Speaker 1: P and L is brought to you by proper Cloth,
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Speaker 1: order your first custom shirt today. Welcome to the Bloomberg
Speaker 1: P and L Podcast. I'm Pim Fox. Along with my
Speaker 1: co host Lisa Abramowitz. Each day we bring you the
Speaker 1: most important, noteworthy, and useful interviews for you and your money,
Speaker 1: whether at the grocery store or the trading floor. Find
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg P and L Podcast on iTunes, SoundCloud and
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot com. We heard from President Trump just
Speaker 1: shortly ago. We heard that he reiterated his plan to
Speaker 1: roll back Obamacare. But what is less clear is exactly
Speaker 1: how Republicans plan to do this. But with some sense
Speaker 1: of clarity is Zach Tracer, a healthcare reporter for Bloomberg,
Speaker 1: who wrote a really compel piece today on the Bloomberg Zach, So,
Speaker 1: this story talks about some of the details that we
Speaker 1: are learning. Can you outline what those are? Sure? And
Speaker 1: I think the thing to keep in mind here is
Speaker 1: that we haven't seen a bill. We we don't know
Speaker 1: what you know, Republicans in um the House are are
Speaker 1: going to try to get past. But what we are
Speaker 1: hearing is that you know, first off, UM, likely it
Speaker 1: will get rid of the requirement in Obamacare that everybody
Speaker 1: have health insurance. Um, it might make some changes to
Speaker 1: the subsidies and sort of the the net result of
Speaker 1: all this is that fewer people are going to have
Speaker 1: health insurance. At the end of the day, we keep
Speaker 1: hearing about the three legs of the stool of the
Speaker 1: Affordable Care Act. Can you pull one of them away
Speaker 1: and still have the stool be useful? That's right. So
Speaker 1: one one of the big problems here will be that
Speaker 1: by ending the individual mandate, the requirement that people buy
Speaker 1: health insurance, it will be really tough to to keep
Speaker 1: healthy people in the market potentially, And that's one of
Speaker 1: the things that the republic plans are trying to grapple
Speaker 1: with is how do you get sort of young, healthy
Speaker 1: people to buy health insurance in the absence of a
Speaker 1: law requiring them requiring them to do so. And that's
Speaker 1: something you know that that Obamacare struggled with too. So
Speaker 1: I think, um, you know, if if folks can come
Speaker 1: out of this with a better option, a better plan, um,
Speaker 1: that may be an improvement. How exactly are these details
Speaker 1: about a potential replacement coming out? You know, we've been
Speaker 1: talking with lawmakers and um, you know, these these lawmakers
Speaker 1: are confronting constituents, and so they're trying to come up
Speaker 1: with ways of explaining here is what Republicans want in
Speaker 1: an Obamacare replacement. And just when you say confronting instituents,
Speaker 1: you're talking about in part the town hall meetings that
Speaker 1: have gotten rather heated right around the around the country.
Speaker 1: That's right. So you know, Congress is out this week,
Speaker 1: so lawmakers are back in their districts talking to the
Speaker 1: folks who voted for them or who didn't, and they're
Speaker 1: trying to say, here is what Republicans want to do
Speaker 1: with Obamacare. And it's not easy because they don't have,
Speaker 1: you know, one specific bill, and so they're they're sort
Speaker 1: of trying to outline these principles. And one of the
Speaker 1: things that we've discovered from interviewing them is that, you know,
Speaker 1: it's very difficult to talk about this idea that fewer
Speaker 1: people are going to have health insurance. Does the does
Speaker 1: the nomination process of Dr Tom Price for the head
Speaker 1: of Health and Human Services. Does that in any way
Speaker 1: affect what may or may not happen with the a
Speaker 1: c A. So. Dr Price, who's now the head of
Speaker 1: the Department of Health and Human Services, UM will probably
Speaker 1: play some role in crafting this, uh, this replacement. It's
Speaker 1: not clear yet just what that will be. UM. He
Speaker 1: said he's going to leave it up to Congress at
Speaker 1: least initially, but I do think the the administration will
Speaker 1: play a role at some point. UM. You know, one
Speaker 1: thing he talked about a lot, and that comes up
Speaker 1: here is the importance of what they're calling access to
Speaker 1: health insurance. So Republicans are going to give folks some
Speaker 1: sort of tax credit that will help them by health
Speaker 1: insurance and say, look, everybody has access. It's up to
Speaker 1: you whether or not you buy health insurance. I have
Speaker 1: to wonder going forward, at what point do they have
Speaker 1: to come up with a replacement. Is there a sort
Speaker 1: of deadline? I think that the the insurance companies that
Speaker 1: are selling health insurance and Obamacare really really need certainty.
Speaker 1: They are going to be deciding on their their plans
Speaker 1: for eighteen in the next few months, really m by May,
Speaker 1: and this is what Etna, Anthem senteen, health Net, Wealcare,
Speaker 1: I mean all of Melina, Humana, United Health, that's right.
Speaker 1: And and already we've seen you know, Humanita and United
Speaker 1: Health pretty much quit and has pulled back. Um And
Speaker 1: you know Molina has said, for instance, that they need
Speaker 1: certainty or they may pull back. Anthemis as something similar.
Speaker 1: So the health insurance are warning, look, if we don't
Speaker 1: get certainty, we are not going to sell these health
Speaker 1: insurance plans. Have they pulled back because of uncertainty or
Speaker 1: because it wasn't profitable for them? More because it wasn't
Speaker 1: profitable for them. Um. The the idea is, you know
Speaker 1: that if you can't make money, and this gets back
Speaker 1: to what we were talking about with you know, getting
Speaker 1: enough healthy people into the system. If you can't make
Speaker 1: money on the why would you you know, play in
Speaker 1: this market. What about drug pricing? The issue of whether
Speaker 1: Medicare can actually negotiate, whether the government can negotiate drug
Speaker 1: prices has long been a point of debate. Is there
Speaker 1: any anything you can tell us about that? Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: definitely a point of debate and something that that will
Speaker 1: continue to be debated. Sema Verma, who's the nominee to
Speaker 1: head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services was asked
Speaker 1: about this at her confirmation hearing, and she said, you know,
Speaker 1: I think the current system works pretty well. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of people that would disagree with her, and so
Speaker 1: I think that it's going to continue to be a
Speaker 1: debate what health insurers would like to see with respected
Speaker 1: change is made to a c A. I think one
Speaker 1: thing that health insurers really have said overall is there
Speaker 1: needs to be a way to get more young and
Speaker 1: healthy people into the insurance pools. So, you know, big
Speaker 1: problem right now is it's mostly older and sicker people. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, they feel like, um, you know, they're they're
Speaker 1: not tied to the old system that they'd be pretty
Speaker 1: open into some of the Republican replacement plans. They just
Speaker 1: want to know what are the rules that we have
Speaker 1: to operate under. Is there any guidance for what the
Speaker 1: actual public exchanges will look like? Indeed, will they even
Speaker 1: remain the way they are in uh, let's say online form,
Speaker 1: which is where most people interact with them. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a great question. Um. I think that the Republican
Speaker 1: plans will likely have some role for an online market place,
Speaker 1: whether they call it an exchange or something else. It's
Speaker 1: you know, a popular way to buy you know, plane
Speaker 1: tickets in hotel rooms. So so why not health insurance?
Speaker 1: From what you here are Republican and Democratic congressmen coming
Speaker 1: together and discussing this or is this really being left
Speaker 1: to the individual parties to negotiate among themselves. I think
Speaker 1: at this point that the Democrats are pretty happy to
Speaker 1: leave this. Two Republicans, I mean Republicans again control both
Speaker 1: houses of Congress, they control their presidency, so you know,
Speaker 1: at this point it's something that they're having to hash out.
Speaker 1: And um, I think they've so far not gotten Democrats
Speaker 1: on board. Who is the ring leader with respect to
Speaker 1: the Republican negotiations? You've seen it right now coming out
Speaker 1: of mostly out of the House. Um, you know, so
Speaker 1: it has to come out of the House first, and
Speaker 1: then um, move on over to the Senate. I think
Speaker 1: that's where the rubber may meet the road. You know,
Speaker 1: there's some of the things that could pass the House
Speaker 1: may not pass in the Senate where the vote margin
Speaker 1: is much narrower. Do we have any numbers? Do we
Speaker 1: have any like how much any of this would actually cost?
Speaker 1: You know, one thing that's going to be a real
Speaker 1: challenge is that cost issue. So um, Republicans will want
Speaker 1: their plan to cost um to to have on the
Speaker 1: cost side to cost somewhat lower than the A C A.
Speaker 1: They also want to repeal a lot of the taxes,
Speaker 1: potentially all of the taxes in Obamacare. That math is very,
Speaker 1: very difficult, and um, we don't know how they're gonna
Speaker 1: how they're gonna but I mean, is there like a
Speaker 1: big number out there that we can I mean, may
Speaker 1: not be accurate for what turns out to be the result,
Speaker 1: but I mean, right now, is there any idea how
Speaker 1: much any of this cost? Or is it sort of
Speaker 1: like healthcare you don't know until actually have to go
Speaker 1: and pay it. Yeah, I think it's so much of
Speaker 1: it's going to be in the details, you know. One
Speaker 1: of the big questions how bigger the subsidy is going
Speaker 1: to be? All Right, I want to thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Zach Tracer is our healthcare reporter of for Bloomberg News.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you're gonna be following this for quite a while.
Speaker 1: I mean, thank you very much for your your insight.
Speaker 1: Shares of a j C Penny down about eight percent
Speaker 1: right now, after the retailer says it's going to shut
Speaker 1: as many as a hundred and forty stores. Here to
Speaker 1: tell us more, Punom Goyal, retail analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence. Punom,
Speaker 1: let's begin with J C. Penny and tell us what
Speaker 1: are they doing in order to fix what looks like
Speaker 1: a very challenging experience. Sure, I think you know there's
Speaker 1: very little that they can do to really fix the issue.
Speaker 1: Traffic is a secular issue for retail and all brick
Speaker 1: and mortars, So to reverse traffic and get it to
Speaker 1: actually increase in stores is probably not something anyone can
Speaker 1: turn around as quickly as they'd hope. But what they
Speaker 1: can do is fix their apparel business. The apparel business
Speaker 1: is more than fifty percent of their sales, and it's struggling,
Speaker 1: especially women's apparel, which is total business. Well, can you
Speaker 1: can you zoom out a little bit? Because we've gotten
Speaker 1: a lot of retail earnings this week. We've gotten l Brands,
Speaker 1: We've gotten Coals, we've gotten Macy's in addition to J C. Penny,
Speaker 1: Is there anything that you can see that sort of
Speaker 1: a unifying feature of all of the earnings that can
Speaker 1: point to the state of the retail industry, sure, so
Speaker 1: all of them across the board. Traffic is weak, but
Speaker 1: the number of people in the stores stores, yeah, Basically,
Speaker 1: people aren't going to stores anymore. They're going less and
Speaker 1: less and they're shopping more online. The other thing is
Speaker 1: that's something they can't control. But what they can control
Speaker 1: across the board is their inventory, and all of them
Speaker 1: are lean on inventory, which means that they have less
Speaker 1: product in store so they don't have to mark the
Speaker 1: product down if sales don't meet plan, and that helps
Speaker 1: their gross margins. You mentioned women's apparel. What's wrong with
Speaker 1: the women's apparel offering at j C Penny? You know,
Speaker 1: I think it's just the brands that they have. There
Speaker 1: aren't that many national brands and women's apparel, so it
Speaker 1: really hinges on the private and exclusive brands that each
Speaker 1: retailer carries. The problem is not just that j C. Penny.
Speaker 1: Macy's has the problem too, and so does Calls. I
Speaker 1: think women are just you know, shopping where they find
Speaker 1: the right fit, where they find the right product, and
Speaker 1: they're not as loyal to where they shop, so if
Speaker 1: they see things online, they're willing to go there and
Speaker 1: try it out. Well, I'm wondering, then, does it need
Speaker 1: to have a real rethink of what that real estate
Speaker 1: that big box is all about. Because if you can't
Speaker 1: necessarily sell the clothes and the appliances in order to
Speaker 1: boost your returns, then why not use that real estate
Speaker 1: to invite different types of merchants to come in and
Speaker 1: actually create some foot traffic. That's what we would like
Speaker 1: them all to do. They're just very slow to move
Speaker 1: towards that. You heard Coals talk about it a little
Speaker 1: bit when they talked what are they waiting for? They
Speaker 1: waiting for a final collapse of the big box retail Uh,
Speaker 1: you know location because it seems as though this has
Speaker 1: been going on that you know about it, We know
Speaker 1: about it, the country certainly knows about it. What's keeping
Speaker 1: them from innovating lower rents so the big box retailers
Speaker 1: the department stores don't pay that much rent because they
Speaker 1: were considered the traffic drivers when you know the mall's
Speaker 1: first opened and um. Therefore, since the rents are low,
Speaker 1: they're slow to innovate. UM. And that's they have long
Speaker 1: term leases, so they have to work with the rates
Speaker 1: to come up with plans to add other categories or
Speaker 1: even other retailers, or even maybe give up a floor
Speaker 1: of the space. Many of them owned two floors. Do
Speaker 1: they really need two floors? I don't think so exactly.
Speaker 1: Why isn't there a Starbucks, let's say in every J C. Penny, Well,
Speaker 1: there's a Sephora, right, that's true. So which company of
Speaker 1: these brick and mortar retailers is doing the best job?
Speaker 1: I think North Term is doing the best job. You
Speaker 1: saw it in the results yesterday after the market closed.
Speaker 1: They really, you know, kept their inventory tight to drove growth,
Speaker 1: margin expansion. And while full line is still pressured, um,
Speaker 1: you know, Rack is also a little pressured. Their online sales,
Speaker 1: which are twenty five percent, which I think is the
Speaker 1: highest of the department store group is growing double digits. Well,
Speaker 1: the stocks up stocks up four percent right now. J W.
Speaker 1: Nord's from up at dollar eighty six cents, and they
Speaker 1: said that the President Trump's tweet against them had a
Speaker 1: quote negligible impact on sale. So who's doing the worst
Speaker 1: job in your opinion? I think L Brands right now?
Speaker 1: Quite frankly. I mean, they're a really good brand. But
Speaker 1: when they cited their quarter was AT's say, okay, today
Speaker 1: own but the February remarks that they made with victorious
Speaker 1: secret sales down almost that's a huge miss. I think
Speaker 1: they really need to think about what's happening in the
Speaker 1: lingerie space. They've dominated that space with elevated pricing, brand perception,
Speaker 1: and there's just been more competition there. So I think
Speaker 1: they need to think about what to do next and
Speaker 1: how they're going to preserve share where their price points
Speaker 1: are much much higher than competition. Uh and just a
Speaker 1: real quick with J. C. Penny's approach to shut up
Speaker 1: to one hundred and forties stores, do you think that
Speaker 1: this will be sufficient for them? I think there will
Speaker 1: be more. I think this is the first step. They
Speaker 1: have over a thousand stores that will bring them to
Speaker 1: a little over eight to fifty. And it's said in
Speaker 1: many reports, you know, there's about four five hundred moles
Speaker 1: in America that you want to be in, So that's
Speaker 1: still a lot more stores fun what most retailers would
Speaker 1: want to be in. Yeah. It says that the closings
Speaker 1: represent as much as of the company's store base, but
Speaker 1: just less than five percent of total sales. It seems
Speaker 1: like they're targeting the stores that have the lowest foot traffic.
Speaker 1: Punam Goyle, thank you so much for joining us as
Speaker 1: always very informative on this peak week for retail earnings.
Speaker 1: Peanter Punam Goyle, senior US retail analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence,
Speaker 1: speaking to us from our headquarters in Princeton, New Jersey.
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Speaker 1: shirts made Smarter. This is Bloomberg Market Time. PIM Fox,
Speaker 1: along with Lisa Abramowits I want to bring into lou
Speaker 1: Olo Rooney Pa. He is our White House reporter. He's
Speaker 1: at the White House for Bloomberg News to get his
Speaker 1: analysis of President Donald Trump's speech today at the Conservative
Speaker 1: Political Action Conference that was at the Gaylord National Resort.
Speaker 1: And Convention Center. To Lou, is anything specific that that
Speaker 1: stood out for you? I was gonna ask you about
Speaker 1: the Europe his comments about Europe and and Sweden and France,
Speaker 1: but maybe something else stood out to you. Well. It
Speaker 1: was a very long speech. She talked for about fifty minutes,
Speaker 1: and he talked about just about every different topic that
Speaker 1: his administration has has covered in a short time. It
Speaker 1: was sort of a mismatch of his his campaign speeches
Speaker 1: over the last year and a half. His inauguration speech
Speaker 1: he had some lines from there, and obviously the on
Speaker 1: going what he calls a war with the media, which
Speaker 1: he is called the enemy of the American people. He
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time talking about that. Right, we
Speaker 1: are all fighting fake news, and he tried to distinguish
Speaker 1: fake news from all news. Uh. He also went back
Speaker 1: to build the wall and uh talking about military strength.
Speaker 1: To Lou, I really want to ask, has you have
Speaker 1: you ever seen a president before who, right after getting
Speaker 1: an office, makes no effort to reach across the aisle
Speaker 1: and try to unify the different parties and and just
Speaker 1: sort of sticks to the same kind of tone that
Speaker 1: they took during the campaigning. I have not and it's
Speaker 1: definitely a sign that this president wants to continue to
Speaker 1: rely on the base that brought him into office. He
Speaker 1: believes that if he was able to get into office
Speaker 1: using this strategy that you know, if it's not broken,
Speaker 1: why why change it. So it does seem like he's
Speaker 1: you know, appealing specifically to his base and making a
Speaker 1: lot of enemies along the way, including our European partners
Speaker 1: who he singled out in the speech in Germany and
Speaker 1: Sweden and France. Well, tlue to that point. The strategist
Speaker 1: who you speak with, do they think this is going
Speaker 1: to be effective? Uh, well, I think it's effective in
Speaker 1: one way in terms of keeping his base, you know,
Speaker 1: rallying behind him. But obviously we remember that the president
Speaker 1: did not win the popular vote and and continues to
Speaker 1: suffer from very low approval rating. So in terms of
Speaker 1: being able to coalesce the Republican Party around him and
Speaker 1: actually bring up on Democrats that he's going to need
Speaker 1: to get through legislation, it does not appear that it's
Speaker 1: going to be effective because we're not seeing very many
Speaker 1: people go across the aisle to say, you know, Democrats
Speaker 1: saying that I will support President Trump. We're seeing larger
Speaker 1: resistance and even some Republicans that are uh, you know,
Speaker 1: going up against their own Republican members of Congress saying
Speaker 1: that they're not happy with the way things are going.
Speaker 1: He also mentioned the issue of NAFTA and trade agreements
Speaker 1: that the United States has previously signed. We know about
Speaker 1: the TPP Trans Pacific Partnership. It was almost a done
Speaker 1: deal that that was not going to make it to
Speaker 1: the to the Senate floor. Can you speak to us
Speaker 1: about the international relationships that the United States has, because
Speaker 1: it seems as though that has been one of the
Speaker 1: sore points, at least so far, of the US administration's
Speaker 1: relations with the overseas partners. That's definitely true. The President
Speaker 1: has said that he's pursuing in America first policy, and
Speaker 1: that often leaves some of our international partners and allies
Speaker 1: wondering whether the US is going to abandon these long
Speaker 1: standing partnerships when it comes to trade. The President did
Speaker 1: pull out of the TPP deal. He's also basically said
Speaker 1: that he does not want to engage in multilateral deals. Um.
Speaker 1: He wants to engage one on one with different countries,
Speaker 1: and he wants to, uh, you know, take another look
Speaker 1: at NAFTA, one of the long standing trade deals between
Speaker 1: the U S And Canada and Mexico, and a lot
Speaker 1: of these countries that are our allies are wondering whether
Speaker 1: the US is going to take a more nationalist in
Speaker 1: isolation isolational stance and if they do, um these countries
Speaker 1: are wondering what that means for. Was the audience at
Speaker 1: the Sea Pack event this time the same as it
Speaker 1: has been in previous years. It was largely the same audience.
Speaker 1: You had a number of libertarians, you have a number
Speaker 1: of conservatives, a lot of young people. This year, we
Speaker 1: did not see as many members of Congress who attended
Speaker 1: or spoke at at this event. Uh this seems to
Speaker 1: coincide with the recess portion of the congressional schedule and
Speaker 1: a lot of Congress members are back home and they're
Speaker 1: facing crowds of their own with these town halls where
Speaker 1: members are facing protests. But for the most part, it
Speaker 1: was very similar to what we've seen in the past,
Speaker 1: but maybe a little bit more cheers and happiness at
Speaker 1: the idea that there's a Republican Congress, Republican House, and
Speaker 1: sent along with the Republican White House. So in other words,
Speaker 1: this was the same audience that rejected President Trump last
Speaker 1: year the year before. I suppose I should say, yeah,
Speaker 1: the President has a long history of over the last
Speaker 1: five years of going to see pack and when he
Speaker 1: was there, he was not received with such a you know,
Speaker 1: a receptive audience, in part because no one thought he
Speaker 1: was actually going to run for president. But now that
Speaker 1: he's run and he's actually won the presidency, a lot
Speaker 1: of people that are embracing him and they're they're sort
Speaker 1: of trying to merge their version of conservatism with Trump's
Speaker 1: and uh and be a big tent party. So we'll
Speaker 1: see how that works. Tolue another area, Dakota Access Pipeline
Speaker 1: and Keystone. He spoke about that, speak a little bit
Speaker 1: about the energy policy and what that what the plans are. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the President said that, you know he uh, he basically
Speaker 1: said that he's authorized construction of the Keystone and Dakota pipelines.
Speaker 1: These are pipelines that were stopped under the Obama administration. Uh.
Speaker 1: The President said that also that he wants all the
Speaker 1: pipelines that are built in the US to be made
Speaker 1: with US steel. We're not sure exactly how he's going
Speaker 1: to go about enforcing that, but he basically said that,
Speaker 1: you know, he's unshackling the the the US energy market
Speaker 1: and allowing uh, you know, these pipelines to be built
Speaker 1: and allowing uh, the US to access the energy that's
Speaker 1: that you know, he believes it's under the ground. So
Speaker 1: it's definitely a market shift from what we saw under
Speaker 1: President Obama, who took a much more environmentalist stance on
Speaker 1: energy and you know, halted a number of these pipeline projects.
Speaker 1: President Trump says that these are good for jobs, and
Speaker 1: he does not think that the environmental regulations are as
Speaker 1: important as the jobs that could be created through these
Speaker 1: different pipeline projects. Talu Alarnapa, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: joining us. Bloomberg White House correspondent at the White House
Speaker 1: Busy busy man, Thank you so much for taking the time.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg P and L podcast.
Speaker 1: You can subscribe and listen to interviews at iTunes, SoundCloud,
Speaker 1: or whatever podcast platform you prefer. I'm pim Fox. I'm
Speaker 1: out there on Twitter at pim Fox. I'm out there
Speaker 1: on Twitter at Lisa abramoid One. Before the podcast, you
Speaker 1: can always catch us worldwide on Bloomberg Radio. P and
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