to get this done in a way tha that -- that achieves what we're trying to do. this is critically important. i want to point out for purposes of by point of comparison, the senate in april approved a bill which i supported -- and i'm glad that we did -- that authorized virtually identical sanctions against human rights violators in ukraine. that bill authorized $50 million for funds for the democracy program. that bill authorized $100 million in security assistance. and visa and financial sanctions on human rights violators. and it implemented the sanctions in the ukrainian human rights bill cost $10 million. none of none of those funds, by the way, were offset in the way that term was used here. there was no objection to that. the total, by the way, of the cost of that bill was $160 million. this issue -- this bill before us is much more modest in its implications, and i would argue

that the costs at the end of the day while it has what we call around here a c.b.o. core, the costs aren't real. it basically is what they would have to do anyway. so we're looking for language that assures our colleagues that are rightfully concerned about the debt and deficit but also addresses the grotesque human rights violations that are occurring in venezuela today. i want to in a moment yield to the senator from new jersey who has shown extraordinary leadership on this and every single issue involving democracy and human rights in this region and around the world, but i hope and i know that there are things going on in the middle east that are of critical importance to our country. i know that there are things going on vis-a-vis russia and ukraine that are of extraordinary importance to our country, but i hope people understand that what is happening in venezuela matters, too. because even as we speak, there are millions of people in that country who are being systematically -- their rights are being systematically violated. for example, just this week, the regime began a show trial against mr. leopold lopez, a popular opposition leader, a

mayor of one of the municipalities here. you know what his crime was? urging venezuelans to demand a constitutional and peaceful solution to president maduro's oppressions. in case anyone needs to understand the true nature of the venezuelan regime, it's not just human rights violations, not just corruption. it's not just the fact that the cronies of the maduro administration parade up and down the streets of south florida bragging about their ill-earned gains without consequence. venezuela projects itself as a defender of every single human right-violating country on the planet. any time there is a vote on iran or on assad in syria or on any human rights violation, you can count on venezuela's government being on the side of the human rights violators. every single time. and just recently, we have seen them again repeatedly pronounce themselves in opposition to israel and israel's right to defend itself. so on top of everything else, we're not just sanctioning

corruption in human rights violations. we are sanctioning individuals who every opportunity they get seek to undermine the national security and the national interests of our country. and so i think this is a worthy endeavor. my hope is that tomorrow when the senate gets into session, we can reach a conclusion on the side and achieve it because i think it would be critically important to go into august to have shown that the senate has made progress in this endeavor. now, the house has its own version of sanctions, they're different from ours. these will have to be reconciled. but i think passage of this in the next few hours will send a powerful message to the people of venezuela. the people of america, speaking through our senate, are firmly on their side and on their aspirations for freedom and for liberty and on the side of their human rights. and i'd like to yield now the floor, madam president, to the senator from new jersey. mr. menendez: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from new jersey.

mr. menendez: first, i would like to ask for unanimous consent to speak for up to four minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. menendez: i want to thank my distinguished colleague from oregon for his courtesy in allowing me to do so. i agree with everything my colleague from florida, senator rubio, has said about this issue, and i appreciate his leadership alongside with us. he has been following venezuela intimately. so many people in the state of florida have exiled there, and so he personally understands and has been a tremendous champion. let me just say, since february of this year, hundreds of thousands of venezuelan citizens have protested the lack of security from rampant crime and violence, an inflation that is highest in the world, a scarcity of food and bawsk consumer goods, but instead of listening to legitimate concerns of people, the government of venezuela has responded with a deplorable display of force and brutality that was seen around the world. to date, there have been more

than 40 deaths, more than 50 documented cases of torture, more than 2,000 unlawful detentions. and in may of this year, human rights watch released a report on these human rights violations where they documented how venezuelan security forces systematically violated the rights of students, women, men, members of the political opposition and journalists. and so -- and they said they do so -- quote -- to punish people for their political views." just last week, the venezuelan government opened its show trial against opposition leader and prisoner of conscience lee polled lopez. after spending five months in a military prison just for speaking his mind, mr. lopez and his attorney were barred from presenting any evidence in his defense, none. no defense allowed. and if that were not enough, we saw that just recent events show the venezuelan government is

even willing to threaten regional stability to get its way. last week, law enforcement officials in aruba picked up the former head of venezuelan military intelligence and an individual that was designated as a drug kingpin by the u.s. department of treasury back in 2008. when indictments were unsealed last week, the world saw evidence of how a senior venezuelan government official was deeply involved in the international drug trade, allowing traffickers to operate freely in venezuelan territory and even coordinating drug shipments himself. so when this official was arrested, what did the venezuelan government do? it threatened to cut off flights from venezuela to aruba and cure sow. it -- curacao. it moved naval vessels into the waters surrounding these islands. in short, it resorted to every form of blackmail and coercion

at its disposition until the dutch government released him. so we should be clear that democracy has had its opportunity. in recent months, foreign ministers from across south america and the vatican have attempted to mediate dialogue between president maduro, his allies and the political opposition, and they have not been able to accomplish it. it is time to move more vigorous ly forward with the type of sanctions and other efforts envisioned in the legislation that i and senator rubio have authored, and if we do that tomorrow, we will send a message to the hemisphere and to the people of venezuela that, in fact, they have a real opportunity to have their voices heard, and we will stand on the right side for human rights and democracy. with that, madam president, i yield the floor. mr. merkley: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. merkley: i ask to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. merkley: madam president, at this moment in my home state of oregon, 500,000 acres are

ablaze. now, sometimes it's hard to get your hands around numbers, particularly large numbers, so let me give you a sense of this. if you were to add up all the fires in oregon and they were in one place, it would cover an area roughly 20 miles by 40 miles. that's an enormous, enormous section of a state to be aflame. now, because there are so many devastating fires at once, crews are coming from all over to help out, all kind of aircraft, all kinds of hotshot crews. and they're doing all they can, but it's not just oregon that has fires. other states have fires. there is over 250,000 acres of blaze in washington state to the north in a single fire. i believe it's the largest

single fire in washington state's history. as a result of fires in oregon and fires in washington and other fires, we are drank our fire funds at an expansive rate, and thus we have a big problem. we're running out of funds to pay for fighting these fires. so tonight, we had before our chamber a supplemental bill, an emergency supplemental bill to provide $615 million more to fight fires this season across the united states of america. and a procedural tactic was used to kill this bill. and quite frankly, that's enormously shortsighted. here is what has been happening in the past. the fires are being fought and

then the funds run out and then the forest service has to pull the funds from every other department, from departments involving forest health, in departments providing efforts to prevent fires, create conditions in which they will not happen in the future. so we are continuing -- we are continuing a vicious cycle of robbing fire prevention and forest management funds to fight emergency fires, and that cycle will go forward now that we have failed to pass this emergency supplemental up front. let me give you just a little flavor of what i'm talking about across our state. we have the ocheko complex east of post, 10,000 acres aflame. the logging unit complek northwest of warm springs, 6,600 acres. the kitten canyon complex west

of vail at 23,000 acres. the bridge 99 complex north of sisters, 5,700 acres. the hurricane creek fire southwest of joseph, and that is 900 acres. we have the buzzard complex in southeast oregon, nearly 400,000 acres. the reeves complex southwest of grants pass 200 acres. the china cat fire east of la grand. 200 acres, and by the way zero percent contained. the black rock fire east of antelope 36,000 acres. the snipton fire north of fossil, 12,000 acres. and the bigham complex east of miriam fork 400 acres. and we have two more that have just arisen, two more fires. that's the haystack complex, 1,700 acres in the salt creek fire northwest of medford, 100 acres, and here is the thing.

we have the conditions for more fires to come, more lightning, a forecast of more hot weather, and we have incredibly dry timber on the floor of the forest. this situation in which these fires are going to be fought by pulling funds from every other part of the forest service is unacceptable. it is not good stewardship of the complex operations that occur with an interior department within the forest service. think about the need to plan the timber harvest to sustain the lumber industry. well, that's a complex process. it involves a lot of folks who have to go out and evaluate the forest and work it out so that those timber sales can occur on schedule. all of that gets stopped when you have to rob the funds in order to pay for fighting these

fires. or let's think about the millions of acres of second growth forest, overgrown, and it's very good for disease, it's very good for fires, it needs to be thinned, but how do you plan for the thinning if you rob the funds to do so? and the list goes on and on and on. so i am deeply disappointed and frustrated with what happened tonight, and i urge my colleagues to exercise a little thoughtfulness, a little wisdom, a little stewardship regarding our national forests. and next time this comes up, let's pass it unanimously to provide the funds that are needed to fight this national emergency. thank you, madam president. and, madam president, i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll.

quorum call:

quorum call:

quorum call:

the presiding officer: the senator from arkansas. mr. pryor: i understand that the senate is in a quorum, and i would ask that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. for the information of the senate, pursuant to section 312 of the congressional budget act of 1974, a 306 point of order having been sustained on s. 2648, the bill was referred to the committee on appropriation. all amendments thereto fell, and the cloture motion thereon has been rendered moot.

mr. pryor: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to executive session to consider -- and vote on calendar numbers 968 and 868, that if any nomination is confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate, that no further motions be in order to the nomination, that any statements related to the nomination be printed in the record, that the president be immediately notified of the senate's action. the presiding officer: is there objection? if not, without objection. the question occurs on the teft nomination. all those in favor say aye. all opposed, no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes do have it. the nomination is confirmed.

hearing no further debate, the question occurs on the junor nomination. all those in favor say aye. all those opposed say no. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes have it. the nomination is confirmed. mr. pryor: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate consider the following nominations, calendar number 980, 981, 982, 983, with the exception of brigade general -- brigade adear general eric c. bush, 985 with the exception of marta canna, 986, 987, 988, 989, 990, 991, 992, 939, 994, and all nominations placed on the secretary's desk in the air force, army and navies

navy, that the nominations be confirmed en bloc, the motions to reconsider with no intervening action or debate, that no further motions be in order to any of the nominations, that the president be immediately notified of the senate's action, and the senate then resume legislative session. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. pryor: i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the consideration of h.r. 4360 which was received from the house and is at the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: h.r. 4360, an act to designate the facility of the united states forest service for the grandfather ranger district and so forth. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. pryor: i ask unanimous consent the bill be read three

times and passed, and the motion to reconsider considered made and laid on the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. pryor: madam president, i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of h.r. 4631, which is at the desk. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: h.r. 4631, an act to reauthorize certain provisions of the national public health service act and so forth. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. pryor: i ask the bill be read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. pryor: madam president, i ask unanimous consent the health, education, labor and pensions committee be discharged from further consideration of h.r. 3548 and the senate proceed to its consideration.

the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: h.r. 3548, an act to amend title 12 of the public health service act and so forth. the presiding officer: without objection the committee is discharged and the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. pryor: i ask unanimous consent the bill be read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider considered made and laid on the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. pryor: madam president, i ask unanimous consent the commerce committee be discharged from further consideration of h.r. 4838 and the senate proceed to its immediate consideration. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: h.r. 4838, a bill to redesignate the railroad station located at 2955 market street in philadelphia, pennsylvania, and so forth. the presiding officer: without objection the committee is

discharged and the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. pryor: i further ask that the bill be read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. pryor: madam president, i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of calendar number 494, s. . j. res. 36. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 4th 4, s.j. res. 436, relating to the approval and implementation of the proposed agreement for nuclear cooperation between the united states and the socialist republic of vietnam. the presiding officer: is there any further debate? hearing none, all those in favor say aye. those opposed, nay. the ayes appear to have it. the ayes have it.

and the measure is agreed to. mr. pryor: madam president, i further ask that the committee-reported substitute amendment be agreed to and the joint resolution as amended be read a third time. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. pryor: i know of no further debate. the presiding officer: all those in favor say aye. all those opposed, nay. a ayes appear to have it. the ayes have it. the measure is agreed to. mr. pryor: madam president, i ask unanimous consent the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. pryor: i now ask unanimous consent the senate now proceed to calendar number 495, s. res. 502. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 4995, s. res. 502 concerning

the suspension of exit permit issuance by the government of the democratic republic of congo and so forth. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. pryor: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the committee-reported amendment be agreed to, the resolution as amended be agreed to, the committee-reported amendment to the preamble be agreed to, the preamble as amended be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. pryor: madam president, i now ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of calendar number 496, s. res. 513. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 496, s. res. 513 honoring the 70th anniversary of the warsaw uprising. the presiding officer: without

objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. pryor: i further ask that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. pryor: madam president, i now ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of calendar number 497, s. res. 520. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 497, s. res. 520 condemning the downing of the malaysia airline flight 17 and so forth. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. pryor: madam president, i further ask that the resolution be agreed to, the murphy amendment to the preamble which is at the desk be agreed to, the preamble as amended be agreed to, and the motions to

reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. pryor: madam president, i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of calendar number 498, s. res. 520 tremendous. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: senate resolution 522 expressing the sense of the senate supporting the u.s.-africa leader summit and so forth. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. pryor: madam president, i ask the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to and the motions to reconsider be made and laid on the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. pryor: i now ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the consideration of calendar number 503, s. 231. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 50

, s. 231, a bill to reauthorize the multinational species conservation funds semipostal stamp. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. pryor: i ask unanimous consent that the bill be read a third time and patched and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. pryor: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration en bloc of the following resolutions which were submitted earlier today -- s. res. 532, s. res. 533, s. res. 534 and s. res. 535. the presiding officer: without objection the senate will proceed to the resolutions en bloc. mr. pryor: i ask unanimous consent the resolutions be

agreed to, the preambles where applicable be agreed to and the motions to reconsider be made and laid on the table en bloc with no intervening action or debate. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. pryor: madam president, i understand there are two bills at the desk and i ask for their first reading en bloc. the presiding officer: the clerk will read the titles of the bills for the first time. the clerk: s. 2772 a bill making supplemental appropriations for the fiscal year ending september 30, 2014, and for other purposes. s. 2773, a bill making supplemental appropriations for fiscal year ending september 30, 2014 for border security, law enforcement, humanitarian assistance, and for other purposes. mr. pryor: madam president, i now ask for a second reading and i object to my own request all

en bloc. the presiding officer: objection having been heard, the bills will be read for a second time on the next legislative day. mr. pryor: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the appointments at the desk appear separately in the record as if made by the chair. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. pryor: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today it adjourn until 11:00 a.m. on friday, august 1, 2014, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning business be deemed expired, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, that following any leader remarks, there be a period of morning business until 2:00 p.m. with senators permitted to speak therein for ten minutes each.

the presiding officer: without objection. mr. pryor: madam president, there will be no votes tomorrow. the next roll call vote will occur at 5:30 p.m. on monday, september 8. madam president, i must say before we close the senate before the august recess, i just want to speak for one minute. and that is we all heard the exchange earlier between -- exchange between the chairman of the foreign relations committee, senator menendez, and senator enzi and senator carper, also participated, not appointing ambassadors. and i think it's just a sad day for america when our gridlock, the gridlock that the congress has created, makes it to where we cannot appoint our ambassadors to go overseas, to represent our great nation and to be our representatives there in these countries. many of which are struggling and

many of which have a lot of tensions either with us, the united states or their neighbors or other countries in the world. and i think our country is suffering because of the gridlock and, madam president, i must say that the fault res. with all of us, and we're -- rests with all of us. we're elected to be leaders and we're not showing leadership by not working through these difficult issues and allowing the basics of government, including our ambassadors, to be appointed. and i must say that there's a simple solution to all of this, and it's not something that is found in a new political science textbook, not nothing smog that some talking head on a tv show has proposed. there's some ancient wisdom that we all should follow and that's the golden rule. we should do unto others as we would have others do under to us. if we'd follow that, if all of us would take that to heart and apply that to our business here

in the united states senate and the business of the nation, it would be revolutionary in how we conduct our business here. that's the only way to fix it. you have to approach this job as a public servant and to do what's right for the country, not for your party or some individual agenda and, madam president, i hope when we're all home at august recess we'll hear from that from our constituents and bring it back in september and we'll be -- we will rededicate ourselves to getting the business of the nation done. and, madam president, if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it adjourn under the previous order. the presiding officer: the senate stands adjourned until 11:00 a.m. expires at the end of

september. mr. president, before we finish our business and senators return for the work period at home, i want everyone to know about what's going to happen when we come back. following the august recess, we're going to convene on september 8 and we're going to be here for one week, two weeks, and two days. that's it. september 23 is our target date to adjourn until after the election. i hope we can do that. this leaves us no more than as i've indicated two weeks and two

days. that's not a lot of time for the workload that we have to do. we need to pass appropriations measures to keep the government from shutting down. we need to pass temporary extension of the internet tax freedom act. we need to do something about, as i just mentioned, about ex-im bank. we have to do the defense authorization bill which is extremely important for the fighting men and women of this country. country. . >> and we will reconsider a number of issues. college affordability affordability, minimum-wage affordability, minimum-wage, hobby lobby, studentf debt, we have a lot of work to do. but everyone needs to know when we come back in september there is only two weekends until we go homehis and everyone should not

plantings on the weekend. we need to give some notice. i had a lunch yesterday at with chairman everyone saidy, t do not work of those two weekends or that we should slow to dictate the schedule they said we should work to two weekends i just mention a couple things we have to do. so again, a saturday and september 20th and sunday september 21st we will be here including of friday's. every day between september september 8 and then is fair game. friday or saturday or sunday we need to be here. i repeat for the third time there is so much to do and little time to do it.

recant push everything back to the lame duck. september depends on republicans in the house. we get their business done and to we have amended the fact that we take up and pass comprehensive immigration reform. and we refused to take it up. on other things the debt by $1 trillion. we have note extent -- extension of the unemployment benefits to talk about student debt and hobby lobby and pay for women to be paid equal if

the work they do is the same as men. they have no interest in these issues. they're busy turning the house floor into a theater. it is a double feature. first of all, they will sue the president and above all the republicans in the house and senate who are they going to? who will pay the trial lawyers? the american taxpayers. and if that is not enough

then they will try to in peach the president. so that is what it is all about. >> a lot of it depends on political theater. it will be a very productive month in september.

>> good morning with this committee we will review of the obligation of the patient protection affordable care act. for medicare and medicaid services but not the first appearance before the subcommittee. and before to testify on behalf of the contractors to build the web site. ongoing concern with the reasons we are holding the hearing today and that we

heard from the cms administrator told us health care web site would be ready and find than later we found out that was not the same thing and the fact the contractors told us they would be working reid know how our fears are well-founded. the rollout was the disaster so we cannot learn how things are progressing to hear the same candor as you when you testified on behalf of the company that built the website of healthcare.gov also it comes at the opportune time to lead to problems that led to the healthcare.gov disaster after the testimony we will

hear from william woods from the gao it will review the launch of healthcare.gov confirming what we've learned during a review of the web site the administration did not have the expertise could not meet deadlines or the organizational skills to manage this mess of -- massive undertaking also the price tag for the boondoggle that the president promised would be easy is in the commerce site cost $1 billion that cost our paychecks and taxpayers are not happy. who will also hear that

because each day that a c.s. mix a health care more expensive and fragmented. earlier this summer the premium rates in 2015 felt that would provide information on the rates that the public would know them with enough plan to purchase if it would ever see $2,500 of savings the president promised we also want to know if americans could really keep their doctor or their plan from this testimony it was noted the requirements of the health care law require the cancellation of policies but

the administration predicts widespread cancellations. it is settled individual plants we are concerned about the was the release of the affirmation to the employer mandate. it is surprising to many but raises questions what would happen if the most controversial piece went into effect. looking at the overall impact millions of americans on the find that they are more expensive and what others do not the same time and will be felt for years. and i now recognize the ranking member for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman.

i don't think we could go to august recess without having another hearing on the affordable care act. so as i have said the oversight is the important topic but i feel better if they're actually doing oversight but now with that aca instead of rehashing old issues over and over. the rollout was an unmitigated disaster but i would like to know how long will we keep beating this? because since then things are improving. but then once we got going. how to make it work even better for those millions of

americans who are getting health insurance. with the majority insists but instead the majority of the new enrollees are paying less than $100 a month. thank going to the healthcare.gov web site but billions of americans signed up for coverage. but then to tell is that it was not correct with people were paid and since the premiums were skyrocketing enrollees to reduce in print -- a previous next year and insisted that over 29 americans have received coverage and the insurance

rate has dropped since january. these are important facts mr. sherman had to hear this as fact based as possible we want to talk about the democratic staff on the affordable care act with every congressional district in the country and i ask unanimous consent to enter the fact sheet. >> without objection. >> and to talk about the benefits in my state of colorado. there is 140,000 residents to know have quality affordable health coverage through the affordable care act. in colorado it has declined about 1/3 .1 million people

in colorado including 460,000 children and 860,000 women now have health insurance to cover preventive services without any co-payments or deductibles. and they retained health coverage and more than 40,000 seniors receive medicare part d worth $118 billion and 1.eight people are protected by the provisions to prevent more than 20% of their profits in administrative overhead and because of these protections over 210,000 individuals received approximately $41.7 million with insurance company rebates. with 294,000 children with pre-existing health conditions can no bonterre be denied coverage.

even if you disagree with of what it is important to know that aca is helping them constituents. help thicken and the relentless attacks. we should look at the example of medicare part d. many democrats did not vote and had concerns have it was implemented but our senior coverage cut the drug caused i hope we can look into the next year in a bipartisan way to make the aca even better instead of trying to find ways to undermine it. i appreciate the witnesses coming today and a gao has important insights into the thing we can do to approve that. i hope we have learnt from the web site launch in to

make sure they do better moving forward. if you are new to use cms to have primary responsibilities for the web site0n slavitt. you're new to cms. you'll have primary responsibility for the website, so i hope you can tell us what you plan to do in 2015. >> we'll recommend dr. burgess for five minutes. >> thank you to the chair and thank you, mr. slavitt, for joining us again. our subcommittee throughout development and the rollout of healthcare.gov, this subcommittee had repeated assurances that the systems were and would be ready to go and that implementation was on track. we had a hearing in september lifrl literally days before the launch of healthcare.gov. we had repeated assurances from

the director of consumer information oversight, mr. gary cohen. he said unambiguously that on october 1st, americans would be able to go on line, would be able to see premium net of subsidy and would be able to sign up. we all know now that those assertions were fact challenged. the center for medicare and medicaid services undertook this mammoth project without effectively planning for its development or its oversight. this has led to hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars being wasted. again, gary cohen, other hhs officials told us time and again that the website was working. that was factually incorrect. it was not working and it still may not be working because the back end systems, those systems that are responsible for actually paying providers, have not been built.

consumers may believe the website is fixed because some of the front end problems have been addressed. but there is no way to verify inaccuracies about things like citizenship and income level or ensure that the correct subsidies are being paid for insurance premiums. thanks to this investigation, we now have definitive proof that the department of health and human services was fully aware that these systems were not ready for prime time. their own contracting documents shows that they only expected 65% of the federal exchange to be ready on october 1st. and then, of course, we're continuously reminded that the promises made by the administration simply couldn't be kept because the groundwork had not been done and the website was not prepared. we are all still wondering what happened to the promised $2500 in premium savings that every

family in america could look forward to? we're all wondering what happened to the ability for people to keep their doctors? we're all wondering what happened to the ability for people to be able to keep their insurance plan? mr. slavitt, mr. cohen also was asked in his last appearance here in january about the issue on the risk corners and the risk sharing. the question came up about what if there is not enough money in the risk corridor to actually cover the premium shortfalls that the insurance companies are experiencing? and would he look to -- that was mr. cohen -- would he look to supplementing those funds from general revenue of the treasury of the united states? he couldn't answer the question. i asked him if he could provide us with a legal memorandum upon which he relied to obtain the

ability to get funding from other sources if the internal funding was not enough to cover the cost of the risk corridors. that was january. i'm still waiting. i would like to know if i'm going to receive an answer to that question, and if so, when that answer might be forthcoming. fact of the matter is, both the department of health and human services and the white house failed to heed internal and external warnings about the lack of readiness of the exchanges. now we have the genera general accountability office report, and it is astounding to see that all the money that was spent, and not wisely, the organization continues to ignore recommendations and continues to pump money into what seems to be a futile effort. we're well on track to sink $1 million into the wealth of this

website. we have very little to show for our money. i'm eager for the testimony of the witnesses today and thapg t -- thank the chairman for the recognition. i now yield back the remainder of my time. >> mr. waxman, five minutes. sdplz thank y >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. this is the 12th hearing this committee held on the health care act since enrollment began on october 2013. these hearings, if you look at them, all have one purpose. to undermine the affordable care act regardless of the facts. the hearings have misled the public and i think squandered t taxpayers' dollars. in fact, the affordable care act is an historic success. it has made comprehensive health care reform a reality for the american people. more than 8 million people have signed up for private health insurance plans through the public and private marketplaces,

exceeding efforts by over a million people. an additional 7.6 million people have enrolled in the chip program. 3 million people under the age of 26 have enrolled in their parents' health care plans. in my district alone, if i can be parochial, 17,000 residents who were previously uninsured now have quality affordable health coverage because of the affordable health care act. so i'm giving you some perspective that the law has been a success. it is accomplishing what congress and president obama intended. instead we have another hearing of this committee or another subcommittee of this full committee trying to say how the affordable care act has problems and did things wrong, and

presumably they think it should be repealed. well, in a lawsuit there is a world called stipulate. we can stipulate to what the ga has reported. and they have reported some things for which we ought to be concerned. because despite the success of the law, the initial rollout of healthcare.gov has serious flaws. i'm glad we're going to hear from gao, government of accountability office, on their investigation of healthcare.gov contracting. we should always try to learn from mistakes. not dwell on them but learn from them, and i'm glad mr. slavitt is here to tell us what the administration has learned and what is being changed as a result. i've had experience with flawed contracts. i was chairman of the oversight committee and we released a report that identified nearly

200 contracts worth over a trillion dollars that involved significant waste fraud abuse or mismanagement. the fbi had a contract created virtual case file system that had to be canceled after spending over $100million. the contract to build a high-tech border fence, that was to keep out all these immigrants, and that had to be wasted after spending a billion. a deep water contract built boats that would not float. now, my point is not to excuse the healthcare.gov problems but to put them in context. with the exception of tom davis, congressional republicans showed little interest in these enormous wastes of taxpayer dollars when george w. bush was president. i think we should care about waste, fraud and abuse no marttr

who is president. i'm glad to the health care act was fixed. not exactly quickly but fixed nonetheless, and in time to help millions of americans apply for health care coverage. i want to know what to do different next time. see, we told you so. there are problems. we told you there would be problems. okay. and then their conclusion is, repeal it so they could replace it, but they've never given us a replacement. people are getting insurance who couldn't get it in the past because they had previously medical conditions. people are finding that their insurance can't be canceled just because they got sick. women are not discriminated against. people who can afford it can now get insurance because we give them tax breaks in order to pay for it.

so i'm eager to learn what the agency is doing, so involved in 2015 goes more smoothly. we have unequivocal proof that health care reform is a success. we now need to make the 2015 enrollment period as smooth as possible so we can build on this success. let's go for trying to make things better, not dwell on things that were wrong, especially if you learn the lessons and fix the problems. >> gentlemen, the time has expired. just a message to members and to our folks giving testimony today. we're expecting votes around 10:30, 11:00 -- 10:25, 10:40, i should say. we'll try to get through this. i would ask that members really stick to their five minutes as we go through this or i'll really bang it hard. and we will move forward. if we need to be interrupted by votes, we'll come back right after votes to complete things.

i now introduce the witness on the panel for our first hearing. deputy administrator for the centers of medicare and medicaid services. in his new role, he will be responsible for nationwide policy and a coordination program as part of a new management instructor that comes in response to lessons learned in the rollout of healthcare.gov. i'll now swear in the witness. are you aware that the committee is holding an investigative hearing, and when doing so, it has the practice of taking testimony under oath? do you have any objections to testifying under oath? >> no,i don't. >> and i would advise you under the rules of the house and of the committee, you are able to be advised by counsel? do you wish to be advised by counsel during this testimony? then stand up and i'll swear you in. [ witness was sworn ] >> the witness answered the affirmative and you are now under oath in title section 1001

of the united states code. you may now give a five-minute summary of your written statement, mr. stalavitt. i'm andy slavitt, principal administrator of cvs. i spent the last 20 years working with health plans and employers on solution to health care costs, quality and access. in the private sector i started my own health care technology business and ran larger scale health service organizations with more than 30,000 employees. in late october of last year, i began my involvement with the affordable care act implementation when i joined a group of people helping the cms team on the turnaround effort of the health insurance marketplace. i'm very pleased to be here with you today, and we'll briefly

walk through the progress of the affordable health care act to date. there is growing evidence that suggests the affordable health care act is making a difference in the millions of lives of americans. in the first full year, millions of americans selected a private insurance plan through the state or federal health exchange marketplace and millions more have retained kovcoverage on th parents' policies or applied for aide in chip. we're seeing an overall growth in our health spending which has continued into 2014. this is good news for consumers with a typical premium paid in a policy purchased under the marketplace under $100. good news for taxpayers as the recent medical fund trust report shows. and importantly, this success is not being achieved by government policy alone but in partnership with the private sector as insurers grow by competing to provide better access to quality affordable services. now, as we move into our second

year of marketplace limitation, we must build on the progress that's under way and heed the lessons of the last year. let me outline for you our highest priorities. first, we are focused on increasing value of our plan in the marketplace. this means increasing the shopping experience. secondly, we have technical and operational priorities. we must continually add automation that has begun with critical releases this summer and will continue this year and following years. while the consumer website is, of course, live, we are adding functionality to allow consumers to easily renew their coverage. whether on the consumer facing side or the back end, our technology improvements will be more continuous and more incremental. we have a very strong sense of our critical path.

our software releases so far have been on time and we are managing these deliverables daily. third, let me address our management priorities to include execution. as part of the turnaround team, i experienced firsthand the challenges of the first year of marketplace implementation. at cms, i'm now helping to oversee a series of changes to improve the management of the marketplace. as secretary burwell announced in june, we have created clear, top-down accountability. we have also improved the management of and with our key contractor, revenue-driven contract reviews. we have built more testing into the schedule. even as we address the major concerns for the last year, new ones will emerge, and our

management structuring team must service and address issues if a disciplined manner just as we did during the turnaround. this coming year will be one of visible and continued improvement, but not perfection. we are in the early stages of a program newly serving millions of consumers and are still learning about the best ways to support their unique needs. and we are setting up and testing new processes and new technologies along the way. from my experience at this stage, businesses begin to see how closely their design matches the battle-tested needs of the market. good organizations focus, prioritize and learn and continuously improve their operations and the services they provide. it is not always easy but we understand what we need to do and are making the right progress to have a successful open enrollment and continue to deliver on the promises of the affordable health care act, to

improve health care access, cost and quality of all americans. thanks and i look forward to your questions. >> thank you. i appreciate your comments and appreciate your candor here. in fact, my very first job as a young man was mucking out horse stalls, and i felt like the difference -- what i got to do was i got to ride the horses so it was a nice reward. the difference between that job and this job is i don't get to ride the horses. so i appreciate your honesty and candor in this and want to ask you questions along those lines. you may recall a year ago congress was told repeatedly the healthcare.gov website was fine, it was ready. in the months and days leading up to it, everything is ready to go. and the president said it would mirror the public's use with other web sites. so i have to ask, will healthcare.gov be fully ready this fall? >> thank you, chairman. i obviously wasn't here last year. it does sound like certainly from the gao report that i've

seen that a couple of things happened. first the technology field was bigger than people expected, and secondly, as the gao pointed out, there were significant issues with the management of the project. >> you said it would be perfection. are there going to be some hiccups in the website implementation this fall. >> i think this year we can expect a vastly different situation. for one, we have a website that's already up and live and running, we're adding continued improvements and we're adding them in a much less risky fashion. we're doing releases frequently over the course of the summer, putting things live into production. we built in a big testing window. so everybody will remain on their toes. they're nervous, everybody knows what they need to do but we expect to have a good rollout.

>> but the gao said there are still specific risks for the enrollment period. but you think they'll be ready? >> i think we can identify the risks, service them -- >> i don't want to take out my shovel. i would love to tell the committee, here's the actions we're taking to move forward. the committee would love that so we're not caught up in this guessing game. >> i suspect it won't be perfect with millions of people. there are certainly different situations. many are enrolling in insurance in the first time and it a bumpy process at times. i think we're committed, though, to people by and large who are dog a good job, but there will clearly be bumps. >> in anticipation, how many will you enrolling in the fall? or how many will be enrolling for the first time? >> i do not know that. >> do you know in terms of your review of this, how many of those have been enrolled the first time? >> i've only seen the media

reports, but it was, i think, far greater than half, but i've only seen that in the media. >> when secretary sebelius was here, i asked questions but i'll repeat them. how many were new? how many got a pink slip and were discontinued? how many were eligible because of medicaid? and of all those signed up, how many were paying the same, less or more? and she said really the website has no way of knowing any of those things. would you agree that's true. i think we're getting an idea of what previous insurers were paying. when we see these numbers, however many signed off, including the 45 million are served new by this. >> so the administrator has a chart in her office which she

calls her prettiest picture and it's a graph of the uninsured rate over time. and it drop to a 13% -- >> is that specific of review by your office, to specifically look at people insured before and secretary sebelius told me there was no way of knowing that. >> there is no way of determining that from the website. we know the uninsured rate is down to 13%. >> have you tried to sign up for one of the plans on the website? >> now that i'm a federal employee, i'm in the fhebp blue cross plan. >> you don't have to be in the affordable care act yourself? >> no, i'm a federal employee. >> well, okay. i'm just curious, have you reviewed with people if they tried to access their physicians, the plan allows the initial visit and other preventive care, not as much as i would like, but have you surveyed persons to find out if they have been able to see their physicians for follow-up appointments, their costs, have you reviewed their costs,

payment levels, co-pay, deductibles, have you reviewed any of those things? >> i'll have to get back to you on that. i don't think we have hard data but i can look and try to follow up. >> i'll keep of track time here. mrs. degette, you're recognized for five minutes. >> thank you. i agree it is important to make the federal exchange website and also the state's work as well for people and i'm sure mr. slavitt, you agree with that too, don't you? >> yes, i do. >> we want to make it as easy as we can for people to enroll, especially as we reenroll in the 2015 plans. is that correct? >> that's correct, congresswoman. >> now, up until now, even despite the admitted problems with the website, 8 million people enrolled in the marketplaces, is that correct? >> correct. >> and about 6.7 million enrolled in the medicaid expansion, is that right?

>> that's right. >> so obviously people were able to utilize those websites to get health insurance, is that right? >> that's correct. >> now, i was looking at the part of the gao report, and the gao made five recommendations in the report. are you aware of that? >> yes, i am. >> and what is your opinion of those recommendations? >> we agree with most of those recommendations. >> which ones don't you agree with? >> i think the only thing in the gao report that i think needs a little further clarification, not that i don't necessarily agree with it, it is the characterization of the eccentric contract and i think it was characterized as ballooning in cost when in fact i think the eccentric contract was there was initial contract before the work was completely scoped -- >> let me stop you, because that was one of their findings, but that wasn't one of their

recommendations. their recommendations -- >> correct. so i agree with all of their recommendations. >> you agree with all five of the recommendations. and what steps are you taking to implement those recommendations? >> so we are doing a number of things. first of all, in the contracting front, it is very clear now who can give work to eccentric, how work gets approved, how that contract gets managed and frankly, importantly, they have skin in the game to make sure they deliver. there is -- again, i wasn't here last year, so i can't speak to precisely how the project was managed. but now there is daily intensive management of the project, risks, issue and concerns are surfaced and dealt with. we built early warning indicators so there is an -- there is an accountability difference that i think is very significant. >> are you looking at the interoperability issues as well?

that's one of the problems we had before. >> this is, as you point out, congresswoman, many different pieces of this project in order to go out. the coordinations and systems integration is something that was missing last year and is in place this year. >> are you doing anything that goes beyond the recommendations in this gao report? >> yes, well, fortunately or unfortunately the gao report wasn't news to the people at cms. i think the people at cms who worked hard but lived through that nightmare don't want to go through that again. so i think actions were under way well before seeing this report and i think they fall under the categories i've talked about, contracting reform, technical and managerial oversight, focus and discipline project, management. >> we keep hearing about how expensive the cost overruns and everything else and setting up

healthcare.gov were. as an aside, i would like to know how much this lawsuit against the president is going to cost, but be that as it may, mr. slavitt, i want to ask you, do you think we're going to be protected from cost overruns for the 2015 enrollment period? >> so, again, i wasn't here last year, but the two things that went wrong last year, one of them actually was simply the inability for anybody and quite reasonably so and in private sector to estimate how big this project is and how complex it is. we have got a better handle on that now and i don't expect those overruns. secondly, to the point of the gao report, the contractor wasn't managed tightly with clear deliverables and requirements. that's been put to bed as well. those two things are in much, much better shape. >> and were you -- one last question, were you aware that the uninsured rate in this country dropped 25% after the

implementation of healthcare.gov and the full implemention of the aca. >> yes. that sounds right. >> i'll yield back. >> i'll recognize mr. harper for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and thank you for being here today. and i have a couple of questions i'd like to ask. first of all, who is performing the role of systems integrator now? who is doing that? >> optimum. >> i'm sorry. >> my prior company. >> who has that role now? >> optimum, the firm. >> okay. i got you. some questions i'd like to ask about some reports. earlier this summer we learned there were nearly 4 million inconsistencies in the applications submitted via

healthcare.gov. those inconsistents are for citizenship status or income. the failure to calculate these property could mean that millions of americans could have to pay back incorrectly calculated subsidies. so earlier this summer it was reported that there were millions of these, first of all, how did this happen? and can't the website check for accura accuracy. >> sure. so appreciate the question. inconsistencies occur because of the changes that occur in people's lives. and people that end up having more current information than government databases, so we have run last year during open enrollment hundreds of millions of checks against government databases to check on income and citizenship status and so forth. and some occasions where people particularly are in low wage jobs, in seasonal work, and other kinds of circumstance, their income is unpredictable, or in other cases they haven't filedes