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Colorado Fire Kills 1, Destroys 346 Homes; Medicaid Expansion Challenge; New Deal on Eurozone Debt Crisis; Massacre in Damascus; Health Care Political Battle; One Family's Heartbreak; Small Town's Take on Health Care Ruling; Hospitals and Docs Examine Supreme Court Ruling; Grisly Video Surfaced from Drug Cartel; Vying for a Baby
Aired June 29, 2012 - 11:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Everyone, I'm Kyra Phillips. It's 11:00 on the East Coast, 8:00 on the West.
I'll tell you what, it can kill you if you're not careful. I'm talking about the extreme heat. Temps hitting all-time highs as the blistering heat wave rolls eastward.
And the health care law. The Supreme Court said yes, but Republicans say not so fast. We've got an inside look at the renewed fight to repeal Obamacare.
Also this hour, just how far will infertile couples go to get pregnant? All the way to Vegas, baby. Chasing a long shot and competing for free IVF.
We begin with the devastation on a historic scale in Colorado, and the president is on his way as we speak to survey the fire damage after signing a disaster declaration for the state.
We're closely monitoring the Waldo Canyon Fire which has now become the most destructive fire in the state's history. At least one person was found dead overnight, another is still missing. Nearly 17,000 acres scorched, 346 homes gone, 20,000 more threatened.
This photo was taken before the fire. Take a look at what the area looks like now. You're looking at the reality for hundreds of families.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TED STEFANI, LOST HOME IN FIRE: It was just total shock to see your house pretty much in a fireball.
KATE STEFANI, LOST HOME IN FIRE: That's our house and it's in flames and I just started crying. There was no way around it. I was never going to go home again, so it's pretty sad.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COSTELLO: Rob Marciano on the ground there near the Waldo Canyon Fire. So, Rob, how much of this fire have crews actually been able to contain to this point?
ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: You know, they made pretty good head way yesterday, Kyra. Bumped it from 5 to 15 percent containment. That doesn't sound like a lot, but the confidence that I see in the firefighters' eyes really says it all. Thin veil of cloud cover came over, temperatures a little bit cooled, the winds were erratic at times, but manageable, so -- and the smoke this morning certainly seems to be a little bit better.
Behind me you see the foothills of the -- of the front range of the Rockies. We're at the Air Force Academy airfield where U.S. Forest Service is using their air assets, staging air fueling up here, and sending them out into the fire lines to help battle the blaze.
Spot fires here on the eastern flank have been much, much less this morning than they were yesterday. And that's good news because that's where the most populated areas are, at least for Colorado Springs. And that's what has made this fire so remarkable, Kyra.
Colorado Springs, as you know, is the second largest city in the state of Colorado, it's a huge city. And the subdivisions bank right up against the front range, and that's where all that damage was. Three hundred and forty-six homes and counting. The most destructive wildfire in history. And still less than 18,000 acres burned.
So not a huge one when you look at the rest of the fires burning in the state, but obviously too close to home, coming down the front range, and into the highly populated area of Colorado Springs.
PHILLIPS: All right, now the president is coming in for a visit. What do you know about the trip?
MARCIANO: He's not going to talk to me, that's for sure. He's going to take a tour of the devastated -- some of the devastated areas. Now not all of it. I mean some of it is still not safe. You can imagine areas that have burned out and areas that are still threatened. It's just not safe to go there. But he'll take a tour, I'm not sure where. And he's going to talk to some of the firefighters and give them some words of encouragement, no doubt about that.
So he's scheduled to arrive, I believe, at noon local and we'll take his tour thereafter.
PHILLIPS: All right --
MARCIANO: And as you know, he also signed a declaration. He's also freed up some federal funds for not only this fire but for the larger fire off to the north. So that's part of the reason for the visit, I'm sure.
PHILLIPS: What about Colorado Springs? That's the second largest city in the state, right? How close is it getting toward that city? MARCIANO: Well, it's burned a portion of it, that's the scariest part of this thing. I mean the areas that where the homes lit up, Tuesday night, that Friday night, that is in Colorado Springs proper. The northwest corner of it, but still within the city limits.
Part of the Air Force Academy where I'm standing was burned. The southwest corner of that. So you talk to residents here, very rarely do these fires come down the front range and into these populated communities, and that's what happened with some of the erratic fire behavior that we saw and the winds.
And the record-breaking heat that the rest of the country is enduring right now. Temperatures were up and over 100 degrees right here over the weekend. That coupled with low snow pack, and already a hot hot spring. All you need was a spark and boom. It just went off and got into the areas that were the most populated, unfortunately. And the victims are reeling.
We caught up with -- the victims have spread out, in shelters, friends and family, and hotels. Many of them staying at the hotel we're staying at. And the executive chef, the guy who runs the kitchen, he actually had to evacuate the fire as well. And here's what he had to say yesterday when we caught up with him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETER AIELLO, COLORADO SPRINGS CHEF: The not knowing is probably the biggest frustration right now because it could -- it could all be there, or it could all be in ashes. Just don't know.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MARCIANO: Happy to report to you that last night at least he and his wife, their home was actually not burned. They got word last night. Other residents obviously not so lucky. Not all will be able to go back today. It will take several days before it's deemed safe for them to even be allowed back to see what's left -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Rob Marciano, we'll keep talking. Appreciate it.
The U.S. Forest Service, by the way, estimates it could be mid- July before that fire is fully under control.
Now that Supreme Court said yes to Obamacare, what will happen to the millions of uninsured Americans? And how about those covered by Medicaid, Medicare?
Our chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, still covering -- recovering and covering this story since yesterday. He is at Bellevue Hospital where, Sanjay, I understand more than 80 percent of the patients will specifically feel the tremendous impact by this decision. Explain why.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, a public hospital like this one, 80 percent of the patients are either uninsured or covered by programs like Medicaid. Just quickly, you know, I'm going to bring in Allen Aviles here in a second, but under these provisions, Medicaid is set to expand at the state level to now cover people who are -- make 133 percent of poverty.
So for an individual, it's about $14,000 a year, for family of four, about $30,000 a year. If you make less than those amounts for individuals or families, you qualify for Medicaid, and try and get your health care insurance that way.
But Kyra, you asked the right question. And I want to bring in Alan Aviles.
You're the president and CEO of the New York Health and Hospitals Corporation and Bellevue is one of these hospitals, is that right?
ALAN D. AVILES, PRESIDENT, NYC HEALTH AND HOSPITALS CORP: Yes.
GUPTA: So 80 percent. Kyra Phillips is our anchor. Eighty percent of the patients in a hospital like this are uninsured or on Medicaid. When this is fully implemented, what will be the impact on a hospital like this?
AVILES: Well, one of the biggest impacts, obviously, is related to the uninsured. The entire New York City public hospital system saw 1.4 million patients last year and about 480,000 of them were uninsured. We're the largest provider of services to uninsured patients in the nation.
GUPTA: Close to a third.
AVILES: Close to a third. And that means for many of those patients, they'll now have the security of actual health care coverage. That's a very big major victory for those patients and millions of Americans who were uninsured across the country.
GUPTA: You're going to have more patients, though. And this is a concern that comes up a lot. Are you equipped to handle more patients? Are there enough doctors? Are there enough resources to be able to do that?
AVILES: Well, that's a serious issue, and I think it's going to lead us to have to look at the way we deliver care, and who we asked to deliver that care. We're going to have to have more nurse practitioners involved, more physician assistants involved, and we're going to have to stretch the physicians we have as leaders of teams that really are providing care on a team basis.
GUPTA: Access being the number one issue, cost is a second issue that comes up right after that in terms of the discussions. I mean, how do you -- is it going to get more expensive? Is it going to get more expensive for people who already have insurance, do you think, as well?
AVILES: Well, you know, I think all of health care understands that cost containment is here with us, that there's no way that we're going to continue to sustain the increased costs. So we are working very hard as are, I think, hospitals across the nation to figure out ways to make operations more efficient, and more importantly, figure out way to deliver care with more emphasis on primary and preventive care so we avoid the very expensive hospitalizations and emergency department visits.
GUPTA: And just really quickly, I hear this a lot. Quality of care. Do you think it's going to be affected for the average citizen here in the United States?
AVILES: Absolutely not. I think that better than the Affordable Care Act or initiatives that are focused on increasing quality of care, even as we reduce the cost. That is a heavy lift, but that's the imperative and I think we're going to march to that tune.
GUPTA: Kyra, you know, the people -- you know, one point I want to make over and over again is that you hear about the uninsured and people on Medicaid who are paying attention, but this affects everybody. And this is a United States story. And we're going to keep covering it outside again one of the biggest and oldest public hospitals here in New York.
PHILLIPS: Yes. We need you through all this, that's for sure. Sanjay, thank you so much.
And for more details on how the health care law will affect you and Medicaid, just visit Medicaid.gov.
Well, after more than a dozen summits, European leaders finally appear to have a rescue plan for easing, perhaps even solving the Eurozone debt crisis. And that could be pretty good for our 401(k) plans.
The measure was hammered out today in Brussels by leaders of the 17 countries that use the euro currency. And it triggered market rallies on Wall Street as well and around the world.
Felicia Taylor at the New York Stock Exchange.
Felicia, why don't we start with the basics of this deal?
FELICIA TAYLOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Sure, Kyra. But first the deal kind of creates this banking union. It will have one supervisory board that will oversee the Eurozone banks, and that's important. Because obviously there are 17 different countries here. And that's kind of what, you know, has been the problem.
This will now make coordination a lot easier with one body, overseeing the banks, and one set of rules. This will also allow money to be directly injected into banks that are struggling. It's very similar to what the U.S. Federal Reserve does.
Until now, individual countries have had to borrow money to help their banks, and that of course drove up a country's debt load, which ultimately hurt the banks and meant they needed to borrow even more money and obviously that made things much more difficult.
This breaks that kind of vicious cycle. And that's why investors are so excited. And you can see how that translates on Wall Street already.
PHILLIPS: All right. So you're looking at this is pretty much of a major breakthrough then?
TAYLOR: Yes. But I am --
PHILLIPS: You're cautiously --
TAYLOR: I am eternally skeptical.
PHILLIPS: You cautiously give a yes. OK, not too many champagne corks then.
TAYLOR: Exactly.
PHILLIPS: Only a few.
TAYLOR: Exactly.
(LAUGHTER)
TAYLOR: You know, it sounds good, but we've seen so many European meetings, and all it's really been is either these sort of short-term fixes, and then obviously the European debt problems keep coming back. I mean we're still talking about Greece, Italy, Spain. You know the devil is in the details. I've used that phrase so many times, but it's the truth. Finance ministers still have to sit down, hammer out how this agreement is going to work.
How much money does the EU have to help these banks. It's not a bottomless pit, they can't keep doing this. You know they've agreed on 120 billion euros, but how far is that going to extend? Investors are excited. This is -- was one of the first times that EU leaders showed kind of a sense of urgency about this and that's restoring confidence definitely.
But, you know, part of the rally today is also because this is the end of the quarter, the last day in June. So that kind of props up the market a little bit. It also adds to the idea of some volatility. So I'm not sure that this rally is going to last into next week, which of course is a holiday, a short week anyway -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: All right, Felicia, thanks.
Well, for full coverage of the markets and all your money needs, be sure to check out CNNmoney.com.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Of all the times that I have been live in Iraq, what went through your mind?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What do you do about (INAUDIBLE)?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is the geographic South Pole.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: And just a quick note for those of you heading out the door, you can continue watch CNN from your mobile phone or if you're heading out to work, you can also watch CNN live from your desktop. Just go to CNN.com/TV.
Well, Congress is expected to vote today to extend the low 3.4 percent rates on student loans for another year. Just ahead of Sunday's deadline that would have allowed the rates to double. Now that measure is part of a much larger bill that will also provide $120 billion to help pave roads and improve bridges. Both the House and Senate are expected to pass that package before heading out of town for the July 4th holiday.
And the Supreme Court's historic ruling on Obamacare has ended, at least for now, the constitutional fight over the law, but upholding the entire law, the battle lines are now firmly set for November. And Mitt Romney's message is crystal clear. There's only one way now to repeal that measure. Put him in the White House. But could this be a message that might back fire?
Athena Jones is in Washington with more on the newest round in this pretty bitter political fight.
So, Athena, let's begin with Romney and his response to Obama's big win.
ATHENA JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Kyra. What we heard from Mitt Romney is what we heard from Republicans all -- all over Congress and outside of Congress from the Republican National Committee and members of the House and Senate, which is that elections have consequences and if you don't like the Supreme Court's ruling here, if you don't like the health care law, you've got to elect Mitt Romney.
Let's listen to what he had to say after the ruling yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MITT ROMNEY (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What the court did not do on its last day in session I will do on my first day if elected president of the United States, and that is I will act to repeal Obamacare.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JONES: And so of course, Kyra, this is an effort for them to energize their base, rev up the Republican supporters who don't like the health care law. And if the fundraising numbers that the Romney campaign reported out last night from that one day are any indication that they're having some success, the Romney campaign says they raised $3.2 million by 9:00 p.m., after the Supreme Court's ruling came down. So that's certainly a big figure. It may not even be the final figure there, Kyra, but over $3 million in one day shows that there's definitely a lot of energy around this issue.
PHILLIPS: OK. So then what's the Obama strategy from here then?
JONES: Well, you know, it's interesting. Yesterday you didn't see the White House really try to spike the football as they say. They know that this is going to be an important issue, a central issue in this campaign, but they also know that the politics around it are a little bit complicated. The president addressed the politics of this yesterday when he spoke from the East Room.
Let's listen to that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: But I didn't do this because it was good politics. I did it because I believed it was good for the country. I did it because I believed it was good for the American people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JONES: And so, as you know, this has not been a popular law, at least when taken as a whole, although people do tend to like some of the -- some of the provisions, like allowing young adults to stay on their parents health care plan until their 26th birthday. And so for many people, they believe that this is a chance for the Obama administration to have a second shot at really selling this law all over again, since it's going to be a central issue in this campaign.
Of course, for many voters, it's the economy that's issue number one. That June jobs report is not far off. And so it'll be interesting to see how this plays out, health care and economy, over the coming months -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: What's interesting still a lot of people are very confused by this law. So what do you -- do you think if he takes more time to explain it that more people will support it?
JONES: Well, I think that they believe that. I mean you can see -- hear him speaking on the stump in various campaign speeches, and there's usually a line or two about the health care law, about some of these popular provisions like protect -- giving children under 19, making sure those with pre-existing conditions are covered, making sure insurance companies can't deny them coverage, making insurance -- and making insurance companies can't rescind your coverage, take it away from you when you become ill.
And so they're probably going to have to do a little bit more of that if they want to make sure that people are on board with this because some of these provisions, as I said, they know are popular. They're going to have to -- they're going to get a second chance to explain it all in a way that makes voters really understand it, and maybe makes a few of them come on board -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: All right. Athena, thanks so much.
CNN will of course keep a close watch on this story for you all the way to November.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Well, Syria is probably the last thing civilians want to hear or even care about, another international conference on ending the brutal government crackdown that the U.N. says has killed at least 9,000 people now. That meeting taking place tomorrow in Switzerland. And today, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Russia for talks with her counterpart. All of this talking as more people are being killed right now in Syria.
Mohammed Jamjoom, monitoring the developments out of Abu Dhabi.
So first of all, the latest on today's violence.
MOHAMMED JAMJOOM, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Kyra, opposition activists telling us today as another bloody day in Syria where at least 15 people killed across the country so far. And we're also hearing reports of more loud blasts that have shaken Damascus, that have been in and around the capital of Syria that have happened today.
Even more disturbing than that. We're starting to get gruesome details from activists and from Syrian ex-pas that are telling us that a massacre happened yesterday in the suburb of Damascus called Duma. They say yesterday pro-regime thugs, entered that town, that they neighborhood that they started killing families.
And we've started to see very gruesome and disturbing videos emerged showing bodies, These are amateur videos showing bodies for what purport to be bodies in that town of Duma. For their part, the Syrian government is saying that there have been raids that are on- going in the neighborhood of Duma, that the Syrian military has been clashing with terrorist there, but they're going after terrorist leaders, And that that's why there's violence in that part of the country. But were heating and more, more reports that it was a massacre that happened yesterday as I said. Very, very disturbing details beginning to emerge in the last couple of hours -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: So Mohammed, the president met with Putin, and now Hillary Clinton will meet with her counterpoint. What's -- counterpart rather, what's the difference between the two meetings?
JAMJOOM: Well, that's the key question. There are deep divisions between the U.S. and Russia when it comes to Syria. We've known this for a long time. Now neither country wants to see this crisis continue. They all want to see an end to the crisis. But the U.S. today, Hillary Clinton is hoping to apply some pressure on the Russians, so -- in the Russians so that the Russians will stop providing arms, stop selling arms to the Syrians, but it doesn't look like that will happen.
And the Russians that they -- they are not really willing to go with the idea for a transitional plan that the U.S. is presenting. The Russians have said that they are against the idea of foreign intervention when it comes to Syrian politics. So what exactly can be accomplished? It's really a big question mark as it has been for the last several months -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Mohammed Jamjoom, Mohammed, thanks so much. \
And in another development, Turkey has deployed troops and tanks on its border with Syria. That move comes after the downing of a Turkish fighter jet last week, which Turkey blames on Syria.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Ken Nedimyer heads to work each day with one goal in mind, bringing in underwater world back to life. This week CNN HEROES is working to save the Florida Keys coastline, one coral at a time.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEN NEDIMYER, CNN HERO: I grew up diving in the Florida Keys. And it was just the most magical place. The coral reefs were so pretty. And I decided that's what I wanted to do for a living, is dive on coral reefs.
In an area where there's live coral, there's always more fish. Leaves provide protection for our coastal areas and recreational opportunities for millions of people.
I was diving for 40 years and over time, I saw those coral reefs start to die. Coral reefs world wide are in decline. If coral reefs die completely, coastal communities will be bankrupt, tourism would be virtually gone, the billion people in the world will be impacted.
I started thinking, you know, how can we fix this problem.
My name is Ken Nedimyer. And I grow, protect and restore coral reefs.
We've developed a system that's simple and is something we can train others to do.
We start with a piece of coral this big, and we hang it up on trees. And after about a year or two, it becomes this big. And then we cut the branches off, then we do it again.
BILLY CAUSEY, CORAL REEF CHAMPION: Ken's coral nursery is one of the largest in the wider Caribbean. It's 10 times larger than others that are in existence.
NEDIMYER: In 2003, we originally planted six corals here. But now there's over 3,000 growing in this area alone.
Before I felt helpless, watching it die. Now I think there's hope. It's not too late. Everybody can help. And I see all those corals and all those fish. So it's like this whole reef is coming back to life. And making a difference is exciting.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIPS: Well, incredible video there and a pretty incredible man. Millions of people depending on the reefs. That CNN hero is out to save.
Remember "CNN HEROES" are picked by you. To nominate someone who's making a difference, just go to CNNheroes.com.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Breaking records by the hundreds. Yesterday alone, 131 record high temps were broken or tied across the U.S. More than 200 the day before. And settle in because it's about to heat up even more, with more than half this country under an excessive heat warning or heat advisory.
Chad Myers is here to tell us basically how hot it's going to get and where.
What do you think is the -- what's the worst?
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: I would probably say due to the heat and humidity added together, somewhere around northern Mississippi, just because you're going to see 106, but it's going to feel like 110.
What I want you to remember about this heat wave, if you do nothing else, let evaporation be your friend. If you have to work outside, it's nice to have a cool, wet towel around your neck. That will allow the evaporation that's in the air to cool that towel off, and it won't cool the blood in your -- in your body.
PHILLIPS: Yes.
MYERS: It will cool you down a little bit. A damp shirt, or damp pants, whatever it might be, if you have to work outside, you can use that evaporation to your health, your benefit, because the humidity, although high, is not so high that stuff won't evaporate. Sometimes the middle of summer, August, September, you get such heat and humidity, that things won't even evaporate although it's just so oppressive.
And from here down that is the case, obviously, the Gulf of Mexico is there. We've got an awful lot of rain across northern Florida. When the sun comes out there, you're going to see just an awful lot of sticky weather as well. But here are the high temperatures for today, 104, 105 in Atlanta.
Just because it's so windy, I don't know that we're going to get there. But it's still very hot in Tuscaloosa, 107, you know, and people are saying gosh, is it going to really be 107 in Nashville? Some people are saying 104. If you can tell the difference between 104 and 107, I give you a lot of credit because it still hot -- it's hotter than your body, it's hotter than 98. And that's when people run into trouble when they're not allowing themselves to cool down. Nashville, about 107 tomorrow.
So here's that -- here's that core. And that core you talk about, where is the hottest? Now where is the hottest with the most people probably, up here into Richmond, Virginia, Washington, D.C., a hot 98 even in D.C. but Richmond, 104 tomorrow. So all of these big cities up and down the East Coast from Baltimore through D.C., all the way down even into North Carolina, that's where temperatures are going to be just really oppressive.
And you know, it's one of those things, the good news is that at least it's on the weekend. Maybe you'll be able to go see a movie, you're not have to go work in it. Not everybody has to go work on Monday and Tuesday, and certainly you don't want to go out and be your first marathon this weekend. I just think that's a -- that's a really bad idea. Take it easy. Try to do your best.
PHILLIPS: Agreed. Chad, thanks so much.
MYERS: OK.
PHILLIPS: And put yourself in the place of thousands of people who have fled their homes in Colorado among all your belongings. Precious few items would you save, and what happens if you no longer have a home? Or even a neighborhood to return to?
CNN's Jim Spellman has one family's heart-wrenching story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JIM SPELLMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As the flames tore through his Colorado Springs neighborhood, Major Ted Stefani, an army sergeant, knew it was time to get out.
TED STEFANI, LOST HOME IN FIRE: I looked at the mountain and saw flames shooting over the top of the mountain.
SPELLMAN: With only minutes to spare, he packed up his car and raced out of the neighborhood, meeting his wife Kate and son Caleb at a friend's house. Then the wait began. Would their house be spared. The answer came the next morning when they saw this picture on the "Denver Post" Web site. Their neighborhood in flames, their house on the left, a bonfire.
T. STEFANI: So when we saw the photograph initially, it was just kind of shock.
KATE STEFANI, LOST HOME IN FIRE: That's our house and it's in flames, and I just started crying. There was no way around it, I was never going to go home again, so it's pretty sad.
SPELLMAN: The photo went viral, also published on CNN.com and the front of "The New York Times." More photos can be seen at denverpost.com.
T. STEFANI: It was just total shock to see your house pretty much in a fireball. But I think that was also therapeutic, too, because we knew over the last couple of days where there's a lot of families that don't know the outcome of their home. We knew from pretty much the get-go that we had lost the house.
We got these boxes, top boxes that I had from Iraq and Afghanistan.
SPELLMAN: While managing to escape with these boxes of books and important documents, there were many precious items left behind. Ted's medals from Iraq and one of Caleb's beloved toys.
T. STEFANI: Crazy, it is this little teddy bear thing that --
K. STEFANI: Scout.
T. STEFANI: Scout. And Cab played with that all the time.
SPELLMAN: But then they saw another Scout for sale at a bookstore, Caleb lit up.
T. STEFANI: It was an emotional event.
K. STEFANI: Yes.
T. STEFANI: Yes.
K. STEFANI: We both about lost it in the store, and our son just beamed when he saw that bear and hugged him. And he just said Scout, Scout.
SPELLMAN: Piece by piece, they insist they will rebuild, beginning with a small bear.
Jim Spellman, CNN, Colorado Springs.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: And the U.S. Forest Service estimates it could be mid- July for the fire is fully under control.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: The Supreme Court made its historic ruling yesterday. We went around the country for reaction from every major city to big hospital, even to Mancos, Colorado. Where? Yes, it's a town so quaint, it feels like it's out of the Wild West.
Leave it to Martin Savidge to find this unique perspective.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): News of the Supreme Court's decision arrived in Mancos about the time that folks sat down for their weightless rancheros in the Absolutely Bakery.
This rural Southwestern Colorado town, population 1300, dates back to the days of the old west.
Jean Archambeault is the editor of the "Mancos Times," first published in 1893.
JEAN ARCHAMBEAULT, EDITOR, MANCOS TIMES: We have snow birds, we have people who come just for the summer, and leave for the winter. We have people who have retired here, and we have people who have lived here all their lives.
SAVIDGE: A bit about the area politically. It voted 59 percent for John McCain in 2008. Folks say the conservatives were born here, the liberals mostly moved here.
Veronica Egan came from New Mexico.
VERONICA EGAN, RESIDENT: I think it's wonderful. I think there are problems with the law as it was originally written, but it is about time that the United States of America started taking care of its own citizens.
SAVIDGE: Jeff McElwain is as close to a (INAUDIBLE) doctor as the town gets. The physician's assistant runs Mancos' only medical facility. Sixty to 70 percent of his patients, he says, rely on some type of publicly funded health care program, something he finds ironic, given the criticism he often hears of Obamacare.
JEFF MCELWAIN, MANCOS VALLEY HEALTH CENTER: Well, it's certainly always an interesting conversation for people that are either on Medicare or receive some type of federal assistance to complain about having government health care.
SAVIDGE: Patient Betty Romero has health care insurance, but she knows many who don't. She, too, is an Obamacare fan.
BETTY ROMERO, PATIENT: There's people out there that are dying of cancer because they don't have health care. You know, they're dying of other things because they can't walk into a doctor's office and get the help they need.
SAVIDGE (on camera): It may surprise you, but unlike the rest of the country, the big news here in town isn't the Supreme Court's ruling on health care. Instead, it's that. Wildfires that continue to threaten from just down the road.
(Voice-over): Still it's easy to get people here talking about health care, which I did, with Will Stone, who makes wagons for a living.
WILL B. STONE, WAINWRIGHT: We don't need any health insurance.
SAVIDGE: He's against Obamacare mainly because of the individual mandate.
STONE: Yes, I'd say that's the biggest burr under my saddle is the mandate. I just don't care for it. I don't like to be told to do anything.
SAVIDGE: Matt Lauer owns and runs Fahrenheit Coffee Roasters. Like Will, he too is against Obamacare, not because he is against national health care, he just thinks the president's plan is the wrong one. MATT LAUER, OWNER, FAHRENHEIT COFFEE ROASTER: This is a gift to the insurance companies, it is not going to do anything to assure health care to all in this country, and I think that's the bottom line.
SAVIDGE: Mancos may seem like a long way from anywhere, but I found it to really be a microcosm of America, from the mountains to main street, almost equally divided on the issue of health care.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: Well, now the Affordable Care Act remains the law of the land. And once you cut through all the legal jargon, the complicated arguments and all the partisan talk, well, you're going to start to understand the impact that this ruling has on all of us, not just patients but the doctors who treat us and the hospitals where we're treated.
Lisa Borders is president of Grady Health Care Foundation, co- founder of No Labels, which I was finding out more about as we were talking. And we'll talk about that side because you --
LISA BORDERS, PRESIDENT, GRADY HEALTH CARE FOUNDATION: Certainly.
PHILLIPS: You have a unique perspective from being in politics and now you're in health care. So we'll get to that, too, in a second. But for those watching this.
BORDERS: Sure.
PHILLIPS: And they go to, say, hospitals like Grady, what's the immediate impact they're going to see or what's it you're paying attention to for them?
BORDERS: Well, what we're always hopeful is that folks will have greater access. That they will come to places like Grady for preventative care. We are always there, regardless whether it's an annual exam or you've had a stroke, a heart attack, or you are unfortunately in a car accident. But we are hopeful that people will see this as a doorway, a pathway to good health and prevention, rather than coming through the emergency room when they're in a crisis.
PHILLIPS: How many people, uninsured Americans, do you deal with every year?
BORDERS: There are 60 million across the country and 90 percent of the folks that we deal with at Grady are uninsured or underinsured.
And, Kyra, here's what's happening. In the face of a fragile economy, more and more middle class Americans are coming to Grady, and hospitals like ours all across the country, we're the largest public hospital in the state of Georgia, and the premier level one trauma center. So we see more than our share of patients who are uninsured and underinsured, and who are in crisis today as they have been previously. PHILLIPS: So what's going to happen now? As you're watching this unfold yesterday --
BORDERS: Sure.
PHILLIPS: -- were you more excited, more stressed out? More -- what was going through your mind and heart, knowing what you're dealing with?
BORDERS: Personally, I was excited. It's a victory for the patients. At the end of the day, our job is to take care of patients. We are there for them, so we are very excited. We are still concerned, though, that unless we expand Medicaid in the state of Georgia, we are dragging our feet in this state and this is unlike us.
PHILLIPS: Why is that? You were involved in politics in this state.
BORDERS: You know, Kyra, it looks sort of political to me, and let me be very clear, I am speaking for myself, so I don't get my whole hospital in trouble, but I would challenge the governor, the legislators on the Hill, here in the state of Georgia. We've got to expand Medicaid, find out how to make it work.
I know they're $300 million upside down now, but we're also one of the most unhealthy states in the country. When you talk about businesses coming to the state of Georgia, they don't want an unhealthy work force, they want just the opposite. So the governor is the chief executive.
Listen man, we'll help you do whatever you need to do, but we've got to figure this out so jobs come back to our state.
PHILLIPS: Is that your biggest concern now, looking ahead, or is this just one of --
BORDERS: This is one of many, but I work at Grady, and I am very concerned about our patients. I am concerned as a former elected official, vice mayor of the city of Atlanta, I saw this firsthand for almost seven years, so now the battle continues to rage. We don't want our elected officials fiddling while Georgia burns. That's not a good idea.
PHILLIPS: Yet you said yesterday was a win for patients. How?
BORDERS: It's a win for our patients because it hopefully will inspire them to come to the hospital, come to our neighborhood care centers. We've been preparing for this a long time. We didn't need the Affordable Care Act at Grady to get our act together. We said we're going to be patient centered, we're going to have an electronic medical records so we can use technology to better understand what's happening with you on a regular basis, and we're going to bring health care to you, building clinics and neighborhood centers so that you can have care near your home.
PHILLIPS: Boy, wouldn't that make an impact for certain communities. What about the cost of visits, procedures? How do you see yesterday playing into Grady specifically?
BORDERS: Well, if you can get people in sooner and get them in on a regular basis, then you can preempt many of the problems that we see in our emergency room.
PHILLIPS: Such as?
BORDERS: Heart attacks and strokes. Let's just go there.
PHILLIPS: OK.
BORDERS: We live in what's called the stroke belt, meaning we have a higher incidence and prevalence of stroke in the south for many reasons.
PHILLIPS: Is that because of the way we eat? Is that --
BORDERS: The way we eat, we don't exercise. Some of it of course is genetics. We've got the preeminent stroke center, the Marcos Stroke and Neuroscience Center now, because we were answering a demand. We see the stress levels in the urban environment are just overwhelming. When people can't come into a doctor for a year or two years, or three years, can you imagine what we find when we do see them? It's a very bad stroke.
PHILLIPS: Wow. What's the Web site for No Labels?
BORDERS: Nolabels.org.
PHILLIPS: OK. Encourage people to check that out.
BORDERS: Absolutely.
PHILLIPS: Lisa Borders, thank you so much. Appreciate it.
BORDERS: My pleasure.
PHILLIPS: And according to the CDC, more than 46 million people were uninsured last year.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: It is a brutal and heart-wrenching look at the drug war in Mexico. Several members of the Zetas drug cartel on their knees, hands tied, chest painted with a large Z and around them mass members of a rival drug carter holding machetes. The video too gruesome to show shows cartel members slowly beheading their victims.
Rafael Romo has covered the drug wars in Mexico and the countless victims that have been murdered through the years. Joining us now live from Mexico City.
So, Rafael, what exactly do we know about these rival cartels?
RAFAEL ROMO, CNN SR. LATIN AMERICAN AFFAIRS EDITOR: Well, these two cartels -- we're talking specifically about Los Zetas or The Z's in English, and the Gulf cartels which operation -- both operate just south of Texas on the Mexican side of the border.
There has been a brutal turf war between these two cartels since 2010. And just to give you a little history, Kyra, Los Zetas used to be the enforcers for the Gulf cartel until they split in 2010 and since then the brutality of the assassinations and the crimes committed has increased exponentially, as we speak, and the reason why this video surfaced is because what the Gulf cartel is trying to do is send a very strong and shocking message to their enemies, Los Zetas, saying that if you come into our territory, this is what's going to happen to you.
And you said it before, it is just way too gruesome to show to our viewers, just an incredible thing to happen here in Mexico -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Why this video and why now?
ROMO: The main thing here is that the criminal organizations are trying to send each other a message. They're trying to say in this very convoluted war for territory which is very profitable especially if you think about the territory south of Texas of trafficking drugs into the United States.
What they're trying to tell each other is don't come into my territory. It has happened many times before and that's the reason why we have seen an escalation of violence in Mexico. And so what better way of doing that than showing this gruesome video that has shocked not only Mexico, but the international community -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Yes, this is just over the Texas border, should we be concerned here in the U.S. specifically in that area?
ROMO: For the most part, the -- this kind of crime, the assassinations and also there was a -- the case of the appearance of 49 headless bodies not too far from the Texas border, in that same part of Mexico, but the violence has been concentrated on the Mexican side of the border. We have seen shootouts on the American side. We have seen a couple of examples in which American citizens have died.
I'm thinking, for example, about the death of a consular employee in northern Mexico. The U.S. --a U.S. consular employee, but so far, it appears that no Americans are being targeted just because they were Americans. There were other issues surrounding those incidents that I'm talking about.
In the case of the consular employee, it appears to have been a case of mistaken identity, so the good news is that so far it's not happening on the American side of the border -- Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Rafael Romo, from Mexico City. Rafael, thanks.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIPS: Their stories are compelling, many times heart- wrenching, and I'm talking about couples who so desperately want to have a baby and just can't do it naturally. So for a lot of us, we turn to fertility treatments. And let me tell you, the higher-tech you go the more expensive it gets. So that's why we just had to lift up a clinic in Las Vegas that's hoping to help a few lucky couples start a family for free.
Here's our Miguel Marquez.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Emily and Jim Heaton have tried for years to have kids.
EMILY HEATON, CONTESTANT: You think of it, you know, when you're a child, you know, you play house, you play, you know, mommy, and so it's something that I want a lot.
MARQUEZ: Emily has suffered seven miscarriages since their marriage five years ago. They have even picked out names, if it's a girl, Grace or Elizabeth, if it's a boy, Liam James, James for Emily's grandfather who died in 2008.
HEATON: My grandfather was a very big part of my life.
MARQUEZ: Jim, an active duty Marine, has been deployed six times in 10 years, News of one miscarriage came by satellite phone in Afghanistan.
JIM HEATON, CONTESTANT: I was sitting on the hood of an MRAP on -- a radio and a phone, when I got the news. I think the hardest part of about it is not being able to be there to comfort her.
MARQUEZ: They've tried everything from holistic medicine to fertility treatments.
E. HEATON: I have already scar tissue built up on one side of my butt because of all of the injections we had to do.
MARQUEZ: In May they had a chance to something they could never afford, advanced IVF costing up to $20,000 at the Sher Institute in Las Vegas. They gamble, joining a contest, making a 4 1/2 minute video describing why they should win. Deeply personal stuff posted online for the world to see.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is no one in the nursery yet, we are hopeful, still.
MARQUEZ: Forty-four other couples also made videos, their videos equally heartbreaking.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We just want us to be a happy family.
MARQUEZ: An independent panel whittled the videos down to six, they were posted on Facebook where the public can vote on what was supposed to be one winner.
DR. GEOFFREY SHER, SHER FERTILITY INSTITUTE: We started offering it to one couple. It was largely because of me that we went to three because I just -- I said give more. Give those three. These are the top three, give it to them. I wish I could give it to everybody, but if we did, we wouldn't be here talking to you.
MARQUEZ: Dr. Jeffrey Sher admits the contest is as much a publicity ploy as it is designed to help the needy. He also says if anyone can help Emily Heaton, he can.
SHER: You've got to use certain gymnastics in the laboratory, fancy footwork to fertilize the egg. You have to have a good seed embryo which is not always available and you have to identify it and you have to have a receptive soil, the uterine lining, to allow that seed to grow.
MARQUEZ: Emily was diagnosed unexplained infertility. She believes her thyroid and immune system were at fault. When pregnant they launch an attack on her fertilized eggs as though they're a virus.
Leslie Carlisle from Las Vegas had a similar problem with her second child. She and her husband Ray won a previous contest offered by the Sher Institute.
LESLIE CARLISLE, MOTHER: They took 15 eggs, of those 15, eight fertilized, only one embryo made it. They put him back, you know, put that embryo in and nine months later, here's Braden.
MARQUEZ: No one is more thrilled --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Smile.
MARQUEZ: -- than Braden's 6-year-old sister Kendra. The Heatons have their first consultation with Dr. Sher this week and hope to be pregnant by October. They feel this may be their last best chance.
E. HEATON: I don't want to go through it all again, but --
HEATON: We will cross that bridge when it comes.
E. HEATON: I will risk it, if it does work, it's worth the risk to find out if it will work.
MARQUEZ: Faith has gotten them this far, now they're hoping for a miracle.
Miguel Marquez, CNN, Las Vegas.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: Well, currently just 15 states in the U.S. require that insurance providers cover the cost of fertility treatments.
Well, thanks for watching, everyone. You can continue the conversation with me on Twitter @KyraCNN or in Facebook. "NEWSROOM INTERNATIONAL" starts right now.
