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Obama Campaigns For Health Care Law; Four Days Until Government Shutdown; Deadline On Debt Limit Looming; GOP Wants To Defund Obamacare; U.S. and Iran Break Ice; JP Morgan Meets with Attorney General; Keeping Your Doctor

Aired September 26, 2013 - 13:00   ET

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

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Right now the push to sell Americans on Obamacare in full swing. President Obama telling an audience, the Affordable Care Act is here to stay, and he blasted Republicans threatening to defund the program.

Right now the federal government is inching closer to a possible shutdown. The Senate is debating a bill to keep the government running, but stripping away money for Obamacare. We're going live to Capitol Hill.

Right now, the secretary of state, John Kerry, preparing to meet his Iranian counterpart. It will be the highest level meeting between the two countries since the late 1970s. we're going to tell you how those dramatic, face-to-face talks are going to play out.

Good afternoon. I'm Wolf Blitzer reporting from Washington. President Obama makes the case for his health care plan just five days before open enrollment begins for Obamacare. If you're one of the 48 million uninsured Americans, you've got some decisions to make, starting October 1st. The cost of coverage under the new health care exchanges will vary depending on where you live, the level of coverage and other factors.

On this map, the average costs are higher in the dark blue states. Let's say you live in Ohio. For a family of four making $50,000 a year, you'd pay $282 a month for the midrange plan after tax credits. A single person making $25,000 a year would pay $110 for the lowest cost plan, once again, after tax credits.

President Obama's touting the benefits of his health care reform law while taking on Republicans who are threatening to defund it. At a speech in Maryland just a little while ago, the president said the affordable care act is here to stay.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Five days from now, five days from now, on October 1st, millions of Americans who don't have health insurance because they've been priced out of the market or because they've denied access because of a preexisting condition, they will finally be able to buy quality, affordable health insurance. Some have threatened a government shutdown if they can't shut down this law. Others have actually threatened an economic shutdown by refusing to pay America's bills if they can't delay the law. That's not going to happen as long as I'm president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: The White House says President Obama wanted to cut through all of the noise out there coming out of Washington, speak directly to the American people about the health care law. But is it too late? Too late to build support for Obamacare?

Let's bring in our Senior White House Correspondent Jim Acosta. Jim, we just saw the president. He is all fired up about this open enrollment beginning in five days. Here is the question. Why did the administration wait until now to really begin selling this new law?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, one thing that we did hear from White House officials repeatedly over the last several weeks, because they knew this date was com coming, was that they had other things on their plate. Syria was going on. Iran was going on. This prospect of a government shutdown was going on. And you didn't hear the president talking about health care reform and this coming deadline on October 1st.

Last week in Kansas City, when he went really after the Republicans, talking about a government shutdown, and part of the White House strategy over the last few weeks is, as Republicans have been going after Obamacare, threatening to shut down the government or perhaps going into default in order to stop Obamacare, the White House has responded, in kind, by basically defending the law saying this is what the law does and so forth.

Although the president, as you heard over in Largo, Maryland this morning, really turned up the heat on Republicans, accusing them of trying to blackmail him to try to shut down the government, to do anything to get in the way of Obamacare. And he said, at one point during that speech, Wolf, that they failed to stop this law every step of the way. And he says, in the end, he believes Republicans and time will eventually like the bill and, in some cases, perhaps take credit for it. He said that he thinks that some Republicans, down the road, may claim that they voted for it because he thinks this will be such a success.

But, Wolf, we need to point out that the president also said at that event this morning that there are going to be glitches along the way. That was an indication that he knows and the administration knows that everything that is coming out in this law, these marketplaces that are opening up, that is not always going to go smoothly.

And one very important thing to point out is that in just the last hour or so, there has been sort of this breaking news alert that came out of Politico that part of the Obamacare rollout, when it comes to these exchanges, has been delayed.

We've done some digging on this. We talked to the White House, and the administration official came back to us and said, no, no, this is not a delay. And what this reference -- what this has to deal with, Wolf, is that there are certain small businesses that were supposed to be able to go to the Web site, HealthCare.gov on October 1st and start signing up for coverage for their employees. The online portion of that is not going to happen on October 1st. The White House is now saying that is going to be November 1st and that those small businesses will be able to file a PDF application. They'll able to print a PDF application, fill it out, and then send it in, mail it in, fax it in, and that sort of thing. But they won't be able to do it online until November 1st.

Technically, Wolf, that is a bit of a delay or a glitch and it's just one example of maybe some of the small problems, maybe could be some big problems that might be coming out of this law in the days to come.

BLITZER: Are they acknowledging that was a glitch? Are they saying that that was just --

ACOSTA: They're not, no.

BLITZER: -- a mistake on their part, that they had all this time to get it ready for, really, fully operational October 1st, but now they're saying November 1st. How are they explaining that month delay?

ACOSTA: They're saying, at this point -- they -- and we asked specifically, is this a delay? And the quote was from an administration official who did not want to be named, "no, not a delay." But the fact of the matter is when you go to White -- to the White House Web site, when you go to HealthCare.gov and you start searching around for when you can start applying for health care coverage through these exchanges, small businesses or individuals, all it ever says on the Web site is October 1st.

So, the fact that some small businesses will not be able to apply for coverage for their employees until November 1st, that is not, at least as far as we can see on Web site, and perhaps we need to do more clicking and find it, it might be buried somewhere, that doesn't start until November 1st. So, a small, minor glitch of a delay here, not huge, at least not at this point. And the White House is well aware that everybody's watching. And so, these are the sorts of things that we'll be seeing in the -- in the days and weeks and months to come.

BLITZER: Yes, it was supposed to start October 1st, because that's the start of the new fiscal year. The 2014 fiscal year actually starts October 1st. All right, Jim, I know you'll be digging on this as well. Jim Acosta reporting.

By the way, if you need some help separating Obamacare fact from fiction, here is what you should do. Go to CNNMoney.com. The Web site also has a calculator. You can find out what you'd pay for health care under the new plan.

The Affordable Care Act is at the center of a fight up on Capitol Hill over a possible government shutdown. As you heard, we're only four days away from that deadline, midnight Monday. Right now, the Senate is debating a House bill -- spending bill that keeps the government running but also strips funding from Obamacare, something that's not expected to survive a final Senate vote.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEN. PATTY MURRAY (D), WASHINGTON: When we send this legislation back to the House, Republicans have got to put an end to the Tea Party temper tantrums and pass our bill without any gimmicks and without any games. And after we do that, I hope we can leave the Tea Party brinksmanship behind.

SEN. JOHNNY ISAKSON (R), GEORGIA: Like almost every other member of the United States Senate, I was here on Christmas Eve 2009 and voted against the Obamacare legislation on the final vote. Since that period of time, we've had a plethora of votes and challenges and opportunities and I've remained consistent. I'm not going to all of a sudden at a debate change my consistency and vote to shut down the government and continue Obama care. I want to be consistent with the way I voted. I want the Senate to take up its responsibility. I want us to be sure we do not shut down the government for our people. I want to be sure everybody in the Senate has their opportunity to cast their vote, both on the continuing resolution and on whether or not Obamacare stays or whether Obama care is defunded. That is the question before us.

SEN. BARBARA MIKULSKI (D), MARYLAND: Let's be clear, any attachment that either defunds or delays the Affordable Care Act will be vetoed by the president. You can huff, you can puff for 21 hours but you cannot blow the Affordable Care Act away.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: There's another deadline looming beyond the spending for the federal government, a deadline that may be more important, it's the debt limit on October 17th. That's when the federal government won't be able to pay its bills any longer. Both sides say they don't want a shutdown next week but the debt ceiling fight could potentially be even bigger.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: We're going to introduce a plan that ties important 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.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: The Republican spending plan includes another attack on Obamacare. They're calling for a one-year delay in implementing parts of the health care law.

Let's bring in our Chief Political Analyst Gloria Borger who's watching all of this. Let's start with the debt ceiling deadline October 17th, according to the treasury department. Take a look at these Bloomberg national poll numbers, 28 percent say the debt ceiling should be raised, no questions asked but 61 percent say they need to be spend -- there needs to be spending cuts attached to that. Republicans say the president must negotiate. The president says no way. So, what has to happen here? Is it going to be even a bigger fight than the shutdown fight --

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.

BLITZER: -- four day as way?

BORGER: I think -- I think there could be a larger fight with more economic implications even than the -- than the government shutdown fight. And I think, you know, Wolf, this kind of a poll really emboldens Republicans to say, you know what? This is the -- the debt ceiling is where we really need to have our real fight because the American public does not want to shut down the government. So, you want to hopscotch to another fight? OK, let's do it over raising the debt ceiling.

In theory, the American public says, you know what? You shouldn't raise the debt ceiling unless you can figure out a way to tighten your belt at the same time. These kinds of polls are the kinds of polls we saw a couple of years ago when we had this same fight in July, if I recall, a couple of years ago. And then the numbers gradually started changing because people realized what would happen with the full faith in credit of the United States being on the line. That could happen again this time. We don't know.

But right now, if you're watching all of these members of Congress talking past each other, kind of -- if you're sitting out there, it makes you want to pull your hair out, Wolf. I mean, most people would find a way to sort of get together and figure out how to get over this hump. But, right now, I don't see -- I don't see how they're going to do it.

BLITZER: And even if they get over the hump of the government shutdown or they don't have a government shutdown. The president just said a few minutes ago, he said, we will not negotiate on anything when it comes to the full faith and credit of the United States of America. So, I suspect, thought, between now and October 17th, there's going to have to be some give and take between the president and the Republican leadership --

BORGER: Right.

BLITZER: -- if there's going to be a raising of the debt ceiling.

BORGER: And so, the Republicans are trying to say the president is being unreasonable. How dare he say he will not negotiate on something that is this important. And the president, when you look at the -- when you look at shutting down the government, earlier today when he spoke, he essentially said that the Republicans were blackmailing him on this question of shutting down the government over Obamacare.

And so, you know, there is this sort of elephant here, which is the president's health care reform plan which has passed the Congress. An election occurred, the president was re-elected, the president himself today said it's not perfect. There are glitches in it and Republicans have voted over 40 times to repeal it. Now, they're trying to kill it by taking away the money for it. The question is, exactly how -- what can Republicans do in the end to slow down this train? They'd like to delay it for a year, if they can't kill it. The president will say, you cannot delay it for a year. But maybe there is a way to say, on certain areas where we do have these so-called glitches, maybe we can work something out. But that would be in a rational world and I'm not so sure that's the world we're living in right now.

BLITZER: Oh, you may be right. Gloria's got a terrific column on CNN.com on all of this as well. I recommend you go read it.

BORGER: Thank you.

BLITZER: And learn something about what's going on. Gloria, as usual, thank you.

Iran and the U.S. are about to do something they haven't done in more than 30 years. History, within the next few hours, will be made. We'll have the story. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: In just a few hours, Iran and the United States will make history at the United Nations in New York. For the first time since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the country's top diplomats, the Secretary of State John Kerry, the Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, they will hold direct face-to-face talks. In addition to being the highest level meeting in more than 30 years, it's also the first time the U.S. and Iran will discuss Tehran's offer to hold nuclear negotiations. This morning the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, addressed the issue of nuclear disarmament head on, calling on all nations to give up their weapons.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRES. HASSAN ROUHANI, IRAN (through translator): No nation should possess nuclear weapons since there are no right hands for these wrong weapons, as you, Mr. Secretary-general, have rightly put it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Nick Paton Walsh is joining us now from the United Nations.

The relations as you know, Nick, since 1979 when the Iranians took American diplomats and held them hostage for 444 days, there hasn't been an exchange like this one that's about to happen around 4:00 p.m. Eastern where you are. So there's a lot going on. There's certainly a lot of tension. But there's a lot of potential positive movement at the same time.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I think in many ways the fact that that meeting actually happened will be significant progress. Of course there are hawks on either side judging suspicious about that particular idea. But really I think we heard from John Kerry this morning as he emerged from meeting the Chinese foreign minister, you know, they need to see something serious from the Iranians. A total change in the message from Tehran as voiced by new President Hassan Rouhani, more moderate asking for peace, saying even to "The Washington Post" that they'd like a deal within three to six months. That's going to require a lot of high-speed, heavyweight diplomatic lifting for it to come through.

But the real question is, what will be the substance of this discussion. Aside from that, though, as you point out, it is simply historic in that it is actually happening in this building behind me within the next five hours, Wolf.

BLITZER: Will there be cameras allowed for at least any part of this meeting, or will it all be behind closed doors, the meeting between the U.S., the four other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, Germany, and the Iranians?

WALSH: We understand there will be televised coverage of when the P5 plus one arrive, that's Russia, China, France, the U.S., U.K. and Germany. And then when the Iranians join them, at a later stage, that too will be televised. We don't know what extent that will happen, whether we'll actually see them come together and shake hands. I think, frankly, that's the point of this exercise, to show a diplomatic bridge between those two countries. Something we haven't really seen since 2001 in any shape or form since Colin Powell shook the hands of his Iranian counterpart back then. And that wasn't a meeting. That was simply a handshake. This could herald the start of something new, but a lot hanging on it, Wolf.

BLITZER: We'll see the body language if, in fact, we get video or even a still photo of John Kerry, Mohammed Zarif, if they shake hands, if they're smiling, not smiling, it will be indicative, potentially, of what's going on.

All right, thanks very much for that, Nick Paton Walsh, doing excellent work for us at the U.N.

Coming up, consumers may get a $4 billion - that's with a "b," billion dollar payout thanks to a new settlement from JP Morgan over mortgage fraud. We're about to explain.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: An uptick on Wall Street. After five straight days of losses, markets have taken a hit as investors worry over uncertainty here in Washington. Right now the Dow up about 56 points, as you see. Analysts say investors are largely assuming a last-minute deal will stop an October 1st government shutdown.

There's also word today that JPMorgan is in talks to settle with the government over its mortgage probes for $11 billion. Sources say the figure would include $7 billion in cash, $4 billion for consumers, though the talks are ongoing right now.

Let's bring in Alison Kosik. She's joining us from the New York Stock Exchange.

Alison, how much do we know about this proposal? Huge amounts of money. What's involved?

ALISON KOSIK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Oh, yes, you have to look at JP Morgan in a really tight spot, Wolf. You know, it's got more than a dozen state and federal investigations hanging over it. So what this proposal essentially does is it looks to tie up loose ends. In fact, CEO Jamie Dimon, he wants all of those investigations to be over in one fell swoop. But they're going to have to pay big to let that happen. Possibly $11 billion. Now, this settlement would reportedly include $7 billion in penalties and $4 billion that would go to consumer relief of some kind.

Now, the heat's certainly been on JP Morgan for some time now. The U.S.' biggest bank by assets has really been under quite the microscope, accused of packaging and selling bad mortgage-backed securities. When the housing market crumbled, those securities failed and became the key cause of the financial crisis.

Now, CEO Jamie Dimon, he met with regulators earlier today and the price tag of what the bank would owe could grow. So that $11 billion could grow. And "The Wall Street Journal" says that even if it settles this part of it, it's not out of the woods for possible criminal charges.

Wolf.

BLITZER: That's a huge amount of money. But give us some perspective, Alison. How big of a hit would this be for JP Morgan?

KOSIK: And that's a good point. You know, $11 billion, it is a huge number, even for a company as big as JP Morgan. You look at the bank. It posted earnings of $6.5 billion in the latest quarter and the same amount in the quarter before. So this penalty would wipe out almost six months' worth of profits.

But you also have to look at JP Morgan. It has a big balance sheet. So it certainly is not in any real danger of taking a huge hit as a company.

Wolf.

BLITZER: Good perspective, Alison, thank you.

There are a lot of claims or counterclaims flying right now back and forth over Obamacare. President Obama says if you like your health care plan and your doctor, you can keep them. We're going to put that statement to the test. A CNN fact check, that's coming up next.

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