s Those are the dollars on on the the surf filing And uh, so that they're not out of the ballpark. They're not out of scale with each other Yes, it's a complicated connection But I just uh, so I I guess I want to ask the question Given that the trend rate on Is four tenths of one percent since 2017 and given that the appropriation In global commitment 2023 over 22 was reduced by 18.5 million you know Did blue cross blue shield who was not Unten influential you do have influenced did you participate in any Efforts under the golden dome or at the state house to Basically say yeah, uh caseloads are going down. You're saving some money But you could put that money into rate rate increases You don't have to send it off to other parts of state government, which as A former guilty party. Um, I can say You know that that that can back I think I'm a guilty party. I hope I'm not a guilty party, but I probably am you know that You know, uh, there's opportunity there to Um to pay providers more through Medicaid and take some of the cost pressure shift off of you folks Yeah, we would certainly, uh, welcome that sort of move I I don't actually have knowledge of our of our activities In montpelier to effectuate that so I I can't speak to that with any degree of detail But I think as you can tell from mr. George's letter Blue cross would certainly be supportive Um of those kinds of things um, my next is question has to do with just uh Is there one number in terms of the the cost sharing increases that were recommended and approved by diva And a few of the minor ones by us. I think there were two or three on that list that we approved If if if that if that, uh, those increases in cost sharing were translated into premium increase How much on top of kind of the requested premium increase? What what would be the value of these cost sharing increases if they were translated into premium? So in other words if we hadn't increased the cost sharing and instead kept the cost sharing flat and allowed that to flow through premium instead Right, okay. Um, I I don't have an exact number for you. Typically what we see is that the um The actuarial value uh movement over time is usually a little bit over one percent per year So if we if we keep them flat that would be about a one percent probably a little over a one percent premium increase um, you know, I I will point out that there are Uh parameters within which we need to keep that the cost sharing So a lot of the that movement is kind of dictated by the need to stay within the the metal levels that are defined by the federal government So I you know, we we don't have I you know, we don't have carte blanche ability to just keep everything the same as it was unfortunately um, but yeah So I I just asked that question More for the general public who might come to the hearing later on this week that it's not only the premium increase But it's also these cost sharing increases a minor partner But you know once you get up into double digits it all adds it all adds up um My next question is um They basically kind of wondering Uh, there was an article in the um from my digger this last week about how You know a reemergence of the pandemic a little bit or of a different strain of virus might um, un Unsettle kind of the budget process this year There's no no doubt about that But I just I just wonder How looking down the road six months or a year how we We know What the impact is Of this uh in in your case this 38.1 million dollar increase investment in higher kind of higher premiums You know on a combined basis So um and in a fee for service world What what should we look at to know that this investment Is doing the maximum amount of can for hospitals and independent providers, etc To stabilize the system Hopefully coming out of the pandemic. What what should we What are the measures we should look be looking at that that say This uh this 38 million dollars is a lot of money um and part of it is just not to kind of you know, um Pay providers more but it's strategically, um Structured to stabilize The weaker members of our provider system Yeah, that's a that's a great question and I I think the answer to that probably lies in the hospital budget Uh approval process more so than it than it lies in the rates um, I I can well You know, I I can say we you know, we did include the impact of of anticipating remun careboard action on the hospital budget requests We assume that impact would be in line with what it has been in the past Um, and that's not to say that you'll treat every hospital the same. I'm quite certain that you won't Uh, but at this point in time, it's it's hard to anticipate a hospital by hospital Uh action that you're going to take Um is part of our advocacy for ratepayers We we'd certainly welcome and encourage you to take a really hard look at at these hospital budget submissions Uh to ensure that that is money well spent the um Kind of a related question you know, well Let let let let me just say for for me in my perspective. I'm not an actuary and I'm not a lawyer uh kind of uh but you know I try to avoid getting involved in those technical weeds But I but I you know, I I I I Given the actuarial process I kind of wonder how Um, how to integrate the the economic context. So for example, jeff car and tom kebeth submit their annual economic forecast to the um to the uh Emergency board and the emergency board adopts it, which is a big formal deal in the process of the state government They're looking uh, their report to the emergency board was a 4.4 percent 2023 increasing gross state product and a 3.6 percent increase in personal income Nowhere near where um these rate increase requests are And so I can understand from an actuarial basis where you're looking in the review mirror And this is what you've seen and you're projecting it forward and you end up with this, you know, with this recommendation That recommendation is still, you know, way out of context of what's going on in the underlying economy The state budget and just in terms of state funds forgetting about all this federal money The state budget uh for 2023 over 2022 Went down 5.4 percent. So it was it was a negative And and over the the five years going back To 2017 it's been a 5.66 percent increase So I look at that and I say well, that's in touch with the economy, you know And and and it's reasonable As opposed to where I started in the state budget Which was coming off high double digit numbers in the cune administration And then uh, we hit the 1990 recession and the bottom fell out And Dick Snelling had the sustainable send spending proposal That governor dean embraced and we went negative a couple years on the state budget So I'm just I'm just wondering Given, you know, given the scale of this requested increase um Whether or not this is a one-year issue or a three-year issue I mean it took us six or seven years to work out of the The um bond rating went down et cetera et cetera in the early 90s And I'm just wondering if What the context for this increase is is this just one in a Series do you think or is this a a one-time fix to help stabilize the system and Stabilize providers and we'll be back in the you Four to five percent range in 2024. What are your what's your thoughts on that? Yeah, what what I can say is this this increase is uh inextricable from the hospital budget increases that you'll be considering next month Um, as I've testified over 10 points of our final increase is due to increases in prices that providers are paid Um, so that that 10 points is certainly not uh in step with the with the figures that you quoted for the broader economy as well um As to how that's going to play out in the future I Um I'm not sure that I have a much better guest than anybody else I'd like to think that the current batch of hospital budget requests are going to um stabilize These hospitals that are asking for double-digit increases. Not all of them are there Certainly a few hospitals that are that are in the single digits kind of in the mid single digits And we we'd certainly love for that to be all hospitals um I I believe the intention is to try to surmount these problems and put them in the rear view mirror Uh talking about problems, uh budgetary problems hospitals are facing in terms of hiring visiting nurses You know doctors coming in to meet the demand they've had workforce issues So the sooner we can get that behind us the sooner we can uh return to normalcy as as the phrase was coined um Can that be accomplished in a year? I I don't know. It's a it's a heavy lift that the the hospitals are going to undertake um My job really uh while it's certainly technical is in some ways a lot easier and that I I Simply am reflecting those cost increases In these rates, uh, and when it comes to them to do 20 24 rates, I'll take the same approach I'll take a look at what's going on with the hospitals Um what their financial performance has been How the rate increases that will be approved uh in september Are going to impact that financial performance going forward and I'll use all of that information to kind of inform What the 20 24 increase is going to be how's that going to play out? I I think it really depends immensely on the extent to which hospitals are successful in stabilizing their own operations Uh and bringing some of those extra costs under control Unfortunately, some of that probably also depends on what happens with the pandemic Are are we going to continue to see these these big waves that we saw in 2021 and even into 2022? You know, we're we're kind of experiencing more of a caseload now Hospitalization is down in vermont, but that's certainly not true across the country There's there's many many areas in the country where hospitalization is is ramping up again um due to covet so Gosh a lot of it depends on the on the pandemic and the hospital's ability to kind of stabilize And I you know, I I kind of unfortunately lack a lack a good crystal ball about 2024 I have a pretty clear indication of what's likely to happen in 2023 So I I have been able to incorporate that into the rates But that that work of incorporating the increases in rates is is pretty minor compared to the work of actually using those funds to stabilize hospital operations so that we can Get back down toward More affordable increases in the future Kind of building on that just a little bit. It's uh and going back to the whole fee-for-service concept that One of the only windows I seen on fee-for-service um Actually kind of playing out in the field is that very small study that we did on reimburse price reimbursement Um, I think it came out last spring where you can look at um commercial payments to providers In the same year for the same procedure and see this wide variance You know and and and how How that's applied, you know within hospital budgets. And so I worry That we don't have a window to measure to to kind of You know, except for these very top side numbers to measure You know, whether or not the use of these increased um premiums is being done in as thoughtful and as uh Kind of stabilizing manner as possible My my last my very last question is the long shot here It's um You know, as you know, there, you know, cms has this annual requirement For um each hospital operating in the United States to provide clear Accessible pricing information online about the items and services they provide Um including a unique list of 300 shoppable items Uh items and services including 70 already defined by cms And I just wonder that we have this system in place already The federal government mandates it hospitals have to abide by it I've looked at some of those um filings in hospitals and it is chaotic You know, it's it's it's definitely Uh a system that you you know, if you're if it's patient facing It doesn't work very well for you, but if you're trying to look to see follow the money, you know in terms of procedures It's not easy to deal with I I spent a lot of time with uvm's example, which is just this huge spreadsheet um And i'm just wondering if whether or not we could play a role um In finding a common format for each hospital to submit to cms and because it's a common format the the The utility of this federally mandated annually reported 300 shoppable procedures is something that we can we can use to kind of Shine a light on where we are and and where the system might be working or where the system might not be working um So that's that's my that that's my wish of the day and um If you can put some wind in that sail it I'd appreciate it I see what I can do. I think we would welcome that involvement And we we agree with your characterization that the current uh, the currently it's quite chaotic But it's a system that's out there and uh, you know, I I don't see why we couldn't say And I don't think any of these Of methods that any hospital for martyrs used has been counted violation So so so it's not like you know, we've got a bunch of bad apples out there We've just got a a bunch of chaotic apples and Just wondering if giving bringing order to that would be helpful So thank you, um for this and uh, that's all I have to To say and to inquire about excellent move to Remember homes Great. Thank you Good morning, mr. Schultz. How are you? Good morning. I am well and it is still morning when I'm talking to you this year. So that's that's good. Barely, right? Barely Um Well, so many of my questions have actually been addressed by your testimony already as happens when you go towards the end But I do have a few So actually as it turns out last friday, the federal government did actually extend the public health emergency for another three months And you know, as you've already Mentioned it looks like we still have some A few more worrisome new sub variants predicted for the fall and kovat is still very much with us And I assume that this latest extension any subsequent extensions that we might see there's going to postpone this redetermination Of medicaid eligibility So how will these, uh, public health emergency extensions impact Your assumptions about medicaid members transitioning to the exchange and in particular your assumptions about the population Morbidity risk and utilization trend that you have in the filing right now Great great question. Um, so So the assumptions that are currently in the filing are that the the new members would not really have an impact on experience We assume they would look a lot like our existing membership um by and large we So the the major impacts were really on administrative costs in terms of bringing them down Um, and there are some kind of residual impacts on risk adjustment and other things like that But we we did not have any sort of, you know Massive or really particularly significant movement in terms of the the cost the claim cost um, the biggest component of the premium so There will absolutely be an impact when these folks flow into the market But since we don't know when that's going to happen. It's hard to gauge what that's going to be So a couple of things one is since we're pretty sure at this point that they're unlikely to be there at the beginning of the year That does a couple of things one is that Our administrative costs will probably run a little bit higher on a pm pm basis than what we have in the filings because we won't get That bump to membership um Another thing that could happen is if these members end up joining midstream Unless we have some sort of regulatory Um action that means that their deductibles are going to start. Let's say they they enter the Enter the fray in next august or something like that You know, they'll have a short plan year So their deductibles will apply for only five months instead of 12 That means that their paid claims as a portion of the total are going to be low Um relative to the average member So that that would actually offset the administrative cost impact Um the extent to which it offsets or overcomes it really depends on the timing of when those folks enter the market And right now that's that's kind of anybody's guess. I think at this time as to when exactly they'll come in so um You know all that said it's it's not this isn't going to be this is going to be something we measure in tenths of a percent It's not going to be something we measure in in the full percentages Um, so yeah, we'll we'll see how it plays out, but it's it should be a relatively minor impact at the end of the day okay, um, and as I think everybody has already mentioned this is a pretty unprecedented year in terms of expected increases in pharmaceutical drug prices and hospital rates in insurance premiums Um, and I I just want to probe a little bit. It's been touched on but I want to probe a little bit deeper You know as people face these higher premium rates I would anticipate I would love to know your opinion on this that people may drop metal levels with the higher premiums They're then going to face greater cost sharing and they may utilize less And even within a metal level facing higher medical prices They may also utilize less particularly if they're in the the metal levels with higher cost sharing so Do you have an estimate of this price responsiveness or elasticity and how do you account for it In your projections for utilization for 23 particularly given that this is a truly unprecedented year in terms of these These deltas on the price increases. We may see an impact and I'm curious as to how you've accounted for that Yeah, so we we did take a look at um plan migration from 2021 to 2022 and we included that In the filing So that that's in there. Uh, your question is more to do with anticipated plan migration to 2023 and that's a that's a little bit harder to judge Um, so we we haven't um, you know, I totally understand what you're saying and I think that that could realistically happen Um, we don't have an assumption that that's you know that that plan migration is going to to increase because of the of the higher prices It's possible that it will I guess here. I'll just say that You know plan migration over time and we've had some some unfortunately We've had some rather large increases in the past as well And we've never noticed plan migration that has an impact of greater than a tenth or two of a percent Um on the on the final claims So I I don't think we're talking about a huge ticket item here But I do hear what you're saying and I think it would be reasonable to think about that The other thing we did not include although we we could think about this too is that um, unfortunately We could well see a rise in the uninsured rate um with these large hospital budget increases driving a large premium increases um And typically when that happens, it's the healthier members who decide to leave the market So that would have the opposite influence to the one that you're talking about Or that you know the healthier members leaving would drive premiums or drive claims per member per month Higher than what we're showing in this filing. So there's there's definitely some movement there It will absolutely be different than the more or less status quo that we're assuming in the filing But it's it's unclear to me that that movement will definitively be in one direction or the other And I think at the end of the day given the the you know, we've for a very long time had a low Uninsured rate in vermont And I you know, I don't I'd like to think that these increases are not going to change that In an appreciable way. So I think at the end of the day, we're talking about a rather small impact in one direction or the other um, and I you know, my my best assumption for all of that stuff Is to kind of go with the status quo assumption that that's that's going to be a net neutral And then we end up with just projecting the the claims based on the population. We already have Okay um And I apologize if I've missed my missed in the materials my following question If I have please just point me to it or if you need to submit and follow up That's fine, too But my question is for the past five years How have your actual administrative costs compared to your projected administrative costs at the time of filing Oh interesting question. I don't think that is in the material, but I'm certain that's something we could follow up with That would be great. Thank you um And on page 28 of exhibit one, um, there's a table in there regarding the Increase in fraud, waste and abuse payment recoveries Yes And I'm just wondering if you can speak to what accounts for the increase in those fraud, waste and abuse payment recoveries You know They're even now last year was even higher than pre-pandemic and I guess my question is what accounts for it? Are they are more fraudulent and wasteful claims or are your teams better at detecting them? Wow What a loaded question The the answer I think is twofold one is we we did suspend Quite a bit of fwa activity during the height of the pandemic in 2020. So we've been sort of recovering From that level. We know that was artificially dampened for a time. You can see it start to recover in q4 Um, but then really recover back toward and above pre-pandemic levels in in 2021 The other part of it is uh has to do with the vendors we're working with we're we're working with a few new vendors Um, and the the way these things work, you know, it's It's not really a sample kind of thing. You're not going to dig into a claim and say Ooh, this one. Let's see. Let's find out if this one's fraudulent. There's really a Parameters or an algorithm that's set up to identify claims that may be an outlier for one reason or suspicious claims I guess might be a way to put it So if there's a if there's a certain parameter or part of the claim that doesn't fall within usual bounds or standards That's one we'll pull out and take a look at it investigate So it's it's really the the improved algorithms that we're using on the vendor side That's helping us to identify more claims that we need to take a closer look at Um, and that's that's why the you know, we we don't think the 1.99 percent we achieved in 2021 is going to turn out to be a High outlier. We've assumed that we'll be we'll be able to continue To identify claims at that same level about two percent as we move into the future Um, ideally we you know providers will learn learn And typically this happens providers learn that they can't code in a certain way or And so they'll make adjustments to make sure that what they're what they're doing on the on the coding side and submitting claims is Proper and in alignment. I don't think we have any real bad actors out there But we do think we'll be able to continue to achieve that two percent as we move forward How does that two percent number compared to benchmarks you might use or other blue cross boo shield organizations across the country Yeah, it aligns pretty well To my recollection We presented a great deal of the testimony last year On those national benchmarks, and I I could probably flip through and find it and read from it It's not necessarily my area of expertise But at a high level it aligns pretty well with what we what we see others attempting to achieve or actually achieving nationally Okay, great. Those are my questions chair malin. Thank you very much. Mr. Schultz You're welcome Okay, we'll move to board member Walsh next Thank you, and hello, mr. Schultz Hello, mr. Walsh Nice to meet you Likewise Thanks for your presentation today going through the numbers. I want to ask a couple questions just about affordability Um, you you talked about it earlier mentioned that it's something that You and your organization care about And I'd like to just make sure that I understand how you assess it How that's how that's measured or or looked at I think I got a couple things with when you were talking earlier about The quality of the products that blue cross offers and that some of them Save more money than they cost and that your your cost of insurance charges Are quite a bit less than allowable Those are the two things that I had in my notes, but I'm wondering if there if there are any other measures of affordability um Yes, they're they're a You know affordability as as you're aware as has not been defined In the in the standards and the rules So there there are a number of different ways that you could assess affordability um One point that we've always held to is that um We do have to employ a community rating. That's a requirement in vermont So one thing we cannot do Is say well this person is healthy Um, and this is their income level So they're probably they're probably not going to have a lot of claims because they're healthy Here's their income level. So we're going to charge them a certain amount And then this person over here who's who's going to consume a million dollars of health care um, you know Our premiums are incredibly affordable for that person Right, they're they're they're paying A certain amount for an insurance product and the benefit they're getting is a million dollar benefit from that product That's affordable. I think by any definition um So the question to us really becomes so is this rate affordable for the community? Of subscribers and I think the you know, the two things you talked about are very important Um looking at our cost of insurance looking at the value that we bring and the savings We're able to bring to the premiums compared to what we charge for our part of the premium Which is the cost of insurance But the bigger component Is taking a look at those claim costs And the projection of that and making sure that there's no kind of margin or fluff in there We're doing a fair and adequate job Of projecting future claims Um, and we you know, that's part of that is luis and ellis's rule They they do a very in-depth examination of the work that we've done to make sure that we're not Um, we're not doing something improper. We're not doing something that results in a rate That's too high that we are in fact fairly reflecting Um the 90 plus percent of premium that that is driven entirely by the the cost of care In vermont and outside of vermont as our members travel um They've done so and they've agreed with the with the one exception that we've talked about there is one point of contention this year Um, but luis and ellis has agreed that the numbers that we're putting in there That is a reasonable projection and I can also look at our historical financial results And determined by looking at those that we do a pretty good job Of projecting that 90 plus percent component of premium if I look at our actual financial performance Versus our expected to financial performance over the years, which is um, that's in the binder Uh at exhibit one page six Um We can see that over the entirety of these products the approved Contribution reserves so the approved amount that we we thought we would be able to put into reserves after paying for all the claims And the administration was zero point six percent and the actual result has been zero point two percent So our our assumptions over time have been a little bit aggressive. That is they've produced rates that have been slightly under um I'm sorry. We produce. Yes, we produce rates that have been slightly under um, what what's actually turned out actual experience has been very slightly higher. So, um you know, I If the rating rules were different and I could take a look at something like age rating for example You know, we I hear from a lot of families in public comment that come and say that this This is just way too much for a young family to pay for And I personally don't necessarily disagree with that, but I'm not allowed to use age rating in Vermont I'm not allowed to reflect the fact that a young family of two 30 year olds and a child or two Is likely to spend a lot less on health care than a couple that's in their early sixties And we can debate the policy merits of of that, you know at at length Um, but the fact is I I'm not allowed to rate that way And so it may well be that the coverage Could be considered unaffordable by that young family of four And part of the reason for that is that they're being charged more than they're likely to consume Um Within that insurance, but the flip side is true for that couple in their sixties, right? So but we can't look at it individually We have to look at it in the community because I have to use a community rate in these products Yeah, and and I hear you we could we could debate it I happen to think that that's probably the community rating is probably a better way to go Um, but it's debatable as you talked about the The thing that I'm trying to get my head around as a new board member and trying to understand affordability It seems to me. We don't have a good measure of it From the consumer or the the individuals needing health care, right? You you had an example of someone who has a million dollars worth of expenses And that Because they don't pay in that much It would be absolutely affordable and I don't quite agree there their premiums may still be Not affordable for them because oftentimes the people who are sickest and have the most need for health care Are unable to work as much Right, so this this affordability nugget is tough But it's in the models and the range of variables you nicely described stochastic models I have fond memories of them for my dissertation You describe a range of variables, right? We don't have something like that for affordability And so that's not playing into our models the same way We get 74 pages of public comments that things are not affordable But we don't have a good measure of it yet, and I think that's a that's a weakness But I appreciate your calm explanation through things. You're very clear and and I appreciate you doing that So thank you very much Thank you for the kind words That's all back to you mic Two questions from chair moan Thank you, um, mr. Schultz Uh, we hear continually about the lack of capacity in the mental health system And we hear continually about increased demand You're projecting that, um They the costs are going to go up But what leads you to believe that there's sufficient capacity In the existing mental health system That would allow for those additional costs to you as a payer Good question. Um part of the answer to that is telemedicine There's an increasing use of telemedicine in the mental health space It's proven to be very effective clinically So part of the way that we're, uh Reacting to the demand for mental health services is by increasing the supply through telemedicine You don't necessarily have to hang a shingle in vermont in order to Help a vermonter with their mental health Um, and I you know, I'll admit I I can't really speak in a great deal of depth about the initiatives that we have currently underway But the mental health space is one that is very important to blue cross blue shield of vermont Particularly through our vermont collaborative care initiative Um, and we you know, we've we will continue to uh to make sure that we're working within this space to make sure that that That additional demand is met When you take a look at, uh Patient acuity Utilization trends Are they indicative since blue cross is the largest commercial payer in the state? Are they indicative of Um, your company's efforts at prevention and wellness and care management Yes, yes, all of that is embedded within the experience that we analyze to to come up with those trends So we're effectively assuming that the success we've had with all of those efforts Will continue to produce better and better results as we move forward in time You blocked out for a second, but I think I got your answer And uh, that was all I had for questions. So thank you Thank you chair melon I believe uh, robin had asked for an opportunity to follow up And anything Yes, thank you. I just have a couple more that I missed the first time around. Sorry about that Um, Mr. Schultz could you take a look at exhibit 23 page 12? It's attachment a to the supplemental prefiled testimony that you provided Getting there, um, let me know when you're there I've got it Awesome. So, uh, in that bottom table for, um, historical total medical pm pm matched populations I noted that you had a two-year trend and a four-year trend Did you calculate a three-year trend and uh, do you know what that would be? We did we're not displaying it because of the severe disruption that covid had in 2022 I don't have the number in front of me. Um, we could do the map and figure that out But as you can see that 2020 pm pm is significantly dampened Because of the impact of covid so we we do have the number, but I don't think it's particularly indicative of anything useful Okay, I'd just be curious to see what it is understanding, of course about covid sure, um And then the other question I had is, um Um, so you testified today that you were not surprised that the 2019 utilization was lower than 2018 medical utilization because it was an outlier. Is that right? Because the 2018 utilization was an outlier. Yes, that's yeah Yeah, uh, and in the 2020 rate filing, however, you did assume a positive utilization trend. Did you knock? I will have to take your word for that Okay, we most likely did yes Okay, thank you very much. That's all I have Mike Okay before we get Back to redirect. Um There was an email exchange, uh the hca had asked for The email from don george that board member pelham referenced And there were a number of other Actual statements that are not in the record that were referenced One of them being you know the continuation of the Public health emergency things like that. Um, I I expect that We may, uh Propose to take judicial notice of certain facts. I would anticipate that that would come After the hearing so something we'll deal with In writing after the hearing, but uh, we'd like to hear from the parties about that at this time Thank you, mr. Barber You know, I think we I don't anticipate objecting, but would want to see the you know specific proposal um, we're We're fine with your proposal, uh, mr. Hearing officer I think you're you're muted Mr. Barber Oh, I said it I'll turn it back to you for any redirect Um Would it be all right if I just took a ask for a brief couple minute recess to review my notes? Yes, uh, why don't we reconvene it? Order till noon Okay, thank you Hello again, mr. Schultz Hello, mr. Battles Uh, mr. Angle asked you a few questions about, uh, the actuarials Standards of practice or ASOPs and how they impact your medical trend assumptions Um, I'd ask you if you could turn to your supplemental Prefile testimony at exhibit 23 and specifically page eight If you could just review your your first response on the top of page eight and then sort of summarize that response for the board Um, yes, so the the question is whether Uh, it is in what way the L&E opinion contained, uh, what I believe to be a clear error And that has to do with the actuarial standards of practice which do prescribe that the actuary should determine the extent to which past experience trends are relevant to assume future trends Um, so Mr. Angle was was asking me a series of questions about whether those standards of practice are prescriptive in terms of this precise methodology that is used to assess those trends and the standards are not um, but they are prescriptive in in in saying that the actuary must Uh, assess how past trends may or may not be indicative of future trends Thank you. And then I just uh, a couple additional questions to follow up on on some of the uh, some mr. Angle's questions about, um specific numbers in in, uh uh actuarial report and so if you could turn to the report which is exhibit one and, uh, specifically page 21 and, uh You could take, um A moment for review and sort of the first paragraph on that page and then explain to, uh Uh Whether that addresses the impact that the civica rx initiative has on the file rates It it does indeed. Um Yes, so this the bulk of this paragraph has to do with the impact of of civica rx on um specialty drugs Uh, so I was asked earlier to point to the number that we included in the rate filing and in fact there it is So at the top of the page we included a factor of 0.9974 um That was applied to specialty drugs for the impact of civica as I testified earlier It's you know, civica rx is just starting production. So the impact is not immense Um in in 2023 you're not expected to be immense in 2023 But we do hope that that gains momentum over time and becomes a more significant number And then just one more question, uh Turning to binder exhibit two Which contains, uh, the exhibits to the actuarial report if you could look at page Um, 26 And, um If you could Explain what we're looking at there I should have retrieved my magnifying glass in our five minute break, but I failed to do so but um this This appears to to be um I was asked earlier for um A demonstration of the mental health utilization that led me to conclude that an eight and a half percent utilization trend was appropriate Moving forward. Um, and and this would be that data. So this is the mental health and substance abuse Services data that we use to construct that eight and a half percent utilization assumption Okay Thank you. No further questions Angoff, do you have any additional cross on that on those issues? No questions Okay, and I think we need to deal with when To have an executive session because I did hear Mr. Angoff and uh board members Have some questions about Confidential material I'd ask you mr. Chair. Do you have any Preference to what would you like to do it before we go into a lunch break? um group it with any Executive session we have around, uh, Miss green's testimony. What would you like to do? My preference would be to group it with lunch and I do not have a preference Whether it's pre-launch or apre-launch, but as long as it's during that break it allows the public to know that will be back um within a certain Estimable amount of time um That they can uh know that uh, they can tune back in so either before or after lunch um Would be best Okay, I would propose before lunch just to continue with The flow of testimony and not break it up. Um If that is okay with the parties Mr. Herring officer, do you mean the in the entire uh executive session before lunch including both The hospital related issues and the rbc related issues or just the hospital related issues Uh, so it would just be questions for mr. Schultz um On confidential It's on confidential rbc related materials, which we haven't spoken about yet Right. Are you assuming those would be before lunch too? Uh, I yes, um, I'm asking if that is okay with the parties or whether they would prefer it be after lunch I don't think we have an objection to to doing the session before before lunch. Um I will note that you know, we we do as you know happen, uh Ruth green testifying uh today, uh, also in and she may Be be witness better suited to address some of the rbc questions and just letting Jane know that for his Yeah, uh Mr. Herring officer, I I prefer to do the rbc questions after lunch If that's at all possible Just because I think together they're going to take a while Okay. Well, it sounds like So i'm hearing Ben say that some of the rbc questions may be more appropriate for ruth. I think in the past we've had Uh, ruth and paul kind of testify in an executive session Uh Together I think maybe that might make the most sense, but that means uh, I think that we can't group it with lunch So that's the trade-off, but I think that's probably Okay, so So why don't we so I'm proposing that we plan an executive session for uh, miss green and mr. Schultz for This afternoon following kind of at the tail end of miss greens testimony. Does that sound Okay to the parties Fine with the h3a Okay, any concerns from board members on that plan Okay, then why don't we break for lunch at this time? When we come back, uh, the next witness is kevin ruggaberg from louis and ellis and we'll hear from ruth green Then we'll have the executive session. I assume Here from jesse lucer at tfr Uh, and then from blackfisher Okay, so I that's a lot to get through so why don't we take a half an hour lunch? that That okay Yes Okay, so we'll um reconvene this hearing at 12 30 And here from mr. Ruggaberg Thank you. Thank you. Thanks


All right, good evening. Thanks for everyone for coming out tonight. What I'd like to do in the next five or 10 minutes is just do a brief overview of how to access the data, both on the project website and in other resources that we have, either at NCBI or EBI. And I'll be followed by Paul, who will do a nice introduction to the browser they've developed. So before I went into how to get the data, I just thought I would review a little bit more of what Gabor said, that there's three primary data types generated by the project. We have a sequence, which is in a fast Q format. And as you can see here, for those who care, it's a tag followed by a fragment of sequence followed by base quality scores and an ASCII computer coded system where the letters or characters are representing Fred-based quality scores. The SAM BAM format is for how the alignments actually look. So if you're looking in the text version of the data, which is SAM, you would see a file, this is a very small shot. This is just the alignment of one read where you have some header information at the top in red. You have alignment information in blue here with a cigar string followed by sequence and again, the quality scores. You don't see this pointer up there. Over there, okay, thanks. So these are very large files. Both the fast Q sequences and the SAM files are now approaching tens of terabytes of data. So if you're gonna download this data, there's a real investment and you have to make both in hardware infrastructure for disk and bandwidth at your institution to make sure you can do this in a timely fashion. But again, as Gabor and Gil alluded to, we wanna make these data useful to a broad variety of people. So we also report the variant calls, which is the summarization of the differences that pass the QC filters or could also in raw versions include potential variants that don't pass the QC filters. But right now, for which is a clarity, we're showing on the release files all of the things that look like real variants. So you have a list here. This is the VCF format. Again, the links are on these slides like in Gabor's. In this format, you have chromosome positions and identities. If there's a dbSNP RS number, it's available as well as the alternate alleles information. And on the files with genotypes, you have these column delimited genotypes one per individual. In the no genotype version, there's only eight columns on the file. And these are very compact and provide an easy to digest, easy to parse representation of the data. Again, this is a standard format that you can look for. So having reviewed those three types of data, I thought I'd just take you on a quick tour of where the data's available on the FTP site or the browser. So 1000genomes.org is the, I'm sorry, I can't find my pointer again. Is this a laser pointer? Here. This is the URL you should start with. This is hosted by EMBL-EBI. The data behind it is mirrored both at NCBI and EMBL. And the link that's most important is probably the data link. That's where you go to get access to all of the data. That'll take you to a new page here that reviews but the data release policy, the conditions for use for publications authorship and just kind of what kind of credit the consortium would appreciate in using the data. Scrolling down the page, you'll see a review of all of the file formats and conventions I just described. And then further how to access the data. The important links are the two, which there's no pointer. Okay, you can see there. These two links, the FTP sites either at EBI or NCBI are mirrored every 24 hours. So you can go to either site and you'll see the same FTP organization. And I'll just walk through that. But I also like to point out that if you really are trying to mirror all of the data that you would strongly encourage you to consider using the Aspera technology. This is a much faster UDP based transmission protocol than FTP. It's about 10 times faster. It'll get up to 300 megabits per second if you have the infrastructure in place. And it'll allow you to down, especially if you're getting the alignments in the FASTQ. If you're just doing the other files, it's not so important the VCF files. So going into the FTP site, just pointing out a few of the core paths that are useful to know about. First, there's readme's up here that document in really nice detail, kindly hosted by Laura Clark at EBI. The organization of the FTP site and the formats of the files. There is a folder called data, which is where all of the alignment and sequence information is posted by sample ID. This would be the Coriel NA number. And for all 700, 1100 samples we have now, that's where you can get all of the data that's been sequenced. That's updated nightly. We have pilot data, which is the release sets that have just been released to the nature paper. So if you're actually trying to find the data sets of the VCF calls, the NDELs, the SUVs, everything else, that's in this pilot data folder here. Release is a folder for our past releases. So if you're interested in historical data from 2009, 2008, or the early 2010 stuff, that's where we put the archive releases. And then finally, for those of you that wanna be on the bleeding edge, Gil alluded to the fact that we make publicly available all of our work products. There's a technical folder. And in this folder is where you can go and see our latest unreleased products. So these would be the worklists that were, that the project is working on right now. It's caveat emptor. Don't ask the help desk why things may or may not work there, because this is really the cutting edge where the project shares the data about what we think the next release might look like. So it's there if you want to look at it, but it's not supported as a release product until it's in the release folder. So beyond the website, where else is the data available? DBSNP is the primary archive for the SNPs in the Indel data that's gonna be coming out of the paper. The SNPs were put in Build 132, which was released a few months ago. And right now DBSNP is up to 23.6 million uniquely mapped SNPs. These are the single base class one. The deletions from the paper will be coming out in Build 133. And I believe there's a 1.1 million Indels that will be loaded. And then there's other categories of things that the project isn't really generating, that are just in there. Something that we've tried to do to help develop the VCF file format, I'm pleased to announce that we've taken all of DBSNP and dumped it in VCF format. So there's a file that's here at this link where you can go and get a map organized file of all of the content of DBSNP. So it would be everything that's uniquely placed. And there is a nice annotation in column eight, which is the info column where we are annotating for every SNP the tags. And there's a URL at the top is an Excel spreadsheet that describes the 47 tags that we're using in VCF to talk about the clinical information. So SNPs that are in OMIM or known to be clinical or diagnostic and a gene typing kit, LSDBs, they're in there, all of the functional information of a SNP as encoding region, Intron, Exxon, Python, UPR, 3D structure, splice site, that's all in there. The sequence annotation, if there are weirdnesses about how the SNP aligns to assemblies, if it aligns to the reference, but not a salera or vice versa, there's all that kind of nuanced stuff. Information about genotyping, the platforms, if SNPs are on genotyping platforms, if there's conflicts, the same SNP has been genotyped at different times in the same person and it's inconsistent. We tag all that stuff in DBSTIP. So this is just a resource, if you're looking for a quick way to get the entire contents of DBSTIP in one file, that's a place to go. The contents of Build 132 have been put out on all of our RefSeq annotations. RefSeq is an NCBI product for chromosomes, mRNA proteins, and then we collaborate with EBI to make the LRGs, which are the clinical sequence records for the clinical reporting standard. And so variations are annotated in all of those places. The last thing I'd like to say is if you're trying to find sequence data by sample, we have made some, we have a resource called biosample at NCBI that you can find from a pull down menu here at the top. And if you put in the tag 1000 genomes, and you can do pilot one, two, or three, and it will return all of the samples that were actually sequenced as that part of the project with their Coriel NA number. So if you want to get, in this example, I did pilot two, these are the six individuals from the two trios, but likewise, there's the 179 from pilot one and the 757 from pilot three. You can click on any one of those samples here, and that will take you to a sample summary record, which points back to DBSTIP and all the content for that person, and maybe more importantly, SRA, to get all of the sequence and the alignment data for a particular individual. So that's kind of an easy way to jump in and pull data by sample ID. Last slide is to say we have colleague, our collaborators in Amazon that have been trying to develop cloud-based computing platforms, and we're happy to say the 1000 genomes has been an enthusiastic partner about putting the pilot data into the Amazon cloud. So for those of you that are trying to pursue cloud solutions, there's an S3 address for finding the data, and there's also an XML summary. Right now the data are chunked into five gigabase bins because there's a file size limited Amazon that I understand might be going away in the next few months, and we'll be back to whole chromosomes. So with that I'd like to stop and maybe take a few questions and then turn it over to Paul. Thanks. And then please speak into the mic so the recorded audience can hear. So QC filter that you applied to the VCF file. The QC filter is permitted for anybody that's running a SNP calling algorithm to write their QC information, passes a default string for things that passed a caller standard. It's not a rigorously defined column right now. Do you have documentation for that? I think the methods documentation in the paper would explain how each caller applied QC to their call sets. Hi, I downloaded the VCF from DBSnip maybe a few weeks ago, it was labeled I think September 30th, but at least at that time it was only about 10% of DBSnip, and I interpreted it as just a thousand genomes related component, but you implied it's the entire DBSnip, so did it change or did I? As of 2 p.m. today, the full file came up, and so this is a new fresh off the press release. A final question, do I understand that there's now more detailed allele frequency data in this compiled DBSnip data set you're describing? The version that we put out today does not have a allele frequency data in it. There are the genotypes that we have in DBSnip are there by population, but that doesn't include all SNPs. We have allele frequency data, I think right now on about 50% of DBSnip, a lot of the legacy data didn't have allele frequency, but we think that will get upgraded as this next set of 25 million SNPs come in, so our goal is to try to match DBSnip releases with the major build releases of this project and then pull in all the genotype and frequency data to keep it in sync. That would be very helpful, thank you. Yes, sir? Quite clearly this data is huge. Is there any thought to being making it available on physical media or for people to ship physical media to you if you wanted to trade sort of bandwidth for latency? We're happy to talk about it, that's in our experience can be a lot slower and it doesn't scale well for us because it means a lot of pairwise conversations with hundreds of people in their drives and did we get the right hardware to the right person? We encourage the asparagus solution if you have the capacity to do it and if you don't, then you should probably just write info at 1000 Genomes and Paul and I could try to find a solution. Another question, clearly there's a lot of value in the pipelines we use to analyze this data as well and given the huge size of the data compared to the actual size of the informatic component, is there any thought to sort of releasing a server image or something of that nature that would provide a working environment in which the data was analyzed as well as the raw data itself? I think there are some groups that are trying to consider putting their pipeline methods into the cloud and so it could be run in like an Amazon environment or something. I know just from our personal experience at NCBI, there is a lot of infrastructure optimization that had to go in to get this pipeline to run and I don't know if an image would translate effectively. It's really, I mean the performance of this is tied to the hardware characteristics of your server cluster and your compute farm and we'd have to explore that. So I think each method developer has their own goals about how to release their product and I just say that they've been encouraged to do that. I think technology transfers one of the goals of the project, we have a pipeline in NCBI, Sanger has a pipeline, Brod has a pipeline. So I think you could maybe talk individually to them, the project won't speak for the pipelines as a whole. Anything else? All right, well then I'd like to introduce Paul Flightcheck, my colleague at EBI.


Colgate dental cream to clean your breath while you clean your teeth and help stop tooth decay and Luster cream shampoo for soft glamorous caressable hair bring you our miss Brooks starring Eve Arden It's time once again for another comedy episode of our miss Brooks written by Al Lewis Well, they say that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb But our miss Brooks who teaches English at Madison High School has an amendment to this ancient bromide Yes, this year March and our beloved principal Osgood Conklin both came in like lion and Last Wednesday morning when he summoned me to his office I could tell by the tone of his roar that he had gotten up on the wrong side of his cage As I entered his office, however I was thrown off guard somewhat by his bluff and hearty manner in fact His first two words to me were replete with camaraderie and affection sit down Yes, miss Brooks, I arrived at school this morning 15 minutes ahead of anyone else as is my vote It certainly is and as I It certainly is what your won't that is getting here 15 minutes ahead of anyone else is an old waltz of yours Yes, sir, that one won't goes way back Working for you for almost five years. I guess I know as much about your different won'ts as any teacher in this As I passed through the hall I noticed one of the classroom doors with a jar. It was your room miss Brooks as I reached in to close the door I saw your blackboards. They hadn't been stolen No, no, but they hadn't been erased either You know very well miss Brooks that it has long been a strict rule in this institution that nothing is to remain on the blackboards overnight Oh, I know that sir But some of the students must have made some notes after I left the room You see we've been studying the Shakespearean tragedies and the class is taking to it with great enthusiasm Miss Brooks. I'm quite certain that the immortal bar did not pen the words. I saw on your blackboard What word mr. Conklin one line said and I quote old man Conklin is a bird brain That's impossible sir. You misread the blackboard. What it probably said was the old King Lear is a bird brain Who would want to write a thing like that? His daughters. They hated his gut. Oh, they didn't mean to him I Hold you responsible for the condition of your blackboard and remember it is from such petty beginnings that more dangerous subversive Activities can stem. I'll have a loyalty check before class Don't you think you're being unduly severe about a relatively minor problem in your class. I don't think it's a big problem Relatively minor transgression severe perhaps, but I challenge your use of the word unduly After all I am the man to whom this entire school looks for leadership as your leader I must be firm decisive wielding my power with justice, but authority. Yes, sir I know you're quite a stickler for discipline mr. Conklin and all of us on the faculty try to cooperate Sometimes your manner is so stern and forbidding. It makes it difficult What I'm trying to say I guess is that you can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar I don't want flies. I want teachers I want teachers with a wholesome respect for the inspiring mottos on which I was brought up Spare the rod and spoil the child an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth These others here in my office read the one on that wall miss broke Yes, sir only the hands of the strong can hold the reins of leadership another one next to it Through power alone. Can you command respect? How true that is? There seems to be a moho missing mr. Conklin which one today Madison high tomorrow the world The janitor broke that one while he was dusting Which brings me to another assignment I have for you this morning I want you to see that my office is thoroughly cleaned up I've asked my daughter Harriet to send in one of the boys to do the heavy work and they Oh good heavens. You'll probably send in that lame-brained boyfriend of hers Walter Denton. Oh Walter isn't so bad. Mr. Conklin in fact compared to his pal stretch snod grass. His mentality is positively Einsteinian If only he wouldn't speak that voice of his drives me insane It's just his age mr. Conklin his voice is probably changing. Well, it had better hurry Boy sounds like a canary who has just caught a rancid batch of birdseed Come in Now that you're here Denton, I'll be leaving shortly. So pay attention and I'll tell you what I want done Yes, sir. He told me you're anticipating the national cleanup paint up picks up campaign which starts every spring That is correct. I'm a great boy for getting the jump on the next fellow Therefore I want you to clean out all the old files you find in my closet I haven't touched them since I took over this office from my predecessor. Mr. Darwell. Oh, I remember mr. Darwell There were times when we all thought he was a real tyrant. Oh, you did Dear old mr.  Yes, sir. Burn them up to a cinder I'm going on a tour of classroom inspection. I haven't cracked the whip round here in Athena. Just how long has it been yesterday? An exceptionally large batch of mail this morning with Brooks while I'm gone I want you to open each and every letter the gestic content and if it is not of sufficient importance to demand my personal attention Fair it up. I'll rip it to pieces. Mr. Conkman Browlet destroy it. I'll be merciless hurl it in the basket. I'll bash it with my bare fist I'm going now Remember let's get on the ball and stay in mood this morning, isn't he even for him? But you'd better get busy cleaning out those files. Walter. Yes, ma'am.  I'll never be able to sort this stuff alone. Will you give me a hand, Miss Brooks? I'd like to, Walter, but I've got to go through the mail. Why don't you get Stretch Snodgrass to help you? Oh, he's working in the supply room this morning He's supposed to be taking inventory before the clean up paint up fix up campaign starts this spring It seems kind of early to me me too, but mr. Conklin's a great boy for getting the jump on the other fellow I know I've seen him jump on some of the other fellas Gosh, poor old stretch will be lost down there. Maybe I'd better look in on him and see how he's doing I wish you would miss Brooks. He doesn't know how to take inventory. He probably doesn't even know how to pronounce it Hi, miss Brooks, how are things in the supply room stretch? All right, I guess But I really don't know what I'm supposed to do here. Didn't mr. Conklin tell you what to do No, ma'am not exactly when I got to school this morning His daughter Harriet headed me a memo from them which just said go to the supply room and take inventory I'm on a spot miss Brooks. Why I can't find no inventory no place On top of that mr. Conklin just stopped by and balled me out something awful balled you out. What were you doing? I wasn't doing nothing.  So right away. I said miss Brooks is my English teacher. That's who's Wasn't in such a bad mood. I'd have told him what a boot. I get out of taking English off here Sometimes sometimes I think I'd like to stay in your class forever miss Brooks. Sometimes I think you've got a very good chance But stretch if you're not too busy at the moment Would you please run down to mr. Conklin's office and help Walter Denton clean out some old files? I'd be glad to help wall around miss Brooks Mr. Conklin told me to go from here to the biology lab and tell mr. Point to wash all the cages for pepatoi to paint them Yes, ma'am. It seems there's some kind of campaign that starts in the spring I'm familiar with it stretch if you'll join Walter and mr. Conklin's office I'll be happy to deliver your message to mr. Boynton Of course before I go to the biology lab. I've got to start my own campaign, you know clean up fix up paint up You mean your classroom miss Brooks classroom. Nothing me Eve Arden will continue in just a moment, but first here is Vern Smith No other dentifers offers proof of such results proof that Colgate Dental Cream helps stop tooth decay before it starts Two years research at leading University using Colgate dental cream hundreds of case histories Makes this the most conclusive proof in all dentifers history on tooth decay Conclusive proof that when teeth are brushed with Colgate's right after eating Colgate Dental Cream helps stop tooth decay before it starts Yes, the toothpaste you use to clean your breath while you clean your teeth Now offers a safe prove way to reduce tooth decay Modern science shows decay is caused by mouth acids, which are at their worst right after eating Brushing teeth with Colgate's is directed helps remove acids before they harm enamel Colgate dental cream has been proved to contain all the necessary Ingredients including an exclusive patented ingredients for effective daily dental care get Colgate dental cream today Big economy size only 59 cents always use Colgate dental cream to clean your breath while you clean your teeth and Help stop tooth decay before it starts remember no other dentifers offers proof of such results Well as our miss Brooks headed for the biology lab stretch snot grass joined his pal Walter Denton and mr. Conklin's office They were cleaning out the files in the closet when Walter came to an old letter from the Board of Education When he finished reading it, he grabbed stretch by the shoulder. Hey stretch read this letter. Let's see You better read it to me Walter. I'm saving my eyes for batten practice Mr. Darwell when he was principal here it says dear sir It has come to the attention of the board that you have been Flavorately dictatorial in your dealings with the faculty as well as the student body as you know I approve of discipline, but your conduct lately has been overboard Therefore, please be advised that if you do not reverse your tyrannical methods at once I will be forced to convene the vote convene the board to consider your immediate replacement as principal of Madison High Sincerely Edgar T. Stone chairman you realize what that means stretch. Yeah, Mr. Darwell better watch his step Mr. Darwell hasn't been here for years and mr. Conklin could never have seen this letter It was buried under all kinds of junk now all we got to do is get some glue and reseal the envelope Luckily, it's just addressed to the principal's office Madison High I can type in mr. Conklin's name above it. Why should we do that water? So that mr.  Let me that typewriter for a minute that glue on the desk here water There all set you water you got a mind like Mack Lavelli. I Don't remember assigning two of you to this detail. Oh, what's that? You were about to place on my desk then Yes, oh, it's just a letter sir that miss Brooks gave it to me She didn't have time to open your mail yet sir, but I'm sure she'll be back Fabbling and hand me that letter Yes, sir. I gotta be running along now one moment. I may have some more chores for you boy First I'll see what the Board of Education has to say Just come to the attention of the board that you have been flagrantly dictatorial in your feelings Oh Boys it's better go now. Yes, sir. Come on water. We'll see you later. Yes Maybe Student teacher to take charge of my study period mr. Conklin now. I can get right to your mail one moment miss Brooks before you sit down Yeah, let me dust that chair for you I Sure, you'll be comfortable in this chair. I'd be happy to get you a cushion if you want me to It has always been my warmest desire to make take the burdens off my teachers make them as light as possible If you have any suggestions which might help me achieve this desire You have but to mention them and I am your willing slave your wish is my command I can't recall rubbing any lamps around here Now you just forget about that nasty old correspondence of mine I was just teasing when I said you'd have to go through all my mail You you toddlin out out to the grounds and sun yourself for a while Then when lunchtime comes meet mr. Boyman I know you're fond of him Have a nice leisurely luncheon together Yes, sir. I'll be happy to toddle along now, but first there's just one question. I'd like to ask what is that? I don't know who you are, but what are you doing with mr. Conklin's head on? Table by the window mr. Boynham coming miss Brooks. Hey cafeteria is pretty crowded today. Here's your tray I don't have much of an appetite myself in my second period. Mr. Conklin came into the lab and brought me a bag of donuts and a bottle of milk He said anyone who worked as diligently as I did needed more nourishment That's funny. He insisted that I take a walk around the campus and get some sun What's gotten into the old What's happened to mr. Conklin? Maybe he flipped Flipped an undergraduate expression I can't understand his sudden metamorphosis myself Well, he started off the day by roaring into my lab like a wounded bull elephant and asked me why my cages weren't ready for the cleanup Paintup fix-up campaign. I tried to explain that I I couldn't possibly paint them because I didn't have any dutch boy Couldn't you've used a brush instead? Dutch boy is the name of the paint miss Brooks But he wouldn't stand still for any explanations at all just bark get it done and stormed out of the office Then less than an hour later. He was back feeding me donuts. Well Maybe he's just yellowing with age i'm yellowing Pardon me miss Brooks mr. Boynton, but could stretch an icet down at this table with you for a minute I suppose so walter. Oh, we're glad to have you boys. Thanks, mr. Boynton I've got some news for you miss Brooks that'll enhance the enjoyment of your lunch a thousand fold But it's a deep dark secret you and mr. Boynton have both got to promise you won't be the word of this Well, I promise what's the secret water? You promise miss Brooks. Here's a fork take some blood It's about the letter mr. Conklin got from the board of education Sandy'd be replaced if he didn't stop acting so so Plagrantly dictatorial in his methods. Yeah to both the faculty and students. What?  Well, suppose mr. Conklin finds out the letter's a phony a phony a phony? Not so loud No, there's nothing phony about the letter. It's perfectly legitimate except that it was sent to mr. Darwell six years ago Mr. Darwell mr. Conklin's predecessor. Yeah, mr. Conklin's Name on the old envelope glued it up. He came in and read it and ramrod Now that the x ramrod is bearing down on us. Well, I better be leaving now. No, you don't we're in this thing together Well, I've got to go paint cages if you act sufficiently now. We'll all be painting cages from the inside Yeah, just relax treat him like an equal there's nothing he can do about it Uh, what a happy side it is teachers and pupils breaking bread together Care to rip a hunk of toast with it Thank thank you I did want to chat with miss brooks for a moment if i'm not disturbing anything or not at all sir, please sit down Park over here. Yo flop Thank you so much boys Miss brooks as you know, I am a great believer in the power of meekness and humility Therefore in front of your friends. I come to you hat in hand to seek a favor Poor mr. Conklin Mother mighty have fallen quiet boys. What is it you want of me mr. Conklin? Miss brooks you have much influence with the student body as well as the faculty I wonder if you could get them to see me in the same light that you do aren't you in enough trouble already That is I I know what you mean miss brooks and you're right I have acted the martinet at times But it's only because of those compounded mottos in my office on every wall I'm confronted with signs spare the rod and spoil the child respect through power law of the jungle They they goad one miss brooks whip one into a frenzy of ambition until the real me is submerged snowed under Suffocated couldn't happen to a nicer guy Well, why don't you get rid of some of those signs mr. Conklin? Well an excellent idea mr. Boynton Perhaps I could replace them with more humane and genteel parables. I'm open to suggestions on that score as well How about I have been a marble headed monster? Walter that's very rude on the contrary miss brooks it has quite a ring to it In fact, it might come in handy as a reminder. I hope it mr. Conklin. Please please miss brooks. Well, if you say so marble head Music to my ears I've always been ready to criticize others for their shortcomings Perhaps if I had a list of my own to refer to each morning, it would help me be more tolerant Do you think you could compile one?  I don't believe I've ever mentioned it before but I love this boy I'm sure you do mr. Conklin. I can tell by the way the veins stand out in your neck when you say Well, I'm serious about this list of my shortcomings miss brooks I'll be deeply grateful if you bring a list containing all your complaints to my office as soon as possible Now remember miss brooks don't try to spare my feelings Give it to me with both barrels. You'll be helping me in the end. Mr. Conklin. I can't think of anything I'd rather do with both barrels I'll swore you daddy. Thank you harry. It.  As well as could be expected harry. Let me clean some of this junk off your desk You don't need this old letter anymore. Do you old letter? What old letter? This one from the board of education. The envelope was postmarked 1944 1944 Let's see that Uh They must have taken this from mr. Darwell's files and typed my name on the envelope What are you talking about dad harry? It your daddy has been the victim of a monumental hopes But now the shoe is on the other foot and believe me. This is the foot that knows how to use it Ah, that must be the committee. I want to see them alone harry. Please leave by the other door I'd rather stay and see what it's all about dad.  Conklin. Oh Oh, it's you mr. Brooks forgive me for not rising without my glasses. I didn't notice that a lady had entered the room Let's watch that fellow I will Now if you'll be kind enough to read me your bill of particulars concerning my various infamills We're all going to read some of it mr. Conklin. Would you begin mr. Brooks? Thank you, mr. Barton whereas I as good conklin principal of madison high school Desiring to improve relations between myself the faculty and the student body your turn walter Do promise to keep the following ever before me as a reminder of past sins of which I am heartily ashamed And which I ain't never gonna repeat no more Let me let it please continue. Wait till you hear this I readily admit that on many occasions. I have acted like a pompous puffed up ill-tempered Adelpated blowhard Forgive me, but it seems to me you've omitted Mal adjusted, please don't interrupt. That's in the next paragraph Now where was I? Adelpated blowhard. Oh, yes Adelpated blowhard and on other occasions.  Oh, we already have mr. Conklin Oh, good good Then perhaps you'd be kind enough to autograph this other manuscript sent from the board of education in this envelope postmark 1944 and intended for my unfortunate predecessor Who doubtless had to contend with just such perfidious malcontents as you who stand quaking before me this very moment Just a moment, but first Yes tonight show him how much lovelier your hair can look after a luster cream shampoo Luster cream world's finest shampoo No other shampoo in the world gives you k-dumas magic blend of secret ingredients Plus gentle lanolin Better than a soap better than a liquid luster cream is a dainty cream shampoo Leaves hair three ways lovelier Fragmently clean free of loose dandruff listening with sheen Soft manageable even in hardest water luster cream lathers instantly No special rinse needed after a luster cream shampoo So gentle luster cream is wonderful even for children's hair Tonight. Yes tonight try luster cream shampoo Dream girl dream girl beautiful luster cream girl You owe your crowning glory to A luster cream And now once again here is our miss brooks Having expected a one-way ticket to devil's island I thought the punishment mr. Conklin meted out was comparatively just However, it was after seven o'clock that evening before I got home Why conny I was beginning to get worried about you. We're in the world if you've been all afternoon I was doing a little writing mrs. Davis writing. What were you writing? Oh, I don't think you'd be interested It's not your type of stuff. I'm interested in everything you do conny. Please tell me all about it Well, if you insist mrs. Davis, but you'd better sit down. This may take quite a while. All right There Now what did you write? I wrote our principle is the best principle that any school ever had our principle is the best principle of any school Ever had our pen principle is the best principle Next week soon into another hour miss brooks show Brought to you by luster cream shampoo for soft glamorous Perressable hair and polegate dental cream to clean your breath while you clean your teeth and help stop tooth decay Our miss brooks starring eve arden is produced by larry burns directed by al lewis with music by wilber hatch Mr. Boynton is played by jeff chandler. Mr. Conklin by gale gordon Others in tonight's cast where jane morgan dick crana gloria mcmillan and lannard smith Doctors prove palm olive soap can bring you a lovelier complexion in 14 days Yes, 36 leading skin specialists proved in tests on 1285 different women that palm olive soap facials using nothing but palm olive Brought new complexion beauty to two women out of three Just wash your face three times daily with palm olive soap each time for 60 seconds Massaging palm olive's beauty lather onto your skin then rinse So start your palm olive facials today Remember doctors prove palm olive soap can bring you a lovelier complexion in 14 days For mystery liberally sprinkled with laughs listen to mister and mrs. North The exciting fun fact adventures of an amateur detective and his beautiful wife Tune in Tuesday evening over most of these same stations and be with us again next week at this same time For another comedy episode of our miss brooks bob laman speaking