wages, more than six times faster than our wages. the ways in which we can reduce the kinds of numbing in unsustainable numbers is to get some real competition in the work of the-- marketplace but the one of the healthcare insurance companies arguments against public providers is a public insurance company would be able because of their nonprofit status, they are not needing to make a profit and lower administrative cost to offer lower premiums to customers. yes, that is my next word, yes. yes, what exactly is wrong with this? [laughter] that is the point of competition in the marketplace. i realize that the insurance companies don't want to have that kind of competition that let me assure you the american public desperately needs it. it is really simple. [applause] a lower priced products and we

see them all the time, insurance policies. we have not seen that but would like to. a cellular phone, a pair of running shoes goes on the shelf and competitors even have to make the case why their product is better and therefore worth more or they have to price their products more competitively. this is, they can offer a better product or price more competitively. it doesn't seem that difficult concept in the that they are trying to make this something we really don't want to have happen is, makes you think you are none of this backward swirls and the children's cartoons. [laughter] i have decided that the fact that the public injure destiny to make a profit quoted at an unfair advantage? i don't think so. there are right now for-profit and nonprofit insurers in the marketplace. i never heard the for-profit companies complain that those

pesky not-for-profit companies are having an unfettered advantage. and in fact according to health insurance colorado gutknecht which is the only thing i could find this quickly this afternoon-- [applause] hearing it from denver. they are not. in fact the cost of policies is the same whether or not it was a non-profit or profits of the fact that the insurance companies are using it is one of the reasons we can't or we don't want to have a public provider that we need to have profit is part of the, part of the picture is certainly wrong. back to my sister for a second. as the dime robot for hands and into the train the words formed on her lips and we forgive for this small selfishness because first he was five years old, and another is that in this case, the someone else was god, and nancy could be forgiven for thinking he had a much better chance of getting that time then she did. [laughter] we learn something else.

we learned those who are dependent on our remembering them and planning for them can be the first to be jettisoned in a moment of need for a moment of great. another argument was made quite cleverly last night when the questions to the president, made by the ceo of aetna andy said there was not a level playing field because the public insurer would be in the market regulated by the government, suggesting the government might create regulations for, vetted banners the public unsure what creating a disadvantage for private insurance companies. i have got a couple of responses. one is the lobbyist for the chief lobbyist for the health insurance policy industry. this is a seriously smart and well spoken women. i can't believe that any efforts two of the government to try to rig the market to benefit the public insurer would not be met with the legitimate an outcry from her. more importantly we know from

experience is simply not true. how do we know? senator harry reid has called attention to the american public to that. he said the post office has competitors. fedex and ups have been doing pretty well. is a matter of fact they are doing well even though there is a competitive than it for them, that the government has done. that mailbox cannot be used by federal express and ups. it can only be used by the post office, so they do have a competitive advantage. they are the only one with access to the mail. all companies private and public profit and non-profit luedke alexis to your mailbox into your business. which leads to another point. nothing, and this is something i think that is used, has to be used as a scare tactic since it is so far from the truth that there is no other reason for it. nothing in the bill is being considered in congress right now or suggested by president obama

wove require that anyone choose the public provider. you get, if you were just love blue cross or you look united health care, you love cigna, you can stay with that. there is no reason whatsoever he would have to change. honestly if i were in the middle of chemotherapy right now the idea of changing anything that seem to be working for me might scare me. you don't need to be afraid of the public provider. anybody can choose it, and anyone can say i don't want it. are choices don't get smaller. are choices get larger at least by one. and what is mark, the market works the way it should, your choices become less expensive too which is pretty important right now for a middle-class family has an average income of $80,000 the average health insurance policy for the middle class family is $12,000, making insurance cost a little bit less is pretty important as your kitchen table. if we want to solve family's

economic downturn we need to remember that 62% of bankruptcies are attributable to a significant degree on crippling healthcare costs and you think the sub-prime mortgage crisis is behind all of those foreclosures? you are half right. hip of the foreclosures appear to be attributable instead to the cost of the burden of health costs. [applause] but whatever our macrogoals are with respect to healthcare, in the end there is only that one rule that we have to meet when people are sick, they get the healthcare that they need. i think about sheila, the woman in cleveland, a lot. in many ways, her story seems to be a story about hopelessness and surely on one level it is. but it is also a story about help. sheila believed in america, if you got the chance, maybe on your lunch hour, you could find someone and if you just whispered in the right persons

year, things could change. i don't know if she looked at the right persons when she spoke to me. she actually left by the time we tried to pucker up with some of the cleveland clinic and i hope she has gotten the care that she needs, but i heard her and all the people she represented and i use every opportunity to repeat her plea. when people get sick they should get the care they need. she whispered in my ear, i have spoken in yours and it is time to shout in the ears of those who will decide whether the sheila's of the country will get that healthcare. i and the speech the way and my speeches, i mentioned my diagnoses in 2004 alone i release 65,000 milson 30,000 pieces of snail mail. i read each and learned so very much from the lessons are undoubtedly it buys that the advocacy case managers of the foundation know and have shared for years. i learned to become a survivor on the day you are diagnosed, and learned that humor is a great weapon, which standard

taught me when she wrote during her third bout with cancer, she also sent prayers and hers are regrets that your hair loss made her look like dick cheney. [laughter] i learned about the value of living as sander did when she wrote that although she was almost 60, it seemed really old when i read it and i'm eight days from 60 and it does not seem quite so old to me now. she continued hooked up to an ivy enduring radiation sessions made plans to buy a harley. i want to tell my oncologists my cancer is a my bones and i'm not buying a harley so they can rest without fear of my falling off of that. you all saab me about the presence of faith among us, like the man who wrote that his father had seen of the great religious shrines around the world that never been anyplace is very agile as a chemotherapy waiting room. he told me there would be hard times, adel who i hope to meet

sunday gave yourself one cried daily and decided to be in the shower. although she never allowed herself to for children, she did admit some day she took to showers. they were alive and that is the victory each and every day and that we have the power to decide whether this defined says. rachel who had been battling a brain tumor for 14 years said it does not define me. it is just one small part of who i am. i'm not a woman with a brain tumor. i am rachel. i am married to bill, i'm a counselor, i have green eyes, and i have a brain tumor. i am elizabeth, i am married to john, i have had for delicious, incredible children. i have blue eyes. i like to make the sandwiches and i'm the patients with breast cancer. thank you so much for the opportunity to speak before such an inspiring group. [applause]

[applause] thank you. if you will sit down the can do a few questions of somebody has the microphone up here at the front. i know you are not shy in your real lives. there was somebody pretty far back with their hand up. the mic come here it is. it is coming to you. >> my question is that, in going across today in speaking with senators or staff members are

congressmen, that we approached their staff members, and were amazed that we were told we don't know how they stand on healthcare because there is no bill. >> what a dot. >> we have krementz-- met by responses of stuttering and no one had any clear positive words to tell us. >> the legislative assistant's dealing with healthcare are busy at work. and not that there's so uninformed or dodging your questions. i urge everybody who hears this to speak out about what it is that you want to see a healthcare reform, particularly if you do as i know a lot of you have done today and that is to tell your stories to i think it

was really right the comment earlier that the stories are so empowering, and in addition to everything else the senators love to get up and tell a story about real human being and an effect a particular policy might have on them so you are telling these stories is enormously important but sometimes you have deppan them down. what does he think or what does she think about the coverage of preexisting conditions? what is your sheet think about provisions either whether it is a mandate or a public provider or the different criteria that you think are enormously important and the product you want to see at the end of the day. sometimes you have deppan them down that way and if they still don't know, say then perhaps we can inform you in such a way that will affect your, if you think it looks like it's going to take more time i did them less time, you might actually get them to either give you a straight answer or you get the chance to educate them if they don't know anything about where it is. i get afraid that there will be

educated, instead of by patients and by the american public they are going to get educated in caucus rooms where they are talking just to themselves so it is important that they be educated instead bayeux. >> thank you. [applause] >> if you don't have any questions i don't have to answer them, so. [laughter] >> thank you very much. >> i am so glad you were here. how you find your strength? you are such an inspiration for all of us. >> thank you very much. i think that there are people like me, what happened in my life is that i gained some celebrity that had nothing whatsoever to do with anything i had ever done. and, that i had cancer and because i did, and because my

necessity, i am just going to lose my hair, so it wasn't going to be secret for long. i went ahead and win public and try to make use of that. and comment that they got responses from people who said that they got mammograms and then the treatment that they needed, because they heard my story, so it was worth it to me. my life was changed because i went public with it, but i consider myself honestly just a representative because except for that celebrity part, which had nothing to do with me i'm just like every other person who has gotten cancer, finding the strength when they needed to, sometimes falling apart when they could. adel taking that second shower, finding what you need from the same places to find strength. we find strength all the time. some plea stephen's we are able to do it and i think i honestly have had a pretty easy in part because i have that coverage and what they needed to worry about

was my helsel as long as my health insurance company was paying, and i know that it is there, don't have to worry about whether i am going to be able to get whatever the next friedman is or what the next scan is and i'm going to get the treatment that i need so part of the ability to have strength is to know that you have got those lifelines behind you, which is why the work that you will do and making certain windows, it looks like there is the unraveling for people the patient advocate foundation the people in this room turned around and making huge difference and make certain that those of there. i don't think i'm special in any way. i think most people in this circumstance respond the same way i do in the very fact that somebody find center phone number or gets on the internet, does patient advocate.org-- i think that is it. foundation advocate.org. i tested several times myself, so i should know, but a patient advocate that award. that is really an exercise and

strength. i am not going to take it. i'm going to find a way in the patient's advocate foundation is going to help me. [applause] >> at the patient's advocate foundation, the highest award that the present is the advocate of the year award, and it is with great honor and privilege that we present to you the advocate of the year award. [applause] [applause] >> it is the last day in

congress before the july 4th recess. the house gaveled in this morning to complete work on the 2010 interior environment spending bill. they just pass that measure two wonton 54-173. that legislation providing $32 billion for the interior department, epa, u.s. forest service and related programs. also possible this afternoon it climate change measure that aims to preserve the greenhouse gases are requiring the use of alternative energy. the legislation charting greenhouse gas reductions of 17% by the year 2020. live coverage of the u.s. house is on c-span. senators have already begun their july 4th recess. the chamber will not return until monday, july 6 that 2:00 p.m. eastern and when they return expect work on legislative branch spending. the bill appropriating $3 billion for entities that include the library of congress, capitol police and the government accountability office. live coverage of the senate continues here on c-span2 when members scabble back in.

>> this week saw the release of more than 150 hours a secret audio recordings from the nixon white house. from early 1973 on the agreement to end the vietnam war. >> we are not to have any advance information, is that clear? the message is not to be from me. is that clear? >> more from the newly released tapes, saturday afternoon on c-span radio. >> conservation is the beginning of the 20th century was a battle. there were two sides just like there are now on land issues, she do drew in anwr? >> historic douglas brinkley on teddy roosevelt and his leading role in the early days of the conservation movement. >> he was not what we call by modern terms a kind of holistic-- he believed in hunting, but he wanted, he did not believe in haunting so you would make a species extinct, so yes, he cared about snail

darters, he cared about butterflies, he cared about wildflowers. he wanted to make sure we had a place for that in modern society. >> sunday on q&a prior two of douglas brinkley on the wilderness warrier, theodore roosevelt in a crusade for america. sunday night at 8:00 on c-span or listen on xm satellite radio, del mugged c-span podcasting watch part one of our interview with douglas brinkley at c-span.org. >> rath remarks now from the president of the washington nationals baseball team, stan kasten. we talked about the process of developing the team which came to washington in 2005. from the national press club, this lasts about an hour. >> my name is donna leinwand and i'm a reporter with "usa today," and the president of the national press club. we are the world's leading professional organization for journalists and are committed to a future of journalism by providing informative

programming, journalism education and fostering a free press worldwide. for more information about the national press club, please visit our web site at www.press.org. on behalf of our 3,500 members worldwide, i would like to welcome our speaker and a guest in the audience today. i would also like to welcome those of you for watching us on c-span. we are looking forward to today's speech and afterwards i will ask as many questions from the audience as time permits. please hold your applause during his speech so we have time for as many questions as possible. for broadcast audience i would like to explain that if you hear applause and it may be from the guests in the general public to attend our luncheons and not necessarily from the working press. i would now like to introduce our head table guest and ask them to stand briefly when their names are called. from your right, peter blank, editor of the kepplinger tax

letter and former first baseman of the nbc's softball team. kerry braxton, president of global business solutions inc. and a member of the, current member of the npc softball team. lisa pagano, communications manager for the nationals and a guest of our speaker. john allen, a reporter for "congressional quarterly" and the shortstop of the npc softball team. i sent the theme. the vice president of communications and community relations for the nationals, also a guest of our speaker. skipping over the podium for just a moment, we have jonathan this is a land of bloomberg news, a former nbc president, the speakers committee member who organize today's lunch and the coach of the division winning, a division championship in pcs softball team. scathing over our speaker we have jeff, columnist for the

washington examiner. are you a member of the softball team? okay, disloyal. israel, community relations director for the nationals. paul dixon, author of the dixon baseball dictionary and other books. and finally, we have amy from platts and an original member of the npc softball team. [applause] of the old washington senators it was often said washington, first in war, first in peace and last in the american league. substitute nationals for senators and national league for american and you can describe the situation for our local major league team today, and today speaker. in fact, it is hard to think of anyone that this had a worse season than the washington

nationals except for perhaps the republicans. [laughter] today's speaker formerly served as president of the atlanta braves, who ran off in an unprecedented 14th straight division titles. the braves have not won since he brought his baseball expertise to the nationals. so far however, success on the field-- ball field has eluded the nation's capitol despite a new stadium attendance is down unless you count the red sox fans. and so it is the wind loss record. still they did beat the yankees to a lot of three earlier this month. [applause] by the way, that is the team that mr. kaston rooted for as a kid. when mr. kaston spoke at the club for years ago we talked about how he was building a club through the farm system. you connecticut brian zimmerman, the star third baseman and

pitchers like jordan zimmerman and start seeing the fruits of those efforts. still, the matsen remained mired in last place. rumors are swirling that their manager will be fired. general manager jim bowden has already left and a permanent replacement has yet to be named. questions of bounds. will they be able to sign their first round draft pick, picture stevens frostburg. considered the best prospect in a generation. will the learned family, the bethesda real estate developers who own the team open their pocketbooks a bit wider and bring in some better players so that the or not talked about in the same sentence as the 1962 new york mets. mr. kaston himself has been a subject of criticism in "the washington post" and the washington times. then again, the "atlanta journal-constitution" once questioned why he got the contract extension. ..

that will degree probably comes in handy when he has to negotiate contracts with scott boras who is representing the aforementioned stevan strous-berg petraeus questions probably won't be as hard as those negotiations have so let's welcome stan caston to the national press club. [applause]

>> thank you, donna. it's always great being here at the press club. i always enjoy whether i am speaking here or coming for speeches this is always fun for me. i see so many friendly faces in the audience today. also see plenty of media. [laughter] you know, when i do speeches i often ask -- i often start by asking to we have in the media in the room today. and the reason -- a couple reasons. first of all when there's no media in the room i can tell people things i might not otherwise. but the main reason is you often see people getting in trouble for their quotes, for their stories and the routine, the knee-jerk defenses, i was misquoted, i didn't say that. let me tell you something, i've been in this business 30 years. that has never happened to me. every time i've gotten into trouble is because they quoted me correctly.

[laughter] so i always have to be careful when i am in a group like this. i am heartened that today we have jonathan here. he will be -- he will be helping decide the questions later and as the coach of the national press club softball teams he has promised softball questions and so i'm really looking forward to that. i was here a couple of years ago and want to talk about the things i said then. the plan we enunciated back then. how we proceed on that and why the future for the franchise continues to be exceptionally rosy and why i continue to be so optimistic about where we are headed and all of the things falling into place for us. let me start by saying again i came here three years ago. i cannot tell you how much i love d.c.. it's a thrill being here. even on a slow, boring day for most people, everything is exciting.

the pace, the people, not just the international politics, the local politics gets quite exciting from time to time. so everything about the city has been fun. i live right downtown, and what i think is the most beautiful downtown in america has been nothing but a joy, nothing but a pleasure to spend as much time as i get to spend here. that's been a great part of my experience here. when the alert our family of this franchise we set of course i think to have success across the broad spectrum. across the metrics that there are for measuring success for long-term success, sustained success and we talked about three things critically important. the first was the product on the field obviously. the team building through a program, long term development of scouting. the second was the customer experience. and what they go through night

in and night out and third was community relations. those elements in the business setting you translate those as product customer brand. and i were sitting team on the field, the customer experience and community relations. i want to talk about all three today and about some things that maybe haven't been covered well enough by all of the media outlets so i here to share things you may not have heard about before. but let's start with what everyone knows the most about and follows the most and that's the team. i don't need to go through the history of where we were when we got this franchise and what condition -- the long term condition was. it was clear that we needed to spend a lot of time and effort on our scouting and player development apparatus. we set about to do that right away. we put a lot of money into that. we hired a lot of people. thees