ment, is asking for $100 million to ensure the Nation has an adequate supply of influenza vaccine in the event of a pandemic.

It is in the regular bill and I think it points out this SARS thing could have been a pandemic flu and we wouldn't have been able to control it. Luckily it is not but it could be the start of something that we don't really understand in the health care field. They have all the specimens from Canada, we have specimens from Hong Kong that were flown in yesterday and they are working around the clock, Mr. Chairman, to make the analysis. I should be able to have a better and more complete picture sometime this afternoon. I will call you with that information.

Due to the constant change in the circulating influenza strains, we cannot stockpile influenza vaccine because we have to wait from one year to the next and get the eggs produced. The current manufacture methods cannot meet our Nation's need in the event of a pandemic flu. Funds will be used for activities to ensure a new year-round influenza vaccine production capacity and the development and implementation of rapidly expandable production technologies. We are going to work closely with industry to accomplish these goals.

As you may know, the influenza pandemic of 1918 killed more than 500,000 Americans in less than 10 months. We are working to make sure nothing like that happens again. We are not prepared for it. I want you to know that and that is why this $100 million is so important.

BIOSHIELD

As you all know, last month President Bush announced Project Bioshield which is in a similar vein. We would spend roughly $6 billion over ten years on new counter measures to prepare America for a bioterrorist attack. This proposal would speed up research and approval of vaccines and treatments and ensure a guaranteed funding source for their purchase, just the latest in our forward looking efforts to protect the homeland.

NIH BUDGET

We also recently completed doubling of the budget of the National Institutes of Health. This year we continue that commitment with a budget of $27.9 billion, a net increase of $718 million over last year. As a result of one-time projects being funded and accelerated in fiscal year 2003 and not needing to be refinanced, actual research contracts and investments will rise by about 7 percent to $1.9 billion.

HEALTH CARE

Now let us turn to the rest of the budget. In my first two years, the Department has made tremendous progress in our efforts to improve the health, safety and well being of American people. We continue to make extraordinary progress in providing health care to lower income Americans. Through waiver and State plan amendments which have been granted to States, we have expanded access to health coverage for more than 2.2 million individuals. These are waivers I have granted to individuals. We have been able to get 2.2

million people covered by health insurance who didn't have it before and have expanded the range of benefits offered to an additional 6.7 million other Americans.

To build on this progress, we are proposing outlays for HHS of $539 billion, $539 billion for farmers, like you and me, is a lot of money, Mr. Chairman.

tle.

Mr. REGULA. Will buy a lot of hay.

HHS BUDGET

Secretary THOMPSON. Buy a lot of hay and increase a lot of cat

We request an increase of $37 billion or 7 percent over last year's request, an increase of more than $109 billion or 25 percent since 2001.

The difficulty has been the discretionary part of the budget. It increases $1.6 billion or 2.6 percent to $65 billion of budget authority. This was the President's proposal from fiscal year 2003 to fiscal year 2004, but subsequent to that time, the Congress has passed their budget which increased the amount of money which lowered the percentage that we had in our request. So our budget doesn't look as good when you look at that. The budget falls under the committee's jurisdiction of $60 billion, a lesser percentage.

We are attempting to keep health care costs down and prevent chronic diseases because Americans really aren't that healthy. This is something I have talked to you about, Mr. Chairman and many members. We have to do something about it.

PREVENTION

I am really happy to talk to you about prevention. We have to encourage Americans to lead healthier lives. We have all heard the disturbing news about the prevalence of diabetes, obesity and asthma, $155 billion a year in tobacco-related illnesses, 400,000 people die, $132 billion on diabetes and 17 million Americans have it, 16 million have pre-diabetes conditions; $117 billion on obesity and 300,000 people die. We are too fat, we are too sedentary and we smoke too much. We have to do something about it, ladies and gentlemen. I need your help.

I have also put my whole department on a diet. We hand out these little Walk-o-meters and you have to do 10,000 steps. If any of the members of the committee want one, I will send them up. You become somewhat addicted to them because you look at them during the day and if you haven't done close to your 10,000, you decide to walk up the steps instead of taking an elevator. It is a wonderful tool. Most of my people wear them and become very addicted. If the members of the committee would like to have one because you have been so good to us and since you have our budget, we would be more than happy to share our walk-o-meters with the committee.

Mr. REGULA. I assume you weren't sympathetic to the man on the John Deere?

Secretary THOMPSON. I don't want to go there right now, Mr. Chairman.

The HHS budget is consistent with the President's healthier efforts and proposes coordinated, departmentwide steps to

healthier U.S. from healthier lifestyles, emphasizing prevention of obesity, diabetes, asthma, heart disease, stroke and cancer and includes an investment of $125 million for targeted disease prevention for cities and States. I am really excited about it and I know you are too.

The President has made improvements in our Nation's health and health care one of his biggest priorities for the year. By working together, I think we can make it one of our proudest achievements. I look forward to all of the work in this committee and it is always an honor and privilege for me to come in front of this committee which I consider one of the best examples of bipartisanship at work. I think it is because of your leadership, Mr. Chairman, and I thank you for that.

Thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak twice in front of this committee. I have never had that privilege before.

YOUTH MEDIA CAMPAIGN

Mr. REGULA. Thank you. We do have a great group of members on this subcommittee. We are simply interested in helping you and in turn helping the American people.

Since you mentioned some of the programs you are doing to help people, I might start with the Youth Media Campaign. Is it working?

Secretary THOMPSON. The jury is still out but it is the VERB Program. I have to be very honest, I was one of the biggest critics of it. It was a program put out by CDC and for the tweeners, those between ages 9 and 13, to get them out of their living rooms watching television onto the playground. They have to pick a verb and act it out.

Since I am not a tweener and a long ways from that and I don't have any children that are tweeners, I guess I didn't appreciate the beauty of it but as I understand from people in my office that have children in that category, they understand what the VERB is all about. We are expanding it into getting athletes to start talking about it, so I will hold my remarks and my criticisms until I see better results.

CDC tells me that this is getting very good marks, in fact much higher marks than they expected. So, I compliment them. Overall, even if it is as successful as CDC is telling me it is and was going to be even more successful in the future, I still believe we have to do more. That is why the $125 million for healthier cities and States and healthier steps for U.S. is so important because we are too darned fat, we don't exercise and we have to get Americans out walking, running, dancing and eating properly, whatever the case may be.

HEALTHY START

Mr. REGULA. The First Lady is leading the initiative in your department known as Healthy Start, Grow Smart Program. We are pleased to initiate funding for this in fiscal year 2003. Have you started distributing these pamphlets yet? Is the program moving? I know that just got signed recently.

Secretary THOMPSON. It was signed on the 20th of February, so it is a bit early but we have the mechanism set up to get this infor

mation out and we will continue to work on that and report back to the committee. We are making some progress.

It seemed to me, looking at the materials, we are going to give that program a greater boost.

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

Mr. REGULA. Have you had some success in communications? I know we talked earlier when you first got there and had I don't know how many computer systems, many of which could not talk to each other, many departments. Communications is a challenge. Secretary THOMPSON. It was the strangest thing. We have 85,000 workstations for 63,000 people; we have 200 different computer systems; we have 3,200 individuals to maintain those 200 different computer systems; and most of the computer systems do not work together.

We are centralizing and purchasing new equipment and modernizing. We are nowhere near what I want us to be but we are making great progress. I hope to be able to report it. I want to get to the kind of computer system we set up in the command center because that is state of the art, one of the best in the country, if not the best. We should do the same for the department because our responsibility is so huge, we interact with every American and every man, woman and child on a daily basis. We have to be much more efficient than we have been in the past. We are working toward that effort. I would grade us a "B" but I want us to be an "A."

HOSPITAL TECHNOLOGY

Mr. REGULA. U.S. News recognized the value of what you are doing in the command center which I think leads to something I think is a challenge and important. That is to make the health delivery system seamless.

Secretary THOMPSON. I am so happy you raised that because that is how you are going to save money, 98,000 deaths last year because of mistakes, 50 percent because of the wrong mis-diagnoses and mistakes in doses of medicines. Just think, a floor nurse is working hard, she has the whole floor to take care of. She goes in and still have to decipher Dr. Weldon's handwriting, which is probably better than most doctors, but still not the best. Then she has to unlock the medicine cabinet, parcel out the medicine and going back, she is stopped five or six times and when she gets there, she doesn't know if it is the right time, the right dosage and whether it is going to interact with other medicines. The swipe capacity is there and that is why we are requiring the pharmaceutical companies to bar code their drugs, we just issued the rule and we are going to require all drugs to be bar coded. We want to get to the same kind of swipe capacity every grocery store has now. Grocery stores are more technologically advanced than our hospitals. They don't make mistakes. You check out, you know what it is going to be and so on. We should do that in all hospitals.

We are standardizing the rules so the technology can be interacting from one hospital to another. We are working with the Department of Veterans Affairs, which has a good control system. We want to be able to adopt that system. We are putting out dem

onstration plans through CMS in order to get this technology done. I really think we need to have some sort of capital fund to encourage clinics and hospitals, maybe as the Chairman Regula Fund, and use dollars out of the fraud and abuse money and have it matched three to one or two to one so that hospitals and clinics put up $3, get $1 from the Federal Government, and be able to handle uniform technology so we could have inter-operability across America.

We would reduce costs, reduce the time and we certainly would reduce the mistakes being made in medicine. That to me is where we have to go, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. REGULA. Should we do a pilot program or should we go with it? I like it.

Secretary THOMPSON. We should deal with it. I don't know why we need pilot programs. Veterans Affairs has a very good system, certain hospitals have good systems, but nobody has put together a national system. It is there for the making. America is so technologically advanced. The technology is there, why wait? Let us put in the system, standardize the rules, bar code and maybe, as the first step, start out with the scanning capacity. That would help immensely drive the system and reduce mistakes.

Mr. REGULA. Does your budget request have some money in there to do this?

Secretary THOMPSON. No, it does not, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. REGULA. Well, then we need to put some in there. I think it is a great idea.

Secretary THOMPSON. I think it is a wonderful idea and something I have been working on but I don't have any money in there. Mr. REGULA. Why don't you get us some information about what you think it would take as a modest amount to get this going.

Secretary THOMPSON. I think it would be fantastic.

Mr. REGULA. Because Reader's Digest not long ago had a major story on medical mistakes which you alluded to in numbers, the same thing, and we could do a great service in that respect.

I notice one of the questions we had is the fiscal year 2004 budget requests $50 million for demonstration safety hospital information.

Secretary THOMPSON. That would be part of it but I am going beyond that. The $50 million is a demonstration plan for hospital technology but I really think we need to incorporate the clinics, the doctors and the hospitals all together in a unified system. People say it would be very expensive and I think the dollars you would save would be much more.

Mr. REGULA. It has to start with the bar coding.

Secretary THOMPSON. Bar coding and standardization is where we start. We have to have standardized forms, standardized rules and that is what the department is working on.

Mr. REGULA. We will pursue that.

Secretary THOMPSON. I would be more than happy to give you a whole written report on it.

up.

Mr. REGULA. I would like to have that before we do any mark

I have several more questions but I want to give the other members a chance. I think Ms. Roybal-Allard was the first one here.