>>-- wyden compromise was built. the money saved from the part d progr program, it was not a-- redirected into the benefit. i think if we redirect it into the benefit, you get an even bigger bang for your buck, frankly, and it's a bigger benefit for seniors. it's a bigger win for seniors. so, those are the types of things that we're working on. i don't want to-- and just making sure that it's solid knew numberically. we're on the stage of a bipartisan basis of dialing in on the specifics for this. and other specifics as well, pay for delay piece. getting creates done. incentivizing biosimilars to get that industry moving better to bring down costs to the biologics market. there are a lot of pieces moving. ways and means, bipartisan work there, senate judiciary and senate help health have good enough there. and efforts around patent listing for biologics that would be helpful when you look at some of the biologics have the submarine patents or mystery patents that pop up long after and protect the market exclusivity f

we are very supportive of the grassley wyden compromise. it is the product of a really good bipartisan collaborative approach to solving drug prices. and we continue to work with their staff each and every day. republican and democrat on improving the package that came out of finance. a number of things we are trying to accomplish. make sure premiums are kept low as we align incentives to drive drug prices down and give seniors a true catastrophic where they would pay 0 after they hit the catastrophic and pay no more, right now it is 8000. we loaded at 3000 roughly. that is a huge win for seniors, a huge win. as far as inflation caps are concerned they were not in the administration's proposal but they are the product of a bipartisan compromise and are linked to a bipartisan bill in my opinion. nancy pelosi's bill right now is unworkable, impractical and hyperpartisan it is not going to pass in its current form. the surest route to a bipartisan solutions that would be a real win for democrats, republicans, the president and more importantly

so getting back to my bipartisan bill, the grassley-wyden bill will ensure that the federal government is using medicare's budget to pay for life-saving treatments in a fiscally responsible manner. this goal is not without precedent, so for those who say we're acting in a nonprecedent way, we're doing what they say is setting prices and i say it isn't setting prices, they forget that throughout the american health care system the government has at one time or another set up different ways to constrain high and rising costs. for example, states are not allowed to pay medicaid providers at a rate that is higher than medicare. another example is in the medicare program. medicare part a pays for the operating costs associated with acute inpatient care using the inpatient prospective payment system or what is referred to as ipps. congress enacted the perspective payment system to constrain the growth of medicare's inpatient hospital payments by providing incentives for those facilities to provide care more efficiently. congress also requires that the concept of budget neutrality be applied

s-1967, the recreation not red tape act from senator wyden. this hearing is building off one that we held in march where we focus in improving access, infrastructure and permitting to meet the increasing demands to provide high-quality recreation opportunities on our federal lands. so the proposals that we're looking at today are a good start in addressing those issues. senator heinrich, senator wyden have put forward legislation to streamline and simplify the systems in place to process permits for our outfitters, guides and nonprofits for those who operate across the spectrum of federal lands. senator gardner's bill will help facilitate the private investment needed for infrastructure to meet the demands for four-season recreation at ski areas that operate in our nation's forests. all of these measures recognize the important role that recreation is playing in our economy. according to the bureau of economic analysis, in 2017 outdoor recreation accounted for 2.2% of current dollars gdp or about $427 billion. this includes not only impact to

it's one of the reasons why the grassley wyden proposal is so important because it would dramatically simplify the part d program. so transparency is a big, it would be revolutionary if we had true transparencyin our healthcare system . i find it bewildering whenever i get a healthcare bill on a personal basis. i'm one of the people that ignores my health care bill for a good 90 days becausethe first two are certainly not true . they tell me i hope $40,000 or my most recent trip to the hospital and then it turns out after three months we sorted out, you owed $280 and that doesn't make anysense . the medical billing were working on on capitol hill, that's another element to get more transparency in the healthcare system performing part d is another effort . the grassley-widen proposal as a provision to require less basis to be attached to drug price adds so transparency should be first and foremost in everything we do in healthcare. everything we do from a policy perspective as a government. taxpayers, citizens should be able to understand these programs. we should get more data out th

we have seen a proposal from democratic senator ron wyden which could send these executives to jail for knowing the willful violations of illegal duties. you meant to do it, you told someone to do it, then it was actually against the law. a lot of prongs for that. him him it is something that would be hovering in the background, a sort of incentive to keep right with the law. a lot of these are rhetorically aimed at facebook ceo mark zuckerberg. a lot of democrats say that he faced these sorts of incentives, they would not have had as many problems with the fcc over the years. taylor: i wonder how democrat and republican ideas on this different. ben: they differ quite significantly. republicans don't like the idea of sending them to jail regularly. they don't like the idea of consumers suing to enforce privacy rights, something else democrats said really needs to be on the table. i think it is worth saying one place that they largely agree or have agreed over the past year, that is giving the ftc the ability to find companies. for the most part, there is bipartisan agreement. taylor: to

senator wyden. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. i wanted to thank you, because this is an exceptionally important issue, and we do need to have the committee tackle it in a bipartisan way, and i also wanted to thank you for moving this morning's start time to 9:00 a.m., because we both know that there are members who want to attend the memorial service for chairman cummings. today's hearing is going to spotlight the pitfalls that americans face when they try to find quality treatment for a substance use disorder. an american battling this disease is often jostled and pushed around from one end of the health care system to the other. the last thing you need when you are suffering from this disease is yet more obstacles, rip-off artists and empty promises or just out and out abuse, and the last thing that you need is that when all you need to do is to get better. too often people travel across the country expecting to arrive at a legitimate treatment facility only to find that they have fallen prey to a scheme, and the goal of which

we'd also like to thank senators biden and wyden, bennett and wyden for their leadership in introducing the bill and committee members barrasso, cortez masto, and others for sponsoring this bipartisan measure. nsaa has 325 members. 122 of which operate on the national forest system. my company that i work for owns and operates 37 ski areas including iconic public lands resorts vale mountain in colorado, steven's pass in washington, heavenly in tahoe, and mount snow in vermont. it goes all the way east as well. this would permit ski fees in the forest in which they were generated. those funds would be retained so the forest service has the capacity to administer ski area permits and review ski area infrastructure projects. ski areas work in partnership with the u.s. forest service to deliver an outdoor recreational experience unmatched in the world. this public/private partnership dates back to the 1940s and has a long history of providing benefits to all americans through health and fitness and appreciation of our natural environment and providing strong runs to the u.s. government for

james clapper, now the president trump pater, came before the senate and he lied directly to senator wyden and he said we are not collecting your data. yet where is it bestowing all of this is these great defenders of the whistleblower statute are. not a word for edward snowden. he said himself that he didn't have adequate protection to bring in his flames internally because it was act government contractor not an employee and not subject to the whistleblower statute. subsequently congress fixed that and now contractors in the intelligence community can make whistleblower flames. i agree with that. there are also now protections for some brother contractors. we should extend and expand the protection and we should make this protection retroactive. to counter people like snowden said that bill i will introduce today will expand the whistleblower act and will be made retroactive so edward snowden can welcome home to live in his own country. all he did was exposed to his government was not obeying the constitution. and if the fake outrage here is really towards whistleblowing, why don't we ma

the trump administration slashed the funding by more than 80% senator ron wyden called the cuts sabotage public health care dirty tracks senator tammy baldwin says limited information puts lives at risk today. >>more americans are uninsured than when president trump took office. >>the white house says it still encouraging people not for open enrollment. but they warn the program is unaffordable they're looking for today, it's replace. >>we are administering the program as best we can and we think it's it's the severely flawed joe grogan is director of domestic policy at the white house. >>and wants to see the a c a replace that's sending the wrong message to people but joshua pack co-founder get america covered says the administration has its facts wrong word to the free help that customers can find a planned for $10 or less he says premiums are down and the senate should pass the enroll at to help spread the word. the deadline to enroll is december 15 even though the house passed asked enroll at more than 5 months ago the senate has yet to call a vote in washington recall martin. >>also

lee davis has been introduced by senator wyden. were pleased you're with us from oregon. welcome to the committee and to mr. aaron bannon. we appreciate what you will provide and we ask you keep your comments to about five minutes. your full statement will be included as part of the record and will have an opportunity for questions "after words". i'm going to excuse myself to introduce an amendment and another committee and i'll be back in five but we will lead off the committee with mr. french. thank you. >> thank you very much madame chair, vice chair and members of the committee. i appreciate the opportunity to talk about our views on these three bills, recreation, the outdoor recreation act in the ski area ski retention act. when i glanced back on my 30 years that i've been with the forest service i started as a technician. now as i sit here and think about my role that i achieved, i realize i voice had a passion for connecting people to the recreational opportunities on a public land and it's where i take my family. i know when they closed it was hard to see that hap

based on the information presented to senator wyden and this senator by trade associations, e-commerce platforms, and common carriers, we made five findings in this report and we identified two legislative recommendations for congress in this report. i believe these recommendations will enhance existing efforts within the federal government to prevent the sale of counterfits online. i will talk briefly about our findings today, and i look forward with working -- working with my colleagues both republican and democrat to identify additional areas for congressional action. as chairman of the senate finance committee, i recognize the value of intellectual property rights and their impacts on society and the economy. intellectual property rights allow businesses to generate new ideas and develop creative solutions to everyday problems that can make our lives healthier, safer, and more productive. i also understand businesses and innovators rely on those rights to help drive and recoup their investments. in my home state of iowa, intellectual property represents more than 14 and four-tenths

senator ron wyden says he is investigating the bias claims.ntroduced its first major update to the macbook pro laptop in three years on wednesday. the new laptop will come with a slightly larger 16-inch screen and improved keyboard. joining us to discuss is bloomberg's mark gurman in los angeles. is it all about the keyboard? mark: it's all about the keyboard. the interesting thing to me on this is that it really shouldn't be all about the keyboard. the reason we are talking about the keyboard is because apple redesigned it after there were years of complaints on what is known as the butterfly mechanism keyboard they launched in 2015. so if they had moved to that design, we wouldn't be talking -- had not moved to that design, we would not be talking about it now. the new models they are shipping are a big improvement on the keyboard side. taylor: who is the target audience, software developers and video editors? mark: this is the macbook pro, their highest-end laptop. it is one of the most popular macs, other than the macbook air. there's no l

open if you like to give me information. >> yes, sir. >> madam chair, thank you. >> thank you senator wyden. secretary, great to see you here. your family is unbelievable. >> thank you, sir. >> just great. thanks for coming by the office. you got a great track record over there and we appreciate your service in the service of your family very much. -- second toduces only one of your states, texas. we loss produce more than 3 million feet of gas. we don't drove. it just comes up. it's essentially free in north dakota because we've got to get it to markets. where i'm going with this is we need infrastructure. when i started as govern up there we produced a lot less, now 1.5 million a day, going up. and we've got -- we need pipelines, lng facilities. how do we get more infrastructure to get this to markets? the pacific northwest, there's a lot of places that want this energy. but we need to get it there. we need infrastructure. how can you help us? >> i think one of the ways we can help to to work with regulators at the state and federal level to give assistance to the most important ways to p

even something like prescription drug pricing, chuck grassley tweeted how he and ron wyden had a bipartisan drug pricing. there's a bill in the house. presumably you could work something out on that in the senate, right? >> even the president said he wanted to have a reference pricing bill and it would probably be great election politics to do it but he's not one to take on the drug manufacturers who are very powerful special interests and mitch mcconnell is not willing to take them on. >> so it just dies. this is the one thing that i think mcconnell has passion about is those judicial nominees. i want to play you some sound tonight. he was at a rally in kentucky where there's a gubernatorial election tomorrow. the president is there. this is what mcconnell had to say about judges. take a listen. >> matt bevin is making kentucky great again thanks to your help tonight. and working together we're changing the federal courts forever. nobody's done more to change the court system in the history of our country than donald trump. and, mr. president, we're going to keep on doing it. my motto is l

what do you think of grassley-wyden bill? >> anything is better than what pelosi has in mind.nd widen, they will cut the baby in half. pelosi, i don't agree with trump on a lot of stuff, that he says pelosi is taking a partisan route that would ultimate thely have negative effects on the health care system. melissa: while you're here, democratic presidential candidate pete buttigieg proposing free college for all americans earning under $100,000. the part of the plan that will cost more than $2 trillion in the next 10 years. it is so funny, a middle ground. a lot of people say the problem with free college, why do we want everyone to subsidize free college for rich kids? if parents can pay for it, they should. so he is trying to say, well, we're going to make it free if you're, you don't make, make under $100,000. what do you think about this one? >> here is the challenge with that proposal. anybody who goes to college is going to earn more money, at least on average that people who don't go to college. so the taxpayers of america, sort of over time are going to be transferrin

the grassley-wyden bipartisan bill should have a lot of support. it will save taxpayers $100 million. you would think that fiscally conservative organizations would want to back that. of course some of these fiscally conservative organizations receive substantial funding from big pharma. i can't think of a better opportunity to enact bipartisan entitlement reform that would significantly lower the debt and help rein in entitlement spending bill, and this bill happens to be judged by the congressional budget office, a nonpartisan group working for the congress as a whole saying it would save a little over $ 100 billion. so i think reining in entitlement spending is a goal that i campaigned on and nearly won every one of my republican colleagues have campaigned on that same platform. so now's a chance to carry out those campaign promises. in other words, stand on the platform you run on. in an era of gridlock and partisanship, do supporters of less government spending and balanced budgets really think their goal can be achieved without bipartisanship

senator ron wyden proposing a similar plan as warren explains, ultra millionaires and billionaires won'tying a penny in taxes. guys, back to you. >> all right, they don't want to question but i've got to ask one. what happens if the stock goes down the nerxt year, do you get to recoup the taxes you paid >> yes she says losses will be carried forward, so if you gain on apple this year and lose it next year, you'll get that loss next year which you can offset any gains or the next year, so that's incorporated yeah, david, it's complicated. >> yes, it is. rob, i know you'll stay on top of it. thanks a lot >>> let's sending it over to jon fortt with a look at what's coming up on "squawk alley." >> yeah, the tour of california continues, three cities in three days right now i'm sitting at qualcomm headquarters. their earnings are coming up after the bell, bringing you a preview of the whole tech landscape coming up on "squawk alley. >>> welcome back to "squawk on the street." i'm dominic chu. stocks are trading just around the flat line so far in early action, taking a bit of a breather follo

that's why he's working with senator grassley and wyden, republican and democrat, to get a bipartisanolution for the american people. ed: he's complained it's hard to get democrats working with him on any of the big issues. last question are veterans. we're coming up on thanksgiving, we want to be thankful of a lot of people, but our veterans in particular. i mentioned veteran suicide. the rates are despicable. >> he's charged senator wilkie at the va, to give them what they need and at the center the care of the va and we've got over 2.2 million community care visits since the commission act was launched in june. we're instituting universal screening for mental health with veterans coming in to care. the tempo of visits between veterans and our medical professionals increased and we're working on a comprehensive report, multi-agency with a task force that the president set up by executive order which i co-chair with secretary wilkie to get those numbers down and the president's commitment is absolute. ed: we're work to go bring other issues to the table. you've good a big job and hop

chairman i think all of our panelists, a certainly agree with the points that have been made by a senator wyden and others, we need more information by consumers, more transparency in order to prevent fraud and i also agree that we have to get the matrix for that and that is not as easy, we have to narrow it to consumers can use that information most effectively and making decisions, i do think it does provide us some ability to look at a group that has a locked into these issues, i want to go on to a point that doctor items made when you talked about the five key messages we are addressing, opioid crisis, specifically messaging -- mentioning recovery support services, and maryland we found that support has worked well in our community, i included provisions in support at that dealt with on studying in the medicare pays support, and in gary county they're working to increase the capacity for peer support in emergency rooms, in the county they are looking at nine traditional hours to make sure we have pierce support, programs in georgia chester county there is one call peer support programs that

one of the purposes of audit is to look at operational effectiveness and best practices as senator wyden just mentioned. this is sort of our first deep dive look at the broad base of the dod and when you look at impacts of cr's and other things, given the nds what do you think the potential is going to be for some rationalization. i'll highlight this quickly. we spend 14% of the money overhead. that's up 2% from the vietnam era. so i'd like to know what that increase is that should be part of the audit process as well. if we allocate the balance a third, a third, a third which is not consistent with the nds and hoping the audit where the money will be spent and gives us flexibility and how to address that. my question, sir, where do we go from here? what's the next step this year and what do you hope to improve after the first audit and secondarily, what do you think the rationalization potential could be in dod? if you're not ready to quantify over there i would totally understand, but give us an idea what you're thinking. >> sure, i think the next big step, and the small steps we're go

james clapper now a big president trump hater came before the senate and he lied directly to senator wyden when he said we are not collecting your data. yet where is edward snowden in all of this? as these great defenders of the whistle-blower statute are? not a word for edward snowden. snowden himself said that he didn't have adequate protection to bring his claims internally because he was a government contractor, not an employee, and not subject to the whistle-blower statute. subsequently, congress fixed that. now contractors in the intelligence community can make whistle-blower claims. i agree with that. there are also now protections for some other contractors. we should extend and expand the protection and we should make this protection retro active. to account for people like snowden. so the bill i will introduce today will expand the whistle-blower act, would be made retroactive so edward snowden can come home to live in his own country. all he did was expose that his government was not obeying the constitution. if the fake outrage here is really towards whistle-blowerring, why don

so in july ranking member wyden and i secured broad bipartisan support in our finance committee, 19-9 vote. our bill would save taxpayers more than $100 billion, and that's not this senator saying that, that's the congressional budget office. the bill caps out of pocket costs for seniors. the bill saves their households more than $30 billion. we fine-tuned and improved our bill to gain more momentum and more support. and part of that support, and one of the outstanding advocates for what we're trying to do, doesn't happen to be a member of the finance committee, but it's my good friend from maine, senator collins, right here on the floor. i'll yield to her in a short time. she's helping lead the fight to reduce drug prices. we've been working together on many issues. i'm a former chairman of the special committee on aging and -- and current chair. she has the special committee on aging. we're committed to help older americans lead healthier productive lives. we also share a top priority not to miss a vote. while i might have a longer voting streak, susan hasn't missed a single vote. i

senator markey, senator blackburn, senator coons, senator inhofe, senator gillibrand, senator wyden and braun, ?ord -- senator gardner and senator van hollen. i am really proud to stand here in a bipartisan representation tonight, to stand with my colleagues who have introduced the hong kong human rights and democracy act and to stand together in a bipartisan fashion to ban the export of these brutal crowd control stadges being misused -- strategies being misused in hong kong by the police to abuse protesters. i turn to my colleague from texas. mr. cornyn: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: madam president, for months the world has watched as the brave citizens of hong kong have sustained protests against china's decades-long degradation of their civil liberties. the u.n. high commissioner has found credible evidence of the hong kong police force using nonlethal crowd control weapons in ways violating international norms and standards. that's why i'm proud to support the bipartisan protect hong kong act as described by our colleague, senator merk

wyden: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from oregon. mr. wyden: mr. president, as the ranking democrat on the senate finance committee, i can tell the senate here this morning that there is no higher priority for senate finance democrats than the well-being of health care patients in this country and how strongly we feel about their having a right to good-quality, affordable health care coverage. and right now, too many of those folks are getting ripped off by an insurance lobbyist's dream, taxpayer-funded junk insurance, or by big pharma that is always, always looking to engage in price gouging for one reason -- they can get away with it. they -- take insulin. insulin prices are up 13-fold in recent years. the drug is not 13 times better. it's the same insulin we have had around for decades. but the reason the pharmaceutical companies do it is because they can get away with it. and now this morning, i'm going to take a few minutes and talk about what this really means for patients because i can tell you this fall there are a lot of families across th

wyden: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, every senator knows the house is now in the middle of an impeachment inqui inquiry. here in this chamber the senate has been considering the nomination of dan bryette to be energy secretary replacing rick perry. in my view, questions about secretary perry's conduct in ukraine and what mr. bryette may know about that conduct tie this nomination to the impeachment inquiry in an important way. i've come to believe that there are several significant unanswered questions about secretary perry's role in changing the board of a state-owned energy company called netta gas. with secretary perry, his campaign donors, and certain crooked associates of rudy dual annie -- rudy giuliani stood to gain from those changes is something the senate ought to be digging into. secretary perry's role in donald trump's scheme that we've been hearing about with respect to holding a meeting of military aid until president zelensky agreed to to interfere in the 2020 elections in the united states. the

chairman wyden has a proposal to put a tax on unrealized market-to-market gains on assets. it's a long list of ideas that we've heard from the other side. this is the opportunity to have some votes, to find out whether and to what extent there is support for these things. we on our side, we're willing to vote. every republican senator is in favor of this proposal that i'm going to suggest in a few moments whereby we would have a specific amendments on our side. and we'll allow the democrats to have an equal number on their side. i don't know what could be more reasonable than this approach. my amendment, just quickly, is an amendment to fix a technical drafting error in our tax reform. it's called the quip as an acronym qood for it, stands for qualified improvement property. here's the problem. due to a drafting area, businesses are now forced to recognize the cost of improvements over a long period of time rather than to expense them in the year in which the expense occurs. a drafting area. everybody acknowledges it was a drafting error and was unintended. and 13 of my dem