Nomination of Xavier Becerra

Floor Speech

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Mr. CASEY. Madam President, I rise to speak this afternoon in support of the nomination of Xavier Becerra to serve as the next Secretary of Health and Human Services.

President Biden nominated Mr. Becerra, who currently serves as the attorney general of the State of California. Prior to his service in State government for the people of California, he served in the House of Representatives, representing a district in Los Angeles for 12 terms. He is someone I got to know in those years, especially in the debates about healthcare, which I will speak about in a moment.

But when a person is nominated to be a member of any Cabinet, they bring with them not just their experience but their life story, and Attorney General Becerra's story is a great American story. His own story and that of his family is a great American story, a story of hard work and sacrifice, overcoming obstacles, achieving excellence, not only in his time in school and his academic record but also excellence in his public service as he discharges the duties of the offices that he has held.

I mentioned that I knew him in the years we were debating healthcare here in Washington when he was a Member of the House. But just since his nomination, I met with him and questioned him closely on matters that are important to me and the people of Pennsylvania. I also asked him questions in not one but two--two--hearings because he just happens to be nominated to a Cabinet position where the confirmation is considered by two Senate committees, the Finance Committee and the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, so I had the chance to question him in both hearings, both committees.

Through these conversations and based upon his long and distinguished record of public service, Attorney General Becerra has demonstrated that he is the kind of leader our Nation needs at HHS during this challenging time.

He is a proven leader who spent his career fighting to expand healthcare--to expand it--protecting both patients and consumers and working to strengthen both Medicare and Medicaid.

As a Congressman, as I mentioned, he was instrumental in drafting and working to pass the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the so- called ACA. And as California's attorney general, he has led the fight to protect it.

Now, my view of the disagreement on the other side of the aisle is just that. This is someone who worked as a Member of Congress and then has worked as attorney general to pass and then uphold the ACA.

On the other side of the aisle, they don't like that because they have been committed as a party here in the Senate and in the House-- both Republican caucuses have been committed to two things on healthcare: destroying the ACA, which means destroying all protections for preexisting conditions and--it is important to add this--they have been dedicated to ending--not limiting, not cutting back--ending Medicaid expansion, which, of course, accounted for most of the healthcare gains. Millions of Americans have healthcare today because of the expansion of Medicaid. It is the official position of the Republican Party to end that--to say to all those millions of Americans: You don't deserve healthcare coverage. That is their position based upon what they have supported in bill after bill that came before the Senate. We know that. That is a fact. And until they move away from that position, they will try to take down the nomination of or oppose anyone who wants to uphold the ACA, uphold all protections for preexisting conditions, uphold and support the expansion of Medicaid, one of the best expansions of healthcare in American history, not just recent history, in all of American history.

So I would support Attorney General Becerra just based upon what he has done on healthcare because it happens to be in the best interests of the American people to expand healthcare and the best interests of the people I represent.

I don't come across many people in Pennsylvania coming up to me, saying: I want you to lessen the number of people in the United States or in my State that have healthcare. I want you to cut that back. I want you to cut back on the Medicaid Program--which folks on the other side of the aisle want to do as well.

They not only want to end Medicaid expansion--end it completely--they want to cut the Medicaid Program by hundreds of billions of dollars over 10 years. That is their official position. It has been their position for years to cut the Medicaid Program and to end Medicaid expansion--cut the Medicaid Program by hundreds of billions of dollars. So if you are against that, they are going to be opposing you, whether it is for confirmation or anything else, because they are the party that wants to cut Medicaid, not by $100 billion over 10 years, not by $200 billion or $300 billion. Look at their budgets year after year. They want to cut it $500 billion or $700 billion. One year they even proposed--here in the debates about the budgets, one year they even proposed cutting the Medicaid Program by $1 trillion. That was the official position of the Republican Party. So if you want to oppose them on that, then they will try to take you down.

The Medicaid Program, by the way, pays for half--almost half--of the births in America. Of the babies born in America, almost half of those births are paid for by Medicaid--the Medicaid Program--the program they want to cut by $500 billion, at least, and sometimes a lot more than that.

So that is why they are against him, because they want to cut back on healthcare.

Now, his leadership of this Agency could not come at a more important time. Our Nation is facing the greatest public health crisis in more than a century, since the horror of 1918. Now we are facing a similar challenge.

We also have a jobs crisis. So the faster we put this pandemic behind us, the better it is for creating a lot more jobs and lifting our economy out of the ditch that it has been in the last year.

So we need a strong leader at HHS. We need someone who has the experience, the integrity, to lead us in that Agency to help guide us out of the crisis. I am confident--very confident--that Xavier Becerra is that leader, and I urge my colleagues to vote in support of his nomination.

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