Leading Democrats Rally To Save Obamacare.
WHITFIELD: Across the country today, people are showing their concerns about the future of Obamacare. Democrats have planned dozens of rallies on what they're calling a day of action. Earlier today Senator Bernie Sanders, Chuck Schumer and other law makers held an event in Warren, Michigan outside of Detroit. CNN national correspondent Jessica Schneider joins us live from Warren, Michigan, Jessica, you spoke with Senator Sanders and what more did he have to say?</s>JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well you know Fredricka, Senator Sanders said this could be just the first of many rallies. Of course we saw these rallies throughout the campaign season and now it seems they are taking center stage when it comes to going into Donald Trump presidency, right here in Michigan, there are about 8,000 people by organizers count. This isn't the only rally. There are about 40 happening all over the country from Maine to California. So hundreds of thousands of people making their voices heard, we heard people out here sharing their stories about the affordable care act, many people saying it saved their lives not an exaggeration they say, but many more people saying it saved them massive amounts of money. So when I talked with Senator Sanders, I asked him, will this rallies will be matter when it comes down to it, especially since Republicans are moving full steam ahead with repeal and replace.</s>SCHNEIDER: You have become the leading voice for Democrats, particularly with this issue. You have thousands of people standing outside there. Will this message resonate? Will this get through to the American congress?</s>BERNIE SANDERS, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well I think it will. I mean the Republicans are going to catch on not only tens or thousands of people are coming out today on rallies from Maine to California, but millions of people think it is insane to repeal the affordable care act without having a replacement. You just cannot throw 20 million people off of health insurance. Raise the cost of prescription drugs for seniors, do away with very important patient protection, petitions, you just can't do that unless you have another plan in its place. And I think more and more Republicans are beginning to understand that.</s>SCHNEIDER: We're in Macomb county, there's also a rally in your home state of Vermont, why here and especially the fact that this county did vote for Donald Trump. They don't usually vote for a Republican.</s>SANDERS: Well, you know Mr. Trump when he ran for president, promised the people of Michigan and the people of America that he was a different type of Republican. He was not going to cut social security, Medicare, or Medicaid. So part of what today is about is reminding Mr. Trump that he better keep his promises, because we're watching.</s>SCHNEIDER: Last question, have you spoken with Hillary Clinton about all of these issues?</s>SANDERS: I'll be seeing her I think pretty soon.</s>SCHNEIDER: Thank you so much, senator.</s>SCHNEIDER: So we haven't heard from Hillary Clinton since the election, Senator Sanders saying he expects to speak with her, but two people we have heard from quite frequently, President-Elect Donald Trump says he expects an immediate repeal and replace. Also House Speaker Ryan says it will be a simultaneous repeal and replace. But when talking with the Democrats who are front and center out here, and also the people gathered here, they say they're skeptical. They say they haven't seen any plan from the Republicans, they doubt there would even be one in the coming days and the coming weeks, so they want more answers Fredricka, that is exactly why they gathered all over the country today to send that message.</s>WHITFIELD: All right Jessica Schneider thanks so much. Senator Rand Paul has aggressively pushing Republican to replace Obamacare at the same day they repeal it. He has even tweeted out an image of the cover page of the bill that he wants to replace the affordable care act with. This morning he gave CNN's Jake Tapper a preview of the plan.</s>RAND PAUL, REPRESENTATIVE KENTUCKY: So one of the key reforms we'll do is we're going to legalize the sale of inexpensive insurance, that means getting rid of the Obamacare mandate on what you can buy, we're going to help people save, as well as a tax credit, we're going to allowing individuals to come together in associations to buy insurance. I understand as a small businessperson, I had a doctor's office with four employees, if one of my employees got cancer. It was devastating to the bottom line, not only to them, obviously but to the bottom line of insurance. But there's no reason why someone with four employees should be able to join with hundreds and hundreds of other businesses that are small to become a large entity to get leverage to bring your prices down, but also to get insurance that can't cancel you and guarantees the issue of insurance even if you get sick.</s>WHITFIELD: Early I spoke with Texas Congressman Pete Sessions who was floating his own replacement plan for the affordable care act, Obamacare and we have Tim the differences between the plans.</s>PETE SESSIONS, REPRESENTATIVE TEXAS: Hearing Senator Rand Paul's there are many parts of that, the same as our plan, we also have a plan, it's called the world's greatest healthcare plan, and in fact it does many of the same things that Senator Rand Paul talked about. And Senator Paul has it correctly, we must first replace Obamacare with a better plan, Republicans have better ideas and much of it is through tax credits, it gives everybody in this country an opportunity to have the same tax advantage that everyone else does that works for a large company. We need to increase the number of people that are in our insurance pools, we need more people to want to pay in and have a lifetime insurance plan. But the world's greatest health care plan, says it at its very core that what we're going to do is to do away with the individual and the business mandate and the Cadillac tax. What we got to do is take away the parts that harm our economy and keep consumers from being consumers. This is where Rand Paul's plan, the world's greatest health care plan are very, very close and similar that the key component here is we must be able to sell the American people on what is better and pass that before we repeal Obamacare.</s>WHITFIELD: And how do you do that? What do you mean? So it sounds like you're now trying to -- you have to first convince the American people that this is better and then you say that effort would be made to repeal and replace with this?</s>SESSIONS: Well I think essentially there are at this point three or four competing plans, one is what might be called a better way that is not yet a bill, and we really don't know how it works, Paul Ryan is attempting to push that. We have Senator Rand's plan, we have Pete Sessions and Bill Cassid's healthcare plan, and we have Tom Price's plan, it's really going to come down to where members of congress, house and senate need to look and focus their activities on these four bills and then be engaged in the national, I guess, dialogue enabling Americans to understand why we need to change the rules of the game. I'm for making American health care better for everybody not just a new system. That is why I'm going to be for my plan.</s>WHITFIELD: Ok. At the beginning of this conversation, it started to sound like you were presenting this in a very simplified manner. And the question would had been, you know if this is so simple, then why this has happened before. But now you're talking about a number of choices where congress and senate have to come together and come up with a better plan. So how far away are we talking and is it your view that it will be packaged in a much more appetizing way to the American public than what 30 million people are already enjoying, how do you offer those assurances?</s>SESSIONS: What I would say to you is there was a discussion that was coming out of Washington saying we would repeal it and then replace it within a couple of years, that quickly became unacceptable to at least members of the house and the senate. And that changed the dialogue from two weeks ago, now we're on a dialogue that says let's have a messaging around one bill that we would pass and then we will repeal Obamacare, these are all positive signs that Republicans like Senator Rand Paul's arch conservatives will bring the best ideas to the table. I believe it will be somewhere between Senator Paul, and Senator Cassidy's plan, my bill, the world's greatest healthcare plan, the best ideas reside within that world, it's just a matter of us going to sell these and the American people recognizing we have to give every single person in this country an opportunity to have better health care than they have today.</s>WHITFIELD: All right, still ahead, President-Elect Donald Trump's press conference this week fell victim to "SNL" that is ahead.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES SNL PROGRAM: Who is quitted for my Inauguration Day, yes, thank you to those people over there, who I definitely did not pay to do that.