Scenes, and helping them out policywise. What does the house want to do ultimately, because they separated the farm bill from the food stamp bill, and tackle them separately. The houseot know what is going to do, because we have a very factionalized house of representatives. They say keep the food stamps and the farm bill separate raid separate. A lot of the institutions on capitol hill see themselves as them again the world. Against the world. Trying tosswoman is be a good soldier, and the democrats are trying to get a bill through, but they know that the snap program is very important. If they had for different figured out how to bridge these gaps, we would have progress. The house and Senate Conferees are trying to negotiate some sort of deal on what they call on the ground common ground. Does the farm bill get thrown in that . Could be part of the budget agreement, and that is a good and bad thing for the senate committee. It is good because it is part of the bill, but then they lose control of it at that point. Thank you for your time. I am a firm in what they call believer in what they call the unauthorized biography. It does not mean that it is untrue, it means that you are doing it without the blessing or cooperation of your subject. It is a legitimate way to cover apart frompecially ofse who have spent millions dollars creating their own image. The one who was trying to get behind that and tell you what is going on. Americancal history, tvs in today on book depth on cspan2. John foster dulles had recently died when that super airport was being built, and immediatelysenhower announced it would be called irport. L part ar you can still see the film clip of kennedy opening the airport with eisenhower there, and he pulls back a curtain, and behind tain is a giantur bust of dulles. I went to see it, and i could not find it. The security guards, and it was a long process, and and i was able to discover that the bust had been taken away from its place in the middle of the airport, and it is now in a closed comforts the room opposite baggage claim number three. I find this a wonderful metaphor for how the dullest mothers brothers, who wielded such power have been relatively forgotten. Led overlles brothers during theoperations cold war. See why that still can be felt 60 years later tonight on c spans q and a. s health andweek Human Services secretary Kathleen Sibelius had her first appearance before the committee. On some of the problems, and how they are being fixed. She also addressed the issue of individuals being served cancellation notices from their insurance providers. This hearing is about three hours. Three and a half hours. Good morning. The energy and Commerce Committee welcomes the president s point person on health care. Secretary sebelius. We look forward to the conversation on a number of issues, including transparency and fairness. Over the months leading up to october 1 launch, the secretary and her colleagues repeatedly looked us in the eye and testified that everything was on track. Despite the numerous red flags and lack of testing, they assured us that all systems were a go. Something happened along the way. Either those officials did not know how bad the situation was or they did not disclose it. Sadly, here we are now five weeks into enrollment and the news seems to get worse. It crashed multiple times. Even this morning, when we attempted to view the site, we were hit with an error message. This is more than just a website problem. That was supposed to be the easy part, remember . Americans were assured that their experience would be similar to other Online Transactions and that their sensitive personal information would always be secure. After more than three years to prepare, malfunctions have become the norm and the administration has pivoted from saying they are on track to setting a new target date of november 30. For those few americans who have successfully applied, will the website glitches become provider glitches . This situation should rise above politics. Many folks watching at home have spent hours or days to sign up. They continue to take time away from work or loved ones but have made little progress. Soon they may worry about being on the wrong side of their government facing potential penalties. I recently spoke to a woman from michigan who was excited to sign up but has since become very disillusioned after spending hours on the phone and website with little success. There are millions of americans who believe that the president when he said, if you like your plan, you will be able to keep it no matter what. They are now receiving termination notices. They may be losing their faith in their government. Todays hearing is about fairness for the American People were losing their coverage or seeing their premiums skyrocket as much as 400 . It is also about transparency. While the administration continues to boast about the numbers of americans who have applied, they withhold precise enrollment numbers. Why . These numbers are critical to understand the status of implementation. Lead contractor cgi testified that they had the data but needed the administrations permission to release it. We asked the secretary for those figures on october 8, but have still not received a response. We hope to get one today. The American People deserve answers as well as the peace of mind that promises should be kept. The secretary has an opportunity to restore the publics faith in the administration. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is here to discuss the Affordable Care act. Just like Medicare Part d, the launch of the website has not gone well. But the early glitches in this rollout will soon be forgotten, just like Medicare Part d. A lot of the discussion will focus on the website. This is an important issue. I want to learn what the secretary can tell us about the problems and how they will be fixed. We should keep this issue in perspective. The Affordable Care act is working. It has been improving the Health Security of millions of americans for the past three years. Because of the Affordable Care act more than 7 Million People on medicare have saved more than 8 billion on their Prescription Drugs. More than 100 million americans have access to free preventive coverage. They no longer face lifetime limits on their coverage. Over 10 million americans have received rebates from Insurance Companies. Finally, this january, the worst abuses of the Insurance Industry will be halted. Never again will a family be denied coverage because their child has a Chronic Health condition. Never again will individuals see their premiums shoot up because they got sick or face an unexpected medical expense. Never again will a woman have to pay twice as much as a man for the same insurance. That is why allowing insurers to continue offering deficient plans next year is such a bad policy. The law says that all plans, except those that were grandfathered in 2010, must be the new Consumer Protection standards. If we dont enforce this policy, Insurance Companies can continue offering flimsy coverage that disappears when people actually need it. No one should want that. It is understandable that there will be a focus today on what is not working. We must also remember what is working. The Health Insurance plans that are being offered in the exchanges are good plans. Their premiums are much lower than expected. 60 of the uninsured individuals shopping in the new marketplaces to be able to get coverage for less than 100 per month. Half of the young adults will be able to get coverage for less than 50 per month. Since congress adopted the Affordable Care act, Health Care Costs across the whole economy have fallen to their lowest level in decades. The success of the Affordable Care act is due to the efforts of many people. One individual more than any other is responsible for all of the good that has been accomplished and that is our witness today, secretary Kathleen Sebelius. My colleagues need to stop hyperventilating. The problems are unfortunate. We should investigate them. They will be fixed. And then every american will finally have access to affordable Health Insurance. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Before we swear in secretary sebelius, i want to clarify the swearingin process. As is the case with all policy witnesses, she was not required to take an oath prior to testifying previously. Todays hearing is different. It is an oversight hearing. It is policy to swear and all witnesses at oversight hearings. Thank you for your comments. I want to join you in explaining that swearingin of the witness before an Oversight Committee hearing has always been under oath. That is the standard procedure in this committee when we are conducting an Oversight Committee. It may seem strange to have the secretary of health and Human Services sworn in, but all witnesses are sworn in at Oversight Committee hearings. The honorable Kathleen Sebelius was appointed to her position in april 2009. She was sworn in as the 21st secretary on april 28, 2009. I will not swear you win. If you would rise i will now swear you win. If you would rise. Do you have any objections to testify under oath . Do you swear that the whole testimony you give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth . You are now under oath and subject to the penalties set forth in the u. S. Code. You may now give a fiveminute summary of a written statement. Welcome again. Thank you for being here. You have to use that mic. You dont know how many people want to hear you this morning. [laughter] thank you. I left my position as governor of kansas 4 1 2 years ago to expand the opportunities for all americans, regardless of geography or gender or income, to have Affordable Health coverage. During my years as a state legislator, as an elected insurance commissioner, as a twoterm governor, and now as hhs secretary, i have worked on that effort that i care deeply about. There are still millions of americans who are uninsured as well as underinsured. People who have some coverage at some price for some illness, but have no real protection from financial ruin and no real confidence that they will be able to take care of themselves and their families if they have an accident or an illness. For them, a new day has finally come. In these early weeks, access to healthcare. Gov has been a miserably frustrating experience for way too many americans. Including many who have waited years, in some cases their entire lives, for the security of Health Insurance. I am as frustrated and angry as anyone with the flawed launch of healthcare. Gov. So let me say directly to these americans, you deserve better. I apologize. I am accountable to you for fixing these problems. I am committed to earning your confidence back by fixing the site. We are working day and night and we will continue until it is fixed. We have recently added new management talent, additional expertise, and a new general contractor to fix the system in two broad categories. Performance and function. Our extensive assessment has determined that the website is fixable. I want to outline some of the improvements. We have more users successfully creating accounts. We can process 17,000 account registrations per hour. 5 per second. Users can now see whether they are eligible for Financial Assistance and make more informed decisions. Consumers can shop for plans quickly. Filtering plans takes seconds, not minutes. Users are getting fewer errors and timeout messages as they move through the process. The system has been strengthened through double the size of servers, software, that is better optimized through a physical database that replaces a virtual system. The chairman referred to outages this weekend and yesterday. If you read the statement from verizon, it is the verizon server that failed and it affected not only hhs, but other customers. We have a plan in place to address key outstanding issues. Fixing bugs so folks can navigate without error messages and slow response times. By the end of november, we are committed that users will be able to navigate without the problems that too many have been experiencing. Consumers are using the site and continue to do so. Problems are being solved. But we know that we do not have a fully functioning system that consumers need and deserve. We are still at the beginning of a sixmonth open enrollment that extends through the end of march. There is plenty of time to sign up. To put it in perspective, the average open enrollment for an Insurance Plan is 2 to 4 weeks. This is a 26week open enrollment. Those who enroll by december 16 will be able to access the benefits on day one. Even with the unacceptable problems which we are committed to fixing, the Affordable Care act, by any fair measure, is working for millions of americans. They are benefiting from new Health Security, young adults, americans living with pre existing health conditions, seniors on medicare. 85 of americans who already have Health Coverage are protected with new rights and benefits. 15 of our neighbors and friends who are uninsured have affordable new options in a competitive market. Cost growth for health care is lower than it has been in years. Millions of americans are clearly eager to learn about their options and to finally achieve Health Security and possible by the Affordable Care act. My commitment is to deliver on that promise. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you very much. If you could move the mic closer. Let me start this clock. I appreciate you being here this morning. We have worked with our leadership to see that we do not have votes on the house floor this morning, so we will not be interrupted. I appreciate your time, for sure. In an effort to allow every member to ask a question, we will be reducing the time for questions to be just 4 minutes. Hopefully we can get through all of the members that are here. I will be pretty fast with the gavel. We have plenty of questions. Lets try to get through them. I think everyone in america remembers the president s words. If you like your Health Care Plan, you can keep it. Under the Affordable Care act, insurance policies that were in effect on march 23, 2010, when the law was enacted, would be grandfathered. Then a few months later, despite the president s word, hhs helped promulgate a new reg that would deny as many as 50 of those holding individual policies the right to renew their own Insurance Plan. I would guess that there are a lot of us on this panel today who are hearing from angry and confused constituents, who are being forced to go onto a website whether they like it or not to shop for a new replacement policy. They are finding premiums, often more than 100 what they are paying before. Some even as high as 400 that i have heard from. Rising deductibles as well. So, when was the president specifically informed of the regulation change and if so was appointed out that this totally undermined his biggest selling point . I would note that on the screen, in a statement that he made more than three years after the regulation change was promulgated, the president said again, the first thing you need to know is this, if you already have health care, you dont have to do anything. He has been on the same page from the very start. Yet the regulations changed months after the bill was enacted that are now causing perhaps millions of americans be denied the ability to renew their individual coverage. Why was that change made . And did the president know it . Mr. Chairman, there was no change. The regulation involving grandfathered plans, which apply to both the Employer Market and the individual market, indicated that if a plan that was in effect in march of 2010 without unduly burdening the consumer, that plan would stay in effect and never have to comply with any of the regulations of the Affordable Care act. That is what the grandfather clause said. The individual market, which affects about one million americans, about 5 of the market, they often have coverage for less than one year. One third of them have coverage for about six months. If a plan was in place in march of 2010 and did not impose additional burdens of the consumer, it is grandfathered in. Why not let the consumer decide whether they want to renew it or not . Why undermine the ability for them to resign up . There were no regulations changed. We outlined the grandfather policy so people could keep their plans. We then begin to implement the other features of the Affordable Care act. If someone is buying a brandnew policy in the individual markets today, they will have Consumer Protection for the first time. Many people in the individual markets are medically underwritten. That will be illegal. Many women are charged 50 more than men. That will be illegal. You cannot eliminate someone because of a preexisting health condition. You cant dump someone out or lock someone out. If a plan is in place and was in place at the time that the president signed the bill and the consumer wants to keep the plan, those individuals are grandfathered in