We did have a lot of major media that came into this event and this room has been bursting through the seams. When you go back to the newsroom please insist your editors like you do their job. [applause] thank you for coming we have a special treat for you. Those red tickets, those are for a complimentary beverage that are served over at the bar. Appear they should have been here, seek them out and talk to them. The important part of the conference is about to begin and we want to remind you the audio of all of these presentations will be available on that website. Thank you so much for coming. [applause] one more thing i would like to thank the washington report publisher whos been sitting here and his whole generation of leaders, ralph nader who is here come the Harriet Fulbright and others in this room and the many students that came to. Audience members, exhibitors and advertisers we couldnt have had this without your help. Thank you. Enjoy your drinks. [inaudible conversations] [i
Familiar faces are enough to win. I will let you follow up on that. , we have very different characteristics. We have gone through a phase last election where republicans had many more seats that they could challenge. And a date addition to the in addition to the number of seats, republicans did very well last election picking up extremely red states that had democratic senators. There were six states that were rock red republican states and they had open seats. Republicans picked up all of them, plus North Carolina and if you swing states as well. Those of the prompt those are the prime targets than a world that is well aligned for the republicans are Holding Republican seats and democrats are Holding Democrat seats. What does this election look like . 24 big numbers are, republicans of four election, while there are only 10 democrats of your seats. And they just looking ahead, if in thek at 2018, and is opposite direction with only eight republicans and 23 or if 25 count the independ
But also to the american people. Secondly, productivity. Productivity is critically important to us. We measure value units, which is a common measurement in the medical industry. It is a measure of productivity. Our productivity is up 8 over the last year, versus a budget increase of 2. 8 . I am asking for ways to improve our productivity every day. There is no question that demand is increasing for our services. I do not feel capable of going to congress and asking for more money, unless i can show them that we are trying to save money. If you look at my testimony over the last year, what you see is i told congress that we had 10 million square feet of unused space. Unfortunately, it is all in somebodys congressional district. If we could close that space, that would save the v. A. And the american taxpayer 25,000 per year. Please look at my testimony. 10 million square feet, 25 million a year. We are eager to work with members of congress to close that space. And we are going to hav
These options today. Thank you, i look forward to your questions. Let me start was in questions. Many factors contributed to the failure of the coops. Lower than higher expected enrollments, restrictions on investors, risk adjustment formulas, lots of those. Let me start off. What are the top reasons the coop failed in your state . Thank you for your question. Our coop had challenges from inception, in that as the commissioner mentioned, going into a state without Provider Networks cause the company to have to lease those. There were a ministry of cost that were new to the startup, that any startup would have. But in 2014, we had disastrously low enrollment. Truly come at most, 1000 people signed up for the coop plan. Mostly because the rates were somewhat higher than the leader and the wellestablished companies in tennessee. Overcoming those challenges became extremely difficult. And is why we saw significant rate increases for 2015 and beyond because of the enrollees across the marke
He is a freshman senator and he waited a full year before he gave his first speech. And his first speech in the senate was a critique of the institution and a critique of how congress operates. Here is a little. If i can be brutally honest for a moment, i am here every weekend and what i hear is the same thing you hear every weekend, which is some version of this. A pox on both your parties and all of your houses. We dont believe that politicians are even trying to solve the great problems that we face. The generational problems. Those of uslicans, who would claim that the new maturity is leading the way, see if people believe it. To thent sanders grand standards, few believe needs are as important to you as your own ambitions. To the democrats, few believe bareknuckle politics are a substitute for principles governing. And to the thousands on the , salivatinge left for these tactics. Why is that . Because we are not doing our job. We are not doing the primary here that people send us