Titan, you can get a quick refresher on this. The polio vaccine was discovered in pittsburgh. Much of organ transplant technology happened there. We are and have evolved into a medical, technical mecca. Carnegie mellon is there. We have through westinghouse and others the threequarters of the Nuclear Technology in this company. I havent seen begun to talk about the steelers, the pirates and the penguins. You need to understand that this story can be told about any city in the country. But this was the story that was moving me in pittsburgh. Because as a resident of pittsburgh and as a person from western pennsylvania, i have seen directly as we have responded to the challenges as we changed ourself from a rust belt city to an industrial company. And what a factor cyber intrusions was to us. And it wasnt about us and law academics who work on this problem or the judiciary or the private sector partners or the Great Companies who have forged this new frontier in the internet like google and microsoft and others. Its about people in mckeesport in our valley who might lose their jobs, who might face economic distress because whether you are talking about recapturing the Research Development investment that our Companies Make which is stolen when we have ip state sponsored espionage or you talk about folks who might fit as described earlier the most vulnerable among us, seniors and children who either have their retirement stolen or are exploited online in the most horrible way imaginab imaginable, this really matters. Im very, very grateful for the partnership with all of you. Ive been given this new responsibility to help coordinate the great efforts of the u. S. Attorney component of the department of justice, but im here to assure you that as grave as this threat is over the course of the last 4 1 2 years i have been heartened by the great talent and commitment and will of the people who are working on it. And that now includes all of you. So thank you very much for attending today. Look forward to working with you in the future. Thank you. [ applause ] this month is the tenth anniversary of our sunday prime time program q a. We highlight authors, journalists, filmmakers and policy thinkers. A decade of compelling conversations, december 22 through the 26, at 7 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Jonathan gruber testified in front of the House Oversight committee on his criticism of the rollout of the Affordable Care act and his belief that officials intentionally obscured details to enable passage by congress in 2010. This hearing is four hours. The committee will come to order. Without objection, the chair will be authorized to declare a recess at any time. Oversight committee existed to secure two fundamental principals. First, americans have a right to know that the money washington takes from them is well spent. Second, americans deserve an efficient, effective government that works for them. Our duty on the oversight and Government Reform Committee is to protect the rights. Our responsibility is to hold government accountable to taxpayers, because taxpayers have a right to know what they get from their government. Its our job to work tirelessly in partnership with citizen watchdog to deliver the facts to the American People and bring reform to the federal bureaucracy. This is and has been our mission for four years that i have been honored to serve. Before i begin with my Opening Statement, i want to make you aware in hopes that your people will deliver documents pursuant to a subpoena that expired that was due eight days ago related to the documents behind your coming before this committee and giving false and misleading testimony related to the socalled 7. 3 million enrollment figure. We asked for and we received half of the documents and the documents that were excluded were the ones that created the talking points and the people who caused you to use inarct inarticulate language that allowed you to say 7. 3 million without disclosing that that included 400,000 dental plans. That was subpoenaed. It was clearly understood. Last night we received a huge data dump and it was not in there. It makes it very difficult for us to go forward with some aspects of todays hearing, as you can imagine. It is clear that this hearing in no small part was not because of what obamacare is about, not about the healthcare, its about honesty and transparency to the American People. Todays hearing is likely the last full Committee Hearing of this congress. This committee has a primary obligation and has lived up to that obligation to look at government to make government more transparent and accountable. And at times, members on both sides have helped in trying to create that transparency. But no Government Program needs increased transparency and accountability and honesty more than the Affordable Care act known as obamacare. It has proven time and time again to, in fact, have made false claims. Every member on both sides can agree that the Affordable Care act or obamacare is a large, expensive program reliant on a complex network of Government Programs which significantly impact the lives of all americans. Yet the history of design passage and implementation with the law is fraught with half truths and deceptions. Here are just a few of the false claims the administration has made regarding obamacare. If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. Nothing in obamacare forces people out of their health plans. No change is required unless Insurance Companies change existing plans. Healthcare inflation has gone down every year since the law, Affordable Care act, has been passed. It now has the lowest increases in healthcare cast in 50 years. To that we add, we have close to 7 million americans who have access to healthcare for first time because of medicaid expansion. If you like your plan, you can keep your plan. When trying to pass Affordable Care obamacare, the administration repeatedly claimed that the laws individual mandate was not a tax. However months after passing, the Justice Department argued the opposite, it was a tax. One of our three witnesses this morning offered a simple answer to this change in position. This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure cbo did not score the mandate as taxes. So its written to do that. In terms of subsidies, a law said Healthy People will pay in Healthy People will pay in, sick people it would not have passed. Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. Call it the stupidity of the American Voter, but that was really critical to getting the thing to pass. Its the second best argument. I wish mark was right and we could make it transparent. I wish it was right and we had made it all transparent. Professor Jonathan Gruber is considered by many as the architect of obamacare. As a former Administration Official put it, professor gruber was the man on obamacare, the guru of healthcare, the official we went on to say, i remember when i was at the white house, he was viewed as an important figure in helping to put obamacare together. No one can look at the amount of money he has been he was compensated for for his work on obamacare totaling millions of dollars and think our witness was anything but a critical player in the Affordable Care act. Current Administration Officials, however, have attempted to distance themselves from professor gruber. Ever since he stated and started telling the truth about the tactics used to pass this law. In fact, the center for medicare and Medicaid Services urged the committee not to seat him with the administrator next to him. Dr. Gruber, we think you are right to be there. In fact, we believe that this is a perfect pairing. A pairing of individuals who are, in fact, responsible for what we know and dont know before, during and after the passage and implementation of the Affordable Care act. September 18, 2014, the administrator came before us and testified that, in fact, there were 7. 3 Million People enrolled in the and i quote this carefully, Health Insurance marketplace coverage. That tore toured language had not previously been used. And it followed a series of document requests after we were told trust us the numbers are good in which we discovered that, in fact, 7. 3 million would have to include a fairly large 400,000 individuals in more or less 50 dental plans. Obviously when you say you met a goal and the difference between making a goal and not making a goal are plans that nobody would consider a key element of the Affordable Care act. Hhs initially failed to provide any documents to explain how the numbers had been interpreted. On october 1, 2014, the committee requested the enrollment data underlying the 7. 3 million announcement. Our request were met with delays, run arounds that bordered on obstruction. After weeks of negotiations, cms finally provided the enrollment data printed on spreadsheets with for those who are my age will appreciate this. 6point font, something not readable even with reading glasses. When electronic copies were demanded and the data was delivered, oversight investigations discovered that all of the hundreds of spreadsheets were, in fact, Password Protected and locked. After further negotiation, we finally were able to receive the passwords and recognize that all along there had been a inherent deception. This was quickly discovered and would have been discovered by anybody simply by putting the spreadsheets in ascending order of dollars. On november 21, 2014, only after it was publically noted the committee discovered the administration was willing to acknowledge 393,000 dental plans in the figures released in september. Hhs included dental plans in the enrollment figures not just once about the twice. The agency included dental plan in its november enrollment figures and has now been forced to revise down to not greater the administration claims it made a mistake. However, there is great skepticism about that and particularly the term mistake when it appears as though instead hhs and cms were too clever in an attempt to inflate the numbers and say they met a goal. It is a small technical error i many ways whether you had 7. 3 million or 6. 7 million if, in fact, its a matter of whether you made a goal or didnt make a goal. But when you doctor the books, add additional numbers and then use careful language so that you didnt lie but you did deceive, that is exactly what we are concerned about here at this committee. The American People have a right to know the honest numbers. Management has an obligation to know it if they are, in fact, going to be accountable to the taxpayers for doing their job and, in fact, the American People expect no less. Professor gruber is often said in washington to be the definition of a gaff. Thats when somebody accidentally tells the truth. You made a series of troubling statements that were not only an insult to the American People but revealed a pattern of intentional misleading the public about the true impact and nature of obamacare, which is in many ways in many ways you helped craft. Today we will have an opportunity to ask you to apologize for your low opinion of the American People and hopefully apologize for the false information on which the analysis of what the Affordable Care act was do was built leading to the disappointments we see here today. With that, i would recognize the Ranking Member for an Opening Statement is not here. All members will have seven days to submit Opening Statements for the record. We now go to our panel of witnesses. Miss Marilyn Tavener and mr. Jonathan gruber, a professor at m. I. T. Pursuant to committee rules, all witnesses will be sworn in before they testify. Would you please both raise your right hands stand and raise your right hand and take the oath. Mr. Chairman . Just a moment. I will go through where i am, please. Do you swear or affirm the testimony you will give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth . Let the record reflect the witnesses answers in the affirmative. For what purposes does the gentleman seek recognition . Thank you. At this time, in the absence of the Ranking Member, may i ask that if we have a minority witness, mr. Goldman, for whom we thank your indulgence. We would ask for convenience sake, since we have a small panel here that mr. Goldman be added to the panel and be sworn in and testify at the same time. I appreciate your suggestion. He is not a government witness and not an expert in any of the facts being discovered today. We will leave him on the second panel. I thank you for your suggestion. You are recognized for five minutes for your Opening Statement. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Members of the committee, i appreciate the opportunity to appear here today and answer your questions about cms continuing work to provide affordable, high quality healthcare to the americans we serve. In my previous maam. I appreciate if you pull the mike closer. Thank you. Sorry. In my previous appearance before your committee, i reported a number of americans that were enrolled in marketplace coverage and had paid their premiums that included medical and dental coverage. Simply put, this was a mistake. Some individuals with both medical and dental coverage were counted twice in the numbers. Moving forward, only individuals with medical coverage will be included in our individual affected enrollment numbers. We are now providing weekly snapshots of the 2015 marketplace data, including the number of consumers who have submitted an application, contacted the call center or visited the website. We have also created a new data office and have named or first chief data officer. This new office will help cms strengthen its processes and more broadly will help cms better harness and use our data resources to draw better care at a lower cost. While this mistake was regr regrettab regrettable, it should not obscure the fact that the Affordable Care act is working. We have 6. 7 million americans enrolled in healthcare coverage and paying their premiums as of october 15th. The number of uninsured adult americans is down 26 . Since the beginning of the open Enrollment Period, about 9. 1 millione ed additional individu have enrolled. For the first year of a new program, this is a tremendous accomplishment. 2015 open enrollment is off to a solid start. Because of new choices and more competition in the Health Insurance marketplace, many consumers are able to shop and find more affordable options in the second year of the program. We have seen a 25 growth in the number of issuers participating in the marketplace which means that more than 90 of consumers will be able to choose from at least three or more issuers and over 60 of the marketplace enrollees are able to renew coverage at their middle level for less than 100 a month after tax credits. Those already covered should come back to the marketplace to review their options for next year. People may find an option that is either more affordable or better suits their needs. We have improved the experience as well. The shopping and enrollment process is simpler, faster and more intuitive for consumers. With the new steam lined application for many consumers, we have reduced the number of screens from 76 down to 16 with fewer clicks to navigate through questions for most consumers. Consumer interest is strong. Since open enrollment there have been over 765,000 plan selections, 48 of which are new consumers. Over 1. 5 million applications have been submitted and there have been more than 5 million website visits. The Affordable Care act is not just about coverage. In recent years, we have seen historically low growth in overall healthcare spending. Just last week, cms Office Released their 2013 Health Expenditure report which at 3. 6 is the Lowest Reported growth in Health Expenditures since the inception in 1960. While the recent slow cost growth has causes, reformed to the programs are a meaningful contributor to the gains and are improving quality as well. For example, preliminary estimates indicate that hospitalacquired infections fell by 17 from 2010 to 2013 resulting in 50,000 fewer admissions and over 12 billion in cost savings. Im proud of our progress at cms. Im proud of our team. They work hard every day to ensure better, safer and more Affordable Healthcare. Thank you and i look forward to your questions. Thank you. Before we go on, i recognize the Ranking Member for unanimous consent request. Chairman, one of my members requested that we have additional witness to come on the panel. I would ask that unanimous consent ask the chairman to allow that to happen. Are there any objections . I object. Would you reserve for a moment . Sure. Let me ask the witnesses, do you have any objections to having i understand he