Gentleman from tennessee, dr. Roe and the gentleman from california, mr. Takano, each will control 20 minutes. The chair recognizes the gentleman from tennessee. Mr. Roe i ask unanimous consent that all members may have five legislative days to revise and extend their remarks. The speaker pro tempore so granted. Mr. Roe i yield myself such time as i may consume. The speaker pro tempore the chairman is recognized. Mr. Roe i rise in support h. R. 4533 as amended, a bill to designate the collective Health Care Facilities of the department of Veterans Affairs v. A. In lexington, kentucky as the lexington, v. A. Health care system, to designate the Lexington Medical Center lease salsleythe franklin are campus. This bill is sponsored by my good friend congressman andy barr from kentucky and im grateful for introducing this legislation. One Health Care Facility of the department of veteran affairs located at 2250 in leasetown road would be the would be named after private first class salsly.
Program. This is our special your fiction on in depth. Youll see authors this month we are pleased to have Colson Whitehead as our guests. His most recent book is the underground railroad. Whats the appropriate response when its praised by oprah, president obama, was the appropriate response . Guest this book is taken off in a way thats unexpected and wonderful. Mostly i thank my lucky stars and i sleep a little better, im in a better mood generally i try to enjoy it despite my best efforts. Host what is up regina better food . Ive been writing for 20 some years. Sometimes you read a book and people understand and sometimes you write it and nobody cares. And it disappears. So ive the pride and thinking i did a good job with the book. The bonus of other people liking it as well. Host your first book was intuition us. How do you sell a book like that . Guest exactly. With that book either when i send it to my age in either you dig the concept of the two groups or you dont. Further along
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.