>> in fact, it's my understanding, that part-time workers are at the lowest percentage of workers in many, many years right now. >> well, for the if i ever tifi part-time workers have options for affordable health care. they never had that before. they've never had options in the marketplace. they never had some health purchasing coverage for themselves and their families. their full time colleagues have but they have not. so they will have options. >> and just to be clear, i had another really long question. the last part of it, it would be fair to say that the every point along the way you expected this website to work based on everything that you have been told by the contractors up until that point. >> i expected it to work and i desperately want to get it working. >> more than anyone else, i am sure. and we are committed to fixing it. the only thing that i think builds back the confidence of the public is fixing it.

>> thank you. >> gentle lady's time expired. >> thank you, mr. chairman for holding the hearing and thank you for being with us. last week when the contractors built the system were here, i asked them all under oath if they had actually delivered the system they were contracted to build. and all four of them answered yes. i want to ask you, did the contractors deliver the system that you contracted them to build? >> i don't think i can accurately answer that question. what we know is we've a system that doesn't function properly. >> we definitely know that. >> as we fix things, we'll know more about what is broken along the way. and i'll be able to -- >> so would someone in your office know -- someone oversaw the implementation and they said this is the product we contracted and paid hundreds of millions of dollars to build or wasn't. does somebody have the ability to get that information? >> we can say that products tested individually verified individually. >> but clearly was an integrated system.

>> and don't work well together. >> but, you know, i used to write programs for a living. i develop software products for a living f you're developing a system, it's irrelevant if one component works by itself. but when you plug it in together it doesn't work, that's a system that doesn't work. one question i had and others had, somebody in your agency made a decision to change the system. instead of grog a browse area built where somebody on kayak or just like on amazon.com could go shop for products, look at prices before they purchase, which is how consumers are used to doing this y'all made the decision to change it around and gather all the information first before you could let them see prices. was that you who made that decision? >> no, sir. >> was that miss taverner? >> yes. >> and a team that looked at -- >> did that team make that decision because once they saw the prices, and we're getting reports from all our constituents of dramatically higher prices than what they were expecting.

did you make the decision because you knew that when they saw the prices they may not want to bite product so you wanted to gather the information first? >> sir, first i did not make the decision. i was informed about the decision. we didn't -- >> do you agree with the decision? >> it rolled off a number of features. they can see the products. there is no requirement to buy anything. >> i spent two hours to get into a system. i never once did get to a point where i can see the price and got the blank screen that's other people got. i want to share stories from some of my constituents. i -- we started a page on our -- on facebook and twitter and we're collecting share our stories. we're getting lots of stories from my constituents. i want to read a few of them. randal said my health care premium went up 30% to over $350 a month increase. we have michelle, our insurance premiums are going up $400 a month and our deductible increased. then you have shawn from could having ton, my current plan through united health scare no

longer being offered in 2014 due to obama care. in fact, i received a letter stating that the new health care law was indeed the reason for the removal of my current health care plan. madam secretary, what you would tell shawn who liked his plan and now lost it? he was promised by you and the president he'd be able to keep that plan. what would you tell shawn now that he lost his plan? >> i would tell him to shop in the marketplace and out of the marketplace. >> do you really think that's acceptable answer to shawn. >> if united chose not to keep shawn's plan in effect for shawn -- >> because of the law. >> sir, the law said if you keep shawn's plan in place, if he liked his plan, if you only -- then the plan is still there. >> you and i may disagree over who you work for. i work for shawn. you work for shawn, madam secretary. shawn lost his plan that he liked. and there are thousands and millions of shawns throughout this country that lost the plan

they liked because some bureaucrat in washington said we think your plan is not good enough even though you like it, even though you were promised can you keep it, you're now not able to keep that plan. i think you deserve to give shawn a better answer than you just have to go shop for something else even though you like your plan. >> the gentleman's time expired. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, madam secretary for coming to day. i'm going to follow up on mr. doyle's line of questioning. one concern i have with the fallout from the website is that many users who tried to sign up and discouraged becausest proble of the problems will be too discouraged to come back once the site is fixed. what do you plan to do to get those folks to come back? >> sir, we intend to invite them back. formally by e-mail, by message. but we don't want to do that until we're confident that they will have a different experience. so fixing the site is step one. and then inviting people back to

the site to make it clear that when our timetable is fulfilled, they have four months to shop for affordable health coverage on a fully functioning site. we know we're going to have to spend special time on young and healthy merns wamericans who thy don't need insurance, aren't aware of the law, don't want to use a failed or flawed site. we have to spend some particular attention on them. >> thank you. have the software spes infectioinfectio specifications including the test specifications, has that changed since the initial rollout? >> i know that there certainly are some changes because since october 1st -- i'm sorry. >> yes, since the rollout. >> the specifications haven't changed. we are certainly fixing, as i say, speed and reliance is one of the issues we're taking a look at. that's the performance side.

but there also are some functionality sides that things do not work as they can including the enrollment passed on to insurers. so we're fixing functionality. i don't think that's a change in the specs. i think it is actually making the system work the way it should. >> well, are you -- is the department doing a prioritization on the problems? >> yes. >> can you describe that a little bit? >> yes, as of last week when jeff signs joined us for the short term project, we asked him to lead a sort of management team. we have pulled in all of our contractors as well as additional talent that they may have available. we have talked to tech folks in and out of the private sector and insurance, some of their tech experts to get all eyes and

ears, made a full assessment, developed a plan for fixes along the way, have a punch list for going after those fixes and we are doing a daily tech briefing and blog to tell people what we have found, what we have fixed, what's coming next, what the functionality is and we intend to do that until it's fully functional. >> thank you. madam secretary, looking past the initial problems with the aca rollout, do you think that the affordable care act will be successful in bending the health care cost curve and reducing the fraction of our national economy that goes for health care? >> well, i think that we have already had some success. i think the goal is to continue to achieve that, fully insured population arguably with preventative care, an opportunity to see a primary care doctor and not go through the emergency room will in and of itself reduce costs.

having people identified earlier who may have serious problems and managing those problems will reduce health costs. i think the delivery system also needs some considerable help in paying for a number of procedures, number of tests, number of prescriptions but paying for health outcomes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman and madam secretary, thanks for being with us today. appreciate your testimony so far today. what i'd like to do is i'll get these two you. there are so many -- these are questions that we've received from our constituents back home specifically about what's going on with the website and for them. so what i'll do, i'd like to get those two you. but there is a lot of questions here. a lot of thoughts gone into a lot of the questions. but if i could start with last week's testimony when our -- four of the contractors were here.

and in one of the questions that i had posed to miss campbell from cgi and her testimony she stated that they delivered the medicare.gov and federalreporting.gov. were the sites more or less complicated than the site that we were talking about here today? and she said, of course, the site today was more complicated. and in the questioning and from her testimony, and we've been hearing about this testing that wasn't happening that we had individuals out there saying that about two weeks had been done, but i ask her about was there sufficient enough time when they did medicare.gov? and the response she gave me back was on medicare.gov which is a less complicated site and she stated we had sufficient time to test the system before it went live. and i asked her in a follow up then, what was that sufficient time? and she said we had a number of months before the system went

live at that time. and i just want to make sure because again, you know, sometimes things don't get reported accurately. and the "u.s. news and world report" on october 18th of this year and there is some questions going back and forth. i want to make sure that you were quoted properly. after two weeks of review, the hhs secretary concluded we didn't have enough testing specifically for high volume for very complicated project. the on line insurance marketplace needed five years of construction and a year of testing, she said, we had two years and almost no testing. is that correct? >> i don't know the quote. i never suggested that we needed five years. i don't know where that is from. >> that's one of the things we're going to check. >> we clearly ever didn't have five years. the law was signed in 2010. >> and then last week you -- when you were down in texas you

were being asked by a report bert system and the launch. and one of the parts of the question was that at what point did you realize the system wasn't going to be working the way that you envisioned before the launch and why didn't we stop it before the launch? and, again, this is what was reported. we knew that we had another six months we would probably test further. but i don't think anyone fully realized both the volume caused such problems but volumes also exposed some of the problems we had. now going back though to miss campbell's statement that they tested more extensively on a system that was not as complicated but hhs, cms decided to go forward with only a very short period of testing. do you think that was acceptable? >> clearly looking back, it would have been ideal to do it differently. we had a product that, frankly,

people have been waiting decades to have access affordable care. medicare existed well before the website. it's a program that started 50 years ago. the website was an additional feature for consumer ease and comfort. and so they were not launching medicare. they were not delivering health benefits to seniors. they were putting together an additional way to enroll in medicare. i would suggest, sir that, we had deadlines in the law that people had benefits starting january 1st. we wanted a extensive open enrollment period so that a lot of people who were not familiar with insurance didn't know how to choose a doctor or choose a plan had never been in this marketplace or people who needed to understand fully what the law offered had ample time to do that. so the date that i was required to select for open enrollment, that's again part of the

statute, how long would open enrollment be? we picked that date. all the contractors that began early in this process in the fall of 2010 when we issued -- i'm sorry, 2011 when we issued the initial contracts to cgi and qssi new the october 1st date. that was not changed. it wasn't added to as we got closer to system, one of the reasons again that we paeared down what needed to launch is an attempt to minimize the risk to the system to get people to their ability to see clearly what they were entitled to, what the plans were and if they chose to to enroll. clearly, the testing should have been longer, should have been more sufficient. >> gentleman's time expired. >> thank you, mr. chairman. madam secretary, people who are watching this hearing might be under the sum that is there is

some kind of political debate going on over the affordable care act. i think people in iowa don't care anything about who's winning the political debate. they want these problems fixed and they want them fixed now. i think that's the responsibility of everyone in this room to make sure that that happens. i tried to go into the marketplace on october 7th and i encountered problems immediately dealing with the security code questions which required you to select dates. one of them was type a significant date in your life. today is my birthday. so i put that in. i tried three different ways of entering that date and got a message each time, important this is not a valid answer. same thing for the third date entry. and a lot of times when you're registering online for anything and you have to put a date in, there will be a little prompt that tells you what the format is you're required to enter. do you know, have we solved this problem in the security code

area? >> yes, sir, one of the initial issues was just getting people into the site and the id proof clg is a two-step process, one is that you give some preliminary information and you set up a pass word. but the second to insure that your personal data can't be hacked, can't be interfered with is the second step where some personalized questions which only can be verified by you are indeed part of that. again, that was a -- an initial holdup in the system. we focused a lot of attention on that. the first several days it was fixed only to then discover that there were system problems throughout the application. and that piece has been fixed. i would suggest it also was a function of trying to make sure we had the highest security standards, that we were not

cavalier about someone's personal information being able to be addressed and attached. it was a functionality that didn't perform properly. but it does now. >> one of the things that keeps coming up in this hearing because you are from kansas is references to the "wizard of oz." people went to see the wizard because of the wonderful things did he. the affordable care act is doing a lot of great things in iowa. the des moines register said that iowans buying health insurance will face the lowest premiums in the country. increasing competition in our state. iowa consumers are able to choose from 40 health plans in the marketplace. you've mentioned the growth of health care spending is at the slowest rate in 50 years. 50,000 iowa seniors received prescription drug rebates. bans on pre-existing conditions are allowing people to get coverage and switch carriers. and now insurance premium increases are subject to review

and can be rejected by the people reviewing those plans. but all of these good things don't mean anything unless we solve these problems. and what i need to know is how confident are you that the problems will be fixed by december 1st? >> well, again, congressman, i have committed to that date because that is the assessment of both inside and outside experts have analyzed. i think they kicked all the tires and looked at all the system. i know that there's no confidence in that date until we deliver on the date. i'm well aware of that. and that's on me. >> since americans were supposed to have six months to sign up, would you support insuring they still have six months by extending the open enrollment period for two more months? at this point they would have a fully four months of fully functional always to sign up.

again, there are alternate ways and the website right now that people are getting through. the open enrollment period is extraordinarily long. it's about six times as long as a typical generous open enrollment period. and it's important for the insurance partners to know who is in their pool so again they can stay in the market next year and know who they're insuring. so we think that the timetable will allow people four months time to fully use the website. they can use it right now. they can use call center. they can go to navigateors and enroll. >> the gentleman's time expired. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for being theer day. i'm sure there are other things you'd rather be doing. but we welcome the opportunity to have this conversation. i'm going to ask the clerk to bring you a document for you to look at so i can ask you a couple questions. if can you go to page 8 on that,

i have highlighted an item there. but this is a copy of a cgi slide show from october 11th discussing technical issues that must be addressed within the website. and on page 8 what i've handed you, cgi recommended that cgi and cms have a review board to agree on which issues can technically be solved and which should politically be solved. was such a review board convened? >> sir, i cannot tell you. i've never seen this document and i'm not aware of this recommendation. >> and cgi is responsible for the website, correct? >> cgi is responsible for the application. >> for the application. >> yes, sir. >> does it surprise you that in a slide show that they gave in october 11th they acknowledged political reasons for -- >> again, i've never seen this document. i have no idea what that means. did ask you cgi when they came

last week? >> can you find out for us if such a review board was done and if any decisions were made on political reasons or on the other reasons and find that out for us? >> sir, i -- that question needs to go to cgi. i can ask them to report to you. >> this is their document? this is not our document. >> you would turn to page 9 of that document, please. it states challenges on page 9 that says under challenges, unable to determine at this time whether low enrollment counts are attributable to system issues or due to users choosing not to select or enroll in a plan. so those are two completely different issues, obviously. if it is the system issue, that's something you have confidence that at some point will be resolved, correct? >> yes, sir. >> and if it's a user selection issue, that's an entirely different story, is it not? >> yes, sir. >> okay. now, you know, when you use the phrase earlier about a punch

list, that's like having somebody move into a house. someone's buying a new house and they go through and they have been told this house is going to be ready on october 1st. they load up the van, they come in and they get in and it's not finished. part of the plumbing is not right. the wiring is wrong. and they go in. this creates the situation where we -- health care shouldn't be a zero sum game. i mean we want to be fair to everyone. we want to help people who are vulnerable. but at the same time, we shouldn't have to hurt folks. we've got people in my district, in my state who are getting notices of cancellation. they're being told of higher premiums that they're having. and these are great concerns that we have. and how do we work through that? and i want to say i appreciate you accepting responsibility for these initial rollout failures that we've had. but who is ultimately

responsible? it is the president, correct? >> for the website? >> the president is ultimately responsible for the rollout, ultimately. >> no, sir. we are responsible for the rollout. >> but who do you answer to? >> i answer to the president. >> all right. so is the president not ultimately responsible like a company ceo would be? >> sir, he's the president of the united states. i have given him regular reports and those -- i am responsible for the implementation of the affordable care act. that's what he asked me to do. that's what i'll continue to do. >> so you're saying the president is not responsible for hhs? >> sir, i didn't say that. >> so the president ultimately is responsible. i think it's great that you're a team player and taking responsibility, it is the president's ultimate responsibility, correct? >> you clearly -- whatever. yes, he is the president. he is responsible for government programs. >> my time expired. >> the gentleman's time expired.

>> mr. chairman, thank you very much. bring begin, i'd like to ask unanimous consent to submit into the record some articles from new mexico publications, first entitled small business owner health exchange will save me $1,000 a month. >> without objection. >> i see my time did begin there. so i'll try to get through this, mr. chairman. madam secretary, i was inkritrid by a line of questioning asking about the individual marketplace. how volatile was the individual marketplace before the affordable care act became law? >> i would say it wasn't a mark marketplace at all. it was unprotected, unregulated, and people were really on their own. >> madam secretary, the kaiser family foundation reports have over 50% turnout of individuals that have coverage and individual market churn out coverage every year. they either lose coverage, priced out or drop it s that

consistent with what you're aware snf. >> that's an accurate snapshot. about a third of the people are in for about six months. and over half are in for a year or less. >> so individuals that were in the individual marketplace before the passage of the affordable care act did not have the same protections as those in group coverage? >> that's true. >> and would those individuals in the individual marketplace sometimes have higher co-pays? >> higher co-pays, unlimited out of pocket costs for often coverage that was medically underwritten or excluded whatever medical condition they had in the first place. >> so these were typically one-year contracts. if they use the plan because they got sick nor a car descent or a victim of domestic violence, sometimes they would be thrown off the plans or rates would go up? >> yes. >> i think that's important to note, madam secretary. and i'm intrigued as well that my understanding is that last month hhs conducted an analysis that found that nearly six out of tun uninhere issed americans

will pay $100 a month. >> they'll have a plan if that is their choice. >> and that number would be even ier, would be better if more states chose the option of using federal funds to expand medicaid to cover the low income population? >> that's just a marketplace snapshot. those are people that will be in the marketplace. >> madam secretary, i don't think i heard anyone from the other side of the aisle today, my republican colleagues, ask you how can congress work with you and support you in fixing this website and fixing this problem? i hope that we all agree we want this website fixed. i would yield to anyone that would disagree. seeing no one accepting that. i'm glad to hear that we agree with this. now madam secretary, what can congress do to work with you to fix this website? >> well, i'm not sure that there is hands on work that cyou can do.

maybe we have some technical expertise, but i would say getting accurate information to constituents is helpful. letting people know that they can check out the facts in the law. that they may be entitled to some financial support. that cancellation of policies means that the policy that they had may not exist but they have a lot of choices of new policies and a law that now says they must be insured in a new policy. they don't have to be insured by their company at a higher price. >> i appreciate that. going back to the individual marketplace, madam secretary, did this congress in previous years before the affordable care act make it illegal for health insurance companies to raise rates on someone after they submitted a claim for going to the hospital or becoming sick? >> no, sir. >> madam secretary, one last note here. it seems that we received some horrible news that there are bad actors already taking place of fraudulent web sites that imitate the health care xlafrpg or misleading seniors into

disclosing personal information. i signed on to a letter to you led by my colleague representative out of california to request that you prioritize fraud prevention efforts. what has the administration done to prevent the fraudulent acts? >> i can tell you, congressman, the president felt very strongly that that needed to be part of our outreach effort which is it why the attorney general and i convened representatives of state attorneys general, insurance commissioners, the u.s. attorneys and the justice department and the federal trade commission which has jurisdiction to make sure that we first got out ahead of some of this developing consumer outreach. no one should ever give personal health information because personal health information is not needed for the policies any longer. that's a red flag. we want to make sure that people turn over potential fraudulent acts. we have put training in place for navigateors. we have our law enforcement --

>> the gentleman's time has expired. i would just note that we -- with the indulgence of the secretary, we're hoping that we can have all members ask some questions but we also know that with four minutes we're going to have a little trouble. i'm going to ask unanimous consent that we try to limit our questions and answers to no more than two minutes. and i talked to mr. waxman. is that okay? because otherwise we will -- there will be a lot of folks who will not be able to ask a question at all. >> three of us. >> mr. chairman, i would submit that if the questions get submitted we would be happy to provide timely answers also. >> so can i do that? so with that we'll try two minutes. mr. lance? >> i guess i won the lottery on the two minutes, madam secretary. >> time has expired. >> 20 seconds, mr. chairman. on the website, madam secretary,

the contractors testified last week that they needed more than two weeks for end to end testing y in your opinion was there not more than two weeks? >> again, we have products, the insurance policies themselves by companies. we're loaded into the system. so we could test up until then but it wasn't until september, mid-september that that was done. again, the contractors said we would have loved more testing time but we think we're ready to go ahead. >> i believe that will ultimately be a dispute between cms and hhs and the contractors and if there is anything question do regarding that because, obviously that, didn't work. and i had thought given this as the signature issue with the president that the website would be ready. number two, in my judgment the president's statementes were overstatemen overstatements. there's a report in the new jersey newspaper this is morning

that 800,000 people in new jersey who purchased their policies in individual or small employer markets will be affected by this. mr. walden in a previous question mentioned the fact that in an individual market you would be able to keep your policy grandfathered. yet regulations issued by hhs say that grandfathered status would not be a continued for so much as a $5 change in a co-pay. is that accurate? do you believe that that is a significant change? >> sir, we gave, i think in, the grandfather regulations a guide for how pricing could change, medical inflation and i think it was in most cases plus 15%. there were some individual consumer outfacing issues that were more rigid than that.

but i would say that in terms of having companies being able to collect a profit margin, that was certainly built into the grandfather status. >> i think that's too little a change. >> the gentleman's time has expired. >> thank you, mr. chairman. welcome, honorable secretary. thank you for fielding our questions and for responding when you were extended the kurt stoi off -- courtesy to offer a response. as a strong supporter of the aca, i'm frustrated and it's fair to say the american people are frustrated as well. i heard you hear many times this morning say you're frustrated. i think by and large people want this law to work. when i talked to folks back home in the capital region of new york that i represent, even people who oppose the law initially aren't rooting for the failure of the affordable care act. instead, they want congress to come together to fix these problems so that we can move on to real issues that matter like

creating jobs and growing the economy. my home state of new york which also experienced website problems at the outset has now completed enrollment determination on over 150,000 new yorkers. with more than 31,000 having already signed up for quality low cost health insurance. given that many states have had success in overcoming the initial website issues, has hhs looked at what the state web sites are doing as it searches for solutions to fix health care? >> absolutely. and we shared a lot of the information going in. i think that the hub feature that we have in our website that all states are using including the state of new york is fully functional. and that's good news for new york and california and other who's are running their own state web sites. but we are learning from them. we've shared information with them and we are eager for all the help and assistance moving forward. >> thank you. similarly, some states made the

choice of rejecting medicaid expansion that would help some of the poorest citizens get access to the health care situation. this is despite the fact that medicaid expansion is entirely financed by federal dollars. can you comment on hhs' plan in the future to encourage more states to run their own marketplaces and expand medicaid so the law can function as designed? >> absolutely. most recently last week the state of ohio did move into the medicaid market. and we now have 30 governors, i think 27 states have fully completed the process and another three are in the process. republicans and democrats who some of whom sued us about the constitutionality of the act who are now deciding that for the citizens of their state they want to be part of the expanded medicaid. we'll continue to have those conversations. it's not just about the marketplace. it's also about medicaid. >> thank you. >> the gentleman's time expired.

dr. cassidy? >> you said that only if an individual policy is only canceled if it changes significantly. but to be clear, after may 2010 if co-insurance went up by any amount, even by a dollar according to your regulations, that would not qualify as a grandfathered clause. just to add that out there for the record. i gather even by a dollar. that said, i get a letter from someone in my district, adrian. she says that -- she lost her coverage. she lost her coverage because spousal coverage is gone. she's gone on the exchange. she doesn't qualify for subsidy. but that her premium and out of pocket costs under any plan is $10,000 a year. she feels she -- she writes this. she feels betrayed by her government. she has to sit there asking herself is this fair? if you were she, do you think that this would be fair? >> dr. cassidy, i want to start

by the amount that you gave is not accurate. i was told $5, not $1. >> that's for the co-pay, not the co-insurance. for the co-insurance, it's any amount. i have limited time. do you think -- if you were she, if you were adrian, do you think is fair? losing her spousal coverage and now $10,000, no subsidies? >> sir, i don't have any idea what she's looking at. i can tell you that, again, based on what we've seen in the market and what we've seen in the plans, people will be getting full insurance for the first time at a better rate. >> again this is what she reports. do you think it's fair -- if what she reports is true, do you think it's fair? >> i can't answer fair or not fair. i don't know what she was paying or what she is paying now. did she have full insurance? >> richard writes that his daughter received a note that his premium is going up because she's being lumped with older, costlier patients. now it's possible that the only people that sign up will be those would are more costly. does hhs have plans on what to

do if only those who are more costly sign up and premiums rise for snerve. >> everybody? >> sir, that's what we're trying to do to make sure -- >> but if only the costly sign up, do you have plans? >> that's the importance of the individual mandate you just outlined. getting rid of pre-existing conditions, making sure that people -- >> do you have backup plans? >> we will encourage others to sign up. it's why there is a penalty in place. >> is there to assume there are no backup plans? >> the gentleman's time has expired. >> thank you, mr. chairman. madam secretary, nice to see you. come to this hearing with a little different perspective. kentucky's doing a great job with our exchange. as of this morning we had 350,000 people who explored the website. 59,000 started applications, 31,000 are now fully enrolled and new coverage and 5,000 just in the last week. and i think very importantly, more than 400 businesses have begun applying for their

employees as well. so, yeah, the idea this is going to be bad for businesses is not borne out in kentucky. would it be safe to say that if 36 states have done what kentucky and new york and california have done instead of 14 that the rollout would have been much smoother and the website would have been much easier to construct? >> i don't think there's any question that, you know, in january of 2013 we knew how many states were not running their own website and i think mid-february we learned about partnerships. so it was not until that point that we learned that 36 states would actually be coming throughout website. having said that, we should have anticipated. we should have planned better. we should have tested betterment we clearly are running very different vehicle for enrollment than we thought we were going to run in march of 2010. >> right. >> on the subject of cancellation of policies, isn't it true that first of all the

federal government can't require insurance companies to sell insurance? >> that they can't -- >> the federal government can't require insurance companies to sell insurance? >> yes, sir. >> in fact, insurance companies all over the country are making very difficult decisions now about where they want to participate and where they don't. in some markets they're actually trying to get out of the market cancelling people because they want to play in other markets and so forth. they're all making the decisions now. >> we know we have more insurers. 25% more insurers in the individual market than we did prior to the law being passed. >> a lot of dynamics going on here that are not necessarily an indication that the president misled anybody. they're business decisions being made? >> in cancellation policies that one-year contract notice is a routine in the individual market. it has been in place for years. and for a lot of people, they are being canceled because they're being notified you can

no longer be medically underwritten. we won't ever have the kind of limitation on what your policy can pay out or charge you out of pocket rates. those policies will cease to be offered in the marketplace. >> the gentleman's time has expired. mr. guthrie? >> thank you, madam, secretary, for being here. last week we had a guess and the president talked about the alternatives to the website. his phone calling or using paper applications. what he said, i think you said it with the phone, they take the paper applications but they enter them in the same web portal. i know you get the issue of being logged on and off:but there rish u there a -- but there are still issues. it is six to eight weeks to be processed. so if this will be ready in november 30th, you're getting

close to january 1st if it's eight weeks and somebody does lose their insurance so they're signing up for this. even though you have a march 31st open enrollment, what happens to these? is there a contingency plan for the people to continue their insurance? >> sir, i think that we have improvements every day on the speed of the site. circo was giving you early snapshots of difficulty of accessing the site. i think that's greatly improved. >> they said just processing the paper, actually. >> i understand. but it is the site for -- they put the application into the site and get a determination. that's part of what the process is. so the site is part of the portal all the way through. there is an integrated insurance vehicle. and so that will improve. and we, again, with four months of continuous service which is far longer than most people had, some of these cancellation numbers, again this was pointed out from florida blue cross,

it's true of everyone else, these are not january 1st numbers. they are year long numbers. so over the course of 2014 when an individual's policy is due to expire, that individual -- >> but it could expire january 1st and not be able to get coverage if the website -- and the vendor said they needed months to test. they would have liked to have months to test. that's what they said f we're going to get to -- even if it works november 30th. >> we're testing as we go. there is beta testing going on now. that's how we are fixing and identify to identify things. people are getting through every day and we know more -- >> with the paper process, if it does take four weeks, november 30th and people's cancel january 1st, there needs to be contingency for that person. >> typical insurance is 2 to 4 weeks of signup. they will have two full months of signup. >> thank you, madam secretary, for bringing to millions of

americans access to affordable comprehensive health care coverage that's going to be there when they need it. i want to thank you especially as a woman. women can no longer -- being a woman can no longer be considered a preexisting condition. women can no longer be charged more than a man for same coverage and have access to comprehensive benefits like prescription drugs and preventive screenings and free contraceptive coverage and maternity care which is often left out of coverage. the days of complicated pregnancy or domestic violence being a preexisting conditions, those days are over. i want to say to my colleagues after a three and a half year campaign to repeal, to discredit, to even shutdown the government over obama care, i want to say, get over it. we all agree, that there are problems but these are problems

that i see being fixed. i want to say that what we did under medicare part d can be an example of how we can work together. and in fact, chairman upton and i both sent a letter asking for more money for community based groups to help implement the program and make it work. we can work together. so if you could just briefly say how are the navigators -- how important are they in making this system work for the american people? >> well, what we know, congresswoman, a lot of people are not web savvy and are not frustrated by the website because they don't have a computer. they don't want to use a computer, don't trust a computer. they need a live human being to ask questions and get questions answered and talk about the plan and talk about insurance. so the navigators play a hugely important role. we have 2500 trained navigators

on the ground right now. we have thousands more community assisters are trained and ready to go. 45,000 agents and brokers have gone through specific affordable care act training. but those individuals working with their clients, customers and in the case of gafnavigator the public at large, they are not paid by a company and want to help people get coverage, they are hugely important. >> gentlelady's time -- mr. olson. >> i thank the chair and welcome madam secretary. >> thank you. >> i would like to open with a quote from american icon, i'll hold up a poster. it says, if the user is having a problem, it's our problem. i'm glad to hear you raised this philosophy during your testimony today, ma'am. obama care was signed into law 1,256 days ago. and since then, there's been

user problem after user problem after user problem. regarding healthcare.gov, your dputty administrator for consumer information, gary cohen, testified one month ago, where we are sitting, that cms has worked hard to test the infrastructure that will allow americans to enroll in coverage confidently and simply and securely, end quote. and yet according to forbes, and the wall street journal, you told them that you need five years of construction and one year of testing. the program crashed and burned at least three times and the user is still having problems. it's been down the whole time you've been testifying. the system is down at this moment. my question, ma'am is very

simple. when did you know these changes were going down? a month, a day, a quarter? and did you tell the president what you knew? >> sir, i was informed that we were ready to launch on october 1st and the contractors who we had as our private partners told us and told this committee that they had never suggested the delay and that is accurate. our cms team felt we were ready to go. i told the president that we were ready to go. clearly i was wrong. we were wrong. i knew that in any big new complicated system, there would be problems, no one ever imagined the volume of issues and problems that we've had. and we must fix it. >> yes, ma'am. but credible journalists said you knew you needed six years -- >> that quote has been repeated. i can guarantee you i would have

never stated that because the law was passed in march of 2010. i chose the open enrollment date. i don't know where the quote comes from but that is not from me. >> gentleman's time is expired. >> thanks for attending, i suspect deep down most support the concept of reforming insurance market so people have better access to coverage. we have disagreements by the means to get those in. it seems that every day we're hearing something new going wrong. i'm concerned the short term enrollment problems could become long-term insurance market problems. my constituents already losing confidence the federal government is ready to pull this off and in order to restore the trust, to delay the individual mandate penalties until we're sure the system is going to work. not fair to penalize consumers when it is not their fault and make sure additional fits and starts won't cause larger problems. right now less concern about who's to blame and how to fix it

and to ensure it doesn't happen again. all of our constituents want and need health insurance. it would be a huge mistake if we're blinded by our love or hatred that we miss opportunities to address its flaws. to the subject of technical problems becoming market problems. can problems of folks getting into the system snowball into risk pool problems where those who choose not to enroll affect the costs of those who do enroll? >> certainly a risk pool needs a balanced market. you need people who are older and sicker to be balanced with people who are younger and healthier, that's how a pool works. >> at what point will we see a problem having the risk pool if the tech problems cause -- effect entering? what are we going to look for and use to decide something needs to be done? >> again, sir, we will be monitoring during the six months of open enrollment as will our insurance partners who is coming into the pool, that's why we want to give this committee and

others reliable and informed data about not only who it is but what the demographics are and where they live. >> if things aren't better by the end of the next month, at what point do we think about further delays in posing penalties? >> i think that having a defined open enrollment period is one of the ways that you then make an assessment if you have a pool that works or not. you cannot have an unlimited open enrollment period with any insurance company because that really doesn't work. >> thank you. >> mr. mckinley. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> last week -- last week the cji representative at campbell said she met her contract obligations and met specifications and said the only problem she had was with pace. but the pace wasn't part of the specification. do you -- and we asked her, you would testify to, did -- she

said you would testify that she did complete her contract in accordance with the specifications. would you? >> sir, i don't think it's how the product is working that it's supposed to work that anybody finished their job. >> they shortened our time with it. >> so, if she hasn't met their specifications and yet we're still using her, is the american taxpayer still paying money to fix the problems that she didn't do -- her company didn't do in the first -- >> none of our contractors have been paid of the amount -- >> will she be paid for this work into the future? >> we will make that determination as the work goes forwards. as we learned what needs to be fixed -- we'll know about -- >> i'm sorry the time frame, cut it down. >> who owns the software, now that this has been developed with taxpayer money to develop the software to do this -- >> it is owned by the centers for medicaid and medicare

services. >> will they be able to use it by license with other clients? >> not to my knowledge. i think it is specifically designed for the marketplace with these products in minds. >> the last question to try -- >> the clients are the american public. >> under iv and v, she testified that she thought that was something we should have done. under hhs, you recommend or the hhs recommends that for software development, they should have a independent verification and validation program. can you share with us in the time that's gone why we didn't use iv and v -- >> i don't think that's accurate. at every point there is independent testing. >> independent. >> yes and outside -- >> you recommended verification and validation not someone within your staff? >> pardon me? there is a level of self-attested testing and cms

testing and independent test on each piece of the contracting. >> not cns. >> that's what -- >> gentleman's time -- >> it needs to be done independently, people who do not have -- >> is expired. >> i'll get you the information. there are three levels of testing, one is independent for every piece of this contracting, yes. >> mrs. caster. >> good morning, when open enrollment began a few weeks ago the people back home in florida helping neighbors sort through the new options for coverage, the navigators, were taken aback by how grateful people are to have new pathway to the doctor's office and the care they need. affordable options. the -- there are no longer being discriminated against because they had cancer. and diabetes or asthma. they are very grateful. they said, they said to me

directly, it's like they found water in the desert. right now they are surprisingly -- they said it's taking time because people want to sort through all of these options. before they finally sign up at the end of the 26-week enrollment period. we must fix the marketplace to meet their expectations and we have high expectations for you and the administration. i think it's important to point out it's more than just a website. it -- despite the obstruction by republicans in my home state of florida, nationally, even going so far as to shut down the government, millions of americans are already benefitting and there are benefits that are not tied to healthcare.gov. some madam secretary, let's clarify what's working. is it correct to say many of the improvements that the aca makes to employer coverage and medicare were the vast majority

of americans receive their coverage are not dependent on healthcare.gov. >> that's correct. >> so the delays and problems with healthcare.gov do not affect the millions of individuals thanks to the aca who no longer have to worry about lifetime monetary caps on their coverage that previously sent them to bankruptcy? >> that's absolutely true. i think the quote that the president was quoted recently saying if you have health care, you can -- you don't have to sign up for the new marketplace was referring to the large portion, the 95% of insured americans who plans are solid and stay in place and move forward. >> i understand the frustration with the website. i don't know why people are not similarly outraged by the lack of medicaid coverage in many of our states. do you find that hip critical? >> i think it's very troubling that millions of low income working americans will still have no affordable option if states don't take advantage of

the expansion program leaving states bearing the cost of uncompensated care and families and workers not able to go to work and people still accessing care through emergency room doors. the most expensive, least effective kind of care they did g . >> mr. gardner? >> thank you for being here. here's my letter. this is the letter my family got canceling our insurance. we chose to have our own private policy back in colorado so we could be in the same boat as everyone of my constituents. and yet my insurance policy has been canceled. the white house website says if you like your health plan you have, you can keep it. did i hear it wrong? >> again, sir, i don't know how long you've had your policy -- >> why aren't you losing your insurance? >> pardon me. >> why aren't you losing your health insurance? >> because i'm part of the federal employees -- >> you're in charge of this law,

correct, why aren't you in the exchange? >> because i'm part of the federal employee health benefit plan. >> why won't you go into the exchange? you're a part of this law, literally in charge of this law. should you be any different than the americans out there losing their health insurance? >> i'm part of the 95% with affordable eligible health care coverage. >> most americans aren't available to them. why will you not agree -- >> i'm not eligible for the exchange because i have coverage in -- >> you can decide to drop your coverage of your employer. you have the choice to decide not to choose -- >> that the not true, sir. >> members of congress are now part of the exchange thanks to an amendment that was added by congress but i'm not eligible. >> with all due respect. >> if i have affordable coverage in my workplace, i'm not eligible to go into the marketplace, that's part of the law. >> madam secretary, i would encourage you to be just like the american people and enter the exchange and agree to find a

way -- >> it's illegal. i would like to show you an advertisement going on in colorado right now. this is an advertisement that a board member of the colorado exchange put forward, do you agree with this kind of advertising for obama care? >> i can't see it. >> it's a college student doing a keg stand. >> if the colorado exchange did that -- >> do you approve of this kind of advertising? >> i don't see it, don't know what it is and i did not approve it. this is a state based -- >> that's a pretty big picture of a keg and you can't see it? >> do i approve of it? >> you have athe built to opt out and you could take the insurance. >> if i have available employer based coverage -- >> i would like to submit a waiver from my district from obama care and hope you consider waiving it for the fourth congressional district. >> gentleman's time is expired. >> does your policy covered? >> mr. mathison.

>> thank you, mr. chairman, madam secretary, thanks for your time. i want to ask on the issue of the fixes to healthcare.gov, we've had a lot of conversation about that today and talked about confidence levels for being ready by a certain time. i think one question that a lot of us have is, can you define what the magnitude of the problem is? is there a scale or metric by which we can understand how bad this is today and how we're going to get to where we go to have it fixed? >> well, again, sir, i've been informed that the problems are in -- the reports i've seen are really in two areas, they are in the performance area, which is speed and reliability. it's too slow and doesn't have reliable transfers and in functionality, there are parts of the system that don't make accurate transfers. so we have done an extensive assessment. they are prioritized. one of the priorities is the

enrollment features which pass individual information to the companies where they want to enroll. that is not reliable at this point. the companies are not getting accurate data. so an example of the kind of thing we know we need to fix. >> is there a way to -- if you set up metrics figure out if we're making progress in terms of fixing those issues with speed and performance and functionality. >> with the team and jeff zienst at the head of it, there are comprehensive set of issues that will be measured and accelerated. >> do you have target dates along the way if you want to meet the november 30th time, assume it's functional of what you want, do you have target or metrics along the way to make sure you're on the path? >> my understanding is there are sort of groups of targets that fixes that can be loaded together.

it isn't one at a time. they don't take days but they are try being to determine with a specific path, one of the charges that qssi has, really looking at the umbrella of what needs to be fixed, prioritizing them, figuring out what destabilizes if something else is fixed and how they can be grouped together. and that report will be in later next week. >> gentleman's time is expired. >> thank you. i would like to talk about kansas a little bit today. much like with some of my colleagues have made references to the wizard of oz, i don't think anybody not from kansas should do. they worked awfully hard to go down the yellow brick road. when they pulled back the curtain, they found there was nothing they didn't already have. and as we pull back the curtain, people are finding it's not exactly what they have worked so hard to find their way too as well.

two stories, there's this commitment, if you like your plan you can keep it. i have a letter from mr. breeto in kansas, saw him in benton, he got the letter that says because your current plan does not offer the benefits standard qualified you'll be discontinued -- says good news, then there's a group of folks, pizza hut from kansas, franchisees, lots of folks have taken employees and families working there, gone from having full-time jobs to part-time jobs. they aren't able to keep the health care plan they had either and the one they wanted. what do you tell -- why were the plans these folks had good enough when you were the insurance commissioner in kansas and when you were kansas' governor but the plans today aren't good enough for those hard working kansas families? >> sir, i would tell you in the roles i had the honor of serving in in kansas, i worked every day

to try to eliminate the discriminatory features of the insurance industry that finally with the affordable care act are gone. my successor and elected insurance republican commissioner sandy kraeger and i worked on a whole series of plans to expand coverage. i did work on these issues and we were not necessary -- >> you say these were lousy plans and miss tavenner said no true insurance. do you think the plans weren't true insurance? >> in the individual market, the insurance commissioner in kansas and virtually every place in the country -- >> it's a yes -- >> it's a yes or no question. were they true insurance plans? >> a lot of them are not true insurance plans, no. >> i yield back. >> gentleman from vermont. >> i'm going to summarize what i've been hearing. number one, the website must be fixed. you've been very forthright and you're going to fix it. number two, we've had a real

battle about health care, had a battle in this congress. it was passed and the president signed it and the supreme court affirmed it, a brutal battle. there was an election people where the american people affirmed it and then the shut down in the threat of deabt default. all of us represent people who are going to win or lose depending on how effectively this is rolled out. there's significant question about existing insurance policies what the president said and so on. let's acknowledge something. a lot of insurance companies were ripping off innocent american people by promising them insurance until they got sick and then it got canceled because they had a preexisting condition that wasn't disclosed. that's got to end. the challenge for us going forward is to make health care affordable. madam secretary, my question is, is there any indication that

there's been a slowing of premium increases as a result of the affordable care act because, unless we can keep those premium increases down, they can't rise faster than the rate of inflation, all of us are going to lose. >> i would say the trends in the private market over the last three and a half years are that cost increases have slowed down. are rising at a lower rate than the decades before. in fact, in this individual market, the old individual market, the typical increase was 16% year in and year out rate increase. often that came with additional medical underwriting. it gives a sense of how the costs were. we know that medicare costs are down and medicaid costs had a decrease per capita last year, not an increase per capita and underlying health care costs are down. these rates in the new

marketplace have come in about 16% lower on average than was projected. not by us by by the congressional budget office. and we know that in many of these markets, they are much more competitive. i believe in market competitiveness. that drives down rates. the states where the most companies are participating, have the lowest rates. and new companies have come in, significantly below the old monopoly companies that dominated this individual marketplace. we're on a pathway. are we there? no. affordable coverage at the end of the day for everybody is the goal. >> i yield back. thank you, madam secretary. >> i'm trying to make sure you're out of here by 12:30 before we start the second round of questions. >> mr. kissinger. >> that was a joke, right? >> i see sheer panic. >> thank you for being here. you stated earlier to mr. har better, you give the president regular updates and the president said he knew nothing

about the status and functionality of the marketplace. how often and what were the subject of those updates? >> i think there were a series of regular meetings with the president with some of our federal partners with offices of the white house from the omb to others on a monthly basis, giving reports on policy and where we were going, none of those i would say involve detailed operational discussions. that wasn't the level. it was are we coming together? do we have companies and plans. >> i understand that. obviously when it comes to the president of the united states, certain level of details you have to see kind of 10,000, 20,000 foot overview. in terms of functionality, he was legitimately caught off guard on -- >> i assured him and -- that we were ready to go. everyone knew with the big plan that there were likely to be

problems. no one anticipated this level of problems. >> just a quick question. where is hhs getting the money to pay for fixes? is it coming from other hhs accounts? have you used your transfer authority to move money from nonaca programs to pay for the cost of implementing the president's health care program? if so, from which have you drawn money to help with the fix that's not aca related? >> as you know, congressman, it's been two years since we've had a budget at hhs. we also have not had at the president's requested implementation budget, authorized by the congress, each of those years we have used not only resources internally but i do have legal transfer authority that i've used and a nonrecurring expense fund. we'll get you the details of that. >> the answer is yes, there are

non-aca money being used for the implementation -- >> there is money that is specifically designed for either outreach and education, so health centers hired education and outreach people as part of their outreach for health personnel. i would say it's definitely related cause to get expanded health care. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman, thank you madam secretary for being here. my understanding is that a lot of the companies insurers that have been offering plans in the individual market, the ones sending out these notices, are actually repositioning themselves in the health insurance exchange to offer alternative plans. is that -- >> yes. >> and in addition to those insurers who have been in the individual market, you have a lot of other companies and insurers providing plans in health insurance market? >> that is true.

>> so the way i look at this. i went to buy oriole tickets when the season was underway. they closed the window. i didn't have to go home because they opened another window a few feet away. so essentially what's happening is people are coming up on the renewal period and getting up to the window, the individual market and being told that window is closed but if you go right down the line here there's another window that's open. by the way, when you get there, you'll get better coverage, potentially at reduced premiums. if you go down to window 3, these subsidies that may also be available to you. this notion that people are being turned away from an affordable product, that provides good quality care, is prepostero preposterous, they are being steered to a place where they can get good quality coverage, in many instances much better

than the coverage that they had before, at an affordable rate that is supported by the subsidies that can be available to many, many people. this is what is so promising about the affordable care act. so i think it's important for people to understand that that window is not being shut. they are being steered someplace elsewhere they can get a good opportunity. >> i think the first option for those companies is to say we'd like to keep you here and here are the plans we're offering. but to be fair, customers will now have an opportunity to look across a landscape, which they couldn't before. they will have entry into those other windows, which many of them didn't have before with a preexisting condition. as you say, 50% of the market will have financial help in purchasing health insurance which none of them had before. >> gentleman's time expired. mr. griffith. >> earlier in your testimony here today you said a couple of

times, plans we enjoy but then as you noticed with mr. gardner's eloquent testimony, we're not going to be in the same plan you're in. i was one of those that thought it was a good idea as part of a proposal floating around the halls here in congress, that the president and cabinet secretaries ought to also be in the marketplace and not have a special federal plan that is you will have after january 1 and we will not. the president while that was being discussed issued a veto threat. did you discuss the veto threat with the president before he made it and have you discussed it with him since then? >> no. >> and then i will ask you relating back to the contractors involved in this. cgi told us that the spanish website was ready to go. that they thought everything was ready just as they did with the regular site. that didn't prove out. but that they were told not to implement it. likewise the shop and browse section was ready to go. do you think they were misleading this committee when they made comments?

>> i think what they believed is that that product independent of the entire operational site was ready and tested. what a determination was made -- i was involved with the spanish website and medicaid transfers to say let's minimize the risk for the whole site -- >> that raises the next question up, because one of the other contractors qssi, i believe, indicated that part of the problem because once you took away the opportunity to browse, every had to set up an account and cms stopped one of the browsing options as well and that contributed to the log jam and contributed to the problems. isn't it -- is he correct on that, that not allowing people to look without having to sign up, wouldn't that have made it easier for the american people? >> in hindsight, that probably would have been advantageous, i can tell you the decision made

going forward was to minimize risk, that didn't work so well. adding additional features that didn't involve people wanting to get to what they would independently pay and what they would qualify for and what the plans were seemed to be things that could be added down the road. it was wrong. >> gentleman's time is expired. >> i appreciate it very much, mr. chairman and thank you, madam secretary, for testifying today. over the week in "the new york times" wrote the following, project managers at the department of health and human services assure the white house that any remaining problems could be worked out once the website went live. other senior officials predict a serious trouble and advise delaying the rollout. can you confirm this is true? did any senior official predict serious problems and did any senior department officials advise delaying the rollout of the exchanges or parts of the exchanges on october 1st? >> i can tell you that no senior

official reporting to me ever advised me that we should delay. you heard from the contractors on the 24th that none of them advised a delay. we have testing that did not advise a delay. so not to my knowledge. >> did they indicate to you there were serious problems? >> they indicated to me we would always have risk because this system is brand-new and no one has operated the system like this before to any degree. so we always knew there would be the possibility that some things would go wrong. no one indicated this could possibly go this wrong. >> can you name some of the officials that gave you the advice, that there were serious problems? >> again, we had series of meetings with teams from cms. i was always advised that there is always a risk with a new product and new site. but never suggested that we delay the launch of october 1st, nor did our contracting partners ever suggest that to us.

>> thank you, madam secretary. >> thank you, mr. chairman, yield back. >> mr. johnson. >> madam secretary, thank you for being with us here today. cms was the integrating prior to the rollout, correct? >> that's correct. >> you testified you hired an outside company to serve -- >> one of the contractors -- >> who is is that? >> qssi, who built the hub. >> the same company that told our committee last week they were not only the developer of the hub and pipe line but also an independent tester of the system. >> you've acknowledged in your testimony today that inadequate testing played a significant role in this failed launch, aren't you concerned qssi has lost its ability to be an objective independent arbitrator in addressing the problems that plague the system now? they are part of the tester and part of the developer and part of the problem. >> i haven't lost confidence in them. the testing they did is valid

ating the pieces of the equipment, what we said, since the launch is we did not do adequate end to end testing, that was not the qssi responsibility. >> in this new roll as integrater, are are you going to be paying them more than they were paid under the original contract? i would expect -- >> that discussion is under way in terms of what the role will entail and outlines are, yes,sir. >> hard working american taxpayers have already paid for this implementation once. do you think it's fair to ask taxpayers to pay more so qssi can attempt to do something that administrator tavenner and her team were unable to do right the first time. >> the american taxpayers expect us to get the site up and running. >> any expected it the first time. >> i understand and so did i. we have not expended the funds that have been encumbered forred

contracts. we'll monitor every dime we spend and reaudit things that are going forward. >> with that, mr. chairman, i yield back. >> gentleman yields back. mr. long. >> thank you, mr. chairman and mr. secretary for being here today. given your testimony, earlier today you said that i'm responsible for the implementation of the affordable care act. i've heard you referred to and maybe yourself as the point person for the rollout, the architect of implementing affordable care act. so you are kind of the president's point person, are you not, for this rollout? >> yes, sir. >> i earlier you were asked -- there's a lot of things striking about the rollout of this and about affordable care act all together, but the thing most striking to me, is when we had the point person for the rollout here, and you're not going into the exchange. i've heard you say, that -- and

you got advice from the foekds behind you, but i'm asking you today, can you tell the american public if your advisers behind you, if they happen to have given you wrong information, if it is possible for you to go into the exchange, like all of these millions of americans going into the exchanges, will you admit to forego your insurance plan you're on now and join us in the pool. water is fine. all of the congressman and staff have to go into the exchanges. we have to go into the d.c. exchanges. i will say i tried to get on the website. was successful during the hearing earlier and got to the d.c. exchange where i have to buy from. i got part way through and when i got to part to enter my social security, i could not bring myself people to do that when i heard from folks about the security. if your advisers are wrong and it is possible for you -- i'm not saying it is, if it's possible for you to forgo your government plan, will you tell

the american public, i'll go into the exchanges next year like everyone else? >> the way the law is written -- >> it's a yes or no. >> let's say you're wrong on that. if you're wrong -- >> i don't want to give misinformation to the american public -- >> what? >> i don't want to give misinformation who have affordable coverage -- >> women you go into the exchanges? >> if you can, will you? that's a yes or no. >> i will take a look at it. i don't have any -- >> that's not a yes or no. >> gentleman's time is expired. >> you're the architect of the whole program and you won't go into it -- >> i did say not say it. it's illegal. >> if it's not illegal -- >> will you go in? >> affordable coverage -- >> the water is fine. >> gentleman's time is expired. >> i have a unanimous consent request, i'd like madam secretary, i'd like you to answer for the record if you were able to do what the

gentleman just suggested or follow the recommendation of cory gardner, our colleague from colorado and went into the -- to buy an individual policy, would you be able to find one that would protect you from cheap shots or do you think it has to be mandated for coverage? i leave it -- the record open for your response. >> we'll wait for that response to come back. >> gladly go in the exchange if i didn't have affordable coverage in my workplace. i would gladly join it. and the d.c. market is an independent state based market even though d.c. is not a state. we do not run the d.c. market in the federal marketplace. >> gentlelady from north carolina, miss elmerz. >> i have a couple of questions, thank you for being with us today, madam secretary. i would like to go to the issue raised by my colleagues here about accurate information. number one, i've heard the issue

of medicaid part d brought up, many, many times, although my colleagues all voted no against it initially, now they are stoeing the virtues of medicare part d. is it a mandate or is it voluntary? >> it is a voluntary program. that's the first piece of accurate information i would like to get. we're asking or we're actually forcing millions of americans to go to find a health care premium in some way, whether it's to go to the exchange or whether they are to be insured, many of my constituents are being -- are reaching out to me those with individual policies and they are saying to me that my rates are going up 400%, my rates are going up 127%, these are my constituents. now, we're talking about open enrollment, but it's forcing the issue, is it not, that if an

american does not have health care coverage, they are essentially breaking the law? is that not correct? >> if someone can afford coverage and has that option and chooses not to buy coverage, they will pay a fee on their -- >> and it is a law so there are they are -- >> you also brought up the issue quh you were in kansas that you fought against discriminatory issues. as far as the essential health benefits, correct me if i'm wrong, do men not have to buy maternim maternity coverage? >> policies will cover maternity coverage for young and healthy. >> including men. >> under 30-year-olds will have a choice also of a catastrophic plan which has no maternity coverage? >> catastrophic. but the men are required to purchase -- >> an insurance policy has a series of benefits, whether you use them or not. one of the benefits -- >> that's why the health care

premiums are increasing, we're forcing them to buy things they will never need. thank you, madam chairman. >> the individual policies cover families, men offer ten do need maternity coverage for their spouses and for their families, yes. >> single male age 32 does not need maternity coverage to the best of your knowledge has a man ever delivered a baby? >> gentlelady's time -- >> i don't think so. >> -- has expired. gentlelady, cathy morris rogers. >> thank you, mr. chairman. although we were told repeatedly that if you liked your health insurance plan you would be able to keep it, we're now being told by the government that they have determined many existing plans to be lousy, subpar. in reality, this law is becoming quickly less about helping americans purchase affordable coverage and more about

compelling millions of americans into a struggling medicaid program. in my home state of washington, 90% of enroll ees will be in medicaid. 16,000 of them coming into a program they were already eligible for. colorado, 89%, kentucky, two thirds, maryland, 97%. this is -- these are states already struggling with budgets, wondering how they are going to cover medicaid, which is as we all know for the most vulnerable population. isn't it true, that in states like washington, they are going to have new unexpected costs associated with a dramatic influx into medicaid? >> congresswoman, the medicaid expansion provision of the affordable care act is -- >> are states going to face new costs? >> federal government pays 100% of the cost of newly insured for the first three years -- >> these are existing -- people already eligible and we know

that two out of three doctors don't accept new medicaid patients and we know current provider rates are going to drop at the end of 2014. isn't it true existing medicaid enroll lees will further compete for scarce resources in these states? >> if the citizens of washington who are signing up are eligible for medicaid, they certainly will be enroll in medicaid now -- >> i'm concerned that the most vulnerable in this country are going to lack access to the care they think they are going to receive. >> i think that's absolutely true. in states choosing not to expand medicaid, it's particularly dire -- >> it's existing medicaid. >> finally, i wanted to inform the secretary, you told us several hours ago when the hearing started that the website was down. if you look at the screen, several hours later,

healthcare.gov is still down. you promised the system would be ready on october 1st. you're clearly wrong. so before i leave you today, i would impress upon you this is more than a broken website. this is a broken law, millions of americans are getting notices their plans are being canceled. >> gentlelady's time is expired. i just -- i would do a couple of things here. first, i'm going to ask unanimous consent that the written opening statements for any member on the committee be interest dugsed into the record and without objection, the documents will be there. consent to put the document binder and other documents presented to the secretary during questioning into the record without objection. so ordered. let me say in conclusion, we do look forward to having you back in december to get an update on where we are.

we'll work with your schedule to find a right time and date early that week. i want you to know we're going to want real numbers. you'll have them by then, is that right, in terms of signup? >> we'll have them by mid november. >> we look forward to getting those done. we appreciate -- we really do appreciate your time this morning to take questions and i apologize to all of members who we had to shorten the time but those things happen when you have this much interest. we look forward to continuing to get an update and look for your continued work. >> mr. chairman, from our side of the aisle, we want to work with you. and i hope on the other side of the aisle, they would take the same approach. let's do something constructive, not just negative attacks against the bill that i think [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> on c-span2, we hear from into

secretary sally jewell an economic valley of u.s. public land. that's followed by live coverage of the commerce department's investment summit. >> the commerce department business investment summit continues today with remarks from commerce secretary and secretary of state john kerry. >> today the american bar association's annual national security conference examines threats including cybersecurity and international organized crime. live coverage at 8:30 a.m. eastern on our companion network c-span3. >> the kind of rain have brought the crops purity.

they're beginning to bend as a sign of ripeness. it crushes the hits between his hands until the grains are separated. >> agriculture was in some ways a bargain. we begin by domesticating week and that's what we always talk about it but the fact is that we domesticated it in some ways and we give up the freedom to wander and hunt and gather as we done for 50,000 years. that may be better or worse than agriculture in some ways and we can argue that as a value judgment. the fact is evolution made us to be that way. we surrendered the conditions that we evolved under. >> people to argue a lot about agriculture happened. the classic story is that we ran out of steam essentially and became overpopulated, there were too many people.

one day one guy woke up and said i think i'll and then agriculture. that's not the way it happened probably but that's one story. another is that we just did disturbances by living together, the disturbance in the soil, of people compacting, walking around villages that sort of thing allowed weeds to grow and we started eating those weeds, grass essentially. we became highly dependent on the grain and highly dependent on city living. and pretty soon we were domesticated just like our livestock in some ways. >> spend his weekend exploring g montana's state capital as a booktv in american history tv look at the history of the direct life of helena, saturday at noon on c-span2 and sunday at five on c-span3. >> you're watching c-span2 with politics and public affairs.

weekdays featuring live coverage of the u.s. senate. on weeknights watch key public policy events. every week and the latest nonfiction authors and books on booktv. you can see past programs and get our schedules at a website, and you can join in the conversation on social media sites. >> enter your secretary sally jewell talked about the economic valley of the nation's public lands and the impact of the recent government shutdown on the national park service. her remarks from national press club are about one hour. >> thank you, tommy, for that thorough, entertaining introduction to not necessarily fully accurate but may be somewhat close. and i want to thank the national press club for what you do to bring really thoughtful voices the issues that are sometimes

complex like what i'm going to talk about today. i want to give a nod to tommy's paper which is "the salt lake tribune" and want you to pay attention to this because they are responsible for the best of a question i've had from the media in my time as a professional. so my great colleague, kate kelly, somewhere around here -- ways kate? she does a really good job. there she is over there hiding in the back and. she called a meeting and this individual said i have a question. i was hiking in grand teton national park and there were warnings about bears everywhere is walking want to i came across something on the trail that made me nervous. i turned around and went back to my car and want to know if i really need to go back to my car. he held a pistol with picture and he said, is this bear poop? [laughter] isn't that great? and the good thing is i actually knew the answer. and the answer was no. he could've kept on your hike. there may have been bears but

they weren't pooping on the true. it was a large ungulate that it pooped their own while ago. that it was pretty obvious for those of you who know that. anyway, i have a broad portfolio at interior and i'm not going to cover the landscape at this time. my focus today is on the administration's conservation agenda and that's when going to concentrate my words today. as time he mentioned, i've been in the private sector for a while, even before i graduate from college i worked on aspects of the alaska pipeline which is what got me into the oil and gas industry. as a banker i learned about a ton of things, not just banking natural resources companies involved in timber or agriculture or mining or oil and gas, but also real estate and retail and all kinds of other businesses that make up this great country. then, it's a big plate and industry but the industry is 100 miles wide and a quarter inch deep. it's a $646 billion driver of

economic activity to the united states. that's huge. it's bigger than pharmaceuticals, bigger than a number of industries that would surprise you, and that's out of red ration. yes, rei seems big but relative to outdoor red ration it's not. that's a very important part of our economy and on of the reasons that i enthusiastically answered the president called to take this job because our public lands are important in so many ways. they drive our economies but they also drive things that fills the soul and help you find who we are as a nation. so at interior one of the main reasons i took this job is you've got to seize an opportunity to make a difference. we have a chance to make a difference at interior on some of the defining issues of our time. like climate change. being out in the resources in so many places and 71 degrees north latitude the seven degrees north latitude in one trip, you see the impacts of climate change everywhere. like moving a country george

energy independence which is also really important. but also honoring our proud conservation legacy. so i want to thank president obama for his confidence in me, and i want to thank the senate for agreeing with them and putting in your as secretary of interior. so that's the job. the timing, that was a little off, right? icon into thinking, great, long-term, thinking about the future of our public lands to continue resolution that's been funny as a few months at the time since 2012. and then just as i started in april, sequestration hit. that is the '90s thing a businessperson as ever heard of, let me tell you. 5% across the board cut including things that were most important that you really had to focus on had to get cut along with things we might say that could wait a while. so we had to cut across the board and impact was really severe. so i hope, hope, i hope this is behind us very soon.

most recently the pièce de résistance, the 16 day wasteful government shutdown. i got to tell you, you had to have a sense of humor during that process because it's pretty frustrating. i have to tell you a story about a family friend that makes wine. they sent me a bottle of wine and they made themselves, and the label was the capitol dome with a sorry, we're closed on it. [laughter] and the name of the wind, you got to love it. furlough murder -- merlot. so before i get going i just want to have all the government employs better in this room raise their hands so we can all thank them. i know there's a bunch of you at this table. raise your hands. give them a hand. [applause] >> so for more than two weeks,

employees had to stay home from jobs that they love. they had to watch things on the news and they wanted to be helpful and the weren't about to be. the u.s. geological survey, which we all rely on a lot more than we know had to hit pause on important scientific research. in some cases losing an entire is -- an entire year's data. blm got a copy of our decision that manages vast lands had to hold energy permitting on projects that were very important industry. and indian affairs, the part of entry that serves individuals directly couldn't provide critical support to tribal nations. i've got to tell you, that was very, very frustrating when you're working around the clock like some of us were, or whether you're forced to stay home and you want to be part of the solution. it was very frustrating. i want you just to take a walk down what the two weeks was like with me. i want you to purchase up and issues of the park ranger who had to call the bride and groom and say, sorry, another wedding you had planned in the national

park? you have to make other arrangements. there was something like a dozen weddings planned on some of the key spots around washington, d.c. that had to be shattered. there were weddings planned in national parks around the country. how about the fish and wildlife service employee who was on to protect the resource but had to close the refuge, is talking to the guide service that has clients that waited forever for the coveted tag to try and hunt a big korn sheep that were told they couldn't come to the refuge because it was closed. public servants were forced to do the opposite of what they love and what they want to do, which is welcoming people to our public lands. so that's the human side. the shutdown also had a huge economic impact on local businesses and gateway communities that rely on public lands for the bread-and-butter. a couple weeks ago, i guess last week in. i thought, i'm new to this part

of the country, i better go enjoy some of the fall foliage now that the shutdown is over. someone to shenandoah and the trees are pretty bare at the top but i descended 2000 feet back of the other side. on the west you hike up to the destination, come down. it's different here. [laughter] but i also visited with the park rangers, thank them for being back on the job, learned of the other stories here and the concessionaire lost $2 million just in at 16 day period that they won't make up because you're not going to get october 2013 back again that you lost. all told we estimate the closure of the park national system alone, cause a local communities at least $76 million a day in lost revenue. but if there's a silver lining to all of us, and there's almost always some sort of a silver lining, it's that the shutdown shined a spotlight on just how much americans love and value their public lands and the

people who serve them. so at the risk of you yelling at me later for putting a song in your head that won't go away, i am going to quote from a joni mitchell song. don't it always seemed to go that you don't know what you got till it's gone? you can sing the rest. [laughter] the shutdown clarified or all of us what's at stake. it reminded us that our wildlife '50s and a public lands are uniquely ours. they are uniquely american. they are the places we go with our families to recreate, to seek beauty, to find solitude. there are watersheds our wildlife habitats. that are economic engines. that are sources of pride in history. they were our diverse stories are celebrated. so this reminded about the valley of our public lands has come at an important time in our history. when the demand on our lands and water are greater than ever,

we've got a growing population, we have a very real effects of climate change, and we have constrained resources. and all of these things are coming together to place increasing pressures on our landscapes and waterways. at the same time, we stand at the doorstep of the 100th anniversary of the national park service. in 2016, we'll celebrate what has been called america's best idea, the democratic concept that for the first time in human history, land would be set aside not for kings or the very rich, but for everybody. and next you will be the 50th anniversary of the wilderness act, a historic bipartisan law that has resulted in millions of acres protected for the benefit of current and future generations of americans. so in this country at this time of year, you can go out and get health bugle in. you can witness bears preparing the dems for the witness.

you can see millions of birds flying south for the winter. there are happy bird watchers and hunters and hikers, and people out for a sunday drive all over this country thanks to the lands that are been protected. so we stand together at this juncture. it's very important now that we think about what conservation legacy we want to leave for the next 50 years over the next 100 years. and we want a legacy of a shortsighted funding and partisan gridlock that we witness in congress over the last few years? i don't think so. thinking in particular about some members of the house of representatives who have proposed to slash funding for the national park service by 13%, or got the fish and wildlife service by nearly a third, or cut $109 from the bureau of land management's operating budget and that is one agency that operates at a bare bones level. i'm also think about a congress that since 2010 hasn't acted to protect a single acre of public

land as a national park, monument or a wilderness area. not one. or do we want a legacy of people i've met, like jim and carol, ranges in south dakota, who are leading a grassroots effort to protect, with private land owners like themselves to protect the prairies and the key habitat for ducks and other waterfall. -- waterfowl. or like a ranch in florida who's working with the fish and wildlife service and other private land owners to conserve the everglades headwaters and depends on our nation's ranching heritage to the next generation, but also provide clean water to 7 million people in south florida, and by the way, restore the river of grass, the ecosystem that is so important is one of the most noted in the world. or how about people i worked

with when i was back in my home community of seattle come in many, many like them around the country, the work with states and communities to pass measures every year to fund open spaces and build new parks. i know where president obama stands on this. the president believes we have a moral obligation to the next generation to the our land, our water and wildlife better than we found it. that's why he launched the america's great outdoors program in 2010, and i was pleased as a businessperson to participate in the. it's why he's taken confidence of action to cut carbon pollution and slow the effects of climate change that i've seen every time i've been out in the resource. that's why he's used his authority time and again to protect some of the places that americans love most. and my conversation with the president, he told me how his visit to national parks with his mom and grandmother shaped him as a young man. how he shared the same experience with his daughter at the rim of grand canyon. a place that was set aside for

future generations, even as her country was growing by leaves and downs. in remarks last year, president obama invoked the words of leopold money as the conversation is not just about doing nothing, it's about doing something affirmative to make sure that we're passing along this incredible blessing that we have. i look forward to working with the president, my colleagues in the cabinet, and congress, as well as local communities across this country as we enter the second century of american conservation. so how do we get there? at a start, congress should get back to regular order, please, and pass the president's budget, or a budget that is close to that. and i will say that there are members of the house and senate who understand these issues and they're very supportive. congress needs to deliver a sustainable, thoughtful budget that supports our parks, our forests, our refuges, our rivers and conservation lands, and in turn strengthens our economy,

particularly the economy in rural areas. because the real test of whether you support conservation is not what you said at a press conference, even though i understand that's important, whether you fight for it in the budget conference. that's where the rubber hits the road. congress needs to fulfill a promise made to americans to the land and water conservation fund, are what we call l. w. cf. l. w. cf is an innovative program that since 1964 coming up on its 50th anniversary has use revenues from offshore oil and gas development and window to our index of offshore and gas development to enhance parks and open spaces in every county across the country. personally in my home state of washington, the other washington, al debussy of the funds have been used to do things like pay for easements for hunters have access to lands that are important to them. or to provide matching grants to committees that want to improve local parts are set aside open spaces as they grow.

is program, lwcf, was an early important vision effort advance of the impact of development with the opportunity to support public lands and resources. so rather than zeroing out the fund as some have proposed to do, congress should not present obama's budget proposal to enact mandatory full funding of lwcf by 2015. this is money that has been going into the treasury every year since 1964 that set aside for this, and it's only been funded once at its full allocated level since its enactment. it's time to do that fully. congress should continue to fund other key successful programs like the north american wetlands conservation grants. and finally, congress needs to get moving to pass dozens of other supported bills, introduced by both republicans and democrats to protect the place that americans care about most and places that the constituents have said are important to them. like the on this public lands

act were the president and congress work together in 2009 to protect 2 million acres of wilderness and designate over 1100 miles of wild and scenic river. these are the commonsense commoe actions that americans want to see congress take. we cannot and will not hold our breath for ever. we owe it to future generations to act. just as the president has demonstrated on nine occasions, he's ready and went to step up where congress falls short. the national monuments a national wildlife refugees disestablish over the last four years provide important protections for special places like the rio grande governor dave in new mexico where they preserve key chapters in our nation's store like that of cesar chavez or harriet tubman. there are many more special places just like that and many more stories that need to be told. in the coming weeks and months,

i will be on the road meeting with communities, evaluating opportunities are action cancer our nation's story and landscapes are honored, celebrate and preserve for the generations to calm. the next topic i want to cover deals with what some see as the quintessential issue for interior. this is a difficult agency. part of this is encouraging development in the right ways and in the right places. part of that is recognizing there's some places that are too special to develop, and i've been to one of them. i've been to the arctic national wildlife refuge. it's an amazing place. my first evening there i counted 29 polar bears who had left the ice to come to sure to find food. it is an extraordinary place. you never look at nature quite the same way when you've been

there. today we have an unprecedented opportunity, using science and technology, to create a better understanding of landscapes than ever before, to advance important conservation goals and achieve our development objectives together. it's not an either or. it can't be. we're already seeing this approach work. as we seek to meet present obama's goal of uprooting 20,000 megawatts of renewable energy on public lands by 2020. it's a goal towards which my predecessor ken salazar made huge strides. for example, in southern california and we're working with the state on something called the desert renewable energy conservation plan. it's an ambitious plan. in that region, we are going to be blending science and satellite data, identifying the areas of highest energy potential but also high priority conservation lands in the mojave desert. it's interesting because i happened to know two young

scientists who both did some of the early work after graduating from school by counting desert tortoises. i do nothing why they're counting desert tortoises until he came to the job and you're doing work on behalf of the usgs and efficient while the service to understand its habitats. so we've also beyond the desert southwest and the mob the desert, with all some point is approach in alaska we took a comprehensive look at the national petroleum reserve to protect over 13 million acres. we are also making available for development 72% of the estimated economically recoverable error does make oil. i was at the north slope meeting with people who reminded me of the importance of character not only for subsistence but also for their cultural traditions. it also don't think energy development was important to them. it's economic activity that

helps give them jobs and fuels their local economy. these are both important, but it's also important for us to get it right. so the type of smart balanced approach to development is especially what we need in new frontiers like the arctic come or in the development of places like a boxing region of north dakota where we're expensing a major energy boom. i went and visited there. some of you probably seem pictures and i will say it's also right on the boundary of theodore roosevelt national park. i think i saw teddy over there. i know it's hollowing but i think -- is just come back from the dead to join us. we are taking care of your park except as oil and gas development going near. we're trying to work on that. [laughter] i just have to say during the visit was learned a lot about how companies were directional drilling, have a smaller footprint on the land and the drillinbuilding methods that wed when i was in industry, i also

went out to theodore roosevelt national park and i met with a superintendent who just got an award for the work that she did in working with developers there to help them recognize the impact of development on the national parks. she described it as something like playing whack-a-mole, where just as she thought she had one area protected and worked with companies who are going to develop there and he decided to move based on a conversation with her, should someone else over here. she said i live in fear of taking a few days off. we want to help people like her because she is just one of hundreds of superintendents are wildlife refuge manager around the country that understand the critical nature of the landscape surrounding their part or the refuge or the public lands and want to be able to work closely with businesses to understand what's at stake so everybody can make smarter decisions. and to my leadership at interior we will always take the long

view, even when our budgets don't. we will always, always keep in mind that public lands are a trust. one that we manage for generations to come. that's why today i'm issuing my first secretarial order to ensure that whenever a public lands and resources are impacted by development activity we are also considering how to mitigate these impacts at a landscape level through strategic conservation and restoration. as a business person i appreciate there's an important role for government to play in overseeing how our lands to the. we rely on government making those kinds of choices. i also know there's nothing more frustrating than to be well into an investment and find your investment challenged. it gives you uncertainty, it results often times and costly delays and perhaps lawsuits. but i understand our landscapes and guiding development to the areas of highest resource valley and lowest environmental concern, we can reduce the

likelihood of conflict. we can help businesses drive a more perfect will return on investment and that's what they're looking for. when there are environmental impacts businesses are going to be able to support meaningful landscape level environmental needs rather than ad hoc project by project mitigation efforts. i know from my own experience that businesses want to be good stewards of the land in the areas they live in where their people live, where they grow. they don't want to be part of the problem. they want to be part of the solution to the work my colleagues are going to do is going to help them do that. finally, i can't stress enough the importance of engaging the next generation in understanding and stewarding public land, something i was passionate about in my last job, and will continue to be passion as long as i'm on this earth. the millennial generation representing my children, now young adults 18-33 is larger, more urban and more diverse than any generation in our history.

but research also shows that this generation cares deeply about the planet and wants to make a difference in their careers. they have grown up being more disconnected from national world than ever before and i could spend an entire speech talking to you just about that. this generation, the millennial generation already outnumbers the boomer generation by 3 million people. by 2030 it will outnumber us by 20 million. that's because a bunch of us are going to die last night but this millennial -- business leaders, parents, public service. and what happens when we have a generation who has had little connection to our nation's public lands, yet the they're suddenly in charge of taking care of them? what happens? so at interior this is a very real question. about a third of our 70,000 strong workforce will be eligible to retire within five years. we are going to need a whole new generation of wildlife biologists, of park rangers, of

scientists and other professionals to care for our lands and waters. unfortunately, the entry-level jobs that we've relied on so much like seasonal ranger jobs or interns or trail crews are research assistance have been severely impacted by the indiscriminate nature of the sequestration and the lack of flexibility in how we spend our limited resources. that is the one area that was whacked the post by the nature of sequestration, and we've got to get back to regular order. this is happening at a time when many of the gym people are entering the workforce and they're inching and a really tough time in our economy to find a job. so for the health of our economy, public lands and future generation, it's critical we work now to establish meaningful and deep connections between young people from all backgrounds in all parts of this country and the great outdoors. so today i'm pleased to announce an ambitious initiative at interior that will undertake the next four years to inspire

millions of young people to play, to learn, to serve and to work in the outdoors. first, we're going to develop and enhance partnership with cities where we create better opportunities for better outdoor play for more than 10 million young people. ..