Good afternoon, everybody. I want to welcome you all here today. Im peter russo, ademocratdirec personal affairs at thecato institute. This is a capitol Hill Briefing entitled economics of Health Insurance reform. The repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care act dominated discussions on the hill in recent weeks and lawmakers are huddling in philadelphia to recourse for the damage done to the Health Market in recent years. When they state they dont have a plan and i suppose im being cheritiable here but democrats say they dont have a political viable one. There is some truth to that as any comprehensive replacement will require support from democrats. If there is a take no prisoners approach continues they will in an act of self fulfillment prevent the plan. But to add to the mix the president promised an outline of his own further complicated the endeavor, bun that might bind and unify existing offerings. Time will tell and we will see. The true libertarian position requires he no
Awaiting the start of this forum on Health Care Costs to get underway. It will start in just a moment live here on cspan2. We told you about many so of the programing on cspan2 today. Over on cspan Hillary Clinton and former Vice President al gore will be appearing at a Campaign Rally in miami. Live coverage of that getting underway at 3 00 p. M. Eastern. Then tonight we have live hourlong interviews separately with third Party President ial candidates. You will hear from libertarian gary johnson. He starts at 8 00 p. M. The green partys jill stein. She is after that at 9 00. Well take your phone calls and tweets to the candidates. 10 second warning. On behalf of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University i want to welcome you to this important discussion about the effect much rising Health Care Costs on economic mobility and economic wellbeing. My name is bill beach. Im the Vice President of policy research at mercatus on behalf of the scholars and the staff welcome to this great
Indiana. Also the cato institutes ian vasquez looks at the future of u. S. cuban relations in a trump administration. Postfidel castro. And Boston University assistant professor linda spraug martinez looks at a new report looking at the safety of young people of color and what impact the lack of access to overall support and opportunity has on them. Cspans washington journal. Live beginning at 7 00 a. M. Eastern saturday morning. Join the discussion. At a pentagon briefing today, Afghanistan Military Operations Commander general John Nicholson wrapped up 2016s military operations and counterterror efforts in the country. This is about an hour. Folks, weve got about 45 minutes and ten minutes of opening comments. Ill be calling questions for general nicholson. Sir, all yours. Thanks, jeff. Good morning, everyone. Great to be back with you all again. Want to thank you for covering our mission in afghanistan. What id like to do this time since my last update in september is review 2016 an
Hepatitis c, diabetes and oncology are the primary drivers of the spending growth. Prescription growth is 1. 2 for the year. That is a substantial reduction from last year. The primary effect is the rescheduling of hydrocodone to more restrictive schedule which cut that market by 30 . And also you have more chronic care prescriptions are 90day prescriptions. 75 is on specialists. You cant look at that market here or everywhere around the World Without talking specialty. And next year we expect crestor to go off. So these are whats driving spending growth. You can see hepatitis at the top followed by diabetes, oncology, autoimmune, multiple sclerosis, hiv, respiratory, nervous system, and so forth. Almost all of the big five are in the specialty area. And if you look closely at the slide, and i assume youll get copies of this later, what the significant impacts are in each of these things and we break it down by new brands, whats going on with protected brands, with generics and patents
Questions. Thank you. Chairman issa, Ranking Members cummings, members of the committee, thank you for an opportunity to be here. Cms strives to be as responsive as possible. I understand that we have already provided over 140,000 pages of documents to this committee. Transparency is important and thats why im pleased to be here today and have the opportunity to answer your questions. We will continue to produce documents. In the almost five years that ive had the privilege to work at cms, my focus has been on how we can best serve our beneficiaries, including seniors on medicare, adults and children on medicaid and chip andenrolli marketplace. I work ro to reduce cost, improve quality in ways that make a difference. Were making real and important progress. As of august 15th this year, we have 7. 3 million americans enrolled in the Health Insurance marketplace coverage. These are individuals who have paid their premiums. We are encouraged by the numbers of consumers who have paid their