That mandate equal coverage for physical and Mental Health care. Mental Health Care Providers testified about difficulties in implementing a federal health care parity law. This hearing of the house energy and subcommittee on health is an hour and 40 minutes. Ladies and gentlemen, if youll take your seats, well start. The subcommittee will come to order. Before we begin, i want to make a note that members may be filtering in and out throughout the hearing. Unfortunately, the condensed september session, there are a number of scheduling conflicts this morning. But we wanted to be sure to have this important hearing before congress recessed at the end of the month. With that being said, chair recognize himself for an Opening Statement. Todays Health Subcommittee hearing will examine the federal Mental Health parity laws and regulations. In 2008, Congress Passed a bill requiring most Group Health Plans to provide more generous coverage for treatment of Mental Illnesses comparable to what
We begin tonight in the philippines are its been a devastating three days there, and the toll is staggering. Local leaders report 10,000 people may have died. U. S. Secretary of defense has now ordered the Pacific Command to help with relief. Rescuers are still trying to save families trapped in flooded homes. Theres no electricity, and no way of communicating. The winds have been among the strongest on record, measuring up to 190 miles an hour, with gust reaching 235 miles per hour. Lets now go to al jazeera craiglessson, the pictures have been devastating what are you hearing tonight . Well, thats right. As you said, total devastation here, and adjusting the province that copped the worse of this storm first up when it made land fall. Officials there now saying that the test toll is most likely to be about 10,000, and thats only in the areas that have been able to reach the reestablishing contact with villages further appealed. And one day they start report back and it is likely to b
For the work that we did together. Everyone there made coributions to the negotiations. This is the p5. These are sovereign nations. No one is going to come rolling in here with one point of view or another. We have to work together, and thats the nature of the process. This is something that i think over the next weeks as the political directors work together, theyll build on what was achieved here in the last hours, and i feel very confident that this can be done. I cant tell you that it will be, but it absolutely can be with good effort over the next days. The next question will be from Michael Gordon of the new york times. Mr. Secretary, the other day while you were in israel you said the u. S. Was asking iran to bring it to a complete freeze over where they are today. How important is it to impose constraints on the plutonium side of the Iranian Program as part of a first step agreement in putting fuel in the heavy water reactor being built in iraq. Is that part of the first step.
And secretary of state, john kerry, hopes to narrow the gap at geneva, switzerland, hell be joined by three of his counterparts. This in exchange for easing the tough international sanctions. Were in egypt where john kerry arrived for the talks, and phil, are we expecting something to happen as soon as today . Today may be a little optimistic. Some of them may be continuing to tomorrow. But its port to note that all of the big boys are in town. The foreign minister from the European Union is here, and of course the secretary of state is here. So theres hope that there will be some movement, but as iran, secretary kerry did say that theres a lot of work to be done. Its important for those to be thoroughly and properly addressed, and i want to emphasize theres not an agreement at this point in time. We hope to try to narrow those differences, but i dont think that anybody should mistake that there are some important gaps that have to be closed. So fill, that being said, what are those im
Help . We could hone in on that question and see what the federal government can do to improve our ability to determine who needs help and our ability to identify the person or agency whose job it is to provide the help, and then we will have provided some service. It helps to put a face on who needs help. As a former governor, i look at things from my background and perspective, as i know most of us do. About 22 of tennesseeans reported having a Mental Illness last year. That is more than 1 Million People. This is according to our state department of Mental Health. About 5 had a severe Mental Illness. That is nearly 250,000 tennesseeans. That is a lot of people. About 40,000 had a major depressive episode. The funding that helps meet the needs for that comes in some part from the federal government. About 22 of what tennessee spends, im told, is federal dollars. The rest is state dollars. In Community Services, state appropriations are about 70 of the Mental Health fund. While the Sta