tv Key Capitol Hill Hearings CSPAN March 18, 2016 1:30am-3:31am EDT
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>> the meeting will come to order. it's a pleasure to welcome everyone here this morning. we'll be talking with representatives from the office of inspector general, and from the government accountability office about their ongoing oversight work with respect to health care.gov. and enrollment in the federal health insurance marketplace. i want to thank both entities for their hard work on these issues and acknowledge the contributions they made to help this committee perform more accurate and timely oversight. >> no secret i've been a fan of the so-called affordable care act. the evidence overwhelmingly shows that i and the many others oppose this from the beginning has been right all along. the facts speak for themselves.
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republicans signed into law, hhs, lig and gao have released at least 6 dozen reports detailing various operation and information issues. detailing the numerous areas where the law has fallen short. these reports are specific and focused on key operational failures like systems issues. some of which we'll hear about today. the gao and hhsoig are not independentities. they're tasked with the responsibility of assessing what is and what is not working in various federal programs. including those created or amernded by the affordable care act. there's no better record showing how this happened in the reports we received from these offices. today we are going to
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specifically discuss operations issues, related to health care.gov and enrollment problems at the federal insurance marketplace, otherwise known as the federal exchange. let's start with healthcare.gov launch. with the deemployment of healthcare.gov and it's supporting systems, customers, really kwon assumers encountered widespread performance issues when trying to create accounts and enrole in health plans. after numerous inquiries and reports, we know what caused these performance issues. for example, there was inadequate capacity planning. the centers for medicare and medicaid services cut corners and did not plan for adequate capacity to maintain health care.gov and it's supporting systems. there were problems with the software that were entirely
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avoidable. they identified errors in the software coding for the website, but did not adequately correct them prior to the launch. we saw a lack of functionality. they did not adequately prepare the supporting systems prior to the initial launch. cms also failed to apply -- recognize best practices for system development which contributed to the problems. admittedly since the initial launch. cms has taken steps to address these problems, including increasing capacity, requiring additional software quality reviews and awarding a new contract to complete development and improve the functionality of key systems. many of the problems have still not been entirely resolved and continue to cause frustration. especially for consumers trying to obtain health insurance. i wish we could boil all this
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down. boil down all the volunteers problems to the functions of a single website. indeed this was just an it problem, all of our jobs would be a lot easier. however, the problems with obama care and the federal insurance marketplace in particular go much deeper. and many of them remain unaddressed. now, we know for example that the enrollment controls for the federal marketplace have been inadequate. during undercover testing by gao, the federal marketplace approved insurance coverage with taxpayer funded subsidies for 11 out of 12 fictitious online applicants. in 20 14 the gao applicants which once again were fake, make up fake -- made up people. obtained roughly 30,0$30,000.
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these fictitious enrollees maintained subsidized coverage throughout the year, even though the documents or no documents at all to reserve the inconsistencies. the subsidies, including those branded the gao's fictitious applicants are paid to health care insurers. they nevertheless represent a benefit to consumers and a cost to the government. now, gao did find that cms relies on a contractor charged with document processing, to basically uncover the -- to uncover and report possible instances of fraud. yet gao also found the agency does not require that the contractor has any fraud detection capabilities. and according to gao, cms has
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not performed a single comprehensive fraud assessment. recommended best practice of the obama care enrollment and eligibility process. until such assessment is completed, cms is unlikely to know whether existing control activities are designed to produce inherent fraud risk to an acceptable level. in other words, cms isn't even sure if cms is fraud prevention systems are designed correctly or if they're affected. not the focus of the reports that will be covered by the testimony today. another matter we've been tracking closely is cms's other side on the health care co-ops. we had a hearing on this topic in late january, where we examined a number of financial and oversite explanations for the abject failure of the co-op
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program. today's report describes cms's efforts to deal with financial or operations issues that the co-ops, including the use of an escalation plan for co-ops with serious problems. . as of november 2015, 18 co-ops, had enough problems they had to submit to a cms escalation plan including nine that disfinned operations. >> cms appeared to have failed just like virtually every other element of this program. the failure of cms to adequately implement the co-op program is well documented here on the finance committee and elsewhere.
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so many other parts of obama care, the highlighted rhetoric surrounding this program has fallen short of reality. with nearly half of the co-ops now closed, the failed experiment has wasted taxpayer dollars and forced patients and families to scramble for new insurance. so many problems now, i believe cms should work with and not against states to safeguard taxpayer dollars. as always, we have a lot to discuss. i look forward to hearing more from the officials, we have testifying here today. >> mr. chairman, and colleagues. it's known the healthcare.gov rollout three years ago was botched. it's new news that the inspector general of the health and human
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services department recently said and i want to quote here, "cms recovered the healthcare.gov website for high consumer use within two months and adopted more effective organizational practices." that's what the inspector general said. the department recovered the website for high consumer use within two months. that quote comes from one of two reports looking back at 2013 and 2014 the finance committee will be presented with today. i think we ought to start by recognizing the story is well documented. after the launch went badly, some of the best minds, technology and a new contractor were brought in. they scrambled to overhaul the system and the exchange is soon up and running. the center for medicare and
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medicaid services is now following up on each of the inspector general's recommendations which the inspector general notes in its repo report. nearly 10 million americans used healthcare.gov to sign up for a plan or reenrole automatically. in my home state, close to 150,000 persons have used the site to sign up for a plan. that's up by more than 30% compared to last year. the committee will hear an update from the government accountability office. the government accountability office first brought this study before the committee in july of last year. i'm going to repeat what i said back then. on this side of the aisle we don't take a back seat to anybody in fighting fraud and protecting taxpayer dollars.
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one dollar ripped off is one dollar too many. let's recognize what was true last summer remains true today. this gao investigation has not uncovered one single shred of real world fraud in the insurance marketplace. it was built on fictitious characters with specially created identities not real consumers and not real fraud. it's true that government accountability office found there are sometimes differences between the information on somebody's insurance application and their tax forms and citizenship records. when it comes to these inconsistencies in people's data, this investigation can't differentiate between fraud and a typo. meanwhile, health and human services has not looked the other way when it finds the red flags. in 2014, the year of the gao's investigation, the center of medicare and medicaid services closed more than 100,000 insurance policies because
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documents didn't match the warrant provided. tax credits were adjusted for nearly 100,000 households. in 2015, health and human services closed more policies and adjusted more tax credits. if you come at this from the left, you may say that's too harsh. if you come at it from the right, you may take a different view. there's no basis whatsoever for the argument that health and human services ignores problems with people's records or leaves the door open to fraud. it seems to me rather than rehashing old news, you ought to be looking at the facts and talking in a bipartisan way about how to move forward together. because of the affordable care act, the number of americans is at or near it's lowest point in half a century. for the 160 million people who get their insurance from their
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employer, colleagues premiums climbed 4% last year. let me repeat that, for 160 million people who get their insurance from their employer, premiums climbed only 4%. working age americans in oregon with pre-existing conditions, 80 million people or more can no longer be denied insurance. so instead of battling out what happened three years ago, we ought to be pulling on the same end of the rope and solving some problems. for example, democrats and republicans ought to be working together to look at ways in which we can provide even more competition and bring costs down for consumers. and a lot of you in this room have worked with me on that issue for some time. if you're going to be spectacular, the real question is whether our health care system is going to be able to afford them. here senator grassley has worked closely with me to put together a bipartisan case study, which looked at one blockbuster drug
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involving hepatitis c. solving the cost of blockbuster drugs is going to take a lot of hard work, it again can only be done on a bipartisan basis. and finally, i want to express my appreciation to colleagues on both sides of the aisle. i think we're on the cusp of being able to make real progress on a huge opportunity for older people and our country. and that is protecting the medicare guarantee. very sacred guarantee we have for seniors, while updating the program to look at the great new challenge which is chronic illness, i want to thank senator bennett who is out in front. he's not here, but senator isaacsohn and senator warner were champions as well much i want to express my appreciation to the chairman you can the progress that we are making. i have to make some comments
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with respect to something we didn't know about, until about an hour ago. that's this matter of the co-ops. what we have said is that we want to work in a bipartisan way to improve a variety of sections of the affordable care act. now the, this new material on the co-ops that neither i nor anyone knew something about, was available. i intend to look at it with an eye on what can be done on a bipartisan basis going-forward. but my work -- and i think the work of colleagues here always ought to come back to the idea of making health care policy more accessible and more affordable. and for now, and i certainly haven't seen this report. i'm not going to be participating in any celebration of people suffering because the co-ops were tied up in a congressionally induced economic
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straightjacket. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank, senator. >> our first witness is miss erin bliss. from the office of inspector general or oig at hhs. miss bliss has served in many roles at oig since her career began. i think your career began in 2000, correct? >> she started as an analyst for the office of evaluation and inspections, and later went on to serve as a senior adviser where she provided management advice and analysis to the inspector general and other senior executives on priorities and internal policies and operations. afterwards she worked from 2009 to 2014 as director of the external affairs at oig. and was responsible for implementing oig's communication strategies and relationship
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management with the administration. congress, media, the health care industry and the public. miss bliss received her bachelor's degree from the government at the university of notre dame, before receiving her master's degree in public policy from the university of chicago. our second witness, during his gao career, he's served in a variety of positions, including as legislative adviser and the assistant director for homeland security and justice. mr. bagdoyan has also served on congressional details with the senate finance committee we're glad to see you back here again. am i pronouncing that right? >> pretty close.
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>> he's also had a number of positions in consultancies, including most recently focusing on political risk of home land security. he received his master's degree in international relations and an mba in strategy from pepperdine university. i want to thank you both for coming. miss bliss, please proceed with your five minute statement. >> thank you. good morning, chairman hatch. thank you for the opportunity to testify today about the office of inspector general's case study which examines the management of healthcare.gov. the website consumers use to purchase health insurance through the federal marketplace.
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as is well known on october 1st, 2013, the healthcare.gov website failed almost immediately upon launch. within two months, cms had substantially improved the site's performance. how did such a high priority project start so poorly? and how did cms turn the website around? our case study provides insights into these questions and lessons learned to help health care.gov work better. we police our assessment at the intersection of technology, policy and management can benefit a broad range of federal projects and programs. our report chronicles the breakdown and turn around of healthcare.gov over a five-year period. from the outset, the healthcare.gov project faced a high risk of failure. it was technically complex with a fixed deadline and many
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uncertainties. still hhs and cms made many missteps in its implementation. most critical was the absence of clear leadership and overall project responsibility which had ripple effects. policy decisions were delayed affecting the technical decisions. policy and technical staff were in silos and not well coordinated. contract management was disjointed. changes to the project were not well documented and progress not adequately monstered. this culminated in cms not fully communicating or acting upon many warnings of problems before the launch. cms failed to fully grasp the poor status of the build. one reason was that no one had a full view into all of the problems and how they fit together. red flags raised to leadership, did not always float a staff working on the build. and staff did not always alert
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leadership to problems on the front lines. cms was unduly optimistic. last minute attempts to correct problems were rushed and pin sufficient. and the two months before the launch. cms added twice the staff to the project and cut many planned website functions. just 72 hours ago, cms asked its contractor to double it's computing capacity. even with these efforts, the health does care.gov website saw many problems. the problems went beyond capacity. the website entry tool worked poorly, and software coding defects caused malfunctions. cms and its contractors did not have coordinated tools to diagnose these problems. cms pivoted quickly to make corrections to the website. they brought in additional staff and expertise from across government and the private
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sector. one key was creating a badgeless culture. cms integrated policy and technical staff and developed redundant systems to aroid future website problems. cms took a more realistic approach. it practiced what officials called ruthless prioritization. which focused on effectively developing the most critical functions like reenrollment and delaying other features. they measured progress and monitored problems to respond more quickly and effectively. these factors contributed to an improved website, and important organizational changes. looking ahead, cms continues to face challenges and improving healthcare.gov and managing the federal marketplace. this includes addressing more than 30 recommendations from
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oig's other federal marketplace reports. we will continue to monitor cms's reactions and it's overall management of this and other programs. thank you again for inviting oig to speak with the committee today. i'll be happy to answer your questions. >> thank you, so much, mr. bagdoyan. we turn to you. >> i am pleased to be here today to discuss results from our february 2016 report on enrollment and verification controls for aca health care coverage obtained through the federal marketplace during the 2014 open enrollment period. our results are based on extensive forensic analysis of relevant data from cms and other agencies such as ssa, irs and dhs, involving originally the entire 2014 applicant and are independent of the undercover work we perform for that period.
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the central future of enrollment controls is the federal data services hub, which is the primary vehicle for cms to initially check information provided by applicants against various federal data sources. in addition, the aca established a process to resolve inconsistencies, instances where applicant information doesn't match that of marketplace sources. in terms of context for our work, coverage offered through the federal marketplace is a significant skmendy tour for federal government. current levels of coverage involve millions -- who involve 85% receive subsidies. cbo has put subsidy costs at about $880 million through 2025. i would note that while subsidies are paid to insurers and not directly to enrollees, they never let us represent a
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financial benefit to them. as i stressed before, a program of this scope and scale remains inherently at risk for errors, including improper payments and fraud. accordingly, it is essential that effective enrollment controls are in place to help narrow the window of opportunity for such risk, and safeguard the government's investment against this backdrop i'll now discuss our two principle and analytical results. first we found that cms does not track or analyze aggregate outcomes, the extent to which a query agency delivers information responsive to a request, or whether an agency reports that information was not available. in this record, for example, we found that ssa could not match 4.3 million queries related to names of -- names, dates of birth or social security numbers
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at 8.2 million queries related to citizenship claims. irs could match queries involving about 31 million people related to income and family size, and within this, 1.3 million people had i.d. theft issues. and finally, dhs couldn't match 510,000 queries related to citizenship and immigration status. accordingly, cms forgoes opportunities for gaining valuable insights about significant program and ea integrity issues. second, we found that cms didn't have an effective process for resolving inconsistencies for applicants, using the federal marketplace many for example, we found that about 431,000 applications with about $1.7 billion in associated subsidies
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still had about 679,000 inconsistencies unresolved as of april 2015. four months after the close of the 2014 coverage year. within these, cms didn't resolve social security numbering for about 35,000 applications with about 154 million or incarceration inconsistencies for about 22,000 applications with about 68 million in associated subsidies. by leaving inconsistencies unresolved, they risk making subsidy payments on behalf of those -- they are vital for income tax compliance and the reconciliation of premium tax credits through filing tax returns which is a key back end
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control under aca. in closing, our work today collectively shows that cms shows a passive approach weakening the programs integrity. accordingly, we underscore, we continue to underscore that cms needs to make aca program integrity a priority and implement effective controls to help reduce improper payment and preclude them from being embedded early in the program. in this regard, we made 8 recommendations to cms in our february report which are intended to help mitigate the vulnerabilities and risks we identified. the agency agreed with the recommendations, it is incumbent on cms to achieve and sustain measurable results. mr. chairman, this concludes my statement, i look forward to the committee's questions. i appreciate the indull gans for an extra 30 seconds.
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>> happy to give you that extra time. the previous reports at the office of inspector general, criticized healthcare.gov. and the marketplace, describing important problems with internal controls such as inadequate procedures for checking the eligibility of enrollees. how does the case study differ on the same topic? >> thank you for your question, chairm chairman. the case study is one of a dozen reports the oig has issued. most of those were more targeted audits or evaluations, examining aspects of eligibility controls payment accuracy, contracting and security of information. the case study took a different approach and cast a wide lens at cms's management for multiple perspectives and over a long
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period of time in order to glean lessens learned about what went wrong and what went right. in an effort to help improve this healthcare.gov project and other projects moving forward. >> your report pointed out the electronic clearinghouse for checking information about federal databases. you said that cms needs to make better use of this enrollment control process, would you explain that a little bit? >> i would be happy to do that, mr. chairman. the data hub is a key cog in the overall control environment for aca. it processes a lot of queries for information. a lot of those queries are in fact not captured for future analysis. we believe that such capture and
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analysis would provide cms with a lot of insight into potential indicators of improper payments as well as fraud. so a comprehensive control system would theoretically enable that sort of analysis for the long term, and we do actually have a recommendation to that effect to cms. >> thank you. >> we have long been told by cms, don't worry. even if there are issues, everything eventually gets fixed when people file their income taxes. gao found practices that undermind tax compliance. am i right about that? >> yes, a number of the inconsistencies we identified out of the 431,000, i believe we had about 35,000 that involved d
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tax or ssn inconsistencies, according to irs when we discussed this at length. they told us this was not only important for task compliance, but to reconcile the advanced tax credits, this is the third main backup control. without that information that's accurate and reliable. i pointed out their job is made much more difficult to not only do the tax return processing, but also reconcile the subsidies. it's a long term problem if it's not addressed. >> what are the most important lessons learned from healthcare.gov. do you think the lessons learned from your case study applied to other large programs and
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projects that are being planned by the department of health and human services or other government agencies? >> we certainly do. the intersection between policy, technology and management is not only essential for health care.gov, we believe these lessons will apply to other federal projects and programs. we gleaned ten lessons learned i'll highlight what i team to be the most significant. first is establishing clear leadership. we found the clear leadership and overall responsibility had ripple effects, caused a number of cascading problems across the project. and made problem resolution more difficult. we found the disconnect between those working on the policy and making decisions and those working on the technical aspects of the project created problems at both sides.
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delays in policy decision making, compressed and tight time frame for achieving the technical build successfully. better integration, policy and technical as well as across government and contractors through this culture, are some of the keys we sought to correct. and finally, taking a posture of continuous learning, which means being flexible and adaptable especially with a start-up take project, we found that cms got stuck on an unwinnable path and it was too late before they realized and tried to make changes. keeping that continuous learning posture, being innovative and flexible and con stan thely monitoring for problems to adjust plans where needed. >> thank you. >> thank you very much mr. chairman, thank you to both of you.
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>> i'm wondering, just to start, yes or no question. based on your case study, do you think that health care.gov website should be taken down and completely new website be built? >> no. >> thank you. like many of my colleagues, we're very frustrated about what happened in the past. clearly you laid out the problems with the launch. i think everyone agrees there were serious problems with the launch. created a lot of difficulties, and certainly for people in michigan to get coverage in 2013. that's 6 years ago, we're now in year three of the affordable care act marketplace celebrations. when we look at the reports, the report looking backwards, we can agree, problems. the question is moving forward, how do we address the fact that
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over 20 million people received health care coverage, literally saving people's lives. that's not just a rhetorical statement. i talked to people who were able to get surgery or care for their children they've never been able to receive before. i think that is a good part of things when we talk about the numbers, the real life experiences of people. >> the uninsurance rates are the lowest it's ever been. medicaid expansion has expanded to literally thousands of at-risk families. i want to say i hope all of us will make it better. that's why i appreciate your recommendations as we look forward. not just on this particular
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website and process, but in others as well. but the question is how do we make it better. we want to make sure we have quality access for every american. whether it's medicare, medicaid, children's health program, and so on and so on. with that in mind, let me ask about any other recommendations from a gao standpoint that you haven't already spoken of today and how we can make things better. frankly i want over 20 million people that have health insurance today that didn't have it before, and i have the piece of mibd to go to bed at night to know they're going to be able to take their children to a doctor. i'm hopeful we can get as close to zero as possible in terms of the number of people in our country that don't have access. that have access that we can get
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to zero, the number of people that don't. i'm interested in your recommendations on how we go forward to make this system better. >> sure. thank you, senator stabbenow. we report, we made eight specific descriptions. we tried to allow cms some latitu latitude. the key recommendation i believe, the big picture recommendation is for cms to conduct a risk assessment sort of top to bottom. identify the vulnerabilities and risks for improper payments and fraud. in that regard, the gao issued in july of 2015, it's framework
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for managing fraud risk. that's a comprehensive leading practice from the private and public sectors that would provide the agency with quite a solid road map to perform that risk assessment. everything should flow from that assessment in terms of the types of actions, policy changes, control improvements, and so forth. >> are you working with cms? what is their reaction? are they objective to that? >> no, i think i should give cms credit that they accept all 8 recommendations, including this one, as they say, the proof is in the pudding. they need to execute, do so successfully and achieve results and sustain them all with the long term. this is not a one and done proposition. >> just to be clear, you made the recommendations, they've accepted all eight recommendations and they're in
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the process of doing that? >> that's correct. we have informal and formal requests. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank our two witnesses. lord knows where we would be. if we didn't have gao and inspector generals. the alarming malfeasance and incompetence of the rollout of this plan is just stunning. and here we are. we can't just simply brush it off and say, well, this was a bad start, everything's going great now. cost to the taxpayer probably will never know. thank goodness that we have your organizations providing us information and spurring on seemingly bureaucratic nightmare that exists within the federal
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government. anybody in the private sector would have been bankrupt. the investors would have lost all their money. it's stunning to continue to observe what it takes to get these agencies to -- i think they're well intended. just overwhelmed in terms of the complexity of getting this done. i go to the floor of the senate every week and talk about waste of the week and mr. bagdoyan, i've referenced your name, not as part of the problem, but as part of the solution. and the information that you provided here for me continues to stun people when they hear about some of the incompetencies, i was particularly interested.
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i think it speaks to a bigger problem. was your -- what was called the secret shopper? where you deliberately made applications as a test. you made applications for appliance with the affordable care act and received subsidies. and 11 of the 12. i think my numbers are right. everything you submitted was fraudulent. 11 of the 12 were accepted. even after it was accepted, the follow-up phone calls, pretending to be that person. who was given notice that they were not eligible were accepted.
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that percentage is pretty high. if you multiply that out, it makes you wonder if the whole thing wasn't so intent on providing numbers to make it look successful that we really weren't getting the information, the verification that we needed. and then there was the question with cms. at one point releasing a statement, we're not in the verification business. i think basically on the -- what you just said, they are now taking a different stand on that. i wonder if you could respond to where are we now in terms of verification capacity so that we don't have this fraudulent and wasteful situation moving on. happy to have either one of you or both of you address that.
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but this social security -- it just seems easy, that -- an evaluation of the social security numbers to determine their value, their validity would make it fairly easy to make a determination as to whether they qualified or didn't qualify. where is cms in terms of putting that process in place, and what is the success to date of that process. >> sure, if i may. first i appreciate the plug on the floor, senator. >> you keep going to the floor? >> in terms of where cms is with the controls, a series of controls designed to verify information, identify potential indicators of fraud and so forth as our undercover work indicated for 2014 and 2015, where we were equally successful, there are --
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there is a semblance of controls in place. >> a semblance? >> a semblance of controls in place, some basic things in place like identity proofing. in each case, we were able to work around those reasonably easily. and obtain coverage for 2014 and 2015. so the vulnerabilities are still in place. now, with the recommendations we made in this report, actually, in late february. as i explained to senator stabenow, the big one is to perform a comprehensive risk assessment. that's going to take time for cms to absorb the results and then craft hopefully appropriate solutions for the future. so i'm -- this is a long term
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proposition. it's not going to be an easy fix. >> i think they got a bad start, everything's going great right now. this is going to take a long term effort to try to put these verification providers in place and to be able to say that we're successfully avoiding fraud and waste. inefficiency and taxpayer cost level that is absolutely astounding. with due respect to my colleagues. to taut this as something that's happened in the past, threatened, sailing into the bright future, i think we have a lot of work to do. thanks, mr. chair. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to again say that we said the initial rollout was botched and appreciated the inspector general making clear that a
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couple months in there was serious progress. so you all reported that after the first open enrollment, the agency demonstrated the strong sense of urgency to take action. except work processes. they improved the health care.gov website substantially within two months. i think it would be helpful if you could tell us two things. what were the operational and strategic changes that were made arch the first enrollment, do you feel they're better equipped to deal with the challenge now? >> thank you for that question. as we discussed in the case study, some of the key strategic and operational changes that were made as part of the correction were to establish more clear leadership and designate rows and
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responsibilities. this time they did it in a way that brought together staff and contractors across all of the important business lines that were affected and needed to be involved in the correction. that included the policy people, the technical, the communications and the contractors, all coming together. with the influx of experts from across government and the private sector, there was the potential that it could become . in fact, we saw the i are verse was true. it was well organized. folks are working together as a team. there was better communication. there was better measurement and monitoring of problems and progress in order to apply solutions more quickly and effectively. >> so, in effect, after the first few months, which everybody has acknowledged your characterization was such well organized.
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>> it was much better organized. they continue to make progress. >> all right. >> good. i'm probably the biggest users of gao products here in the congress. i admire the professionalism of the agency. i think you heard me say i don't take a backseat to anybody when it comes to cracking down on actual real world fraud, and my question to you is, isn't it correct that when you testify before the committee last year you stayed at the secret shopper investigation failed to uncover a single real world example of fraud? >> yes, that's what i said, senator wyden. i would couch that very carefully for you and the committee. the intent of that investigation was not to uncover fraud but
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flag control vulnerabilities as well as identify indicators of potential fraud, which i think we did quite successfully. we want to remain my charge is not to find fraud. fraud is determined through a separate criminal proceeding and in court toí9ww definitively determine that. so my job, again, is to look for vulnerabilities in controls as well as identify indicators or potential fraud or improper payments. >> so let's go, then, from last year when there was not one single real world example of fraud to where we are now. is it correct to say that the entire investigation failed to identifying any actual fraud? >> well, again, i would refer you to my answer. that was not our intent. if i'm not looking for fraud, i'm not going to find it. what i'm looking for is vulnerabilities in controls and
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indicators of potential fraud such as the inconsistencies with the social security numbers, as well as in the case of the irs 1.3 million people having potential id theft issues, which is a significant red flag. >> and i think that as is always the case you all were right to talk about various issues that ought to be part of the debate. that's not going on here. what people are saying is this is fraud. fraud, fraud, fraud. and i appreciate your painting us through this, i think, better balanced view. hhs, you all do audits. oig does audits. have you uncovered, in connection with this, any confirmed cases of fraud? >> no, we have not had any cases
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that resulted in criminal convictions or civil settlements to date. we do have a few investigations that are ongoing. i can't predict what those outcomes will be. >> and, you know, look. i don't know how many times i've said in this committee when they're big important issues. certainly the affordable care act is right at the top of it. we need to work in a bipartisan fashion and there isn't a program anywhere in government that you can't find opportunities to work together and be buy partisan. i ticked off a number of them. the chairman and i working together on what i think is the future of the medicare program chronic care. senator grassley and i finishing what i think is a block buster study looking at hepatitis c. it raises the question of when we have cures, will people able to afford them? what i think is important is to
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do bipartisan work, we've got to move away from first pass because everybody acknowledges the first few months were botched. i don't know how many times you can say it. i read your comment and said substantial improvements. i think i can come back to it and perhaps read it, you know, one more time. center for medicare services recovered the website for high consumer use within two months. now that's the new news. that's just a few weeks old. that's new news. i want people to hear that. i want people to hear there were no actual real world cases of fraud uncovered.
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one final question, if i might, for you is do you disagree with the statement they made with respect to the accomplishments of the affordable care act? that is not your formal role. that's the inspector general. does anything strike you as being inaccurate there with respect to the uninsured rate or anything of that nate nature? >> as an independent oversight agency, we don't take positions on whether particular programs should exist, but we make sure they're operating correctly. >> the question was about the facts. what, i think, again this is a hard fact that is not in dispute
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the uninsured rate is at or near the lowest recorded level against five decades about 29 million previously uninsured americans gaining coverage since the acts provisions went into effect. i'll keep the record open so if you or your agency has any information suggesting that's wrong, i sure would like to know about it. okay. >> thank you. i don't have any information suggesting that's wrong. >> wonderful. >> do you have any information suggesting those numbers are right? >> i cannot validate those numbers. i don't have any reason to believe they're not. >> you have no indication either way. >> i have no basis. >> you have no reason to believe it's 30 million. >> i don't have the basis for validating the number -- >> that's great.
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ranking member asked you several questions about fraud. i certainly understand and appreciate why so many americans look at this process and become disenchanted. your objective was never to figure out how much fraud was in the system. your objective, appeared to me, to show us how fraud would be -- could happen. >> yeah, essentially, senator, you're correct. the big picture we're looking at is any vulnerabilities in the controls in place and for any indicators of potential fraud that pop up. for example, our ability to circumvent the controls we encounter during our undercover work. for 2014 and repeated that experience in 2015, which case we were successful 17 out of 18 attempts. that would have to caution that, of course, further to the point
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that senator coats made earlier. that's not a projectable number. we have to be careful that it doesn't represent the actual universal. it's a data set we use to continue our work in this area. >> yes, thank you very much. no one is going to mistake me a fan of obama or the aca. for many reasons i'm not fan of the website nor the policy -- the legislation. i think of the independent payment advisory board some refer to as a death panel the ability to ration care to the future. this is one of the classic examples why so few americans have the same appreciation that others have talked about of the aca. think about the fact we're talking about taxing americans or the income with a 3.8% tax raising over $120 billion. another reason why so few americans have the same thing
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we've heard from some of our friends on the other side. the thing about the whole notion how the health care law is going to regulate the calories that pizza parlors, grocery stores, all over the place. and increasing the price of these groceries, these pizzas and other nonfood items. reducing the number of employees' hours. talking about the impact of middle income america. so many americans losing, perhaps 25% of their income because of the aca. we can see why so many americans have found themselves frustrated with the aca. it's not all news to them. it's not old news, actually, you think about the fact that so many americans are facing higher premiums. we've heard so many different numbers this morning. we know that at least some states, i've seen an increase of
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more than 25% of the health care costs. two states have seen those numbers go over 35%. that was a real dollars for struggling americans who cannot afford the cost of health insurance. not only the premiums higher. the deductibles are higher. the out of pocket costs are higher. even one of the most recent democrat town halls, young lady supporting president obama supports the health care law said her premiums doubled and tripled. here is one case example. i hope this no longer happens. young man named tom from el
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againelgin, south carolina created an account on healthcare.gov. a guy named mr. justin hadley in north carolina did the same thing created an account. when he found populating his account was information from the other gentleman. he called hhs. he could not get any assistance. finally they called her office and during one of the hearings we were able to get that situation solved or at least the beginning of the situation solved. can you guarantee me that situation is no longer occurring anywhere within healthcare.gov? >> i cannot guarantee that. we've joan receiver the controls to ensure that both the website and other parts of the program and identity verification, eligibility verification are working properly. we have raised concerns about some flaws or weaknesses in those controls similar to gao. i can't make that guarantee.
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we're certainly working hard to identify where there's a vulnerability of that happening and making recommendations of how to improve it. >> my last question, since i'm out of time here today. it appeared that as we celebrated the success of improving the system the first couple of months, i will note a new trillion dollar program. one of the recommendations was for clear leadership. thank you. >> senator isaisakson. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i apologize for missing your testimony and apologize for being late. i have one question based on a letter i have sent previously. i want to ask this. you agree that increasing the utilization of existing testing
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data sources is one easy way that cms to reach the mutual goal of expanding program integrity and management and better assess fraud risk? >> yes, in fact that's one of our recommendations to crps. to consider doing that on an active basis to capture the data and analyze the data for whatever indicators that they throw off and act upon those, yes. >> when do you have any idea when cms is going to take advantage of that and do it? >> as i stated before in response to several senator's questions. cms accepted those recommendations. they are on record in writing as having done so. and as i said in my opening statement, it is now incumbent on the agency to take action in a timely basis. as i said, it will take time to work through this. it's not an easy fix. it's not a short term fix. it's not a one-and-done fix.
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>> i apologize for being late. you covered it in your opening statement. there is readily available data that are already under contract to cms this a can enhance the program and uproot fraud easier. i appreciate your testimony. >> yeah. the data are available. definitely. >> thank you. >> i want to thank our witnesses for appearing today. and the work each of you do is very important, as far as we're concerned. you and your organization. it's vitally important to this committee. we're shrankful for the quality progress that they produce to assist us in our policy making and oversight efforts. i also want to thank my colleagues for their participation in this important hearing. i think the hearing has been enlightening. unfortunately, i think this hearing further revealed that we're only now getting to the level of the care iceberg. it seems to me. as premiums continue to
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skyrocket and insurance options become more limited an increasing number of americans are being hung out to dry. to work with me to repeal and replace the so called affordable care act before it's too late. politicking and bickering aside and fine work of a bipartisan solution. there's more we can do. there's more we it seems we have to do. and honestly, i believe we can do it. the american people deserve better than what they have right
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now and more importantly what they're about to have in the next two years. i encourage each of my colleagues to meet with me and find workable solutions. i encourage both of do you keep doing the jobs you're doing. so you're very important to this committee and i think our country at large. i ask any written questions will be submitted by march 31st this year. with that, this hearing will be adjourned. thank you for being here.
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participation. with us this week to discuss the 2016 state of black women in the u.s. report which nxincludes vis of 2016 presidential campaign. and former u.s. attorney for the district of columbia will talk about the investigation into the e-mails sent to and from hillary clinton's personal e-mail server during her time as secretary of state and what dwromts he thinks we can expect in the coming weeks. be sure to watch "washington journal" beginning live at 7:00 a.m. join the discussion. >> i'm a history buff. >> the presidency. american artifacts. they're fantastic shows. >> i had no idea they did history. that's probably something i would enjoy. >> and with american history tv it gives you that perspective. >> i'm a c-span fan!
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>> and the weekly briefing house speaker paul ryan was asked about donald trump's presidential campaign and the potential for a contested republican convention in july. i am very pleased that the senate has passed a bill that i introduced along with senator patty murray to help take us on the right path to work on fixing poverty in this country. if we're ever going to move the needle on poverty in america, we have to change the way that we think about this problem. instead of putting the focus on effort, we need to focus on results. this bill will help us address how we better treat the root causes not the symptoms of
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poverty. addressing poverty will be a big part of our policy agenda that we'll present to the country in the coming months. this is a good first step. i hope to get this legislation on the president's desk very soon. second, in a few days, the president will be traveling to cuba. before he does, let's not forget something. let's not forget that the castro regime has been guilty of countless human rights abuses. to this day, this is a regime that provides safe harbor to terrorists and fugitives. unfortunately, it is doubtful that the president will bring up the need for reform. he is set to announce new commercial deals between the u.s. company and the cuban regime. deals that will legitimize and strengthen the communist government. however, our trade embargo on castro's cuba passed by congress in 1959 is still, in fact,
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intact and enforceable. despite the president's attempt to undermine this embargo, he is ultimately bound by it. that is the law of the land. last -- this morning secretary kerry declared isis is committing genocide against christians and religious minorities. as you know, this declaration comes about as a result of an oversight deadline set by congress. i want to thank chairman royce for their leadership on this issue. i also want to thank the knights of columbus and all those organizations and leaders around the world who have spoken out on this. this makes a difference. their efforts in speaking out against again side is making a difference. but now that our government is recognizing this crisis, it needs to do more to stop it. i hope the president will seize this opportunity to present a very clear strategy to defeat this enemy. and to all those brave people who are being persecuted, i would simply like to say this.
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we will stand with you. we will pray with you. we will work every day to put these words into action. thank you. >> reporter: my colleague john harwood -- >> i wasn't trying to. >> reporter: i know you weren't. to clarify, i want to make sure that in the event no person running for the republican nominee right now gets -- and you will unequivocally -- >> it is not me. i didn't think i made news. i thought i was pretty clear. i saw boehner last night and i told him to knock it off. you know, i used slightly different words. i used his own words that he used to use against us when he told us to knock things off. it's not going to be me. it should be somebody running for president. i made a decision over a year ago not to run for president. i really believe, if you want to be president, you should run for
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president. people are out there campaigning, canvassing, caucuses and primaries. that's who we should select amo among for president on whatever ballot we're talking about. >> reporter: do you see yourself as a negotiator possibly -- >> ah -- right. so, you know, i had six days notice taking this job. i learned after becoming speaker that i'm the chair of the convention. soly have to, obviously, bone up on all the rules and all of those things. my goal is to be dissipation nate and to be neutral and passionate and make sure that the rule of law prevails and the delegates make their decision however the rules require them to do that. i wi right now i'm trying to get congress moving in the right
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direction. [ inaudible question ] there's at lot of ceremony to bone up on as well. [ inaudible question ] >> no. nothing has changed other than the perception this is more likely to become an open convention than we thought before. so we're getting our minds around the idea this could well become reality and therefore those involved in the convention need to respect that. [ inaudible question ] very pleased. got a good vote out of the budget committee yesterday. i'm amazed how fast they got it out. when i ran the budget we would get out at 10:00 at night. chairman price needs to be complimented for how fast he got that moving.
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he beat my records. look at the budget they passed. it pays off the debt. honors our military with the equipment they need, and it calls for tax reform and repeals obamacare. it does everything we need to do on the entitlement side to move people from well ware to work to pay off the debt. we think it's a very good budget. we're going to continue have a team discussion with the members of the conference to decide how to proceed. [ inaudible question ] >> yep, they do every year. we don't have an answer to that question yet we're going to be discussing that with this conference on how best to proceed. i envision a lot of budgets coming to the floor.
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that's always been the process. when that process occurs and under what circumstances the decision will make as a team. >> reporter: in 2013 the house passed the act salaries -- >> in the next congress. there's a constitutional issue. >> do you support withholding lawmakers salary. >> i think we should pass the budget plain and simple. i plan to leave it at that. >> sorry, you're sitting in front of a guy from wisconsin. you're not going to get called on -- >> reporter: going to somebody for running for president. do you agree with donald trump's statement there would be riots -- if someone with a clear lead and delegates -- >> because to even address or hint to violence is
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unacceptable. >> last question. >> you're not wearing green. go ahead. sorry, man. >> if i told you i was a little bit irish i would lie. i sympathize. >> reporter: if you think that -- [ inaudible question ] we i'm not going to get into that stuff. go ahead. >> you have denounced donald trump for zone phobia for inv e inciting violence and saying things that could be interpreted as inciting even more violence. at what point do you denounce his candidacy. is it something you have to do?
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>> i don't know. i don't believe i would do that. this is democratic process. the republican primary voter is going to make this decision on who or nominee is going to be. if the person doesn't get a sufficient delegates then it goes to the convention and the delegates make that decision. and those delegates are elected in each of the caucuses and each of the districts. every state has a different way of doing it, by republicans. i'm going to respect that process. so it isn't my place to say who our nominee is or what. if anybody, not just donald trump, if anybody is out there representing the republican party in ways that we believe disfigure conservativism or do not portray what our views and principles are, i, as a party leader, and others, i would assume, have an obligation to defend our principles from being distorted. i am who i am. i'm a conservative who believes in specific principles and specific policies and i'm going
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to speak out on those all the time. here is what i can control and here is what i'm going to do. i, as speaker of the house, am going to lead an effort for all of our members of the house republican caucus to offer an agenda to the country. so we can take an agenda to the men and women of america to show them how we get america back on track. more than two-thirds of the people in this country think america is headed in the wrong direction. that's not just republicans. we, as the other party, have a moral obligation and a duty to offer a bold and specific alternative course. so that if we win this election, then we have an obligation and mandate given to us from the citizens of this country to go on that course. to put those reforms in place to get this country back on the right track. that's something i can control. that's something i can be involved in. that's something i can help deliver. that's what i'm focussing on. thank you very much.
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booktv has 48 hours of nonfiction books and authors every weekend. here are some programs to watch for. saturday night at 8:15 eastern a book discussion with city university of new york professor douglas author of "throwing rocks at the google bus." how americans can change how they grow businesses to benefit employees and employers. then at 10:00 p.m. "liberty's nemesis" examining the growth of federal government and presidential power during the obama administration. mr. yew is interviewed by victoria tunsing. former assistant deputy attorney general. >> it seems obvious that the government can't regulate the money you used to participant in a constitutional right. so it says you have a right to free speech, particularly as you said in politics.
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how can the government say you can't spend money on using your constitutional right. >> on sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern former first lady laura bush chronicles the lives of afghan women since the u.s. invasion in the book "we are afghan women." mrs. bush intwrote the introducn to the book which was put out by the george bush institute. go to booktv.org for the complete weekend schedule. former congressman pete hofstra has written a book at the obama administration's foreign policy and the events leading up to the 2012 attack on the u.s. consulate in benghazi. he discussed his time as chairman of the foreign relations democratic national committee and his experiences dealing with foreign leaders. he gave this talk last month at the leadership program of the rockies in colorado springs. it's an hour. >> one of my favorite
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speakers -- my favorite speaker is here right now. congressman pete hofstra was my closest friend when we both served in the u.s. house of representatives together. he's from west michigan, and was on the education committee with me. we had great fun causing trouble for the department of education. it was great times. [ applause ] literally, here is what happened. most of these people get elected to congress. you know, they vote and make nice speeches and so on. when the floor work is finished, they head for the golf course or bars in town and things that have sort. i wasn't into that. i made friends with people who took the job seriously and knew we had an important responsibility for our constituency. that's how pete and i became friends. >> there's a great story. one time we let everybody leave town and there were five or six who stayed behind under pete's leadership.
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we decided to go to the department of education office buildings and walk through the front door and just start meeting people and asking them what they do for a living. started on the first floor and worked our way up the massive empire of a building. get to the top floor where the secretary was. they were in a panic by then because word had gotten out there were a few congressman in the building. that's an interesting little antedote. it's a fine statement of the character of this particular former member of congress. it was also the chairman of the house intelligence committee, and put that same kind of effort into traveling the country, visiting with all the agencies responsible for our national security. in that process becomes a national security expert himself. sufficient when he published his recent book "architects of disaster." i got my hands on a copy a few months ago, by the way, read it cover to cover. i urge you to do the same. it's in the back back here. it's very well written. it's concise. it's easy to follow. it puts things, you know, of all
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the perspectives and opinions that you hear swirling on the internet and on your morning news shows. it puts things in clear perspective. solid evidence. irrefutable conclusions. i urge you -- look how big it is. you can become an expert on national security and the middle east courtesy of our next speaker. text lpr 313131 in order to ensure you get our mobile updates. i've got a script here for congressman hoef stfstra, but m off-t off-the-cuff introductions was even better. let he turn the floor over to congressman pete hofstra. >> thank you, bob. it's great to be with you this morning. i want to talk to you this morning a little bit about threat of radical jihadism. a war we face. i want to focus on that and talk about, as we go through it, i'll
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give you what i think are some of the lessons learned. you know, mark twain said -- he's attributed to have said history doesn't repeat itself but sometimes it rhymes. so i think there's a lot for us learn especially over the last 15 years about the violent war with radical jihad. what we call the stealth jihad where they're trying to influence us to use our very values, our society, our rules, our laws against us to change who we are. i will share a few bob schaffer stories as we go through the process. as bob said, he and i were best friends in the years we had the opportunity to serve together. i'll share some of those. i learned a lot from bob and very grateful that the people of colorado sent them to washington
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for us do those kinds of things. and then i also very much look forward to having good portion of time to talk about the things that you want to talk about. to answer some of your questions about, you know, whether it's nsa, cia, and those types of things. i did have a phenomenal opportunity to serve in washington, to serve on the intelligence committee, to be chairman of the intelligence committee or the lead republican for more than six years for the gang of eight. and you get to have the opportunity to have insights into some of the greatest secrets that we have as a country that we employ to keep america safe. so the real question is, let me put in context to get your interest initially. you know, since regardless of when you think the war on terror started or when they started attacking us, whether it's 1979 with the take over of our embassy in tehran, whether you
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think it's 2001 9/11. from a military standpoint, i think all the evidence is out there today we are losing that war. this is the first time in american history where we've been involved in this kind of a conflict, and for that long of a period of time that we are losing. this is not a war where over the last decade, over the last 15 years we've actually made any progress in fighting it. as a matter of fact, we're going downhill and going downhill relatively quickly. if you take a look at what is going on in europe today, they are in danger of losing not only the military, not that it's being fought on their -- they're in danger of losing their cultural identity because of what they've done over the last 20 to 25 years. and the challenges for those of us in this room who love america is to learn from the experience of what is going on in europe to
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make sure we don't make the same kinds of mistakes they've made in other parts of the world. the real question is, how does a guy who is a dutch immigrant -- my parents emigrated here when i was 3 years old, move through this process. i'm in a -- i move into a marketing career. getting into this kind of position to be talking about national security. let me give you a little bit of context. i think there's some lessons learned there as well. the first of which, as my parents left europe in 1956. so 11 years after world war ii. people say, you know, why would your parents leave? eleven years after world war ii europe was still a very depressing place. they still had not recovered from world war ii. and the devastation. so they're looking at it and they've got three kid.
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three, six, and ten and saying there's not a lot of opportunity here for our kids. we can make a living. if we want opportunity for our kids, we need to go somewhere else. and america was welcoming and said come to america. so if you think about it, in europe, the cohesion, the marshall plans and all of these types of things. if 11 years after world war ii it was still a depressing place. take that lesson and apply it to the middle east today. iraq, syria, yemen, libya, other places in northern africa. how quickly do we think the middle east is going to be able to rebuild itself and be back at any point of stability, coheren coherence, or stable governments and we are now looking at a decades long issue in front us.
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take a look at the cities that have been destroyed in parts of iraq, aleppo, and other parts of syria. the bombing that is now going on in libya, and think if they can't rebuild europe in 11 years, how quickly do you think they're going to be able to rebuild the physical structure in the middle east? and how long do you think it's going to be -- going to be before you can bring the people of those regions back together. they live together for, you know, hundreds of years. with a agagenocide going on agat christians and other religious minorities how long will it be before you put the fabric of that society back together. it's going to be a long time. this problem is going to be with us for a long time. my parents came to america. they take their kids with them.
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and the christian school -- the local christian school principal at the middle school had a great job. his job was to help assimilate us. we had sponsors back them to help us get assimilated. get a place to life, find a job. we were originally supposed to go cleveland. a couple of weeks before my parents emigrated, we ended up moving the family from cleveland -- that was going to be our sponsor backed out. they found a sponsor for us in west michigan. that's how we ended up going from the netherlands to holland, michigan. you guys are in colorado. you may not quite appreciate this as much as what i do and how thankful i am for it, but it also -- that move made sure that i was going to be a wolverine instead of a buckeye.
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all right. thag what we're really thankful about. the job of our principal at the middle school was very interesting. we meet with him and i don't remember it, of course, but my parents will tell the story. you fill out a lot of paperwork and they go through the process. and they ask him, you know, "what is this kid's name." he'll become andrew. okay. you have to americanize it. they said what is her name? she'll going to become -- i'm the last one in line. right. think about that. the fun people like bob could have now if this system were still in place. they said what is his name? they tell him. they said we don't have that
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name here. there's no way to americanize it. okay. what's his middle name? peter all right. he's going to be pete. at 3 years old, i lost my first name. you can laugh about it. it's traumatic for me. you know, it's kind of a 3, 4, 5 years old and they're calling me something at home and something else when i go somewhere else. focus there was had a sponsor family. you got integrated. my brother and sister went to school. there was no english as a second language. i'm not saying whether that's a good program or a bad program. but it was kind of like my sister tells the story she gets to school. all she speaks is dutch. all the teachers and everybody
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speaks english. she has to go to the bathroom but takes her couple of hours to communicate. i have to go. it was all about becoming an american. that is the lesson. because it's kind of like you're coming to america and the focus here -- my parents fully bought into it. the focus is you're coming to america. you're going to become americans and we're going do everything we can to help you to assimilate and share our values and help build our country. in some cases, we're starting to lose that focus and say america is something very different. there's new longer a shared value system. jew d it's not the melting pot where we become americans. it's no long er a melting pot bt a place for everybody to come and be whoever they want to be. you know, that's something we have to have a national dialogue on saying that's not -- that's not what it means to be american.
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america is about embracing and sharing the set of goals and values together. but that is something i think europe has forgotten about. germany, netherlands, other places they lost sight of the culture and value to their society. they allowed people to come in and never forced them and encouraged them and helped them to become dutch. to become german and swedes and they're facing the problems. let's transition over to what bob was talking about. what i see now in this military war against radical jihadists. 2001 i get put on the intelligence committee for all the wrong reasons in january.
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and nine months later we have 9/11. for the next nine and a half years, i spend almost all of my time focussed on intelligence. work on the intention committll committee. i don't do much else in washington in the next nine years. 2003 one of my colleagues says, "hey, pete. do you want to go to libya and meet with gadhafi?" . not really. that was not on my bucket list. i've gone with bob to ukraine. i've met putin. i've gone with bob to afghanistan. i've met with karzai. no, i never really thought about meeting gadhafi. i just kind of laughed about it. i said no. he said, well, no seriously. the bush administration wants us to go meet with gadhafi because
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there are indications that gadhafi, after he's seen for whatever reasons, you know, we've had sanctions against him, republicans and democrats. this is an important point. republicans and democrats consistently for 25 years had a strategy to contain, confront, and ultimately defeat gadhafi. the executive brancht in congress had a strat zegy. she's evil. he's done other terrorist atax against the united states. we're going to ostracize him from the world community until he changes his behavior. we're going to confront him and contain him and ultimately defeat him. it appeared to be working. he wants to come in from the cold. we go. i go with him. a group of us go and we meet wi with gadhafi.
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between 2003 and 2009 i had the opportunity to go back and meet with him on two more occasions. i'm one of the few people who had the opportunity to go to libya and meet with the, you know, the man of libya on three different occasions. what we do -- what we find when we meet with him is that, yes, he is interested in changing his behavior. within 24 months through the work of the state department and other negotiations, the intelligence community, all these types of things. gadhafi doesn't mean he becomes a boy scout and all these types of things, but he becomes -- it is a phenomenal win in american foreign policy that republicans and democrats could take shared credit and responsibility for. what does he do? he pays reparations to the individuals of pan a.m. 103. does it bring the family members back and heal the wounds?
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absolutely not. that the point in time, it's about what it's left to do. he decides to give up the new program. it's not some goldberg scheme if you push here and push here there and that you'll figure out they're not doing nuke weapons anymore. maybe. which is what we have with iran. we go over there. how do we know the nuke program is gone? it's now sitting somewhere in a warehouse in the united states of america next to the arc of the covenant and we'll never find it again. only those who love "indiana jones" will get that. they crated it up, took it from libya, shipped it to the united states. sense abraham accepted the shipment. he gave up his nuke program. most importantly because when you take a look at the fighters that were fighting the u.s. and afghanistan and iraq and those types of things, they will -- you will realize they came from
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places that you are now on the front page of american news. where did they come from? per capita no country provided more fighters than libya. they came from a place called benghazi. why did they come from there? if they stayed there gadhafi would kill them. he never liked them, but after 2004 and 2005 he became an ally with us in fighting radical jihadists. so the great foreign policy w win -- because we were building allies for what has now evolved into the greatest threat against the united states of america, which is radical jihad. radical islamists. we were building a coalition and
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people we didn't necessarily agree with on lots of issues, but at least on that core issue they agreed with us and said radical jihadists. meeting with gadhafi. this guy had fought with them. fought radical jihadists for years. the interesting thing is, you know, being the chair of intel or being on the intel committee and traveling around the world, some of you may remember that the sunday insert you'll see in your sunday papers. every once awhile they used to publish the top 20 worse deck they or t -- dictators in the world. one sunday morning i'm looking at the front cover and there's putin, there's mubarak, gadhafi, there's assad, and you go through the list. you look at it. this is interesting. i'm looking through it and
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checking it to say i've met with him. i've met with him. and pretty soon i've got half the boxes checked. i'm thinking what kind of job do i have? these are the kinds of people that i'm meeting with. but in many of these cases where, from a human rights record and a lot of other things, they weren't necessarily american allies. or excuse me, they didn't represent american values. but what they did do is they helped us in fighting the enemies and helping keep america secure. mubarak egypt. before we went into iraq, i remember going and meeting with a lot of the leaders in the middle east, and interesting perspective as they all warned us in advance. be careful about what you are thinking about doing. this will not be nearly as easy as what you think it is. it might be.
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and what we've learned with gadhafi and mubarak and saddam and folks in afghanistan is getting rid of a two-bit dictator is not that hard for the greatest military power in the united states. excuse me, the greatest power in the world. that's not hard to do. putting the pieces back together is really, really hard. but the other thing that these folks told us, as we went around and met with them, is we're sharing this information with you because we want you to make your decision in a fully informed way. the second thing they told us is, regardless of the decision that you make, we will be with you. like mubarak, over a period of time, over the suez canal, intelligence, everything. abdullah in jordan. they did everything we asked them to do for us to be
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successful. gadhafi got to the point he was doing everything we asked him to do. including insights. these folks all did what we asked them to do to help keep america safe and for us to be successful in the wars we were fighting. in 2009, it all changed. think about this. i laid out the strategies to get gadhafi to switch. it was a bipartisan strategy that extended long-term. foreign policy is hard when you don't move -- you don't move foreign policy very quickly or if you move in quickly you don't move it very effectively. in 2008, 2007 the current president -- this is where you have to listen so carefully to
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what candidates tell you. you actually have -- you don't have to believe them. everybody says politicians spend too much tilying to the america people. listen to what they say. obama warned us in 2007 he was on public radio in new hampshire, i believe. he said the day after i'm elected, the world will see us differently. the muslim world will see us differently. that was a promise. he's carried through on that promise. the world does see us differently. in 2016 than they did in 2008. because he fundamentally changed our approach against radical jihadists and the threats we face out there. think about it. 2009 i'm in colorado. this is when there's the green
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revolution in iran. this is when there's people on the streets in iran that are protesting for freedom. and what is america's response? nothing. it is silence. and you're thinking, wow, if there's anybody we ought to be embracing, it's the people in the streets and iran who are clamoring for more democracy and freedom. but we are silent. we then go to egypt and the president gives his famous speech. i'm picking on this president right now, but i'll tell you over the last 15 years there's plenty of blame to go around to find why we're in the position we're in today. by both parties. in 2009 the president goes to cairo and gives a speech. who does he invite in to sit in
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the front rows? the muslim brotherhood. who is the muslim brotherhood? the muslim brotherhood is formed in the 1920s to reestablish the caliphate that was defeated in the 15 to 20 years before that. they want to reestablish caliphate, reimpose sharia law. they've had a long-term strategy to do that. they're very patient. that's who the president invites to sit in the front row. he believes that -- this is a mistake from 2007. the world will see us differently because i'm president. that's a very eerie statement. the world will see america differently because one person is now in the white house. and everybody else, whether it's
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the state department or everybody that served before, they're now irrelevant and the world will look at us and they will change their self-interest, they will change their behavior all because we have one new person in the white house. so he decided he would engage with the muslim brotherhood. send a very clear signal to the muslim brotherhood, but also send a very clear signal to our allies. people who stood by america that this is a new world. i'm nervous. what happens? the muslim brotherhood, quote, unquote the arab spring which has not turned into an arab spring turned into, you know, an arab disaster throughout the middle east. mubarak gets overthrown, almost dies in jail. thankfully the military comes back and throws the muslim brotherhood out. egypt is still trying to recover
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from that disaster. during those 12 to 14 months when the muslim brotherhood was in control what happened? radical jihadist elements established themselves in the sinai peninsula. they are still there on the southern border of israel. we're trying to -- and the egyptian government is still trying to root them out and bring stability back to their country. what happens in libya? you know, the freedom the freedom fighters in libya. sure, there are some freedom fighters in egypt. there were some freedom fighters in libya. but by and large, what happened in libya was we engaged radical jihadists to overthrow gadhafi. and the end result is what happened on 9/11 and 2012 in benghazi is individuals and groups that maybe not the exact individuals or the groups and that that were trained and
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equipped by nato to overthrow gadhafi used the resources and the training to kill our ambassador and kill three other americans. because their objective was not to establish democracy in libya. their objective was to take over the government, establish the caliphate, establish sharia law, and as soon as they got rid of gadhafi, they were going to get rid of the u.s. and guess what? they succeeded. the u.s. left an we're now in a position where we are bombing in libya because they have established a caliphate, there's 5,000 jihadists estimated to be in libya who are now exporting fighter, equipment and ideology into northern africa. where do they send their ideology and fighters and weapons first? come on, you know. syria.
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