secretary, not your or, not your doctor is going to read the rules or regulations the secretary of hhs is going to write the rules. >> mme display not again that we don't know what the cbo estimate is because we know that the majority leader keeps bouncing proposals back to the cbo, back and forth. that's why we don't have any cbo information now for many days. but there is the committee -- commission for medicare and medicine -- medicaid that clearly points out that this legislation would increase taxes dramatically, increase cost dramatically and decreased care and would have the effect of forcing people not only out of the system, but even if they're in the medicare system, they would not have physicians to provide that care because more and more physicians would prevail to treat medicare patients. >> so we go back to the 72 hours. we're going to get a new bill. we're not going to have the opportunity to amend it. we're not going to get the time to read and study it. the american people won't get the time. what do you think the outcome of that is going to be? >> well, i think we kno

mistress -- the secretary of hhs or fda. allowing drug importation from foreign nations could threaten public health and result in unsafe, i'm a prude and counterfeit drugs being place on pharmacy shelves in the united states. and i want to develop that part for you. the fda has been tasked with the responsibility of safeguarding this country's prescription drugs supply, and has executed that responsibility quite well. but as this country in the food and drug administration struggles to discover and prevent the growing threats posed by imported, foreign produced goods, as evidenced by recent failures to detect the polluted products such as infant formula, pet food and toothpaste, permitting the importation of drugs and four nations without the complete assurance from the fda, that it will not jeopardize public safety is a responsible and threatens this nation safety and proven drug supply. and towards that end, mr. president, i ask that a letter that senator carper received from the health and human services agency, the fda

we have been working with hhs to go through implementation. we did receive these recommendations favorably. we are working to achieve that. and those are things that are still in process. but i think it goes back to earlier when i said we are part of the team. on behalf of the secretary of the present my job is to coordinate all the federal family when the government requests it. but part of it is recognizing subject matter expertise and existing programs have to be part of the response. that is what i was referring to as part of the team. i don't think fema is the good job understanding and working with partner agencies and we have defaulted merely to the stafford act, which may be appropriate in some cases but not be the most effective way and does not pull upon existing expertise and programs in the community. that is why we will use the children's working group to step by from the traditional female- centric approach focused on stafford and look at what the family has leveraging it as a team -- to step back from the traditional fema-centri

a search of hhs will become federal giant anderson a plan by susan pharyngeal. a quick search of the senate health bill will bring up secretary 2500 times. that is because health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius with be awarded unprecedented new powers under the proposal including the authority to decide what medical care should be covered by insurers as well as the terms and conditions of coverage and who should receive them. i am going to repeat that. in this bill this secretary has the authority to decide what medical care should be covered by insurers as well as the terms and conditions of coverage and who should receive it. now, we saw a precursor of that just the other day with the recommendations concerning mammograms. the board recommended that women under 50 should not get routine mammograms. well, of course, the response was incredible and justified. when all over america who are now alive today because they had mammograms prior to the age of 50. the secretary of health and human services said that would not be carried out. well, we are c

president, the hhs has concerns regarding the safety of importation. the food and drug administration has concerns regarding the safety of importation and given the opportunity to purchase canadian prescription drugs only 267 kansans took that chance. we should not corrupt the safety of our drug supply chain without safety assurances from this country's regulatory audience. >> madam president, the amendments that we are now considering as an amendment that i have offered that deals with drug reimportation, that is the reimportation of prescription drugs from other countries. and one might ask the question why would we want to be import drugs from other countries? well, fda approved drugs are made all over the world. and they are shipped all over the world. again, fda approved drugs approved by our food and drug administration reduced in plants that are inspected by our food and drug administration. the difference is when they are shipped around the world the american consumer is charged the highest prices in the world by far. here is an example of the

speakers include hhs secretary kathleen sebelius and dr. anthony fauci director the national center for allergy and infectious diseases. from the national institutes of health in bethesda maryland, this is two one-half hours. >> good morning everyone, and welcome to nih. i am with the office of public affairs at the department health and human services and i want to welcome you here today for this seminar for the media and public on new vaccine, new flu vaccine technologies. we hever range this session today to offer the media and the public an opportunity to have a little more time to learn about the new technologies that flu vaccine technologies, that our departments three number of our agencies have been working on. as many of you have seen in the news about the vaccine or the age one and one vaccine, it has been produced through our tried and true method of using eggs, which has a number of down sides to it. and so we have been working for some time now to develop new technologies and today's event is a chance to sort of learn about the

so weak, with support from hhs and congress, we put significant effort into trying to improve how we can do things to get vaccine out each year. these are some examples of where we are engaged. so for example, every single year we worked with colleagues around the world to select the strained. quite honestly, we could use information to improve how we do that, and we and colleagues are engaged with that. we work with a global network of w.h.o. laboratories, cdc and others, to help reduce and eventually dries what we call real swords. you have to take this wild type virus and transform it into something that is safe and suitable for most manufacturing processes here but as occurred this year, and a curse not with seasonal vaccine, some strains grow quite poorly in eggs, and i don't think cell culture will completely solve the problem. some strangle probably not grow that well in certain cell cultures either. so we are working on methods to improve growth in manufacturing. we had create reagents, we didn't produce, humans get the right does when they go to the doctor. the current metho

ifrs said it is $100 billion in medicare and medicaid and it is an hhs's spraw permeance rook to $90 billion this year. there's nothing to address that. that is some place we could really cut and in delve the future of medicare that is not available. saxby. >> i want to address just three very quick items, where the president has made statements and made commitments that he is simply not keeping. first a want to take off on what tom just alluded to with respect to him having said that you like your plan you can keep it. that remark was made by the president on july 21 of this year. basically he said and i quote, if you like your current plan you would be able to keep it. every repeat that. if you like a plan he will be allowed to keep it. senator casey came not just last week as senator thune has said and i quote came in saying we are not one to be able to say if you like what you have eking keep it in that basic commitment that a lot of us around here have made will be called into question and it is for one very simple reason. if you are on medicare advantage and their 176,000 medic

e house taxes a so-called cadillac plan, hh, expensivhealth insurance plans. the senate imposes a taxn the wethy. how expect to see that resolved. i have it backwards. the use taxes wealthy americans, t senate would tax the so-cald high-end cadillac plans. how does that t resolved. >>ell, cost, unlike certain otr areas, you can lit the difference and they may end up tryingo mix aren't match but clear the momentum now is with the senate plan, i thinkof taxing the higend insurance plan that is somethinthe white house said it prefers. there certain sentiment that paying for this shoul come from withinhe alth-care system. it just applying a broad-based tax the wealthy doesn't ma as much sense trying to get those llars from the health-care system itself. my sense is at is where it hato go. justn general because the senate passed itwith no om to spare, i think that the chances are that the house ll is going to have to become mo like the senateill. the senate bill can make a fechanges but ultimately if they make tooany changes to it they will lo a senator. they can't

act (25 u.s.c. 1676) is amended- (a) by striking "any limitation" and inserting the following: "(a) hhs appropriations.-any limitation"; and (b) by adding at the end the following: "(b) limitations pursuant to other federal law. any limitation pursuant to other federal laws on the use of federal funds appropriated to the service shall apply with respect to the performance or coverage of abortions." (4) the bill referred to in subsection (a) is amended by striking section 201. subtitle c-provisions relating to title iii sec. 10301. plans for a value-based purchasing program for ambulatory surgical centers. (a) in general. section 3006 is amended by adding at the end the following new subsection: "(f) ambulatory surgical centers. "(1) in general. the secretary shall develop a plan to implement a value-based purchasing program for payments under the medicare program under title xviii of the social security act for ambulatory surgical centers (as described in section 1833(i) of the social security act (42 u.s.c. 1395l(i))). "(2) details.-in developing the plan under paragraph (1), the secre

(f) section 6724(d)(2)(hh) of such code, as added by section 1514, is amended by striking "large" and inserting "certain". (g) the table of sections for subpart d of part iii of subchapter a of chapter 1 of such code, as amended by section 1514, is amended by striking "large employers" in the item relating to section 6056 and inserting "certain employers". (4) effective date. the amendments made by this subsection shall apply to periods beginning after december 31, 2013. sec. 10109. development of standards for financial and administrative transactions. (a) additional transaction standards and operating rules. (1) development of additional transaction standards and operating rules. section 1173(a) of the social security act (42 u.s.c. 1320d-2(a)), as amended by section 1104(b)(2), is amended- (a) in paragraph (1)(b), by inserting before the period the following: ", and subject to the requirements under paragraph (5)"; and (b) by adding at the end the following new paragraph: "(5) consideration of standardization of activities and items. "(a) in general. for purposes of carrying out pa

the secretary of hhs is going to write the rules. >> let me point out again we don't know what the cbo estimate is because we know the majority leader keeps bouncing proposals back to cbo back and forth. that is why we don't have any cbo information now for many days. but there is the commission for medicare and medicaid that clearly points out that this legislation would increase taxes dramatically, increased cost dramatically and decrease care and would have the effect of forcing people not only out of the system, but even if they are in the medicare system they would not have physicians to provide the care because more and more physicians would fail to treat medicare patients. >> so we go back to the 72 hours? we are going to get a new build. we are not going to have the opportunity to amend it. we are not going to get the time to read and study it. the american people are not keen to get time to read and study what you think the outcome of that is going to be? >> i think we know what the outcome -- we will either be able to reflect the feelings and intense feelings of the american

again, if you have any questions for the viewers on-line, our address is,hhs studio at dotg ov.inue on. at this point i'd like to have robin robertson come up. director of the biomedical advance medical facility and talk to us about eggs, cells and beyond. >> past present and where we'll be ten to fifteen years from now. introduce you to one of the new kids on the block so to speak. pandemic has a prepare edness biomedical advance redevelopment research. barta where we're providing medical counter measures for chemical nuclear threats and emerging infectious diseases and we've moved a long way with pandemics and we'll be starting soon with emergency infectious disease. this could be in the form of vaccines and even ventilators and other nonpharmaceutical products. where we were in the u.s. government to provide these products, as you see, we're right here. we take an and off for the,nih and some of the department of defense and early and research and early development. we do advance development and we do acquisition and stockpiling and work with our partners at,cvc on the storag

fraud some additional screening and certification, ways to make sure that medicare does a better job, hhs or cms does a better job in knowing which payments to providers are right in which are not right. what is the real impact of the medicare policies here? let's be clear. the real impact of these policies even with the medicare changes in the bill overall provider payments will still go up. i don't want to be that horse too much but i want to make it clear that we are not cutting benefits folks. we are reducing the rate of growth of spending for health care providers as hospitals and nursing homes but reducing it in a moderate way and not reducing it by too much. as this chart shows those providers to get at least a 5% net increase in payments over the years and what the groups themselves of not really complain about them. take the pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, nursing homes, home health, hospice. they are not crying crocodile tears. mr. president remember the famous meeting at the white house not too long ago, the embassy came and talked to the president? remember they pledged t

the presenters are about to hear from are the leading experts from hhs, nih and the fda. and the importance of the topic couldn't be more timely. the flu vaccine was used to do is extraordinary save. is externally effective that it's the same flu vaccine would have used to immunize 100 million americans annually for decades. by the process we used to make it is cumbersome and outdated. we couldn't have had a better indication of the need for new flu vaccine technology than our expense would be 2009 h1n1 virus best ball. the flu vaccine's active ingredient is grown in chicken eggs. and likely influenced by recent self, and can be temperamental and unpredictable. this year, when we need manufacturers to ramp up production quickly, the editor decided to take its time for even before the first outbreak of h1n1, we have no, we need to develop new technologies that will provide vaccine with the same level of protection to do with the 21st century ability to meet the demand that it will be several more years before we will be able to wean ourselves away from egg-based vaccine. t

so all of those considerations ought to be fed into the mix and i would expect that the secretary of hhs will be considering all of those going forward. but to put our head in the sand and not look to the science it seems to me would be a serious mistake. so we ought to review these recommendations with a sober and dispassionate consideration. i think that is what we are called upon to do. i would assume that that is what the health benefits advisory committee would do in receiving recommendations from any other government body. the notion that-- and we have heard this theme again as well today, the notion that one government body will accept without any kind of independent judgment or redo the recommendations of another government body. i don't think it makes any sense. i think the health benefits advisory committee will look at all of the factors in determining what ought to be the policy when it comes to treatment. so, i think this is a good conversation to be having and i thank the commission for putting their recommendations forward, for basing them on science and now we are going t

so all of those considerations ought to be fed into the mix and i would expect that the secretary of hhs will be considering all of those going forward. but to put our head in the sand and not look to the science it seems to me would be a serious mistake. so we ought to review these recommendations with a sober and dispassionate consideration. i think that is what we are called upon to do. i would assume that that is what the health benefits advisory committee would do in receiving recommendations from any other government body. the notion that-- and we have heard this theme again as well today, the notion that one government body will accept without any kind of independent judgment or redo the recommendations of another government body. i don't think it makes any sense. i think the health benefits advisory committee will look at all of the factors in determining what ought to be the policy when it comes to treatment. so, i think this is a good conversation to be having and i thank the commission for putting their recommendations forward, for basing them on science and now we are going t

i would like to send a personal thank-you for giving us ellen marie who will join hhs reset very soon. this was a lot to give up but for those of us that hs, ellen murray is a delightful gift. thank you, sir. >> thank you very much. >> i am pleased to join you at this hearing to thank our witnesses who have come to share with us their experiences and thoughts about what we can do to more effectively deal with the challenge of autism. we have had hearings before. it is important for us to continue our efforts to stay up- to-date. we need to join forces with the victims and their families to help make sure we tramp and do not let the victims and their families down. we want to support the cause. thank you for being here to leave it off. >> thank you. >> thank you for your leadership. i am looking at the list of people on the committee. our interest is in research and finding causes b, which hopefully will lead to prevention and cure it we are also interested in early intervention programs. do you have enough expertise on this panel in terms of looking at that aspect? what are the effect

comprehensive health care reform is in each one of these bills. i]i]it helps with the cost of hh careing a bill and making health care reform a reality. >> the house bill has the public option and the senate does not. [inaudible] which does the white house prefer? >> again, i will not get into the negotiations that will take place once the senate passes a piece of legislation. those will happen [unintelligible] the president will be involved to get bills to this point and negotiations to get the bill to his desk. >> does the white house prefer this will carry out in public? >> we will hope to have this done quickly. >> you mentioned transparency. is now the time for transparency or is speed more important? >> getting things done for the american people is the most important things we can do for millions of americans who struggle with the cost of health care. >> what does the team believed about this? [inaudible] >> we did not have a briefing this morning. the president usually gets his information -- >> [inaudible] ç>> i think -- you have seen te number revisedç down based on invent

hhs will set the initial rules for the state exchanges. for those getting into the exchanges have to be fair. the opm plan, that's the plan that will be part of the exchange will be set up by the government, the office of personnel management. and again community health centers and a basic plan can be created by the states which i think is very important and i want to thank her re-cantwell for working so hard on not. so if people tell you, we don't have anything to do with public options, they're really not right. you have to look carefully at this bill. now, i want to talk about the deficit. we reduced the deficit between 2010 and 2019 by $132 billion between 2020 and 2029% to a $1.3 trillion deficit reduction, according to the congressional budget office. that is a nonpartisan office. this bill reduces the deficit. i'm going to say one more time. this bill reduces the deficit and the reason is we invest in prevention and that pays off. we finally will be able to save the insurance companies gouging and that pays off. and we do have compe

omnibus at that time included agriculture, commerce, energy, water, foreign operations, interior, labor-hhs and education, the leg branch, h.u.d. and v.a. and foreign operations. that being the vehicle to bring that process to a conclusion. so the number of bills that were involved in that process were nine plus the vehicle, 10 of the 12 bills. in that instance, the agriculture bill had never been considered in the senate. the commerce, justice, state bill had never been considered in the senate. in fact, that was before justice and judiciary at that point. it was a more complicated bill. energy-water was never considered in the senate. interior had never been considered in the senate. labor-h had never been considered in the senate. leg-branch had never appointed conferees. and the v.a. and h.u.d. bill was not considered in either body, yet all of those bills were in that continuing resolution. and so this has been -- this has been done in the past. the -- that was the continuing -- that was the omnibus bill for -- to finish up our work for the fiscal year 2005 budget. going back a year, t

the letter, and by the way, this same type of letter was sent when tomi thompson was head of hhs, andh that letter i can't possibly certify the safety of the drug supply, but after tomi thompson left office, he walked out of the elevator and said dorgan, let me tell you something, you're right about importation. he ecouldn't say that working with the previous session but every white house has -- this is the strength and the clout and the muscle of the pharmaceutical industry. my hope is when we have a vote today perhaps the american people will have some representation. major: what time is the vote? guest: today and i will have an hour, and i'm going to talk about all these things it's an outrage if at the lasten any particular time rug is pulled out on our -- host: sumpter, south carolina, go ahead. caller: hello. i want you to know that i agree with you and there's a chance your amendment gets put in the bill. i've got my mother. she lives with me. i'm a caregiver. she's 84 and on medicare. it's not been bad. i'm not totally displace pleased with medicare, also i have two college st

federal agencies with the rumor department of defense and are to about wanting to see us going in with hhsand barda. they are preteens at the very highest levels with the president and secretary sibelius and myself. and my question to you is isn't this a problem of such magnitude and with eric berrien swift h1n1 that we ought to be moving ahead promptly to try to find some way to deal with vaccines should we have a bio terrorist attack? >> senator, i think that first of all on the vaccine question we are now catching up in terms of projections and availability of vaccines and we still need to encourage the american public to get that h1n1 vaccine. >> our protection hasn't been very good so far. >> it is very now a very robust production schedule and it is like a meeting. we will at some point in december be at the number we predicted in the fall for the manufacturers. but the real question, which is the availability domestically, the manufacturing capacity, development capacity. i think the h1n1 episode reveals how useful it would be to have that capacity domestically. to answer the second

when i worked under hhs i saw that in action first hand and they grew to appreciate what we can do inthe title six context. we've had very many productive meetings with learning so much about the power and potential of title vi. not sleeping giant is waking up and that is a big part of our transformation as a division. transformation also means taking partnerships to new levels and transforming our relationships with our sister agencies. we cannot possibly succeed in the olmsted contacts for instance unless we involve the substance abuse and mental health service administration and the senator for medicare and medicaid service at the department of health and human services. they are the money people and money without -- if we do not have the money with us, we cannot fully succeed. similarly, for the most remarkable words in the english language, affirmatively further fair housing and we're working very closely with our sister agency egghead and with many other alphabet soup to give meaning to those remarkably important words. transforming our relationship with hud. earlier today some

couple of federal r de of def the rumor, department of defense not wanting to see us go ahead with hhs. briefings at the very th highest levels was secretary high sebelius herself and peter mysel. my question to you, isn't this a problem of such magnitude and with our ptly tonce with h1n1 we to fome waymove ahead promptly with the rori -- way to do with the vaccines to we have a buyer terrorist attack? >> senator, but i think stion of all, on the vaccine p istion, we are now catching up in terms of orojections and availability and we still need to 1ncourage the american public to get that. verow aot been too good so on schand >> but now it is a very .obust production schedule e atome point* in december will be at the number we predicted in the fall or that the manufacturers said quehich ie but the real ticallyn is the availability domestically the t capacturing capacity i think that episode reveals w useseful it would be to have that capacity domestically with the second trt of your question comes s withk that is the urgent issue with respect to other bio agents moving forward. i thinn

the amendment and hhs appropriations act says the following. section 507 na. none of the funds appropriated in the fact that none of the funds in a trust fund to which funds are appropriated in this act should be expended for any abortion. none of the funds appropriated in the fact that none of the funds at any trust fund to which funds are appropriated in this act should be expanded -- extended for health benefits coverage includes coverage in abortion. >> so that his federal funds prohibited from being used in abortion in that particular bill. but what about programs like chip? that was created in a balanced budget act and in 2009 it was reauthorized by congress and signed by the president earlier this year. so what about the chip program? >> it was the hatch kennedy belt. i was one of the original authors of the program and insisted that the following language be included in the original statute. limitation on payment for abortion. in general, payment shall not be made to a state under this section for any amount expended in the state plan to pay for any

federal agencies with the rumor department of defense and are to about wanting to see us going in with hhsnd barda. they are preteens at the very highest levels with the president and secretary sibelius and myself. and my question to you is isn't this a problem of such magnitude and with eric berrien swift h1n1 that we ought to be moving ahead promptly to try to find some way to deal with vaccines should we have a bio terrorist attack? >> senator, i think that first of all on the vaccine question we are now catching up in terms of projections and availability of vaccines and we still need to encourage the american public to get that h1n1 vaccine. >> our protection hasn't been very good so far. >> it is very now a very robust production schedule and it is like a meeting. we will at some point in december be at the number we predicted in the fall for the manufacturers. but the real question, which is the availability domestically, the manufacturing capacity, development capacity. i think the h1n1 episode reveals how useful it would be to have that capacity domestically. to answer the second

homeless veterans that forges new partnership between agencies like hud that are in administration and hhs. and i'm very excited that we have our new executive director of the interagency council, barbara poppy, here today and onboard to help lead the way towards our plan for ending homelessness at the federal level. of course, in the last decade we have made great progress in developing new approaches to tackle chronic homelessness. by improving the technology combined housing and supportive services, we have moved the needle on chronicle was that reducing the number of chronically ill long-term homeless by nearly one third. and despite economic crisis, the data being presented here today demonstrate that the number of chronically homeless individuals has remained stable, and even declined in many areas. the fact is we have now proven that we can has anyone. our job now is to house everyone. to prevent and end homelessness. all homelessness. each of these tools is about the same thing, building on the remarkable innovations that have been demonstrate at the local level, and in cities nati

hhs will set the initial rules for the state exchanges of this getting into the exchanges have to be fair. the opium plan, that is the plan that will be come a part of the exchange will be set up by the government, the office of personnel management and again community health centers and a basic plan can be created by the states which i think is very important and i want to thank mowery kahlil for working so hard on that. so, if people tell you, we don't have anything to do with public options they are really not right. you have to look carefully at this bill. i want to talk about the deficit. we reduce the deficit between 2010 and 2019 by $132 billion between 2020 and 2029 there is up to $1.3 trillion deficit reduction according to the congressional budget office. that is in nonpartisan office. this bill reduces the deficit. i am going to say it one more time. this bill reduces the deficit and the reason is, we invested prevention and the pace of. we finally will be able to say to insurance companies, stop your gouging and that pays off than we do have competition here now, because

the other agencies within hhs like the cbc plays a major role in the surveillance of disease and prevention modalities and making sure that when you have a disease that is predominant in certain areas that you educate them to you get public health programs implemented. the fda which is the organization that involved for the regulation of the drugs, vaccines it's a rock plays a very important role of which complement each other. so what you have also programs within the federal government to get drugs available to people who cannot have otherwise access to drugs. so it's very synergen to the customer just get complementary then the department of human services from the research to the surveillance to the prevention to getting safe and effective drugs to the people who need them. >> host: let's get to the phones. with a lot of callers eager to talk with dr. anthony fauci. linda is on the democrats' line in cells vary massachusetts. >> caller: good morning, seize and and dr. fauci. i'm excited. i think this is the third time i've been able to get in and talk to you on a different subject becau

a majority health office granted for privileges for hh 3590. >> without projection. >> i ask consent that the order of december to be modified to delete all after the work table. >> without objection. smack i now ask consent that from 2:00 to 2:45 p. divided as follows in the order listed to the first 17.5 minutes under the control of senator mccain for his designee. the next 17 minutes under the control of senator baucus or his designee. and the final ten minutes, five minutes each for senator mccain and senator ben and from colorado. >> without objection. >> thank you. senator from iowa. >> matter president, i heard the distinguished minority leader and his comments this morning say that one of the reasons they're kind of slowing to spill down and having all this debate is because i quote his words, a strictly partisan venture thus far. well, i beg to differ with the minority leader. nac are distinguished ranking member of our health committee here on the floor. in the health committee, the health committee, let me just again or the alignment of the senators, we have 13 days of mar

the current language contained in the fiscal year 2009 hhs appropriations act says the following, section 5078. none of the funds appropriated in this act and none of the funds in any trust fund which funds are appropriated in this act shall be expended for any abortion. become of the funds appropriated in this act and none of the funds in any trust fund which funds are appropriated in this act shall be expended for health benefits coverage that includes coverage of abortion. >> so that this federal funds prohibited from being used, and abortions in that particular bill. what about programs like schip? that was created in the balanced budget act and in 2000 mind was realized by congress and signed by the president earlier this year. so what about this program? >> i know a little bit about this, it was hatched kennedy bill. i was one of the original authors and insisted the language be included in the original statute, limitation on pay for abortions. in general payments sean be made to a state under this section for any amount expended under the state plan to pay for any abortion or assis

this committee provided over a billion dollars to hhs and the recent recovery act. dr.insel mentioned that earlier for comparative effectiveness studies, $1.1 billion to be exact. now, again, we don't say exactly where to put them. but do you know if any of those dollars will be spent on autism? iom, the institute of medicine included one of the conditions that should be studied. and i just wonder if you have any thoughts on that. have you been watching or do you have any involvement in trying to see that some of these comparative effectiveness studies are done on early intervention programs? >> yes, i'm aware of the focus by the agency for healthcare quality on comparative effectiveness, and we have submitted recommendations in terms of the kinds of questions that we feel need to be asked. >> uh-huh. >> i think it's so critical that parents have a sense of, you know, whether one thing is effective more than another treatment. the other, i think, aspect of comparative effectiveness work has to do with method of service delivery. so what we know now is that when children

veterans, that forges new partnerships between agencies like hud and the veterans administration and hhs'm excited we have the new director of the council here today and on board to help lead the way toward our plan for ending homelessness that the federal level. in the last decade, we've made great progress in developing new approaches to tackling product homelessness. by approving services, we have moved the needle on chronic homeless, reducing the number of chronically ill, long term homeless by nearly a third. despite the economic crisis, the data presented represents the number of chronically homeless individuals has remained stable and even declined in many areas. the fact is we have now proven we can house anyone. our job now is to house every one. to prevent and and homelessness. all homelessness. each of these tools is about the same thing -- building on the remarkable innovations that have been demonstrated at the local and in cities nationwide to provide everyone from the most capable to the most vulnerable the opportunity to reach their full potential. working with the confer

way, this same type of letter was sent when tommy thompson former governor of wisconsin was head of hhs, and he said with that letter, he said i can't possibly certify safety of the drug supply. but you couldn't certify the safety of the best drug supply with that letter. but after tommy thompson left office, he walked out of an elevator at the capitol one day and he said dorgan, let me to. you were right about reimportation. you were right about it but he couldn't say that while he was working for the previous president, but every white house has worked against the ability to provide reimportation of prescription drugs, despite the fact that europe has allowed it for 20 years with no problem. this is the strength and the clout and the muscle of the pharmaceutical industry. my hope is perhaps the american people have some representation. >> live to the white house to hear from president obama after meeting with senate democrats. >> hello, everybody. we just had a very productive session about the final stages of health care reform in the senate. and from the discussions we had it is cle

the other agencies within hhs, like cdc, plays a major role in surveillance of disease, in preventiones and making sure that when you have disease that is predominant in certain area, that you educate them, that you get public health programs implemented. the fda, which is, the organization that's involved for the regulation of the drugs, the vaccines, et cetera,ma pays a very important -- place a very important role all which compliment each other. you have programs within the federal government to get drugs available to people who can not have otherwise access to drugs. so it's really very synergistic and complimentary within the department of health and human services anywhere to the research, to surveillance to prevention to getting safe and effective drugs to people who need them. >> host: let's get to the phones. we have a lot of callers eager to talk to dr. anthony fauci. linda on democrat line in massachusetts. >> caller: good morning, c-span and good morning, dr. fauci. >>. >> guest: good "morning call" this is third time i've been able to talk to you. each time on a differen