Transcripts For CSPAN Federal Government Response To Ebola 2

CSPAN Federal Government Response To Ebola November 15, 2014

The question was, should the United States for the first time in history attempt prior restraint publication . Someone who believes he has good civil liberties, my instinct was absolutely not. I looked at what was going to be published. We had what we called tickets. I would not have had clearance for this kind of stuff and thermonuclear weapons and it was going to come out in a magazine. We knew how long it took the french to go from fission diffusion. Fission to fusion. This was an arms important. This was enormously important. Thermonuclear weapons was put out in the open literature. Hear thats whenever i hear that a country has claimed that it has successfully detonated a thermonuclear weapon and you read that our judgment is, no, not really. Im happy about that. Because the level of destruction damaging, ith more makes a difference. In the terms of deterrence theory, i would say not much. Not much. Thank you all very much. [applause] today begins the open enrollment for those wanting to Purchase Health insurance online the governments marketplace. Federal Health Officials say healthcare. Gov is significant was stronger than when it first rolled out in october of last year. Efforts were made it to make the application process more userfriendly and there were security upgrades as well. And 9. 9 million will sign up for coverage in 2015. Endsyears enrollment february 50th. The open enrollment is the topic on tomorrows newsmakers. The president of enroll america talks about the Nonprofit Organization and its goal of getting people signed up for coverage. This year, we have to be able in and talk about it. We need to get the word out to millions of people who did not enroll the first time. Its a harder to reach population than those that we were able to last her. We need to help those that enrolled last year and make sure they have the facts you need to renew their coverage. Its easy when you are doing this work to stumble on that. How does our messaging need to be different between the two audiences . Americasl perspective, it does not need to be that different. What we are encouraging Partner Organizations to do is use a simple framework, get covered and stay covered. The financialn to Assistance Available to. That is true for those enrolling the first time and important for those renewing their coverage. If their income has changed or the there have been other life havees, they can you the chance to shop around for plans. That is true for those enrolling for the first time and for those renewing. This year, there is a 25 increase in the number of Insurance Companies are offering plans on the marketplace this year. For folks who have coverage, they might find a better option. The third step is to choose your plan and enroll. If you are happy with the plan you have, you have a chance to renew that and stick with it. If you like a different one, you have the chance to do that as well. When you frame it that way, it helps people understand that we can talk about this similarly in a way that does not confuse consumers but does not complicate things. We are encouraging people to make sure that how we share information with consumers stays very straightforward. You can see the entire newsmakers interview tomorrow at 10 00 a. M. And 6 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Thanks for your comments about our programming. Here are a few we received about washington journal. , firstington journal thing in the morning, absolutely wonderful. Very informative. I really appreciate you guys letting people such as myself actually call in. Sometimes even talk to people who are running our country. I would like to make a suggestion that instead of dividing the country between democrats, republicans, askpendents, cspan should the question and have callers either call in as agree or disagree. This would take a lot of partisanship out of their. Thank you. Thank you. This morning, today, the best show ive seen. Thats what we need. Please have more shows like the one today. Have a democrat and a republican on there so people can ask them questions about what they are going to do. This was a great show. We need to have them explain what the policies are and how they differ. They give their reasons. We need to know how they think, how they vote and how we should vote. Have one every day with their ideas, their policies and what they plan to do for the people. And have us call in and question them. Thank you so much. Continue to let us know what you think about the programs you are watching. Us, email us or send us a tweet. Join the cspan conversation. Like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. Health and Human Services and they Sylvia Burwell jeh johnson testified on capitol hill this week about efforts to protect americans from the evil outbreak in west africa. The hearing came shortly after a new york doctor who worked in west africa was declared free of the virus and released from the hospital. Other witnesses include the cdc director and National Institute of allergy and Infectious Diseases director. This hearing is a little less than three hours. [ gavel bangs ] good afternoon, todays hearing is on the United States government response to fighting ebola and protecting the United States of america. Today, we will hear what we are doing and we will hear what resources are needed to do that fight. First of all, the congratulations are in order to some of our checks who have won we want to acknowledge senator reid and senator cons victory and on this side, we want to acknowledge the victory of senator cochran and senator collins and we want to congratulate them and note the note their victory. Today is a day where we really have to Pay Attention to an international and National Challenge that we are examining. A look at an infectious horrific disease that is wasting a key continent in west africa and also threatening the United States of america. But for me, this will be the last full Committee Hearing that i will chair. Before we go into the substance and i make my statement, i want to thank senator shelby and his staff for the wonderful way that we have been able to Work Together and though we will exchange gavels, we will also continue to exchange the views in the way we have. I have found in senator shelby and on the other side of the aisle, always a tone of civility and candor and an ability to, in this committee, to try to try to Work Together and find Common Ground to deal with americas problems in a way that achieves sound results and to do it in a way thats affordable. I think thats characteristic of our committee and i hope that as we move ahead, that we will continue to do so. I would also particularly note senator cochran, who chaired this committee before and who also, during the time of senator inouyes passing, was a very important bridge to help me as senator shelby and i both moved into new rules and senator, im going to acknowledge your graciousness and wisdom. So, we are about to, on january 3rd, change who controls the United States senate. But until now, this committees chaired my me and i look forward to working with my colleagues to deal with really moving what i hope will be an omnibus and that we, on december 11th, will not be voting on a cr, but be voting on an omnibus that meets our fiscal 2015 responsibilities and also deals with the urgent need that we are going to hear today. Im deeply concerned about ebola and, of course, so is all of america, both at home and abroad. I think theres a National Consensus that agrees that we need to contain the disease and we need to eradicate it. And also, face very clearly the fear that it generates. Now, the epidemiology tells us that there have been 13,500 cases of ebola in west africa. Here in the United States of america, there are currently no cases of ebola and we look forward for that to be ratified or correct by our esteemed panelists. However, the United States of america has treated nine, nine patients with ebola, two have contracted it in texas, the west africa. Eight have recovered, one, regrettably, has passed away. So, there have been nine in america, 13,500 in west africa. The situation is serious. And it means that all of government has to respond in a way to do so. My strong suggestive principles are this, first, we must fight the disease at its epicenter in west africa, in liberia, guinea and sierra leone. We also want to look at the countries contiguous to these three areas that has not spread beyond these three countries. We want to use the expertise of the department of state, usaid, cdc, dod, nih, fda, any Government Agency that can play a role in making the world, west africa safe and us safe is where what we want to do. The second principle is we must protect america and we must do it at your points of entry. And finally, in looking at our country, we need to utilize the best science and employ our Public Health and Public Health Safety Agencies in a way thats effective thats the center for Disease Control, state and local Health Departments and scientists developing vaccines and treatments at nih and approving their safety and efficacy at fda. As we look at what governments going to do, i want to thank the people, both in our own country and all over the world, that have really been working on this. Doctors and nurses, lab technicians, disease detectives, aid workers, soldiers from our own Defense Department, working shoulder to shoulder in africa and also working at our border, and our ports of entry here and in our own country. In these important agencies, usaid, state, cdc, hih, fda, ever and of course, our ever hadready military. There have also been very wonderful volunteers that were willing to go to the danger zone and we want to thank them for their role that they played in west africa. We also want to thank those in our own country who though not called upon places Like University of maryland and Johns Hopkins in my own community were ready to be able to deal with this. Im glad today to have witnesses from our major Government Agencies to present testimony. Ordinarily, protocol calls for the most senior cabinet member to testify first. In my usual kind of outofthebox way of thinking, im going to deal with the problem rather than focus on protocol. You know, sometime in the senate, theres a lot of pomp and circumstance. Im gonna dispel with the pomp and get to the right circumstances. So the way we have organized the testimony is to really start internationally to hear from the department of state and then mr. Lumpkin from the department of defense, then going to our ports of entry, then with silvia burrell, who will be here to talk about hhs. We will hear from deputy secretary of state Heather Higgin bottom, accompanied by nancy anymore berg of usid who will tell us how are we going to do this in west of a nick ka and how are we going to do it not only in those three countries but in the contiguous countries. We are then going to turn to assistant secretary of defense, mr. Michael lump kin. We know thats the official ebola coordinator designated by secretary hagel and hes accompanied by major james laravair. Then we will hear from secretary jeh johnson to discuss americas ports of entry. Then from Secretary Health and Human Services, silvia burrell, accompanied by dr. Freiden of cdc and dr. Anthony fauci of nih. And then we say to drs. Fauci and friedman, mr. Lindberg, vet good general whos here, we will ask you to join us after they testify to be able to answer questions from really this robust participation that we have. Opening statements will be from the four witnesses. Now, we have before us an administration request to contain and fight ebola. An emergency spending request of 6. 2 billion. Because the ebola, in my mind, meets the criteria for emergency spending. Its sudden, unanticipated, unforeseen, urgent and temporary. The request includes funds from the state department and u. S. Id for 2. 9 billion. The department of defense to develop technologies to fight ebola and shorten vaccine development, 112 million. The department of health and Human Services to contain ebola, both with cdc in west africa and remember, cdc is both here in our country and also in west africa. To also fortify, strengthen domestic capacity to treat ebola with Treatment Centers available in every state and the appropriate personal protective equipment for caregivers, like our very valued and treasured nurses. We also have money in here to develop new tests for treatment and vaccines, which would be a total of 3. 12 billion for hhs. So, state is talking about 2. 9 billion. Hhs 3. 12 billion. 112 for department of defense and right now, Homeland Security says its okay but it needs a lot of flexibility. Now the reason i talk about my colleagues to focus on not only the money, but on funding in an emergency, i say to my colleagues, we face Infectious Disease emergencies before. One under president bush in 2006 and the other in 2009 under president obama. We worked on a bipartisan basis to do this. In 2009, we were faced with the h 191 h1n1 flu epidemic. We provided 6. 4 billion and designated that as emergency spending. The bipartisan Emergency Response in 2009 mired what he we did to help president bush, again, bipartisan basis, when we faced avian flu when at that time, Congress Responded with 6. 1 billion in emergency funding. So, we have done this before when we have been faced with an emergency related to Infectious Disease. I would hope that we would follow the models that we have used in the past. Today, we live in a world thats free from smallpox, that cut polio cases by 99 . Now we have to tackle the new diseases and we have to have a strong worldwide Public Health effort, vaccines to prevent diseases, therapeutics to treat diseases, the people and the infrastructure to do that. We have also invited, in addition to government, we have asked for the American Hospital association, crucial ntos, and also schools of Public Health, like the Bloomberg School and may own state of Johns Hopkins to submit testimony. I want to acknowledge that we have got 56 submissions already and we will definitely Pay Attention to them. The common themes are sustained investment is needed in Public Health, both at home and abroad and emergency money is needed in the short term. So, that kind of lays out the framework for the hearing. I look forward to the testimony and now i turn to my colleague, senator shelby. Thank you thank you, madam chair. Today as the chairperson has laid out, we will discuss the administrations 6 billion request to address the Ebola Outbreak, both domestically and in west africa. Given the size of the request, the slow progress in detaining plans for how the money will be spent and some of the missteps made so far, careful oversight and scrutiny. As we have seen in recent week, the vast majority of American Health care professionals have little to no experience with this virus. The appearance of the disease on our shores can have devastating consequences for our Health Care System and our society at large. Consequently, it is the fundamental responsibility, i believe, of the federal government, to respond effectively to this crisis. Every prudent step must be taken to protect the American People. Instead of an effective response, what we have witnessed, i believe these past few months from various agency has been confusing and at times contradictory plans. For example, the cdcs guidance to hospitals has been a moving target. This uncertainty may have exposed Health Care Professionals to unnecessary risks. The administration also has sent mixed messages on the issue of quarantine. While the president has discouraged straight quarantine rules, defense secretary hagel has prudently put in place a 21day mandatory quarantine for troops returning from west africa. In addition, the administration did not call for enhanced airport screenings for travelers entering the u. S. From west africa until months after the epidemic became severe. It still remains to be seen whether these cursory screenings will be effective. Not surprisingly, americans have been frustrated by the lack of clarity and coordination within their government. Even though the president has named a socalled ebola czar to coordinate a response, all reports indicate that he has no Actual Authority to direct Government Agencies here. From the beginning of this outbreak, the administration has appeared to be preparing for only the best Case Scenario. Competent crisis pl

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