The Senate Committee on health, education, labor and pensions will please come to order. This morning were holding our first hearing on stabilizing premiums and ensuring access to insurance in the individual Health Insurance market for 2018. We have five state Insurance Commissioners. Thank you for coming from long distances some of you to be with us to give your testimony on how to help the 18 million americans in the individual Insurance Market. To give an idea of how many people are interested in this, senator murray and i invited senators who were not on our committee which has about a quarter of the senate is on this committee, to come to a coffee with the five commissioners that we have just completed for an hour. We had 31 senators there. So thats remarkable level of interest. Senator murray and i will each have an Opening Statement then we will introduce our five witnesses, after their testimony senators will have an opportunity to ask witnesses questions and we will do it in f
Good morning. Senate committee on Health Education labor and pensions will please come to forward. Were holding our fourth hearing this morning on stabilizing premiums and ensuring access to insurance in the individual Health Insurance market for 2018. Senator murray and i will each have an Opening Statement and then well introduce our five witnesses. Welcome to you. After their testimony, senators will have an opportunity to ask the itnesses five minutes of questions. To begin with, we ought not to take for granted the three hearings this committee has had over the last ten days. For seven years hardly a civil word was spoken between republicans and democrats on the Affordable Care act. It was trumpcare versus obamacare day in and day out. But for the last ten days senators from both sides of the aisle have engaged in serious discussion for several hours at a time about what congress can do between now and the end of this month to help limit premium increases for 18 illion americans n
[no audio] good morning. How are you . How are you this morning . Hi. Everybody say hi. We need an interpreter. In english spanish interpreter. Come along. Good morning, everyone. Clark, on behalf of our senior pastor. Good morning everyone. I am pastor clark. Pastor of our Church Welcomes you to Christian Tabernacle. We want to let you know some things that are getting ready to happen. We are getting ready to open in a few moments. We know it is hot outside we want to rapidly view through the line. It is important that you pay close attention to all of the instructions, because they are vitally important. If you are in this line from the front of the door, we need you stay inby the walls, line, and note who is in front of you and behind you. Know who is in front of you and behind you. Say good morning to the person in front of you and behind you. If they did not speak to you, im going to make them go get on the playground. Fema is here. They are going to be here between 10 00 and 2 00
Health care are much more than the 6 of the people, everyone was important, who would have to buy their insurance and the individual Health Insurance market. We are glad to have this discussion and its a subject on which both republicans and democrats have a lot of interest. To your advice. We are holding a hearing today to look at what can be done to encourage people to make healthier lifestyle choices to help prevent serious illnesses and reduce Health Care Costs. And i will each have an Opening Statement and then we will introduce the witnesses. Testimony,itnesses there will be five minutes of questions from the senators. I want to thank senator murray ar her leadership and being straightforward negotiating partner on our efforts to present to the senate a limited bipartisan bill to stabilize the andrance market during 2018 2019. She and i will go to the Senate Floor Today at 1 00 p. M. And make a brief statement. And put the text of the in the congressional record. The senators can
We have a boat at 11 45 but that should leave us an opportunity to her from our witnesses and to have good time for questions. I told our witnesses that i was delighted to be talk about something other than the individual Health Insurance market. Im really quite serious about that because we know that larger issues in health care are much more than the 6 of the people i the one of whom is important not to buy the insurance on the individual Health Insurance market. So were glad to get, glad to have this discussion and that the subject in which both republicans and democrats have a lot of interest, and we look forward to your advice. Today were Holding Hearing to look at what can be done to encourage people to make healthier lifestyle choices, o prevent serious illnesses and reduce healthcare costs. Senator murray and i will each have an Opening Statement and then will introduce the witnesses. After the witnesses testimony senators will each have five minutes of questions. Let me say be