Nomination of Xavier Becerra

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, first, I have to say to my friend and our lead on the Finance Committee how grateful I am for his leadership. We have started out very strongly on the Finance Committee with really important topics. I so appreciated yesterday focusing on nursing homes and what has happened the day before, focusing on advanced manufacturing and jobs, and your efforts today. It is just issue after issue. It is wonderful to have you in this position.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. STABENOW. And to be your partner in this.

And I so appreciate the leadership of the Senator who is currently in the Chair, from New Jersey, as well.

I rise today, as well, to speak on behalf of an outstanding nominee to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. If there ever was a time we needed an outstanding leader, it is right now.

One of the things I find so interesting is that colleagues on the other side of the aisle say they wish he was a doctor. Well, the previous Health and Human Services Secretary was the former CEO of a drug company. And so, from my perspective, I am much more comfortable having somebody who fought drug companies to lower prescription drug prices than to have had the person in that job before be the person who actually raised prices on people in his former position and tried to block competition. So he is the right person. Xavier Becerra is the right person for this moment, I believe.

Our Nation is still fighting to emerge from the worst pandemic in our lifetime. It is hard to believe now that it has been over a year that we have been struggling and families have been struggling with this pandemic. Nearly 540,000 American lives are lost. It is hard for me to even say it and have a concept of what that is right now, the number of people who have lost loved ones and friends and neighbors. Countless more have gotten sick. Many more remain sick months later.

The cost to our economy and way of life has been massive. Millions of workers have lost their jobs. Thousands of businesses have closed, too many of them, permanently.

Families are struggling to pay their rent or mortgage, keep the heat on--which is really important in a place like Michigan in the winter-- keep the lights on, put food on the table.

Schools are working hard to reopen safely. And, in the meantime, families are doing the best they can to make sure their children can keep up.

It is true that we are making progress. We are making progress. Things are getting better step by step by step.

Thanks to science, we have three very effective vaccines going into the arms of people across our country, and with the American Rescue Plan being signed into law, in fact, help is here. It is here.

So now is the time that, as we focus on getting help to where it is needed, Attorney General Becerra is just the leader to do this as the head of Health and Human Services.

His experience will be a tremendous asset as he works to address the pandemic and make healthcare more affordable. He led the defense in court of the Affordable Care Act, which he helped to write. It was my pleasure to work with him during that process, to work with him as House Members and then to work with him when we were writing the ACA, both in the Ways and Means Committee, in which he sat in the House, and my sitting on the Finance Committee. He protected the healthcare of millions in his position as attorney general. He has taken on drug companies, as I said before, for their high prices and their role in the opioid epidemic. And he has worked to enforce mental health parity in California, which I think is so, so, so important.

So many people are living with mental illness and addiction right now and have been. In January, 41 percent of American adults said they were struggling with anxiety or depression. So things have gotten worse--the pressure on people as a result of what everybody has gone through in the last year. That is up from 11 percent before the pandemic, and more than one in four young people have reported having suicidal thoughts. Meanwhile, communities are seeing more people overdose. Long after the pandemic ends, these behavioral health issues will linger.

Attorney General Becerra began his career as a legal aid attorney supporting clients with mental health issues and substance abuse issues. He knows in his heart and soul how important this is. He will bring that same compassion and dedication to HHS as we work to expand access to care, including through certified community behavioral health clinics, on which I am so proud to have partnered with Senator Roy Blunt and so many of our colleagues across the aisle to move forward as the new structure for comprehensive, coordinated care in the community. And it is beginning to make a difference, but we have a lot more to do, and we need somebody at the head of HHS who gets it. That is why I so strongly support Xavier Becerra, among so many other reasons.

American families deserve to know that they have someone at the Department of Health and Human Services who has their backs. With Attorney General Becerra, they will know they have someone who has their back.

He is the leader we need to help us end this pandemic, to get people the care they need, to strengthen our healthcare system, and to get our country back on track.

So I look forward to voting for this excellent nominee and putting him to work on behalf of the American people. I urge my colleagues to join us in supporting this excellent nominee.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source