emergency room and fewer people who do not have a doctor-patient relationship that can keep them well. we think access to care is important. >> as you know, the majority party is first in line for scoring the legislation. we are at the end of that line. those at the front of the line, we have not heard all of their numbers. it is important that we go with a common-sense approach. >> [unintelligible] >> if i could finish, we are not going to have a bill that is larger than the gdp of most countries which is what we are

beginning to see. . it is not so much about us or the committee, but to the american people have a voice? stimulus, we're talking about money. we're talking about people's health here. that is why we want to contribute these ideas. if we want to get a lot of support for this, and the american people need to get behind this.

if we move forward and this bill is on the floor, we will need a bill that is paid for. that will depend on what the score comes back. until we get those, it will be difficult. my colleagues in the majority on the ways and means to not have score on their bills. they are in the front of the line. hopefully, this comes out, but today is about talking about an american vision for health care reform, one that we believe will get a lot of support. >> do you have a ballpark of what this bill will cost, and then you have a ballpark of the uninsured? >> we do have ideas. one section of our bill says if you are a depended, under the age of 25, if you could simply stand -- stay on your parents' health care, those of the kinds of reforms we want to have a chance to talk about with the

american people. we think that can be done and we think hopefully that will be a partisan provision that people get behind. >> a lot of the midwesterners are thinking actively, and if you do not get your way on government involvement? >> i intend to reach out to senator conrad and get more specifics from them. where we live in the midwest, the idea of co-ops is not unusual. i like to see what they're thinking about. it depends on how independent the co-ops are allowed to be. whether they are reasonable competitor or not. the very same people on this debate that said there would not be enough competitors are the same people when we added prescription drugs to medicare said it would not be enough competitors. those same people, the day that program started said, now there are too many competitors, people not be able to choose.

it you do not want to underestimate the marketplace dynamics, the kinds of things that were just mentioned. if you expand family coverage to people just out of school who have not yet found a job, that includes insurance to keep them on family coverage lager, that is 7 million. if you make it more likely people have insurance at work sign up for it, that is 10 million. suddenly, you are taking big chunks of numbers out of the government responsibility and putting them back where individuals can be responsible for their own health care. the other thing you do not want to overlook is efficiencies in the system. let's see if the democrats can get the score. if there is an i.t. savings in the system, we are for that. if there is a transparency savings, we're for that. i think all of those things will save money.

whether the majority can convince the cbo to score those is something we will be interested in, but we will have a significantly lower price tag and there are four, five different places to go. inefficiencies in the system and competitive marketplace are two nobody is talking about to the extent i think they deserve to be talked about. yes? >> senator mccain talked about tax and health care. >> that is not part of our plan. we cannot tell if it is part of the democrats' plan or not. mr. mccain talked about, mr. obama said he would never go there, and he apparently is there now. charlie rangel said it would never be part of their plan, and now it may be. i think it is helpful to give employees more input into how the benefit is used. that one thing helps create a

more competitive marketplace. the marketplace does not control costs, or people under 65 get their health insurance at work. normally, their employer is only talking to a couple people about whether they continue with them or go to somebody else on an annual basis or whatever basis they look at their health care. i could see a much larger marketplace than that if the employee also has options beyond what is offered at work. that makes people who offer a policy at work want to be more competitive with the policy offered at work. if you are a big insurance company, offering a policy through general electric, or anybody else, you want people to sit with that policy. suddenly, the competitive dynamic is substantially different than today. competition, savings in the system itself, new technology,

new transparency are all part of keeping costs down, as are simply new ways to get people into the current system that are not there now by making things like opting out of insurance at work rather than opting in would be the kinds of things we look at. i guarantee you we will bring you a bill that costs far less than the democrats and provide better results for the american people. thank you all. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> now white house chief of

staff rahm emanuel on health- care issues. he spoke 20 minutes. >> good morning, everyone. if you could take your seats. we are extraordinarily fortunate to have the busiest man on the planet, rahm emanuel, as a special surprise guest to kick things off today. every morning, the entire united states government snaps to attention to get its marching orders from this man. we are privileged to do the same. rahm has always been a force of nature, but his greatest strength is that he is a man of action with power and ideas. he gave up a job that he loved in congress to run the executive branch because running things and getting things done is what rahm emanuel lives to do. every day, from the time he hits the swimming pool at 5:00 a.m. until his last round of phone calls at night, he is fighting for the ideas we care about, to

make health reform happen, to create a new economy, to give every american the chance to earn the skills they need to finish college and to build an economic recovery that can last. he keeps a copy of our book, "the plan," at his desk and lets me know whenever we get -- whenever he gets another part of it done. those of us who have worked with rahm note he was capable of doing. it is wonderful to see the sheer force of his personality sweep this town of its feet. i am glad that washington has finally learned to do what rahm wants, and i consider myself lucky to have been doing it the longest. it is a pleasure to introduce a man of ideas and one of the greatest champions. of the new democratic cause, chief of staff to the president of the united states, rahm emanuel. [applause] >> nothing like getting through

an introduction by burress without some stories of the past i prefer nobody else knows. i appreciate that, bruce. speaking of being busy, i have to be back at the white house because we start our briefings in the morning with intelligence and economics. that was a joke. you can laugh. this crowd is serious. i want to do one point of overview, and then kind of and thentwo subjects, both education and health care -- and then kind of talk about two objects, education and health care. one topic is in the news dominant late and in people's lives. the other one is not dominant, but there is a quiet revolution going on around the country, education reform, led by the administration and our need duncan, top to bottom.

-- and arnie duncan, top to bottom. am i to close? pmi you can do whatever you want. >> that would be great. >> -- you can do whatever you want. >> that would be great. if you have not seen the president's interviews that he did yesterday with both "the wall street journal," cnbc, besides killing a fly on cnbc, his basic premise is when he came into office, the economy of the last 20 years had lived through a series of bubbles, which is where we got our growth, but then there is the cost of that. we had to have a more sustainable strategy and package that were essential for steady, long-term growth. that there were a number of basically game changers that prevented that economic growth.

rattling them off -- field of energy, education and job training, health care, what i would call basically the research and development, that whole space, which is one of the notes i would make in the economic recovery act, the dramatic research and research -- the dramatic increase in research and development. we have leapfrogged in certain areas like the car battery from the past 10 years. the national institutes of health had a dramatic increase in its funding and has not seen since the 1990's. basic, fundamental research and innovation are the keys. i will talk about two of them because they're in the news. on health care, we have all, the competitive disadvantage that the united states faces because of our health-care system, a

disadvantage for families, disadvantages for small business, big business, disadvantages for taxpayers, disadvantage for the government is we are an unsustainable path. -- we are on an unsustainable path and can no longer sustain that path if we're just putting more money into a system that fundamentally has the wrong incentives. i call what we're doing the three c's -- control cost, allow or provide for choice, expand coverage. cost, choice, coverage. that is the basic principles. the president i think has done a good job over the last couple months on health care. the entire debate of the past -- truman, johnson, nixon, carter,

president clinton -- every one of them talked about how to expand coverage. the fundamental difference the administration is talking about is that to do health care reform, you must change the incentives in the system and the way you control costs. that if you do not do that, just putting more money into a broken system that has the incentives all upside down, not only will the political system not expand the coverage, we will not get anywhere further ahead. we have a number of ideas. we have seen that through the process. the president pointed to them saturday during his radio address. how to control costs, from a message to appoint an policy standpoint, and the basic point is unless we have that, you cannot call that bill health care reform. he has made controlling costs, reducing cost so that the average family sees it in their premium payments, that cost

control has become a co-equal objective with expanding coverage. we have a couple of ways, what the omb likes to call came changers, ways to accomplish that goal. we need to make sure the system has the change and incentives so we're not just paying for more services and getting less results were not getting any fundamental changes. whether that is the doctor's bill. as the son of a doctor, brother of a doctor, a joke about it. i have my own hmo. i do not like anyone of them anyway. you should see what it takes to get an insurance premium filed at the house. the fact is unless we change the incentives, we just pay more and get less. we pay close to $700 billion, a

little over $two trillion and health care system and have worst outcomes than other countries that spend much less and have a longer life expectations and better health care. we also have to change not just the system but ourselves. dealing with the five chronic illnesses that represent a lion's share of the money spent on health care. the system has to reflect and have the incentive built into it so if you deal with the five chronic illnesses -- heart, diabetes, etc. -- how one takes care of themselves, we have to have an incentive system so individuals are incentivize to do the right thing. those are what i want to say on health care. on education, a lot has been written. i call what we're doing on education the quiet revolution. in this sense, in the next

couple weeks, you will see a major announcement by the president on community colleges and job training and the rewriting of all the legislation related to job training and vocational training. most importantly, in the area of community colleges. bruce and i have been talking regularly on this. and he has been very helpful on this topic of community colleges. because we are going from subsidies in higher education to a direct lending from the federal government, there is more resources now. the lot of that is being poured into pell grants, and we will be talking about that. i do not want to preempt the president, but it will be about changes for community colleges to achieve the goal of getting 5 million children, 5 million more workers through the community

college system that are expected over the next 10 years. a lot of people talk about education talk about the university's. what has been forgotten is how important the community college system is to our economy, our ability to compete. it is literally the conveyor belt to allow people to upgrade their skills when they're going from x job to y profession. as a former member of commerce -- as a former member of congress who had two community colleges in his district, i cannot tell you how important this is. that has not gotten the full attention of the four-year institutions, but it is a competitive advantage to the united states. the community college system is essential, and we will outline a series of things to fund the growth of the community colleges. i have talked with a number of state senators. the community colleges do not get the resources of the four- year institutions, but nearly

50% of all the people who go through post high-school institutions go to two-year institutions. we all do what we're supposed to do it at the state universities. this has not gotten the attention. the community college system will have a major resource infusion and also reforms and goals driven as part of the overall economic strategy in the upgrading of american workers and employees skills so if they choose to go from this profession to another profession, we have the infrastructure to do that. in addition, there will be another announcement by the president on early learning and fulfillment of his campaign pledge. the research data, both coming out of the minnesota fed as it relates to what they have done on early learning and the investment and return on dollars is dramatic. going from the day care in those early learning facilities, away

from just babysitting, toward learning and preparation for toddlers. that also will be part of the president's announcement. then, as everybody has noted, but i want to emphasize to emphasizearnie -- what i want to emphasize is why arnie is doing, taking the caps off charter schools, and the retired -- the entire reform that is going on. we have put together in the recovery act, $5 billion for the race to the top fund, making sure that states compete who are best at reform. the resources will be used for those who are best ready to adopt the reforms that are necessary. we know what is necessary as it relates to quality teachers. we know what is necessary as it relates to competition in the public school system, i.e. charters, and we know what is necessary for common standards

to raise the capacity of our children and our schools and our teachers. while it does not get the attention that obviously an energy bill does or health care piece of legislation -- and today the president is announcing financial regulatory reform and a overhaul of that, in the sense of the federal regulatory system as relates to making sure the financial system is competitive and consumers are protected. what was happening in the area of education from early childhood all the way through what i call lifetime learning through community college and vocational schools is very, very important, and it is the quiet revolution that is going on. you will see, a," another proposal from the president and the funding to make that happen. in the past, and this is something that we read about in the book, but i hold this dearly, my own community college in my old congressional

district, in the past, on the job tracking system and vocational ed has basically been a program problem. we have not had a comprehensive view of it. if you are a displaced worker because of competition, we had a program. we need to think not as a program for problem but a comprehensive view of what you want out of job training, what is this supposed to accomplish, and then setting up the system to do that rather than coming up with a program per problem that you face in the economy. the nexus of this will be the community college system in the country. the community college system, i have a passion for this, the system was set up as part of the g.i. bill. this will be the next stage as we go forward in the economy, making sure this economic system, when we come out of this recession, we have a different health care system that makes us

more competitive, is not a drain on businesses, is not a drain on taxpayers, and the incentives and cost controls are built into the system so we're not rewarding a bad system that is structured around the inefficiencies. two, that we have an energy policy in this country that does not leave any other sector out. meaning it is not just alternative, it is not just one choice, but it is literally a driver toward a more competitive economy so we are not exporting $700 billion of our wealth every year. third is that our education system is producing the type of workers and students that we need for the economy to compete. because the education system and the workers who make up our -- are our most competitive asset. fourth, as the president outlined, and we have done it

through the recovery act and the budget, that we return our research and development money to the level it was at when we took this challenge. making that as a basic goal, i think he said, as a percentage of the gdp, that is where the research is, that is where the money is, that is where the innovation will come. we're having a very healthy discussion inside the white house. i had dinner the other night with some businessmen who said to a product and let the research and development spin off. others say create these silicon valley clusters. you'll hear more about that. setting the goal of research as an overall percentage of the overall budget, equal to what we did when we took on to sputnik challenge. those are the four principles. i apologize for rushing out. i would be interested in taking questions, but i have to get back to the white house. i cannot close without complementing bruce.

i cannot tell you how important the dlc to what we do at the white house. the work they do their laws and have an answer when i call him and yelled at him that we need work on a project. -- the work they do allows them to have an answer when i call and yell at him to have an answer to a project. they have solutions to very important policy choices, making sure you remember what the goals are and become creative about the means to achieve those goals. the dlc is a very important policy think tank for what we do with the white house. i thank you for being involved in a very important organization, if for nothing else making sure that bruce has an answer when i scream at him at 1:00 at night. thank you. [applause] >> thank you so much, ron. i know you have a country to

run. thank you for fighting the good fight. on behalf of democrats everywhere, thank you for making the government work again, rahm. >> the senate health committee continues work on health-care legislation tomorrow morning. live coverage is on c-span3 at 10:00 eastern. >> president obama wednesday announced the extension of some benefits to the domestic partners of federal employees. this new memorandum stopped short of full health-care coverage. here is the president announcing the changes at the white house. >> ok, today i am proud to issue a presidential memorandum that paves the way for long overdue progress and the pursuit of equality. many of our government cost hard-working and dedicated and patriotic public servants -- many of our government's hard- working and dedicated and

patriotic public servants have been denied rights for one simple reason, the people they love our of the same sex. currently, for example, lgbt cannot always use sick leave to care for their domestic partners or their partners of children. their partners are not covered under long-term health-care insurance, members of foreign service officers abroad are not treated the same way when it comes to the use of medical facilities and the use of rights in case of emergency. these are just some of the wrongs that we intend to right today. in consultation with the secretary of state clinton as well as opm director john barry, my administration has completed a long and thorough review to identify a number of areas where we can extend federal benefits to same-sex partners of foreign service and executive branch government employees. i am requesting that secretary clinton and director barry do so

under existing law, and that the heads of all executive departments and agencies conduct reviews to determine where they may be the same. -- where they may do the same. hundreds of fortune 500 companies have party adopted these benefits, not only because it is the right thing to do, but because they recognize it helps keep and retain the best possible talent, and we need top talent serving their country right now more than ever. now, under current law, we cannot provide same-sex couples with the full range of benefits enjoyed by heterosexual married couples. that is why i am proud to announce my support for domestic partners benefits and obligations act. at crucial legislation that will guarantee these rights for all federal employees. i want to think representative at tammy baldwin. there she is, right there. for her tireless leadership on this and the broader struggle

for equality. i want to thank senator joe lieberman. he is here, as well as susan collins, for championing this bill and representative barney frank for his leadership on this and so many other issues. this is his second trip to the white house today. [laughter] it is a day that marks an historic step toward the changes we seek, but i think we'll have to of knowledge this is only one step. among the steps we have not yet taken it is to repeal of defense of marriage act. i believe is discriminatory and interferes with states' rights, and we will work with congress to overturn it. we have work to do to ensure that government treats all citizens equally, to fight injustice and intolerance in all its forms, to bring about that. i am committed to these efforts and i pledge to work tirelessly on behalf of these