the presiding officer: in my capacity as the senator from oregon, i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be terminated. without objection, so ordered. in my capacity as the senator from oregon, i ask unanimous consent that the senate stand in recess subject to the call of the chair.

hearing no objection, so ordered.

this is the first time the arts center outside of our old facility in years since the early '80s, we are thrilled to be at the state of the art facility that shows dynamic growth. people will come here, they will see the third floor where there is a beautiful skyline view of washington d.c. where there will have a reception, then the ballroom doors will open, they walk into the grand ballroom which is gorgeous. this would cover paneling, beautiful whites and a stage where the end of the next two hours roughly they will be a tremendously delicious meal and then they're going to have some of the best entertainment we can offer. >> to is the entertainment this year? >> i get the question of law because we have been announcing

who the entertainment was until tuesday. traditionally it is a stand-up comedian so because this is the first dinner for the new administration our first dinner at the washington center, we went all out and have entertainment coming in from a variety of contributors. first will start off with several debut of the new video kalman, he is barack obama -- i can't give it away but it features the music of the musicians who play with jane's addiction appears in his rocking, can tell you that, it is hilarious and then we will have the awards. the first one is the award for outstanding coverage of progress in the david bloom of or for enterprise reporting. the actually do not know until the announcement at the podium and then will continue on with this special report from the onion news network, a special

investigation in the association and members. am sure they have uncovered all kinds of good secrets for us. and that we will continue on with musical performance, this is an all women's ensemble that was started in washington d.c.. we really wanted to bring them here to showcase our traditions and talents of the city. and then we'll move on and hear from president obama himself ridden i know they have been working on their speech now for well over a week. and finally we will hear from the most expert of experts, john hodgman, the daily show resident comedian an expert and he will be here to present a lecture on i don't know but i know he is an expert to secret world government, he is an expert in president of united states, and also a spears with personal computers so i am sure he will

have some really interesting insight for us and then the party will begin and people will have often continue into the wee hours of the morning. >> mention the president of, will be here. how the rafal isn't yet the president to come to the dinner? >> i think it is -- it is an honor to have the president come here for dinner. the amount of invitations and work he has to do, i can tell you this, it is not easy to get the president here. there are many matters, there are phone calls and invitations, and there is also grouping france crossing that secure invitations. when i heard that he was coming, they were excited, we are thrilled to have him here tonight. >> and the dinner was reschedule a couple times. was that in part to get the president? >> world events got in the way

of our dinner. the first time the president had a meeting in london with prime minister brown. with scheduled our dinner for the meeting and we understand that world business goes on and the next there was a planter in the president's trip to the mideast. so we are more than happy, we have on the whole convention center here, and we picked up our camp and move to a new day and are making it work for him so he can be here with us. >> who else will be in the audience? >> our audience will be fall of a mostly journalists to cover capitol hill, but we have congressman conyers to congressman allyson, we have senator collins, we have the mayor of washington d.c.. there are a variety of people involved in government and media there, and they've also had a member is inviting one person as

a guest and buy a ticket for them. we see a lot of moms and dads of our guests list this year. >> tetherball, chairman of the radio tv correspondent dennis association. thank you. >> thank you.

people don't want to think of the results conservation is a policy as much as a passion, he put aside almost 240 million acres of wild america and son out as people are talking about environmentalism and green movements, roosevelt is becoming the key figure to understand because he was the only politician of his day to absorb

darwin and understood biology and understood the birds, migratory patterns, and understood it mating habits of deer and elk and antelope and actually did something. >> sunday on cue and egg, the first of two hours with douglas brinkley on wilderness warrior, sunday night at eight on c-span. or listen on xm satellite radio or download this c-span podcast. >> now a house hearing on business practices that made insurance companies to cancel or deny health insurance, will hear the stories of people whose individual policies were canceled while they were dealing with serious medical conditions. followed by a panel of health insurance executives. partis tupac of michigan chairs the subcommittee on oversight, this is about three hours. >> the hearing will come to order.

today we have a hearing entitled termination of individual health policies by insurance companies. the chairman, the ranking member and chairman emeritus will have five minutes for opening statement and other members will be recognized for three minutes. before we begin i'm going to ask unanimous consent the contents of our document binder be entered into the record provided that the committee staff may redact any information business proprietary relates to privacy concerns or law enforcement's answer seven. without objection, the documents will be entered into the record and will ask that a copy of a document either be placed at the front table in case witnesses wish to refer to it. i'm going to begin opening statement, i will start with my opening statement for five minutes. every night across america more than 45 million americans go to sleep without health insurance coverage. they do so in fear of a nightmare scenario of developing a catastrophic illness and being

unable to pay for treatment. is this fear that has caused many hard-working americans were not covered by an employer or government sponsored health care plan to purchase individual health-insurance policies. for those americans fortunate enough to afford individual coverage on not immune from the nightmare scenario, because in practice called health insurance rescission. here is what happened to one victim of decision. auto rads was a 59 year-old auto owner was a cross with an aggressive form of non hodgkin's lymphoma, a cancer of the immune system. he underwent intensive chemotherapy and was told that he had to have a stem cell transplants in order to survive. with coverage provided by his individual insurance policy he was scheduled to have the procedure performed but then his insurance company said and i told him it was going to cancel his insurance coverage. he cannot pay for the transplant without health insurance. the stem cell transplant surgery

was canceled. the insurance company told him that it found when he applied for his insurance he had not told the company about a test that had shown that he might have gallstones and an aneurysm or weakness of the blood vessel wall. in fact, his doctor had never told him about these test results, he did not have any symptoms and these conditions do not have anything to do with his cancer of the interest company was going to rescind his policy. effectively tearing up the contract as it never happened and it would not pay for his stem cell transplants. he made a desperate plea to the illinois attorney general's office seeking help to get his insurance company to reverse its decision. he told them and i quote -- i was diagnosed with non hajj can win, here it is a matter of extreme urgency that i receive my transplant in three weeks. this is an urgent matter. please tell me so i have my transplant scheduled from any delay could threaten my life.

the illinois attorney general's office launched an investigation and confirmed that his doctor had never even told him about the test findings and sent two letters to press the insurance company to reinstate his policy. the company relented and he received his stem cell transplants. use able to live three more years before passing away earlier this year. he was one of the lucky ones -- this committee has concluded an investigation into the practice of health insurance rescission and results are alarming. over the past five years almost 20,000 individuals insurance policyholders have had their policies presented by three insurance companies who will testify today, assurance, united health group and wellpoint. per my review of case files of the committee has identified a variety of abuses by insurance companies including conducting investigation with an eye toward a decision in every case in which a policyholder simmons a claim relating to leukemia, breast cancer or in any of a

list of 1400 serious or costly medical conditions. rescinding policies based on alleged failure to disclose the health condition entirely unrelated to the policyholders current medical problem. rescinding policies based on policyholders failure to disclose a medical condition after doctors never told them about. rescinding policies based on is a mistake by policyholders and applications in rescinding coverage for all families -- for rescinding coverage for all members of a family of a summit million to disclose medical condition of one family member. investigation has also found that at least one insurance company wellpoint evaluated employee performance based in part on the amount of money is simply saved the company to retroactive decisions of other insurance policies. according to documents obtained by the committee, one wellpoint officials was awarded it risk for a five, for exceptional performance. based on having said the company

nearly $10 million through recessions. these practices revealed that when an insurance company receives a claim for inexpensive, life-saving treatment, some of them will look for a way, any way to avoid having to pay for it. this is eerily similar to what we found last year in an investigation of long-term care health insurance policies where unscrupulous sales people would sell policies to seniors and then change or revoke the policies once literally was locked into a plan and making payments. the company to engage in these recission practices are new that they are entirely legal and to an extent they are. but that goes against the whole point of insurance, when times are good the insurance company is happy to sign you up and take your money in the form of premiums but when times are bad and you're afflicted with cancer or some other life-threatening disease it is supposed to honor its commitments and stand with you in your time of need their in instead of some of these companies use a technicality to

justify breaking its promise at a time when patients are too weak to fight back. i also like to mention and complement the staff on a supplemental information regarding individual health-insurance market, it is attached to my opening statement will be part of the record. to date we will hear from victims of this practice of recisions as well as three of the leading companies that engage in it. we hope to learn about this problem so that we in congress perhaps there is a comprehensive national health care reform bill can curb abuses and put an end to this unconscionable practice once and for all. i would like to turn to my ranking member mr. walden from oregon for an opening statement. >> thank you mr. chairman. >> opening statement on an oversight hearing in the house about the insurance companies to cancel or deny health insurance. we hope to show you more of this letter -- you can see it on c-span 2 board. now back to the senate as senators remain in a quorum

call. if i had a short recess. and they are officially still in session and we return to our live coverage of the senate here on c-span 2.