At the same time, weve had a large increase in care in the community, choice hasnt worked as intended. Here are some things were doing to fix it. On april 24th we changed the measure from Straight Line to driving distance. Using the fastest route. This roughly doubles the number of veterans eligible for the 40mile program under choice. Excuse me. But there is much more to do. A followon mailing to all eligible veterans is about to go out. Weve Just Launched a major change in internal processes to make choice the default option for care in the community. Additional staff training and communication extensive provider communications, improvement to the website and ramped up social networking. New mechanisms together, timely feedback. Directly from both veterans as well as from front line staff. These are all, already in place or about to launch. In the longer term, we must rationalize Community Care into a single channel. The different programs with different rules and reimbursement rates
Some of us still believe in battleships, and we are not sure that alaska should have ever been made a state. [laughter] senator king p request with some trepidation, mr. Chairman i want to associate myself with the senator from alaskas questions. The arctic is emerging as any normally important and strategic area. We have one heavy icebreaker and one medium icebreaker. The estimates are the russians have 710 icebreakers. That is just basic infrastructure. And the resources up there and the strategic implications are enormous, so i appreciate the senator raising the question. We have to put the discussion into context in terms of your budget. This chart, which im sure youre familiar with, is the last 50 years of defense spending as a percentage of gdp. Starting in 1962 at about 9 , today it is 3. 3 and headed down , at a time of increasing threat and payroll for our country. Often we get confused about the absolute dollar amounts, but a percent of gdp as a way of comparing apples to app
Said yes. So there was such a huge overpayment going on, 85 of seniors going through traditional medicare 15 through the private Insurance Market and the amount of money going at that time to private Insurance Market was hugely overpaid compared to everybody else and most seniors then were picking up the costs system of point is, we put some caps on overpayment that have saved dollars. And that in fact have gone back into making sure seniors can receive prescription drugs by closing the doughnut hole by getting a wellness visit every year without out of pocket cost, and other things. While we have to look at this amendment, i would say to my friend from alabama that i come from a very different perspective about what we actually did because i believe that we looked for savings and then strengthened medicare, in fact benefits for seniors have gone up. Mr. When medicare costs were cut, the money should have gone to doc fix, but it was taken and spent on ppaca, but not for the doctors. Bu
I am interested in protecting Vulnerable People, very much aware we are going to need some policy reforms to do that. There is something in between that and 400 billion which, in my view, is going to put at risk so many older people. I am sure all of you, i have seen a number of you talk about demographics in the days ahead. Not only are we going to see baby boomers turning 65, but a rapid increase in the number of people who live beyond 80 based on son of some of the studies i see. That is a prescription to meeting medicaid longterm. In a lot of instances, because they live so long, they will essentially exhaust private resources. Senator sessions talks about new policies. One of the things i have been interested in our fresh approaches to encourage private savings for longterm care. Again, that is going to take some time. We have some people who i believe are going to suffer under this approach. Thank you. Senator there is still a minute left in the opposition. I just want to make a
Advantage the center time and enjoy and a a walk or long lunch again an overflow room for anyone interested in vooug those proceedings in the north light court of city hall about 80 chairs as well as a Television Screen to follow the following id like to call roll at this time. Commissioner president fong commissioner wu commissioner antonini commissioner hillis commissioner johnson commissioner moore and commissioner richards thank you, commissioners figurations on our agenda items for continuance item one1 at harrison street a large authorization for continuance until june 4th the agenda states may 28 the project sponsor is requesting june 4th next cases at Market Street conditional use authorization and the Zoning Administrator the acting Zoning Administrator will consider a question to june 18, 2015 an item 3 case rhode island street discretionary review hfa has been withdrawn there are no speaker cards okay any Public Comment on this item . Item proposed for continuance not seeing