as mark said i'm bob rubin. i'm here on behalf of the hamilton project and i join with mark in welcoming all of you with what i agree with max baucus' comment that this is a very important subject and a very useful event. we're deeply honored to have as our speaker, our first speaker, max baucus. he's an old friend. i spent many, many months fishing the waters of montana. i have set a state record for leaving flies in the trees along the rivers of that wonderful street. [laughter] >> we're also deeply honored to have with us peter orszag, the director of the office of management budget and i'll introduce peter shortly. let me first step back for a moment from today's discussion. and agree with something that senator baucus said. i've been around economic issues in various regards for a long, long time. and i don't think there is any question that it's absolutely imperative that we have major reform of our healthcare system. to address wasteful expenditures, to reduce the rate of increase of healthcare costs, to