Senators about this and i think it is time for us to step up as congress and do something truly bipartisan that the people will applaud. We are going to increase by 5 and were going to do it on a bipartisan basis. I would say for the record if there is going to be some conversation about money going to the pentagon i want to i want to be part of that conversation and i want to stick to the rules that its shared equally. We make sure that there is money coming back into the nondefense side of the equation. I hope the administration will take the same position. If we can find oco money lets not do that at the expense of nondefense. I hope we can come to a conclusion that we are going to make our mark in bipartisanship when it comes to biomedical research. Id like to hear any comments youd like to make. We to believe in terms of the number in investments in the choices we need to make in getting the nation to function right now but also preparing for the future right now. Thats why we make the choices we do and the president s budget. I would also repeat what you just said about the match in defense spending and nondefense spending in terms of the security of our nation. I think we saw what happens when a bullet comes through our nation and thats a health and security issue but its on the nondiscretionary side and we need to keep sure we keep these things moving on both sides. Just one other one related issue. I believe in it and hope we can find ways to expand it and make it better. Do you have any idea what what the eligible income is for qualifying for wic in the state of iowa . No i dont. 90000 a year. Turns out there is a great disparity within the states of about whether or not you qualify for wic. I would like to suggest that the statutory standard that we used to have that is somewhere around 85000 that you could qualify for wic and because of this eligibility there appears to be some gross disparities across some states. Would you look at that . I would be happy to and work with secretary bill sac on these issues but certainly this is a number ive never seen so i want to look into it and understand it. Thank it. Thank you. Thank you we have a little bit more time so there is time for a second round. 1155 is the scheduled time for the vote so hopefully we can work with them at that time. On the issue of dietary standards she stated she didnt have a direct role in this and she was an advisor, you stated that you havent looked at the law yet. It seems like theres a certain running for the hills here. Senator bill sac said sustainable billet he falls outside the guidelines so the one person weve talked to whos looked at the law appears to think sustainability is not an issue you may want to argue that it should be in you only have to change the wall to make that happen, not happen, not add it to the law. Will be watching for that, im sure. Ive got a question for the record. On the Risk Corridor Program, the Affordable Care act the Department Released statements last april saying it would be implemented in a budget neutral manner. Its my impression from what the discussion im hearing now that the Risk Corridor Program would find revenue somewhere else to make up the difference. Is that your view . With regard with regard to the guidance that was put out at that point in time, a program that is about making sure we have premium control and put down pressure on premiums premiums, which i think is Something Real and important with regard to the program we believe it will be budget neutral. The followup question i think will be what if it is not. At this point in time what we have said as it is our expectation it will be budget neutral. Certainly in this year if it was not, it would be paid for when those payments came in next year. Just so were clear when the end is, its 2017. I think the commitments have been made and one would have to find appropriated funds. 27 is the 2017 is the end of the program . Yes thats correct. With regard to the 3rs two of those go away on that timetable. One of them was based on what we use the Medicare Part d which actually didnt go away in that short timeframe but yes the ideas are that people understand the marketplace well enough to get this. That would be something we would talk about next year. The question about whether or not we need the appropriated dollars and i dont know that were going to have any signals. We wont have a signal about this year until near the end of the summer and then will know what the first year is because its a threeyear program and all the data is starting to come in. Designed in the scoring of the Affordable Care act not to cost money budget neutral is where its at this point time. We will see on the audits one of the things you were looking at was the incentive structure to bring these cases. Yes, what were looking at is to bring any case that you would win. If you bring a case that youre not gonna win you wont get anything. If you bring a case that you cant get done in that period of time you dont get anything either. So changing the incentive structure of the things we can do is important as well. The increase that incurred in cases, we didnt get into this because he distinguished between the backlog issue. The backlog issue occurs because there is no provider to bring their all their cases to appeal. The only upside is the provider. Making sure we have any size and amount, the cutoff is amount the cutoff is very low, we need to look at what the cutoff should be for how little money you can appeal for because of the press question of processing. The second question is what are the steps for you and is there any bar in terms of you appealing everything . Theres the issue of the providers and theres the issues of the perv process. In working with the congress and in working with others in a bipartisan way to make improvements. The funding will be important. Funding additional ability to review those cases because as you know those are a judicial process and we have to have a certain type of judge and appeals judge that can review. We had a strategy that is about taking administrative action things that can get rid of the backlog. We need to do additional hires to process the cases before us and create us, and create prevention in the pipeline so people arent as encouraged to do certain types of things. There are a lot of new cases to be brought while you have a huge backlog out there . The issue is how the cases get brought. Its divided in terms of how the legislation was passed. There is the time limitation with regard to that. Some things are coming through but portions are not. Senator murray. Thank you. As you noted this year marks the 50th anniversary of head start. I want to make sure Headstart Kids get access to fullyear programs. The research on this is outstanding but the extended day is really important. The halfday is inadequate. We need to make sure headstart prepares our children for success in kindergarten and later in life. I want to ask you what the administration is doing to improve quality and make headstart more effective . The quality progress has been over a number of years and part of it is we are requiring that the grantees are reviewed for certain measures of quality and people will have to reapply. Weve seen that happen across the country. If there are people who are not meeting the standards, standards, that allows us to enforce those quality initiatives. Thank you for the work that you all did in terms of reauthorization. It continues to give us guidance and that space as well. One thing im hearing about is the lack of getting and retaining quality teachers. What is the department doing to deal with that . That is part of the quality standards in terms of what types of degree in training the teachers have. That is part of what we are trying to look at. We are seeing some increase in terms of measurement of quality and educational background of teachers. I know thats not the only measure of quality but we are seeing some progress in that number. I think thats important. My last question is the fy 2015 the first time theres a chance to utilize the budget control act current data indicates that for every dollar spent to address fraud, 7. 60 cents is recovered by treasury. Utilizing that cap adjustments should create over 5 billion in reduction. I think thats think thats a goal we think is critically important so i dont understand why anyone would want to cut the who wants to cut the deficit, would oppose that. You did can you talk about how you can talk about how we can save money . The amount we put into the budget was estimated by the return weve been seeing and we use the conservative and to do that. It will be about 22 billion dollars. If we continue on our path that were seeing in terms of medicare issues. As i mentioned to you before we came in, having seen this and seen the awards it went to the miami heat for pursuing this fraud. When we can see that kind of success in cross government work, we want to do more of it. We also know the issue of fraud in them proper payments and medicare is a large portion of what we see in the entire government. Its an issue im happy to be at a place where we can bear down and make some progress. If the cap adjustment is not allowed to be utilized, we will see an increase in spending . We wont reap the benefits we wouldve gotten. We see those benefits coming and we report those numbers every year. It was a 128 ratio last year and this last year its been a one tmax seven ratio in terms of what were getting. Thank you. I had an additional question. You mentioned they provide full funding in them medicaid area through 2016 and it then goes to 90 excuse me, 10 or less. The state of West Virginia before this year had to fill in 80 milliondollar hole in their Medicaid Budget this year. There was a hundred and 40 thousand new recipients. I raise this question when we are going through and voting on this. When it was passed, how are the states, our state going to be able to meet these budgetary expansions that theyve taken on themselves because theyve expanded medicaid by a hundred and 40000 people when their already short 80 million. There are two things will we think about the answer to that question when we say how do we financially do the Medicaid Expansion in the state. There are two things. In kentucky they did a study about three months ago in terms of what happened with the Medicaid Expansion and how do you protect that out economically. We showed there would be more jobs and more money to the states coffers. In terms of the Economic Growth and i think thats part of the answer. The other part of the answer has to do with Delivery System reform. That has to do with why we are so deeply focused and changing the way that care is delivered and the quality of that care. One of the things that drives us is emergency use and while analytics arent Strong Enough yet we are starting to see indications that people are going to decrease that. We that. We want to get to the place where people are not using the most expensive care. We want them to care and look for ways to save and still have quality care. We need people to understand how to use the care other than going to the emergency room. They need to know how to access the care, read a bill, and understand how to keep themselves healthy. Theyre getting the care and that will drive down part of the cost. I would say that all sounds like its going to solve this problem but an 80 milliondollar shortfall already without the expansion, you are talking about changing behaviors and we know its not going to take a year its a year, its probably a five or ten year kind of thing. With the creation of 40000 jobs i wish i saw jobs growing in our state but unfortunately thats not happening. Happening. There a lot of people unemployed and we have a real problem here. I am very concerned about that. By this time you and the president will be gone by 2017 and we will have a new governor in our state. That will be a challenge for that governor. Last question, if you expand medicaid which we have in West Virginia and youve asked for an increase in budget and Childrens Health and caret Insurance Program which is sizable somebody asked me this and i thought it was a great question but didnt have the answer. If youre standing medicaid wouldnt the cost of the Childrens HealthInsurance Program go down because a lot of them are being pulled into Medicaid Expansion . The children covered by chp are staying in chip. Those children are not moving over. So theyre not required, if youre in chip and your parents go into medicaid, youre not required to pull that child into medicaid with you . Thats correct. Im a big deliver in that program and ive always voted for the expansion of it because its very important in mice date. Date. My followup question would be from an economic standpoint is it more beneficial to the state to keep that child in chip financially or to go over and the Medicaid Program . Which is less costly . That is a piece of work that i think actually is coming out in the next week in terms of an analysis that we have been asked to do. With regard to the question of which cost more, that is part of the followup that will be coming up in a few weeks. I look forward to seeing the reports. One last question and then there will be questions for the record. Ill have them and others will as well. The next thing on my schedule is go to a meeting of senators talking about what to do. In the past you have said youre not looking at options if the court rules that the subsidies are invalid in a number of states. Is that still your position. What i had said is there are three things, and i think it is important we say we think we would win the case with regard to if the cart court would decide against and for the plaintiffs, the court will have said that we can not provide those subsidies. At the point in which that happens, our ability to do the subsidies is not something that exists. The real problem which is they lose subsidies, then made arent insured because of affordability and the question of how that affects states in terms of costs. All three of those things result from the loss of subsidy. Thats the thats the problem were trying to solve and if the court says we dont have the authority is why when asked about the question thats not something if the court makes that kind of decision we do not feel we have an authority. The record will stay open for one week for additional questions. The Sub Committee stands in recess until 10 00 a. M. April 30. Thank you. Here are some of our future program on the cspan network. Correspondent annual dinner. Live coverage begins at 6 00 p. M. Eastern. Entertainment. On cspan q a, former Judith Miller on her time in prison for not reviewing her source of reports before and during the iraqi invasions. Book tv is live on cspan2. Authors include former attorney on immigration, another on Climate Change as well as world war ii and the holocaust. Coinciding with the release of the new book residential ladies. They explore the lives of our first ladies. On American History tv on cspan three, lectures in history. They discuss some of the issues debated during the time the constitution was created. Get our complete schedule at cspan. Org. On wednesday night the constitution project hosted a gala to honor two people. The Internet Company twitter was also honored. This is one hour. Good evening im jenny sloan. Im delighted to welcome you here to our eighth annual gala honoring this years constitutional chairman in their work in the area of criminal justice, detainee treatment and privacy reform. I want to welcome our past champions that are here tonight. We are honored to present the award to senator leahy, rand paul and twitter. Obviously individuals and organizations do disagree about what the constitution means but for nearly two decades they have surmounted many of these disagreements by bringing experts from across the bipartisan inclusive nature of our work that len sets credibility to our work. We are work. We are focusing on three vital areas this year. First how can we maintain Public Safety while ensuring that our government exercises its Law Enforcement policies in a fair and humane constitutional process. This comes at a high individual and societal costs and especially since 911, the growth of our National Security apparatus is threatening some of our most basic rights and protection. Our second area of focus is how we should safeguard personal information and First Amendment rights that are increasingly affected by rapid, sophisticated and complex technological innovations. Finding a balance between privacy and Civil Liberties is a constant longtime struggle. Given new technologies it is increasingly easy for the government to monitor our personal lives and its more important than ever that our Constitutional Rights still apply in the digital age. Our third area of focus is how can we make government more open and accountable . Sadly it seems the government Standard Practice is one of nondisclosure. They are working to break down barriers to government transparency, facilitating the oversight to monitor what the government does in our name. Id like to highlight some specific examples of our work before turning to our awards. Two years ago are bipartisan blueribbon Group Released a 600 page report examining the terrace in the bush clinton and Obama Administrations. The staff thoroughly examined Public Records and interviews and conducted on ground factfinding all over the world. Our report remains the most comprehensive of its time. The Task Force Made three alarming findings.