Transcripts For CSPAN Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20140515

Delivered to people in ways that they can access it and use it in ways that prevent the kind of problems you described with the 12yearold that actually extend through adulthood for many. Absolutely. I look forward to working with you. Thank you. Thank you. Senator isakson is next. Congratulations on your nomination. Congratulations to your family or condolences to your family one way or another. Hearing before the Health Committee, i brought up an issue i already discussed with the chairman. In that meeting i told you i had no more responsibility as a member of the United States your noluding more pressing responsibility as a member of the United States senate, including your the harborthan project. I wanted to bring clarity before you were gone from omb to make sure we had a road forward to make that reality. To confirm what dr. Coburn said about responsiveness, without in an hour that hearing, your arranged a meeting with your chief legal counsel, your deputy director, and your chief liaison and the under secretary the army corps of engineers where we reached a way forward, which i just want to memorialize with this hearing today. We need to pass the authorization, which is in the final conference agreement. Ive seen that. Second, the court has to initiate and begin a Public Ownership Partnership Agreement and the state needs to agree to forward fund initial construction moneys, for which it will receive credit. Do i have a correct representation of the steps forward and collect and pleading this completing this project question mark senator , you have. I hope that the word will pass quickly and we can move forward with this important project. Thank you on behalf of the people of georgia. And really the United States of america. Thank you very much for your responsiveness on that. I was a real estate guy, but i had a Little Insurance Agency in my company. Group healthsmall policies, for which independent agents received commission. When the Affordable Care act passed, it put the medical loss ratio for small group plans and large lands at 80 , and 85 . And your department determined the commissions were part of the administrative cost of the plan, which meant you would have to pay the commission and administer the program out of 15 , which basically put all of the independent agent selling Health Insurance out of business and was the reason we had to hire navigators to help people find their ways to the exchanges. When you become the head of the department, i would like you to look at that decision and revisited in terms of efficiency for the plan, to allow smaller and large group sale people to get back into business. It will save cost on the government in terms of not having to have as many navigators, put people back in business who i think were unintentionally put out of business by the Affordable Care act. Senator, if confirmed, i look forward to looking into and understanding that. Of an been on the board insurance company, i understand the independent agent issue, as well as the issue of how we think about premium issues, which are number of people have brought up today and how we i look forward to that if confirmed, how to think about that issue. By theit was brought up chairman, and some of the members i had the occasion to watch you and access for eight successive weeks at the white house when i with the group of eight had dinner with the president and Denis Mcdonough and yourself, trying to find a way forward on deficit reduction and reducing obligations over time. I do not want to get into a long question, but i would like you to consider leaving all options on the table in terms of fixing. He sgr as youll remember, some structural forms of medicare can bring tremendous savings without hurting beneficiaries. We talked about those and those meetings. That could be part of the equation that will help us find a way to pay for the sgr and never have these oneyear renewals again and again. I appreciate you leaving all of the options on the table for discussion. Senator, senator, i welcome all opportunities and as is reflected in our budget, we have a wide range of opportunities, and the type youre talking about as well. All on the table. Thank you. Senator roberts. Thank you, and mr. Chairman. When we spoke during the Senate Health committee, i asked you questions about the independent payment advisory board, ipad is the acronym for it. Thathat could happen if came into being and in your response, you said that you were hopeful that ipad never needs to be used and the necessity to do so would never be triggered. Would you simply support its appeal . Also important to reflect that ipad, as currently written, would not affect beneficiaries. That is an important part of the law with regard to how it is implemented. As regard to the appeal on the things thate of the is hopefully a hopeful thing is to helpthings in place us all get to where we need to with regard to reducing Health Care Costs. May be barbed wire would be a better way to put it. I would echo my colleagues comments to you, regarding your responsiveness and willingness to work with this committee and all members of congress. I would also like to add relevant medicare takeovers to that list. Just this last week i had the Kansas Hospital Association in my Office Sharing their frustration over the lack of responsiveness from hhs. This is the same letter that they said your predecessor in january. They have yet to receive a response regarding the medicare recovery audit contractors, what we lovingly call the rac. They dont want to be put on the rac. They are still awaiting a response. Have returneds savings to the local trust fund. It is important that providers have timely access to the appeals of these audits. 65 lawtalking about judges and now 350,000 claims, which i understand is the reason for the delay, or the suspension. It is rather incredible. We have gone from impending appeals in just two years of 900 92,000 claims to 460,000 claims. When the weekly operation of about 1250 up to 15,000 per week. The reason is obvious, and that , hospitals win 70 of the time. Which means these independent hospitalrs come into a and many times they have never seen them before. They are being find for regulations they know nothing about. And if you are in a small hospital, you have a problem they doing out whether youre going to appeal or not, and now we find that the appeals are suspended. I would add to my list what can be done to better balance the need to recover improper unduets without imposing administrative burdens on providers . Particularly those in our rural areas. Senator, with regard to this issue of the racs as well as the balancing of having hospitals be able to process things quickly, at the same time we are providing trying to prevent abuse of medicare, if i am confirmed, this is an issue i think will require a quick look, a fresh look, and to think about how we can get the balance and what processes can be used to balance the two interests. I think you are appropriately reflecting in terms of the speed and the processing, it is not where we want to be in terms of the system. Perspectiveyears rule, asystems role rule that you signed off on at omb, hhs payment clarification requires submitting a patient into a critical access hospital and certified that the patient must be discharged or transferred within 96 hours. This payment clarification, which is not in line with the critical access hospitals condition for participation with medicare, in my view. And in their view, is crippling the ability of many of these communities to provide rural toommunities communities. One doctor said i usually met 12 minutes and now it is three minutes because of the 96 hour role. Besthen they decide on the course of action for their care. It is another example, in my opinion, of having to tell cms that if it is not broken, theres no need to fix it. If confirmed, will you do all you can to see if we can reverse this payment issue, so that rural seniors can continue to receive care at their local Community Academics the issue of critical access hospitals and care in Rural Communities at local communities . The issue of crigler access hospitals and care in Rural Communities is something that we need to get the right intent on. In terms of how to get to the place where the original objectives of the rules and be achieved in the way that they do not have the unintended consequences that you are articulating. Thank you. My time has expired. Senator warner. Let me thank you again for your service. Looks like youre coming around the bend and close to being done. I have a number of things i want to get on the record. First, i want to add my voice to the comments made by senator isaacson and senator roberts. I think the displacement of agents and brokers with a challenge and a mistake and i hope you will review that process. Let me also add my voice to what senator roberts said. I hear repeatedly from rural rac audits. Bout the e we do need to make sure that we get rid of waste and fraud, but we want to look at that. Moving on, one, the Treasury Department recently finalized the employer rules dealing with individual mandate. Theres a lot of complexity about these rules and some of these complex complexities were highlighted by the american bar association. This is not just a treasuryir wretcs issue. Are implementles it, i have raised this with you before. I introduced legislation with eight cosponsors that is endorsed by a number of employee and employer groups, which would basically allow employers to respectively rather than have a onemonth once per month reporting. Upfront require an collaboration between hhs and treasury that might remove one of the administered to burdens that we here in enormous amounts about around aca. My hope is if you are approved, and i hope you will be, that you will help work with us on it of this legislation or other ways we can improve this reporting requirement, and again, with this perspective action rather than just doing it retroactively. If i am confirmed, the it ministration and the president has said that we welcome the opportunity to think about things he can do legislatively and otherwise to improve it. I will take that as a yes. It is my understanding that there were agreements with the number of webbased entities to allow private exchanges to enroll tax subsidy individuals pursuant to regulations issued by hhs in march, 2012. Again, something we talked about. This effort was stymied due to in Insufficient Technology integrations. I understand there have been some small steps taken by hhs, but not a lot has taken place. To my mind, this should be a nobrainer. If we can get some of the sites, perhaps more userfriendly as an additive to help that, i hope you will work with me and these webbased entities to make sure that there is Better Technology integration this area. I welcome the opportunity to think about the best way to do distribution. And harkening back to senator isaacsons russian and your comment, the dissolution mechanism in terms of how people can easily access and receive health care. And clearly, there may have been sites that were private sector sites that had a better reputation than the federal exchange. If we can find ways to utilize that and integrate that technology, to me, it seems like we want to expand that. I hope we can Work Together on this. Again, an issue that i raise you, au raised with little more, kitty, about cms changes recently in the hospice benefit. I think as this is being rolled out, it is confusing and lacing a lot of unnecessary burdens on hospitals, patients, and families and providers. Hospice should not reject can shown unless it why should be covered by the part d plan. If it is related to the terminal illness, and her stand. But if you have glaucoma and a terminal illness, glaucoma is not related and the hospital provider should be reimbursed for that. My hope would be that we can dig down to earth relators of difficulty with this issue and that you will work with me dig down two or three players of difficulty with this issue and that you will work with me and others on this. I look forward to working on that issue, in terms of how we can figure out how to pay for the right things and do things that are implement. With four seconds left, as a former governor, to me just say that let me just say that one of the things we often try to do as state is to look at innovative programs, to try to get a waiter, whether it is medicaid or chip. But a lot of these programs never move from innovative test models to actually becoming permanent parts of a state program. This, to me, is an area ripe for administrative review. At some point, you have either proving your case and should be accepted as part of the state program, or rejected. Again, i hope you will work with me on this. I will, senator. Thank you. Chairman, andmr. This burwell, thank you for your willingness to step forward for what will be a very challenging tax task. You will be among folks who have had the worst job in washington. I congratulate you on seeking a promotion. [laughter] but i do think you come at it, therefore with a different perspective than other hhs secretaries have had in modern times, which is that of a budget cutter and someone who has had the possibility for oversight and trying to find efficiencies. I think that is really important right now. I hope you will continue to have that attitude at hhs. , will focus on medicare because i think you would agree with me that when you look at not just the health care issues, but also the fiscal issues, if we dont figure out a way to reform this incredibly important, but unsustainable program, we will have a difficult time today our fiscal house in order. And as you found out when you were at omb, this is not an easy task. There is obviously a lot of difficulty in touching any aspect of medicare. But the reality is, the trust fund, which is the trust fund covering hospital care and Skilled Nursing and so on, is expected to be insolvent by 2026, according to the most recent trustees report. Even if that were not true, we know that medicare as a program currently offers three dollars in benefits for every one dollar in taxes that a retiree contributes. That is your typical family in cincinnati or in washington, d. C. Program already that is heavily subsidized by general revenues. And heading toward this , even with the general revenue contributions. Y question to you is this in this confluence of omb and hhs that may well come together here with your confirmation, what are your thoughts about it . And let me ask you a very specific one that i think you should be able to answer in the affirmative. In the president s budget in the past couple of years, he has inluded a change in the way which the recipients of part b and part d benefits pay their premiums. He said there ought to be additional premiums for folks whoe around 170,000 make a certain amount per month. In retirement. In the president s budget, it was 56 million over a 10 year budget. 56 billion over a 10 year budget. That it willicated be over 400 billion in the next 10 years. Budget. Fastgrowing it is what we ought to be focusing on here in congress and with the administration. My question is, one, i assume you support the president budget proposal. But, two, would you be willing to support it as far as means testing under medicare to be able to deal with we talked about sgr. My question is really about deficit reduction to come together to deal with a problem that has been difficult politically for us to handle in the past two years in congress. Would you support a proposal as a standalone measure . Senator, i agree with you. I think one of the real benefits of the premium income testing income testing for premiums has to do with the fact that it is a structural change and you get those benefits in the out years that are important to the members and the deficit space also when i think about the omb,its and the my role at i think it is important to understand that the driver is the issue of Health Care Costs the medicare system. But it is also our demographics. And because of that, the magnitude of the problem when one gets to the specifics of what youre going to do to resolve that issue, i think it actually takes a combination of things to do that. I think it takes things as you are discussing, that are on the beneficiary side. It takes things that are on the provider side. It takes things like revenue. But as you know, we have already done a lot on the provider side already. My question for you is, in the president s budget, i assume you support the policy. Would you be able to support a policy initiative, whether in the context of sgr, deficit reduction, or tax extenders, or whatever it is . Do you support the proposal . I support the proposal in the context that the president s budget presented it. And as i said before, all things are on the table. Why does revenue have to be part of the conversation with regards to means testing . With regard to means testing, it is strictly via 2 the issue of deficit reduction in the long term. Thingse looks at overall, you get to this is specifics. You get to a premium perspective, beneficiary perspective, the perspective of providers. That is where you get to with integration as well. A few moments left. You were saying that with regard to means testing on premiums that there have to be tax increases. Let me ask you this. When someone pays you a higher premium, arent they paying the government more . Is and that a taxpayer over a certain income paying for a benefit that they would otherwise not have to pay . These do affect high income, but what is important is when one is looking are talking about a package, i think it is important to see what it what is in the package. What is it you are paying for and what are the offsets that you use. But mr. Chairman, please indulge me. You are saying that you insist on raising taxes on wealthier individuals, in order that wealthier and visuals could pay more to the government. And by the way, the Congressional Budget Office says it is also revenue, which is premium being paid to the government. Is that the logic . In the president s budget as presented, there are a number of different elements that do everything from Corporate Tax reform to other things. That is why i actually think it is important to look at a package in its entirety and to understand those ramifications for it, whether it is highincome people or other beneficiaries. Time is expiring here. Let me make the obvious point that it will be very difficult to make the babysit baby steps on deficit reduction when people cannot agree about paying more to the government, that it is something that can be done outside of them having to pay more to the government. The logic does not seem to fit for me. Im hopeful that we can make progress on this issue. Im hopeful that despite what you said here today, given your background at omb, and that you would be willing to work with us on the steps. Thank you, senator portman. Senator schumer. Thank you, director burwell. Im delighted you are here. Were just a fabulous omb director lew and i think youll make a great secretary. Im enthusiastically in support and i think you will be passed by a large majority. The only superlatives that i my gooden concede friend senator coburn in praising you on this issue. I have two issues of concern. The first is about something called powdered alcohol. Recently in april, the Treasury Departments trade and tax approvedb ttb, powdered alcohol. It is not in stores yet. It is just as it sounds. It can be mixed with liquid or even started. Once the amount of powder in each package is resolved, alcohol makers powdered alcohol makers indicated they will seek labels for their product to be approved. It is on track to be on shelves in the fall. It is troubling to me. Obviously, you can drink a lot more alcohol in powdered form than in liquid form, just because of the volume. You can put it on food. Kids can sneak it into dances, concerts, sporting events, in their pockets, in their shoes. Is really troubling. The only hope we have of stopping alcohol from getting on the shelves and mothers against drunk driving is very concerned with this is the fda. And you will oversee the fda. I believe that the fda should get involved. It is our premier consumer agency. And i hope they can investigate this new substance just as they ,id with four logo loco which was alcohol and caffeine makes, and they banned it. That was proven unsafe and i believe this will. All im asking is whether you will commit to having the fda look into this new how call product alcohol product for health and safety reasons. This is a new issue. It is one i would want to understand better and i would want to know which jurisdiction and exactly why. As far as it being a tax issue, understand that, but why it has not been previously looked at by fta. They havent looked at it, and i urge you to do them to do so. I will look at it further if im am confirmed. Thank you. The other issue of concern is a hydra, where the fda has been worse. We have opioid abuse all over the country in urban and suburban and rural areas. Powerful version of hydrocodone was approved for the market without the same temper tamperproof preventions in place for things like vicodin and oxycontin. The fda approved it even with opposition from many centers. And lawddiction experts enforcement around the country alarmed. There are ways to make it tamperproof and ways to make it you cannot turn it into a powder and stored it or inject it. You know the problems we face in every part of the country with prescription drugs. Would you review this decision by the fda when you are in office . The issue of ,rescription drug abuse is one being from a World Community in southern west virginia, where i have seen his issues firsthand in terms of how damaging they are to both the health and the economy. An issue i take very seriously. One of the things i want to do when i am confirmed is that i work with the da on sciencebased decisions. If i am confirmed, this is something i would want to understand how the decision was made. Thank you. Again, i hope you will be actively involved. I understand the necessary caution when sitting at the table. But i know who you are and i think you will get involved. Medicare advantage. Senator crepeau talked about this. I dont want to get into details. I only have 27 seconds left. There are some measure against rips that are abusive and off the federal government. There are some that are great, many of which are in upstate new york. We have a ton of them in rochester. I think 65 of all medicare recipients are on Medicare Advantage and most of them are very happy. I would urge you to separate the wheat from the chaff. Some people on my side of the aisle, the minute they hear Medicare Advantage they say this terrible. It is just not true in my spirit. I hope when you look at Medicare Advantage, you will give it a careful look and not take one broad brush and say the programs are all bad, because they are not. Thank you, senator. Thank you, senator schumer. Lets see, next is senator carper and then senator to me. Senatortoomey. Yourngratulations on nomination. With mixed emotions. If you are confirmed for this position, we lose you at omb. The president is going to nominate tom coburn to be head of omb. And my colleagues said, we cannot confirm her. I just want to say, thats not the plan. We love working with you at omb. We love working with the team that you have put together. One of the things we have focused on is how to get better results for less money. And most things, in terms of being successful in government, academia, business, whatever it might be, the key is leadership. Why thef the Reasons Department of homeland security, which for years was kind of a laughingstock when it came to managing finances actually, wonder of wonders, last year they had a clean audit. And after 20 something years, department of defense still has not gotten that. Dhs has done that. The key is leadership. Progress and reducing improper payments, last year, 50 million in medicare, in probably 20 million medicaid. Talk to me about what you have learned omb to make further progress at the department of health and Human Services. Learning in your current job that will allow us to get better results for less money with some of these very eccentric programs . We need to save money. One of the things ive learned is being very specific about what you want to achieve. And very cooker, getting to what the him most important levers are what the most important levers are. Getting into the conversation today, actually, there are conflicting interests. It is important as a leader to weekly get to the problemsolving in terms of the interest and how you go forward. In order to make the progress we need a medicare fraud, it comes back to the issue we were discussing with regard toracs. And continuously thinking areugh the core objectives and where we will improve. There was those are some of the results we have seen in the reduction of improper payments, which have gone down for the entire federal government. This medicare and medicaid issue will be a large portion of that. Left acoburn and i secure briefing from the secretary of homeland security. Talk about border security. We talked about all the folks going up across the border not m mexico, but hundreds, honduras, el salvador, guatemala also the reason why as they are bad lives and they will do almost anything to get appear. I said commits not enough for us walls. D stronger we have to look at the underlying causes, the compelling reasons that make people want to risk life and limb to get appear for a better life. I want to talk about underlying causes with respect to obesity. Underlying causes with respect to medication adherence. A obesityit is is a huge driver for medical costs in our country. Diabetics, the money that we spend on that sort of thing. And if you look at medication, if people comply with the directions and take their medications, how much money would that save you from would that save . The pace program, for those who are medical medicare and dually, talkible about medication adherence, programs like the pace program, and how those can be helpful. It comes down to the fact that prevention is such an important part of reducing costs. If we can get in front of these things, it is actually a similar concept to what we were talking about earlier with regard to instead of pay and chase, you get in front. Things are generally cheaper, better, and easier if you can get in front of them. Some of the things we need to do our, we need to help make sure we have the analytics at show what works in terms of whether it is obesity and Diabetes Prevention i think there are models and we need to make sure those analytics are rigorous. We need to also ensure we are educating and indicating. Whether that is in regard to prevention or in the face of making sure people understand the rules of the road with regard to medicare. The question of educating and making sure people have the right information. The last thing is about tools. And in my experience, in working on some of these issues with the Walmart Foundation with regard to how people use healthy eating, you can provide the food. On the companys site, reduce the cost of fruits and vegetables. But even with the communities and populations, it actually took Educational Programs to teach people. When you are shopping and you are a mother or a father and you are in the Grocery Store for a very short time and you need to get home and fix that meal, in terms of serving things youve never used before, there is an educational component in order that you can actually use the tools. And share our strength is an i think working through is necessary to make the progress. Service soor your far. Inc. You very much for being here and for your open and cooperative discussions we have had leading up to this. I have a couple of questions. The first is alzheimers or a good over 500 americans have been diagnosed. 33 of all americans over the age of 80 five have alzheimers. If you live long enough chances are very high you are going to get it. Is 100 fail. We have no cure. We have no meaningful treatment, onlyn fiscal year 2013 1. 7 of the budget went to alzheimers research. Does that strike you as to the challenge . Our overall plan there were but i think you know for anything to get increases is a difficult to do. I am talking about the 30 billion a get. They control where that goes. 1. 7 sound right . I think the question is something i would want to spend time on how they think about distribution. Its one of the things you and i discussed. A lot of it is done based on history. When one does something based on history there are changes one may want to reexamine. I appreciate because the history has changed. Come mores has he serious and grave a threat. I do find it troubling what i understood you to be saying. Be ifea seems to republicans and the president did have felt it was appropriate forsk americans to pay more the benefits they get, if as proportionate to ask them to painful more for medicare. To pay more for medicare. Its common sense. It has to come at the price of raising taxes. Some of the revenues are not like that. There are revenues in the plan. There is overlap. Thats why i think what is important is to look at the to actually put together plans. Out we try to take a piece that becomes difficult. I am in favor of a broad comprehend the reform. If that remains elusive the idea of asking wealthiest americans to pay more for the benefit strikes the as a reasonable inc. , and i would hope we dont have to raise taxes to get there. Want to followup on a separate issue. That is the budget reclassification. My understanding is the payment that will come from insurers now that the federal government is that it has gone from what would have been its own account to a management account. My goal is to ensure we will have trimmed their and the. I am hoping you can commit that muchll be able to know how money came from insurers or goes through insurers or this account. For this account. Or anr it is a surplus o expense. That is part of an executive order where i cannot discuss pacifics. This is something i want to work with you on with regards to transparency. I think there is a fundamental andtion you are asked inc. One i would look forward to working with you on. Does the rule that restricts you from commenting on rules forbid you from making commitment to having transparency . That in thing i think we have talked about throughout the hearing, which is transparency and accuracy are two things i want to do in a timely fashion. Staying in the state of pennsylvania. Casey. I know we are getting to the end. We are getting close to home plate. We are thankful for your patience, your willingness to serve again. I know we had a chance to discuss some childrens Health Insurance issues. Foront have a lot of time questions beyond the two i have. Just some of the numbers have been pretty significant. Have heard the national numbers. 8 million and rolled. Almost 5 million in childrens Health Insurance. I know senator rockefeller has een though much work. In pennsylvania a little over 18,000 enrollment. Almost 360,000 people. Some big numbers. I will move to at least two childrens issues. One is regarding child welfare. We have counties taking advantage of the wager working to make sure they are trying to invest in incentives for what andt we called group homes to try to get them into better but also to make sure as we do that we are using the evidencebased strategy. We have got five counties in our used that have waiver. I would ask you to work with us on to aspect. Working for comprehensive reform and also tofare help all children in that system and secondly to promote better outcomes. We asked for your commitment to work on that. Fax i would like to work with these are issues i think are very important. Was verye things i interested in was the psychotropic drug. 17 of all children in the system are on psychotropic drugs. I look forward to working with you across a range of issues. One area of policy that is , theng some Promise Program where you have medicare innovation. I know a lot of the innovation is focused on medicare. What i hope is through medicaid enoughp that we can have so we can new models get some benefits for children in addition to the result and ask for your help on that. I think we do want to get the benefits for each system. We have examples where we are taking what is working and medicaid and trying to shifted to medicare. In terms of what is costeffective. I am out of time, but i wanted to make one final point. Anyone who has had anything to do with Child Advocacy will tell us children are not small adults, so we need specialized strategies for kids that may be different from how we care for adult. We are grateful for your commitment. My six and a halfyearold and for natural roof that every day. Proved that every day. Thanks for your willingness 10 years at the head of the bill and Melinda Gates foundation. I am sure the time on the board will come in helpful. I want to ask about two things and see how you plan to mend them. One of them i dont expect you to know. She might know that section. Are talking about a formula that will reward providers for a low cost quality and penalize providers that dont and toentially move the nation an outcome based model. This is part of the implementation. The bill we were recently looking at had a provision that reform that. Takesteps do you plan to to implement that system. Were you planning on proceeding , your philosophy on implementation. That is something i want to look at. The question of how we are going to be able to articulate well at the and connect payment to quality would be an important part of transition. That is government and also the private vector. We will have to work from the perspective of the government ride. Thing because for your hip surgery isnt the front or the back. Is it the end of the d. L. Just . Is it the anesthesiologist i think we can turn to the private sector. They have already shown great results. Can we ignore this . Lets put a provision in that gets the rest of the country to start doing this but in a slow, incremental way. Or do we go with the results , given what weg are looking at . We need to make these reforms. You are going to hear a lot from me. We dont want to go slow. We want to go faster. I will note even in the Affordable Care act there were a lot of states that took us up for him rebalance and from nursing home care to Community Based care. These were governors who said they didnt even like the act. I hope we will run faster on this. The second is in the implementation of the basic health plan, which allows them to allah five for the medicaid coverage. This was something we gave states an option on. The state was late to get them done. They finally came out in september. They were supposed to be done previous lee. We want to make sure states that shoes that will be choose that will be ready. Want to go through the sequencing and the information as well as to have the technology we need to make sure the next years run smoothly. Be one of the first things to find out who need which information. If you know enough you dont need to discuss it, that i need an answer. Has ignored for a long time that row graham. I want to get a firm answer so ou can do that for the record. I guess i am 16 seconds over. Obviously graduate medical education and paying for medical education. I dont know what role you think the agent he is going to play and helping to identify the need. Or filling that gap we are not going to get there if we dont have an expansion. The president s current proposal does some of that expansion. Care andarget primary that we have shortages in vessel to use. In addition expanding the health out helps to get more prio in the field. Expand who can benefit. Otherst physicians but physician assistants. Its a place we need to focus and use all the tools. We need to focus on primary care. Hopefully it is a good start but we will have a discussion on how big the need is and why we need to focus on moving forward. Thank you for your willingness to serve. Just a couple of matters. Then we are going to liberate you. Appreciate your answers. We have focused on the health care portfolio. Thats why i thought it was good that senator casey continued to focus on the human nervous as us backed and foster care, temporary assist the and. Load. Ve an expensive work can you give me a sense of what your priority would be on Human Services . With regards to setting they have, articulated some of those priorities. I would want to hear from the stakeholders and the department they are broad, and they are numerous. They include higher security to some of the issues we have been talking about. The administration for Community Living talks about some of the hospiceith regard to and how we think about people in is thatunities. Costeffective . The rage of those issues is something i want to hear about. On the Medicare Advantage issue, i think you know the Pacific Northwest has some of the highest rate. You have been added for decades. At it for decades. We have heard senators on both sides of the aisle touch on it. Point the premiums are down. Up, and a number of questionable operators is down. I remember some tremendous oversight. It was gross move the some of the practices. In response to the questions. You essentially said we ought to and to workfully through these issues to essentially continue on track. That is what i heard the senator say, and i think that is welcome. The last i want to mention is a aflection on the last two and half hours. We have been added for something , andtwo and a half hours from the beginning where you had this i partisan sendoff from dr. Coburn and rockefeller, who has d. T budge. What you have done is try to respond to challenges in a way that ought to bring people together. That is why i referenced your part with respect to part d. We now know it has come in at costoss in terms of projection. Mu they voted senators said, we are going to try to make this work. Think you can be a powerful agent once you are confirmed. You can be a powerful agent in terms of trying to bring people together. Trying to bring people together regardless of how they voted. That is my take away that you can help cut through some wezation we have ian, have seen. Is there anything you would like to add . Only that in the senate so full of toxicity and wasnership, i think if it two and a half hours it was two and a half hours. Listening, your knowledge, your ability to defer youyou have in done have not done because you are still in another job because you are anxious to get to these isblems is what the chairman saying. How do you begin to take down the walls on the subject so ands lay important enormously important as health care . Interesting in the position i am sure you are going to have. You seem to fit comfortably. Baking myclose by colleagues on the other side of the aisle. Been very helpful in allowing us to move forward. They have indicated members can have until 6 p. M. On their stay. On thursday. It is my intent to work to report your nomination after the answers are received. We thank you, and with that, the committee is adjourned. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] tomorrow, Eric Shinseki will be on capitol hill to talk about health care. Live coverage of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee begins at 7 00 a. M. On cspan. And share your thoughts on facebook and twitter. Also, the Health Committee will have a hearing on ecigarettes. You can watch that at 2 00 p. M. Eastern. A lot of time, you would say, attribution,or this is for background. You cant do that with life cameras. You can say, im just giving you this now. This is not for publication. Did you do that . Did you brief on background from the podium . Sure. Not the whole briefing. I would say, let me just give you something on background so you know it is coming. Andhe fatal mistake i made, this is in the weeds for our audience, i did not put the restriction we had at the state department. It was not available for live broadcast. Available for use as part of the stories that you would produce. The briefing is not a news event. Its part of the way in which people put their stories together. Get other information. Deliver it to your consumers of news. I once had to do 56 questions on what is universal health care . What about 97 . What about 96 point five percent . Dave barry wrote a column saying, you could take her out for a beer and ask her to answer a. Questionabout what universal Health Coverage means the life of the White House Press press secretary. One of American History tv on cspan three part of American History on cspan re. Glenn ringwald has written a book about the story called no place to hide. This is 45 minutes. More nsa revelations and them whomlook into the man made those revelations. Will be answering your questions and comments. I want to start by a story that you lay out. It was the name he used when he first contacted me. He is a fifth century leader of rome. There came a time when rome was the siege by all sorts of enemies and was under attack and they needed a leader who they thought could lead rome to victory. They recruited him. He had gone off to his farm to retire and live a peaceful life and they persuaded him to come back to the bedroom. He led a successful war victory he was incredibly popular and had immense amounts of power and instead of keeping that power, he did what he said he was quick to do, which was relinquished voluntarily relinquished it voluntarily and he became this model of civic virtue. Someone who uses power for the collective good, not their own. Found thatwden inspiring and use that name. Host is this who Edward Snowden thought he was . Guest he did not think he was a Roman Emperor or anything like that. He admired what he did. He paid tribute to the relinquishment of power and the use of power for the public good by adopting his name as a pseudonym. Host you have been writing about these issues for many years. You have a lot of tips on different inks that people are willing to give you. What was it about the tips he got from Edward Snowden and made you trust him . Guest it took a while to establish trust. He first contacted me, he was quite reluctant to say anything about who he was or what he had. Communicate in an unencrypted environment, theres a chance that others are listening to the things youre saying. It took many weeks before we could begin communicating. Once we did, i cant say that i fully trusted what he was saying or who he was. Not until a got to hong kong and was able to sit down with him at a room and subject him to six hours of extremely intense and nonstop interrogation where i asked him every question that i had. Was extremely able to withstand that questioning. Everything he said was very consistent. There was no hesitation. I was entirely convinced that he was who he said he was and was convinced that his motives are what you are presented them to be. Book you talk in your about what you were expecting versus what you found when you first met him. When he first contacted me, he made claims about the kind of documents he had. He said they were extremely sensitive, topsecret documents that were highly incriminating. Before i would go to hong kong to meet him, asked him to provide me with some samples selected know he was serious and real. He provided those and those were explosive. They were unlike anything that had leaked from the agency before. That fact that he had access to this material combined with his sophisticated insight that he demonstrated to me made me assume that he was very sincere. The fact that he was adamant about the fact that he wanted to be identified as the source, not to hide or remain anonymous, knowing the risks also made me assume that he had been around for somebody decades that he became so disillusioned by what he was seeing that he was willing to do that. When i met him and he turned out , it was really disorienting and confusing and it took me a good couple of hours to get my composure and figure out what was going on. Host you said you kept coming back to the question of why he was doing this. Finally, he gave me an answer. The true measurement of a persons worth is not what they say they believe in, but what they do in defense of those police. If youre not acting on your believes, they are probably not real. And try toou go back put yourself in the position that i was in, which is part of ,hat i tried to do in this book to me, the most cold thing to understand was why was this 29yearold who had a very stable life and prosperous career and a girlfriend who he loved and a family that was supportive, why was he willing to unravel his whole life and throw it all away in defense of his political principle . I need to know that he had thought this through and there were motives that were genuine that he understood. He finally was able to access those during that time and said, conscious demands that i not let these injustices linger. I can only look at myself in the defense. I know i took to hide. Place Edward Snowden, the nsa and the western real estate. We will get two calls. Eric is waiting in georgia. On our line for democrats. You are on. Caller thank you. Did i have a couple of points i would like to make. What snowden did, would you recommend that everyone who worked in this agency tell what they know . Take it upon themselves to make themselves the king who determines what is constitutional and what is unconstitutional. All of these documents that you documentsht these are National Security issues. What makes you think you are the people who should disseminate this information . Guest there is a history in the United States that is extremely important where whistleblowers inside the government discover things that the u. S. Government is doing and come forward. Probably the most significant case prior to the ones of the heive years was discovered classified information showing the u. S. Government was systematically lying to the American People about the vietnam war ended upon himself and took it upon himself to come forward and bring that to newspapers which then published it and informed people. The reason there is a constitutional protection of the free press is because the design of our country recognizes that , ifle inside the government they can exercise people with transparency, they will abuse the power. The role of the press is embedded into the design of the country that we will report the things people in power are trying to hide. Host a question on twitter tommy documents did he take from the nsa . When will they all be released to the public . How many documents . Guest i dont know how many documents he took. I know how many he gave me. I have said its tens of thousands. Disclosedeen publicly many times. The government keeps trying to claim that he took 1. 7 million documents. Last Alexander Just said week that they actually have no idea how many took. That is a made up number. The media has been reporting it. Us, Edward Snowden came to he was very clear that he was giving us these documents because if you wanted them all to be published, he would not have come to us. He would not need us. He could have uploaded them all to the internet himself. That would have been very easy for him to do. What he said was, there is a lot of documents here and i dont believe i should be in the position to decide which ones should and should not be published. There are some that i think should not be published. Is these kinds of documents that should be published and there is a lot in the middle that i want you with your editors and fellow journalists to make decisions about and report on responsibly. We are reporting on them one by one and we agreed we would do so. That is the best way to do so. I dont think all of the documents will be published because that is not what you wanted. All of the newsworthy stories here will be published. Host andrew is waiting in california on our line for independents. Caller thank you for taking my call. You. An honor to speak to i believe in restoring basic Fourth Amendment rights. Given the tendency of government to maximize their own power over time, what safeguards could be put in place today which are likely to continue protecting our privacy 20 years down the road . Guest great question. A hard one to answer in the digital age when so much information is transmitted electronically. There is a lot of different ways that the powers of the u. S. Government are going to incur there is an institutional setting a couple of blocks away from us called the was congress that is in the process of passing some bills that will rein in a bit of what the nsa is doing. In there other countries worlds populations and governments are indignant over what the United States is doing. I think they are in the process of working on ways to recreate the internet so that u. S. Hegemony is not possible. Nsa now perceive surveillance as a serious threat to their prosperity. The most promising change is that individuals around the world now realize the extent to which their privacy is compromised. They are series and crypt and tools that do work that let you wrap your emails and protective covers or containers that the nsa cant penetrate. For more people who use those, will be for the surveillance to continue. Thatefault will be everyones Communications Online are encrypted. Host no place to hide. A book about snowden and the nsa. Also a book about your experience, which brings a broad question. To what degree has relied and the lives of others been disrupted by u. S. Government retaliation for your support of snowden . Guest it has been disruptive to a substantial degree. Its fairly well known that after 10 months, my reporting senior officials repeatedly come explicitly characterized what we were doing is criminal and they ask wh escalated to that characterization. Forpartner was was held nine hours under a terrorism law. There was a lot of concern about what would happen if we did return. There are all sorts of her risks. Curity at the same time, i think if youre going to do a pic of journalism and you want to challenge people in power, there will be some disruption and journalists around the world have more risk and threats than in standingronted up to corrupt Police Departments and the like. Good to james in jacksonville, North Carolina our line for independents. Good morning. Caller good morning. Studied your book last night. I do have three quick questions today. Richard responded to snowdens appearance and said that the conversation could have the nsaace about what was doing. It was the way the documents were released that it showed methods. Organizations were moving away from using telecommunications, which made it harder for us to gain insight. Is, Edward Snowden turned over topsecret documents to journalists. Do you guys use anything to determine which to disseminate to the public and which do not . Did anybody have a background in intelligence to know the full scope of what they were releasing . The question about whether or not the disclosures helped the terrorists avoid communication, if you look at every unwanted disclosure over the last 50 years, they make the same arguments. Daniel was told that he would have blood on his hands and he would endanger the lives of men and women in uniform. Every subsequent disclosure faces the same thing. There is zero evidence that any of that actually happens. That is the fear mongering of state officials. Transparency i was asked about the number of documents we were given. We have published a small percentage. We have been criticized in some quarters that dont get a lot of attention for not publishing a documents. O many. Ding onto to i have that criticism much more then the claim that we publish too much. I think we have aired on the side of caution, especially in the beginning. We work with editors and the most experienced National Security reporters around the world and we consult with experts in cryptography cryptology and diligence. Them and geteasing the information that way. Processrough the same that all journalists do when making choices. Host the caller brings up Edward Snowdens appearance on sxsw. We have seen appearances in russia. Square with this nonmedia strategy that you talk about . He said, once identify and explore myself, i dont want to be the story. Guest he stuck to that for a long time. When we revealed Edward Snowden to the world, he became the most wanted media guest in the United States. Every day, i had the biggest media stars in the United States bombarding me with emails and phone calls. You could have been on Television Every Night on prime time for hours around the world. For months, he still has not given an American Television interview because he knew that his strategy of the American Media and the Political Class in washington is to demonize the messenger. He wanted the focus to remain on the revelations. That really work. That is why there is a worldwide debate. He is now participating more actively in the debate that he helped start around the world. He does it when he can talk about the documents and surveillance. Not when he is going to be asked , what do you do with your day in moscow and do you miss your girlfriend . Even now that he is becoming more assertive about expressing himself, he does so in a way that ensures that that participation will be substantive. Host how much are you still in contact with them . Contact am in regular with him where he is able to communicate entirely through encrypted chat technology. We have appeared together on a couple of occasions and events. He sits on the board of an organization, the freedom of the press foundation. I see him on video when we have board meetings. Host lets go to chuck in kansas city on our live for democrats. Good morning. Ask, if weanted to cant address the surveillance why arent more journalists seven onbout building 9 11 host we will stick to Edward Snowden. Lets go to lance waiting in springfield, missouri. On our live for republicans. Talk toit is great to you i cant wait to read her book. It is great to talk to you. I cant wait to read your book. British intelligence agencies have treated you guys, rating your compound and a string or personal property, holding your curious if mr. S snowden is being pressured in any way by the russian hisration in agreement with political asylum not to release any more documents . Is, ist thing i would ask believe you live in brazil, correct . I am from Middle America and they like to keep us in poverty here. About moving to south america myself before too long. I would like to hear your thoughts on what you think about it down there. As far as mr. Snowden and the pressure he faces or does not face in russia, i think its quite clear that the russian document has never pressured russian government has never pressured him in any way. He does not even have any of the documents with them any longer. As far as the erring on the side of caution, the way this works is that, what we were in hong kong, he gave us many thousands of documents. Those were all the documents that he ever released. He has not released a single document to anybody. Since june of last year. Since then, the decision about which documents to be released have been made by journalists. Whether you agree with the disclosure not, that decision is made by the journalist who published them. There is a framework he created to which we agreed about how it would work and which kinds of documents would be created. In general, he is not the one making those decisions. Its really the journalists. Y aboutan say i south america, its a beautiful content. Worse thano a lot those kinds of places. Host there has been criticism about picking hong kong to meet with you. Where would snowden have landed had we not taken his passport when he was in the moscow airport . Guest on the question of hong kong, when he decided he was going to take these documents an, his overarching priority was to make sure it happened. That he got his documents into the hands of the journalists he had chosen to work with. He needed to be in a place where he felt secure that it United States government had detected what he was doing, they would be unable to operate easily guessed him to stop him from doing this. If you got to iceland, the u. S. Pressured could have the icelandic government to turn him over. If you got to ecuador, the cia operates very freely and that would or and they could have stopped him. That gavewas a place him some degree of security because the u. S. Government does have a hard time operating there , but he wanted to be in a place that had political values that he felt come bowl with. Hong kong has this climate of dissidents there was this massive protest against the chinese government. He felt like it was this perfectly calibrated lays in which to be. The Public Record is clear that he is in moscow. Because he just to be there he was trying to transit out of moscow in order to get to cuba and fly on to ecuador. He never got out of moscow because the was government revoked his passport. Whatere will snowden will snowden do when his temporary asylum expires . Guest it is unclear. The russians have indicated that they intend to extend his asylum by another year. Are very active debates about whether they should offer him asylum. The acts that of he undertook to protect the privacy of the citizens of those countries. For at least a good while longer, he will be safe. Host diane is calling in from florida on outline for democrats. Good morning. Caller hello. Honor to speak with you and i want to thank you so much for your journalism and your ethics. I watched the frontline show last night. It was amazing. It it was so informative and so well put together. My question goes to an interview you did on democracy now regarding the cisco equipment and going through fedex and being intercepted. Had the nsa altering the equipment. Guest that is a perfectly fine description. If they are using tal service, which is a government entity, packages first class are sealed to inspection unless under warned by postal inspectors. You were saying that the Postal Service is part of that . Know you made a comment and that you werent sure how it worked. That youreocument talking about is one that we published for the first time in the book. Documents in the book, we put them online so people could see them for free. , 149 inment is a page the book, describes a program in provide Internet Services to villages or municipalities. The nsa will physically intercept the product in transit, open it up and reseal it with a factory seal and send. T on to the end user one of the photos actually shows boasting about what they do. Having opened a package from cisco. And then resealing it with a factory seal and sending it on after the implant a surveillance device that is undetectable to the eye. Whether they do that from the u. S. Postal service or from private Mail Companies like fedex or ups is unclear from the document. Its a good question. I think that is something we ought to know. What is clear is that they do it. They have a team devoted to that being done. This is something the government has been vehemently denies and the chinese for allegedly doing the public about. Here is the nsa doing exactly that. Ward the world off of chinese products. That gives the nsa access to more peoples devices. Mark ints go to maryland. On our line for independents. Good morning. Caller good morning. Find this whole issue very interesting. When he first came out, there revelation about his character and what have you. How he will be viewed in the longterm. Involves do you see that mr. Snowden do you think he was naive in any way as to how this would affect International Relations among the Different Countries . How do you think youve use it now as to what he has done to the International Community . Guest for me, the Guiding Light of how to understand these issues is what happened to daniel, my political hero from my childhood. I spent a lot of time talking to them about what he went through and he has been one of mr. Snowdens most ardent defenders. All the things being said now by democrats and some republicans that we have supporters on both they wereell saying he was a russian spy and was reckless and antiamerican. The country regards what he did as noble and heroic. That is how history will view mr. Snowden as well. There are a lot of adjectives you could to Edward Snowden. Naive is not one of them. He had a very clear understanding of how the International Community would react to this finding. I think part of his hope for reform lay in the fact that most people around the world had no idea that the u. S. Government was doing these things. They would demand that the Government Take Action against them. He hoped that was one of the primary ways that reform could come about. Host kentucky on our line for republicans. The money. Caller good morning. Caller the information that you now know, is there any hope for some nuremberg trials in the future for corrupt politicians who are trying to start world war iii with russia . The Mainstream Media will derail rand pauls 2016 president ial run like they did his father in 2012 . Guest the last time i was on cspan, it was in conjunction with my 2011 book, which is a book about how political allegiance in the United States have committed the most egregious crimes you can imagine over the last decade. From torturing people systematically to rendering kidnapping them into invading and destroying a country of 26 million people. Also causing a financial collapse around the world through systemic financial fraud. None of the people responsible for any of those policies were even remotely punish or held accountable. Theal and financial lesson from the armored trials nuremberg trials was that all countries as far as rand paul, its true for both the democratic and republican parties, whenever there is a candidate who challenges politics in washington, they step outside , theonfines of orthodoxy reflection of the media is to demonize them. That will happen to any politician in 2016 who does that. What is establishment journalism and corporate journalism as you describe it in your book . Guest one of the big changes in american journalism over the last 30 years has become this corporatization of journalism. When you went to work for your or a television program, you were essentially working for families or companies that had primary business journalism. General rule. Now, if you work for a large you reallyt, what are is a comcast employee. You go to work for the Washington Post, you are an employee of a corporation that owns educational services. These corporations have somebody different relationships and dependencies on the United States government and other factions that will power that will power. They have an overwhelming beingst in cooperative. Ties affect how journalism functions. There is no adversarial youth those of what journalism is. , like thetondown insurance industry. It is transforming journalism for the worst. New media and the digital age is allowing the older spirit of journalism that is more noble and more constructive to reemerge. You can now do journalism outside of those confines. Host how do you feel about your interaction with some of those media identities that you were talking about . How do you feel about the Washington Post and New York Times doing book reviews on your book this week . Guest despite what i said, there are good journalists at every single one of the large media institutions, including the New York Times and the Washington Post. It has been interesting to watch that over the past year, because ive been able to do the story and the reporting has received awards, the way that the reporting has been treated as changed to some extent. Reviews,mbedded in the even the post and the New York Times, this sort of closing up the ranks criticism and attacks on what i wrote. Largely due to the fact that ive been critical of the criticalto ration of the obama administration. Host from the New York Times review that came out yesterday, noting towards the end of that review, he makes false assertion that one unwritten rule designed to protect the government is that Media Outlets published only a few secret documents and stop. They would report on the archives like snowdens to limit its impact and publish and full stories, revel in the accolades of the big scoop, click prizes and walk away come ensuring that nothing had really changed. Based at which Media Outlets continue to pursue the story. Many of his gross generalizations about the establishment media do a terrible disservice to the many tenacious investigative reporters who broken important stories on some of of the very subjects that he feels so strongly about. A very positive review overall. Surprise surprise that he disliked my critiques of the dark times. It of the New York Times. The New York Times has been in possession of many tens of thousands of documents from the nsa. The received them from the guardian. They have produced very few stories over the past eight months since they have received the material. There absolutely are good journalists and these newspapers. They do break good stories sometimes. Everybody knows what the New York Times did in the runup to the iraq war. They sat on the story of the nsa in general, although there are exceptions, there is an overwhelming closeness between Media Outlets that are the andest and most influential the government. Host lets go to dan in george on our line for republicans. Caller i was talking to amy goodman about what the nsa a lot ofs about people in the world claim treason for this. It is noted going to be able to discredit the nsa where we can get away with our 20130 deal . Guest what will happen to the nsa is unknown because so much of it depends on how people around the world respond in terms of commanding reforms. Facesowden already serious charges. That is why he has been given asylum at four Different Countries. Host another question on 9 11 relating to your work. Do you have anything on the events surrounding 9 11 and the snowden archive . Guest i try not to comment on the stuff we have not published. It is very easy to say things that are not accurate representations. He tookments that tended to be very recent documents. Almost all of what we published have been from 2012 and 2013. There are things like investigations into 9 11 that occurred 10 years ago they tend not to be in what he turned over. Int lets go to mike florida on our life for republicans. The morning. Caller good morning. Caller good morning. President kennedy had concern about secret government , if yet gonewden to the regular process of whistleblowing, he would have been accused of treason anyway. My concern is, how can we better the process if we have an employee under federal contract if he wants to step forward, protective enough if there is a enough claim of wrongdoing without this political infighting about him being a traitor. He knows if you went through that process, he would have been tried and convicted for being a traitor. I just wanted to ask you of your opinion about how to better that process. Guest its a good question because so much of what is said here is designed to deceive and mislead the public. Mr. Snowden should have invoked the protections he had under the laws of a whistleblower. Which is something president obama himself said. False isn it is so because the law that president obama was talking about is not even apply to private contractor employees. Which is significant because a huge part of the National Security state is outsourced to private corporations. Something like 70 of the overall budget goes to the nsa. It ends up going to the functions of private corporations. This idea that there are these great whistleblowing procedures that he shouldve gone through, the way the u. S. Government is structured is to hide, not to eliminate secret wrongdoing by people in power. The best proof of that is that there are two Democratic Senators who sit on the Senate Intelligence community weapon going round the city and everywhere they can for years warning the public that there are these radical surveillance policies. Stunned towould be learn about what it was that was being done. Yet, those two senders do not senators do not have the courage to disclose these programs because the system is designed to gag even powerful senators when they discover the National Security is doing something wrong. He knew he cannot go to people like them because they were impotent. The system ensures they are and they ensure that they are. Was to go to newspapers and ask them to publish it. Twitterong with questions and colors, a few questions over email. One of the questions from jackie he stayed to fight for his ideals. Mr. Snowden ran for russia and it looks like he is making money off of this, as are you. You are a blogger and are now making a lot of money off the stealing of these documents. Guest he did hide. He had for weeks because he did not want to be rested. He is the person who most vehemently disagrees with the person invoking his name. He wrote an oped in the july 2013. Post mr. Snowden was right to flee. Snowden, if he were to come back to the nest is, unlike him, he would not be permitted to speak for himself or released on bail. He did the right thing and leaving. There is zero evidence that Edward Snowden made any money off of these disclosures. He could have. He could have sold this information to foreign intelligence agencies for tens of millions of dollars and been extremely rich for the rest of his life. That was not his goal. I am paid for my work. All journalists should be paid for their work. Edward snowden himself has never made a single penny from what he has done, except for the few whistleblower awards he has been given around the world. Host a question from scott on facebook. Where do you think we draw the line between being a whistleblower versus illegally hacking into classified systems, revealing classified information and thus been guilty of treason . Guest this word treason is being thrown around so frequently. There is a definition of what it means in the constitution. It means aiding and abetting americas enemies. Giving them assistance. I dont think he did that. There is no evidence that he illegally hacked into the systems. He was an employee of these corporations that were entitled to access these documents. He was doing it as part of his job. Ultimately, the distinction between a whistleblower and someone who commits treason is, you look at their actions. Hand information over to americas adversaries. He did exactly what you want a whistleblower to do, come to journalists and say to journalists, i discovered this wrongdoing and i wanted to publish it. Federal courts in the United States have said that the program we were able to reveal was a violation of the Constitutional Rights of millions of americans. That is what a whistleblower is. Host do you ever fear for your life . Guest there is risk to all of this journalism. Voted backan senate in july to provide me and my partner with federal security and protection. I think there are a lot of journalists all over the world who face much greater risk than we are. Host james is up next in new mexico on our life are independents. Good morning. Caller good morning. That the problems we are experiencing today are only here today after the advent of the internet. Secure the Banking Systems in america again and business in america again, it would be prudent that we remove business and banking from the toernet and allow it be for social purposes only. That would address some of the issues were dealing with today with financial security. Host how would banking and business work under your scenario . Guest we would go back to the paper system and put more people to work. Secure the systems like they had in the past. I dont think you can never fight against the wave of technology. You can make the internet a much safer place. Our government spends 75 billion to weaken privacy protocols on the internet and allow themselves and other to invade our information. Demanded that just a small fraction of that money comments of that money, and so the being spent by our government to destroy privacy on the internet, were devoted to finding way to bolster privacy and strengthen it. That seems to be a much better expenditure of a lesser sum of money. Go to dwight in alexandria, louisiana shoreline for independents. Good morning. Caller good morning. Journalism. R your i have three questions. What would snowden want in china and russia . Do not feel like this makes him seem as though he is a traitor . There are other places such as where you are that do not have extradition treaties and so forth with the United States. Adversariesiggest formakes it look like the country to be holding him up when we have never had andt goes back to hoover his Rapid Movement that he had during his tenure. Host i want to let him respond. We are running out of time. Guest anybody can make up anything and say, i think china offered him money and he moved on to russia and got more money there. That is what we call delusions and fantasies. If you have no evidence for those serious accusations, they are not worth it. There is a perception problem with him being in russia. Maybe that is the reason that United States government forced him there. I dont know what their motive is, but i know the reason he is in russia is not because you chose to be there. It is because he was trying to get out and was brought blocked by doing so. The hoover part of the question is important. We do have a history of systematic surveillance abuses over many decades by democratic and republican administrations. It should teach us a lesson that we dont want the u. S. Government being able to monitor our communications because we know that it will be abused and that the victims of that abuse will be our nations minorities and marginalized groups. Host the book is no place to hide. We appreciate yo [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] looking at hispanic voters and how to attract them to the side. Former u. S. Ambassador to nigeria, john campbell, on the recent abduction of nigerian girls and how the u. S. Is working with other nations to look for them. Challenges that iraq faces after the round of elections. Washington journal live at 7 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan. I was looking of the real estate listings just for distraction and saw at the top of the charts, well beyond our price range, the most expensive house in connecticut priced at 34 million in denmark down to 25 million. It was a bargain. What a deal. 14,000 square feet, 52 acres, and a river. I was curious who owned it. I thought it might be the chairman of General Electric perhaps. I saw a little note in the theng records and said house have been unoccupied since the owner bought it in 1951. That didnt seem possible. I went over the next day to see in the caretaker asked me ive not seen any clarks. This is ms. Clarks house. I get paid by the lawyer every month. They send me a check. No ones ever lived here. Theres no furniture in the house. It seemed more like a bird sanctuary. As i was leaving he said, can i ask you a question . Do you suppose shes been dead all these years . You canf the authors watch this weekend during live coverage of the gaithersburg book festival starting saturday just after 1030 a. M. Eastern. On the critical months after the end of the war of 1812. Then on world war ii missing soldiers and world war i ace eddie rickenbacker. And pop012 election culture. Live on tv on cspan 2. Online, the Book Club Selection calls you back. Join other readers to discuss the book on book ttv. Org. Over 30 five years, cspan brings Public Affairs event from washington directly to you putting him in the room at congressional hearings, white house events, briefings and conferences offering complete gavel to gavel coverage of the u. S. House all as a Public Service of private industry. Brought to you as a Public Service by your local cable or satellite provider. Watch as in hd. Like us on facebook. Follow us on twitter. Advisor susan rice talked about Foreign Policy on such topics as the russian intervention in ukraine, Syrian Civil War amanda search for kidnapped schoolgirls in nigeria. She is questioned by cbs cbs woodruff. Nchor judy this is hosted by the womens Foreign Policy group. Pbs news hour anchor judy woodruff. The person you are waiting for has arrived and we will get started. We are so delighted to have this program today with the womens policy group. I have to say at the outset, as someone who worked at the news hour some years ago, it has been a thrill to watch the growth of this organization. It is a thrill to bring together women who are not only interested in Foreign Policy, but who are accomplishing things and foreignpolicy. As we heard earlier, the Mentor Program with young women is remarkable and i know that is going to continue to grow as well. So now it is my great pleasure to introduce the person you have come to hear, ambassador susan rice. She is, as you know, the president s National Security adviser. She has been in this position since july of last year. Before that she was ambassador to the United Nations and of course a member of the president s cabinet. During the clinton administration, she served as u. S. Assistant secretary of state for African Affairs, and prior to that, as senior director for African Affairs and the director of International Organizations and peacekeeping at the National Security council. Between her two cents in government two stints in government, she was a senior fellow at the brookings institute. I could go on and on, but we want to leave time for questions, so please join me in welcoming ambassador susan rice. [applause]