We are working hard to collect every penny that we can. I am out of time, apparently. Mrs. Titus. Thank you mr. Chairman. A lot of that money leftover though, was used quietly to pay for the continuation of the denver project, wasnt it . Are you talking about the money from the treasury for the last five years . Wherever you found that. Its not available to us. We cant use that money. We thought we could, and its money that essentially becomes, as i said deobligated as expenses come in and also sometimes that there are new expenses for whatever might have happened in, lets say, in 14, and that money is used in that year, so you can become antideficient after the fact, so to speak. So that 1. 3 billion was not available to us. We had hoped it would be. I was the staff person that had the cryptic conversation with the house staff back in june and we had we thought we had a plan when i mean, in my opinion, quite frankly, we are a victim of our success. We have gotten many more veterans ca
Program or were gutting the Choice Program is absolutely positively wrong, proven by the data. 6 billion weve overspent 6 billion this year in in Community Care. Community care is absolutely essential. I think the issue is your hepatitis c drug, 1. 5 billion or whatever the number is for hepatitis c is part of the issue, and i dont think any one of us thinks that we should not be providing that drug. In no budget submission that i can recall was it discussed about that, although im hoping that somebody and ms. Brown actually talked about the forecasting that somebody was looking at the approval of that drug and that it was coming on and that if it did come on that it was going to cause a significant issue as it relates to the nonva care item, line item he, of 6 billion, which is gone now, its never been gone before, but all of a is sudden this year its disappeared. And my question was if we didnt have the pot of money that youre looking at now to solve this crisis, how would we solve t
Again, there was still no mention of a Hospital Systemwide shutdown. And finally at the hearing on june 25th itself there was no mention of a Hospital System shutdown coming in august. Mr. Secretary, im disappointed about the slow, painstaking revelation of this crisis by the department thats led by you. I understand their excuses as to why we are in it this position, however, somebody somewhere took their eye off the ball. Just as congress established a cap on spending for the denver project that va busted, Congress Also provided a budget for va for fiscal year 2015 which the president signed into law and it, too, is now busted. In both instances va has Left Congress with very little time to react to a crisis created by vas own management decisions. While we will not penalize veterans for vas management, or transparency failures, the days when va can come to congress and just say cut us a check are gone. Asking for flexibility without supporting information is not enough. Similar to t
Health Insurance Market for 2018. Senator murray and i will each have an Opening Statement and then well introduce our five witnesses. Welcome to you. After their testimony, senators will have an opportunity to ask the witnesses five minutes of questions. To begin with, we ought not to take for granted the three hearings this committee has had over the last ten days. For seven years hardly a civil word was spoken between republicans and democrats on the Affordable Care act. It was trumpcare versus obamacare day in and day out. But for the last ten days senators from both sides of the aisle have engaged in serious discussion for several hours at a time about what congress can do between now and the end of this month to help limit premium increases for 18 million americans next year and begin to lower premiums in the future. And also to prevent insurers from leaving the markets where those 18 million americans buy insurance. Last week, between the meetings held before our hearings, such
Hearing senator murray and i will each have an Opening Statement and will introduce our five witnesses. After their testimony senators can ask the witnesses five minutes of questions. To begin, we ought not take for granted the three hearings this committee is had over the past ten days. For seven years, hardly civil word was spoken between republicans and democrats on the affordable character. It was trump care versus obama care, day in and day out. For the last ten days senators have engaged in serious discussion for several hours at a time about what congress can do between now and the end of this month. To help limit premium increases for 18 million americans next year. And begin to lower premiums in the future. And also prevent insurers from leaving the markets for those 18 million americans by insurance. Last week between the meetings held before hearings like the we had today and the hearings half of the senators participated in bipartisan conversations about Health Insurance. I