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Health Care Exchanges Begin Tuesday; Federal Government Inches Closer To Shutdown; Human Remains Found On Costa Concordia; Rapist To Go Free Today After 31 Days; GOP Leaders On Obamacare, Debt, Shutdown; U.S. To Hit Debt Ceiling October 17; Three-Year-Old Home After Being Shot; Bush A Witness At Same Sex Wedding; Al Shabaab Warns More Violence To Come; FBI Investigating Nairobi Siege; Team Cancels Season After Player's Death

Aired September 26, 2013 - 10:00   ET

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

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- one of the highest minimum wages in the nation.

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CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: It is the state's first pay raise in five years. It will put more money in some workers' pockets, but could it impact the economy?

Plus this --

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They say it looked like about that big. I'm not kidding. I screamed and ran back in.

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COSTELLO: She's talking about wild pigs. Some as big as 400 pounds. Not in a farm, but running around a suburban Atlanta neighborhood. Second hour of NEWSROOM starts now.

Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. Five days from now, one of the core components of Obamacare begins. It doesn't matter if the government shuts down or not. Federal health insurance exchanges start Tuesday, but many people are still confused, with Republicans working hard to derail Obamacare and Democrats working hard to sell it to the American people.

In fact, in a speech he will give in about 55 minutes, President Obama will try to persuade you one more time that Obamacare is right for America. Of course, we'll bring you his speech live.

Selling Obamacare, though, is an uphill battle for the White House. It's tried everything from ads to cute animals. The White House tweeting out this, "Don't be a sad panda. Health insurance marketplaces open in five days. If it works, why not?"

White House deputy senior adviser, David Simas is the man helping to sell Obamacare to the public. Good morning, David.

DAVID SIMAS, WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY SENIOR ADVISER: Carol, good morning. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.

COSTELLO: Thanks for being here. Really interested in what you have to say this morning. Obamacare is, of course, the law of the land, but it is not exactly well-liked. A CNN poll says only 39 percent favor all of the law, and an NBC/"Wall Street Journal" poll found nearly 70 percent of Americans do not understand the law. We're five days away from opening up these health care exchanges. Obamacare was signed in 2010. Why are we in this place?

SIMAS: So Carol, we're in the same place if you look back at what happened with Medicare Part D, the last big program around health care, because health care is such a personal issue to people, they want to feel it. They want to see what it means for them in a real tangible way. What we saw with Medicare Part D, were numbers similar to what you're seeing today with the affordable care act.

And then what began to happen when people weren't viewing this as a Democrat versus Republican, blue team versus the red team, which is not the way people think about health care, thank goodness, they start saying you know what, I think now that I understand this, this works for me and I'm going to check it out. So what happens beginning on Tuesday is that the store is open, the shelves are stocked, and people can begin to check it out.

COSTELLO: You know, there's been a lot of criticism directed at the White House for failing to explain the law. I hear what you have to say, but the president has the bully pulpit. In fact, he will be behind that bully pulpit in about 50 minutes to explain Obamacare so what is the president going to say to make us understand?

SIMAS: So Carol, the president is going to speak to the American people in the way that they will, I think, clearly understand which goes back to what I just said. Look, when I think about health care for my family, when you think about health care for yours and anyone watching thinks about it for theirs, they think about their spouse, their kids, their mom, their dad, and the president is going to really talk about what those tangible personal experiences are and simply say to folks look, over the past ten years, here's what we've seen in terms of people dropping coverage.

Here's what we've seen in terms of rates escalating. Here's what we've seen in terms of one out of three people who lose their job and no longer have employer coverage actually being denied because of a pre-existing condition. Starting on Tuesday, the message for folks is look, go to health care.gov, you check it out, compare side by side. You decide what works best for you and your family. That is not a political discussion. That's outside of the beltway discussion about polls and up and down. That's a real discussion the way people live their lives.

COSTELLO: Let's talk about those health care exchanges. According to a White House official, the average American will have 53 plans to choose from. It sounds a lot like doing your taxes. Does it really have to be this complicated?

SIMAS: So the way it's going to be presented, Carol, is really simple. Let me just give you a comparison point. If you try to go in the individual market today in the state of Illinois, you have to choose between 1,800 different plans that aren't categorized by any means that make any sense at all. Starting on Tuesday, here's what you'll see. Five different categories so there is catastrophic, if you're under 30, a bronze, a silver, a gold and a platinum, four categories.

Within each one of them, there's a price range for it, so you select the price range that works best for you. If bronze looks good, you click on bronze and what do you see? You will see ten plans ranked in order by their premiums and by their benefits, side by side. If you like this one company, check out the providers. If you like another company, check this out.

But for the first time ever, side by side comparisons with premiums, deductibles, all the information and if you have any questions, you click on help, you go to a phone number and you have 24/7 call assistance to walk you through what you need. So even though there's a lot of choice. It's broken down in a way that makes sense.

COSTELLO: OK. So some states are having problems with the system right now. For example, Washington, D.C. is still trying to work out the kinks in the way people use these health care exchanges or get into them. So why is that happening when the thing starts up on Tuesday?

SIMAS: So even in Washington, D.C., what happens, Carol, is people can still go online, make the comparison, see what they like. The only thing they won't be able to do until November is see how much in tax credit or subsidy they're eligible for. But remember this, the benefits only begin on January 1st so as we're saying here, this is a six-month period, not six days and not six weeks.

COSTELLO: I guess I'm just a little concerned, because Washington, D.C. is probably pro Obamacare. It's a Democratic city, right? Yet there are glitches in that city. So we have five days to go and there are glitches. Why?

SIMAS: So Carol, you can talk to Apple, to Google, to Amazon, to CNN, to any company, what happens is when you identify that there's a problem, you fix it. But let's do the compared to what analysis. If you try to do today or last week or the week before what we're about to embark on, that would have never happened, and so if you live in D.C. or if you live in 50 states, beginning on Tuesday, you can do the side by side comparison, decide what works for you.

In most places, right away, find out what help you can get and do the shopping beginning in January. That's the point. These benefits begin in January so people even in D.C. are going to have days and weeks and a couple of months to decide, you know what, I think I like this product and now I'm going to buy it for myself and my familiar.

COSTELLO: So I want to switch gears just a little bit because I just talked with the Target CEO. He's still deciding whether to push his part-time workers to Obamacare like Trader Joe's and Walgreens has. Did President Obama expect this kind of thing to happen when he came up with this law?

SIMAS: So let's remember why this law was passed in the first place. From 2000 to 2009, employers dropped coverage from 68 percent offering down to 59 percent covering in a nine-year period. That's hundreds of thousands of companies and millions of employees with no alternatives. What the affordable care act does for all businesses, especially the smallest businesses, is gives them options that they never had before. Now, what each business is going to do --

COSTELLO: I'm talking about pretty big businesses, though. Was this expected then, that Trader Joe's would say well, part-time workers, you can go sign up with the health care exchanges?

SIMAS: Well, this is precisely the point, Carol. If you've got a Trader Joe's situation, the part-time employees that now are going to have additional options are going to receive an additional stipend from Trader Joe's and will go into the marketplace and on top of what they're getting, be eligible for additional assistance, especially given the fact that they're part-time employees.

Where does that leave us? That leaves the employee who is part-time with more options, a little bit more help, and in a better position than they were before. What the law really does is when you look at the peeling off of health care coverage over the past 10 years, it was relegated to those businesses between three and 50 employees. Starting on Tuesday, here's what happens for those businesses.

They have a shop exchange, which means they've got all the benefits of a big pool that a Google and Amazon and other companies have, they have new tax credits to help them provide coverage, and for those that can't afford to provide coverage for their employees, their employees finally have a place to go, choose for themselves and get some help to get the coverage they need.

COSTELLO: All right, David Simas, White House deputy senior adviser, thanks so much for joining me this morning.

SIMAS: Carol, thanks so much for having me.

COSTELLO: You're welcome. Fight over Obamacare comes at a critical time for our nation's finances. We're just days away from a possible government shutdown and Congress is nowhere close to a solution. Our chief congressional correspondent Dana Bash joins us live from Capitol Hill. Good morning, Dana.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. I just came from a meeting that House Republicans are having as we speak talking about not the most immediate deadline, which of course, is the potential government shutdown but another deadline. That really shows our viewers and everybody out there that if they are fatigued by careening from crisis to crisis, it will be something else soon.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BASH (voice-over): It would be one thing for the government to shut down in four days. National parks would close, medical research interrupted, but then economic catastrophe may come 17 days later when the U.S. could default on its loans if Congress doesn't raise the debt ceiling. The White House is warning not to use it as a bargaining chip.

JAY CARNEY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: There is no negotiating over Congress's responsibility to ensure we do not default.

BASH: But GOP sources tell CNN that as soon as Saturday, House Republicans are planning to pass a bill that raises the debt ceiling, but also adds several GOP priorities like the Keystone pipeline or tax reform or even delaying Obamacare for one year.

SENATOR JOHN FLEMING (R), LOUISIANA: The real play here is going to be leading up to the debt ceiling discussion where we could get a full delay for a year including taxes of Obamacare and I think the president is ready to do that.

BASH: Fat chance say Democrats.

SENATOR PETER WELCH (D), VERMONT: Their strategy will fail because the financial markets will pistol whip the Republican conference into doing then what they should be doing now, and that is pay America's bills.

BASH: But let's go back to that first deadline, the looming government shutdown.

(on camera): Senator, I know you're exhausted.

BASH (voice-over): Ted Cruz finally sat down after his headline grabbing --

SENATOR TED CRUZ (R), TEXAS: I do not like green eggs and ham.

BASH: Conservative celebrity making --

CRUZ: I tweeted a speech that Ashton Kutcher gave.

BASH: Twenty one plus-hour talk-a-thon against Obamacare.

(on camera): How do you feel standing there for so long?

CRUZ: Dana, to be honest I feel terrific. I feel energized that the American people had an opportunity, I hope, to engage in this debate and have their voice heard.

BASH (voice-over): But Cruz still wants to only fund the government if Obamacare is defunded.

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BASH: Now, on that issue at hand, which of course, is the most immediate one, the Senate is likely to vote on that without defunding Obamacare, meaning keeping the government open without defunding Obamacare, by tomorrow or Saturday. Then it goes over to the House. As I mentioned, House Republicans had a meeting this morning. We are actually waiting for John Boehner to come out and have a press conference any moment.

I'm told in this meeting they didn't talk a lot about the most immediate deadline. They talked more about what I mentioned in the piece, the debt ceiling and all the priorities they want to put on there. I was told by one congressman that it's more than one page, more than a dozen issues they want to put on there, and they are linked. Here's why, Carol.

Republican leaders are hoping that if they can put enough emphasis on the debt ceiling, the next fight, then they can assuage conservatives and say look, we're going to fight the next fight, let's just pass the spending bill for the government, keep the government running, not worry about that and let's move on to the next fight. We'll see if they will be successful in doing that.

COSTELLO: All right, Dana Bash reporting live from Capitol Hill this morning.

Checking other top stories at 13 minutes past the hour, human remains have been found on the "Costa Concordia." The massive cruise ship ran aground off the coast of Italy in January of last year. Thirty two people were killed and two people were never found following the disaster. Crews pulled the ship upright last week. DNA tests have to be used to confirm the identity of those remains. Officials say it's unclear if the remains come from one body or two.

In less than an hour, a former teacher sentenced to just one month in prison for raping a 14-year-old student will walk free. Stacey Rambold admitted to raping Cherice Moralez. Cherice committed suicide before trial. The case has outraged people across the country because the judge said the 14-year-old seemed older than her chronological age and was in control of the situation. Rambold will still be on probation. Prosecutors have appealed the sentence and hope to send him back to prison.

COSTELLO: All right, you heard Dana mention that John Boehner, the House speaker, is conducting a press conference. Well, it has begun. Let's listen.

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REPRESENTATIVE JOHN BOEHNER (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: -- spending cuts and pro-growth reforms to a debt limit increase. Now, the president says I'm not going to negotiate. Well, I'm sorry, but it just doesn't work that way. We're not going to ignore Washington's spending problem and we're not going to accept this new normal of a weak economy, no new jobs and shrinking wages. So we need to strengthen our economy for all Americans and we need to deal with Washington's spending problem.

REPRESENTATIVE ERIC CANTOR (R), MAJORITY LEADER: Good morning. The speaker said last week we sent the Senate a continuing resolution that funds the government and stops Obamacare before it costs one more job or it costs families in this country one more dollar of discretionary income. And we also talked a lot today about a plan we're going to put forward this week. It is a plan to address the debt ceiling.

We have a debt crisis in this nation, I don't think many people have differed with that notion, and we do have a plan to reduce wasteful government spending, which also spurs economic growth. So our plan reduces energy costs for families and businesses. It calls for the reform of our tax code, it reforms Washington spending and it delays Obamacare for one year for all American families.

Now, President Obama has already delayed the law for big business, for insurance companies and the politically connected, so this is only fair for us to say that American families should also have the benefit of delay that this president has given to those. Now, for too long, President Obama and his Democratic colleagues in the Senate have chosen to ignore our looming debt crisis.

And President Obama's plan has been and is still more debt and no reform, and the American people have resoundingly rejected this idea. We have a recent poll out this morning, the Bloomberg poll, which says that the American people know they don't want a government shutdown, but they are tired of the debt and they want to make sure that this president sits down and negotiates with us a resolution to this problem.

So we call on the president now to sit down with us, Harry Reid to sit down with us, and let's solve the problem. This plan of more debt and no reform is absolutely unacceptable. It's unacceptable to us, and it's unacceptable to the American people that we represent.

REPRESENTATIVE KEVIN MCCARTHY (R), MAJORITY WHIP: You know, it's kind of interesting, you read the stories of different things that different people do. America realizes we're in a big crisis. I read a headline that the speaker gets a phone call from the president. I first think that's a very positive thing that's going to happen. We're going to see movement. The president didn't call to say let's work together. He just called to say I will not negotiate.

That's not the same message he gives to other world leaders. This is a time that one, we're Americans first. The leader talked about the new poll that came out from Bloomberg. America's concerned about economic growth. They're concerned about the size of our debt. When you look at the bill that we will roll out, when it comes to the debt ceiling, you take control of making sure that we don't continue just runaway spending.

But more importantly, we bring growth back, economic growth, that when you look at the joint economic committee comes out, just 1 percent of growth will cut down more than $300 billion of debt within 10 years. These are all bills that have passed this House before, but why haven't they become law? Why do we still linger in the economic problems that we have?

Because the Senate will not act. Today, that can all change. We ask the president to call again, but this time, don't call to say he won't talk. Do exactly what the American people ask. Sit down and work together that we can get this country moving one more time.

REPRESENTATIVE CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS (R), REPUBLICAN CONFERENCE CHAIRWOMAN: Republicans are leading. We are leading on the issues important to this country. We are leading on those policies that will create jobs, get people back to work, get a strong economy. We're leading in an effort to get the government to live within its means, cut spending, get those spending reforms so our fiscal situation is strong. We're leading on health care, on ensuring that Americans have access to --

(END LIVE FEED)

COSTELLO: All right, we are going to back out of this press conference right now and go to Dana Bash on Capitol Hill. Dana, you've been listening and I heard what Eric Cantor said. He said Republicans have this plan and they want to sit down with the president. But they have five days before the government shuts down possibly. Isn't it a little late?

BASH: Well, certainly it would be late for that and I don't think that they are going to have any kind of negotiation on the government shutdown. What they're talking about, we just talked about this, this double deadline coming up, is the next deadline which isn't too far in the future. October 17th, that is when the treasury secretary just yesterday said the U.S. will bump up against the debt ceiling and that is why Congress, in order for the U.S. not to default on its loans, needs to raise the debt ceiling.

So that is the package they're talking about. What is really interesting is that as we were discussing before, the House Republican leadership basically has a wish list, a laundry list, maybe even a Christmas tree of all the things that they want to do in Congress, whether it's delaying Obamacare for a year, the Keystone pipeline, tax reform. They're attaching all of this, I'm told, maybe more than a dozen Republican priority items to the measure to raise the debt ceiling.

In the hopes that, A, they can sort of assuage some of the conservative restlessness and maybe more than that, about the spending bill. But the problem is that this is sort of the story line we've seen since Republicans took over in the House. Already, our congressional producer and others, we have been talking to people coming out of this meeting, conservatives who say they don't necessarily think that this is a good way to go because it doesn't cut spending enough. That has been the mantra of Republicans.

We're not going to do anything to allow the country to raise more money -- borrow more money if we're not going to cut spending. So that is something that the Republican leaders are dealing with. It's very tricky but again, this deadline they're talking about, this package that's around the corner, they are calling on the president to negotiate.

It's a new line saying if you're going to negotiate with world leaders like Vladimir Putin, why can't you negotiate with us. We've heard that a lot. We will hear it a lot more. COSTELLO: Dana Bash, thanks so much. We'll take a quick break. We'll have much more in the NEWSROOM.

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COSTELLO: Checking our top stories at 23 minutes past the hour, a 3- year-old boy shot in the face during a mass shooting in Chicago now recovering at home. There he is. His name is Dionta Howard. His mom says it's a miracle he survived. He had two surgeries, but will need many more over the next 15 years. His mom says he's afraid to go back to the park, but he is in good spirits.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Say thank you.

DEONTA HOWARD, 3-YEAR-OLD SHOOTING SURVIVOR: Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Twelve other people were also shot at that park last week. Police have now arrested four men.

George H.W. Bush was an official witness at a same sex marriage in Maine over the weekend. The former president and his wife, Barbara, attended the wedding of two long-time female friends. He even signed the marriage license. One of the women put the picture on her Facebook page. Same sex marriage became legal in the state of Maine last year.

Just released audio message reportedly from al Shabaab's leader claims responsibility for a mall attack in Nairobi, Kenya and warns of more violence. CNN has not independently verified this audio's authenticity.

In the meantime, FBI agents there are fingerprinting, testing DNA and analyzing ballistics to identify victims of the al Shabaab attackers who were killed. At least 67 people died in the siege, but that number is expected to rise.

If you're looking for ways to help the victims of the Kenyan terror attack, please visit cnn.com/impact. We're back after a break.

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COSTELLO: As you well know, helmet to helmet hits can be the most violent in football. A New York high school player died after a helmet to helmet hit earlier this month. Now the school is honoring that player in a way some people do not agree with. Andy Scholes is here to tell the story.

ANDY SCHOLES, "BLEACHER REPORT": Damon James is his name. He was a high school football player in Western New York. He suffered a hit during the game and went -- he walked to the sidelines and went to the hospital. Three days later, he passed away tragically. Now the school is trying to decide I guess the best way to honor him, and to grieve his loss, and the school board has unanimously decided to cancel the rest of the season.

Now the school board president said in a statement we're not giving up on Damon's legacy. We are taking time to heal. Our players need time to grieve and time to be together away from the lights and games for awhile. Now there is another view to this. Some people think to remember him we should get back on the field and play in his memory.

A local resident said I think canceling the season for the West Field varsity football team is a big mistake. I think Damon James, although I did not know him personally, he loved football, is probably the last thing he would want to see. So two contrasting views and I guess there's really no right or wrong way to go about this, I guess, it should be what the players want to do.

COSTELLO: It makes me wonder what the parents want in this case, because hearing that, you would be afraid to let your kid play football.

SCHOLES: You're right. You sign up, you know you're signing up to play football, it's a dangerous sport, you may get hurt but you don't sign up for death. It's something that comes unexpected and is definitely tragic. You don't know how the players feel about this. Do they want to get back on the field, rethink playing football, you never know.

Parents these days, they are not letting their kids play football for this reason because as the NFL is taking extreme measures to make sure their helmets and equipments are safe, does that trickle down to college, high school and pee-wee level? The question of how safe helmets are both ways, in the hitting and protecting, is still up in the air and is definitely a question people are struggling with.

COSTELLO: Andy Scholes, thanks so much.

Still to come in NEWSROOM, nearly three million California workers will get a boost in their paychecks with a minimum wage hike, but how will that affect businesses that employ them? That debate is next.

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