mr. casey: mr. president, thank you very much. i didn't plan on responding to my colleague from kansas and i won't today but i still think on health care we have a long way to go. there is still a lot of work to be done in the committee i'm a member of, the health, education, labor, pension committee and still a lot of work on the finance committee in health care. but if a general sense, i think what we're all trying to do -- i know my colleagues on the democrat side are trying to do this -- make sure at the end of this debate that the bill that emerges from the congress has a couple of basic principles. one, it gives people choice in their health care. if you like what you have, you get to keep it, if you don't like what you have, you have a choice; that the bill also reflects a cost reduction which is essential if we're going to move forward; and finally we provided kind of quality, affordable health care every american has the right to respect we would try to provide in this bill. if we keep that in mine, we can get to the ri

i want mr. casey and mr. penrod to think of those as well. >> if you will injud judgjudg j you live -- indulge me where katrina. i was with the federal administrator and they were there hand-in-hand with me, shoulder to shoulder within three days after after that storm and i will tell you that everything that came from that storm was in an expedited mode. now, whether or not there was any sort of an expedite division available at federal highways, it proved one thing and that is that federal highway administration can expedite, and the stimulus package comes along and we find out that we've got to have projects ready to go in 90 days, shovel-ready to go to contract in 120 days with benchmarks along the way. and every one of owes benchmarks and every one of those conditions, you know, have been laid out there through federal highway administration working with the departments of transportation so indeed there is a way and a reason for an expedite division, if you will. the other area that needs focus in my opi

. >> let me turn to you mr. casey and i am so familiar with spta having spent a little bit of time as a youngster visiting my grandmother using the spta system i can attest to the work that is needed as well on the subway system. but just in terms of the current authorization for highway and transit programs that expires september 30 can you tell me how the lack of a long-term authorization for these programs affect the ability to plan for capital improvement projects? >> some of the critical needs are multi-year and i can't specifically say we're completing a project now between engineering at over eight years and without that we probably could not have committed the funds to get the project completed. and the number of projects there is a major station that is a complicated system project and will take multiple years from the design and also construction never saw it is critical we have the multi-year funding sources and we know the monies are coming in the so we can commit dollars for those projects. >> the fda adm

mr. casey. >> in afternoon representative edwards and members, my name is joseph casey, representing the public transportation of philadelphia and surrounding counties area and the american public transit authority with 1500 members including public transit agencies and private businesses. public transportation can be a critical component to reduce this nation's dependency on foreign oil. improving the and vermin and achieving sustainability and improving the economy. with the increased price of gasoline over the last couple years america has rediscovered of public transportation. apta reporting last year 10.3 billion trips taken on public transportation, the highest in the last 50 years. we've seen a similar increase of the last three years, ridership has increased so% and even though prices again dropped last year better ship remains strong and say another 3% increase for we were last year. the american recovery and reinvestment act is critical to mass transit. prior to enactment apta did a s

let me turn to you, mr. casey, and i am so familiar with septa having spent a little time as a youngster visiting my grandmother and using the septa system. i can attest to the work that is needed on the septa system as while. but i wanted to ask just in terms of the current authorization for highway and transit programs that expires on september 30th, can you tell me how the lack of a long-term authorization for these programs affect septa ability to plan for capital improvement projects? >> some of our critical means our multi year. i can specifically say we are completing a project now between engineering and construction in eight years and without a long-term project cannot have committed those funds to get that project completed. we have a number of projects that are on the drawing boards and city hall station is a major station under city hall that is very complicated system and. the project will take multiple years from a design and also construction efforts and so is critical that we have a multi-year fund

mr. casey. >> mr. chairman, thank you very much. i didn't plan to get into this discussion by think it is important when people are losing their jobs in record numbers that we are very clear what this hearing is about and why george of is in the bureau of labor statistics so let me just your job, correct me if i'm wrong, but your job is not to make job projections; is that correct? >> that's correct. >> your job is not to do an analysis of the impact of the stimulus legislation; is that correct? >> that's correct. >> your job is not to speculate about the impact of any administration's economic strategy; is that correct? >> that's correct. >> you are joe friday, providing facts every month with the numbers tell you; is that correct? >> that's correct. >> the rest of us can be other than joe friday. we all have different jobs. i want to go through a couple members i tend to ask about every month first fall, there is some good news here that we see that nationally the job loss number was about -- i guess was march about 700,000, have

. >> thank you, mr. casey. >> thank you, mr. chairman. just a brief comment on some of the points that congressman brady is making at some point we're all going to know. we're going to know whether this recovery bill worked or didn't work. you're on either side in terms of on supporting and i'm glad i voted for it and i believe we're seeing a positive impact from it. can you back up that on every point with numbers? probably not. we're seeing it on the ground. there are projects started. there are jobs being created but it's still kind of early to tell whether or not the recovery bill has had the impact we wanted it to have. we'll know soon enough. there'll be a history written of this time period and one side or the other is going to be mostly right or mostly wrong. so i think it's a little early but i know there's a debate about that. i wanted to go back to one point in the unemployment rate for minorities but in particular, minority women as opposed to the white female number. the unemployment rate for white females -- do you have that

mr. chairman? >> senator casey. >> i just wanted to get back to the fraud and abuse section for a couple of moments. i know senator enzi had some comments before. we were dealing with senator mccain's amendment so i wanted to just respond to a couple of things. first of all, i wanted to commend the way senator enzi, along with our chairman has conducted himself in this whole process over these many days and weeks, and grateful for the way he approached this bill, as difficult as it is. and as much as there is conflict on a lot of major elements. with regard to the fraud and abuse section, i wanted to do a couple of things very briefly. this will just take a few moments. one is to highlight and enter into the record, and i would ask consent that two letters be entered into the record. one is from the american -- america's health insurance plans dated june 24th, 2009, a letter to chairman kennedy and ranking member enzi about the fraud and abuse section. that's number one. number two, the second letter dated the same date june 24th of this year from the national insurance crime bureau, the coalition

mr. chairman? >> senator casey. >> one comment on the discussion. it's important we understand what this prevention policy will result in, but in terms of the cost question which is critically important to the american people, i think what we'relying out of the discussion, i know my colleagues will disagree with this, but if you want to talk about cost over time, let's focus on another cost. giving people tax cuts. we've had a long discussion about that, but i don't know what we got for that. eight years of giving very wealthy people tax cuts and when this administration came in the door the economy was in the ditch, okay? so if we're going so if we're going to talk about $8 billion and $8 billion every year over ten years, that's important to discuss that. but i'm still waiting to hear what we got for giving wealthy people tax cuts year after year after year hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars piled on top of each other. so i think it needs to be put in per inspective in terms of what we got for it. and i'm still waiting to he

. >> senator casey? >> mr. chairman, i'm going to propose the amendment and this is going to be a debate that will go on for a long time in a lot of different context, in this committee and with regard to this bill. and with regard to other bills as well. just to make a couple brief points, this is in no way -- we don't have time for a fully developed argument, but the premise of a lot of these efforts that i think is the foundation of senator gregg's amendment is to somehow control health care costs. i think there's a lot of mythology about what's the relationship between this issue on capping damages and health care costs but also, mythology about how you do it, but just to read you one statistic, just in terms of costs. the cost of medical malpractice premiums constitutes less than two-thirds of 1%, basically .66% of the nation's health care expenditures each year. for example, then it goes on to talk about total costs being just under $2 trillion and all the medical malpractice insurance premiums total abou

casey. >> thank you mr. chairman, and mr. ambassador we are grateful for your service and your testimony today. i wanted to raise primarily to issues, maybe three but the first one centers on china. i was noticing in your statement in pertinent part he said china has important role to play influencing the path north korea follows. you spoke of your trip and china shared, quote, deep concern about north korea's recent actions to turn the commitment to effective implementation of security council resolutions. i was going to ask about resolution 1718 passed in october, 2006 and enforcement thereof since of the past as you know and we can easily track this, china's aid and trade and investment in north korea has expanded how can the obama administration and you are playing a central role on this encourage china to enforce u.s. sanctions and take a more assertive posture towards north korea. any thoughts on that? >> i think what happened with regard to 1718 and this is no excuse, but what happened is soon after that was passed we

mr. brown: i want to make a couple comments on my -- senator casey's comments. and he is -- we sit next together on the health, education, labor, pension committee nearby the presiding officer from oregon, and senator casey reminds us almost every day that as we work on this health care bill, that he reminds us that no child should be worse off and that's something that, frankly, all of us need to hear, that every member of this body and the house of representatives needs to hear, and i appreciate senator casey's work on that because it really is -- really is our mission here to do this right. and one of the most important dictums is that no child is worse off. so i thank my friend from pennsylvania. we spend more than $2 trillion a year on health care in this country, more than double that of any other industrial nation. americans account for more than 35 million hospital visits, more than 900 million office visits every single year, more than 64 million surgical procedures are performed, more than 3.5 billion prescriptions are written. health care is in dollar

casey. >> senator higgins? >> no, by [roll call] [roll call] >> the amendment is defeated. >> mr. chairman that includes the coley section. their three outstanding, one we want to get clarification on coburn 12, with the sentiment of the committee to take coburn 12. senator enzi and ire are working out in the number six, and i believe we are very close to coming to an accommodation with the senator and senator isakson and i have a chunk of homework to do together coming to see how we can promote the advanced directives among seniors. >> i thank my colleagues for that and again i would urge is to try and reach some agreement on these. i spoke to tom brief the moment ago and got answers for senator coburn on that. >> could i inquire of the chair that this is a complex topic. if we close here, are we going to be precluded come if we see something new and the steady this that we can come back? >> absolutely. >> i thank the chair. >> we know each other pretty well around here and i'm aat

i might add senator casey, if he wanted to -- while we're weighing for senator colburn to show up -- >> mr. chairman, before you go to that, since these are the last few amendments that we have on our title and we really do have to finish it so we can move everybody on to the next process, is senator colburn's staff ready to tell us which amendments that we are so we can limit ourselves to that, know what we're debating here? that would be very helpful for when he's going to show. >> i asked him that, if he'll amend the question; he wasn't quite sure. there are a number of coburn amendments. there are four he wanted us to offer # i'm not sure which four. >> do we know what time the senator will be here, especially since i've defending this title, what time i need to be here for? >> he'll be here in a minute. i just thought it might be another filler. as soon as he shows up we'll stop. in order to use is time here in a fashion. we'll ask senator casey to give us opening thoughts on the abuse and fraud section. so we'll complete that part of the process. once we complete the four amendments

casey jr., a senator from the commonwealth of pebnnsylvania, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: robert c. byrd, president pro tempore. ^ mr. reid: mr. president, following leader remarks there will be a period of morning business for up to one hour with senators allowed to speak for ten minutes each and the republicans will control the first 30 minutes and the majority will control the second 30 minutes. following that the senate resumes consideration of tobacco legislation. there's up to one hour of debate only with time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees. we do hope, however, we can reach an agreement to dispose of the pending lieberman amendment and several additional amendments upon the use or yielding back of the debate time on the bill -- that's one hour -- and disposition of the lieberman amendment the substitute amendment will be agreed to, the senate will vote on a cloture vote on the underlying tobacco bill so there will be a vote around 11:30. we have about 25 nominations that the republicans have held up. they're important. i was visited yesterday by secretary salazar reg

casey. it is a pleasure, we served together on the banking committee and now you are here as a real asset to the institution the max mrchairman, thank you very much and they're grateful for your leadership here and as we have her from so many of our colleagues about senator kennedy i think it is evident the impression that we hold for him but also he is. so many ways, he doesn't have to be physically in this room to help the center and guide us. i think his inspiration is here years of work we would not be here without his leadership, his passion and his work ethic is evident in this hearing room and in the work that all of us have done. and now he called this morning and i'm sure he may call tonight and i want to make sure we're doing a good job for him but i do want to thank you for your leadership in the midst of some of the other challenges that the nation has and you have been working on directly. i also want to thank the members of the democratic side who have been, have the working groups, two years with senator mikulski and harkin and senator bingaman and mary, so many who have worked for many years not just i

mr. casey: thank you, mr. president. i would ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be vis yaitd. the presiding officer: without objection -- vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. casey: mr. president, thank you very much. i have two matters to attend to before my remarks. i have one unanimous consent request for a committee to meet during today's session of the senate. it has the approval of the majority and the minority leaders. i ask unanimous consent that this request be agreed to and that this request be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. casey: secondly, i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of s. res. 194, submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. res. 194, congratulating the pittsburgh penguins on winning the 2009 stanley cup championship. the presiding officer: without objection, the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. casey: i ask unanimous consent that the resolution b

mr. casey: thank you. mr. president. first of all i'd ask that the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. casey: and i would ask unanimous consent that i be permitted to speak for up to 15 minutes. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. casey: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i rise this afternoon to speak of a subject that is on the minds of so many americans. it's also the subject of a lot of attention at work here in washington, and that issue is health care. i don't, and i won't try today to cover every aspect of it and to cover all of the details that are being debated here in washington. but i rise to begin a series of speeches that i and others will be giving on this topic. and i don't need, i don't think, to recite the challenge we face, that people of pennsylvania face and the people of america face when it comes to health care. i do believe there is some consensus not only here in washington but around the country about what we have to do. a, that we have to take action. and as we take action, that we are v