I appreciate that you would have to extend by seven months what you foresaw previously. I don't understand why all the programming that had to go out in the period, spanning an extra three years post-benefit the last time, has to be extended by another two years when you're extending the benefit coverage periods by only seven months.
I don't get clarity in your answer there. It just seems like it's a rationale, so I'm going to follow along the lines of where my colleague took us earlier. At what point in time here did this become something that you, the department, were seized with? Was this given to you as far as a project goes, a slush fund, if you will, which is what this seems to be to me now? There are no parameters around how it's paid and when it's paid definitionally, and even the extension of the time period here seems rather egregious.
Rationale matters in a bill such as this. We are putting you to the test of justifying the numbers, the definitions and, of course, the timelines for this programming, none of which have been provided here. Please tell us how you got to where you are as far as this draft goes, because it doesn't seem like it follows a logical pattern.