in Virginia today struck down a requirement which was due to start in 2014 that virtually every American buy health insurance.
