dick nathan invented the field network approach in the 1970's. dick has been the driving force in putting together this study on the affordable care act. i'd like to thank dick for all the hard work he's done in building the study and this impressive network. i'd like to thank the people who have contributed much to this effort, especially alice and lane and john. today's report looks like only an early stage in what will be a long-term research process. this network is here for the long hall. the next step after we release all the state reports in september will be a conference to plan analysis of key cross studying issues. enough background about the study. let's turn to the researchers and their findings. first call on christopher who can be distinguished by having been working with the institute for almost two decades now eginning back in 1996 with our welfare reform network. chris of west virginia university wrote the overview report and he will summarize it over the next short period of time. thank you. go ahead chris. > thank you very much.