▶ 0:26:10Chair Crapo: The committee will come to order. We are meeting today to consider the nomination of robert f. Kennedy, jr. To be secretary of the U.S. department of health and human services. We are still waiting to get all of our members here. While we wait for that to occur, we will proceed with statements.
▶ 0:26:39Chair Crapo: I will proceed first and then senator wyden, and then we will rotate from one side to the other until we are at a point where we are prepared for the boat -- vote. Mr. kennedy, if confirmed will have the opportunity to deliver much-needed change to our nation's health care system.
▶ 0:27:00Chair Crapo: He has spent his career fighting to end america's chronic illness epidemic and has been a leading advocate for health care transparency, both for patients and taxpayers. Mr. kennedy has also clearly responded to our questions during the rigorous due diligence process and his hearing also and in the course of answering over 900 questions for the record that were asked by members of this committee. In response to members of the committee, Mr.
▶ 0:27:30Chair Crapo: Kennedy has even amended his ethics agreement, going beyond what is required by the government of office ethics. Mr. kennedy has proven his commitment to the role of secretary of the hhs, and I will vote in favor of his nomination. I strongly encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to do the same. With that, I recognize our ranking member, senator wyden for his remarks.
▶ 0:27:54Sen. Wyden: Thank you very much, I will have a brief statement and then several colleagues on my side will make brief statements. This morning, we are going to vote on robert kennedy's nomination to serve as our nation's chief health care officer. Before we get to Mr. kennedy and why I believe he is singularly unfit to serve as hhs secretary, I'd like to say this.
▶ 0:28:24Sen. Wyden: The last several days, we witnessed an authoritarian takeover of the government by elon musk and donald trump. They have set their sights on a full purge of anyone in government that does not bend the knee and follow their orders. They have taken over the treasury department's payment system.
▶ 0:28:49Sen. Wyden: Colleagues, that has a direct effect on major programs within our committee's jurisdiction, that includes social security, medicare, and medicaid. For example, this committee voted for a major reform pharmacy benefit manager legislation. We passed it 26-0 but trump and musk killed it. Think what they could do with abuse of the payment system.
▶ 0:29:21Sen. Wyden: In my view, much of this is a dubious legality in constitutional authority, and certainly flies in the face of congressional responsibilities. I will wrap up on this point by saying, I hope our colleagues on the other side of the aisle will not sit by while musk and trump make a mockery of the power republicans hold in their congressional majority. Now more than ever, the american people need leaders that will stand up to these abuses.
▶ 0:29:56Sen. Wyden: That brings me to Mr. kennedy. A recent analysis showed Mr. kennedy has made 114 separate appearances in just the last four years where he has espoused anti-vaccine use or spread information about the activists -- efficacy of vaccines. Misinformation, specifically. 36 of those instances, Mr.
▶ 0:30:25Sen. Wyden: Kennedy directly linked vaccines to autism. Last week, Mr. kennedy was given ample authority on a bipartisan basis to recant his decades long career peddling of anti-vaccine career -- conspiracy theor ies. Instead, he spent his time dodging and weaving and gave no indication that as hhs secretary price that he would stand by the long settled science surrounding routine vaccinations.
▶ 0:30:57Sen. Wyden: Just take the samoa measles outbreak as an example. Mr. kennedy told me, and I quote, we don't know what was killing them, speaking about the 83 measles deaths, during a measles outbreak in 2019. Just yesterday, colleagues, the director general of health from samoa called this a total fabrication.
▶ 0:31:24Sen. Wyden: Peddling these conspiracy theories as the nation's chief health officer will be deadly for kids across the country. On abortion, Mr. kennedy's answers once again raise more questions. He refused to tell us whether he would blindly follow a directive from president trump to break the law and end access to mifepristone. And he seemed to have no understanding of his role in existing federal laws that guarantee women the right to lifesaving abortion care.
▶ 0:31:54Sen. Wyden: Mr. kennedy also failed on several occasions to show a basic understanding of the medicare and medicaid programs he would be tasked with overseeing. Colleagues, and alone should be disqualifying. Mr. kennedy has given us no reason to believe that he will be anything other than a rubber stamp for plans to cut medicaid and rip health care away from the american people, and be a yes man, if ordered by musk or trump to take an illegal action. I close with this, colleagues.
▶ 0:32:27Sen. Wyden: Today, we are going to make a judgment about the future of science in this country. We are going to make decisions that impact the health and well-being of americans for years to come. I agree -- and I say this to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle -- the health care status quo needs substantial changes, so we can better and more affordable care to patients.
▶ 0:32:57Sen. Wyden: And given my statement, that leaves the question in front of us now that is pretty simple. Do senators want their legacy to include disregarding basic health science, and instead elevate conspiracy theorists? Making robert kennedy secretary of health and human services in my view, colleagues, would be a grave threat to the health of the american people. I urge my colleagues this morning to vote no.
▶ 0:33:33Chair Crapo: Senator wyden, we have all of our members here. Senator wyden and I have agreed that we will have two or three on each side who wanted to make statements do so before the vote. Please, everyone, hold with us while we have those statements made and then we will proceed with the boat. I know we have a lot of folks here. Do you want to vote now?
▶ 0:34:01Sen. Wyden: Mr. chairman, I have several colleagues who were under the impression after we talked that we would have two or three. I'm happy for both sides to make brief remarks. I would still like to stay with that.
▶ 0:34:17Chair Crapo: I did make that commitment. I can say to my colleagues on my side, I would appreciate if you would hold your remarks until after the vote. We will do a couple on your side have their remarks, and then we will proceed to the vote. Senator cantwell.
▶ 0:34:35Sen. Cantwell: Thank you. When you said two or three people, I didn't know who you had in mind, but being next in seniority, I appreciate the opportunity. Today is very concerning to me because of the future of what I think our nation faces.
▶ 0:34:58Sen. Cantwell: When I think of this issue, I think of my pacific northwest leadership, how paul allen, on his own, invested $100 million to fight ebola. I think of bill gates and the gates foundation not just trying to eradicate polio and work on these issues, but to think of a regime that helps not just our nation's health but global health.
▶ 0:35:29Sen. Cantwell: So with the university of washington, cancer research center, all of these entities are a collaboration of saying we have to go faster in solving these threats to our nation as it relates to health.
▶ 0:35:47Sen. Cantwell: Now, we can have a big discussion, and I know you want to have a big discussion about what happened and when in the wuhan province, but we were the first city, we had the first patient, the first city who died in nursing homes, emergency room at a hospital that was just begging for any equipment we could get them. The whole community stood up and moved as fast as we possibly could and broke down barriers to save lives.
▶ 0:36:16Sen. Cantwell: And that is what we have to continue to do on innovation. We cannot let another country get ahead of us on some sort of warfare issue, and not have a response when it comes to a vaccine. I want to vote for Mr. kennedy in the context of my family's history. My dad stood behind his father the night he gave that famous speech. I told him, in my family, the kennedy's stood up.
▶ 0:36:49Sen. Cantwell: But when he answered senator cassidy's question and he couldn't even give him the answer that, yes, the data is there to support vaccines today, I don't need any more data. All of a sudden, I saw this world that we got affected by in seattle not being stood up for. I need someone at hhs who is going to say we are going to be a leader in medical technology, science, vaccines. We are going to fight foreign powers.
▶ 0:37:20Sen. Cantwell: We are going to be there to provide global health. I don't want a recalcitrant, I want a leader, and that is why I'm voting no.
▶ 0:37:28Chair Crapo: Thank you. Senator wyden and I have agreed that senator warnock will now speak. Following that we will proceed to the vote. Anyone else who wants to make remarks will be allowed to make remarks. Senator warnock.
▶ 0:37:43Sen. Warnock: Thank you, Mr. chairman. At a rally a few months ago, donald trump that he would allow Mr. robert kennedy to "go wild" on health. Go wild. Of all the things that I can think of that I want to see a secretary of health and human services do, go wild is not on the list.
▶ 0:38:10Sen. Warnock: Esther kennedy is manifestly unqualified for the job he seeks. In both my life and written questions for the record, he failed to commit to protecting access to affordable health care, failed to commit to protecting the people who are protecting us. The problem that the cdc has is that, every day, these civil servants in noble workers protect us from dangers that we don't see. Often you don't get credit for protecting people from things they don't see.
▶ 0:38:41Sen. Warnock: I simply do not trust him to oversee the cdc. He is unqualified. I daresay everybody here knows it. We need a serious person at the helm of the hhs, an agency responsible for about -- the health of about half of all americans. Mr.
▶ 0:39:08Sen. Warnock: Kennedy seems more obsessed in chasing conspiracy theories than chasing solutions to lower health care costs for working families in georgia, and to make sure we are protected. The last thing we need is a dilettante dabbling in conspiracy theories at hhs.
▶ 0:39:29Sen. Warnock: I cannot vote for a nominee who will not lower health care costs for georgians, who is going to undermine basic science in public health, who puts his own interests above the health and well-being of others. For the health and well-being of all of our families, the people who count on us, to think about them in these rooms of power.
▶ 0:39:53Sen. Warnock: I urge all of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to look past politics and think of country and to find the moral courage to do what is right. Oppose this nomination.
▶ 0:40:05Chair Crapo: Thank you, senator warnock. We have not only a quorum now but all members of the committee are present. I move the committee favorably report the nomination of the honorable robert f. Kennedy, jr. Of california to be secretary of health and human services. Is there a second? There is a second. The clerk will call the roll.
▶ 0:40:29Chair Crapo: [roll call] Mr.
▶ 0:41:27Chair Crapo: Chairman the final tally is 14 ayes, 13 nays.
▶ 0:41:39Chair Crapo: With the clerk please restate the vote? >> final tally is 14 ayes, 13 nays.
▶ 0:41:48Chair Crapo: The nomination is reported favorably. We will now turn to other senators who want to make a statement. Since I asked republican colleagues to hold off at the start, I will ask them to go first. Senator tillis.
▶ 0:42:03Sen. Tillis: Thank you Mr. chairman. I voted aye today and I want to explain why. I will be 65 in august. I believe Mr. kennedy will be one of the first people coming before us who is in fact not a health care expert. He views this through the lens of an attorney. He has brought many lawsuits on food safety, vaccine safety, a number of other things. But Mr.
▶ 0:42:29Sen. Tillis: Chair, I think it was senator warnock that said that the president said that he would go wild in the department of human services. I hope he does. I hope he goes wild and actually finds a way to reduce the cost of health care.
▶ 0:42:49Sen. Tillis: I hope he goes wild, and instead of having the discussion that we have had for the 10 years I've been in the senate of making medicaid work and making people on medicaid healthier, I hope he goes wild and figures out how to do it, because the status quo has not achieved much in the way of gain. I hope he goes wild on food safety discussions so we can improve our food safety supply.
▶ 0:43:15Sen. Tillis: I hope he goes wild on the health care supply chains and, in fact, tries to make sure that drug prices go down instead of bludgeoning pharmaceutical companies. Get everybody in the room and make sure we do this right. Reduce the cost of bringing a vaccine to market. Reduce the cost of bringing drugs and therapeutics to market. Look at the full supply chain and somebody with a legal mind may do that. He is no health professional.
▶ 0:43:44Sen. Tillis: In fact, he is the first I believe since I've been alive, who has not been a health care professional in a scientific sense. But he is a individual caring this forward. Also Mr. chair, I will not go much longer. But I had a lot of people call me earlier, people from the agricultural industry call me to express concerns.
▶ 0:44:08Sen. Tillis: But I'm not aware of any credible organize group, department of ag commissioners or others, who have said we should vote against Mr. kennedy. I heard people express their concerns about his pro-choice position. Yet, I have not seen any pro-life organization recommend that we should vote against it. I heard him call the nra a terrorist organization, and yet the nra is silent on his confirmation.
▶ 0:44:38Sen. Tillis: I have heard him say gmo's are a concern. Hopefully we can convince him that not all are, it is feeding the world, corn, drought resistant strains of healthy vegetables, protein producers, mad about lawsuits brought against him, but no organized opposition against him. Maybe it is time to have a different kind of disrupter there.
▶ 0:45:02Sen. Tillis: The only way that bobby kennedy and I will get crosswise is if he does actually take a position against the safety of proven vaccines. That would be a problem for me. He answered a very important question to me during the hearing. I asked him specifically if it was his intent to let the scientists at the cdc, nih, other organizations to work independently.
▶ 0:45:32Sen. Tillis: He said to me under oath that he would. If he fails to do that, that will be a concern for me, something I will bring up in a future oversight hearing. But Mr. chair, we have not made appreciable progress in medicaid, improving the health of the population. We have a snack program that has too much sugar and things that are eligible. It should be eliminated to make these people on free and reduced lunch healthier.
▶ 0:45:59Sen. Tillis: We need to stop having full of trash cans in public school cafeterias, full of stuff of things that the kids are not eating, figure out how the kids with a reduced lunch have a healthier lifestyle. I, for one, think it is time to put a disrupter in, time to put somebody in there that will go wild. But there are areas where that is exactly what we need.
▶ 0:46:23Sen. Tillis: There are areas of health and human services, if you touch the gold standard for the nih and cdc, I'll have a problem with that nominee, and we will bring that up in oversight. But it was for those reasons and the fact that there is not a single organization that I consider to be credible in this space, agriculture, second amendment, pro-life, who have openly objected to score this vote. The fact that they haven't suggests to me that folks on instructed by r.o.k.
▶ 0:46:53Sen. Tillis: By this nomination. For those reasons, I voted for Mr. kennedy.
▶ 0:46:57Chair Crapo: Thank you senator warren.
▶ 0:47:01Sen. Warren: Thank you, Mr. chairman. Since we had our hearing last week, Mr. kennedy has amended his ethics agreement. Recall that his ethics agreement said that while he was secretary of hhs intended to retain a financial interest in ongoing vaccine litigation that he was already collecting money from.
▶ 0:47:26Sen. Warren: He wanted to continue to collect the money even though he could affect the outcome of that litigation. He has since changed his position on that. Once it has been exposed, people have talked about it, have some serious reservations about him doing that, he has said he will instead give his financial interests to his son. That is a fig leaf that is so small, it would take a magnifying glass to see it. No one is fooled about what is happening here.
▶ 0:47:58Sen. Warren: Mr. kennedy refuses to say that he will not participate in these lawsuits financially the day after he leaves office. Yet, Mr. kennedy has acknowledged first that the american people have a right to know that the decisions you are making our decisions in their interest, not in your future financial interest.
▶ 0:48:22Sen. Warren: He has said he thinks that is the right standard, and yet, he has figured out how to make money off of his anti-vax positions. He has already raked in 2.5 million dollars. He is in a position where he can affect the outcomes by things that he does as secretary of hhs.
▶ 0:48:43Sen. Warren: Yet, he refuses to say that he will delay by even a day, taking on anti-vax lawsuits the minute he leaves. That is an appalling conflict of interest, and it is one in which the american people can reasonably ask, is Mr. kennedy's plan to help the american people, or is he planning to use the job to further enrich himself?
▶ 0:49:12Sen. Warren: As he has pointed out with his son, and enrich his family? The importance of this litigation cannot be overstated. This is not only about a private company that gets sued and has to pay out. Vaccine manufacturers often operate on a slim profit margins. If they get sued repeatedly and successfully, they simply move out of the vaccine space.
▶ 0:49:40Sen. Warren: We have already seen this happen with vaccines in the past. 20 years ago, we watched vaccines just move away, if they did not have protection from these kinds of lawsuits. The consequence of Mr. kennedy's ability to make those lawsuits easier is also the ability to shut down access and manufacturing for vaccines for every one of us. And I think that is a terrible mistake.
▶ 0:50:09Chair Crapo: Senator welch, did you wish to speak?
▶ 0:50:14Sen. Welch: Yes, I did. Thank you, Mr. chairman, ranking member booker statement. -- for your statement. I want a disrupter, someone that is leading it, not a destroyer. There are three issues before any nominee that we have to consider. One is character, another is confidence, the third is priorities. We didn't have caroline kennedy here, but she gave a statement.
▶ 0:50:44Sen. Welch: She said bobby was able to attract people through the strength of his personality, his willingness to take risk and break the rules. Those might be desirable qualities if it was accompanied by sober judgment and behavior. Because the person who leads a major organization has to have the confidence of the people that work for him. Frankly, some of the things that he did that never explained. A chainsaw, taking the head off of a whale.
▶ 0:51:17Sen. Welch: Dumping a beer in central park for his own amusement. These are just weird things. We never got into the character issue of what is required for someone who run such a major department. The competence question, this is all on a wing and a prayer and a hope. There is no record of Mr. kennedy having experience in managing a large organization, in medicine, no experience with science.
▶ 0:51:46Sen. Welch: None of the prior experiences require not only running a major organization, health and human services, but the cdc, nih, all the other organizations under the umbrella of health care. By the way, on the confidence issue, let's be candid. This was a deal where Mr. kennedy was running for president as a democrat. He lost.
▶ 0:52:10Sen. Welch: He approached president trump to make a deal for political reasons, and the deal was made. The appointment would be that he would be health and human services. The president has the right to make the deal come Mr. kennedy can seek it, but it doesn't translate into confidence. The third is priorities. The priorities were Mr. kennedy is the vaccines and his theories on that. We need reliable vaccines and not a conspiracy theorist on that.
▶ 0:52:41Sen. Welch: But the health care system is not working for the american people. It is too costly. Our employers who care deeply about providing employer-sponsored health care cannot afford these premiums. The folks who are getting insurance on their own cannot get it. Even obama care is getting so impressive -- expensive because the prices are escalating so quickly with pharma expenses, with private equity getting into health care. Mr.
▶ 0:53:07Sen. Welch: Kennedy's priority was about his view of vaccines, not about making health care more affordable and accessible. In response to really a very direct and easy, open ended question from senator cassidy, Mr. kennedy showed a will full ignorance even between the difference between medicare and medicaid.
▶ 0:53:32Sen. Welch: We have a health care system that is not serving as it should the interests of american citizens, american businesses, american taxpayers. After this hearing, I did not have confidence that Mr. kennedy would be the one to lead us to a better future. Thank you.
▶ 0:53:50Chair Crapo: Thank you, senator welch. That includes the remarks that senators have requested to make. Hearing nothing further, I would like to thank all of our members for attending. This finance committee stands adjourned.