dr. francis collins said it has been forced to slash other institutions as well. >> might have imbt nextthrough in cancer, the start of the next person's career to win the nobel prize shall-- we'll never know. oar are now prospective medical researchers may have to look elsewhere, even out of the country. >> this is not the only year. we will lose ginnations of tam -- generations of talent and research that will improve the lives of our american people and have an impact on our economy all because we can't come up with finding reductions in our public debt of $100 million a year. >> reporter: for jose, the sequester placed a price on the very research that saved his life, and that which could save throws who suffer from cancer, heart disease and other deadly diseases in the future. >> of all the diseases we talked about today, i don't know what the heck these people are thinking in washington. >> reporter: in east

dr. francis collins, the head of the n.i.h. the n.i.h., as we all know, is america's premier health research institution. dr. collins told us of the real world impacts of sequester cuts. he gave heartbreaking examples of life-saving medical research that's being disrupted, perhaps irrevokably, due to budget cuts and employee furloughs. two days ago, i had the opportunity to chair a budget committee hearing about the impact of sequestration on our nation's security. we heard policymakers talk about what sequestration was doing to military readiness. what drove home the point to me was a virginia business owner, mark clete, who had actually been named as small business man of the year back in 2011, who said that this start and stop environment where you didn't have any predictability of whether your funding was coming through was completely wrecking his business model, and it already had caused him to bench over a third of his 60 employees. now, mr. president, in the last two weeks alone since sequestration has started, i have rec

dr. francis collins, the head of the national institutes of health, the kind of impact sequestration is something on our abilities to invest in all kinds of health-related areas, in pharmaceutical areas and medical areas. we're finding -- they're finding it difficult to make the kinds of investments we need to make. part of what we need to do is to invest in research and development that can be commercialized and turned into goods and services and products we can sell all over the world. in my view, in the end, how do we strengthen our economy? how do we grow the economic pie for our country and citizens? going back to the first item i mentioned is the world-class workforce. it doesn't just start when people graduate from high school or go off to college, whether junior college or a certificate program. it is what they do before they go to first grade. the kind of investments that are made before kids ever go into kindergarten at the age of five in most states. today's debate is on college loans. i'll focus on that. but let me just remind us, the investments we don't make in the lives of children