cassidy: mr? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. cassidy: mr. president, i rise to speak about john mccain. mr. president, as one of those rising to pay tribute, i'm perhaps one of the least qualified to do so. i say that although john mccain and i served together, it was only for the last four years of a storied senate career, and we were not on any common committees. but let me say why i am qualified,. in that brief period, i say firsthand that which others rise and speak of from many more years of acquaintance. i speak of 2014 when i was running

cassidy: mr? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. cassidy: mr. president, i rise to speak about john mccain. mr. president, as one of those rising to pay tribute, i'm perhaps one of the least qualified to do so. i

cassidy: mr? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. cassidy: mr. president, i rise to speak about john mccain. mr. president, as one of those rising to pay tribute, i'm perhaps one of the least qualified to do so. i say that although john mccain and i served together, it was only for the last four years of a storied senate career, and we were not on any common committees. but let me say why i am qualified,. in that brief period, i say firsthand that which others rise and speak of from many more years of acquaintance. i speak of 2014 when i was running for senate for the first time and john mccain came to louisiana to campaign on my behalf. and it was remark to believe see how veterans responded to him. and we would go -- oh, my gosh, it was a sort of schedule that is legendary for john mccain. we started off in covington, louisiana, then went to new orleans, and then went to baton rouge, to lafayette, drove up to shreveport and came back to new orleans -- all in one day. and others would have been tired. he was energized. he taught me about social

mr. cassidy. but having spent 25 years in the insurance industry, one of the understando do is and appreciate the overall cost that the government bears for every program we have. trillionre spending $4 and bringing in $3 trillion, the taxpayers are the ones who are losing because their money is coming to washington for programs that could better be provided to the private sector. you cannot not look at every facet of what causes something. articulate with great specificity the real challenge the taxpayer has, all of the nuances the government brings with it when it provides health care or any other service. mr. cassidy: dr. book, urinalysis has credibility with me. the first am i saw the doj was doing a major fraud thing on the ripoffs in florida and louisiana on medicare, and i realized blue cross was running on their own dojet and instead it is the doing a cms, it realized -- i realized it was not being included in part of it. the tax policy center has come up with numbers roughly the same that

mr. cassidy: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana. mr. cassidy: mr. president, i rise to speak about john mccain. mr. president, as one of those rising to pay tribute, i'm perhaps one of the least qualified to do so. i say that although john mccain and i served together, it was only for the last four years of a storied senate career, and we were not on any common committees. but let me say why i am qualified,. in that brief period, i say firsthand that which others rise and speak of from many more years of acquaintance. i speak of 2014 when i was running for senate for the first time and john mccain came to louisiana to campaign on my behalf. and it was remark to believe see how veterans responded to him. and we would go -- oh, my gosh, it was a sort of schedule that is legendary for john mccain. we started off in covington, louisiana, then went to new orleans, and then went to baton rouge, to lafayette, drove up to shreveport and came back to new orleans -- all in one day. and others would have been tired. he was energized. he taught me about social

mr. eyles: the challenge right now is on interoperability. cassidy: i thought they got all of my filling data. why don't they use that? mr. eyles: that maybe for some plans and not all medical systems. that may be a good example of something we can learn from in terms of how we could apply it more broadly. senator cassidy dr. cutler, you : mentioned there's an increased overhead associated with the plans, and yet what i have read that in countries such as the netherlands that only use private plans like the netherlands, they still have half of our administrative overhead. so it does not seem inherent that it will be the federal government. there is something the netherlands does that is different. any comments? >> they have competing private plans that are highly regulated. they do not impose preauthorization requirements. senator casey: it goes back to the standardization. >> they don't have all the different severity codes and all of that. they have eliminated a lot of the administrative things. caskey: -- senator cassidy two more things. : i have

mr. biggs: kenny wrapup? -- sen. cassidy: kenny wrapup? -- can you wrapup? ms. shabo: yes. in this moment of intense divisions the plan has the moment to support and ring people together. i apologize for going over and look forward to answering your questions. sen. cassidy: ms. o'boyle? ms. o'boyle: good afternoon, thank you for inviting me to testify this important hearing. i appreciate the subcommittee's attention to such an important issue and the opportunity to share with you our experiences in the program. my name is carolyn o'boyle and on the managing director of the anditte talent organization employees to bring you these policies like family leave. it's not just an abstract concept, i took advantage of the program when i had my own son, jack. as a professional services firm, people are our primary and greatest asset and their well-being is critical to our success. in 2015 we conducted a marketplace survey on parental leave and found 88% of the respondents would valuate broader paid leave policy beyond parental leave. this in addition to our focus on innovative well-

mr. chair. bennett: senator cassidy. senator cassidy: thank you for being here. you probably know from previous lines of questioning, i am concerned about priority in spending. a couple background things. roughlythat there is 1/5 of disability, adjusted with my colleagues -- just an amalgamation, how much do we lose in terms of productivity with an element of death or sickness? from 2015, thety funding levels from 2016. we see at societal cost, there is a correlation between how and thecosts, society, disability and death rate it causes. i have figures for obesity. one is how the cdc says this is the folks who died. this is everybody for whom obesity is lifted on the coroner's report, knowing that obesity leads to other conditions that might be primary cause of death, for example, heart disease. can you hold that the other? my continued concern, senator collins -- to the side and do not lock the camera because the camera will want to see their pretty faces -- hold it up higher -- higher -- here you see nih funding. obviously a lot for hiv, there is diabetes. soci

mr. bigs for five minutes for their opening statements. >> thank you very much. chairman cassidy, ranking member brown, thank you very much today for the opportunity to discuss the importance of paid leave and how it might be provided by the social security program. paid parental leave can provide benefits to children while enable inging mothers to remain -- while enabling mothers to remain attached to their prior jobs. the research from the u.s. has found that allowing new mothers a period of paid leave allows them to remanin attached rather than feeling forced to quit to spend time with their newborns. set of jobain a skills that allow them to earn higher wages once they return to work. analysis of california's paid leave program finds that increase in female labor force participation and boosts post childbirth work hours by 10 to 17%. most of the so-called gender wage gap is a result of falling female wages post childbirth. if california's results held up. the wage gap would narrow considerably. many large employers already offer paid leave as a way to re tain employees. howev