Washington journal. Our threehour Daily Program begins with phone calls, a look at the news, and a focus in particular on the revelations of Edward Snowden. The question for you is the snowden revelation, is america better off with them . Here is to join the conversation on the phone. If you are a republica have called in the last 30 days, give others a thece to call and enjoy conversations morning. You can also join the conversation on twitter and we are also available by email. We will get to all of that in just a bit. Good morning again, welcome, we will get to your calls on Edward Snowden. Heres the article in politico magazine. This was written by a former cia operative. One yearne says after the snowden leaks, we are better off for the debate he started your started. That is some of the article this morning from lyrical magazine. The question are we better off . Writes after the national , thea of september 11 Intelligence Community a mast too much power amid an absurd level of secrecy, with 1. 5 Million People holding topsecret clearance, investing intelligence agencies with this nowchecked danger that the American People know the truth, government is starting to move back in the right direction. Glad. S i for 1 am the opinion of Valerie Plame in. Olitico dorothy, baltimore, good morning. Caller good morning. I was going to say no and yes. The reason i am saying that what they were saying about the nsa is that they were collecting your telephone number. You could go on the internet and get anyones telephone number that you like. People will show you collection numbers. The problem i see is that people think that the nsa can listen to all your phone calls. That is impossible. You would not even have enough people. You would not even have enough time in the day. I dont think so, we need to know. We have terrorists inside our country and we need to know who and what immediately, because they could have a Chain Reaction that any kind. 3, four other places, we would not have any way to track who, what, or where. I am saying no. I can do it myself era the house. [indiscernible] are you comfortable with the fact that beyond the government so Many Organizations have your phone information, your web information, all of that . Caller i am not so much comfortable with it simply because they harass you, i dont like that, but as far as anything else, as long as they dont have my banking information . You know what i mean . They have been at this since they started the web, you know, the internet, telephone. Has been going on for many years. It is impossible. If you have any knowledge of numbers, it would be impossible for them i could not see where they would waste their time. That would be foolishness. If someone particularly wanted to do that. Host thank you for your call. His is from the Christian Science monitor. This is about the usa freedom act. The bill has moved on to the senate, the senate held hearing about that last week. The Christian Science monitor writes what does the freedom act to do . Kelly, ins hear from cottage grove, oregon. Caller good morning. I think that mr. Snowden did us all a wonderful service. Less him. I admire his courage. We need to be aware of this. It is creepy to know that the government right now knows that i am on the phone with you. I have got nothing to hide, but still. We deserve to have privacy. Probably a lot of people heard about this most recent interview with Edward Snowden, Brian Williams speaking with him , asking mr. Snowden if he thought he was still serving his government. [video clip] you said earlier that you were still serving your government. How so . When you look at the actions i have taken, the carefulness of the programs disclosed, the way this has all been filtered through the most trusted journalistic institutions in america, the way the government has had a chance to chime in on this and to make their case, and when you look at the changes it has resulted in we have had the first open federal court to ever reviewed these programs, to clear them unconstitutional and orwellian. You have congress agreeing that mass surveillance and all collection needs to end. With all of these things happening the government agrees all the way up to the it makes us stronger. How can it be said that i did not serve my government . How can it be said that this harmed the country when all three branches of government have made reforms as a result . That is Brian Williams with Edward Snowden. We are asking you are we better off . Anthony collins says he has a better question hear from david in texas. Good morning. Caller if we overreact in such a way that we over that we eliminate metaData Collection, probably not. Political the reaction, i believe, is due more to folks not really understanding what the metaData Collection is and how difficult it will be to do anything close to what they would have been able to do with the way they had collected it for. There are a zillion phone companies, all kinds of companies collecting these records, basically just information used in billing. Again, i am not saying that there are not some nsa people listening or doing things that ought not to do, but the other end of the spectrum, the part that is so valuable, the metaData Collection about your phone call, exactly the stuff on your phone bill, to coin a phrase from the Obama Administration unless they have that data being collected in a central location, they will not be able to get to it in a timely manner. The idea that they are going to have literally hundreds of dental databases that they have to gather on a moments notice and then it is only 18 months old . It is not as though they find a cell phone if they found one on the battlefield and they wanted to check who was talking to whom, that could be done quickly. I was just watching morning joe. Steven ratner was on, fan of the Obama Administration, showing the rise of terrorist attacks since 2007. It was at 115 per year worldwide. They did not give an explanation for why it started again, but in 2009 it doubles and it has gone from that point to almost 1000 terrorist attacks a steady line straight up. The number of terrorist attacks worldwide last year was 929 compared to 116 back in 2008. Was he drawing conclusions from this . Caller his point was whether it was a good idea to let those top five taliban guys out. Is nothanistan conflict an afghan war or a rack or, it is an International War against terrorism. Host thank you for your comments, david. That whole deal will be the subject of a Senate Armed Service Committee Hearing on wednesday with the chairman of the joint chiefs secretary hegel, rather, testifying at that hearing on wednesday. That is coming up this wednesday. David mentioned terrorist attacks. Overnight the news from pakistan, the front page of the new york times, militant storm. They write to josie,s go missouri city, texas, democrats line. Caller i think people should be more concerned with information they are putting on the internet themselves. Anytime you go to a website you notice that the site that you just went to started sending you information. If you go to the store, they know what you are looking at. I dont think we should be concerned with what nsa is doing. Host the question is from politico. Would you rather not know . Dallas, texas, william, good morning. Host good to see caller good morning. Good to see you on, by the way. The people who have been instigating this sort of stuff, people like dick cheney, the original neocons who are so in favor of this intelligence gathering, these people should be tried for treason and that is all i have to say. Enqueue. York, whatton, new do you think . Are we better off with these revelations . Caller yes, we are much better off. Host why . Caller the woman who said that they that there should be no a computerey have program that picks up words and red flags them. They have had that for 20 years. Really, the thing everyone has to remember is they told us we are only listening to foreign calls. We are not gathering any data on american calls. Someoneom the danger of zeroing in on the fact that you, even with metadata, you might be getting local calls from some organization and that becomes a , the government america is supposed to be aced on freedom. If we hide under a blanket of ,ecurity and lose that liberty what are we . We have lost what america is. Remember that even the danger of terrorism on our own sure is not the reason to give away the very thing that makes this country precious. Are you confident that congress can come up with a sort of nsa safeguard legislation . Laws, rules, regulations that will allow us our freedoms but will also be able to track potential threats . Caller no, because they lied to us. Not even care that their lives were so transparent. This is the power they have amassed. They have no fear of us, the people, the americans anymore. Host we mentioned that last week they took up a bill in the house. They are both back this weekend for several weeks of work. We want to bring you the comments from senator Saxby Chambliss for last week. [video clip] recognize this bill has gained a lot of momentum, i think we need to step back and ask ourselves if these changes were necessary. Seems to me that this bill was fixing a lot of things that simply were not broken. It will put an end to the section 15 bulk Data Collection program. All three branches of our government have performed extensive oversight of this program for years and insured that it has operated within accordance of the constitution and u. S. Law. The program permits intelligence professionals to conduct historical analysis of suspicious threats in an effort to identify emerging and evolving terrorist networks. The system where this data is maintained is very secure. The number of analyst that can access this data is extremely small. There are a host of multilayered oversight mechanisms in place to detect and resolve compliance issues. My phone data is in there with everyone elses. Frankly, i am not worried. I am not worried because i do not talk to terrorist. And hopefully i am not talking to other people who are talking to terrorist. Chambliss in saxby there hearing last week, taking up the houses legislation on reforming the nsa. The senate will continue to work on that. The question for you this morning are we better off with the revelation from Edward Snowden . Is comes from the washington post, cell phone details ripping data. Lets go back to your calls. Braden and beach, florida, john, republican line, good morning. Thank you for taking my call. I really believe that America Needs to remember that we are in wartime and that there are certain times, like during the development of the atomic bomb, or during the cold war, where we dont share secrets with the russians, which is what snowden has done. I think he needs to be brought back, tried, and hung. That is the way i feel. Thank you. Host that opinion is reflected in this tweet. Earl,your ego to middletown, pennsylvania. Are we better off with diesel with these revelations . We are more knowledgeable about this, ok . I know that people have said this before about benjamin franklin, and i agree. Even in our era. If you give up, ok . Liberty for security, ok . I think that you deserve neither. That is pretty hard, but i think that Edward Snowden has done some pretty good things. I know that National Security is involved, but i think we have to still look at these issues. Thank you. Ingrid, elizabethtown, kentucky, good morning, go ahead. Caller good morning. We sent this man to afghanistan and he spent five years in a whole. When they say that he sounded like a muslim . Thats wrong. They all look like muslims on duck dynasty, if thats the case. This comment is unnecessary. I think that this guy should not being punished for being five years in the hole. I dont think you wanted to be there in the first lace. I mean, really . Ingrid and ingrid mentioned mr. Bergdahl. This is the headline from the new york times. The wall street journal. Bergdahl declines to speak to his family. Reminder, they will hear chuck hagel on wednesday at 10 a. M. Eastern, you will see that live on cspan three and on. Span radio chicago, mariana. Go ahead on the democrats line. I wouldnt trust the government over these other people. Any time a lot of people callin completely bent against their own government, there is something wrong there. As far as Edward Snowden is concerned, i think he is a traitor and should come back. He wants to come back . He should come back and face the music. Is only good thing about it the government has to watch who. Hey hire that is my opinion. Host roy, morgan city, louisiana. I thinkwhat can i say, that mr. Snowden is getting a bad rap. I am a christian. What can i say . In the i am baptized holy spirit, i speak in tongues, that is real, you can find it in the bible. I know it is true. I know that mr. Snowden is not wrong here. As they say, anyway. He does not need to be hung. He has rights. If he comes back he should have a chance at a public forum to explain himself as to why he did what he did. I can say that i know this government has been spying on the people of america for a long time, not just terrorists. I know it is wrong, it is a violation of the fourth amendment. A lot of that goes on. I know that american citizens have been killed without a trial. Thatw that ron paul said when he was running for president and i believe that is true. Should not be subverted in america. That is my comment. We appreciate your comments, they are welcome by phone, by email. Earlier this morning about bo bergdahl and his eventual return to the u. S. , this is the headline from the washington post. He told doctors that he was , that hein captivity was repeatedly tortured by his taliban captors and kept in a cage. Yesterday on state of the union, john kerry was asked about the trade. Here is what he had to say. [video clip] i am just telling you that they are not the only ones keeping an i on them and we have confidence in those requirements and if they are violated, then we have the ability to be able to do things. That theyelling you do not have some ability to go back and get involved, but they also have the ability to get killed doing that and i dont think anyone should doubt the capacity of the United States of america to protect americans. No one should doubt the capacity of america to protect americans. The president has always said that he will do whatever is necessary to protect the United States of america. These guys pick a fight with us in the future, now, or at any , at enormous risk. We have proven what we are capable of doing. With the core of al qaeda in west pakistan and in afghanistan. On another sunday program, some feinstein expressed concern on being able to keep an eye on the five released warmer guantanamo detainees. [video clip] i heard john kerry saying not to worry about them. Here are concerns you cannot help but worry about them. We have no information on how the United States is going to see that they remain there, that they make no comments and do no agitation. Another rumor is that one taliban has said that he would return to the battlefield. So, it is a mixed bag at asked. Should we see that our g. I. s taken hostage returned . Absolutely. Of the things the vice chairman of the joint chiefs made very clear, bob, was that the army would look at this very they would make judgments, evaluate it, and if it needs to be tried in a military court, he will be. I think that that is the way it should be. Is that ifortunate see no sign of the taliban relenting. I have deep concern now that they have tried to kill the almost newly elected president of afghanistan, dr. Abdulla abdulla, who i happen to know. Host just a reminder, we air the entire sunday morning lineup beginning at noon eastern. The question this morning about the revelations of Edward Snowden, is america better off with those revelations . We are asking the question this morning for the first 45 minutes or so. This is an answer from twitter chicago,l is in democrats line. Good morning. Snowden could have knowed and let americans that there was domestic surveillance. About let the world know our international surveillance. He did not have to do that. He heard america on purpose. You say that he heard america on purpose, how did he do that and what do you think his motivation was . Let the world know about international surveillance. He did not stop with the domestic surveillance. He let the world know about our international surveillance. [indiscernible] host do you think he has done more damage domestically or worldwide . He let the world know what we were doing internationally. Thank you for your call. James, good morning. I am a veteran and i had topsecret clearance in the air force. I can tell you that mr. Snowden has done irreparable harm to this country. I still dont share how i broke the codes and the codes that we used, and i have been out of the air force since 1966. He has done irreparable harm. All you need to do is look at what we needed to go through to capture bin laden. People are saying that we need to know what the government is doing. What we know, the terrorists know. He knows all the methods we used to follow them, to capture them and keep them from hurting this country. People calling in and saying we need to know what government is doing . The loyalty and the concern that they have for this country. Attack ve another we have lost a major tool in our toolbox to capture these bad guys and bring them to justice. This is terrible. You mentioned you had crypto clearance. How long did you serve the government or served with that clearance . Host i was in the unit caller i was in the United States air force in the vietnam era, and i spent five months and one day in the air force, which i enjoyed. I have the highest security clearance you can get. I broke the code. I encoded messages and decoded messages. I can tell you that i never share them with my wife tom anybody, and iced dont know tell anybody the methods i used. Because i love this country. And i would never, ever, even today and i am 73 years old i would never share that with anybody. [indiscernible] glad you shared your experience with us, james. Other news this morning, the prior for middle east peace, a picture there of pope francis and the israeli president , in theabbas palestinian territories. I am going to read this story from the inside. They write about a prayer gathering between the leaders. Georgia, onceville, the issue of Edward Snowden and the revelations, is the u. S. Better off having seen many of the revelations now . Caller i yourto totally agree with last few commenters. Snowden, there were other avenues he could have gone through to do whatever it was he felt iq needed to do, i think. Midseason and gravely harmed the nation. I think the worst is so far yet to come. My late husband was a veteran. I am the daughter of federal and security clearance. The daughter of a herbal hard iwo jima world war ii veteran and brothers who were marines with topsecret security clearances. I can only say that i just know that he has done so much harm to our nation that it frightens me. Thank you for your call. This article from politico, written by Valerie Plame, it is in politico magazine, and in part of that she says she writes about the 2001 incident, the 2003 invasion and run up to iraq. Host shreveport, louisiana, good morning, independent line, go ahead. It is a kind of catch22 situation. Yulia you have got people out there, far as i am concerned, with the daddy Bush New World Order guest op note taking information on people that does not need to be taken. This is a violation of the fourth amendment. The americans are the terrorists. They are patriotic. You have got a group of people that has taken over this that has totally run amok as far as the constitution goes. Probably 90 of the Congress Needs to be brought up on treason charges. All of the administrations back to reagan, further than that, possibly. You know, people need to know who the bad guys are. We have got a bunch of them in a shadow government running this country and it has been going on probably for decades and people need to know this. In your view, is Edward Snowden one of the bad guys or the good guys . That is a catch22 situation right there, he is good and bad. He let the people know what was going on with the government, but those other people are right, too. He probably gave up too much . Nformation, you know it is a real shame, it really is. The people let this go and were not paying attention to what was going on in the government. Lets hear from baltimore. I agree with what the last person just said. Mr. Snowden whether is a hero or a traitor. Might be somewhere in between. That in the Washington Times today, they talked about the president of the United States as treasonous. Listen to this, apparently the parents of mr. Bergdahl, i can understand they want to wring their son back, were brought in to Video Conference in what was considered in some cases classified information. Absolutely ridiculous. There has to be impeachment on this president. He is out of line. Call your] congressman, call your representatives, call your senators. Front page of the new york times, this morning. The review of the nsa bill passed by the house, senate panel cool toward house passed nsa overhaul. Heres the reaction of jay rockefeller. [video clip] it seems to me that we are doing something unnecessary and , which might here but the public feel better, which would be not good for National Security, which is what our job is. Me we are taking a program that the president has determined to be legal and importance as a Counterterrorism Program of audits, inspections, judicial checks, oversight over Privacy Protection mechanisms builtin, programs currently in a highly that operated by highly trained professionals who have taken an oath to defend the constitution and who have lived up to that oath and who are we are shutting it down to move the storage of that data and querying of that data for intelligence purposes to a private sector system that does not yet exist. You can see all of that hearing on cspan. Org. The headline this morning, toess provided reportedly the bergdahl parents, this is the coverage from the Washington Times yuriko times. Texas, kathy, democratic line. Iowa military mother. My kids were at shock and all and in afghanistan. ,hey sold the patriot missiles the ones that sold the patriot theiles to georgia and got new cold war started with russia, by the way. The bush family profits lets see, i dont think that snowden is a traitor, i think he is a hero. If we are going to privatize this country, shouldnt a taxpayer know who is going to be our new overlords . I thought we had an American Revolution not to take advice unelected kocht brothers and people like that. That are you concerned other officials may be in danger through the exposure of the state department and cia programs and other places in the world . Ok, who are we putting in jail . The whistleblowers or the actual war criminals . Simon mann, a british mercenary was contacted by the neocons to have a full flag attack on a rack with uranium. Interviews,ble for maybe cspan could get him on. Host thank you for the guest suggestion. Edward christianson writes ed is calling from port saint joe, florida. Go ahead. [feedback] make sure that you mute your television and make your comments. Caller do you are to the world . Host to the world. Caller my comment is that it was set up a long time ago by j edgar hoover. Taking over the epa, the phone, the ring, the eyebrow, it goes through the mail. It is a simple process. Host one more call there in the bronx. Caller good morning. Based on what was chosen, they are considering other parties. What we will have in the future is what they want in the future and it has become clear. We get this answer that another by the is controlled secret service of israel. Andby day the penetrations influence from these kinds of Security Services in our country are getting to be more, because thatuse as they go around they have somehow proved that is still buying these israeli authorities. Thank you. Are saying that israel has an undue influence on our nsa programs . No, looking for the information gathered by the nsa because of the president of this it does not matter if ,t is bush, obama, or clinton but they want to have it to control this country. Host the conversation about Edward Snowden continues online. More discussion on what is coming up in congress as the house and senate come back into comeon today, and still to an update on the Affordable Care act with roll call. The latest report shows the 2. 9 million medicaid applicants are still on the list. More to come, here on cspan. [video clip] you wait for the thing to show up, the cheaper alternative, you have waited too long. When you show up it is not worse or less expensive. It is at her and less expensive. In the case of our navigation example, tomtom, garmin, thellan, they knew smartphone was taking off and that it was possible for someone up and launch a navigation application, but they said they did not see a threat yet, so we will wait and respond when it shows up. When it did respond it took off and within months you had millions of people saying that this is better and cheaper, this is worse and more expensive. Which am i going to choose . It was too late to respond by then. We say that innovators and businesses of any kind need to start looking much earlier into the lifecycle of technologies and recognize that even before there is a product there are things in the market, things like kick starter and other crowd funding platforms that let you see how people play with technology. How technology is changing the way the companies do business, tonight on the communicators. The new cspan book, sundays at eight, includes Kenneth Feinberg, who oversaw the 9 11 Victim Compensation fund. Try to justify my program on the basis of the loss of the vic ms victims, i 9 11 yes, 93n why World Trade Center no. The only way you justify this program as a special carveout is from the perspective of the nation. Was,ognition that 9 11 along with the american civil war, pearl harbor, maybe the assassination of president , its impact on the American People was such that this was really a response from demonstrate the solidarity and cohesiveness of the American People towards these victims. Of ouread more conversation with Kenneth Feinberg and other conversations in cspans sundays at eight. Now available for fathers day gift from your favorite bookseller. Washington journal continues. The congressional reporter ,rom politico, Kathleen Hicks joining us this morning, thank you. Guest thank you for having me on. Host what do you think will be got what do you think that they will get done in the house and congress . Finishingy should be up the appropriations process. Eric cantor put it out there in june on appropriations, talking surprisingly not about immigration, but about obamacare alternatives. You will also see a lot of talk about the v. A. And the prisoner swap. That is really going to be the focus of the next couple of weeks. Hearings this weekend on the v. A. Controversy, there will be a crossfire briefing tonight on the prisoner swap. The long last slog before the august recess, the last thing that Congress Needs to get done. Houses coming in today to deal with the transportation bill. Off bo boberg bergdahl . A cold reception from the senators. They showed a video of him suffering, ma ca did. One of the words that was used to describe him. It did not change a lot of parts in the senate. It is going to meet a colder reception in the house, much less friendly to the white house than the senate. You have House Republicans who have been some are more reserved and were on recess when the prisoner swap came up, but this is the first time they will really hear about it, talking to runofthemill Intel Community members, even senior members of the Republican Party, they are saying that they feel misled by the white house, that the white them errored in not giving the 30 days notice required for any gitmo prisoner transfer. There will be a lot of issues coming out today. Host have we heard that yet from the house side . Absolutely. You have members coming out, and like i said, they were in recess, which always makes the house a bit more quiet, but they are saying it is the law and you have to notify us within 30 days if you are transferring any prisoner and they say the white house did not do that. There was that back and forth last week that they worked with congress and told congress. That was the line from the white house. Then they backpedaled and said that they thought that if they notified you, it would have been the to the press and his life would have been in danger. But the republicans are very concerned about these five damagers who might pose to national interests. Heard some of that yesterday, if there was a marquee hearing of the week, chuck hagel coming up about the with the taliban and. What do you expect will be the result of that hearing . What will be the result of that . First,irst, guest there will be a lot more coming out of the private reefing with the more candid discussion. That is the classified information that was included that they will not be able to divulge publicly, but the administration will be making their case about why this was the proper action, why getting him home was the proper action at this point in time, and they will be grilled a little bit about why they did not give 30 days notice and you will be seeing tensions coming forward about journalists, about the white house feeling that they never get a fair deal from House Republicans and republicans hitting back about the trust issues, that they dont trust the administration to keep its word. Host we will be covering that hearing on wednesday, cspan3, and live on cspan radio. One issue that gained a lot of traction last week, the Veterans Health care agreement forged john mccain and Bernie Sanders. What is in play there . That is going to come back to the house, giving the secretary more latitude to fire any employees involved in a controversy, incompetence, or underperforming. Now the two sides really have to come together. The Bernie Sanders legislation also establishes what he considers to be more Health Centers across the country. Willouse and the senate come back and negotiate that formally. You are going to see both sides hoping to bridge the gap. You have legislation from the house that they want to pass that will give veterans who are not close to be a facilities or who have been waiting for longer than 90 days ability to leave the system and get Health Care Treatment elsewhere with the government paying for it. That is a big priority for House Republicans coming up. You are going to see the two sides kind of negotiating with the speaker to figure out what they can do to pass a bill in the v. A. We welcome your calls on the host we welcome your calls on the agenda ahead. We spent the first 45 minutes talking about Edward Snowden. Before the house left a past their pfizer reform bill. The Intelligence Committee to get up in the senate last week. Something both the house and senate will come to an agreement on before the august recess should mark are they going to get intelligence reform done . Guest it looks likely. The bill was actually very watered down and the Silicon Valley groups wound up jumping off supporting that build. This compromise bill will get action in the house and the priority. King this a people likely want to see action on the nsa and it is something where any time Edward Snowden does something where new revelations from his documents come out, everyone is very passionate about this issue. Thatis one of those things would be not necessarily extraordinary as the time is running out, but it is a priority and you can absolutely see the sides coming together. Host 20 working days before they take a break for elections, how much of what they are doing now is aimed at looking good in that election . Is everything sort of a political calculation from this point out . Host of course. Unless they are counting on 25, absolutely. The house is going to take up the skills act this week, for high skilled worker training House Republicans are going to do a obamacare alternatives. This is all about setting themselves up or the november election and doing bills that make their sides look good and making the other side look really bad. You are definitely seeing that. There is just not that much time left. Appropriations are the last check ox of the year, then the log the long august recess, and then campaign mode. Intense National Security issues. Ken, republican line, go ahead. Caller one of the things i noticed about president obama, he took over Student Loans a few years ago and if you really want to help the students, all you have to do is reduce loan rates acrosstheboard. Secondly, the Obama Administration is fearful of the va hospital story. People think it look like it could be a forerunner to obamacare run hospitals. On the student loan issue, today the president is going to take another executive action on that . Guest he is, he is going to announce the cap to prevent drowning out of students with loans who owe more like something around 75 hundred dollars, cap that 10 of monthly income to help students. It might take longer to pay off, but they will not be drowning in debt each month and worried about making these loan payments. Default will destroy your credit for decades. For host that is set 1 45 this afternoon. Lansdale, pennsylvania, hello, go ahead. Caller my husband has been out of work for a month and a half. We have been encouraging our congressmen to continue to ask that it be brought up for a vote in the senate. It is falling on deaf ears. Ishear the jobs report improving slightly, wonderful for the people fortunate enough to be workingworking are still. Each month there are bills and there is more struggle and people are losing their homes and we are encouraging, trying to get people to discuss this and it doesnt look like this is important enough, we follow the weekly schedule and it is going nowhere. It is still a very real problem for millions of people. Host what is happening on that front . Guest it really has stalled. This is an issue that was sent to the house by the senate but the negotiation of that bill the extension from the senate that never went anywhere has already expired. House republicans put it on the Obama Administration to offer job creation measures but the white house did not do so, they said it was a congressional responsibility. So that really stalled and a couple of weeks ago, it was really the talk of capitol hill. Democrats were debating this every single day and those in the house are still carrying the mantle. It is on the priority list of having actual legislation. Host it seems from the economic issue there has been a shift from Unemployment Insurance to focusing on we saw a News Conference that was on Student Loan Debt and now the president is making the announcement today. Guest absolutely. House democrats and Senate Democrats did make a big push this was going to be the centerfold of their Reelection Campaign and they are still discussing this, but as they continue to rollout new priorities, and new legislative agendas, the old one kinds of recycled,d of gets and right now the topic of the day is Student Loans. This is what we discussed earlier, making good legislative priorities, pushing their agenda forward. That is what the house and Senate Democrats are doing this week. Didnt ron or ronald in pennsylvania, independent line. Days to swapd 30 in benghazi and in snowden, they want to fire the nsa and get snowden so far the Oversight Committee hasnt done anything. What is the status of that select committee and when will they meet . Guest with all the pomp and circumstance of this committee, they have to hire staffers and what i am hearing is that finding qualified staffers, who have the requisite security clearance is actually going to be a lot of work. They have to hire everyone and the democrats have not even announced their staff directory it. They are kind of in the process of gearing up and there are members of that committee that have already begun reviewing documents with oversight and 18 investigations into benghazi with the select committees, the documents and the work and the findings and now the members are slowly going through those but you should expect a couple of a lot of news out of that in the next couple of weeks. From jacksonville is on the democrat line, welcome. Caller thank you, good morning. What i would like to talk to you about is the press Briefing Held every thursday, with the press. Nancy pelosi will come out, i have seen her stand out there and she does most of the talking, but she takes any and all questions. And his group of six or eight people come out and all they do is give speeches about where are the jobs. And will take 2 questions question,llers last he will give three word answers. Suggest we avoid his press conferences and still he starts taking more questions and giving answers. The palm of his hand and he knows it. Bob is asounds like very close watcher of cspan. Differentout the styles, he talked about nancy pelosi and john boehner and his brief briefing. There are multiple briefings throughout the week, the Republican Leaders and the speaker of the house and the Republican Leadership is another. That one is generally a little bit longer than the one that you see with speaker john boehner. There are also conversations happening throughout the week, happening with the speaker and his staff and of course theres nancy pelosi. It is always a little bit funny. John boehner is known for having a very lighthearted attitude with the press so he will get a new haircut or a tie that you you will get a new haircut or a tie that you dont like, he will say something, and nancy pelosi will have your a sure hand and say, ms. Leader. She likes the faces that she knows. If you get a seat in the front make sure that you know she knows who you are if you have an important question. Is it for you to get access to both of these leaders, and their staff . Do they spend more time than a few minutes on camera . For the past leaders, those are people that i interact with on a daily basis, is because that is not really their style, for john boehner and cantor and pelosi you will boehner walking to the lobby a few times a week and he will say hi and he will answer questions, but the staff is very sociable. Some of your best relationships are with the staffers and the leadership offices because they know what is going on, there is support in place and most of what they give you is on or off the record . You go in speaking off the record but you can have a good you say, can i quote you on this . It is a constant conversation. We are in georgia with the independent line. Go ahead. Theer my comment is on deplorable idea that at this point it is an achievement for president obama to take executive actions by making it easier for students to get loans. I am a College Student and i can tell you that it is not an achievement. I have no idea why we are patting ourselves on the back by making it easier for students to get loans. Pretty much all of my education would be free in most western industrialized nations. This is nott, taking congressional inaction into account but at this point, something productive has to happen. Isnt he, what is he proposing is it to make make it easier for people to pay off, they would not pay over 10 . Guest absolutely. It is not to make it easier to get Student Loans, it is to make it easier to repay a loan that you have, to ensure that students are not when students take out loans, especially students that are maybe firsttime College Students or dont have Financial Stability at home, they will often take out loans that, when they are thinking in the abstract, the repayment option seems like something that they can do but when they get their first job or pay rent, they might not be able to afford those repayments and the default issues are going to have to affect your credit in the long run. We see this happening with the repayment option, with the process in washington which is very widespread, they come out and put congress slightly below cockroaches in terms of favorability. But the press is right under that. Inaction, and of democrats, especially are very frustrated that the president action gone to executive because Congress Wont pass any of his legislative priorities. Host on that issue, the senate leaders, led by senator schumer onnew york announced a plan Student Loans. How does it look for them to come out to announce their plan, Senate Democrats, and for the president to take executive action . Is her coronation between the two, is their coordination between the two . Host the senate has to recognize that whatever they pass if anything is going to , that on executive action is the phone line that we heard from the state of the union, he knows that congress is not going to pass his agenda. Legally, where he can, he will take executive action. They are doing their best to mess up the midterm elections but also try to work with republicans and that is not going to happen with Student Loans because the two sides are very far apart. To comeemocrats have out they are fighting tooth and knell to keep the house nail to keep the house. Republicans are fairly certain they will take back the senate. Anything that Senate Democrats do now has all of its eyes near the midterm election. Host this headline of the new york times, veterans reach an accord senators reach accord easing worries over veterans measure. Be the favorite candidate, if there is a candidate, to take over the v. A. . That is guest that is up in the air. Cosgrove, and he announced over the weekend he would not take it. Guest this is a tough gig, because a lot of people are in the running but you will get hit over the head if you take over, like the irs commissioner. Be, theyt was going to will take repeated hits from congress. So right now, this is a question that is actually up in the air. And 2is no real certainty of my colleagues did a story about that, this is a big question about who could take this over. This is still up in the air and the president is obviously looking for someone intently, but there is no name leaking, this is going to be one of those things, one of those nominations that, when they find someone who will take over the job then they can pass with a majority in the senate, they will announce that but until then there will be a lot of crickets. Host and you say that therell be legislation probably this week in the senate . Guest as long as this goes through, john mccain and john boehner should be able to pass all the procedural hurdles, but there are questions about the Sanders Bernie really helpful for the senate, but they dont get in so they dont get into one of those fights they are so famous for. Host diane, welcome. Caller i would like to make three quick points. The first is about benghazi. I am sorry that the people lost their lives over there. But that is all that congress has, they said jobs when they were elected and there are no jobs. And now they will not talk about the Student Loans. They will not do anything that they think will help the president. It is not going to help the president , it is helping our people, and we talk about the v. A. 2005, he wased in trying to see a specialist. In myrother died brother died in 2005 and the next week the next month in june, they signed his disability. This has been going on longer than obama. Back in the Bush Administration they said they needed to look at things. Those people who are suffering, we need to look at them too. Host peg writes this is more related to the bergdahl issue. Out a numberointed of members of congress have been calling for the release of v bergdahl, but the trade of five from guantanamo, they are now walking back the calls for his release. Guest john mccain is a good example, he said he would be in favor of a trade depending on the details. And now he has expressed in spurts over the weekend, he didnt want to do with these five members of the taliban. These are the five people the taliban requested and there are other detainees who are on track to be released that he would have rather seen the trade for or that the taliban had requested. This is not necessarily that bergdahldid not want ve to come back, but they feel like they did not get proper notice and it is possible that the five members who are now under house ar, those numbers might be too dangerous. They might rejoin the Fundraising Efforts for the taliban, and leadership facilities for the taliban and that is what youre definitely going to see come up in this briefing today, for the house numbers is what assurances that you have that these five taliban members will not rejoin the plot. This will be a closeddoor meeting for house members, you mentioned this afternoon this is something that you will be waiting for outside, politico will be. Guest i will be there doing what i do best, stalking members. Not really. I will follow them and ask what what their sense of this was, are they convinced that this was a good swap and are they convinced of the Health Concerns and taking him out now and did the white house give them the assurances that they needed to convince them, convince the members that these five taliban members will not return to terrorism . Host you mentioned earlier in the discussion about the house obamacare,ures with this is the headline in the atlanta journalconstitution, the headline is they write so what are they seeking to do with this other legislation . Guest what you will see in the coming weeks is House Republicans trying to figure out what is the best venue to reform obamacare and the president S Health Care law . You are right that there is not one plan, you have the republicans in the committee with their own plan, there is not a leadership plan out there but they are working with members and you have plans discussed with the ways and Means Committee on this, and the Commerce Committee so there are a lot of different ideas and they need to come together to create one plan, if they were going to vote on the obamacare repeal, that will bring every side of the Republican Party in. Y will not get, maybe them everything but the most formal vulnerable democrats, they could not lose any more than the republicans they need to bring it all together. Host in doing this, do they want to ring this to the election and say that we have passed an alternative to obamacare . Not what people are telling me is going to happen, there are more signs of a single plan and there are really hard questions, because there are so many different republicans in congress and they have voted 54 times to repeal or reform parts of the obamacare legislation. So what they are trying to do is come together and it seems a little bit less likely than it was a few months ago, when obamacare was commenting headlines, that a full appeal with a replacement mechanism will happen before the august recess. And as we know after the august recess they all hit the campaign trail. Host michael is in falls borough, new jersey. Independent line. What may be a solution to any funding problems the v. A. May encounter, taking time to spend 10 billion out of all the war profiteering corporations, because in the warsthese dirty illegal were orchestrated to benefit them in the first place. A headline report on this, the interim report on the v. A. , with hospital scheduling the final report comes out today in another rare, evening house hearing, the veterans Committee Hearing tonight. 7 30 tonight and therell be the acting director of the v. A. , and the Government Accountability office and there will be a number of hearings, this is just the first this week, where they will talk about will talk about how to fix the problems at the v. A. Before he resigned, Eric Shinseki put in place a few with bonuses for and hisng wait times, report encouraged Health Officials to falsify or mislead on those reports you will hear a discussion of these new reforms, and you will hear a discussion of the white house review, president obama sent one of his top deputies to the v. A. To do a review and that report is due back this week. You will hear a discussion of those reforms and a discussion responsibility, because of the fact that Eric Shinseki is gone, House Republicans really really do want more responsibility taken for this. Two, ionight on cspan cant tell you about cspan radio but this is at 7 30, this is a rare monday night time hearing of the Veterans Affairs committee. Lets go to michigan, debbie. Caller thank you for taking my call. About the wondering irs and the Supreme Court hearing, discussing fee payments and how this would affect the Affordable Care act. If they decide that this is illegal for them to change the wording and then allow the 36 days when they did hold it as rot for them caret to set up their own exchanges. When do you think that that ruling will come out . That, weyou dont know will talk about that in the next segment. We are talking about the exchanges and medicaid. If you dont want to pass on the answer guest the Supreme Court will talk about subsidy issues and whether or not they have the legal ability to offer subsidies, for people who may not be able to afford insurance, to take to abide the obama care plan, that ruling has been heard, and the Supreme Court does not really put on the schedule that this is what when we are going to rule on this. At the end ofends june and it is possible it comes out before then, it may roll over into the next session. We are hearing about the subsidies that may be incorrectly calculated, there are 2 million obamacare in rowleys who provided it and accuracies to the subsidies may have been miscalculated. The Obamacare Ruling could change the game if it can, the Supreme Court is winding down their term so we expect the number of rulings coming down, on monday and tuesday during june. We will look forward to that. Houseick reminder, the Veterans Affairs committee will be on cspan two, and also on cspan radio. Texas. Kurt in waco, republican line. Caller good morning from the heart of texas. A couple of comments and questions. Is being graded on the legislation that they have dont want to great people they have done but rather their performance, what people can see. Grade the need to congress on the issues they have aaevented, around here the dc with all the defense contractors, i am sure that they do audits. Does anyone review these order do they simply ignore them . If we would look at the findings, i think it would probably prevent things overall, nationwide, rather than play whackamole but we seem to be doing right now, what do you think . Defense contractors are reviewed and there are Inspector Generals, and each one of them in the department of defense reviews the contracting process as well as the bidding process, and there have been intense criticisms about the way that the procurement process goes, about overspending, on unnecessary items, and that is part of the overall discussion in congress. That hassequestration been a little bit rolled back now, but talking about less goods,o buy contractor and also having the top quality machines and armor, and the tanks that the military does need this is an ongoing discussion but when it comes down to it, there are criticisms that more money is spent procuring items that the military does not necessarily need or want, especially with the war winding down. Host for the viewers, this is the direction of cq weekly. E headline, their headline a couple more calls here, this is huntsville, alabama, democratic caller. Caller good morning, cspan. Normally when i call and i am cut off, but i noticed that the young lady is covering a lot of issues with politico. All, they are concerned about the Republican Party, they are bipartisan. I work for the u. S. Government for over 30 years and i retired in 2008. The head of the organizations nose about what is going on with the organizations the business that is under them. That with they veterans administrations issues, that the head would have known what was going on if management did not tell them. Management can keep away from the president and anyone else they want to, all of the bad issues going on in the organization without them ever knowing about it, keeping it away from them. I know you are covering a lot of issues but the republicans were reelected to create jobs and they have not created jobs, and i want to say this to the American People, if you do not november for in the parties that are concerned about people, you are going to lose out because of the fact that they are trying to win the house and senate, the republicans are. Virginia, i will let you go there with your question particular, what are republicans doing . I feel that the priority for House Republicans is about training high skilled workers, this is something they have been acting on this month according to eric cantor, the House Majority leader. Asking forrking on job creations, and then, when it comes down to their training, there is the transportation infrastructure and it is an ongoing conversation, really, but with both sides being so rooted in their position there is not much that anyone can really do to pass legislation between the House Democrats and republicans so right now it is much more of a messaging tactic for the november elections andeen Speaker Boehner other members of the Republican Leadership asking about, where are the jobs . There are 36 jobs bills stuck in the senate, but this is more of a november message and campaign because that is what everyone in washington is focused on. Host lets get one more call on the agenda this is raymond, on the republican line in washington. A question about the extended unemployment benefits. I am 52 years old, i have worked for 2 mailing companies and we have them the political mailings and everything and right now i am taking care of my 86yearold mother. I was single before i started taking care of her and i spent a lot of tax dollars and people who are unemployed are really hurting badly. My mother might be on the streets and i am wondering if she knew anything because she seems very intelligent. The status of longterm Unemployment Insurance . Guest the Senate Passed an itension for that, and now is kind of back to the drawing board in the senate. They are working with dean to draftho is trying something for the republicans in the senate but that would have to go from the cement back to the house. House republicans leadership has said that House Democrats have to propose job creation notrnatives to pass necessarily offsets but job growth mechanisms. How they aresee going to how the white house is going to be focused on creating jobs. The white house has a congressional responsibility so it has kind of stalled in congress. After thex months emergency extension expired. Host she covers congress for politico and you can read her on politico. Com. Guest thanks for having me on. Host next we look at medicaid, 2 million medicaid applicants are still on the waiting list. A look at how your taxpayer dollars are being spent, this weeks your money focus will be on redundant federal programs. But first an update from cspan radio. It is 830 eastern time. The Treasury Department has revealed that they share bank data with spy agencies. Responding to a public records request, they release the protocol at the end of last week, describing how it provides some information in bulk to the National Counterterrorism center. The 2010 memorandum of understanding between the treasuries prime enforcement requires them to make their best efforts for information valuable to specific cases and destroy the data obtained in error. The Obama Administration has been seeking to assure the public and allies that they are not subject to continued surveillance while defending intelligence collection as vital in stopping terrorism. An update on the bridge closing in new jersey last year, the chief of staff of Chris Christie todays in Committee Investigating traffic jams at the George Washington bridge. Kevin odowd will testify under oath. Notold lawyers that he had idea of a plan to shut down the bridge to punish a democratic mayor. Governor christie will be on Jimmy Fallons tonight show. Former secretary of state hillary clinton, the former first lady is going to have a tour to talk about her new memoir that will be released tomorrow. She will appear in book events in new york and chicago and philadelphia, and washington. Those are the latest headlines on cspan radio. For over 35 years, cspan brings Public Affairs events from washington directly to you, putting you in the room that congressional hearings, white house events, and conferences and providing gavel to gavel coverage of the u. S. House. We are cspan, it created by the cable industry 25 years ago. Like us on facebook and follow us on twitter. Journal continues. Host joining us is Rebecca Adams, the associate editor of healthbeat. We have the applicants on medicaid, on the waiting list. The question is, how Many Americans are waiting for Medicare Coverage and according to your survey, it was 2. 9 million americans. Of 41 2. 19 americans out states. 41 states got back to us with numbers. Medicaidse are applicants that are applying for medicaid under the regulations of the Affordable Care act . Guest this is those people who applied for traditional medicaid, since 1965 and also those who are part of the group that gained coverage because they became newly eligible under the Affordable Care act. Is the biggest reason behind this waiting list of nearly 3 Million People . Guest it boils down to technical problems and a surge in applications, we have higher than usual volume, and where we found this problem is in the states that had technical problems with their websites or relied on healthcare. Gov. Host there was another report healthme out from kaiser about the same issue and the headline was medicaid applications pile up in some large states, they say an peopledented number of have gained healthcare coverage mostly as a result of the Affordable Care act and 1. 7 million are still waiting for their applications with some stuck in limbo as long as 15 months. I think that your reporter agrees with this, the scope of the problem varies. Was aggest share of this backlog of 900,000 applications and the next biggest pileup is illinois and new york, where they have no backlog at all. Seen the states have expansion of medicaid. There are 2 problems, one of them is relying on healthcare. Gov and other states build their own websites, so they have their own problems and california has the biggest problem with 900,000 people waiting in california. Do they have their own system . People apply to the cover california website, and they send applications to the county that will process this, and in some cases it is many months, that there were clinics and the doctors in california are very concerned because in california, over sixill for people months old they dont get all of their money and they have seen many places like that. Host i would like to point out some of the colors here, the maps areas with the blue letters, they have federal and state websites and the applications are coming from states offices in just a couple of states. Thatotal number of states are expanding their Medicaid Program is how many . D. C. 27, including expanding them does that mean that the state takes on extra costs . Guest in the first three years of the program the federal government covers all of the costs. Where we see the problem is they have this huge surge of applicants, and they also have issues on the technical side and they might have some administrative costs they were not expecting. Host we will remind our viewers and in, republicans for democrats and for independents we have set aside a line if you applied for medicaid, you can call a state where they are trying to expand medicaid is virginia. Virginia,from democrats in the senate, the balanced ship in the chamber phil say that state senator puckett is resigning mcauliffe trying to expand want to expand medicaid . Big supporter of bill clinton has wanted to expand that, he says it will work for 400,000 virginians. House,had trouble in the there are enough republicans in the senate to get it through the senate, even with the defection of the democrat who resigned, but now that the senate is , that causesratic more problems and they need to get this done quickly because there is a budget to pass by july 1. Host does the Obama Administration have any idea eventually, how many states that will be expanding medicaid and how many people does this mean will eventually take that expanded medicaid coverage . Guest they hope that everyone does because for the first three years, this will be 100 of the eligible people, and even after that that is 90 by 2020. It is very unlikely that all of them will come in during that timeframe, but there is part of a continuing interest among even republican governors, between several republican governors that say that they want to command this case this is about 5 Million People affected. Does that become a singlepayer system . Guest i would not call that a singlepayer system because you think about the singlepayer system, we have medicare and medicaid, we have sponsored insurance, that we rely on. So even though that medicaid has been growing and there are a growing number of americans affected by that, this is still not the universal singlepayer system. Host we have a line set aside for medicaid applicants, that line is lets hear from seminole, florida. How are you . I am on Social Security, and i stopped working when i was 61 endstage liver disease, so i am on Social Security and i have a serious problem paying my bills. Medicaid, apply for at least to help me a little bit, and if i got that, that would open the door for me to get food stamps, even if this was only 200 per month. I have not been able to get anything, nothing, because they literally laugh at me. Dollars,00 something 1700, this is on my Social Security check and i am being called to pay bills and i just dont have the money. I have never been in this position before. Host you have not been approved for medicaid . Caller i did not even get that far, dont get me wrong, they are very nice but they say that, the cutoff is 800 per month for Social Security. They automatically send this over but in my case they dont send it over, because i make too much money. They work strictly on numbers. So host thank you for your call. Guest florida has not extended medicaid, she is in the position of having too much money to qualify. If you live in a state that has expanded, you can take about 16,000 per year, but in a state like florida, there are eligibility eligibility guidelines and sometimes they are very low. Averaging 16,000 for an annual income. Varies, stately by state texas it is very low. Each state has its own guidelines. Host this is from Kaiser Family help. They look at the states that have expanded medicaid and the map shows 19 states not moving as you, 27 states mentioned moving forward with medicaid, with expanding their medicaid. Back to the issue of the exchanges, and the states that were best prepared for this. In your survey surprised to find a state with a lot of volume like colorado, where medicaid increased by 33 , they dont have a backlog. In new york they dont have a backlog. It really is not just how many applicants came in, it is how prepared that you were for this particular issue. Do you think that eventually more and more states will rely on the federal s ite, healthcare. Gov to handle the problem . That thereould say are 2 ways to apply for coverage, through healthcare. Gov and also directly through the state. In terms of states increasingly relying on healthcare. Gov, there are other things that they are exploring along with healthcare. Gov. En, tennessee. Good morning. Caller good morning. Host make sure that you mute your television. Caller let me get that. I sat here and i watch this generalcause as a contractor, as of right now i am unable to work with some severe back problems, but you talk going up andrease, stuff and we constantly, people Illegal Immigrants come into our country, i dont care if they are legal and do the right thing, but i am reminded by immigrants in this country, i have been in the business for 30 years and have never had a complaint and i have never in my life, have ever spent more than 2 days in the almost 10 houses, that i ever did not have American People, highquality people and Million Dollar houses that i have built and obama says that americans dont work. I was on crutches and i would crawl on my knees to go out and build houses but they took this down just like they took down trucking. Give us your opinion on health care because we are talking about medicaid. Is that what you are on for your health care . Caller i started talk about that because i fought this problem for seven years. I have a lot of American Pride and i dont want to be a welfare rat. I want to work. Toill tell you i would like work in congress as a common man. Someone who knows what the and, el like, there,e will let you go with his issue of being unemployed, the bulk of the 2. 9 Million People applying for medicaid, is there any sense of how the Employment Situation affects these people or is this hard to gauge . How much is about money that you make, essentially. Host in your report we cover the 2. 9 Million People who signed up for coverage, who have not had their applications processed, and in some cases they were sitting in ques since last fall and there are technological snags with the website, and the surge of applicants the trade by the promise to expand health care for the most vulnerable citizens. And this led to low income people think prevented from accessing benefits that they are legally entitled to receive. How is that happening . Guest if you apply for medicaid, you think about the population that we are talking about, they dont have a lot of resources. Even as someone who has sponsored coverage, if i had a lapse in my coverage i would not go out and try to get surgery, and medical care. Think about the people who are waiting and dont have any guarantees, really, they will just confirm that they are eligible for medicaid, they dont want to incur Large Health Care costs while they are waiting for these applications to be processed. Doingwhat are people about the costs if they get approved for medicaid . Retroactivelys be paid for by medicaid . Guest that is a great question and the answer is yes. It goes to the first day of the month that you applied, and you can also get covered for 90 days before that. So there is retroactive coverage. The problem is that people who are applying may not realize that. And they may not know for sure whether or not they will finally be approved. Host i remind our viewers that we have a life for medicaid applicants. For all others, for republicans it is democrats, and for independents flagstaff, arizona. Od go to donna, go morning. We will let donna go. We go to tallahassee, florida. Brenda. Caller i am from tallahassee, florida, and i am a senior citizen. I have Medicare Advantage the woman who called in does not get medicaid because she makes too much. But if she has medicare she can apply for medicare advance, for an additional 45 per month, her medicare costs are about 98 or 100, the Medicare Advantage to Capital Health plan, is 3500 per month. I would like to let everyone know who signs up for medicaid, anyone who signs up for medicaid is possibly allowing their home to be taken away from them at the end of their life, because that is what the state does, when you are on medicaid the government can actually retain your home to get any value back to them through your house, which is taken away from your heirs. Medicare advantage in the Capital Health plan is a wonderful alternative, you dont have to go through aarp. You can go to the local office innorthern florida, chp northern florida and i am not sure what it is in south florida. Host good information but on her concern on medicaid, that the government would be able to take your house. Would be thehis last resort but is there any truth in what she said about this . I think that is some cases this has been a fear that has been little bit overblown. It is something that people are concerned about and watching the outcome, that is happening and how commonly people are thinking in terms of being concerned about it. She was talking about Medicare Advantage. Those are the private health plans, that you can sign up for if you are medicareeligible. Like whatthat sounded she was paying, this sounded like a fairly reasonable guest this varies, even within the state. Host annie in houston, texas, independent line. Caller i am in texas and i dont know about all of these things the caller from two callers ago, she said she had Social Security with 1700 and she was trying to get medicaid. I dont think that she wants medicaid, especially not here in texas. Medicaid ad to pay back because i had to get on disability early, i did not have enough Social Security and i get most of my money from their but i get a very small amount from you cant save anything. And recently they have been trying to force me into the helath care for health care for everyone, calling me two or three times a week. They are calling me two or three times a week and they are not supposed to be calling me, theyre putting me on that plan and the original medicare. Health care for everyone is about is in texas . Is this a state plan for taxes . Caller i dont understand you. Host health care for everyone is a state plan . Caller they are trying to get everyone Social Security that we have had ever since it came through in the 60s. They are trying to force me to you dont want the original Social Security, that is part of the health plan and the reason that i never want to go on a health plan is because i have had the same doctor for 23 years. You go, that let is a lot of information to take him but what are you hearing . Guest she is being forced to transfer from where you go to any doctor you want to to a managed care group. That is what i gathered. Host on the issue of health care, there is no news here, but the headline from business insider. They say the latter phenomenon is what is known as the woodwork effect, when individuals who are eligible for medicaid became aware of this because of increased outreach and attention to health care, as would be expected with the ample mentation of a major health law, overall. Leaving enrollment in the states that have expanded medicaid are led by oregon, West Virginia and nevada, three states that saw the medicaid rolls jump about three percent. This seems like a big leap in enrollment. Guest it is. The report from the center for medicare and Medicaid Services came out last week and it said that looking at the Health Insurance programs and medicaid, there was an increase in enrollment of 6 Million People, it went from 59 Million People in the threemonth average to 65 Million People. The people that you talk to in the administration, what they say that this is they sort of expected this outcome . This is where they think that we would be when the law was passed . In terms of the backlog or enrollment . Host the backlog. Expectingy were not all the problems that they saw, there was a reporter with Kathleen Sebelius and other federal officials and they were showing us what healthcare. Gov would look like. And they did not hint that there would be major problems the next day, on september 1 and as people were leaving i pulled the lowerlevel federal official aside and i said, what about the problem that we are hearing will, that healthcare. Gov not be able to transfer applications to the state . That is one reason behind the backlog. Byy said, it will be fixed november. It obviously was not fixed by november and by the end of december, the federal officials were calling to the states saying, prevent about the healthcare. Gov applications, go back and start the process all over because the second application will be approved faster than the first application. Roxanne in panama city, florida. Caller i was calling in because of my daughter, she is 30 years old and had heart surgery on her because of ave Motor Vehicle accident. Problems female problems and needs a hysterectomy. This may wrap around and cause her to become septic she has been to the emergency room every andtime and cheated she needed something cheaper than all of these er visits, she applied for medicaid and she has no income at all, she is living with me, and i am disabled. And it is just a mess. I have never seen this so bad in my life, she can get her heart medicine and she cant get anything. I dont make that much money. Worst i havehe ever seen it. Host she is in florida so she would have to apply for medicaid through the federal system . Guest yes, she would have to go to the state office or apply through healthcare. Gov and florida is one of the states that is not expand eligibility with the income level for adults, who have income that is very low. Host i go to the state exchange, the headline for olitico pro, or for a lesser or not as expensive some, adding more states to healthcare. Gov. What are you seeing as the next step . What do you think that most states will wind up doing . Rebuilding their own websites or joining healthcare. Gov . They are still thinking about what they want to do and it shows you the magnitude of this issue and what is involved. They have really embraced all of the Health Care Laws, they were gung ho from the beginning and they really wanted to do a good job of this, but they did not, in a lot of ways, because of technical issues. Host the headline in the wall theet journal says overhaul of the health site is in the works. Healthcare. Gov. What are you hearing about this . Guest they are working hard and they need to rebuild the back door functions of healthcare. Gov with how Insurance Companies are paid and subsidies being swapped and there is a lot of healthcare. Gov that still has not been built and they are trying to do that and improve upon the site before november 15, which is when the exchanges in the marketplace opens again for people who are buying insurance. Host what is the biggest lesson that they learned in the first rollout of healthcare. Gov . Guest president obama has said that Kathleen Sebelius does not shows how and it important that it is to get these technical issues right. This is something that you would think would be simple but it really has caused so many problems in the first year. Host james on the line for caller hi. I am about away from the previous caller in panama city here in florida. I had a car accident two years ago in atlanta, and i broke my back. I got rods and it. I broke my neck also. Metal plates attached to my tailbone. I have been going round and round with medicaid here in florida. I went to the hospital after obamacare was passed and the attendant told me because my condition is not an emergency, they can charge 300 of the copay. When everything gets said and done with Social Security you might get a little bit of cash. I have been going to the hospital for two years. I have been battling with the state. An immigrant there. They do not even speak english as they have a medicaid card because they have a baby. Any type of fast action lawsuit we can file in the state of florida saying it is discriminating against people with Genuine Health problems. The state says if you are pregnant if i was with someone who was pregnant with no insurance, she would get medicaid and i would get it through her. Sounds like james has a preexisting condition. Guest he is. He also raised the issue of immigrants getting medicaid. People here illegally are not eligible for medicaid. People here who have a green card have to wait five years. [indiscernible] rochester, new york. Caller good morning. My daughter has medicaid and was just given Social Security disability. She is 31. Out, social to find security has about 11,000 a. Act a of Social Security will that affect her medicaid in mentalure yangon total income will be 960. She can collect medicaid without a problem. Did borrow money a while ago when she got and that years ago and paid that. Is there a limit for how much you can have in the bank . We are upgradable get taken away because of the back page backpay. Guest there is not an asset test anymore for particular categories. I would check directly with medicaid to make sure. From one of our regular cspan viewers, what medical options do people have while they are waiting . Are they in insurance limbo . You mentioned retroactive, but they do not have options while they are waiting. They dont. A lot of people are going to Health Clinics who help people who have low income and sliding scale fees. We are that a lot. This causes problems for a lot of people. If it turns out you applied and turns out finally you do not get approved, then you have been delayed for getting other kinds of coverage, including coverage through the marketplace. Host fort lauderdale. Mark on the independent line. Caller good morning. Thank you for cspan. You are getting a lot of calls from florida this morning. My fee because of the fact that our Health Care System is so totally messed up. You had a woman who called a while earlier that was denigrating medicating medicating. The fact of the matter is in our state you cannot get on medicaid unless you are disabled. This ison i know because i had to go Social Security of the age of 62 because i lost my job and needed money. Because i am so short of funds i was not able to carry insurance. I really cannot come up with through obamacare because the Social Security income is too high too low to qualify. At the same time i am too poor to buy Health Insurance. You are in a bit of healthcare limbo . Caller i am. I have the county thing, catastrophic man. I am hoping to hang on until i hit 65. That woman earlier when she said she is on it and said she paid for medicaid and advantage, she did not know what she had. Medicare is free except for part need a and you might supplement to cover the 20 that medicaid does not cover. Those advantage plans are nothing more than private Insurance Companies will make on people to signing up for them. The have stood up the balls, copayments, monthly fees. The people on medicaid advantage and say obama is taking away from medicare, they are not telling you right. Host how old are you . Caller i am 62. Host a couple of years until 65 kicks in. Caller i went and got my Social Security but cannot get medicaid. Guest can i ask a question you go host im sorry, i let him go. Guest i was going to ask about marketplace subsidy. About 11,600. I was a little surprised he was not eligible for a subsidy. Too expensivebeen for him. I was curious why they keep the bailouts. As governmentfunded. Government is not a company. They rely on taxpayer dollars. When they say the government is going to pay for this, they just say you the taxpayer are going to pay for this. I live in georgia. I am 64 years old. I will be 65 and october. I do not qualify for medicaid. I went on obamacare. I cannot afford 400 per month for Health Care Insurance and a 4000 to dockable. I i have to wait whenever go to the doctor it cost me 250. I wait until i save up money that i go see the doctor and get a refill for my prescriptions for high blood pressure. I cannot get insurance. Medicaid is not great. It will cost at least 100 per month and then you have to pay a 200 copay. That is a whole lot better than what i have now. I will be glad when i do qualify for medicaid medicare and will not have to pay so much outofpocket. Appreciate your input. Want to get back to the anticipated cost. Some expressed concern the expansion of medicaid happens in the states. Initially the federal government would pick up the expansion. Down the road state to expand medicaid would have to foot the bill. That, ande status of how are states planning for that, anticipating that yangon hostt . It is an issue. When the state decides to expand, for the first three years the federal government picks up all the costs of those in the expansion category, people who qualify under the Health Care Law. The federal government will not necessarily pick up the other category you were talking about earlier, people coming out of the woodwork. People who just do not know about it and now signing up because they are hearing about it. They do not get a 100 match, more like 57 match. Payment stays with them so the federal government only pays 90 of the cost of those adults with anticipated expanded coverage. Talking to Rebecca Adams about the expansion of medicaid and other health care issues, but Veterans Health. The cleveland chief out of the running, Toby Cosgrove announcing he would draw his name for consideration as the secretary of Veterans Affairs. We want to remind you we will cover the Veterans Affairs hearing tonight on the v. A. It on cspan3 and radio. Lets hear from boston. Henry is a medicaid applicant. Go ahead. Meet your television or radio and go ahead with your comment. Caller i am calling in regards to the lady that called and mentioned they were trying to force her. The one in texas. I think she was missing the point because medicaid part a or b, they do not pay everything. They may have been trying to get her to enroll in the supplementary plan. B would bert a and the first prayer. Payor. Keeping track of a lot so we will give her a chance. Guest thank you. What henry is talking about is a medigap plan. These are offered through Companies Like aarp are touring with United Health care and others. This covers the copay several of the guests have mentioned. It is true medicaid does not cover everything. They do require deductibles and copays. Host one more call. Caller i just want to say i wont i would be dead if i lived in florida. A year ago i was diagnosed with cancer. If i wouldve taken the program i really would have been dead. Michigan is a republican state. There are several republican states that have done that. The senator really pushed for this. It took him a lot of work to get this through. Started on april 1 and have enrolled a lot of people are ready. Host what is the deadline in terms of the rollout of the Health Care Law . Upst people can start november 15. Medicaid and bromance goes all year long. Some people can sign up now if they believe they are eligible for medicaid. They can go ahead and try to put in applications. Cq heassociate editor at althbeat. This you for being with us morning. More ahead here on cspan. Next, our weekly your miniseries. He will take a look at the duplicate federal programs for the annual report for the Government Accountability office. The taliban says yesterdays pakistansiege at Busiest Airport was to avenge last November Speidel droned untracked against their leader. Gunmen disguised as police guards attacked international terminal. Killed 18 people. Most of the victims were security officers. Turning to domestic move here in this date, business economists upbeat about Economic Growth in the u. S. Economy in the Second Quarter and believed the forecast for the remainder of well. Ar will be higher as a survey predicts job growth will remain steady and Consumer Spending will likely gain steam. They also believe the Federal Reserve will and the Bond Purchase Program by the end of this year. Resident obama signs an executive order today that allows borrowers to pay more no more than 10 of their monthly income and student loan payments. The measure expands on the 2010 law that covers those who started borrowing after october 2000 seven and kept borrowing after 2011. This would potentially expand the benefit to millions more borrowers. We will cover the afternoon froze garden event. Rose garden. Thing you wait until the shows up, that is the cheaper alternative. When it shows up, it is not less worse and less expensive the better and less expensive. When it did respond, it took off. Within months amid millions of people saying it is more expensive, which one will i choose . By then, too late to respond. We say innovate ors, that is to say income but business inventors need to look much earlier into the lifecycle of new technologies and recognize before there is a product there will be a lot of experiments going on. Many of them very visible. Right in the market. See how peopleo are playing with new technologies. Youay that is the moment should get worried. Half technology is changing the way the companies do business tonight at 8 00 eastern on cspan two. For the past four years the gao, Government Accountability office has done a report on duplicate it or redundant programs on the federal government. To talkuwers joins us about the programs that are redundant, overlap or duplicative and the federal government. What is the purpose of the gao . Guest it is a legislative Branch Agency where independent agencies refer to it as a government watchdog. Read report on how programs can work better and make recommendations for government improvement weve report. This report, additional opportunities to reduce fragmentation, overlap and it location and ricci achieve other financial benefits. This is a report that would have been ordered by congress . Guest that is correct. We do most of her work at the request or direction of congress. In this case we were directed by law to annually report on opportunities to reduce government opportunities and programs. Host a law implemented four or five years ago. Is there an end date . Is this not a regular part of what you do . Ofst this is a regular part what we do. We will annually be reporting on the activities and following up on recommendations we have made in past years report to assess tigress made. What we have done, as well as build this type of audit or looking for efficiencies to begin by reducing fragmentation and duplication and routine audit work is really the value we can provide. We are out in the field, in the agency taking the fire so to speak. We can look for the opportunities to improve government in this manner. Give us a sense in terms of the dollar figure. How much money is wasted with programs redundant that have several efferent agencies doing the same sort of thing . What are we talking in terms of dollar figure . Guest in terms of the body of and the Congress Executive Branch Agency implemented the recommendations, the country could save tens of billions of dollars each year. Maybe it would be helpful to take a step act and define some of those terms in terms of what were using today. You could really think about it on a continuum from fragmentation to duplication. On the one side you have fragmentation emma which is when you have multiple agencies involved in the same area of national need. There is a need for improvements in Service Delivery. That is an important part of the definition. Any type of major Government Operations are likely to have Government Agencies involved. What we are looking for his opportunities to improve efficiency. We receive there is not the coordination of things could be improved. Host one example from the report is the curb report says the Defense Department does not have a consistent way of contracting health care professionals. It also says justice, Homeland Security and treasury working separately on modernizing wireless Communication Systems. Guest that is correct. For the department of defense example you raised, we found that they could gain greater efficiencies and potential cost savings by increasing the use of joint use contracts rather than separate task orders. For example, we went to a center to find there were 24 task orders for one type of assistance they were looking for. You could get greater efficiency. With the other example as well, the Interoperable Radio Communications fairly similar story. If you combine resources and look for a shared solution, greater opportunities for efficiencies rather than dedicated Radio Systems that may not work well together. Host that issue may be hard to crack because that was a key priority after september 11, getting interoperability of Communication Systems between different departments of governments, that on state and local. There are barriers to breaking and not agreeers on common outcomes and goals. That can prevent some agency from working together to a shared solution. How about redundancy . Guest fragmentation overlap. Overlap is where we see multiple agencies working on similar topics, similar activities and providing those activities or services to similar populations. And this report we had like several different types of overlapping programs. One of them was hiv aids programs that are being delivered to ethnic minorities. Epidemic is something we are all concerned about and has been for a number of decades now. What we have found is the approach is fragmented in terms of funding within the department of health and human services. Over 10 agencies within the thertment that provide funding to grantee that state and local level. At theeates a deficiency federal level in state and local level because they are having to oftenor multiple brands, very small amounts, which creates an administrative burden. We have asked the department to look at that and see if there is a way to consolidate the funding to better use the limited resources we have. Host the last piece of the report, the duplication in the current report. Dod has task force, a Different Task force to find pow mias. A separate control centers at shrivers air force base in colorado operating 10 satellite programs. These are issues you seen in the past. Guest you have multiple agencies providing the same service from the same population. In the case of the p. O. W. , eight from lack of clear role in effort we found duplicate woodys. Found duplicate organizations. You can see how it lead to duplication if it is not properly coordinated. Host gals role is to do the role is to dos the survey and report back. Your responsibility is not to whittle down the programs. Guest we make recommendations to congress and the executive branch. We cannot force the agencies to make the change but through providing the objective analysis provide them the facts. They agencies also take action. In fact, gao in general 80 of the recommendations we make two agencies are implemented. Host naked flowers naked flowers with tal. We would like you to join the conversation. Republicans 202 7370002 democrats 202 7370001 and independents and others 202 6280205. How long does it take to put together this report yakov guest we have artie started looking at the 2015 spring report. It does take a good bit of time to pull the different audits together. That is the value of gao. We go to these facilities where we are looking at organizations. Looking at mia soldiers. Hoguest how well are how well are you received in the community or people concerned with mixed protecting the turf. Guest it provides them additional evidence to record and making the programs more efficient. Cases more resistance. A number of cases are longstanding programs. Ies toave constituenc support the program and benefit from the program. So it can take some time to break down those types of barriers. Host here is how the usa t oday took best. Multiple federal agencies often doing one job. Caller hello, and how are you this morning . I am calling i just tuned in and heard some of this. I know i am late in the conversation. I know some people who are on medicaid to get medicaid and food stamps. Host we wrapped up that conversation. Going to california. Republican line. More recent. Maurice. Caller as far as redundant programs, i was wondering if gao could look at the people who e hiv and aids and the disability benefits. I believe a lot of people have hiv and are absolutely able to work and live like a normal person because they check the condition is being managed. I believe at one point the hiv body was synonymous with aids. And this years report we looked at several related issues to the topic you raised. As i mentioned earlier, we looked at the funding for the Minority Aids Initiative where we found fragmentation that lead to deficiencies that led to the funding and overlapping activities, main recommendations to address the issues. Andher issue we looked at unemployment benefits. Under current law allowable to disability and employment benefits. And this cases the government is replacing not lost replacing not lost wages once but twice. We recommend the government address this issue to save one point 2 million over 10 years. How you are able to track organizations, agencies have done in addressing the issues you have raised over the past few years, a chart him gao showing the number of actions in terms of being addressed steadily rising from 2013 to 2014. At least partially addressing the concerns that gao has raised. How did they get this addressed . Congress writes new statutes or suggest the executive take some sort of executive action. Most are addressed to executive agency. In other cases we do make suggestions or recommendations to congress and they will pass a bill, creates an initiative and a number of issues were addressed this year through congressional action. Past years, in report we have noted passenger Aviation Security fees, congress may as to consider looking at the fees in terms of better covering the security cost that the Aviation System incurs due to security procedures. We presented a number of options to congress and congress in the budget act addressed the issue perestablished a fee of 560 route, which will by some estimates increase revenue by 12 billion over a nineyear time. From the report of this year in terms of increasing tax revenues, are people able to link to this online . Guest you will see a link for our duplication and cost savings work where you can find all of our reports on the topic, as well is what we refer to as the action tracker that will provide you the status of past recommendations, and you can search it by agency or topic. A you are interested in particular topic, you can see how agencies are doing. You mentioned the transportation fee. End of report we identify three actions of the federal government that the federal government should do to increase tax revenue guest correct. There are other areas as well. The tax cap is about 385 billion. The money owed by taxpayers. Total amount owed. Reducing the tax cap we have made recommendations each year as opportunities may present themselves. Denying passports to those who owe taxes. Other opportunities such as lay it levying payment to providers. We found there are a number of medicaid providers in the country that owed taxes and by levying the payments to them we money. Et the we also suggested agencies look at federal workers who were applying for security clearances who may owe taxes. Host sarasota, florida. Gerald. Caller hello. It is muted. I would like to thank you for cspan this morning. My question is, i am sure you scratch your head aloft when you when you report all the things we can cut costs on the government. I think of senator tom coburn the duplication of programs and everything. That but he seems to be listening when you tell them. Is run byment Corporate America through lobbyist and stuff. You probably got tons of warehouses up around washington that have a lot of stuff in them that could be gotten rid of. Sell the warehouses. Nobody seems to be listening and the government. Money for things we dont need. I wish people watching this morning will call their congressmen and say listen to the people telling you we can cut costs without cutting programs that we actually need. Host thank you for your call. You find more members are . Istening to the report guest thank you for the call. Great question. We do find there has been progress made. We track the agency and congressional action in terms of recommendations we have made each year. Over this year and 2014 report firstk back over the three years in terms of the body made threed we hundred 80 recommendations to improve efficiency and effectiveness and found 30 of those actions have now been addressed by either congress or the executive Branch Agencies. It is something we will continue to monitor to press for more action. The caller mentioned tom coburn. He is mentioned in the reporting in usa today. He says senator coburn has his own list. I think it is called the pig book. He has a number of publications. A strong oversight strong advocate for oversight. Some cases have examples from our report. This is how we start the report, explaining the purpose, always important to operate an effective manner especially in todays strange fiscal environment we must look for ways to do things in weeding out overlap fragmentation and duplication is one way we can do one action we can take to improve efficiency and effectiveness. Host new york city. Brian on the republican line. Gao done anthe audit for the full cost to taxpayers that agencies and ,epairing for the shutdown and Agency Missions after the shutdown and the cost that went into preparing and coming back online after shutdown . The shutdown last year . Caller yes. Guest that was not part of the scope of the report that we get a number of requests each year to look at the variety of including potential implications of the sequester and run ups to those types of issues. If you go to our website you can search by topic. Host are you in the federal government . Caller yes, i am. Int what is your sense terms of money spent to survive the Government Shutdown . In the weeks prior we spent the last time identifying. We had to notify personnel in writing. We had to identify people that could take over. Obviously those not completing the agency mission. Then we had a time of transition that took us a while to get back into performing the task we identified as an agency. Host seems like there would be things hard to put a dollar figure on. Talking about going off mission a little bit to find out who is essential, etc. Actually tag a dollar figure to that. How do you do that jacob guest i . Guest it is difficult. It is easier to make a persuasive argument when you can someone and tell exactly how much we would be saving a certain actions are taken. In a number of races there is efficiency gains. Estimate. Icult to what we have reported in the past is it is difficult for a number of reasons, including he sufficient,is often reliable budget data at the agencies. When we go to agencies talking about different programs, often they are not able to break down the cost of programs and and any sufficient manner to estimate cost savings. That is an area were oppressed agencies to improve the budget Information Available to policymakers. About 20 more minutes with our guest nikki flowers. Owing to marion, ohio. Judy. Going to. How many job employmentler programs are there . I have heard there are 39 different aspects of employment. Theret true and is redundancy in that process. Guest thank you for the call. You are right, an issue we have looked at. And issue a couple of years ago. Inwent through systematically and identified all the different jobs and training programs. Think it was in the 40s in terms of the number of programs out there. Very few have been evaluated in terms of where those they are effective. That is a complicating factor so you identified dozens and dozens of programs but from policy makers stand why, what programs should be cut . Which program should be saved and should the money be consolidated into the one program working or the few that are working, so without the good performance information it makes those decisions difficult. Different job the programs have different outcomes so their not all on the same page. It is increasing employment. Guest there may be slightly different focuses or different populations they are looking at helping but also not good information about whether they are working. We do not know if they are achieving outcomes they were intended to achieve. You raise a good point, i think this is how the overlap and duplication of programs has started in the sense that the countryfolk there was a particular problem. They develop a program. A few years later they felt the program not effectively working. They created a different delivery methods as him. Another program is added. It is complicated because there is not a comprehensive list of all federal programs. Database that policymakers can go to. This came to light over the past few years. Something we have been calling for, saying it was much needed. Performance and accountability act of modernization act is all too referred to as the modernization act a couple of years ago. Omb of the process in the process of doing an initial list looking at the 24 cfo agencies. There is not a common definition. You go to one agency and asked about a program and you might be talking anything from a Service Delivery mechanism to management focus programs and other programs. We are on twitter. A tweet from vivian guest that is a fair question. No, we dont. Ofhas, within our role congress and legislative Branch Agency is to provide independent there are other that for her form a different function for congress. To ensure we dont over overlap, whenever he started a new audit or investigation weve reached out to the legislative Branch Agencies to ensure they do not already have work stream and products in that area. When wereing looking at executive Branch Agencies. Most have Inspector Generals. Weve reach out to the Inspector General community to make sure there is not an opportunity for us to communicate and leverage each others work rather than duplicate it. In charge of each individual agency . Guest correct. Caller before you lay off more workers, i know you dont let your reports might suggest that, could you tell senator colburn i found the missing tax money in the cayman islands. Thank you. Fernandina beach, florida. Independent line. Caller good morning. I think it is a wonderful idea you have of attaching taxes to. Ome of the benefit you receive i do not necessarily mean fused the programs or anything like that. Retired military, i see it all the time. Veterans refuse to pay taxes a cousin to not agree with the political system and that. You had to get disability payments and things like that right on time every month. Collegellege loans and assistance, have it attached that if youre primarily if your primary family owns back taxes and not eligible for federal program that will put my money in someone elses pocket, royalty for the United States, everyone has to pay taxes. I understand the argument about one percent and all that good stuff, but we have to pay a little bit to help out the few that need the help. I see the programs definitely should be and would necessarily back taxes. To that would be a great idea. Thank you very much. Guest thank you for the call. Good morning to you as well. In addition to the issues we were talking about and you mentioned in terms of attaching benefits to owe taxes, there are related issues in this years report. You mentioned you are a veteran. Some veterans programs are operating well. Raised is issues we the veteran pension benefit program. The purpose of the program is to help wartime veteran that have financial needs. Are a certain income threshold, lower incomes wartime veterans. The program does not have a look in which them government would look at an applicant to say have you the best in certain assets within the past five years lower than fair value market rate. This is a similar mechanism that other means tested programs used. Adaptive the process they could save 400 million annually that could be better used for other veteran programs or may be invested back in the program as policy fit. Again, it would insure the money going to those that are in need and not those that have greater assets but have passed on assets at a low work fair value market rate to family members for example. Your guest tell us about team at gao. Seems like you would have separate people crunching the numbers and a team of people who suggest policy changes to congress. Right. That is one of the great things about gao. We have tax experts, tax economists. We have those educated and experienced in financial markets. Scientist,t, accountants and engineers. Depending on the topic we bring the people with the diverse skill sets together to form a team and look at the specific issue. Line. Independent caller i am concerned because osha andwo companies, epa, who i think basically do almost the same thing, and i i knowost companies where my husband works he lost his job because of the epa. I think the epa is unnecessary. They have lost so many jobs for so many people that i think it is asinine to have an epa at all. At first they were fine but now they are getting too much into our lives. You for the call. For this years reports waited not have any epa issues. But we have in past years reports. For example, last year we looked at Renewable Energy initiatives oft covered a number agencies and in particular wind projects we found dozens and dozens of agencies involved in those types of projects and also found that application process wouldt ensure projects not be built without federal assistance. So we made recommendations to improve that. Another tweet dealing with outsourcing. How many Government Services have been outsourced to the private sector, which is usually more expensive . Anything that is addressed in terms of your report . Did not look at outsourcing in this years report. One of the issues we talked about earlier was Defense Health care professional contracting where there would be greater efficiencies gains in the contracting arena fight joint use contracting. That is something we are purported on a number of cases thinking more broadly about strategic sourcing where agencies can gather within the across departments to better leverage the resources and drive down costs. Host frank in ohio. Independent caller. You knew your television or radio. Go ahead with your comments. You mute. I am going to put you on hold. Yoursure you mute television set. I want to go back to the duplication issue and one from the Defense Department. Duplication of the satellite services. You found there are eight separate control centers tried aces. E shriver airport operatinglot to be that many programs. Guest it is. What we concluded and found it there are benefits of having dedicated satellite programs for one isnt services and that you can control exactly what you need and when you need it. Looking at going to benefits of a shared use arrangement. The benefits are greater than the dedicated networks. Host our agencies given the opportunity to address the things that you report as redundant . Guest with any gao report before we issue the findings public, we give the agency the the chance to review the draft. Often they agree with us because we are presenting factual objective nonpartisan information, so once they see it laid out on paper, there is agreement that they will pack take action. Other cases there group they agree for different reasons. Are comfortable with the position or if we need to make any changes. We mayend of the day disagree with the agency and proceed with making recommendations on ways to improve Government Operations. That happens sometimes within the duplication report where we have made recommendations and agencies may be hesitant to take the recommendations but we call it as we see it. Host frank in northfield, ohio. Whyer i would like to know as a disabled veteran and i go to the ba for services they charge my medicare . Then they pass it on with medicare what medicaid does not pay they send it to aarp and they pay it. I thought the gaa should pay for that. Host i do not know if that is in the scope of what you cover. Guest we mention some programs within this years report. Other Medicaid Programs we did not cover them as the issue that frank is raising today. Host we hear from michael on independent mine. Oneer my question would be and of theg the gao implementations that have been done, what is the percentage of cost against the savings implemented . Enqueue. Guest thank you. We are quite proud of the things we bring to bear. It is one of the Performance Measures we hold ourselves accountable for. Is that wee found have a positive return on investment. Every dollar that taxpayers invest in the gao, we turn over 100 in financial benefits to the government. We were talking about defense a few minutes ago. This one is from jan who tweets 00 that is not really your area of purview. That is what congress would have to do . Host correct. Correct. we make recommendations for congress to review. That would be a policymaking gao we provide the facts and policy makers must act on them as they see fit. You are in the process of preparing for the 2015 report on redundancy and duplication. Congress hands to deal with as you approach the next year. What is some of the lessons you learned this year that you will look into and the programs who most concerned about . Guest we try to take a very broad approach in looking at government to eliminate duplication and looking at the body of work, we have covered all cap the agencies, as well as over a dozen independent agencies in the review. We think that is important because you can find overlap and duplication across government that were are providing that information to congress who operates on a Committee Structure that we believe serves the congress will. Ost graduate of Virginia Tech what first got you interested in working for gao . Guest i went to Virginia Tech and then university of georgia. I was doing my studies in public administration. I had it was heard about gao as one of the best places to work in government, place where you could make a difference. I came to gao after my schooling and have found that to be the case. I find it very rewarding to help improve Government Service for the benefit of the taxpayer. Host in terms of the annual report, have you been in on it mightea four y thirdyearrs . Guest on the report in addition to other issues. Host the annual report, additional opportunities to reduce fragmentation, duplication and achieve other financial benefit. Remind us the dollar figure that gao thinks could be saved if all of these programs were addressed . \ guest this year we documented over 10 billion in savings. We believe Going Forward in terms of if the action recommendations are our actionsd recommendations are addressed, the government could save tens of billions of dollars a year. Thank you for joining us. That will be it for washington journal this morning. We will be back tomorrow at 7 00 a. M. Enjoy the day. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] both the house and senate are in session today