hello? ok. good morning, everyone. i am joe antos with the american enterprise institute. with the american i am joe as enterprise institute. i want to welcome everyone in our conference room and everyone watching through electronic means to a conference today addressing the general and specific questions, also of stabilizing the health insurance market on the affordable care act. proposal made a by your group of eight governors who will be following the panel. why we have the governor speaking after us. the reason is travel considerations. fortunately, although this panel is not obligate it to can find , fortunately the governors to put out a letter last week that is easy to summarize. i will start by summarizing their points so everyone has a basic rounding on what the governors are talking about grounding on what the governors are talking about and what we will be talking about. identify three categories of actions that could be taken. actions toederal and than the mar
and i will be introducing the panel in just a second. i did want to highlight a few things that the trustees said in their report. the perhaps their biggest concern has to do with the outlook, as they said in their summary. a major concern has to do with the growth of health care innovation, which has its positives and negatives. the positives, of course, is with modern technology and modern techniques we re able to cure or address the serious health conditions of many more people than we could have in the past, but as the trustees say, while most healthcare technological advances to today have tended to increase expenditure this health care he can landscape is shifting no one knows whether future developments will increase or decrease costs. that could be but one might take a more realistic view of that in my opinion. let me also cite a critical point that the trustees made in their report, having to do with productivity, the patient protection and affordable care act or t
medicare s long-term fiscal conditions. this is an hour and 45 minutes. everyone.rning everyone here and everyone on c-span to the american enterprise institute. we re having a discussion today about the medicare trustees report, the report was issued late yesterday afternoon, and is an annual report that gives some indication of not only the current fiscal status of the medicare program but also the long-term outlook. my name is joe antos. and i will be introducing the panel in just a second. i did want to highlight a few things that the trustees said in their report. the perhaps their biggest concern has to do with the outlook, as they said in their summary. a major concern has to do with the growth of health care innovation, which has its positives and negatives. the positives, of course, is with modern technology and modern techniques we re able to cure or address the serious health conditions of many more people than we could have in the past, but as the trustees say,
december talking about bipartisan to stabilize the health insurance market for 2018. let s start there. what s your sense of the condition of those markets right now? i think there s a lot of consensus what is needed to shore up or strengthen the affordable care act marketplaces. going into 2017, there was a lot of evidence, financial and otherwise insurance companies were starting to find their footing after a few rocky years. the policy uncertainty coming out of washington, debate over whether they will repeal the aca or not repeal the aca, whether there will be an individual mandate, that penalty for not having insurance, all of that uncertainty is causing insurance companies to be very nervous about their long term participation. so i think going forward, the condition of the markets is that we don t know, because there s still some key decisions that need to come out of washington to give insurers that confidence they need to stay in the market. joseph, i want to get
democrats, (202) 737-0001 and independents, (202) 628-0205. phone lines are open so start dialing in. let us begin with the reaction from donald trump. he issued a statement yesterday after president obama expelled the russian diplomats as well as closing two compounds in the u.s. saying it is time for our country to move on to bigger and better things. but in the interest of our country, i will meet with leaders of the intelligence community next week in order to be updated on the facts. from capitol hill, the chairman of the armed services committee, john mccain saying that the white house sanctions are long overdue but a small price for russia to pay for this reason attack on u.s. democracy. senator mccain promising tougher action against russia. leader, the top democrat in the senate says strongly support the obama administration work to fight back against russia s interference in our election system. and the top democrat on the foreign affairs committee, senator ben ca