If we can understand place where is people think those arent working, we do want to understand that so we can work to improve. The gao shared their methodology with you, and those examples we are waiting for that, correct . We are looking forward to gao coming out with recommendations which is the part that has not yet occurred. Thank you. The president s commitment to Early Childhood education, its reflected in the Budget Proposal 1. 5 billion extra for early headstart and for headstart itself. Briefly, if you can tell us the budget levels and spending caps established by the majority, whats that going to do to the fact that you are trying to build capacity you are trying to stress quality and accountability for providers for these children . And what does that do to capacity . With regard to the levels i think that if you are going the meet those levels and you want to fully fund headstart, what it will mean are dramatic cuts to things like nih or cdc in terms of other places. I thin
Projections and also hear it from the private sector. The belief is, having come from the private sector and actually having come from a company that is known for its negotiating on price, walmart, the idea that we use Market Mechanisms to try and put downward pressure on price is something we think is important. Thats why weve asked for those authorities, so that we can try and work with the pharmaceuticals and negotiate to keep downward pressure on that price. Thats what we hope we can do. We see it as part of the overall issues that we are being asked about how we transform the system for the long term. We believe there are things we need to do and pressure we need to future. What do you see as some of the key problems that you are going to be having as you try and move forward with this . I think with regard to this particular issue its not one you know, it is a elect lative and a statutory issue. It will take a statutory change to grant the authorities to be able to negotiate. Tha
Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you madam secretary, for being here. There are some questions i want to bring up to begin with. Then we will get to the questions. These are things i want your shop to answer. One are the medicare wage indexes. If you look at those around the country, it was never intended to be like that. 20 of the highest are in california and massachusetts. 14 of the lowest are in alabama and tennessee. For instance, what you get paid in santa cruz, california is 1. 7 with a medicare wage index. And. 73 where i live. Its putting us out of business. That needs to desperately be looked at. The second thing, and i want to know your solution to that. Certainly were all against fraud and abuse. But in my state the medicare comes in, does these audits, withholds the payments. We win 72 of them. And we now, the backlog is so long, you cant get in front of anybody to get your money back that you have earned. And thats unfair. And i think you absolutely need to redo the audits.
Abide by the rigid man daytodays under the law. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the law results in 2. 5 million fewer fulltime jobs reflecting what we heard over and over again from employers who have no choice but to cut hours or delay hiring because of the laws burden mandates. Prices skyrocket. Health Insurance Companies are seeking rate increases of, quote, 20 to 40 or more. Markets are still adjusting to the quote, shock waves, set off by the Affordable Care act. After nearly 2 trillion in new government spending, its estimated more than 25 million individuals still lack basic Health Care Coverage. Yet, just last month, president obama said the law, quote, work the out better than some of us anticipated, close quote. Of course, for those who oppose this government takeover of health care, this is precisely what we anticipated and preciseprecise ly why the American People deserve a better approach. In closing, madam secretary, thank you for joining us this morning. It is
Thank you, senator. From my perspective, having joined as a correctional officer in 1988 and around that time the bureaus population was a little more than 60,000. I think historically when you book at the bureau of prisons and go back from 1940 to 1980, the bureaus population pretty much remained flat for many, many years in excess of 20,000. So in 1980, which is the primary target for this discussion, we, as an agency, we had approximately 24,000 inmates in the federal system. We had less than 9,000 employees, 41 institutions and able to operate the entour bur en tour bureau of prisons for 330 million. So when you look at the increase from 1980 to 2013, we were at more than 800 as far as the growth of the population. And our staffing didnt keep pace with that growth. And with our mission, where we are tasked with anyone and everyone who is convicted and turned over to the department of justice and placed in the care of the bureau of prisons, we have a job to do, a significant job. An