eugene sterily, the urban institute, dr. bernstein, the center on budget policies and ike brandon, phd, director of congressional relations. i would like to remind all of our witnesses, the testimony is limited to five minutes. however, without objection, all of your written testimony will be made part of the permanent record. dr. theis, please proceed with your opening statement. >> good morning. i appreciate very much the emotion with which certain people have addressed the loss of health insurance upon passing over certain thresholds and the article i wrote on the dead zone three years ago, i myself got a little emotional at those points. it seemed so unfair, as well as social inefficient to have these cliffs over which people would fall. and there is an opportunity with health reform to address this. we have grown a series of supports to provide an economic safety net. one of these supports, the eitc, has a positive incentive for working. it stands out in that regard. the impact it had in terms of increasing labor force