Business washington impact campaign, which is a yearlong programming series. For more information on this series, view the url on the back of the card. Grateful tolarly the person who runs Public Policy and was instrumental in organizing todays conversation. Now i would like to introduce the global and u. S. Managing harder for health care. She will be offering a few remarks before we begin. She has been representing Health Care Clients for more than 25 years. She has worked with Academic Medical Centers and managed care organizations. Please join me in welcoming and anne. [applause] thank you eric for cohosting this. The space is gorgeous. We are pleased at how everything turned out. This is the first one of this kind that we have posted and we would like to do more in the future. I am pleased to present our two moderators. They will introduce the two senators. We have mary hamrick. She is our National Managing principal for Public Policy initiatives. As such, she leaves the Public Policy initiatives for Graham Thorton in washington. She has been in washington for 30 years and has done this for a number of other organization. We are pleased to have her with us right now. She liaisons with members of congress, with accounting standard centers and other influencers. She represents our positions and our client positions. Along with jonathan nicholson. We are glad to have him as well. Ands with bloomberg bna focuses on matters involving the federal budget and house leadership. Anathan is considered foremost expert of the federal Budget Initiative here and he writes on a lot of them. As you can expect, health care falls squarely into his wheelhouse and he is very well renowned here and around washington. Thank you jonathan, and welcome to both you and mary moore for leading this discussion with the senators. [applause] good afternoon. I am thrilled to be here today and i am honored to introduce senator bill cassidy. Dr. Cassidy is uniquely qualified to help us understand the complexities of Todays Health Care debate. As a graduate of lsu medical school, he provided care in the Louisiana CharityHospital System for almost 30 years. He has taught medical students. He has provided Emergency Health care for Hurricane Katrina evacuees. Sen. Cassidy s served in the and wasa state senate elected in 2014 to the u. S. Senate where he serves on the Influential HealthEducation Labor Committee and the finance committees. A local newspaper wrote one on one, his attentiveness and kindness stand out. His approach to voters resembles the way a good doctor handles patients with a gentle but informed bedside manners. Please join me in welcoming senator cassidy. [applause] jonathan senator carper is a nature of west virginia. Went to ohio state where he got a degree in economics. He knows about health care from having served in various levels of government including as a member of congress before becoming governor. Came to the senate in 2001 and was reelected in 2006 and 2012. His reputation is as one of the more thoughtful and arguably wonky people for the democrats in the senate. He is the ranking on environment and public works, and also Senior Member on Homeland Security and government affairs, two of the more not showboat, but workmanlike committees, arguably. I can personally attest to his wonky nests because he is one of the few people that reporters have ever talked about with an expedited decision. It is something one of these little odd to budget details where you try and give money back. Sen. Carper the focus of my remarks today. Jonathan if i was running this. Those are our introductions. The two members are going to give opening remarks and then we will do our questions and then save some time or q a. Sen. Cassidy i am a graduate of lsu. It is a way of giving a shout out to steve scullys steve scalise. Thanks for having me. What a time to be here. We were speaking in the green room, right when things came to a head this happened to be schedule. We talked about doing this months ago. It was serendipity, i hope. I approach this as a physician. If you think about the letter i got this past weekend, a fellow who is an attorney makes good money apparently describing how he and his family are paying 20,000 a year for their premium , and their deductible is going to 14,000. And he is saying he cannot afford this. Now we hear this story across the nation. My sisterinlaw in san francisco, exact same story. An insurer, the exact same story, kind of culminating. 39,000 last year. We cannot afford that. If you approach it as a doctor, you say how is the family doing . They are not doing well. This is the individual market. It is not just anecdotal. Or maybe it is anecdotal but anecdotal writ large. Folks cannot afford the deductibles they have, and it describes the family in new york in which the 6,000 deductible would prohibit their receiving treatment, except that they are able to get help from charity to pay their deductible. This is not the way it is supposed to be. When President Trump ran, he made a commitment along the following lines he would care for preexisting conditions, eliminating the Affordable Care act mandates that people do not like and lowering premiums. Susan collins i introduced a bill and now we have or other republicans senators who have cosponsored, deliberately designed to reach across the aisle that democrats would be able to sign on and not feel like they were doing damage to their support for the Affordable Care act. We give power back to the states. A blue state can do a blue thing and a red state can do a red thing. We allow that power to return to the states. We allow the power to return to the patient. If there is one Common Ground i know i have is that the patient should be the focus of all considerations. Whatever comes out, if she is the focal point, if she has the power, we will have done our job. The challenge remains making sure she remains our focal point. Sen. Carper thank you very much for joining us. Jonathan didnt mention i spent almost half my life in the military. Southeast asia and others. Then i was the commanderinchief of national guard. One of the things i loved about military was access to health care. I dont care what base you are on, you have access to health care. You have an annual physical. The pay is pretty good. A must every base i have been on there is a gym and you are encouraged to exercise. There is a focus on prevention. Most people dont think of the Affordable Care act as a focus on prevention. There is a huge focus on value. Ever since harry truman talked about providing Health Care Coverage to the American People, all of the American People during one president after the other that and broke their sword on doing that. President , obama can he said when we look around the world and see what works. One of the things we ended up building is something they were doing in massachusetts with governor romney, who actually stolen idea from senate republicans. John chafee, orrin hatch, Chuck Grassley who had this brilliant idea in 1983 to create exchanges in the 1993 to create exchanges. The folks who had low income would benefit from a sliding scale tax credit. As income goes lower 1993just legislation in and 2004 in massachusetts, the idea was the individual mandate. People had to get coverage and employers had to provide coverage for the employees. The fifth provision was if you are a Health Care Insurer and want to stop people from getting coverage, you cannot do that. That turned out to be the foundation of the Affordable Care act. At many people know it. The stuff my republican friends are most critical of is their stuff. Go figure. Everything i do, i know i can do better. The Affordable Care act can be better. We had 80 days worth of hearings, roundtables, discussion in committee. Over 300 amendments were offered. Process,t a perfect but very much an open process. One of the things that concerns me these days is that this process is closed. Democrats a couple years ago, we had a saying in the Homeland Security department if you see something, say something. If you see something about the house bill you dont like, we found a lot we did not like. We dont know what the republicans are not working on now. It is just not an open process. Something this important that deals with hundreds of American People and maybe a sixth of our economy, this is something we should not do as republicans or, frankly, as democrat. If you want to go fast, go low. You want to go far, go together. The American People want us to go together. In the end we will go further and get a lot more done. Who knows, it might even double our own arrangement. Mary lets talk a little about process before we get to the particulars. Dr. Cassidy, can you tell us where the senate is on health care and written you expect a bill to hit the floor . Sen. Cassidy leader mcconnell is indicating keep once the bill to come out soon. It has been in an iterative process, piecemeal by the cbo. There are rumors afloat, but i cannot comment on the rumors, expect it soon. This guy has been careful with his approach. Senator Chuck Schumer sent a letter to his counterpart in the senate suggesting something that we dont do often enough is go to the old Senate Chamber, close the door. Maybe not bear our souls, but open up to one another and say have you thought of this, have you thought of that . If we are interested in preserving the best parts of the aca and fixing the parts which need to be fixed, saying amongst ourselves what might fly. Chuck has suggested that to mitch. If it fails, so goes. Mary i want to hear from both of you. We are thrilled to have this bipartisan conversation. Where do you think the senate is currently making progress and what are the sticking points . Where can we make progress . Had aould love if we bipartisan conversation. Tom nine or so other democrat extenders. When susan and i announce theyre going to enter our bill, were not filing a, no one had read it. Chuck schumer condemned it in no uncertain terms. He had not read the bill. Since we have introduced it, it has been praised by the right and the left respecting federalism. Vox sarah clip of fox said was good. Chuck schumer criticize it immediately before he read it. Chuckso admit that opening play makes me think this might just be politics. It does make me just a little cynical about how the process might go. I wonder if Chuck Schumer is , republican oror democrat, to criticize a bill he has never read. Focus on the positive. Where can we make progress on bipartisan areas of agreement . Why dont you each comment on that . Sen. Carper i said economics was a highstakes. Enough to keep my Navy Scholarship and graduate. One of the things i was always interested in is how to get honest Market Forces for a good purpose. One thing i like about the foundation on which romney built his plan is the Market Forces. One of the Market Forces is the exchanges. Coverage wouldve like to be part of a larger purchasing pool can join the exchange and get help. One of the things that is critical for this to work is to have stability in the marketplace. When the Insurance Companies come in and ensure whoever is trying to get the coverage, they make money and they will not lose insurance. One of the things they depended on and asked for was that we would make sure there is Something Like reinsurance. Cost sharing. A couple different provisions that they said are needed for us to make money in this. And you know what . Win in 2014, when Lucy Charlie Brown the football. The Insurance Industry said we are going to have to raise premiums and deductibles and copays in order to cover, and they did. They lost money in 2014. They lost less money in 2015. They put much broke even in 2016. They the cost sharing arrangements, they were going to do that and force the individual mandate. Theyre not interested in reinsurance. Five months ago, people could get coverage in an exchange in every county in every state at the beginning of this year. They cant do that anymore. What the Insurance Companies are asking us to do, i think we can agree on the cost sharing. There are some other things as well. There has to be some way to have an individual mandate or something that really make sure that we get Young Healthy people into the exchanges. So it is not just sick, elderly and unhealthy people. Sen. Cassidy one area is the individual market. I dont care for the individual mandates out there. The one under the Affordable Care act did not work that well. One thing the cassidycollins plan encouraged was open enrollment. A former official in the Obama Administration and a conservative economist i dont think mandates will do well. Hink we can possibly go one thing should be Common Ground is giving power back to the states. I have no problem with massachusetts doing romney care. My problem is taking that state experiment and horsing it on everybody else. Washington, d. C. And alaska have about the same people. D. C. You can walk across in a morning. Youll clearly have a different solution for two vastly different population centers. I think we should do more state autonomy. I think one of the flaws of obamacare is it to power away from the states to washington. Programs a reinsurance called the invisible high risk fool that everyone is looking high risk pool that everyone is looking as a solution. It went out of business because the Affordable Care act could not be in business. It was a state solution working for maine and yet the law said you could not do that. I would suspect tom would agree that that is unfortunate. We should give more power back to the states. Ultimately it is up to the state capitals. I would trust that i dont trust a state politician more than the admiral. We should give the power bambis adderall picked at a state politican more than the federal. Agree . We where do we agree . We are one of the early states tooktually increase we medicaid coverage up to 100 . We did this as a way to make , theyeople want to work would not lose their Health Care Coverage right away. We what people to work and we want them to be better off than when they werent working. One of the things that i think we agree on is state should have the ability to get waivers. Many states do have a waiver in medicaid. Maybe some copays for the medicaid. Those waivers are granted by the state. Think including indiana. Secretarys under price, they would be interested in granting waivers. There might be some agreement. The individual mandate, which is what romney did in massachusetts , i talked to people who worked with that. They had to do it over again, they would raise the amount of the fine work ugly than they did and got more young people into the exchanges. We were too slow, we were too modest on the uptake on the fines to encourage people into the exchanges. There is more than one way to skin a cat. Have continuous coverage kind of stuff. That was going to be my question, how to be encouraged that younger population to enter into the exchanges without a mandate . From medicare, people turn 65 years old and are on medicare, they dont want it they call up and say they dont want to be enrolled. 401k, if you opt out, you get 95 enrollment. If you say first you have to opt income you get 65 enrollment. Those eligible for credit would receive a credit sufficient for the annual rhenium and they would automatically be enrolled. If they dont want to be, you wont be anywhere out. The people who only have insurance when the mother calls up and says you need insurance. It gets that young person. Louisiana, where there is the 39,000 premium for couple, those eligible enrolled, you lower premiums by 20 just by that feature. I do think auto enrollment is a way to go. Would work not just for louisiana but another state. That is the plan to make that a state option. Herewant to go back because there is a lot of uncertainty is the calendar and the way things are going. There has been talk about maybe you guys should stick around for the recess. Takes both of your quick on the recent activity and the likelihood of that happening. My suspicion is most people look forward to the recess. Some just cover their states. ,t is an easy train ride for me but a lot of people are from places like alaska and hawaii and idaho. They just dont get home as much as the rest of us. County in their state. I do that on most every day. [laughter] it is not that hard. A private survey youask everybody, if thought by staying here through the month of august, that we could hammer out a real compromise on the Affordable Care act and what bills susan has been working on, if we thought we had a shot of doing that, i think everyone would stay and we should. Im a big believer that the amount of work we spend and deadlines force action. Read a quote so much that he could only get it done in 11 months. That we coulde further the agenda, repeal and replace as well as tax reform, i would be open to that and i am sure others would be as well. About a something deadline to sharpen a man and a womans mind. I hope those deadlines force the action. That is a lien against. I am for whatever is most effective. I think deadlines make you more effective. You have gone over the say little bit but im curious, it kind of comes down to the top. If looking for bipartisanship, especially among certified walks such as yourselves, should each of you name the one or two must haves that would have to be in a bill for you to vote for it . Without those come you would not vote . Premiums to see lower with questionable coverage passing the jimmy kimmel test. If your loved one has a need that must be addressed quickly, and extensively, that your loved one has policy here. It goes back to the deductible of 6,000. If your daughter needs to go to the urgent care center, you have a little bit of fat to buy her a an antibiotic. Lower premiums, credible coverage, passing the jimmy kimmel test. Quite slim donald trump was healthte trump, he said care covers everybody, it would provide excellent coverage at a lower price. Elect, hes president said the same thing. Legislation coming out of the house of representatives does not do the thanks. Legislation tim kaine and i made us to provide exchanges, if you look at the health care, 3 Million People in it, most of them, floridabased health care. Goingst of them, they are up by less than they used to. A lot of that is managed care. It seems to be working well. 50 to 20 get medical care. About 12 years. The parts were arguing most about, that was the part that really came out from 1993. My hope is we could focus on agreement, and im reaching out across the country saying what do you guys need . It is a 5050 deal for medicaid. There is a lot of curiosity and interest and that gets us to taxes. Do you see as it relates to Insurance Companies and any of the other taxes mentioned . Comments or thoughts on that . Toward therectly premium and reason the cost of the premiums, those are fairest game for immediate review. Insurance policies, one of those. You are taxing to make insurance affordable. That would be one example. Lets go back to the Affordable Care act. Something they did not do right theyon bill, hopefully will do this and republican friends will come up in the we do not wantid to pass Health Care Coverage to the country for better coverage, and increase the budget deficit, we dont want to do that. The cbo said we reduce the budget deficit for the for 14 years by 100 billion, 17 by 1 trillion. The idea that we can find better coverage and affordable coverage, doing it in a way that does not increase the budget deficit, we do that. Was as advertised but not as fact. For the record, the Medicaid Expansion we did not make it up, cbo said they said it before hand but Medicaid Expansion costs 50 more than they anticipated. Copays steadily rose. Although the premium increases litigated, the outofpocket exposure increased dramatically. Skyrocketed. S have i will not accept that the act tax would be continually postponed, is actually how it will go into effect. It is not. Thanare far more originally described, including premiums will go down by 2500, premiums premiums are going up because of lack of predictability. They were going up prior to peer there are 11 states and spirals prior to trump getting elected. Premium i described, 39,000 for one year, that was not considered a death spiral. Premiums will go 40 . All of that was prior to President Trump being inaugurated. There has been real good pr but the cost of at actually exceeded that which was predicted. Should she be involved . Yes. I think we both agree on that. A large part of the aca was taxes, a large part of the repeal would be repeal of those taxes and reduction in that spending. Can you give us an idea of an impact you see a repeal happening on the tax reform project later this year . I think you have to get the Health Care Reform issue settled. Some have said you have to peel obamacare to set up tax reform. Tax reform bill basically did not touch any from obamacare. Xcept for a medical device tax you concern the do it without touching it, but you have to settle your baseline is. Would you prefer a more camp line camp like approach . I would prefer the taxes be addressed all whole piece. We should repeal these taxes and then do a Health Care Reform and then do another set of taxes. We should establish who we will costs to how much it cover them and then we do the tax reform allinone is it it seems a more logical way to do it to me. We will see the republican senators come up. Look at the taxes and the way taxes are treated in the house bill, folks made off very well and in many cases, people dependent on medicaid and tax credit, they did not do so well. Some people described the work in the house on health care as the Health Care Reform, the tax reform masquerading as Health Care Reform. There is actually something to it. To a dress that it is tax reform masquerading as health care . Was thenot know that intent but it is the effect. I think we should do Health Care Reform. Many reference the employerbased system as well providing health care. Many employers are listening to it i would love to know your what do these employers do in dealing with changes and the Health Care ReformGoing Forward and how can costs . Lp control any thoughts for that segment of the community . Used to be the safeway, some of those actually included the Affordable Care act. Huge influences for employees for wellness. Not far from oakland, thousands of people work. Out on campusrk for free. And people actually end up having to pay a little more for health care who are overweight. For people who lose overweight or they have highpriced high Blood Pressure and they bring it down, it is positive reinforcement. They are rewarded for good behavior. My advice is call steve and find out what he did at safeway and what is he does advising other companies to save money. Is what i said, lifestyle and exercise and incentivizing people. Ini want to respond to that two different ways. First, what repeal and replace should not do. We will agree that we should not degreeh coverage to the that people who formerly were receiving a primary care physician will now go to an emergency room episodically for i care. That is i worked at a Charity Hospital for 25 years. Foaming blood, schizophrenic, diabetic, she was treated. A person uninsured still got it treated. A Major Corporation should negotiate and keep rates lower. She has got 75 employees and is a little bit at the mercy of providers and she is the honorable. We have to recognize that congress 20 or 30 years ago created a right to health care. It was an Unfunded Mandate on states and municipalities and Small Businesses and i think we should step forward and make sure we provide access for those folks that would keep them out of the emergency room and lower the cost. Two, we have to ultimately decrease the cost of health care. It is important for business and individuals. Like to think, however this settles out, we are able to come back on i partisan basis and work toward price transparency. Wouldnt it be nice if you knew the cost of a blood test before you got the blood test . Had aite in new orleans story. The woman got her blood test and it was 300. 4 and she did not find out until she was billed six weeks later. She could have gotten the same blood test for 30 or 40 down the street. Dont you think she would have of course she would have. Price transparency is something we should be put into play. I give you example after example. Doctorst it in the office, it costs 174 cash. In the hospital, maybe 13,000. The numbers are astronomical. It will come down and do some sort of meeting median. Anyway, two things. A i have got go back for just second, the former ceo of safeway. They looked around tos the what a colonoscopy costs. Anywhered a wide range from 1000 to thousands. I said what is the difference between the ones that costs 1000 and the ones that cost 5000 or more . They said they dont use anesthesia. I thought he was just kidding. As bill suggests, a wide range of discrepancies and what these providers charge. If we are smart, we figure out how we get better results for less money. Employers, when a friend and i were working on the legislation, again, it had , the individual mandate, prohibition against. Hrowing people off coverage romney took that and basically the individual mandate. Reason to believe if you look at the numbers, we need Something Like the individual mandate. They will help people get coverage. There are questions about, fears about employers dumping employees. For the most part, it turns out the fear was unfounded. Of employeesmber that put patients on medicaid. I heard from the governor that in his state, a lot did. Maybe not on the exchanges, but on the medicaid program. I think it is fair game. Figure out what works, do more than that, drill down on what is happening in terms of the employer mandate. Do you need to modify it in some way . I worry most about is sometimes the burden on small 100oyers, between 50 and and somewhere in that range, i worry about the burden they are carrying and the fact that they are slow to go under a certain limit in order to avoid certain requirements. I know they are thrilled you can together as part of the conversation on this. To getoing our best everyone on the same page and have this conversation. I would like to ask each of you what steps you plan to take to go forward today in trying to foster that continuing conversation and come up with a solution to Health Care Going ward question mark forward . Obviously, the folks that i work with are continuing to try to shake that. If two or three democrats wanted to Mitch Mcconnells office and itd we are here to deal, only needs 50 votes, but it is h or menace opportunity for democrats. In,crats would have to walk a to 12, it only takes two or three. That could begin to address the issue for these patients, represented by a republican or a democrat paying for her premiums. After repeal and replace, there are 10 different bills i have working with democrats on the other side of the aisle and are hoping to. It got into the 21st century or, just go health, down the list. We will have health care as an issue for some time. There will be a lot of opportunity to Work Together across the spectrum. Some people think it is broken or it it is bending but do not think it is broken yet. It is a little different from the house. In little more partisan one way or the other. A little bit less so and a bunch of us are former governors. My damage a very conservative and theyberal democrat were incredibly successful getting things done. You how are you and ted kennedy so different . He said ted and i believe in the 8020 rule. He said we agree on 80 of the stuff and we disagree on 20 of the stuff here we decided to focus on 80 percent that we agree on. Might he a helpful thing. There is still a desire below the surface for democrats and republicans to Work Together and get things done. We need to dust that often redouble efforts. We have a democrat showing up later this week in the Senate Chamber and some of our republican colleagues will join us, close the door and have a conversation and see where we we surprised maybe ourselves. More important than that, that it that is my take on it. Lets open it up to questions from the floor. We have got some microphones going around. Right here is fine, thank you. Can mccue from northwestern university. Thank you for your time today, senator. A quick question on the issue of federalism. Toas wondering the extent which you talked to governors or representatives from state legislatures about readiness and the capacity to take on these tough issues surrounding Health Care Reform . Great question. It goes to the heart of it. I spoke personally to five or six governors, maybe more. I lose track. Two democrats asking them what they like to do. I dont trust governors or state trustators anymore than i federal politicians. The power should be with the patient. From my perspective, credit should go to the patient and she chooses the policy she wants. They are notorious for using the money to fill in the government shortfalls. On the other hand, you need the governor to regulate. We in congress should set the role that the patient has the the first level of regulation comes from those who govern closest and then go from there. But it should be returned and should be allowing massachusetts to come up with romney care but another state doing what is more likely to work. Governor from 1993 two 2001, the National Governors association, he serves as chairman and vice chairman, senator for best practices trying to solve problems less parochial. One thing i like to do is use the states. To find out what works. The idea of having a medicaid , does itith a waiver actually work . Does the idea of having a managed care approach, did that actually work . What can we learn from that . I am reluctant to say what we need to do, but were oh is a trusted to see if we can come up with a better idea and get that are results. . Hat does the constitution say it is assumed to be done, we can usually learn quite a bit from the states. Question . A pleasure to see you again. I want to thank you both. You only cut only talked a couple of times. Want to thank you both. It was very useful and helpful and i think it would be great if there were more of this going on. Thinking of phoning us. My comment goes to the issue, you have all been focused a lot on the individual market and i get why. There have been a lot of increases and it can beat a just a lot of ways, not least of which is helping young people with a larger subsidy and making it more affordable. A lot more people are covered through medicaid care that is a real concern and a very effective way of covering people and very inexpensive. Senator cassidy, what we have been hearing is that your caucus is looking at phasing out ,edicaid over seven years reducing the federal match. The concern becomes once you get not do5 , most will anything about medicaid. Your state has an 80 match. You did not do anything until you had a democratic governor appeared when you were a governor, you had a 56 match. Keeping it is somewhere close to 85 for as long as possible. I would hope you could share that with your caucus and tell us whether it is a realistic possibility, thank you. I agree with you that expansion is the reason coverage has increased so dramatically. Because the federal taxpayer was paying 100 , really paying top dollar. Theercent more than population than they are per person in the traditional population. Roughly 20 Million People are enrolled nationwide. Now states are having to pick up , receiving athat 90 of the federal share expansion. They cannot handle the 10 . In inhe full 10 kicks 2020, my still have to put in 310 million per year. California will have to put up roughly 2. 2 billion per year. Not seen sums like that in baton rouge or sacramento or any other places around the nation. State legislators in arkansas recommended rolling back and even eliminating the fashion because they cannot afford 10 , or rolling it back to 100 . I am pretty sure her john kasich saying, and i hope he does not mind me falsely attribute in, it would be to bring 138 federal poverty down to 100 federal poverty level. Inherent in that is ohio may have a hard time of 4010 from 100138. That is the issue before us. How do we make medicaid sustainable for the federal and state taxpayer . This point, it is sustainable for neither. Just about out of time. I got elected state treasurer right out of the navy. Was foro think medicaid poor women and their children. It is in part but most of the and most of the people who benefit from medicaid happened to be the anson uncles who do not have much money and they have dementia and that is where we spend most of our money. I hope there are a couple of million veterans we have to be careful how we treat that population. I would like to turn over for a close. Assist bit like to send our sincere appreciation to the senators for coming today. It was an excellent discussion. Lets give a big hand. [applause] we are adjourned. [laughter] [indiscernible] what happens, and he would look at the audience and he would say dismissed. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] [indiscernible] if you missed any of the discussion, find it online at the span. Org that at cspan. Org. Deadlines in congress approach, it is not uncommon to hear congressman talk about skipping some of their breaks. The gop is considering canceling the august recess to salvage the agenda. Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell was hoping to vote on legislation by july 4. Negotiators are saying that is likely unrealistic. Read more at the hill. Com. The senate gavels in and about an hour. Tonight, expect to keep the senate in session until about midnight. Politico reporting they are organizing a latenight session out of frustration with republicans who are not pulling any hearings on their Health Care Overhaul plans. Ate coverage of the senate four clock eastern time and into the night on cspan2. Wednesday, former department of homeland be on capitol hill to testify about russian interference in the 2016 election. That will be on cspan3. You can watch on spike online or on the cspan radio app. Recently on cspan, new orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu on the removal of a robert e. Lee statue. The reason why these statues were erected in the first place and what we can do to recover from the age old battles that have divided us for so long. And because of norlins role in that dark period of our history, we were one of the largest slave markets. I felt that i and other people in the city had ace National Response ability to help our continue to move through racial discord. Maresca hargitay at a Bipartisan Task force aimed at ending sexual violence. To hear these words like you said. Dehumanizing, lives derailed, the way that lives go off track. These are not just things sitting on a shelf good these are peoples lives, getting derailed. Children getting derailed. Cant even make sense of what has happened. And we have been letting testingtors go by not these kids in saying we dont care about this issue. Senator rand paul on the proposed arms deal towards saudi arabia. We will discuss something more important than an arms sale. Whether we should be actively involved, should the United States be actively involved with refueling the saudi flame, with picking targets, with having advisers on the ground. Should we be at war in yemen . Cspan programs are available at cspan. Org by searching the video library. This week on cue and day, q a. He is a professor of law and history at the university of its berg. Of pittsburgh. It covers president obamas life prior to winning the presidency. Author of rising star