Senate Hearing On Obamacare; Obama, Biden, Clintons Stumped For McAuliffe In Virginia Governor's Race; Marijuana Taxes, Secession Among Ballot Initiatives In Colorado Today
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: All new this morning, President Obama tweaking his message. Remember his line, 'if you like your health plan, you can keep it'? Well, that's now being changed a bit. And it is Election Day, from governors to mayors, high profile politics. And how today could even give us our first glimpse of the new presidential season and our 51st state. Also --</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There were boom, boom, and then another boom, and then another, last boom right after that, right after the second one, and then glass, glass everywhere.</s>COSTELLO: Shots fired inside a New Jersey mall. Shoppers run for cover as a 20-year-old gunman opens fire, but this time no one is hurt. NEWSROOM continues now. Good morning. Thank you so much for being with me. I'm Carol Costello. Going on right now on Capitol Hill, a Senate hearing on the roll-out on Obamacare, there you see Tom Harkin of Iowa. He will be asking questions very soon of Marilyn Tavenner. You might remember her name. She's the administrator for Medicaid and Medicare, and that branch or organization once in charge of the Obamacare roll-out but no longer. And we'll continue to monitor her testimony. And if she says anything new and exciting, of course, we'll pass it along to you. But let's talk about the president now and his tweaking of his message, a new spin. It's now been five weeks to the date since the roll-out of Obamacare, and its sputtering website hasn't been the only problem. After all, remember those reassurances that if you liked your plan, you wouldn't have to switch? For nearly four years, the president said this.</s>BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.</s>COSTELLO: Well, the president has a new spin. The White House is now tweaking that message. Our senior White House correspondent Brianna Keilar is in Washington with more on that. Good morning. Brianna.</s>BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Carol. Basically, in the face of learning that promise could not be kept ultimately and that it just wasn't as simple as that, we've heard from President Obama last night at an OSA event. That's his former campaign apparatus, which is now a non-profit advocacy group, which is working on Obamacare and promoting it. President Obama spoke in an OSA event, and here was the change that he made.</s>PRESIDENT OBAMA: If you have or had one of these plans before the Affordable Care Act came into law and you really liked that plan, what we said was you could keep it if it hasn't changed since the laws passed.</s>KEILAR: If it hasn't changed since the law has passed. That was something he added last night, Carol. That was not on that initial promise that he made as he was touting Obamacare, and as you can imagine, Republicans have really seized on this. So it's obviously more complicated than the initial promise President Obama made. The law said, Carol, when Obamacare was passed in 2010, it said that if a plan was in existence, it could be grandfathered in. However, if there was a significant change to it, which is something that is open to interpretation, then it would have to cease to exist. Essentially whatever the insurance company as it put in place a new plan, it would have to measure up to the current Obama care standards. So you have White House officials who were saying, yes, but there were a lot of people who had these old plans and didn't realize that they weren't necessarily good plans, maybe they didn't cover hospitalization or maybe they exempted people for really the one condition they wanted insurance for. But it's a big problem because you have people getting these cancellations of their plans. The people at the White House want to serve and they are complaining obviously. And so that's obviously a bad situation for the White House as they try to serve these people who are unhappy certainly with what this Obamacare plan is supposed to do for them. Also, you know, the huge problem it really comes down to still is that the marketplace, this healthcare.gov isn't working. So when people get a cancellation, they can't then turn and see what an alternative might be, and White House officials will admit that that's very difficult for them to deal with.</s>COSTELLO: All right, Brianna Keilar reporting live from the White House. Well, there's another Senate committee on the Obamacare roll- out. Lisa Desjardins is covering that for us. What more could we possibly learn, Lisa?</s>LISA DESJARDINS, CNN CAPITOL HILL REPORTER (via telephone): Well, Carol, this is actually an interesting hearing for a couple of reasons. One, Democrats are leading it, but the Democrat in charge is a big health care supporter who is not happy. That's Tom Harkin. You see him right there of Iowa. He's already said that Americans deserve better. But this is the first time we have heard from any Obama administrative official here in Congress since we learned that the enrollment numbers are just a trickle and since we've gotten information from the House Oversight Committee, through HHS that the enrollment numbers are maybe in the hundreds. They said they're not releasing any numbers publicly because the system isn't working and the numbers are not reliable. But this is a first hearing we will have with an official after we have a clue of where the numbers may be. So that's going to be something to watch very closely and the Republican on this committee, Carol, Lamar Alexander, he's called for the resignation of our House secretary. So expect for him to be very sharp with his questions this morning.</s>COSTELLO: Will we learn of any solutions, you know, at the end of this hearing?</s>DESJARDINS: I would expect Ms. Tavenner to bring up many of the same solutions that they've been talking about stressing that they've brought more help, that they trying to increase capacity. Perhaps we'll learn more about the problems with Verizon. Unclear, I know they'll get a lot of questions about that for sure.</s>COSTELLO: All right, Lisa Desjardins, you continue following that. We'll get back to you. Thanks so much. It is Election Day across the nation as Americans cast votes in state elections that could impact the country's political future, among them, the governor's race in Virginia where Democrat Terry McAuliffe appears headed for victory in a bitter and partisan against Republican Ken Cuccinelli. The race is drawing some political heavyweights in the closing days. CNN political director, Mark Preston, joins me now to talk about that and more. Good morning, Mark.</s>MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Good morning, Carol.</s>COSTELLO: So McAuliffe called on his old friends, Bill and Hillary Clinton to help make the case. President Obama also joined and none of them mentioned Obamacare. Why is that?</s>PRESTON: Well, it's interesting to note that we saw Joe Biden in Virginia yesterday as well campaigning on behalf of Terry McAuliffe. Obama's key initiative is very conversational. The condition is very much split on it and down the middle at this point, give it a point here or there either way. And here in Virginia, you're split. You have different geographic parts of state. Some people are for it, some people are against it. But I have to tell you in many ways when we look at the outcome of this election tomorrow and if we are to believe the polls and McAuliffe is expected to win, we're going to have to look at Obamacare as one of the reasons why he might have won. And the reason being the 16 days of the federal government shutdown was due in part because the Republicans in the building right behind me tied that to Obamacare. Now Ken Cuccinelli who is the republican attorney general who is running is very much a strident opponent of Obama care. But at the same time, many of his want to be constituents depend upon the federal government.</s>COSTELLO: Aren't you discounting women voters in Virginia because aren't they really deciding this race and they don't care for Ken Cuccinelli because of his social views?</s>PRESTON: That's correct. Again, when we go back and we dissect what happened in this race that's going to be one of the major reasons as well, how did he do with women voters. We know Terry McAuliffe is up about 12 points with women voters. That is a big margin. But there are many factors. We look at why Ken Cuccinelli, if he does lose. If he does lose one of the reasons is going to be the government shutdown. And that's because it was tied to Obamacare. And now Ken Cuccinelli, Carol, had he come out and said that he opposed the government shutdown and opposed Obamacare, but again manufacturers would have been bet are off. But again, one of the many factors in this race in Virginia.</s>COSTELLO: OK, we'll continue to watch. Mark Preston reporting live from Washington from Virginia to Colorado, CNN we're covering all the election angles for you today with our correspondents around the country. Let's start in Mendham (ph), New Jersey. That's where we find Erin McPike. Good morning, Erin.</s>ERIN MCPIKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Well, there's a lot more activity outside this polling station at the fire station where Chris Christie will vote really any minute now. We're starting to see his aides gather here for his arrival. And also you might see in the background CNN's Jake Tapper. He's here for an exclusive interview with Chris Christie, and that will be airing in the 4:00 hour. And there's all of this activity because we're looking at Chris Christie very likely launching a national campaign for president in the next few years. That's why he's looking for a blowout win tonight. He wants to say that it's a model for the national Republican Party which has obviously been having problems like they are in Virginia where Peter Hamby is covering that race -- Peter.</s>PETER HAMBY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Erin. I'm in McLean, Virginia, where Democrat Terry McAuliffe voted here just a couple of hours ago, as Mark Preston mentioned. He is expected to win by mid to high single digits here in Virginia against Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. As Mark mentioned, Cuccinelli has been attacked by Democrats as an out of the mainstream social conservative. This is expected to be a low turnout election as it often is in nonpresidential years. Cuccinelli is trying to rally the base here hoping for a miracle. He's tapped Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, a number of popular Republicans to campaign for him. He says this race is a referendum on Obamacare. But Democrats outside groups have poured tons of money into this race, trying to define Cuccinelli as anti-women. And according to the polls, it appears to be working. McAuliffe has a very, very high lead among women voters, and that's very crucial in this suburban state that's trend (ph) over Democrat over the last decade. For more on the New York mayor's race, let's go to Deb Feyerick.</s>DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Peter. Well, the Republican candidate for mayor has said he is going to shock New York City with the come-from-behind victory. Underdog Joe Lhota back nearly 40 points from front-runner, Democrat, Bill De Blasio. Now De Blasio is a former staffer for both Bill and Hillary Clinton. He is a proud progressive and he is vowing to close the gap between the rich and poor. He is planning on doing that immediately by raising taxes on the rich to help educated low income children. Political insiders say the game changer for De Blasio really has been his biracial family active on the campaign trail. His wife and kids really resonated with voters in both the black and Latino communities. Meantime, Wall Street businessman Joe Lhota, he once served as budget director for Mayor Rudy Giuliani. He is no nonsense and he shares his tough-on crime-stance. De Blasio, by the way, will be the first Democratic mayor in more than two decades if he wins in what some are predicting will be a landslide. That's kind of surprising given that the city is a majority of Democratic voters -- Ana.</s>ANA CABRERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Deborah. I'm Ana Cabrera, here in Colorado where we're watching a variety of different issues on the Colorado ballot including taxes on the marijuana sales. We're also watching education funding bill. There's also an issue about state secession. That's one that's captured interest all around the country. Eleven counties in Northern Colorado, the rural part of our state, are threatening to secede and will vote today on an initiative that would break away from the state of Colorado to form a new state. Now this all spurred after the last legislative session at the state capitol where Democrats have the majority in both the House and the Senate, as well as the governor's office. And the supporters of this initiative to break away from the state say they're very angry over the new gun control legislation, also some new standards with renewable energy and increasing their electricity costs. They say these are the issues that are not only threatening their rural lifestyle, but they're rural livelihood. And they want to send a message to both the state Congress as well as the federal Congress that this is not OK. And so while the secession movement isn't likely to become a reality, it certainly is an example of the growing political and culture divides that we're seeing not only here, but all across the country.</s>COSTELLO: All right, Ana Cabrera, Deborah Feyerick, Peter Hamby and Erin McPike, thanks to all of you. Still to come in the NEWSROOM, a shooting at a packed mall in New Jersey, Poppy Harlow is there -- Poppy.</s>POPPY HARLOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That is right. We are going to tell you about a nightmare unfolding here in the middle of New Jersey on a seemingly quiet Monday night. What a troubled 20-year-old did that ended up in taking his own life?