Ordered. Id like to welcome everyone to this mornings hearing. Today, we will consider the nomination of dr. Tom price to be the secretary of the department of health and Human Services. And want to welcome dr. Price to the finance committee. I appreciate his willingness to in a position of this magnitude, especially at this particularly crucial time. Republicans in Congress Warned that the new health care law, basically, would harm patients, emilys and businesses. Too fine apine point on it, but we were right. That will address costs among other things. This will be an important endeavor. One that will and should get a lot of attention here today. But it should not be the sole focus of the next hhs soap secretary. Hhs has an annual budget of over 1 trillion. Let me repeat that. One department, 1 trillion. Hhs and purposes encompasses medicare and medicaid. Disease control and prevention, the National Institutes of whole, the federal Drug Administration and many others. This is no exag
Child, that would be the best thing that could happen for our country. To me, its absolutely the marriage rate. Brad wilcoxs article in the index makes it screamingly clear. Theres been a 10point reduction in the marriage rate in the last decade. What astonished me looking at the numbers again is that its been 50 since the era of the 19 physician. We all talk about out of wedlock childbearing. The childberg is not the problem. We are below replacement rate birth rate in the united states. Only two years of the last 42 have we been above replacement, even with the influence of immigrants to the country. Its the out of wedlock thing. And ill add one last point to that out of personal experience. I imagine theres some in the audience too. When young people come out of college, and theyre doing what we consider pursuing the American Dream in the right way, and their initial experience is a debt thats larger than the mortgage of their parents, we have a problem. It is its not the only reaso
That already on the provider side we spend enormous amounts of time as you mentioned enormous phonecalls trying to sort through these complicated issues regarding Health Insurance and by the way this is not just for people in the private market and not just for people on medicaid. Its equally true for people on medicare in the 130,000 regulations that go along with medicare. This is only going to grow and so at least for our practice since we have no idea what the exchange will bring in this 90day grace period issue is such an enormous issue for us that we dont feel we can actually see patients under these Exchange Contracts that we were pushed into without choice until this body or other bodies figures out what the rules are going to be so we can continue to provide service to be able to pay her staff. Thank you very much. Would the gentleman yield . Dr. Novack i just want to make it clear, under this 90day plan if you have lets say a 2 billiondollar practice that you pay all your peo
Monday morning. [laughter] cannot prefer an answer that would say it is remedial, but i believe if we could go back to the drawing board and that we could practice in this country or all countries could meet on thequal footing, where all participants in an economy would have input and a say and let their concerns be addressed you could create something new on a global scale that could work. I dont Say Something cant be done, but the way it is right now we have a system that is based really on exclusion, not included in. We know it is not working. The solution, i would have to think about that for a lot longer period of time. It is a very big question and it is bigger than we can answer here. I thought about it and if you go ch. Org,website, tradewat there is a Global Organization called, our world is not for sale. That is unions, consumers, environmental, religious groups around the world. They lay out some principles of what good global trade system would have. I would summarize it ve
Head as theyre punching the information into a computer, as opposed to that sharing of information thats so vital and necessary between the physician and the patient for Quality Health care. So one, a recognition of the problem is incredibly important. A recognition of the importance of Rural Health Care in our nation and how it needs to be bolstered up. And then looking at the consequences of what we do as a government. As i mentioned earlier, oftentimes, i dont think we look at the chemical weapoonseq pass the rule and regulation and think its the greatest thing since sliced bread, but its harming the very individuals who are trying to provide the care. You dont get tha iormation unless you ask. I appreciate that. My time is up. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, mr. Chairman congressman, i enjoyed our visit yesterday. We had a discussion when you were kind enough to come visit me about the fact that i have in the state of florida 4 million plus seniors on medicare. And they are pet