Ron Johnson

How many different rules, regulations, laws in the Federal Government run counter to each other when it comes to privacy?

Mr. Wilshusen, you testified about the concept of limiting the information the Federal Government obtains and basically limiting the time that it is kept.

Protecting Americans' privacy is a bipartisan issue that I hope my colleagues will continue to advance in the years to come.

The right to a personal life. That is really the fundamental piece here is that it is very difficult to explore new ideas.

It is also highly complex.

Are you finding DHS to be very helpful from that standpoint?

I think this is very timely. The full Senate now is taking up the cybersecurity bill.

Promoting privacy and civil liberties has been a priority during my tenure in the U.S. Senate, and I will continue focusing on this issue until the end of the year.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

In terms of our outreach to DHS prior to this event and to other agencies, it was limited.

This is obviously not an acceptable timeline.

I appreciate that. We are working with CRS right now trying to--I am trying to get my head around the problem.

What about subtracting? What is the process?

It drives me nuts that I cannot get information.

How do you manage this $3.8 trillion a year beast?

I think we're really whistling past the graveyard here.

I'll just try to wrap up what I was trying to achieve with my questioning, first starting out with the question about the private sector, where you've actually come in the private sector and worked toward these solutions.

We have a huge problem with Medicare. As it is, the health care law starting in 2016 adds about a $2 trillion problem to that figure.

The health care law, it was supposedly funded for 10 years by about half a trillion dollars in taxes, fees and penalties, and about a half a trillion dollars, $500 billion, in reductions to Medicare and Medicaid, Medicare Advantage.

I'm afraid the system is going to be horribly broken because if we roll the budgetary window forward to when the health care law actually gets fully kicked in, about 2016 with full spending, the total cost of the health care law will be…

Roughly, I think he found, for a couple retiring today, basically a two average earner couple, that they would have paid in roughly about $116,000 into Medicare, with an expected benefit--and all these things are time-value-adjusted--of…

So would you say the cost savings you expect really come more from that coordination of care versus just a capitated type of payment system?

But in terms of limiting the increase of cost, certainly from my standpoint, introducing free market principles into health care would be one of those things.

If you were to guess, which model do you think would be superior?

In terms of trying to limit the increase in costs, and I think that's about all you can really do in health care, unfortunately.