in st. petersburg in st. petersburg. they substituted the deputy mayor. i was notyed because meeting with the mayor. cagey b.had been about it all.

he was the coldest -- he had the coldest eyes i had ever seen. very big blue and cold eyes. all i could think of was that i wondered what would happen if you was interrogating me. -- in the coming week, the house will take up several laws -- several bills. peter sullivan, you have been writing. how to lower premiums and democrats are opposing piece. this was kind of our way to push back and change the narrative. >> one of the measures would repeal the medical device tax. who does that tax hit? >> that is part of obamacare. 2.3% tax on sales of medical devices. the medical device companies make things like knee

replacements or that kind of thing. they hate it. they want to repeal it and have been pushing for it for a long time. but it is also something members of both parties have criticized as kind of hurting innovation, hurting jobs. even some democrats have been in favor of repealing this in the past. host: one of the political considerations, you wrote about it in early july, july vote to repeal tax on device may bolster vulnerable gop lawmaker. that lawmaker is erik paulsen. how does this help or hurt the lawmaker's campaign? peter: he is the sponsor, of vulnerable republican in minnesota and it could help him. his district is home to a lot of medical device companies, home to a lot of employees of medical device companies who could benefit from this.

and he is hoping that if this passes the house, he can say this is an accomplishment for me and bring that back home to his district. host: you wrote an article with the headline, gop looks to blunt democratic attacks on rising premiums. you talked about this. what would these measures do specifically? peter: there is a series of measures coming up next week in the house. one would expand health savings accounts, which are tax-free ways of people saving for health care costs. so expanding that, republicans can argue is helping people afford their health care. and besides the medical-device tax there is also delaying a different obamacare tax, health insurance tax that some critics say drives up premiums because health insurers have to pay this tax and factor that into their premiums. these are all relatively minor

bills, but taken together republicans are going to try to argue that this is helping people with premiums. host: how do these align with the republican house effort to repeal, replace the 2010 health care law? peter: these are much smaller bore. it is certainly not close to full repeal or even being built that way. -- or really even being billed that way. i think republicans kind of realized they were not successful last year in their repeal efforts, so this is a much smaller scale effort. i think republicans would say this is something we could do in the meantime while we wait for the senate to get enough republican votes to do a more full-scale repeal. host: you tweeted about senator collins saying that she called the health and human services

announcement of possible importing of drugs to address price hikes, encouraging step in the right direction. are there any committee efforts on drug pricing that you are seeking that might come up this year? what might they be? peter: this is a big area for the administration. president trump has been doing a lot on this, and probably the executive action angle of it is going to be more prevalent. i think congress, people don't expect there to be chances for a lot of action there, it's an election year and this is a controversial issue that i think a lot of lawmakers wouldn't really want to touch. but the administration has been acting on its own and has been stepping up efforts on drug pricing. host: peter sullivan with "the hill." you can read his reporting on thehill.com. thanks for joining us. peter: thanks for having me.

the c-span bus is traveling across the country on our 50 capital tour. stop, ingrid, alaska. asking folks, what is the most important issue in alaska? university ofhe alaska, anchorage. we feel that the most important issue has to do with education and workforce development. we see a lot of students coming into our university who are underprepared for college and we are also not doing a great job of providing an environment and community on campus to get them through the undergraduate program. we want to in gauge students from six grade through high school to provide a string of togitudinal opportunities give them the inspiration for them to succeed at their academic opportunities. asone of the issues i see

important is nationwide as well as in alaska. that is giving children garbage bags when they are being removed from their homes. we try to eliminate that issue in the state of alaska. by giving that paxson duffel bags to kids when theyre from oo another or being transitioned out of foster care. >> another issue that is important to me that this year seems to be coming into fruition is management. fisheries are important to alaska. i think we have some problems that need to be dealt with on all fronts. and they need to be dealt with soon or we may suffer some severe financial consequences. >> my thoughts on the psd.

based on my understanding of it -- it was a way that all of alaska and's -- that all alaskans can get some of the profits of the oil revenue. but the way that it has been handled lately, i think it has been a little unfortunate. that effectively is a regressive do not havealaskans income tax. we are a load tax -- a low tax s tate. basically, people had to pay $1000 in taxes. that is inequitable if you ask me. >> voices from the state on c-span. today at 10:00 a.m. eastern,

c-span radio will feature view from the states as part of alaska we can. listen to the alaska house and senate debate on how to use the alaskan permanent fund to close the state budget deficit. will hear from alaska's governor, bill walker and an u empirew with junea reporter. you can listen with the free c-span radio app. on friday, secretary of state mike pompeo and u.n. ambassador nikki haley met with members of the un security council to discuss the latest on north korea. afterward, the two met with reporters when secretary pompeo was asked about vladimir putin possibly making a visit to the u.s. in the fall. from you and