i'm going to ask commissioner kreidler just to think out loud. we heard a fair amount about risk pools. give us a short list of things you would recommend that when the elections are over, we are in a new year, new congress, new president, what are things you recommend we do at this end and meanwhile, what are things the states could be doing, should be doing at your end? >> senator carper, i appreciate this question. i think what i have noticed in the discussion we have been holding this morning is that there's more of a focus right now on what we could do to make the system work better. one certainly is that the concept of having a form of a risk pool that would help mitigate the exposure insurance companies would have so they don't wind up with particularly very sick people or their people are much sicker, there's an adjustme adjustment. they can have the benefits of a much larger risk pool rather than the people that bought just their particular policy. it's a step in the right direction. it's starting to look at what we can do better than wh

i would ask a couple of questions, if i could, commissioner kreidler. first of all, congratulations on being the longest serving insurance commissioner in the country. is that right? >> that's right. >> amazing. what percentage of your population was uninsured before 2010 when the affordable care act was first passed? any idea? >> yes, at that time and as we look back over time a decade or two, that we have the information, at the time of the passage we were at 14%. and we've reduced that now down by nearly 50% reduction in the number of uninsured in the state of washington. >> thank you. were individuals with preexisting conditions able to purchase comprehensive and reliable health insurance for a reasonable cost? >> no they were not able to purchase it. there was the high risk pool that was available to them but there was a preexisting condition waiting period. if you had been diagnosed with cancer and you would like to treat it right away you'd have to wait up to a year before you'd have coverage. >> those days were women charged more for their insur