Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

New Obamacare Numbers; Early Childhood Obesity Rate Drops; Simplifying a Complicated Tax Code; Worst Winter of our Lifetime?

Aired February 26, 2014 - 09:30   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, again. I'm Carol Costello. Thanks so much for being here this morning.

President Obama takes his push to create jobs and boost the economy back on the road to Minnesota where the president will announce a new competition for $600 million in grant funds. The White House says the grants will target infrastructure projects.

Also on the agenda at the White House, boosting enrollment in the president's signature health care law. President Obama making a personal pitch for the plan thanks to an unexpected sneeze.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Because we moved on all four areas of this opportunity agenda. I've been working so hard, I might be getting a cold. I actually think I'm OK, I'm just - the -- got to get covered. All right. Got to get covered.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: The latest figures from the White House show more Americans are heeding the president's advice. Four million people have now signed up. But one critical group, young adults, might not be hitting White House targets. It all comes just days before House Republicans meet to craft their own health care alternative. Joining me now, chief Washington correspondent and host of "The Lead," Jake Tapper.

Good morning, Jake.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol.

CUOMO: Four million seems a good number.

TAPPER: That's the number of individuals that the Obama administration says have enrolled. We should point out, that's not the same thing as have paid the premiums, which, of course, is an important distinction. The Obama administration does not provide those figures. And as you know, if you've signed up for health care but haven't paid the premium, it doesn't really mean a whole lot.

But let's assume that 4 million is right. The big question, Carol, is how many of those people, what's the percentage who are the so-called young invincibles, the Americans who can afford health insurance but haven't been paying for it who are desperately needed for Obamacare to work? Well, Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, was asked about this yesterday, what is the percentage? Is the correct percentage, the needed to make Obamacare work of young people, have they signed up? Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAY CARNEY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We feel, based on the data that we've seen and has been released, that we are on track to have the demographic mix that we need.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: What does that mean exactly, "on track"? Well, the Kaiser Institute said that about 40 percent of enrollees need to be these young invincibles. And according to figures that we've seen, in February, the percentage was about 27 percent. So not at the 40 percent figure. That is up from 24 percent. We're not going to have final figures for the month of February for a few more weeks, Carol.

COSTELLO: Still, Republicans say they're going to roll out their own form of Obamacare, if you will. Four million people are already signed up, at least we think. So what would Republicans do with those 4 million people?

TAPPER: Well, it depends on which alternative you're talking about. There are a lot of different ones out there. But specifically there are discussions about subsidies for low income people. There are talks about tax credits. There are talks about reducing the number on Medicaid, but allowing them to have vouchers. So it really depends on which alternative you're talking about.

COSTELLO: I'm sure you'll talk much more about this later. Jake Tapper, many thanks.

TAPPER: Thank you.

CUOMO: Other top stories we're following at 32 minutes past the hour.

In Arizona, gay rights protesters say they'll rally through the night as they call on the state's governor to veto a bill that's drawn national criticism. The measure allows businesses to cite religious beliefs in denying service to gay customers. Some lawmakers who voted for the bill proclaiming it protects religious rights are now seeking a veto citing new concerns over discrimination.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE PIERCE (R), ARIZONA STATE SENATOR: In the debate, yes, I heard all that. But in the debate you hear arguments every day about this one's wrong, that one's wrong, and believed that kind of fit into my position that now, when I look back on it, you know, they were right in what they were saying. I have friends in the Democrat caucus that were - they're were warning me. But, you know, that was only the Democratic caucus was saying something. No one came to me beforehand.

ANDERSON COOPER, HOST, CNN'S "AC360": So you actually believe, looking at it now, that it would discriminate against some people in Arizona?

PIERCE: It has that ability, yes. It could be. I talked with a lot of people about it and they're going, well, how -- what about going in a restaurant, what about doing this? Well, the way it was described originally was, you know, it's like no shirt, no shoes, no service in a restaurant. Well, it could be interpreted differently. And it's too vague and to saying, you know, who's it going to affect. I can see now where people are concerned about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Pierce and two other Republican lawmakers who initially voted for the bill have now sent a letter to Governor Jan Brewer citing the bill's threat to the state. Among the lines - among those lines, several national companies also demanding a veto. Among them, AT&T, Delta Airlines, Intel and PetSmart.

Nearly three years after the meltdown at Japan's Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, the first radiation has reached North America. The levels detected off Vancouver beaches is much lower than Canada's safety limits. U.S. monitors have not yet found the radioactivity in Hawaii or the West Coast.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, good news, obesity among children ages two to five is way down. That age group is key in fighting obesity. We'll talk about that after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Thin is in. Childhood obesity rates dropped 43 percent in a decade. It's an encouraging sign in the war on fat. According to the federal government, researchers found just over 8 percent of kids ages two to five were obese in 2011 and 2012. That compares with nearly 14 percent just 10 years earlier. The first lady, Michele Obama, celebrated the news and unveiled a new proposal that would ban marketing junk food and sodas in schools.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHELLE OBAMA, FIRST LADY: Some folks even warned me that taking on childhood obesity might be controversial. They thought kids and parents should deal with these issues privately. Others laughed it off as not a real issue at all. Well, four years later, that all seems like ancient history.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: But, as in the past, not everyone is on board with Mrs. Obama's latest proposal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAREN BAKST, HERITAGE FOUNDATION: I think there's just so much arrogance involved. It's no longer father knows best or mother knows best, it's what government knows best. And that's really the problem here. (END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Still, obesity rates are down, at least for young children. Dr. Dave Montgomery joins me now to talk about why.

Welcome.

DR. DAVE MONTGOMERY, BOARD-CERTIFIED CARDIOLOGIST: Thank you, Carol. Good to be here.

COSTELLO: So you're encouraged by these statistics?

MONTGOMERY: Very encouraged. I think it has far reaching implications for obesity. I think one of the things that it shows us is that we know how to prevent obesity. Remember, the kids that we're comparing back in 2003 are at this time about, you know, 11 - 10 to 11 years old. It's actually showing us that the kids that are two now, two to five years old, actually aren't as obese. So we're preventing obesity.

COSTELLO: OK. And this is important because when you're five years old, if you're overweight, you're more likely to be obese as an adult.

MONTGOMERY: Obese kids are obese adults. We know that. And, you know, I like to tell people that obesity is what obesity does really. It's the things that come with obesity. The attended (ph) conditions that cause heart attacks, stroke, diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer, bone and joint disease. So we know that this is really, really a big deal for our future generations.

COSTELLO: OK. So you also said that, wow, we now know how to prevent obesity. Really, we do?

MONTGOMERY: Yes. No, we do. I mean, you know, the point is that, you know, when we look at why this might be happening, it boils down to the two thing that we know changes weight, right, it's what we eat and activity. First Lady Michele Obama and that whole initiative Let's Move has been really impactful and we're actually seeing some of that. So if kids are more active and they eat the right things, so community and local level initiatives that actually change what kids are actually eating in school seems to be changing.

COSTELLO: So you're saying these government programs are actually working. Some might argue, we're talking about kids two to five. They're not in cool yet. So these healthy lunches that are being served in elementary schools, they're not privy to those yet.

MONTGOMERY: Yes. So some of them. You know, there are still preschools, this early childhood education where the CDC has studied some of the lower socio-economic groups. They are actually in some of these early childhood education programs. They still are, you know, exposed to some of the unhealthy meals that they're getting those.

But the other thing that the CDC pointed out recently was that it may be that breastfeeding, more breastfeed is actually playing a role in these younger kids, right? So if you're breastfeeding a little bit longer, you know, 12 months to two years old, that you actually might be getting less of these sugary drinks, for example, and bad food.

COSTELLO: So your child might not crave sugary food, drinks if they breastfeed longer because there's not --

MONTGOMERY: Well, not just the craving. You're just not exposed to it, right?

COSTELLO: Oh, gotcha.

MONTGOMERY: I mean you're not getting - you're not getting the things that we sort of give kids. You know, the juices and all that stuff that really are loaded with a lot of calories.

COSTELLO: OK. So parents are doing a better job, right?

MONTGOMERY: Yes.

COSTELLO: But the parents themselves, overall, according to this study, their obesity levels are not dropping. Why is that?

MONTGOMERY: Yes, we're still having an issue. Because we're not doing what we see those kids doing. We're not as active as, you know, these kids are and we're eating the wrong things. That's all it really boils down to. When we talk about obesity, and I'm not trying to trivialize the issue, but the point is, if we get Americans to become more active and we choose the rights foods more often than we're choosing bad foods, then your weight has to change over time. That's the - that's the physics of what's happening in your body.

COSTELLO: (INAUDIBLE) change behavior, though, right?

MONTGOMERY: Absolutely. You have to change your behavior. But what I think is more important is changing what you think about it because as you change what you're thinking, right, that obesity and your weight is not about a beauty contest, because there are people that would say, well, you know, I don't care what people think about how I look. But remember what I said, fat is what fat does. It's not about a beauty contest. It's about all the stuff that's happening in your physiology, in your blood biochemistry when you're obese. You might feel fine, but really you've got this inflammatory, toxic environment that's eroding your blood vessels, causing plaque to form, causing you to have diabetes, blood pressure issues. These are all things that we know. We know this.

COSTELLO: Dr. Montgomery, thank you so much for your insight. We appreciate it.

MONTGOMERY: My pleasure.

COSTELLO: All new in the next hour of NEWSROOM, the deadline drawing closer for Arizona's governor. She's facing growing pressure to veto a bill that could give businesses the right to turn away gay customers. But we haven't heard much lately from lawmakers who supported it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Can I just ask you why you supported it?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No thanks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Oh, Randi Kaye didn't stop there. She goes in search of answers. That's all new in the next hour of NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: The tax code hits ten times the size of the bible without the good news so Republican Congressman Dave Camp has an idea to simplify the country's tax system. He has an op-ed all about it in the "Wall Street Journal." It's not loaded with a lot of specifics but there are a couple of things to point out to you. Camp says "He would pare down income tax bracket from seven to just two rates; 10 percent and 25 percent with 99 percent of Americans paying the 25 percent rate." Camp also plans to simplify tax breaks for education. Sounds good, right?

Stephen Moore is the chief economist for the Heritage Foundation and a columnist for the "Wall Street Journal." Welcome.

STEPHEN MOORE, CHIEF ECONOMIST, HERITAGE FOUNDATION: Hi Carol.

COSTELLO: OK so maybe you've seen more of this -- of Camp's tax code than I have. Do you know any more specifics about this?

MOORE: Yes I do. First of all let me say I've been waiting 25 years for this day. You know, tax reform is one of the big issues for me. I just think it's such a no brainer that the tax code isn't really working very well for America.

And you know Carol, it's been 1986 was the last time we kind of cleaned out the stables of the tax system. So I think most Americans whether you're a liberal or conservative agree we need to do something about it.

Now on some of the specifics, I would just correct you one thing. Technically the Camp people are saying there's two rates. Actually there's a third rate on people making over $500,000 and that would be a 35 percent tax rate.

On the business side, Carol, he would -- Mr. Camp would cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent down to 25 percent and as I think you know, the United States has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. He wants to do this -- Mr. Camp tells me he wants to do this to make American businesses more competitive when they -- when they compete abroad.

COSTELLO: Well let's talk about those -- those people who make over $450,000 a year you're talking about. These are professional people, right? Not business owners. They would be taxed more. Their taxes would actually go up, which is kind of surprising for a Republican to suggest something like that. MOORE: Well, first of all, a lot of those people in that top two percent or three percent category of income a lot of them are business owners and so you are taxing business income when you have that -- that higher rates. That's one of the features actually Carol I don't like about that. I'm a flat tax guy, I would like to see one rate applied to everybody. So if one person makes five times more income than another person they pay five times more tax.

But on balance I would say that you know despite some problems which I that I have with this bill I think it's -- it's good for the economy. And other thing that a lot of your viewers will be up to them especially if you're a member of the middle class most Americans now would not have to itemized their deductions Carol because it provides a bigger standard deduction.

And so you know that means you know people like you and I wont have to keep track of all of those receipts and we won't have to fill out of those pages of forms we would essentially have -- take the standard deductions and do the one page easy form which that sounds good to me.

COSTELLO: No that sounds like heaven. Now the great thing about this -- the great thing about this is the Congressman is going to present more of his plan later today and it's a bipartisan plan so he's worked with Democrats to come up with this.

MOORE: Right.

COSTELLO: Of course, the problem, some Republicans --

MOORE: We'll see about that.

COSTELLO: I know, I know.

MOORE: We'll see if we can get -- because you know this is something, by the way, when we did this in 1986, Carol, this was a genuine bipartisan thing where Republicans said let's cut the tax rates and Democrats said yes let's close the loopholes and it was one of the last true bipartisan triumphs we've had in Washington.

So I hope you're right we can get Democrats aboard this too. Because by the way, this would raise the same amount of revenue as the current tax system. It would just be simpler.

COSTELLO: Well we'll see what happens we'll wait to hear more from Congressman Camp later today.

MOORE: OK.

COSTELLO: Stephen Moore.

MOORE: We can fingers crossed, we can do this.

COSTELLO: We can. Thanks Stephen Moore I appreciate it.

MOORE: OK Carol. Take care.

COSTELLO: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: There is no doubt that this has felt like the worst winter ever for much of the country. And we're still not out of winter yet. Need some recent reminders, though, four years ago today, snow and ice brought Atlanta's roadways to a sliding stop. Horror stories for people stuck in their cars for 24 hours are forced to walk home. Those stories became legend. Boston who is used to wintry weather, but winter -- with wintry weather like this. The city has gotten 56 inches of snow so far this season. That compares with an average of less than 32 inches. And as many as 100 vehicles got stuck in a pileup on the Pennsylvania turnpike just two weeks ago.

Drivers blamed black ice, heavy winds and drifting snow. A meteorologist developed a misery index for just how bad this winter is. Indra Petersons is here to talk about that and psychotherapist Jonathan Alpert has some tips to deal with the winter blues. Welcome to both of you.

INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Thank you Carol.

JONATHAN ALPERT, PSYCHOTHERAPIST: Thank you.

COSTELLO: So Indra go through that misery index for us.

PETERSONS: You know what if there was ever a time to think of a misery index it's going to be a perfect year. I mean take a look at this. When you combine not just amount of snow but also how cold it has been -- you put those two together, they now have an idea of how miserable it has been.

Detroit, using that index, worst on record. Chicago, the 5th worst on the top five here with Indianapolis, Philly, even New York some ideas of kind of what we've seen already. Look at this let's talk about those morning lows. How cold and miserable it's been in the morning, Chicago, 22 days below zero. Minneapolis, 45 days below zero in the morning for that cold morning low.

And then, we know all about the snow. Heavy amounts of snow; 57 inches for New York State that's the seventh snowiest in years since we have been keeping records. Philadelphia, 59.4 inches. When you talk about why Detroit is the worst, well look at that number 78.9 inches. And on top of it, they got those cold lows; 13 lows below zero. I would say that is miserable.

COSTELLO: That is miserable. OK so Dr. Alpert, I never quite bought into the whole sad thing. But I mean are you seeing a lot of patients?

ALPERT: Carol, I am. I'm seeing a lot of patients this winter much more so than last winter. And one of the things that people can do to try to improve is to focus on what they can control and we can't control the weather there is no question about that. But what we can control is the way we think about it. And frankly the more people complain about the weather, it creates a contagion effect. And it just reinforces the negativity. So we can start to improve things by changing the way we think about it. We can also get out there. Even though it's cold and miserable, we can get out there. I know it sounds counterintuitive. But if we can get out there for ten minutes a day and get some sun exposure, it can really help. Light enters the brain through the eyes and it can impact the neurotransmitters that play a role in mood.

So getting out there, being brave and being fearless and going out in the cold can help.

COSTELLO: OK so Indra Petersons is a brave, fearless woman who happens to love cold weather. And probably never suffers from SAD. So -- but I'll pose this as a meteorologist Indra. You have been a meteorologist for what, 12, 13 years. Is this the worst winter you've ever covered?

PETERSONS: I mean absolutely. When you have this many cities that are really suffering like this, no question. And the reason why we've this weird pattern right out West. We keep talking about how dry it's been. The drought conditions were stuck in this weather pattern. We have a ridge out here and a trough. What does that mean that the jet stream going really far to the south that's letting all that cold air in from Canada and unfortunately series after series of storms keep riding along that jet stream going all the way to the South and it just seems to never end, Carol.

COSTELLO: OK Dr. Alpert, just to help us more deal with all of this, I know you can get out there, get some sunlight if there is sunlight but what if there is no sunlight.

ALPERT: Yes if there's no sunlight exercise can be really helpful exercise gets the endorphins going. If we go to a gym, there is a social component to it. And that can be helpful. One of the symptoms of SAD or seasonal affective disorder is people isolate, they withdraw, they are not able to get out there and do the things that they typically would enjoy.

So getting out there to the gym can actually be really helpful to kick start those endorphins. We can also try to sit near a window to get that light exposure so people who are in their office place they can maybe talk to their boss about moving their desk closer to a window. And that can be very helpful.

So there are a variety of things that people can try. There is an end in sight. I am looking forward to spring and summer and maybe planning a summer vacation can really be inspiring and get people in a much better mood.

COSTELLO: I like that idea the best. Jonathan Alpert, Indra Petersons, thanks so much.

ALPERT: Thank you for having me.

COSTELLO: I already have my remedy for SAD. I'm going to Florida spring training -- oh yes. Thanks to you both.

The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts now.

Happening now in the NEWSROOM, we're close to a breaking point over that controversial bill in Arizona that would let businesses turn away gays.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All this does is bring division and hate to our state.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: More big corporations like Apple calling for the governor to veto it.

Plus, was an iconic fight rigged?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This presents a shred of doubt on whether or not this was truly a Cinderella story.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: New evidence, the mob may have been behind one of the most legendary boxing matches ever.

And Delta overhauling its frequent flyer program -- soon, the biggest spenders will get the biggest perks.

The second hour of NEWSROOM starts now.