▶ 0:16:33>> good morning, this hearing will come to order. I thank my colleagues and Mr. kennedy for being here today. Congratulations on your nomination. Throughout this process you have been accessible to members and staff of both sides of the aisle and dedicated strong commitment to fulfilling the responsibilities of this role.
▶ 0:17:03The department of health and human services overseas our largest health care programs providing health care coverage for two in every five americans. Improving medicare, medicaid, ch ip faces challenges especially in the age of a rapidly aging population. This provides us an opportunity to deliver bold, transformative solutions.
▶ 0:17:36We share a commitment to common sense, bipartisan policies that improve the delivery of health care in this country. This committee has worked with the prescription drug supply chain to enhance access in rural communities, expand the availability of telehealth and improve the broken clinician payment structure.
▶ 0:18:01I look forward to working with the administration to continue pursuing meaningful reforms that serve the american people more effectively and efficiently. Too often patients encounter a health care system that is disjointed. Complex and bureaucratic chutes and ladders have become the norm. As health care spending climbs, outcomes across a range of conditions continued to decline.
▶ 0:18:33District kennedy, if confirmed you will have the opportunity to chart a new and better course to the drivers and consequences of our health care system. Your commitment to combating chronic conditions will be critical to our success.
▶ 0:18:54Prioritizing disease prevention and addressing the factors that fueled conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, metabolic disease, alzheimer's disease, copd, cancer will save lives, reduce costs, and build a healthier, stronger country. Private sector breakthroughs from cancer medications to gene therapies offer hope.
▶ 0:19:24The market volatility risks eroding american leadership in lifesaving r&d. Your advocacy for transparency has the potential to empower consumers across the country, promoting competition to enhance quality while cutting excessive spending for patients and taxpayers.
▶ 0:19:47Today's hearing will provide a forum to hear more about your vision, particularly for the programs under your committee's jurisdiction. Americans are deeply committed to improving the health and well-being of our nation.
▶ 0:20:08Regardless of party, everyone in this room shares a common recognition as well as a common desire to make our country healthier. I look forward to today's conversation as well as your testimony. I recognize senator wyden for his opening remarks.
▶ 0:20:27Sen. Wyden: The question before the finance committee this morning is whether robert f kennedy should be trusted with the health and well-being of the american people. Committee staff have examined thousands of pages, books, podcast transcript in a review of his record. The receipts show that Mr.
▶ 0:20:56Sen. Wyden: Kennedy has embraced conspiracy theories, especially when it comes to the safety and efficacy of vaccines. He has made it his life's work to discourage parents from getting their kids lifesaving vaccines.
▶ 0:21:20Sen. Wyden: It has been lucrative for him and put him on the verge of immense power. This is the profile of someone who chases money and influence, even if that may mean the tragic death of children and other vulnerable people. Mr. kennedy is found of saying he's not met -- fond of saying he's not making recommendations.
▶ 0:21:52Sen. Wyden: He's just asking questions and giving people choices. It is a slippery tactic to dodge any real responsibility. It is in my view, absurd coming from somebody who's trying to win confirmation for a job that is entirely aboutaking recommendations.
▶ 0:22:18Sen. Wyden: These recommendations will have life or death consequences for the american people. If you are confirmed, which vaccines senior citizens get for free through medicare. Your recommendation will determine which vaccines are given to millions of kids.
▶ 0:22:43Sen. Wyden: Peddling these anti-vaccine conspiracy theories will endanger the lives of kids and seniors across the nation. Just look at what happened when Mr. kennedy inserted himself into an act -- anti-vaccination crisis in the island of samoa. On a measles outbreak that began due to low vaccination rates.
▶ 0:23:15Sen. Wyden: In the end, 83 samoans died. Mostly kids from a disease that is easily preventable. Americans cannot afford to import this experiment to our great nation. Mr.
▶ 0:23:36Sen. Wyden: Kennedy has changed his views so often it is nearly impossible to know where he stands on so many of the basic issues that impact americans daily lives. In a statement of irresponsibility, in november, 2023, Mr. kennedy said he wanted to pause infectious disease research for eight years.
▶ 0:24:10Sen. Wyden: Mr. kennedy has indicated he's open to restricting access which remains a primary target of the republican crusade. I took this on back in 1990. The science was clear then. It is even clearer today. The only reason it his own -- under question in 2025 is people with a political agenda.
▶ 0:24:40Sen. Wyden: Women deserve to know if Mr. kennedy will abuse his powers to essentially implement the national abortion ban by restricting access to the safe and legal medication. As the trump budget office was thrown into chaos yesterday, republicans in congress are proposing deep cuts to a program that will rip away health care for millions of americans.
▶ 0:25:11Sen. Wyden: Cuts to medicaid of this magnitude will jack up the cost of health insurance. It will shutter nursing homes, hospitals, deprive seniors and americans with disabilities. That amounts to handing over the health system to for-profit insurance companies who made a fortune delaying care. Mr. kennedy has virtually no knowledge or experience in handling these issues.
▶ 0:25:42Sen. Wyden: It leaves him unprepared to take on a crisis like the nation witnessed yesterday when the trump budget office shut down the federal medicaid payment portal. After a careful review of the statements, actions, views, materials that I reviewed personally, I reached the conclusion that he should not be trusted with the health and well-being of the american people.
▶ 0:26:10Sen. Wyden: When he has taken every side of every issue, how could this committee believe he has anything to say? Let me close by saying I believe more strongly than ever and I have specialized in health care during my time. They were a turning point with health care in america. There's one word to describe americans feelings, it is dissolution.
▶ 0:26:38Sen. Wyden: At every turn people feel that they are rolling loaded dice when they tried to get health care. Americans are justifiably angry, fed up, and tired of the system that puts profits over patients.
▶ 0:26:56Sen. Wyden: Now the committee is being forced to relitigate science about vaccines, whether or not the government should help americans get affordable health care. I know where it stands when it comes to an agenda with improved care. I cannot say the same about the nominee sitting in front of me. Let me acknowledge finally Mr.
▶ 0:27:27Sen. Wyden: Chairman, jerry mills from portland, oregon here to represent nurses for america. I would like to get a statement from her organization into the record.
▶ 0:27:36Chair Crapo: Without objection. In a few moments you will be given an opportunity to make your opening statement and respond to these attacks and questions that members of this committee have. With regard to the attack on medicaid, that was a false attack, it has been proven false. The medicaid portal is operating efficiently today.
▶ 0:28:09Sen. Wyden: There was a significant amount of time yesterday where there was bedlam across the country over the status of the medicaid portals. I hope it's being corrected.
▶ 0:28:22Chair Crapo: There certainly were attacks yesterday. The problem has been verified in the medicaid portal is fully operational as we speak. Before I turn the time over to you to share your opening statement I would like to give you a brief introduction. The son of senator robert f kennedy and nephew of president john f. Kennedy, robert kennedy junior has been an advocate for consumers since 1985.
▶ 0:28:54Chair Crapo: After graduating from harvard, he studied at the london school of economics and received his law degree from the university of virginia law school and masters degree in environmental law from pace university. He has founded two advocacy groups and spent the last 40 years working to restore and protect children's health. He was a former independent candidate in the 2024 election.
▶ 0:29:23Chair Crapo: President trump nominated him this year in november, 2024 to be the hhs secretary. In announcing his nomination, president trump stated Mr. kennedy will restore these agencies to the traditions of gold standard scientific research and beacons of transparency and and the chronic disease epidemic and make america great and healthy again.
▶ 0:29:57Chair Crapo: Before you give your opening statement I have four obligatory questions that we ask all nominees. Is there anything that you are aware of in your background that might present a conflict of interest with the duties of the office to which you have been nominated?
▶ 0:30:13Mr. Kennedy: No Mr. chairman.
▶ 0:30:16Chair Crapo: Do you know of any reason, personal or otherwise that would prevent you from fully and honorably discharging the responsibilities of the office to which you have been nominated?
▶ 0:30:27Mr. Kennedy: I do not.
▶ 0:30:28Chair Crapo: Do you agree without reservation to respond to any reasonable sum of to appear and testify before any duly constituted committee of congress if you are confirmed?
▶ 0:30:40Mr. Kennedy: Yes I do.
▶ 0:30:43Chair Crapo: Do you commit to a prompt response in writing from any senator in this committee?
▶ 0:30:51Mr. Kennedy: Yes I do.
▶ 0:30:52Mr. Kennedy: You may introduce your wife and children. My wife is here, my daughter, my son, his wife and my nephew is here too.
▶ 0:31:11Chair Crapo: We welcome you all. You may proceed with your statement.
▶ 0:31:18Mr. Kennedy: Chairman crapo, ranking member wyden, I'm humbled to be sitting here today is president trump's nominee to oversee the U.S. department of health and human services. I want to thank president trump for entrusting me to deliver on his promise to make america healthy again.
▶ 0:31:45Mr. Kennedy: I want to thank all of my children who are here today and the many members of my large, extended family for the love they have so generously shared. Ours has always been a family involved in public service, I look forward to continuing that tradition.
▶ 0:32:08Mr. Kennedy: My journey began as an environmental attorney working with hunters, fishermen, and others in a small town in the hudson valley. I learned very early on that human health and environmental injuries are intertwined. The same chemicals that kill fish, made people sick also.
▶ 0:32:36Mr. Kennedy: Today, americans overall health, over 70% of adults and one third of children are overweight or obese. Diabetes is 10 times more prevalent than it was during the 1960's. Cancer is rising by 1% or 2% per year.
▶ 0:32:57Mr. Kennedy: Autoimmune diseases, alzheimer's, asthma, adhd, depression, addiction, a host of other physical or mental health conditions are all on the rise exponentially. The united states has worse health of any of the developed nations. At least in some cases triple as other countries are spent.
▶ 0:33:23Mr. Kennedy: Last year we spent 4.8 trillion not counting indirect costs of missed work. That's almost 1/5 of gdp. It's a 20% tax on the entire economy. No wonder america has trouble competing with countries that pay one third of what we do and have a healthier workforce.
▶ 0:33:49Mr. Kennedy: I don't want to make this too much about money. It is the human tragedy that loops us to care. President trump has promised to restore the american train. He understands we cannot be a strong nation. A healthy person has 1000 dreams, a sick person has only one. Over half of our countrymen and women are chronically ill.
▶ 0:34:22Mr. Kennedy: When I met with president trump, he has more than just concerns for this tragic situation but genuine care. President trump is committed to restoring the american dream. 77 million americans delivered a mandate to him to do just that.
▶ 0:34:45Mr. Kennedy: His movement led largely by every state, you could see many of them behind us today is one of the most transcendent and powerful movements I have seen. I promised president trump it confirmed I will do everything in my power to put the health of americans back on track.
▶ 0:35:13Mr. Kennedy: I discovered a deep level of care on members of this committee, both democrats and republicans. I came away from conversations confident we could put aside our visions for the sake of a healthier america. The nation has been locked in a debate about who pays when health care costs reach 20% there are no good options, only bad ones.
▶ 0:35:42Mr. Kennedy: Shifting around between government, corporations, providers, families is like rearranging deck chairs on the titanic. Our country will sit beneath this if we don't change the course and ask why our health care costs so high in the first place? The obvious answer is disease.
▶ 0:36:08Mr. Kennedy: The cdc says 90% of health care spending goes towards managing chronic disease, which keeps lower income -- it hits lower income americans the hardest. To make all of our people healthy again. There is no single corporate -- culprit in disease.
▶ 0:36:34Mr. Kennedy: President trump and I understand most of the scientists and experts genuinely care about american health. We will bring together all stakeholders in pursuit of this unified goal. I want to make sure the committee is clear about a few things. News reports have claimed on anti-vaccine, I'm neither.
▶ 0:37:09Mr. Kennedy: [gavel banging] >> we have an order. Please proceed.
▶ 0:37:19Mr. Kennedy: I am pro safety. I worked for years to raise awareness and nobody called me anti-fish. I believe that vaccines play a critical role in health care. All of my kids are vaccinated. I have written many books. My first book in 2014. The first line is I am not anti-vaccine and the last line is I am not anti-vaccine.
▶ 0:37:51Mr. Kennedy: American farms with our culture, politics, national security. I spent my summer working. I went to work with our farmers and food producers, remove regulations, unleash american engineer woody.
▶ 0:38:15Mr. Kennedy: I simply cannot succeed without a full partnership of american farmers. In my advocacy I've often disturb the status quo. I ask uncomfortable questions. I will not apologize for that. We have massive health problems we must face honestly.
▶ 0:38:39Mr. Kennedy: The first thing I have done every morning is to get on my knees and pray to god that he would put me in a position to end the chronic disease epidemic and help america's children. That's why I'm so grateful to president trump for the opportunity to sit before you today and seek your support and partnership in this endeavor. I will conclude with a promise.
▶ 0:39:09Mr. Kennedy: The members of this committee and to the tens of millions of parents across america who propelled this issue to center stage. Should I be so privileged to be confirmed and make sure our tax dollars support the healthy boats. We will remove financial conflict from our agencies.
▶ 0:39:37Mr. Kennedy: We will create an honest, unbiased gold standard of hhs accountable to the president and to the american people. We will reverse the chronic disease epidemic and put the nation back on the road to good health.
▶ 0:40:00Chair Crapo: I will begin, each of us have five minutes to ask you questions. There will be an opportunity for those questions to be submitted to you, I ask that you submit to them promptly. You have emphasize the importance of nutrition in managing chronic disease.
▶ 0:40:24Chair Crapo: I share your interest in the relationshipetween our well-being. If confirmed I look forward to partnering with you on those efforts. What you have learned?
▶ 0:40:43Mr. Kennedy: I had 11 brothers and sisters. I had dozens of first cousins. I was raised in a time where we did not have a chronic disease like that. Today, 66% have chronic disease. We spend zero on chronic disease. We spent $4.3 trillion per year.
▶ 0:41:15Mr. Kennedy: 77% of our kids cannot qualify for military service. The typical pediatrician would seek one case of diabetes in our lifetime. One out of every three kids who walks through the office door is diabetic. The most recent data is 38% of teams -- teenagers are diabetic or prediabetic.
▶ 0:41:47Mr. Kennedy: In my generation today, we have seen this explosion of autoimmune disease, this is not just an economic issue. It is a spiritual issue. We cannot live up to our role as an exemplary nation.
▶ 0:42:18Mr. Kennedy: We are writing off an entire generation.
▶ 0:42:21Chair Crapo: If confirmed, how could we work together to integrate nutrition based integrations like medicaid and medicare?
▶ 0:42:34Mr. Kennedy: There are better -- many ways we could do that. School lunch programs could be a driver. We shouldn't be getting 60% of kids in school processed foods that is making them sick. We shouldn't be sending 10% on the snap program on sugar drinks. We have a direct ability to change things there.
▶ 0:43:06Mr. Kennedy: In medicaid and medicare we need to focus on outcome based medicine on putting people in charge of their own health care, so they understand the relationship between eating and getting sick.
▶ 0:43:27Mr. Kennedy: We need to deploy this to do the research to understand the relationship between chronic disease to make sure -- I don't want to take food away from anybody. If you like a mcdonald's cheeseburger, diet coke, which my boss loves, you should be able to get them.
▶ 0:43:54Mr. Kennedy: If you want to eat hostess, you should be able to do that. You should know what the impacts are on your family and help.
▶ 0:44:08Sen. Wyden: I would like to enter into the record a letter the committee received outlining what she believed Mr. kennedy's lack of personal fitness for the office.
▶ 0:44:17Chair Crapo: Without objection.
▶ 0:44:22Sen. Wyden: You have spent years pushing conflicting stories about vaccines. You say one thing and then you say another. Your testimony under oath you denied you are anti-vaccine. During a podcast interview you said no vaccine is safe and effective. In your testimony today in order to prove you are not anti-vaccine you know that all of your kids are vaccinated.
▶ 0:44:52Sen. Wyden: In a podcast in 2020 you said you would do anything, pay anything to go back in time and not vaccinate your kids. All of these things cannot be true. Were you lying to congress today when you say you are pro-vaccine? Did you lie on all of those podcast? We have all of this on tape.
▶ 0:45:20Mr. Kennedy: As you know, because it has been repeatedly debunked, that was a fragment of this statement, he asked me, anybody who looks at that podcast will see this. He asked me are there vaccines that are safe and effective?
▶ 0:45:46Mr. Kennedy: I said there are no vaccines that are safe and effective and I was going to continue for every person. He interrupted me at that point. I have corrected it many times, including on national tv. Bringing this up right now is dishonest.
▶ 0:46:15Sen. Wyden: , let's be clear of what you have actually done. You have a history of taking vaccines away from people. You petitioned the food and drug administration to not only block americans from having access to the covid vaccine but to prevent any future access to the lifesaving vaccine, are you denying that? Your name is on the petition.
▶ 0:46:43Mr. Kennedy: We brought that after the cdc recommended the covid vaccine without any scientific basis for six-year-old children. Most experts, even the people who did it back then, covid vaccines have zero risk. I want to emphasize this.
▶ 0:47:16Mr. Kennedy: [gavel banging]
▶ 0:47:19Chair Crapo: The committee will be in order. To the audience, -- hold on for one second. To the audience. Comments from the audience are inappropriate and out of order. If there are any further disruptions the committee will recess until the police can restore order. Please follow the rules of the committee.
▶ 0:47:46Mr. Kennedy: I also want to point out the presentation of what happened in samoa is wrong.
▶ 0:48:02Sen. Wyden: We are talking about the petition you filed to block americans to have access to the vaccine and prevent any future access to the vaccine. Those facts are on the record. My third question to you, you made almost $5 million from book deals, mostly promoting junk science.
▶ 0:48:23Sen. Wyden: You wrote that parents had been misled into believing that measles is a deadly disease and measles vaccine are safe and effective. Measles are in fact deadly and highly contagious. Something you should have learned after your lies contributed to the deaths of 83 people, most of them children in a measles outbreak in samoa. It is measles deadly? Yes or no?
▶ 0:48:54Mr. Kennedy: The death rate from measles historically in this country was one in 10,000. Let me explain what happened in samoa. In 2017 -- 2015, there were two kids who died following the vaccine.
▶ 0:49:19Mr. Kennedy: The vaccination rates in samoa dropped from 63% to the mid-30's. They had never been very high. In 2018, two more kids died. The government in samoa banned the vaccine. I arrived one year later when vaccination rates were below any previous level. I went there, nothing to do with vaccines.
▶ 0:49:47Mr. Kennedy: To introduce a system that would digitalize records in samoa and make them much more efficient. I never made any public statements about vaccines. You cannot find a single samoan who will say I didn't get a vaccine because of robert kennedy. I went in june of 2019, the measles outbreak started in august.
▶ 0:50:13Mr. Kennedy: Clearly I had nothing to do with the measles.
▶ 0:50:18Sen. Wyden: You have had some time.
▶ 0:50:19Mr. Kennedy: Will you let me finish? 83 people died. When the tissue samples were sent to new zealand, most of those people did not have measles. We don't know what was killing them. The same outbreak occurred in tonga and fiji. There were seven measles outbreaks.
▶ 0:50:43Sen. Wyden: I would like to get my time back. The nominee wrote a book saying people had been misled into believing measles is a deadly disease. He's trying to downplay his role in samoa. That is not what governor green says. It's time to make sure we blow the whistle on what your views are.
▶ 0:51:04Mr. Kennedy: I support the measles vaccine. I support the polio vaccine. I will do nothing that makes it difficult or discourages taking that vaccine.
▶ 0:51:20Sen. Wyden: Anybody should read the book saying measles is not a deadly disease, that is not true.
▶ 0:51:27Chair Crapo: That is
▶ 0:51:31Chair Crapo: That -- we need to move on.
▶ 0:51:33Sen. Grassley: I'm just going to make some points to you, I have seven I want to quickly get done and then at the end I'm going to ask if you disagree with anything I say and address those things you disagree with. I will make sure to save time for you to do that. A key responsibility of each member of congress is oversight.
▶ 0:52:00Sen. Grassley: It allows us to hold bureaucrats accountable and helps keep faith with taxpayers. I expect hhs to provide timely and complete responses to congressional oversight.
▶ 0:52:16Sen. Grassley: Pbm's, something you and I discussed, I am working to hold pharmacy benefit managers accountable, I expect you to work with us to hold pbm's accountable and even ask your support for legislation before the congress.
▶ 0:52:39Sen. Grassley: Drug pricing, senator durbin and died for a while have been trying to get a bill passed that requires plate -- price disclosures on tv ads for prescription drugs. Knowing what something costs before buying it is common sense. President trump tried to do this in his first term. Vice president pence -- vance cosponsored our bill.
▶ 0:53:13Sen. Grassley: On rural health care, the previous administration opened up slots for rural community hospital demonstration programs. It also had concerns from rural pharmacies when implementing changes to medicare part d and ignored needs when it comes to residency slots. I expect you to prioritize rural americans health care need on agriculture.
▶ 0:53:45Sen. Grassley: In our meeting earlier this month we talked at length about agriculture. You preface the conversation by saying you will not have jurisdiction over these issues. I expect you to leave practice regulations to the proper agencies.
▶ 0:54:05Sen. Grassley: On dietary guidelines, I have sent letters to the secretaries of agriculture, hhs requesting they provide information regarding conflicts of interest on the dietary guidelines advisory committee to increase transparency.
▶ 0:54:25Sen. Grassley: I expect you to provide congress with confidential financial disclosures from the advisory committee before finalizing dietary guidelines so we know nobody has a vested interest is having undue influence.
▶ 0:54:43Sen. Grassley: Lastly, hhs, office of refugee oversight, last year I expanded my investigation into hhs as office of refugee resettlement. I wrote two dozen contractors and grantees whose job it is to place children with sponsors.
▶ 0:55:07Sen. Grassley: In many cases children have been placed with improper sponsors, placing them at risk of trafficking. The biden administration's hhs guided these pair funded contractors and grantees to not respond to my inquiry. This is obstruction by the executive branch.
▶ 0:55:32Sen. Grassley: I expect you to produce the records and data I requested and instruct hhs contractors to fully cooperate with my investigation. I also expect hhs to not retaliate against any whistleblowers including those who identify oor failures. You have 45 seconds to respond.
▶ 0:55:58Mr. Kennedy: I agree with all of those provisions, senator. On my approach to administration, hhs will be radical transparency. If other members of congress want information, the doors are open. I spent many years litigating against nih agencies.
▶ 0:56:27Mr. Kennedy: Cdc, fdaon cdc, fdao on foia issues that we paid for and often times getting redacted copies after a year or two years. That should not be the case. If you ask for information you will get it immediately.
▶ 0:56:48Chair Crapo: Senator cantwell is next but until she returns I will move down the list.
▶ 0:56:54Sen. Cornyn: Welcome to you and your family, congratulations. I appreciate senator grassley raising the issue of refugee resettlement in the auspices of health and human services. That is actually the responsibility of hhs, the office of resettlement and relocation.
▶ 0:57:20Sen. Cornyn: There were roughly 500,000 children unaccompanied minors that were placed with sponsors in the interior of the united states. The previous administration took the position it was not the federal government's responsibility once these children were placed with sponsors.
▶ 0:57:39Sen. Cornyn: The new york times in a series of stories pointed out that tens of thousands of these children when they tried to follow-up and find out how they were doing, whether they were going to school, being trafficked or abused, there was no answer. I look forward to working with you to find these children and make sure they are not being abused.
▶ 0:58:10Sen. Cornyn: Millions of americans are experiencing mild-to-moderate health and substance abuse issues. Many struggle with timely and effective access. Primary care physicians are most likely to be seeing these individuals and it makes it important that these individuals be trained in patient centered care that will strengthen the integration of behavioral health care with primary care services.
▶ 0:58:41Sen. Cornyn: Is this something you e concerned about, something you'd be willing to work with us on to implement?
▶ 0:58:47Mr. Kennedy: Let me just reassure you that president trump has said about locating those 300,000 children who have disappeared.
▶ 0:59:02Sen. Cornyn: I don't think anybody has a fully accurate number.
▶ 0:59:05Mr. Kennedy: Many of them have been trafficked and childhood slavery, it is a blight on america's moral authority. In terms of addiction services, substance abuse services, this is a priority for me. It was a priority for me when I was running for president. I was an addict for 15 years.
▶ 0:59:36Mr. Kennedy: I go to meetings every day. I hear the many stories about denial, the barriers to access. We need to improve that and answer specifically, I think we can do that through gma, and program funded by hhs that is the largest funder for medical
▶ 1:00:07Mr. Kennedy: Schools. That is one of the things from primary care physicians should understand addiction care. Addicts almost always go through a cycle where there is a moment where they hit periodic bottom. It is fleeting and it is momentary. If we miss that short window.
▶ 1:00:38Sen. Cornyn: I appreciate your answer. Time is short. What more question I think is important. Under the trump administration the number of people receiving hiv treatment through the emergency plan for aids relief increased -- from 13 million people to 18 million people
▶ 1:01:09Sen. Cornyn: Primarily in africa. Africa has about 1.3 billion people today. It's projected to have 2.5 billion people by 2050 or 25% of the global population. They reported 2.8 million babies were born without hiv. Something that would not have happened if it wasn't for the program.
▶ 1:01:38Sen. Cornyn: It has simply been one of the most successful public health programs in the world and saved approximately 26 million lives. Failure to continue this program , ceding that two adversaries like china.
▶ 1:01:54Sen. Cornyn: I want to review support the objectives and goals and would you work with me and my colleagues to make sure this program continues to provide lifesaving antiviral drug two people most in need?
▶ 1:02:10Mr. Kennedy: I absolutely support and will work with you to strengthen the program.
▶ 1:02:16Chair Crapo: Senator bennet?
▶ 1:02:19Sen. Bennet: Thank you for being here this morning. We are truly through the looking glass this morning here in the U.S. senate. This committee is being asked to fulfill a really important responsibility, deciding whether to confirm Mr. kennedy to one of the most important health care jobs in america.
▶ 1:02:45Sen. Bennet: The reason I think it is so important as many of the reasons you said, we live in the richest country in the world and we have some of the worst health outcomes of any industrialized country. We live in the richest country in the world and we have some of the lowest life expectancy rates of anybody in the industrialized world. I was a school superintendent before this job.
▶ 1:03:16Sen. Bennet: I could tell you Mr. kennedy is right. When I look at the kids in the denver public schools, if we don't change the way we eat, 40% of them will suffer adult onset diabetes as a result of their diet. We are spending more than any other country in the world.
▶ 1:03:40Sen. Bennet: Our families, constituents in the senate are facing chronic shortages when it comes to health care. My friend from texas has been a champion on mental health care. We have an epidemic across this country in mental health care.
▶ 1:04:00Sen. Bennet: Partly because of the massive social media platforms have inflicted in our children for their profit in the last decade or so. We have no shortage of challenges to confront -- I agree with some of the diagnosis of Mr.
▶ 1:04:22Sen. Bennet: Kennedy, what is so disturbing to me is out of 330 million americans, we are being asked to put somebody in this job who has spent 50 years of his life not honoring the tradition he talked about at the beginning of this conversation. Peddling in half-truths.
▶ 1:04:45Sen. Bennet: False statements, theories that create doubt about whether or not things we know or say are unsafe. Not that every vaccine in america is unsafe. Not that you could possibly have an adverse reaction. Children and my old school district would be better off not getting vaccinated then getting vaccinated.
▶ 1:05:14Sen. Bennet: Unlike his own children, who are vaccinated. The people who he invited to his house in los angeles who were vaccinated. For everybody else, it's about peddling half-truth. He says it with such conviction that you want to believe him. There are many things in the record, I hope you could answer these questions yes or no.
▶ 1:05:42Sen. Bennet: I have tried to ask these in a manner that is faithful. I didn't have a debate about whether you actually send it. Did you say that covid-19 was a genetically engineered bioweapon that targets black-and-white people but spared jewish people and chinese people.
▶ 1:06:02Mr. Kennedy: I didn't say it was delivered to -- deliberately target. Nih funded and nih published study.
▶ 1:06:16Sen. Bennet: Did you say it targeted black-and-white people?
▶ 1:06:18Mr. Kennedy: I quoted and nih study.
▶ 1:06:22Sen. Bennet: I have to move on. Did you say lyme disease is highly likely materially engineered bioweapon? I made sure I put in the highly likely. Did you say it was a highly likely militarily engineered bioweapon.
▶ 1:06:45Mr. Kennedy: I probably did say that.
▶ 1:06:48Sen. Bennet: I want all of our colleagues to say it. You said yes. Did you say exposure to pesticides causes children to become transgender?
▶ 1:07:01Mr. Kennedy: I never said that.
▶ 1:07:04Sen. Bennet: I will give the record to his chip -- to the chairman and he could make the judgment. Did you write in your book it is undeniable that african aids is a different disease than western aides? I will give it to the chairman. Did you say on a podcast and I quote I wouldn't leave abortion to the state. My belief is we should leave it to the woman.
▶ 1:07:34Sen. Bennet: We shouldn't have the government involved, even if it is full term. Did you say that?
▶ 1:07:39Mr. Kennedy: I believe every abortion is a tragedy.
▶ 1:07:45Sen. Bennet: Did you say it? It doesn't matter what you come here and say that isn't true that is reflective of what you really believe. Unlike other jobs, this is a job where it is life and death for the kids that I used to work for in the denver public schools and families all over this country that are suffering from living in the richest country in the world that can't deliver basic
▶ 1:08:16Sen. Bennet: Health care and basic mental health care to them. It's too important. I hope my colleagues will say to the president that I have no colleagues over him.
▶ 1:08:48Sen. Cassidy: President trump has sworn to protect medicare. It could help pay for the trump administration priorities. With this context, what will you do about dual eligibles?
▶ 1:09:07Mr. Kennedy: They are not served very well right now in the system. They are ugly they are u -- they are eligible for medicaid and medicare. My answer is make sure that the programs are consolidated, innovated. I look forward to working with you on making sure that we take good pair -- care of people.
▶ 1:09:39Sen. Cassidy: How do you propose we do that with those programs? How do we do that?
▶ 1:09:47Mr. Kennedy: I'm not exactly sure because I'm not in there. It is difficult to integrate them. Medicare is under a fee for service. It is paid for by employer taxes. Medicaid is fully paid for by the federal government.
▶ 1:10:15Mr. Kennedy: I do not know the answer to that . I look forward to exploring options with you.
▶ 1:10:23Sen. Cassidy: Republicans are looking at a way to reform medicaid to improve outcomes. What thoughts do you have regarding medicaid reform?
▶ 1:10:36Mr. Kennedy: Medicaid is not working for americans. It is not working for the target population. I'm on medicare advantage, I'm very happy with it. Most people on medicaid are not happy. The premiums are too high, the delectable's -- deductibles are too high.
▶ 1:11:06Mr. Kennedy: Particularly medicaid was originally designed for target population for americans. It is helping dramatically expand. The irony of the expansion is the poorest americans are now being robbed. Their services have dramatically decreased, even though we have increased the price of medicare by 60%. The targeted population is being robbed.
▶ 1:11:37Sen. Cassidy: Obviously you thought about that. What reforms do you recommend that would improve services but also make it more cost-efficient?
▶ 1:11:48Mr. Kennedy: President trump has given me the charge of improving quality of care and price of care for all americans. There are many things we could do. The ultimate outcome I think is to increase transparency and accountability. Transition to a value-based system.
▶ 1:12:17Sen. Cassidy: Could you just kind of take those general principles and apply it to the program?
▶ 1:12:24Mr. Kennedy: I think there are many options with telemedicine and ai right now. Including direct primary care systems. We have seen that across the country.
▶ 1:12:46Sen. Cassidy: Going back to medicaid and speaking of these specific advances, what reforms are you proposing with these ideas?
▶ 1:12:58Mr. Kennedy: I don't have a broad proposal for disbanding the program. I think what we need to do his experiment with public programs each day. We need to keep our eye on the ultimate goal, value-based care, transparency, access.
▶ 1:13:19Sen. Cassidy: You mentioned your ma, do you have any kind of thoughts as to whether or not patients should move into ma? Patients who are on medicare.
▶ 1:13:41Mr. Kennedy: That is their choice right now. I think 32 million americans -- 30 million americans on medicare another 34 on medicare advantage. Roughly half and half. I think more people would rather be on medicare advantage, it offers very good services.
▶ 1:14:11Mr. Kennedy: People can't afford it. It is much more expensive. There are all kinds of exciting things we can be doing, including health savings accounts which president trump has supported. All these things to make people accountable for their health.
▶ 1:14:35Sen. Cassidy: It would bring them into medicare and medicaid?
▶ 1:14:38Mr. Kennedy: Exactly. We try to increase those, the use of those and direct primary care to continue to transition to a value-based program that is private. Americans don't -- by and large do not like the affordable care act. They don't like medicaid. They like medicare. They like private insurance.
▶ 1:15:09Mr. Kennedy: We need to listen to what -- they would prefer to be on private insurance. Most americans would be on private insurance. We need to figure out ways to improve care, particularly for elderly, veterans, the poor in this country. The current model is not doing that.
▶ 1:15:32Mr. Kennedy: I would ask any democrats who are chuckling now, do you think all that money, that $900 billion to medicaid every year has made americans healthy? Do we think it is working for anybody? Are the premiums low enough?
▶ 1:15:50Chair Crapo: Senator warner.
▶ 1:15:53Sen. Warner: For hundreds of thousands of virginians medicaid is what prevents them from health crises on a daily and weekly basis. Some imaginary new plan, if there was a new plan, it was to be the basis of what trump was going to do repealing obama care. I would have thought by now we would have seen it. Mr. kennedy, I have questions.
▶ 1:16:23Sen. Warner: I appreciated our visit. You take your views seriously. I voted for former president trump's nominees already and have gotten grief from folks on this panel.
▶ 1:16:38Sen. Warner: I saw an email you put out on monday night in a funding -- fundraising email celebrating the freeze on all the regulations, guidance and announcements is a video protect unelected bureaucrats -- and you ask your donors to help pay for your campaign debt. Did you put that out?
▶ 1:17:03Mr. Kennedy: I don't think my campaign exists anymore.
▶ 1:17:06Sen. Warner: Somebody is out there soliciting money for it. Maybe you ought to find out who is. The fact that you celebrate this freeze, you think that was a good idea to put all this on hold for 90 days? Funding and any kind of further work, nih research?
▶ 1:17:26Mr. Kennedy: As chairman crapo pointed out --
▶ 1:17:30Sen. Warner: I'm asking you. You in an important position.
▶ 1:17:36Mr. Kennedy: We are not closed as a result of the trump --
▶ 1:17:42Sen. Warner: Excuse me, sir. Explain to a domestic violence center who says they might have to close down where the men women are going to go. I have a nonprofit sing the freeze is going to -- saying the freeze is going to shut them down. If you don't know what your campaign is sending out, if you raised money on monday night --
▶ 1:18:08Mr. Kennedy: The trump administration -- the trump administration has made clear that it doesn't want to freeze benefits to many americans under medicaid or medicare. I do not want --
▶ 1:18:23Sen. Warner: The freeze is infecting beyond medicare and social security. I would hope you would have known that to answer some of this. You said publicly you want to get rid of 600 nih workers on day one. You said you wanted to get rid of 2200 people from hhs. Which offices are going to start cutting these 2200 workers?
▶ 1:18:53Mr. Kennedy: There are 200 political appointees that change --
▶ 1:19:00Sen. Warner: You are not going to replace them with your political appointees?
▶ 1:19:03Mr. Kennedy: President biden changed 3000 employees at hhs. 3750.
▶ 1:19:12Sen. Warner: What departments are going to pick them from?
▶ 1:19:15Mr. Kennedy: The same as president biden did when he changed 3000 out.
▶ 1:19:20Sen. Warner: I am down to a minute and 30. The chairman has been generous. Let me just say -- I hope since you are asking to become the top health care official in the united states at hhs, huge ramifications, and part of the job is to be the senior advisor to the president on health issues.
▶ 1:19:47Sen. Warner: When we look at this purge and laying off workers and potentially the president's illegal offer to try to buy out federal employees, which I would say to any federal employees think twice, has this individual in his business role ever fulfilled his contracts or obligations to any workers in the past? If you are in this position, will you pledge you will not fire federal employees who work on food safety, work on trying to prevent salmonella?
▶ 1:20:18Mr. Kennedy: There are 91,000 employees at hhs.
▶ 1:20:23Sen. Warner: It's a simple yes -- I'm going to take that as a no. We talked about protecting americans from cyber criminals. Something we need to do more on. What you commit not to fire anyone in the health arena who currently works on protecting americans from cyber attacks in their health care files?
▶ 1:20:45Mr. Kennedy: I will commit to not firing anybody doing their job.
▶ 1:20:49Sen. Warner: Based on your opinion? Based upon your opinion or your political agenda or Mr. trump's political agenda?
▶ 1:20:58Mr. Kennedy: Based upon my opinion.
▶ 1:21:00Sen. Warner: That means a lot of the folks who had any type of views on vaccines will be out of work. Will you freeze grant funding for community health centers? Will you freeze federal funds for community health centers?
▶ 1:21:19Mr. Kennedy: The white house has made clear no funds will be denied to any american for benefits. Any program.
▶ 1:21:27Sen. Warner: Do you know what happens at committee health centers?
▶ 1:21:32Mr. Kennedy: Are you talking about the indian health centers?
▶ 1:21:34Sen. Warner: I'm talking about health centers across the country. You will excuse indian health centers, which is good, but others will get their funds frozen.
▶ 1:21:46Mr. Kennedy: I strongly support community health centers, as does the president.
▶ 1:21:48Sen. Warner: You will not freeze the funding that is currently frozen?
▶ 1:21:52Mr. Kennedy: The white house made clear it is not supposed to be frozen.
▶ 1:21:56Sen. Warner: The direct payments are different than how the government operates. We find the federal government -- fund -- there are lots and lots of state programs that are related to health care that come from the federal government, down to the state and then he goes to local programs. All of those don't directly pay out a dollar at a time but they come from federal funding.
▶ 1:22:23Sen. Warner: Even of the keep changing the guidance on a minute by minute basis based upon 9:45 or 10:45, those funds are still frozen. Sir, I honestly want to give you a fair shot. I don't feel like -- I don't feel like you approach this job with the knowledge. Your willingness not to commit.
▶ 1:22:54Sen. Warner: People's lives are at stake. It's a very disappointing answer.
▶ 1:22:58Chair Crapo: Senator lankford.
▶ 1:23:01Sen. Lankford: Thank you. We had some great visits in my office. We have talked about 100 different issues and backgrounds. You have addressed a lot of them today. Just different questions to clear up social media rumors. I appreciate that.
▶ 1:23:19Sen. Lankford: We have talked about pharmacy benefit managers, your views on agriculture and commercial, food issues. You made it very clear you will not tell americans what to eat. You do want americans to know what they are eating. I think it's a pretty fair perspective on that. I want to talk about some areas you and I have talked about. We have disagreements on the issue of life and when it begins. You have been outspoken on that. We have had good opportunities to talk about that.
▶ 1:23:50Sen. Lankford: Title x is in the hhs area. This has been an area interpreted for a long time -- president trump in the first administration interpreted that rule to say his administration will prohibit the performance, referral for, promotion of abortion as a part of the title x program. He made that clear the first administration. That is his decision to make again on that. He has made a lot of public statements on that.
▶ 1:24:17Sen. Lankford: The biden administration not only reversed that, resend the rule but they went one step the other direction. In oklahoma, as you when I have talked about, divided administration cut off funding to the state of oklahoma for aids testing, breast cancer screening and other areas of poverty health care because my state did not promote abortion. It was not provide. If my state would not promote abortion in the state, we got cut off for federal funds for aids testing and other things.
▶ 1:24:50Sen. Lankford: How are you going to handle title x on that? I saw how president biden handled that in the punitive measures that came on my state for those that are in rural health care.
▶ 1:24:58Mr. Kennedy: I will support president trump's policies on title x. I agree with president trump. Every abortion is a tragedy. I agree that we cannot be a moral nation if we have 1.2 million abortions a year. I agree that the states should control abortion. President trump has told me he wants to end late-term abortions. He wants to protect conscious exemptions.
▶ 1:25:28Mr. Kennedy: He wants to end federal funding for abortions here and abroad. I serve at the pleasure of the president and I will and limit his policies.
▶ 1:25:40Sen. Lankford: President biden closed down the office of civil rights and conscious protections within hhs. There's a statement that came out recently that he will reopen the office again to protect the civil rights of americans. One thing hobbie or becerra did when he came into hhs was conscious protections for medical professionals being compelled against their conscience to perform medical procedures that violated their conscience.
▶ 1:26:06Sen. Lankford: Baera stepped in and withdrew that -- basera stepped in and said the federal government will tell you what you believe. You don't have conscience protections anymore. Will step in and say that health care individuals have the right of conscience again as federal law allows?
▶ 1:26:24Mr. Kennedy: The first thing that occurs to me when you asked that question is what patient would want somebody doing a surgery on them that believes it is against their conscience. I don't know anybody who would want to have that, a doctor performing the surgery the doctor is morally opposed to. I came from a family that was split on life and choice.
▶ 1:26:55Mr. Kennedy: I have cousins today who believe that abortion at any stage is equivalent to homicide. There are people who believe the opposite. The good thing in my family that I loved his we were able to have those conversations and respect each other. I wish we could do that nationally.
▶ 1:27:21Mr. Kennedy: If forcing somebody to participate in a medical procedure as a provider that they believe is murder does not make any sense to me. We need to welcome diversity in this country. 22 respect diversity -- we need to respect diversity and respect each other only have different opinions and not force our opinions on other people.
▶ 1:27:47Sen. Lankford: The fda under the biden administration changed the rules for the chemical abortion drug and said you no longer need to see a physician. If you have enough topic pregnancy -- ectopic pregnancy, don't even go see a physician. They changed in area in transparency. Don't tell us if there is a side effect on this drug unless she dies. Other than that, don't tell us anymore.
▶ 1:28:19Sen. Lankford: Literally don't give transparent information to the american people or the women who take this drug. We don't want that reported. My question is, will fda move to be able to actually do transparency to the american people and say the drug is no different than any other drug? It's not protected because it's political for some folks. People should know the side effects on this drug and that should be reporting.
▶ 1:28:40Mr. Kennedy: It is against everything we believe in in this country. That patients or doctors should not be reporting adverse events. We need to know what adverse events are. We need to understand the safety of every drug.
▶ 1:29:02Mr. Kennedy: President trump has made it clear to me one of the things he has not taken a position on yet, a detailed position but made it clear to me he wants me to look at the safety issues. I will ask nih and fda to do that.
▶ 1:29:21Chair Crapo: Senator whitehouse.
▶ 1:29:24Sen. Whitehouse: Thank you, chairman. I only have five minutes with you so I have a lot of experience with cms. You will have to listen. Two things.
▶ 1:29:39Sen. Whitehouse: One, if you want to move from advocacy to public responsibility, americans are going to need to hear a clear and trustworthy recantation of what you have said on vaccinations. Including a promise from you never to say vaccines are not medically safe when they in fact are.
▶ 1:30:11Sen. Whitehouse: And making indisputably clear you support mandatory vaccinations against diseases where that will keep people safe. You are in that hole pretty deep. We just had a measles case in rhode island. The first since 2013. Frankly, you frighten people.
▶ 1:30:39Sen. Whitehouse: Two, I want to air harms that rhode island has experienced from a remorseless, senseless cms bureaucracy. Cms has for years maintained a reimbursement system that the bureaucracy could never explain, never justify. That persistently pays rhode island providers less than neighboring massachusetts and connecticut providers.
▶ 1:31:08Sen. Whitehouse: A differential of 23 and 26% -- 23% and 26% in our regional health care market. The head program can begin to remedy this, at least for value-based care. It must. There has to be payment parity in the region. Rhode island's health care system is bleeding out because we are not paid what neighboring hospitals and doctors are paid.
▶ 1:31:40Sen. Whitehouse: The one act cms took on this years ago was to make it worse. The cms bureaucracy has also attacked one of the best accountable care organizations in the country. Rhode island's integra family doctors tried to throw them off the shared savings program because they said integra years ago briefly fell 137 patients
▶ 1:32:11Sen. Whitehouse: Short of the 5000 they need. Cms would not listen until a court found that to be unjustified, likely illegal, irreparable harm to this high-performing aco and its patients. Contrary to the public interest. That must stop.
▶ 1:32:34Sen. Whitehouse: Last, cms has refused to approve waivers granted elsewhere for rhode island from rules that are stupid for medicare patients who are nearing the end of their days. Here is what families see. Granny is home dying. She needs to transfer to a nursing home. Medicare insists on putting her three days and two nights in the hospital, expensive, frightening to granny in the family and stupid.
▶ 1:33:07Sen. Whitehouse: Granny cannot get palliative care and curative care together. Inhumane and stupid. Granny is home dying and can get home care. If she can still get out into the yard or be driven to see the shore, to see narragansett beach one more time, to recall childhood memories before she dies. Inhumane and stupid. Granny is home dying in the family is exhausted.
▶ 1:33:36Sen. Whitehouse: The respite care benefit is not to send a nurse or a caregiver, but the stuff granny in an ambulance and hauled her off to a hospital. Some respite. It is all expensive, frightening, inhumane and stupid. But the cms bureaucracy takes a court order to be awakened to the harm they cause.
▶ 1:34:07Sen. Whitehouse: I have had enough. Cms should let rhode island try humane end-of-life care through cmm not -- cmmi. I bet it will save money, serve families better at a very delicate time, and perhaps even make a model for better health care everywhere. I have set a lot. My time is out. You're are welcome to respond in writing.
▶ 1:34:37Sen. Whitehouse: I ask unanimous consent that the order declaring cms's actions to constitute irreparable and illegal harm be put into the record.
▶ 1:34:47Chair Crapo: Without objection.
▶ 1:34:48Mr. Kennedy: Let me just respond briefly, senator whitehouse. I'm an enemy of tyrannical incidence aid bureaucracies and stupid rules. I will work with you to make cms responsive to the needs of rhode island and remedy those disparities you talk about. I am familiar with the integra health plan.
▶ 1:35:20Mr. Kennedy: It is the template for we ought to be doing, they value-based plan. I look forward to making sure we create pilot programs like this.
▶ 1:35:32Sen. Whitehouse: Unfortunately, Mr. chairman, one thing I learned in the senate as a nominee saying they are willing to work with me amounts to exactly zero. We need to get this fixed. Thank you.
▶ 1:35:46Chair Crapo: I guess at that point we will move on to senator daines.
▶ 1:35:52Sen. Daines: Mr. kennedy, I am glad to see you this morning. I listened to your opening remarks and you mentioned you want to make hhs the gold standard of science. I have found my engagements with you both behind closed doors in my office and listening to publicly to be very thoughtful and science-based. I applaud that and I thank you for that.
▶ 1:36:19Sen. Daines: This will likely be a very partisan vote on this committee and on the senate floor. There are three medical doctors on this side of the dais. I'm a chemical engineer. We believe in science. I'm thankful you do too when you made that comment in your opening remarks. I want to talk about agriculture. We talked about our common love for montana. You have been to montana many times. A lot of folks have discovered it.
▶ 1:36:48Sen. Daines: You watch the show "yellowstone" and people are moving to our state. It's an amazing place. As you know, agriculture is our top economic driver in montana. We produce some of the highest-quality crops, the best livestock in the country in the world. Our farmers and ranchers are truly some of the most effective environmental stewards in ensuring we have a safe food supply chain in the world.
▶ 1:37:19Sen. Daines: I share your view that protecting the integrity and safety of our food supply is utmost importance. I appreciate the research in places like montana state university to help farmers produce resilient, healthy, and safe crops, as well as their agriculture practices. You were a 4-h kid growing up. Those are some of the best kids in america.
▶ 1:37:46Sen. Daines: My question is if confirmed, as I'm listening to my farmers and ranchers talk about the future, will you commit to working collaboratively with partners at usda, at the relevant federal agencies and are montana farmers and ranchers before if limiting any policy that might affect or impact food supplies?
▶ 1:38:09Mr. Kennedy: Absolutely I will make that commitment. I shared a personal commitment and a long career working with farmers. I want to make -- I understand the slim margins american farmers and ranchers are dealing with.
▶ 1:38:33Mr. Kennedy: I don't want under my watch a single farmer to have to leave his farm for economic reasons or for regulatory or bureaucratic reasons while I serve, if I am privileged to serve. Even more important, president trump has a very strong commitment to farmers.
▶ 1:38:54Mr. Kennedy: President trump is probably historically in modern history the best farm president in our history. The income spiked for the first time in decades under his last administration. He got solid support from farmers across the country. Farm country is trump country.
▶ 1:39:24Mr. Kennedy: He has instructed me that he wants farmers involved in every policy. He wants me to work with brooke rollins at usda to make sure we preserve american farmers. That all of our policies support them.
▶ 1:39:42Sen. Daines: If confirmed, I look forward to having you to montana.
▶ 1:39:45Mr. Kennedy: You have my commitment to come there anytime, particularly during ski season or hunting season.
▶ 1:39:52Sen. Daines: Deal. I want to shift gears for a moment. As we discussed in the meeting in my office, method prestone was approved in 2000. Fda was brought to to assess th.
▶ 1:40:18Sen. Daines: Some of these deregulations included ending the requirement that the drugs be prescribed by a doctor. Ending reporting requirements for adverse events. Allowing the pills to be obtained through the mail. In fact, the fda's own prescribing label mentioned 3% to 5% of women taking this drug end up in the emergency room.
▶ 1:40:45Sen. Daines: My question is, if confirmed as secretary of hhs, will you commit to working with the fda commissioner view, the deregulatory actions that are threatening the safety of women?
▶ 1:41:02Mr. Kennedy: As I said to senator lankford, it's immoral to have a policy where patients are not allowed to report adverse events and doctors are discouraged from doing that. President trump asked me to study the safety of mifepristone . He has not yet taken a stand on how to regulate it.
▶ 1:41:29Mr. Kennedy: Whatever he does, I will implement those policies. I will work with this committee to make those policies make sense.
▶ 1:41:37Sen. Daines: Thank you, Mr. kennedy.
▶ 1:41:39Chair Crapo: Senator hassan.
▶ 1:41:42Sen. Hassan: . -- thank you to your family. On medicaid, states share in the funding of medicaid. Millions of disabled children are alive because of medicaid. Millions of people with addiction in this country are in recovery because of the services provided to them by medicaid.
▶ 1:42:07Sen. Hassan: Millions of chronically ill people who until medicaid expansion was enacted who could not get health care and therefore cannot work because they were too sick got health care through medicaid expansion and then went back to work and now on private insurance. Those are some facts about medicaid you might want to brush up on. I am also extremely concerned about your endorsement of radical fringe conspiracies that if a limited at hhs -- implement it at hhs would put lives at risk.
▶ 1:42:39Sen. Hassan: Vaccines are one of our greatest public health triumphs. You don't need -- I'm not talking about abstract medical science. One of the people who helped raise me was my grandfather, pediatrician. He practiced medicine from 1921 until the mid-1980's. I heard details about the difference those vaccines made in saving lives in the children who were under his care. Vaccination has helped to eradicate many deadly diseases in the united states, including polio and smallpox.
▶ 1:43:10Sen. Hassan: Something we should be proud of is americans. I am extremely concerned that as secretary he would be able to hold critical vaccine research and exploit parents' natural worries by advising them not to vaccinate their children. This will lead to more children getting sick and some will die. Before the measles vaccine about 500 american children died a year from measles. This is too much of a risk for our country.
▶ 1:43:38Sen. Hassan: There is no reason that any of us should believe you have reversed the anti-vaccine views you have promoted for 25 years. For example, you previously falsely suggested the polio vaccine killed many, many, many, many more people than polio ever did. By causing fatal cancers while rigorous safety standards -- studies show that to be completely false. Let's go to something we agree upon.
▶ 1:44:07Sen. Hassan: I am really heartened to see that one area where we agree on is on women's reproductive freedom. In your own words, it is not the government's place to tell people what to do with their bodies. You said that, correct? Yes. In 2023, you came to new hampshire and said, "I am pro-choice. Hi nothing the government has any business telling people what they can or cannot do with her body." you said that.
▶ 1:44:35Mr. Kennedy: Yes.
▶ 1:44:37Sen. Hassan: You said we need to trust the women to make that choice because I don't trust government to make any choices. You said that, right?
▶ 1:44:45Mr. Kennedy: Yes.
▶ 1:44:49Sen. Hassan: It is remarkable you have a long record of fighting for reproductive freedom and great that my republican colleagues are so open to voting for a pro-choice hhs secretary. Mr. kennedy, I'm confused. You clearly stated in the past that bodily autonomy is one of your core values. The question is do you stand for that value or not? When was it that you decided to sell out the values you had your whole life in order to be given power by president trump?
▶ 1:45:16Mr. Kennedy: Senator, I agree with president trump that every abortion is a tragedy. We cannot be a moral authority.
▶ 1:45:24Sen. Hassan: That is not what you said in new hampshire in 2023. My question is exactly when did you decide to sell at your life's work and values to get this position?
▶ 1:45:34Mr. Kennedy: Senator, I agree with president trump. Every abortion is a tragedy.
▶ 1:45:39Sen. Hassan: What you are telling us, because my time is limited, is that regardless of what you believe, regardless of what values you have, if president trump tells you to do something, you are going to do it. You said just now the discussion about mifepristone, oh, he asked me to study the safety of. Here are the safety studies that tell us mifepristone is safe and effective.
▶ 1:46:05Sen. Hassan: I ask that these about 40 studies be admitted to the record by unanimous consent.
▶ 1:46:10Chair Crapo: Without objection.
▶ 1:46:12Sen. Hassan: The study is they are, the safety is proved, the science is there. You are telling us that if president trump orders you to take action to make it harder for women to get direly needed health care, you will follow his order. If Mr.
▶ 1:46:27Sen. Hassan: Trump, as he did yesterday, orders a halt on medicaid payments that are essential for taking care of people with disabilities all around this country, you are going to follow that order, because you are willing to sacrifice your values, your knowledge if president trump tells you to do that. That is unacceptable in a secretary of health and human services.
▶ 1:46:52Mr. Kennedy: As I explained before, the white house has issued a statement saying that policy will not deprive any american.
▶ 1:47:06Sen. Hassan: The white house issued that statement only after we pointed out the damage it would do in it became politically uncomfortable for them. You know what else that freeze on federal funding did? Halted funds for critical research that could cure pediatric cancer. So if the president tells you to do that, you're going to stop that too? That's enough.
▶ 1:47:32Chair Crapo: Senator cortez masto.
▶ 1:47:36Sen. Cortez Masto: Thank you. Thank you for having the conversation we did. I appreciate your passion. Your belief. You have spent years really talking about the issues that matter to you. I appreciate that. Let me ask a couple of questions, though I just need some clarification.
▶ 1:48:01Sen. Cortez Masto: There's a 40-year-old that requires hospital er's excepting payment from medicare to provide emergency care to patients. Let's say a woman experienced a life reading condition like a heart attack -- life-threatening condition echo heart attack goes to the er. You would agree the federal law protects her right to emergency care, correct?
▶ 1:48:22Mr. Kennedy: Yes.
▶ 1:48:23Sen. Cortez Masto: A pregnant woman with life-threatening bleeding from an incomplete miscarriage goes to the er. Let me rephrase that so you can hear it. A pregnant woman with a life-threatening bleeding from an incomplete miscarriage goes to the er and her doctor also determines that she needs an emergency abortion. She's in a state where abortion is banned.
▶ 1:48:53Sen. Cortez Masto: You would agree also as an attorney that federal law protects her right to that emergency care, correct?
▶ 1:48:58Mr. Kennedy: I don't know. The answer is I don't know.
▶ 1:49:06Sen. Cortez Masto: As an attorney, doesn't federal upper yet the state law?
▶ 1:49:11Mr. Kennedy: The federal constitution does. Not every federal law preempts state laws. They could be unconstitutional. I'm just telling you that I don't know the answer to the question.
▶ 1:49:25Sen. Cortez Masto: What authority do you have over this as the director of hhs?
▶ 1:49:30Mr. Kennedy: What authority do I have to?
▶ 1:49:33Sen. Cortez Masto: To enforce the law?
▶ 1:49:35Mr. Kennedy: In what regards?
▶ 1:49:37Sen. Cortez Masto: To make sure hospital that receives payment from medicare is ensuring they are providing the necessary emergency care. It's actually the law. What authority do you have with respect to intala ?
▶ 1:49:59Mr. Kennedy: I have budgetary power and is pretty much limited to that. If you tell me I have another authority -- we have a law enforcement branch at hhs.
▶ 1:50:09Sen. Cortez Masto: Yes you do. That is cms. Cms investigates complaints and the health and human services inspector general, who by the way was just recently fired by donald trump. You will be enforcing laws. It's important that you don't play politics with the patient resenting at the er based on a position this administration has taken. Let me ask you another question.
▶ 1:50:40Sen. Cortez Masto: When we met in my office you said about lowering drug prices that when big pharma price gouges the american people suffer. I think we agree on that. I think you are sincere that you want to reduce prices for americans, correct?
▶ 1:50:57Mr. Kennedy: Yes.
▶ 1:50:58Sen. Cortez Masto: The inflation reduction act empowered medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices. It penalizes drug coming for price hikes above inflation. It caps seniors' out-of-pocket drug costs and reducing insulin prices to $35 per month.
▶ 1:51:19Sen. Cortez Masto: Your future boss, donald trump, on his first day in office revoked president biden's executive order that actually directed the health secretary to examine ways to reduce drug prices and improve access to innovative therapies for the american people. And, unfortunately, republicans in congress want to repeal the inflation reduction act, which means reversing all of those things we worked on to lower prices for americans.
▶ 1:51:50Sen. Cortez Masto: My question to you is, what do you do? Why are you there? Are you there to be a rubberstamp to this administration and caves all these positions they are taking -- cave to all these positions even though they could harm americans? How do you handle that as hhs director?
▶ 1:52:15Mr. Kennedy: My understanding is the white house issued an executive order today supporting the drug negotiations of the ira. President trump was very aggressive during his first term about negotiating drug prices. He instructed me -- I met with him repeatedly as though we need lower-priced is for seniors in this country.
▶ 1:52:42Sen. Cortez Masto: Let me ask you this because I only have so much time. We have already negotiated lowering prices for 10 drugs with big pharma. Big pharma opposes this. They have not only asked for a pause, they filed a lawsuit. We have already negotiated the first 10 drugs. We want to expand it to the next 10 to 15 that the biden administration has put forward.
▶ 1:53:05Sen. Cortez Masto: Would you agree and continue that path of mandating the big pharma come to the table and negotiate drug prices for medicare so we can lower the prices for americans?
▶ 1:53:16Mr. Kennedy: My understanding the executive order issued today, which I have not se but I read a summary of --
▶ 1:53:22Sen. Cortez Masto: You keep citing the trumpet ministry should and you will just follow what they say. Are you just a rubberstamp in this position?
▶ 1:53:30Mr. Kennedy: President trump --
▶ 1:53:33Sen. Cortez Masto: It can be anybody before us as long as it is a rubberstamp for the administration and disregarding what your beliefs are? If it really is fundamental to what you believe, how do you live with that? How do you address those issues as you're moving forward?
▶ 1:53:49Mr. Kennedy: Do you want me to answer the question?
▶ 1:53:53Sen. Cortez Masto: I am asking you.
▶ 1:53:55Mr. Kennedy: President trump has asked me to end of the chronic disease epidemic and make americans healthy again.
▶ 1:54:05Sen. Cortez Masto: Is that the only reason why you rat hhs? -- you are at hhs, to address that one issue?
▶ 1:54:13Mr. Kennedy: President trump asked me to and asked me to aend that. That is what I'm doing. If we don't solve that problem, senator, all the other disputes we have about who is paying and whether it is insurance companies, whether it is providers, whether it is hmos, patients or families, although the moving deck chairs around on the titanic. Our ship is sinking.
▶ 1:54:44Mr. Kennedy: 60% increase in medicaid over the past four years is the biggest budget line and it's going faster than any other and know with a nation in the world has what we have here. No other nation has a product -- has a chronic disease burden. During covid we had 16% of the covid deaths. Clearly have 4.2% of the world population. We had a higher death count that any country in the world.
▶ 1:55:14Mr. Kennedy: When cdc was asked why, they said is because americans are the sickest people on earth. The average person died from covid. They had 3.8 chronic diseases. This is an existential threat economically toward military, our health, our sense of well-being. It is a priority for president trump. That is why he asked me to run the agency. If I'm privileged to be confirmed, that is what I will do.
▶ 1:55:47Chair Crapo: Senator barrasso.
▶ 1:55:50Sen. Barrasso: Thank you for talking about the important issues affecting health care in my home state of wyoming in the nation. I appreciate your willingness to serve our country. We discussed the challenges to health care providers and patients in rural america, financial obstacles, workforce shortages, issues of ob/gyn and new regulations that are painful that have come out of the biden administration hurting her ability to provide nursing home staffing.
▶ 1:56:22Sen. Barrasso: Let me start if I could with rural hospitals and the closures of hospitals like that. There are challenges facing hospitals in rural communities and frontier areas. We have 33 hospitals in wyoming. 26 are really located in various locations that are hard to get to. Six are at risk of closing. Two are at immediate risk of closing in the next two years.
▶ 1:56:48Sen. Barrasso: Tenant had to cut available services -- 10 have had to cut available services. This is a concern in both republican and democrat states. Critical that the workforce challenges, financial challenges are addressed. Can you commit to working with us on a plan to address the critical nationwide issue of rural health care?
▶ 1:57:09Mr. Kennedy: Yes, senator. I would say that during my visit -- I visited almost 60 senators. The most common unifying issue of democrats and republicans, one was tbm reform. The other was rural hospitals. Our nation made a commitment over 100 years ago to have a hospital within 30 miles of every american.
▶ 1:57:39Mr. Kennedy: We generally succeeded in doing that. It is absolutely critical it is lifesaving. Where will hospitals are closing at an extraordinary rate right now. That not only provide the important health care for the localities but also they are economic drivers were localities all over this country. President trump is determined to end the hemorrhage of rural hospitals.
▶ 1:58:08Mr. Kennedy: He has asked me to do that through the use of ia, retail -- ai, telemedicine. These are innovations I saw the other day at the cleveland clinic. They have developed an ai nurse that you cannot distinguish between a human being. It has diagnostics as good as any doctor.
▶ 1:58:31Mr. Kennedy: We can develop and provide concierge care to every american in this country, even those in the remote parts of wyoming, montana, alaska, etc. We also have opportunities at hrsa and the gme to finally live up to gma's mission of providing personnel to rural hospitals.
▶ 1:59:00Mr. Kennedy: I intend to use all my power because I have seen the priority given by both democrats and republicans on this committee. I intend to make that a priority if I am privileged to be confirmed.
▶ 1:59:14Sen. Barrasso: I appreciate that. With financial strains on the local hospital, one of the common services to be cut his maternity services. We have women having to drive over 100 miles to access care. 13 counties don't have access to ob. These are larger than the state of vermont, new hampshire, new jersey, delaware. Counties larger than those whole states.
▶ 1:59:40Sen. Barrasso: We commit to working with my office to find solutions to help address these specific maternal health challenges?
▶ 1:59:45Mr. Kennedy: Yes. I look forward to it.
▶ 1:59:48Sen. Barrasso: Another issue we spoke about was the harmful biden administration rule that had been bad for our rural nursing homes. It would triple the registered nursethey are not enough registd nurses in our state to be able to comply with this. This would lead to nursing home closures across our state.
▶ 2:00:12Sen. Barrasso: Will you work with me to fix this serious problem as a result of the rule of the buy-in -- the by demonstration? -- the biden administration?
▶ 2:00:24Mr. Kennedy: I think the rule was well-intentioned. It will be a disaster for those states. Some of the nursing homes -- the staffing will require 24 hour staffing by medical professionals. Some nursing homes in rural areas simply do not have the available personnel for the economics to be able to do that.
▶ 2:00:46Mr. Kennedy: People mean the closure of nursing homes in rural areas across our country, which means the parents, the elderly parent will be moved a great distance from the local community and their family. We know that the single greatest driver of high quality nursing home care is the involvement and proximity of family members.
▶ 2:01:10Mr. Kennedy: When you move that nursing facility away from the community where the kids live you will get much worse care. The intention, although it was noble, was in reality for rural areas at least a disaster.
▶ 2:01:26Sen. Barrasso: Thank you, Mr. chairman.
▶ 2:01:28Chair Crapo: Thank you. Senator johnson.
▶ 2:01:32Sen. Johnson: Mr. kennedy, welcome. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your decades long advocacy for a clean environment. For children's health. I can't say I'm surprised by the hostility on the others. I'm highly disappointed in it.
▶ 2:01:58Sen. Johnson: I don't know if you remember when you called me up and you were contemplating setting political differences aside, joining forces with president trump in an area of agreement addressing chronic illness. Trying to find the root cause of all these problems facing this nation. My first response was this is an answer to my prayers. We need to get to the answers. Even more, we need to heal and unify this divided nation.
▶ 2:02:29Sen. Johnson: I'm not the most optimistic guy. We have enormous challenges facing this nation. I thought here is somebody from the left. Somebody I don't agree with on many issues politically, come together with president trump -- coming together with president trump and focusing on agreement. Something the american people desperately want. Finding out the answers. What has caused autism? What is causing chronic illness?
▶ 2:03:02Sen. Johnson: Mr. kennedy, I think I have come to know what is in your heart. I think I know the personal and political price you pay for this decision. I want to sayi truly appreciatet I want to sayi truly appreciatee doing here. Can't we come together as a nation and do this?
▶ 2:03:34Sen. Johnson: Are you getting tired of this? I'm getting tired of this. Mr. kennedy, I need to enter into the record 11 letters of support signed by 63,000 people. Thousands of doctors. From the american association of american physicians and surgeons. The independent medical alliance. Governor jeff landry of louisiana.
▶ 2:04:03Sen. Johnson: These are americans, not partisan. A lot of these people I know because I advocated with you. A lot of democrats. They put their political differences aside. I would like to enter this into the record.
▶ 2:04:17Chair Crapo: Without objection.
▶ 2:04:18Sen. Johnson: I would like to -- I have written over 70 letters to the federal hate elgin sees -- health agencies under the biden administration. I got squad out of them. We -- squat out of them. We get 50 pages of anthony fauci's emails, redacted. By the way, the latest was 17 pages.
▶ 2:04:47Sen. Johnson: Instead of issuing a health alert on the myocarditis they knew was impacting young men early in 2021, instead of issuing an alert on the health alert network, they developed 17 pages of talking points. This was given to the public. They had to go to court. They don't black things out. They just give you white pages.
▶ 2:05:17Sen. Johnson: You don't even know what they have redacted. I have issued a subpoena now to cover the information I requested in 70 oversight letters. As secretary of hhs, will you honor these requests from congress? Will you make hhs transparent?
▶ 2:05:36Mr. Kennedy: You have -- my approach to hhs is radical transparency. Democrats and republicans ought to be able to come in, get information that was generated at taxpayer expense, that is owned by the american taxpayer. They should not get redacted documents. Public health agencies should be transparent. If we want americans to restore trust in the public health agencies we need transparency.
▶ 2:06:10Mr. Kennedy: I want to say something about what you said. When I launched my campaign it was about uniting americans. Democrats and republicans. There is no issue that should not be explored in the chronic health epidemic. There is no such thing as republican children or democrat children. These are our kids. 66% are damaged. I know what a healthy kid looks like. I have so many in my family.
▶ 2:06:40Mr. Kennedy: I didn't know anybody with a food allergy growing up. But peanut allergy. Why do kids have allergies? Why are we seeing this explosion in diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, neurological diseases, depression? All these things related to toxins in the environment. Why can't we just agree with each other to put differences about so many issues aside and say we will in this?
▶ 2:07:07Mr. Kennedy: -- and this? -- end this? I don't think anyone can do it like I can with my peculiar experience. I litigated against these agencies. You get a phd in corporate capture and how to unravel it. I have written six books about these agencies. I know a lot about them and I know how to fix it. There is nobody who will fix it the way I can because I'm not scared of interest.
▶ 2:07:41Mr. Kennedy: I'm not here because I want a position or job. I have a very good life and a happy family. This is something I don't need. I want to do this because we will fix it. We are attracting a caliber of people to hhs like never before in history. They are entrepreneurs. They are disruptors and innovators of immense talent that are walking away from growing concerns.
▶ 2:08:08Mr. Kennedy: They are not coming there for position or they want to save our country. They are from across the political spectrum. All these democrats are opposed to me for partisan issues that used to be my friends who agreed with me on all the environment to lease I have been working on my whole career -- environmental issues I have been working on my whole career.
▶ 2:08:33Mr. Kennedy: Anything president trump does has to be lampooned and derided, discredited, marginalized, vilified.
▶ 2:08:41Chair Crapo: We need to move on. Senator warner.
▶ 2:08:45Sen. Warner: I want to start with something I think you and I agree on. Big pharma has too much power in washington. You said that president trump asked you to "clean up corruption and conflicts." sounds great. You said you will "slam shut the revolving door between government agencies and the companies they regulate." that also sounds great. Here's an easy question.
▶ 2:09:16Sen. Warner: Will you commit that when you leave this job you will not accept compensation from a drug company, a medical device company, a hospital system or health insurer for at least four years, including as a lobbyist or a board number?
▶ 2:09:30Mr. Kennedy: Can you repeat the last part of the question?
▶ 2:09:33Sen. Warren: Will you take money from drug companies in any way, shape or form? You?
▶ 2:09:43Mr. Kennedy: I'm happy to commit to that.
▶ 2:09:44Sen. Warren: I said it is an easy question to start with. I think you are right on this.
▶ 2:09:49Mr. Kennedy: I don't think any of them want to give me money.
▶ 2:09:52Sen. Warren: Let's keep going. You are right because every american has the right to know every decision you make as our number one health officer is to help them and not to make money for yourself in the future. I want to talk about money. I'm looking at your paperwork right now. In the last two years you have raked in $4.5 million from a law firm.
▶ 2:10:22Sen. Warren: You do commercials to encourage people to sign up. To join lawsuits against vaccine makers. For everyone who signs up, you personally get paid. If they win, you get 10% of what they win. If you bring in somebody who gets $10 million, you walk away with $1 million.
▶ 2:10:46Sen. Warren: You just said you want the american people to know you cannot be bought. Your decisions depend on how much money you can -- won't depend on how much money you make in the future. You and I both know there's another way to make money. Mr.
▶ 2:11:02Sen. Warren: Kennedy, will you also agree you won't take any compensation from any lawsuits against drug companies while you are secretary and for four years afterwards?
▶ 2:11:17Mr. Kennedy: I will certainly commit to that while I'm secretary. I want to clarify something because you making me sound like a shill. I did the sence presentation to the judge in that case.
▶ 2:11:38Sen. Warren: Mr. kennedy, it's a simple question. You have taken into $.5 million. I want to know if you look -- in $2.59. Will do not only work for -- $2.5 million. Will you take a right out of that while you are secretary and for four years after?
▶ 2:12:00Mr. Kennedy: I will commit to not take fees from drug companies while secretary.
▶ 2:12:05Sen. Warren: I am asking about fees from suing drug companies. Will you agree not to that?
▶ 2:12:13Mr. Kennedy: You are asking me to not sue drug companies. I'm not going to agree to that. I am not going to agree to not sue drug companies or anybody.
▶ 2:12:24Sen. Warren: Let's do a quick count of how as secretary of hhs, if confirmed, you could influence every one of those lawsuits. Let me start the list. You can publish your anti-vaccine conspiracies but this time on U.S. government letterhead. Something a jury might be impressed by.
▶ 2:12:46Mr. Kennedy: I don't understand that.
▶ 2:12:49Sen. Warren: Vaccine panel who shares your anti-vax views and let them do your dirty work. You can tell the cdc vaccine panel to remove a particular vaccine from the vaccine schedule. You can remove vaccines from special compensation programs which would open up manufacturers to mast torts. You can -- mass torts. You can make injuries open even though there's no causal evidence.
▶ 2:13:16Sen. Warren: You can change processes to make it easier to bring junk lawsuits. You can turn over fda data to your friends at the law firm and they can use it however it benefited them. You can change vaccine labeling. You can change vaccine information rules. You can change which claims are compensated in the vaccine injury compensation program. There's a lot of ways you can influence those future lawsuits and pending lawsuits while you are secretary of hhs.
▶ 2:13:47Sen. Warren: I am asking you to commit right now that you will not take a financial stake in every one of those lawsuits so that what you do as secretary will also benefit you financially down the line.
▶ 2:14:00Mr. Kennedy: I will comply with all the other gold guidelines.
▶ 2:14:03Sen. Warren: That is not the question.
▶ 2:14:06Mr. Kennedy: You are asking me -- senator, you're asking me not to sue vaccine -- pharmaceutical companies.
▶ 2:14:12Sen. Warren: No, I'm not. No one should be fooled here. As secretary of hhs, robert kennedy will have the power to undercut vaccines and vaccine manufacturing across our country. For all of his talk about follow the science and his promise that he won't interfere with those of us who want to vaccinate kids, the bottom line is the same.
▶ 2:14:43Sen. Warren: Kennedy can kill off access to vaccines and make millions of dollars while he does it. Kids might die but robert kennedy can keep cashing in.
▶ 2:14:57Mr. Kennedy: I support vaccines and the childhood schedule. The only thing I want is good science.
▶ 2:15:07Sen. Warren: How about you so you won't make money off or you do as secretary of hhs?
▶ 2:15:15Chair Crapo: Mr. kennedy has gone through the same office of government ethics process as every other nominee in the finance committee, this year and in previous administrations.
▶ 2:15:33Chair Crapo: In addition to listing his assets, he signed an ethics letter reviewed by the office of government ethics concerning any possible conflict in light of its functions and the nominee proposed duties and we have a letter from the office he has complied completely with all applicable laws and regulations governing conflicts of interest.
▶ 2:15:59Sen. Warren: Point of information. Have we have a single nominee come through who has made 2.5 million dollars off suing one of the entities he had been regulating and plans to get a take from every lawsuit in the future?
▶ 2:16:17Chair Crapo: I have not reviewed the past documentation of every other nominee's finances. Every time we get a nominee, their financial interests are attacked.
▶ 2:16:31Chair Crapo: That's why we have a government of ethics, office of government ethics, but he has listed his assets and gone through a discussion of responsibilities under our ethics laws and has complied with all those requirements. Senator tillis.
▶ 2:16:55Sen. Tillis: How is your morning going?
▶ 2:16:59Mr. Kennedy: So far so good. You came prepared. Glad you did. You addressed title x and the president priority with respect to planned parenthood. Are you 100% behind the president's policy on title x?
▶ 2:17:26Mr. Kennedy: 100% behind it.
▶ 2:17:30Sen. Tillis: I was in a judiciary hearing this morning. It was clear some of these nominations -- no matter what you answer in the affirmative, they will ask you one more question so you cannot answer in the affirmative. That's how the game is played. You are handling yourself well. Are you a conspiracy theorist?
▶ 2:17:57Mr. Kennedy: That is a pejorative applied to me, mainly to keep me from asking difficult questions. I was told I was a conspiracy theorist, that label was applied to me because I said the covid vaccine didn't prevent transmission and would not prevent infection when the government was telling americans it would.
▶ 2:18:27Mr. Kennedy: I was saying that because I was looking at the monkey studies in may, 2020. Now everyone admits it. I said red dye cause cancer. Now the fda acknowledged that and banned it.
▶ 2:18:52Mr. Kennedy: Jama published a medical review of 87 studies saying there is a direct correlation with iq -- I could go on for a week.
▶ 2:19:02Sen. Tillis: Is there anyone of them that you could say, you got me? It would be helpful for everyone of these narratives, for you to submit that for the record. Snap lunch. I was in the state house of now three line a. -- north carolina. When I would visit an elementary school, I would go to the trash cans in the cafeteria.
▶ 2:19:32Sen. Tillis: We have kids not eating the food because the dictates of the federal government have made it something they don't want. They say it is a healthy alternative. It has processed materials and they throw it away. Then what do they do? They eat snacks or drink a sugar drink. The snap program, everything you have said about it, I agree with. We should be strict about that.
▶ 2:20:00Sen. Tillis: They will make people uncomfortable in the food manufacturing segment. Produce healthy foods we can put in snap. We need to look at the school health program. I was pta president 22 years ago at my daughter's high school. We have kids that need help. We have to guide them. Many of them are on medicaid.
▶ 2:20:28Sen. Tillis: Everyone here says medicaid is sacrosanct. No one is admitting medicaid is not producing positive health outcomes.
▶ 2:20:37Mr. Kennedy: The outcomes. We are spending $900 billion, people are getting sicker every year. President trump wants americans to have high quality insurance.
▶ 2:20:50Sen. Tillis: Anyone building a case for status quo a medicaid is by extension saying they are happy with the outcomes. On acceptable. Project warp speed. The cares act, only one member of congress voted against it. Cdc, fda, nih and barda in the mix.
▶ 2:21:17Sen. Tillis: Some people think you are going to insert yourself into those agencies in a way never done before. Let's say they are part of a future project warp speed. Is it your intent to do something that has never been done before and insert yourself in a discussion, scientists dealing within those agencies?
▶ 2:21:39Mr. Kennedy: No. I am not a scientist. I want to empower scientistss. I want to make sure science is unobstructed by vested or economic interests. Operation warp speed was an extraordinary accomplishment, demonstration of leadership by president trump.
▶ 2:22:05Mr. Kennedy: When he promoted operation warp speed, he was looking at the different remedies including vaccines. Ivermectin, remedies, he was not looking at shutting down our country for the year, forcing people were to wear masks, forcing social distancing that did not have any scientific basis.
▶ 2:22:35Mr. Kennedy: He said we took it out of thin air. All of those changed during the biden administration. It became narrowly focused. We ended up with the highest death count of any country in the world.
▶ 2:22:50Sen. Tillis: I have heard people complaining about health care delivery, medicaid, on the others of the dais. Who has been responsible for health care policies the last four years?
▶ 2:23:07Mr. Kennedy: The biden administration.
▶ 2:23:09Sen. Tillis: The president. I would have liked to have heard more of those in oversight hearings last four years but I'm glad there is an acknowledgment you are inheriting a problem that needs to be fixed.
▶ 2:23:23Chair Crapo: Senator sanders.
▶ 2:23:26Sen. Sanders: Thanks for being with us. I like the slogan you coined, make america healthy again and I strongly agree with that effort. Despite spending three times per capita on health care as other nations, 85 million people uninsured, underinsured, all kinds of chronic .
▶ 2:23:57Sen. Sanders: Life expectancy is lower than other countries and for working class people in this country, they are living seven years shorter lives than the top 1%. We got a problem ok. I will suggest some ideas I think can remedy that. Last year, the insurance industry in this country made over $70 billion. 85 million americans are uninsured or underinsured. Do you agree with me the U.S.
▶ 2:24:27Sen. Sanders: Should join every other major country on earth and guarantee health care to all people as a human right? Yes or no?
▶ 2:24:36Mr. Kennedy: I cannot give you a yes or no.
▶ 2:24:43Sen. Sanders: Is health care a human right?
▶ 2:24:47Mr. Kennedy: In the way that free speech is a human right, I would say it is different. Free speech doesn't cost anybody anything. In health care, if you smoke cigarettes for 20 years and get cancer, you are now taking from a pool. Are you guaranteed the same right?
▶ 2:25:13Sen. Sanders: I would love to talk for one hour with you. We have a few minutes left. Every other country on earth says health care if you are poor or rich. I am not hearing you say that. You have talked about drug companies. Maybe we agree on this. Despite the companies making over $100 billion in profits, paying ceos outrageous packages, we in some cases pay 10 times more for the same drug.
▶ 2:25:43Sen. Sanders: Will you support legislation I will introduce which shows in america we should not be paying a nickel more for prescription drugs then people around the rest of the world? Yes no?
▶ 2:25:54Mr. Kennedy: To equalize it --
▶ 2:25:57Sen. Sanders: Not to equalize. That we should not be paying more than other countries for the same damn drug?
▶ 2:26:04Mr. Kennedy: President trump asked me, in fact I have a meeting with president trump a week ago where we showed him the charts.
▶ 2:26:13Sen. Sanders: He knows the charts.
▶ 2:26:16Mr. Kennedy: We are paying 10 times more than europe.
▶ 2:26:18Sen. Sanders: That's right. Are you going to commit to us you will end that absurdity?
▶ 2:26:26Mr. Kennedy: We should end that this parity.
▶ 2:26:31Sen. Sanders: Good. I happen to believe climate change is a real existential threat and a health care issue. Donald trump thinks it is a hoax originating in china. In your judgment, is climate change a hoax or real, causing devastating problems?
▶ 2:26:52Mr. Kennedy: President trump and I from the beginning, from our first meeting agreed to disagree on that issue. I believe climate change is existential. My job is to make americans healthy again.
▶ 2:27:04Sen. Sanders: You disagree with trump, you don't think climate change is a hoax? Not a trick question.
▶ 2:27:13Mr. Kennedy: I answered your question.
▶ 2:27:15Sen. Sanders: You disagree with the president on that.
▶ 2:27:18Mr. Kennedy: I answered your question.
▶ 2:27:20Sen. Sanders: Ok. No question abortion is an issue in this country. The majority of people are pro-choice. There is a strong minority that are pro-life. 1.5 years ago you went to new hampshire, running for president, gave a speech and you talked about government should not tell a woman what she can do with her own body, that is her choice.
▶ 2:27:53Sen. Sanders: Everyone on that side is pro-life, I think everyone here is pro-choice. I have never seen any major politician flip on that issue quite as quickly as you did when trump asked you to become hhs secretary. Tell me why you think people should have confidence in your consistency and in your word, when you really made a major u-turn on an issue of that importance in such a short time?
▶ 2:28:22Mr. Kennedy: I have always believed every abortion is a tragedy.
▶ 2:28:29Sen. Sanders: You told new hampshire it was their right. Last question, I am running out of time. The gist of what you're trying to say today is you are pro vaccine. You have started a group called the children's health defense. Right now, as I understand it, they are selling onesies.
▶ 2:28:59Sen. Sanders: Clothing for babies. One of them says unvaxed, unafraid. $26 apiece by the way. The other one, no vax, no problem.
▶ 2:29:17Sen. Sanders: You say you are pro vaccine yet your organization is making money selling a child's product to parents for $26 which casts fundamental doubt on the usefulness of vaccines. Can you tell us now, you are pro vaccine, that you will have your organization take these products off the market?
▶ 2:29:41Mr. Kennedy: I have no power over that organization. I resigned from the board.
▶ 2:29:47Sen. Sanders: You founded it. You have power. Are you supportive of this?
▶ 2:29:53Mr. Kennedy: I have nothing to
▶ 2:29:55Do -- Sen. Sanders: Are you supportive of these onesies?
▶ 2:30:01Mr. Kennedy: I am supportive of vaccines. I want good science.
▶ 2:30:08Sen. Sanders: You will not tell the organization you founded not to continue selling that product.
▶ 2:30:15Chair Crapo: Senator blackburn.
▶ 2:30:21Sen. Blackburn: Thank you for being with us. I have no doubt you will be confirmed and you are going to do such a solid job for the people of this country. Several issues I want to talk with you about and didn't have time to cover them all when we met. Rural health care is important to me and tendency. 78-95 counties are rural.
▶ 2:30:55Sen. Blackburn: Last few years, hospital closures. So we focused on access in rural areas. My rural health agenda, bipartisan, focuses on innovation, telehealth, access points, work shortages and senator warner and I have together focused on making certain we address the area wage index fairly for citizens in
▶ 2:31:27Sen. Blackburn: Rural communities. I would like commitment from you when confirmed you and your cms administrator will work with us to make certain the area wage index is balanced and fair to rural areas.
▶ 2:31:44Mr. Kennedy: Dr. oz and myself recognized rural health care is a crisis. That is catastrophic for our country. I talked about my commitment to rural health earlier in this hearing. The regional price points are set by congress. Not hhs.
▶ 2:32:13Sen. Blackburn: Cms.
▶ 2:32:14Mr. Kennedy: I know we will work with you to make them sensible.
▶ 2:32:18Sen. Blackburn: We look forward to that. Before you came forward as secretary, the nominee, we've talked in years past about over medicating youth. A report from tenncare, our medicaid program and tendency, and I was concerned when I saw that they had spent $90 million in '24 on adhd.
▶ 2:32:55Sen. Blackburn: 417,000 children. $90 million. That is heartbreaking. How will you prioritize oversight, prescribing practices, while promoting alternative solutions such as counseling, behavioral therapies, community-based interventions for youth?
▶ 2:33:20Mr. Kennedy: Exactly. In the interest of american youth, now on adhd medication, even higher percentages are on ssri's and benzos. We are over medicating our child population. Half the pharmaceuticals on earth are sold here, 70% of the profits of those companies are from the U.S.
▶ 2:33:50Mr. Kennedy: Even though we have 4.2% of the world population. A recent study by peter goetsch found pharmaceutical drugs are the third largest cause of death in our country after heart attacks and cancer. They are not making us healthier. We need community health initiatives, access to treatment, exercise, better food.
▶ 2:34:18Sen. Blackburn: One of those access points in treatment, this highlights a problem we have in the federal medicaid law. Since medicaid enactment, states have been prohibited from using medicaid funds for care provided by institutions for mental disease, we refer to them as imds. Psychiatric hospitals, residential treatment facilities with more than 16 vets.
▶ 2:34:49Sen. Blackburn: This is a discriminatory exclusion and denies payment for medically necessary care based on the onus being treated and has perpetuated unequal coverage in mental health care. If confirmed, when confirmed, will you commit to working with me on repealing this discriminatory exclusion and ensuring equal access to mental health care for medicaid beneficiaries?
▶ 2:35:17Mr. Kennedy: Yes.
▶ 2:35:19Sen. Blackburn: I have pbm reform, ai in health care, in the interest of health care I will yield back. Look forward to seeing you help make us healthy again.
▶ 2:35:33Mr. Kennedy: Thank you.
▶ 2:35:43Chair Crapo: Senator lujan. I made a mistake. Senator cantwell.
▶ 2:35:59Sen. Cantwell: . Congratulations Mr. kennedy on your nomination. I have been in another hearing with the nominee to be the commerce secretary. I will review everything you said today diligently. I represent a big innovation state, health care specifically.
▶ 2:36:28Sen. Cantwell: Nih funding to the fred hutch cancer center that helped develop the hpv vaccine which has the potential to eliminate 95% cervical cancer. Nih funds a lot of jobs and grants, nearly 11,000 people in washington, over 1.2 billion dollars in grants. I agree on healthy foods. I am troubled by the medical research side of innovation and some things you said.
▶ 2:36:58Sen. Cantwell: This issue about laying off 600 employees at nih or to quote "give infectious disease a break for eight years." we have had a chance to talk about this a little. The most striking example was when covid hit. We were the first in the nation. The first case.
▶ 2:37:24Sen. Cantwell: It was the fast response by the university of washington that helped save lives. Are you aware of how harmful these issues could be for public health? The public health could be affected by these antiscience views?
▶ 2:37:46Mr. Kennedy: I have always been a science person, a pro-science person, I believe in evidence-based medicine, good standard science. I explained this before you came in. 600 people out of a workforce of 91,000 is pretty typical. Last year alone, president biden replaced 3000 people at hhs.
▶ 2:38:22Mr. Kennedy: I said give infectious disease a break because that has been the principal preoccupation. Infectious disease, chronic disease is 92% of deaths in this country and almost nothing is studied at nih about chronic disease. The money is going to infectious disease.
▶ 2:38:42Sen. Cantwell: I get your point. It is interesting. Problem is, we had to respond. The gates foundation and a flu cohort figured out what was wrong and that we had an outbreak of covid going beyond the first case. We had to build a fast response. I take this, the university of washington has conducted groundbreaking stem cell research on fetal tissue.
▶ 2:39:10Sen. Cantwell: To be, I know a lot of people will not agree with this, but we are making regenerative heart tissue now at university of washington. Do you commit to protecting stem cell research for scientific agencies if confirmed?
▶ 2:39:23Mr. Kennedy: I will protect stem cell research -- today, you don't need fetal tissue.
▶ 2:39:36Sen. Cantwell: You will protect the laws on the books today --
▶ 2:39:40Mr. Kennedy: My job is to enforce the laws.
▶ 2:39:43Sen. Cantwell: Pbms are driving up drug prices. One of the things we need to do is get a handle on everything driving up prices and lower them. Pbms generated $1.4 billion from spread pricing. That is where they are able to set the price, not reimburse pharmacies, then pocket the rest.
▶ 2:40:12Sen. Cantwell: We've had bipartisan legislation in several committees to get at this. What's the solution?
▶ 2:40:17Mr. Kennedy: One of the notable achievements of this panel was the pbm legislation they put together in a bipartisan way. I have not, one only, of the 60 odd senators I talked to, all of them talked about pbms and how important was.
▶ 2:40:43Mr. Kennedy: President trump during his first administration pushed through a law, first for a law to give trans printer -- to give transparency to pbms. It got overrun by the biden administration. This committee has resuscitated it.
▶ 2:41:01Sen. Cantwell: You believe we should pass these laws that have been proposed?
▶ 2:41:07Mr. Kennedy: I have not read the entire law. I think we need to reform the pbms. Get rid of all these vested interests.
▶ 2:41:19Sen. Cantwell: Someone suggested you should convene the pbms and talk to them about self-regulation. I'm trying to distinguish between these people who basically are doing illegal activities and ripping off, really creating pharmacy deserts in my state, so I'm asking you whether you believe we have to legislate in this area?
▶ 2:41:43Mr. Kennedy: I'm not being evasive. I don't know exactly what the law says. I met with the pbms, with pharma. My job is to meet with the stakeholders. I have been meeting with stakeholders for 40 years, people I was suing. You want to hear from the other side. I would let the pbms write their own ticket. I support the efforts of this committee to come up with bipartisan legislation.
▶ 2:42:13Mr. Kennedy: President trump wants to get the excess profits away from pbms and send it back to primary care, patients in this country.
▶ 2:42:23Sen. Cantwell: I will ask you for the record to look at the legislation that came out of the commerce committee that defines the illegal activities they are doing to drive up prices.
▶ 2:42:35Mr. Kennedy: In principle I support that legislation.
▶ 2:42:40Chair Crapo: The list to move forward to the ending here, senator lujan, followed by senator marshall, senator warnock, senator smith, senator young, senator welch.
▶ 2:42:58Sen. Lujan: This is a matter of such important
▶ 2:43:01Sen. Wyden: A number of my colleagues would like a second round. It would be important to offer a modest amount of additional time to get into this on both sides. I have questions and I want my colleagues to have the opportunity to raise questions as well.
▶ 2:43:19Chair Crapo: As I've indicated, I am not going to do a second round. I have been generous, every senator has had seven minutes at least and I will give you a second as is our practice. >> I will divide my time with my colleagues.
▶ 2:43:41Chair Crapo: You are welcome to do that.
▶ 2:43:44Sen. Lujan: When we met you stated it is not your goal to take away programs that work for americans. Do you stand by that?
▶ 2:43:57Mr. Kennedy: Yes.
▶ 2:43:59Sen. Lujan: Do you know how many americans rely on medicaid?
▶ 2:44:05Mr. Kennedy: About 72 million, plus the 7 million kids on chips.
▶ 2:44:12Sen. Lujan: Is it important expectant mothers and newborns have access to health coverage?
▶ 2:44:25Mr. Kennedy: Absolutely.
▶ 2:44:27Sen. Lujan: Do you know how many babies born in this country are covered through medicaid?
▶ 2:44:38Mr. Kennedy: I don't know the answer. I would guess 30 million.
▶ 2:44:45Sen. Lujan: 41%, 1.4 million babies financed by medicaid according to the national center for health statistics. Do you believe medicaid is a critical ■program?
▶ 2:45:00Mr. Kennedy: I believe medicaid is a critical program but it is not working as well as it ought to be an president trump asked me to make it work better. Most americans are not happy with it. The premiums are too high, the deductibles are too high. Everyone is getting sicker. Too much money --
▶ 2:45:28Sen. Lujan: I have a series of yes or no questions that are pretty simple. We don't get a second round. I ask for your indulgence to get through them, yes or no. In new mexico, medicaid is often measured state-by-state, it might surprise you if you look at surveys in new mexico, the response was 90% of new mexicans on medicaid, 80% getting specialist care, 85% getting urgent care, 95% out of focus,
▶ 2:46:01Sen. Lujan: In louisiana, 86% of people on medicaid are satisfied with their interaction, 83% are satisfied getting care, 85% are satisfied getting specialized care. I can go on state-by-state but we don't have time. Do you support cutting medicaid or reducing, especially in an area where we spoke about with federal investment in medicaid?
▶ 2:46:28Mr. Kennedy: President trump has not told me he wants to gut medicaid. He told me to make it better.
▶ 2:46:36Sen. Lujan: Do you support cutting yes or no?
▶ 2:46:43Mr. Kennedy: I support making it better.
▶ 2:46:45Sen. Lujan: Did, if president trump asked you to cut medicaid, would you do it?
▶ 2:46:51Mr. Kennedy: That would be up to congress.
▶ 2:46:55Sen. Lujan: You don't want to answer, I will move on. Do you know how many states will -- Mr. chairman, if I may pause my time. I understand people are getting asked to leave if they stand up with signs. It needs to be extended to everyone, as Mr. kennedy said, we should respect each other when we have a difference of opinion. We are just trying to do our jobs here and ask questions. That's all.
▶ 2:47:23Chair Crapo: You're right. I ask the audience to please be respectful.
▶ 2:47:28Sen. Lujan: Thank you. Do you know how he states will end medicaid expansion if the federal share of medicaid drops?
▶ 2:47:39Mr. Kennedy: 40 states have signed on to the expansion.
▶ 2:47:45Sen. Lujan: It's a smaller number. Nine states would have to end expansion because of the laws they have. That's about 4 million folks across the country. New mexico, iowa and idaho have triggers, it would immediately have to go into effect if that gets cut. The reason I'm asking is there has been chatter and conversations around medicaid. I agree we can do better and we must do better in america.
▶ 2:48:16Sen. Lujan: Medicaid has been shown to improve health outcomes including mortality, quality-of-life and access to preventative care as well. There are some areas you and I touched on, specific to native american communities. One of the concerns I have -- these programs matter to folks. You shared your passion about caring for folks. I believed that passion.
▶ 2:48:44Sen. Lujan: My question in this area is as you know when folks are doing research and they are checking to see if medicine works on someone, if they are not included in that trial, it often doesn't help. That's what evidence shows. What are you going to do when programs are illuminated to require -- eliminated to require inclusion of native americans in clinical trials when it comes to life-saving medicine?
▶ 2:49:14Mr. Kennedy: I will do everything I can to make sure native americans are in clinical trials. As I said to you when I visited, I spent 20% of my career working on native issues. My family have been deeply involved with them, my father and uncle were big critics of the indian health service, the failure to deliver good health results, health care on the reservations.
▶ 2:49:44Mr. Kennedy: I will bring a native in for the first time in history into my central office, all the major decisions in my office, he already interviewed a good candidate, will have a direct impact.
▶ 2:50:05Sen. Lujan: I appreciate that. I have a follow-up. Will you commit to finalizing the congressionally mandated fda guidance to increase clinical trial diversity?
▶ 2:50:17Mr. Kennedy: Repeat that.
▶ 2:50:19Sen. Lujan: Will you commit to finalizing the congressionally mandated fda guidance to increasing clinical trial diversity?
▶ 2:50:28Mr. Kennedy: Yes.
▶ 2:50:29Sen. Lujan: Will you commit to reinstating the pages eliminated, people were fired from this administration that have this responsibility?
▶ 2:50:40Mr. Kennedy: I cannot commit to that. I don't know who they are. I am committed to working with you to make sure those positions are adequately staffed.
▶ 2:50:50Sen. Lujan: I will follow-up in writing because I think there is commonality here but answers matter. I would like those as timely as possible. One of the conversations I had before this hearing was with a family I have been working with to work with my republican colleagues when it comes to autism and federal programs and making a difference in these families lives. What I am asking now, Mr.
▶ 2:51:22Sen. Lujan: Chairman, his unanimous consent to enter into the record, an article from autism speaks titled "do vaccines cause autism?" the first sentence states "vaccines do not cause autism."
▶ 2:51:38Chair Crapo: Without objection. Before we move on, we have had a request from several quarters for a restroom break. We will take a five minute recess. Sorry those remaining must wait a few minutes but we will have a quick break and be back as soon as we can.
▶ 2:57:25Chair Crapo: This committee will continue, out of recess back into session. Before senator marshall, the remaining list, senator marshall, warnock, smith, young, welch. I indicated I would give another five minutes to senator wyden. He has distributed that to other senators. We will have a few more quick questions.
▶ 2:57:57Chair Crapo: We have a couple outbursts earlier but I want to thank the audience for being respectful and encourage the audience to continue to be respectful as we conclude the hearing.
▶ 2:58:10Sen. Marshall: Obesity, diabetes, heart disease. Account for 80% of health challenges in america. Do you know how many times I've heard my friends mention those three? Vaccine is a critical issue. I understand that. I don't see how Mr.
▶ 2:58:38Sen. Marshall: Kennedy's position could be more clear that he will support vaccines, the science, empowerment to parents and their doctors to make these choices. 60% americans have chronic disease. Epidemic of chronic disease across the country. This make america healthy again movement is palpable.
▶ 2:59:02Sen. Marshall: It started on the trail, 2020 when moms I never met, never involved in the political process said I want to make these choices about my children with my doctor. Not the federal government. It's real. Moms, dads, grandparents grabbed me and say why do 20% of our children, why are they on a prescription drug?
▶ 2:59:33Sen. Marshall: What is your prescription to help make america healthy again? What is your vision? What does it look like to you?
▶ 2:59:38Mr. Kennedy: Thank you. We have epidemics of chronic illnesses. Autoimmune diseases, neurological diseases, allergic diseases, obesity. When my uncle was president, 3% of americans were obese. Today, 74% americans are over be weight or obese.
▶ 3:00:11Mr. Kennedy: In japan, the obesity rate is 3%. Epidemics are not caused by genes. Genes may provide vulnerability but you need environmental toxins. Something is poisoning american people. The primary culprit are changing food supply, a switch to highly chemical intensive processed foods.
▶ 3:00:42Mr. Kennedy: We have 10,000 ingredients in our country and our foods. The europeans have 400. If you get mcdonald's french fries in our country, there are 11 ingredients. In europe, there were three. If you get froot loops in our country, they are loaded with dyes and many other ingredients. The same company makes a safe product with different ingredients for canada and europe.
▶ 3:01:12Mr. Kennedy: We don't have good science on all these things. That is deliberate. That's a choice not to study the things that are truly making us sick, not only contributing to chronic disease but to mortalities from infectious disease. We need to get a handle on this. If we don't, it's existential threat. Our country will not be destroyed because we get the marginal tax rate wrong or we get a culture war issue wrong.
▶ 3:01:45Mr. Kennedy: It will be destroyed if we continue down the trajectory of chronic disease. We need to fix the food supply, that's number one.
▶ 3:01:55Sen. Marshall: I share your concern with ultra processed foods. Farmers and ranchers back home. Share your compassion, how you feel about farmers and ranchers, that they respond to the market, they don't dictate the market.
▶ 3:02:14Mr. Kennedy: Senator hawley told me the other day his brother-in-laws are al farmersl. 4-5 of them have parkinson's. That kind of cluster across farm country, cancers, autoimmune diseases, obesity, etc.
▶ 3:02:45Mr. Kennedy: We can now not export american food to europe. The europeans won't take our fruit. That's not good for farmers. We are destroying our soil. Some of the chemicals farmers use destroy the micro biome. That causes the erosion of the soil. We cannot get water infiltration. Water pulls up and waters the soil off.
▶ 3:03:10Mr. Kennedy: If we continue doing these processes, we have 60 harvests left before our soil is gone. Farmers are using seeds and chemicals that over the long term -- what we need to do is support farmers.
▶ 3:03:37Mr. Kennedy: We need the farmers as partners if we will make it work. I don't want a single farmer to go out of business under our watch. If I'm privileged to be confirmed, I'm not regulated farmers. That's under usda.
▶ 3:03:55Mr. Kennedy: I want to partner with all my decisions with usda, and with the farm community to make sure we don't lose more farmers in this country, that we also transition, offer and incentivize transitions to regenerative agriculture, no till agriculture and less chemically intensive -- by the way, I have met with the chemical industry and the fertilizer and herbicide
▶ 3:04:26Mr. Kennedy: Companies and they want to do the same thing. I think we are on the trajectory to do that. We need to incentivize initiatives to accelerate that trajectory.
▶ 3:04:38Sen. Marshall: Great news is my farmers in kansas are selling products to europe. Today's regenerative practices, soil health, all those things are priorities for kansas farmers. Many of us are already doing those things. We just need it to be more widespread. The big picture. 60% americans have chronic disease.
▶ 3:05:07Sen. Marshall: I believe you are not just one of 300 million people. I think you are the person to lead hhs to make america healthy again and god has a divine purpose for you and I look forward to your confirmation and working with you to make america healthy again.
▶ 3:05:24Mr. Kennedy: Thank you.
▶ 3:05:25Chair Crapo: Senator warnock.
▶ 3:05:28Sen. Warnock: Thank you. Great to be here. Welcome. You and your family. Thank you for meeting with me a few days ago. I would like to follow-up, some of the issues we discussed in my office. First, the cdc, centers for disease control and prevention.
▶ 3:05:58Sen. Warnock: Proud of the work cdc does, that it is located in georgia, with more than 10,000 employees in my state. If confirmed, you would be the cabinet secretary over the cdc, representing hhs, 29% of the federal budget, cdc is a part of that.
▶ 3:06:23Sen. Warnock: Do you agree the cdc work is critical to georgia, for our country and the health of the entire world?
▶ 3:06:30Mr. Kennedy: Yes.
▶ 3:06:33Sen. Warnock: Senator isaacson, my republican predecessor would agree with that. Bless his memory, a fierce advocate for the cdc, as am I. The cdc is filled with hard-working, dedicated public health servants. They wake up every day, working to keep us safe.
▶ 3:06:58Sen. Warnock: We don't think often enough about their work because it's easy not to celebrate folks protecting you from that which doesn't appear because of the work they are doing. Grateful for the work the cdc employees do, some of them are members of my church. I saw that commitment firsthand when I visited cdc last summer.
▶ 3:07:20Sen. Warnock: You have compared cdc work to nazi death camps, to sexual abusers in the catholic church. You also said many of them belong "in jail." for me, those are disturbing characterizations of the cdc workers I know who are trying to keep the public safe every day.
▶ 3:07:55Sen. Warnock: As you are presented for this position, do you stand by those statements you made in the past or do you retract those statements?
▶ 3:08:04Mr. Kennedy: I don't believe I ever compared the cdc to nazi death camps. I support the cdc. My job is not to dismantle or harm the cdc. My job is to empower the scientists.
▶ 3:08:21Sen. Warnock: You retract those statements?
▶ 3:08:24Mr. Kennedy: I never said it.
▶ 3:08:26Sen. Warnock: I have a transcript.
▶ 3:08:28Mr. Kennedy: Of me saying it is a --
▶ 3:08:32Sen. Warnock: "the institution cdc and the vaccine program is more important than the children it is supposed to protect, the same reason we have a pedophile scandal in the catholic church, people were able to convince themselves the institution of the church was more important than these little boys and girls who were being raped." that is provocative.
▶ 3:09:01Sen. Warnock: You said "to me, this is like nazi death camp." I am reading your words. "I mean what happened to these kids, 1-31 boys in this country, their minds are being robbed from them."
▶ 3:09:18Mr. Kennedy: I was not comparing the cdc to nazi death camps. I was comparing the injury rates of our children to other atrocities. I would not compare the cdc to nazi death camps, any statement I made has been interpreted that way -- I don't agree with that. 2003, a U.S.
▶ 3:09:47Mr. Kennedy: Congress government oversight committee ended an over a year investigation at cdc and used that same language. One branch, the immunization safety office, have put institutional self-interest and pharmaceutical profits ahead of the welfare and health of american children.
▶ 3:10:19Mr. Kennedy: That was the conclusion by congress. I repeated that.
▶ 3:10:22Sen. Warnock: You are the nominee for hhs. It sounds like you stand by those statements.
▶ 3:10:29Mr. Kennedy: My objective is to support the cdc. There is nothing I'm going to do to harm the cdc. I want to make sure our science is gold standard and free from that same government oversight committee, the panel, within cdc -- 97% of the people have conflicts. I don't believe that's right.
▶ 3:10:56Mr. Kennedy: We need to end those conflicts in miniature scientists are doing unobstructed science.
▶ 3:11:03Sen. Warnock: I want to enter this into the record.
▶ 3:11:06Chair Crapo: Without objection.
▶ 3:11:08Sen. Warnock: White house gagged hhs and cdc last week, preventing them from communicating important public health information to anyone including our allies, global disease prevention.do agree with that?
▶ 3:11:34Mr. Kennedy: I was not consulted on it.
▶ 3:11:37Sen. Warnock: You agree with the action?
▶ 3:11:42Mr. Kennedy: That directive made sure no public health, only non-essential travel, mass communications were temporarily suspended, pending the of a new hhs secretary, this is standard operating procedure.
▶ 3:12:03Sen. Warnock: I get it. I don't think what we are seeing over the last several days is standard operation for new administrations. I think we are seeing unprecedented actions. Last night, members of the cdc along with other federal employees were invited to resign. Buyouts. I got texts from folks at the cdc who got that note.
▶ 3:12:34Sen. Warnock: It's important. My experience is when you send out that kind of note, the folks who resign are the folks you least likely want to see resign. They got other options. They have expertise. A lot of them are doing this work because of their patriotism and commitment. Do you agree with the buyouts presented to cdc employees last night?
▶ 3:13:01Mr. Kennedy: I agree, the vast majority of scientists and experts at cdc are patriots and government servants. I don't think anyone will resign --
▶ 3:13:15Sen. Warnock: You agree with the buyouts. In our meeting, I asked you to confirm your support for the aca. You mentioned you and president trump want to fix the aca by making premiums more affordable.
▶ 3:13:34Sen. Warnock: Yes or no, did you know that tax credits that help families afford health insurance and save georgians and average of $531 per month per person are set to expire at the end of the year?
▶ 3:13:52Mr. Kennedy: I do.
▶ 3:13:53Chair Crapo: We need to move on.
▶ 3:13:55Sen. Warnock: Do you support congress extending these tax credits so americans can continue to afford health care?
▶ 3:14:03Mr. Kennedy: Congress has made its own decisions about that.
▶ 3:14:08Sen. Warnock: You are saying I'm running out of time but I'm having trouble getting the witness to answer yes or no to a yes or no question.
▶ 3:14:17Chair Crapo: You are almost at nine minutes sir.
▶ 3:14:20Sen. Warnock: I need an answer yes or no. C1
▶ 3:14:29Mr. Kennedy: I'm not going to answer yes or no to a question that is not susceptible to a yes or no answer. >> the fact that you find it difficult to serve basic question -- Mr. chairman, you told me I'm out of time.
▶ 3:14:55Chair Crapo: Senator smith.
▶ 3:14:59Sen. Smith: Welcome, Mr. kennedy. I don't have a question for you on abortion. I think my colleagues on both sides have covered this. I want to say I could respect people with different views on this issue. It's hard for me to respect people who won't give a straight answer.
▶ 3:15:23Sen. Smith: I understand that anti-choice advocates have said in these hearings that he is on their side. I think most americans are looking for some hint of the decisions people make about abortions should be personal and private. I'm not hearing that either.
▶ 3:15:49Sen. Smith: To make it worse, the answers you have given tell me the trump administration is going to restrict or even ban medication abortion without a single act of congress and even in states where abortion is legal. It is clear to me that you and president trump are dangerous to women's access. I want to move to a different topic. I have reishi eight senator cornyn's questions about behavioral health.
▶ 3:16:19Sen. Smith: I know you and your family have personal experiences with mental health challenges, as have I. The mental health crisis in this country is a crisis. In an interview in 2023 and again in 2024, you blame school shootings on antidepressants. You said there is no time in american history or human history that kids are going to shoot schools.
▶ 3:16:48Sen. Smith: It really started happening with the introduction of these drugs, prozac and other drugs. Do you believe antidepressants because the shootings?
▶ 3:17:01Mr. Kennedy: I said it should be studied along with other potential culprits. Social media. There is no science on that.
▶ 3:17:25Sen. Smith: The science shows there is no link. Most school shooters were not even treated with antidepressants. There was no evidence of association.
▶ 3:17:36Mr. Kennedy: Hippo rules, nobody knows.
▶ 3:17:45Sen. Smith: Do you think people who take antidepressants are dangerous?
▶ 3:17:49Mr. Kennedy: I'm not going into hhs to impose any preconceived ideas that I may have.
▶ 3:18:02Sen. Smith: You are not saying they aren't dangerous.
▶ 3:18:05Mr. Kennedy: That is not true.
▶ 3:18:09Sen. Smith: You described americans who take mental health as attic.
▶ 3:18:16Mr. Kennedy: You said -- they should not be compelled to do anything.
▶ 3:18:29Sen. Smith: You said antidepressants are like addicts.
▶ 3:18:35Mr. Kennedy: I know people including members of my family who have had much tougher time getting off of this than heroin. It is on the label.
▶ 3:18:49Sen. Smith: I have some experience with this myself, when I was a young woman and I was struggling with depression, thankfully I had the resources to help me get through it. Including, a new generation of ssri inhibitors to help clear my mind, get me back on track. I'm really grateful that I have some experience with this.
▶ 3:19:20Sen. Smith: I think everyone should have access to that care. Your job is to expand access to care, not to spread lies and misinformation. They live on, they have impact. We are having this conversation at the same moment my republican colleagues and I'm looking to figure out how to save money, they want to cut medicaid.
▶ 3:19:46Sen. Smith: Should you be confirmed, you would be responsible for cms providing menstrual -- mental and behavioral health. 40% of folks on medicaid have a behavioral health condition. You would be a part of this administration looking to cut medicaid.
▶ 3:20:05Sen. Smith: These statements you have made linking antidepressants to school shootings have reinforced the stigma, the people who experienced mental health every day, I'm very concerned this is another example of your record sharing false and misleading information that really hurts people.
▶ 3:20:27Mr. Kennedy: You are mischaracterizing my statements.
▶ 3:20:31Sen. Smith: I'm only putting into the record what you have said.
▶ 3:20:34Mr. Kennedy: You are mischaracterizing my statements. I'm happy you had a good experience. Many americans have had very good. . Others have not.
▶ 3:20:45Sen. Smith: That's the other issues -- that is an issue between them and their physician. Hhs putting out the dangers of ssri and other antidepressant medication spreading stigma and fear.
▶ 3:21:02Mr. Kennedy: You think physicians when they make a prescription have access to good science?
▶ 3:21:09Sen. Smith: Of course they do.
▶ 3:21:10Mr. Kennedy: You and irene agreement.
▶ 3:21:13Sen. Smith: When you made these statements it was not based on science.
▶ 3:21:19Mr. Kennedy: I was saying these are potential culprits. I named other things, I said video games, social media, ssri have a black box warning.
▶ 3:21:33Sen. Smith: I will submit to the chair the information that I have about what Mr. kennedy has said linking antidepressant, thank you. >> good to see you, Mr. kennedy.
▶ 3:21:52Sen. Smith: To follow-up up on that spirited exchange, in talking with you and your vision for the department, you said one of your goals is to return public health agencies to the gold standard of scientific review. You have alluded to the gold standard a number of times today. I will give you an opportunity uninterrupted to tell me and others what you mean by this gold standard.
▶ 3:22:19Mr. Kennedy: The gold standard means real scientific research with replication of studies. It very rarely happens nowadays. At least 20% of the nih budget to replication. We should make sure peer-reviewed is are also published.
▶ 3:22:46Mr. Kennedy: I will give you a quick example, 20 years ago, scientists did a study on house armors which they said was caused by plaque. Nih shut down any other hypothesis. 20 years later we know those studies were flawed. Nih has funded 800 studies on fraudulent hypothesis.
▶ 3:23:15Mr. Kennedy: We have lost 20 years figuring out how to get a cure for alzheimer's. That is just one example, I could give you hundreds. We need to and that. We need to have replicative will science.
▶ 3:23:30Sen. Young: In recent years, particularly during the covid pandemic, there has been a lot of spec to schism -- skepticism, some of this I would say is warranted.
▶ 3:23:45Sen. Young: It has created a pervasive lack of trust from the public that these institutions are acting in bad faith or failing to act with objective criteria, failing to act in the best interest of the public. If confirmed, how would you were to regain the public's trust? I suspect it would take some time in these public health institutions?
▶ 3:24:13Mr. Kennedy: Through radical transparency. The reason you don't trust the public health agencies is they haven't been trustworthy. At the beginning of covid, everybody was rushing to get a vaccine.
▶ 3:24:35Mr. Kennedy: Cdc says americans take the eighth booster only 23% of americans are complying. 77% no longer trust the cdc. That is the problem.
▶ 3:24:52Sen. Young: In the absence of full information, I think I would agree with you. Might it make sense to share that absence of full information with the american people?
▶ 3:25:08Sen. Young: I think one of the things, by observation that I saw was we had certain prominent doctors appear on television and indicate you absolutely must not wear masks, two weeks later it is you must. They were certain. They even demonized people for not following the latest science knowing there's a high level of uncertain the.
▶ 3:25:35Sen. Young: A measure of humility and radical transparency demonstrates humility helped rebuild trust over a period of years?
▶ 3:25:41Mr. Kennedy: We need to tell americans what we don't know. We need to make sure studies that reach a hypothesis are also published. That does not happen.
▶ 3:25:53Sen. Young: I think you are right about why health care costs are so high in the first place. Chronic disease, 90% goes towards managing it as you said in your opening statement. It is not in the name because of waste fraud and abuse. It is not in the name because we have greedy executives at innovative world-class companies.
▶ 3:26:23Sen. Young: We haven't yet adopted an unsustainable medicare fraud scheme. It is because of this. You intend to make that a point of emphasis as it pertains to your future leadership. I will say with respect to covid, it is not over for a lot of american. I know the mission accomplished banner was convenient for the last administration.
▶ 3:26:51Sen. Young: As we continue to navigate the ongoing impacts of the covid pandemic, we have many individuals in the united states and around the world suffering from long-term health effects that impact their life, work, daily activities. Funding for long covid research was appropriated by congress in december, 2020 followed by additional funding from the biden administration.
▶ 3:27:21Sen. Young: Patient groups and industry publications have criticized the slow pace of critical trial design and enrollment. Will you collaborate with health care providers, researchers, communities to better understand and mitigate the impact?
▶ 3:27:35Mr. Kennedy: Absolutely. There are 16 million american.
▶ 3:27:41Sen. Young: Will you commit to long covid research and the broader policies?
▶ 3:27:45Mr. Kennedy: Yes.
▶ 3:27:47Sen. Young: Patient group experts have raised concerns about spending on observational research, in particular criticism was directed towards recover funding being used to duplicate existing findings instead of funding trials for potential treatments or diagnostics.
▶ 3:28:08Sen. Young: If confirmed will you work with congress so that going forward long covid funding will be directed towards trial or novel research directions and not replicating existing observational research?
▶ 3:28:22Mr. Kennedy: Absolutely, senator, with enthusiasm.
▶ 3:28:25Sen. Young: Thank you so much. If confirmed, how will you create balance between your personal priorities of chronic disease and healthy lifestyle and the ongoing critical work of the department in areas that are focused on incentivizing and advancing innovation in modern medicine and pharmaceutical discovery?
▶ 3:28:52Mr. Kennedy: I think innovation will be the key to public health. We have a unique opportunity because of ai and telemedicine and the quality of people now coming to hhs to actually say public health. I don't want to do anything that inhibits or impairs the pace of innovation.
▶ 3:29:19Sen. Young: That's encouraging from improving ai algorithms to determining medicare coverage we certainly need more innovation and good people in the department to assist with that effort. I will follow-up with a question about how you will track and retain good people.
▶ 3:29:37Chair Crapo: Sorry to shut you down a little faster. We are up against a deadline here. We have one more senator who gets his full time. I hope you will keep it as close to five minutes as you can. If we could do that, we could get to the boat before we call the vote on the floor. >> thank you Mr. kennedy.
▶ 3:30:12Chair Crapo: I have great reverence for your family, I'm from massachusetts. When I got out of college I was in the first class of robert kennedy fellows to honor the service of your father. I certainly admire your energy and your effort here and desire to serve.
▶ 3:30:38Chair Crapo: There's a couple of things really important here. This is not just about a debate on vaccine. It is a debate on qualifications, experience, and priorities as to the person that will head the health and human services. It is not just about what your answers are today. It has a lot to do with your whole record and your whole history.
▶ 3:31:07Chair Crapo: Your sister -- your cousin in her letter said you've always been charismatic, able to attract others through the strength of your personality, willingness to take risks and break rules. That is an attribute I guess but could be a danger. A question I fundamentally have is your willingness to disrupt and maybe break rules, could that lead to being disruptive?
▶ 3:31:40Chair Crapo: You have acknowledge your history with heroin, you have gotten over that. There incident that do concerned the question of whether the stability is better to be in charge. That is compounded by my concern that you don't have any experience managing a large organization, any experience in government. Those are things that have to be taken into account. The issue to me is also priorities.
▶ 3:32:11Chair Crapo: You actually disagreed with president trump about operation warp speed. I think president trump deserves a lot of credit for operation warp speed. He knew we had to get a vaccine. The other issues about a mask and whether you should wear it, the bag had to be left outside.
▶ 3:32:35Chair Crapo: Those were incidental to the core question that the president believed we had to have a vaccine. You contested that. That worries me. That deeply worries me. Senator cassidy ask you questions about our health care system. I happen to believe our health care system is profoundly broken. It's about our diet, our exercise. We are getting premium increases in vermont of 20% a year.
▶ 3:33:07Chair Crapo: It is busting the bank for taxpayers. A wonderful amount of employers who care about having health insurance that they could provide to their employees. Senator cassidy ask you questions about how you would reform medicaid, I did not hear an answer. You thought medicare advantage was good.
▶ 3:33:33Chair Crapo: No focus on what an incredible ripoff was reported in the wall street journal by united health care which was marketing medicare advantage and then paying doctors and nurses to over diagnose illnesses that did not exist so they made billions and billions of dollars.
▶ 3:34:00Chair Crapo: I see nothing coming out of the trump administration and nothing coming out of your advocacy that is going after what is a rampant abuse by the insurance companies overcharging people and not doing the job. The united health care people they overdiagnosed, when the person really got sick, they dumped them. That is a broken health care system.
▶ 3:34:30Chair Crapo: We spend the most and get the least. There should be collective anger on this about both sides. You will be working for a president on a lawless rampage right now. He has done something reckless. I am appalled by that. He has impounded money.
▶ 3:35:02Chair Crapo: He has impounded money so the community health centers are up in the air. Do you believe a president could impound money that has been appropriated by congress?
▶ 3:35:18Mr. Kennedy: Let me answer that question about medicare first. I never defended that program or the behavior by insurance companies. I understand that is a huge problem. >> we have to get over to vote.
▶ 3:35:40Mr. Kennedy: You asked me five questions, you have to give me a chance to answer one of them. If I get confirmed I appointed a general counselor. A former prosecutor who prosecuted the biggest medicare fraud in the state of west virginia. I brought in a prosecutor of economics, it has the important issues that you raise here.
▶ 3:36:10Mr. Kennedy: The only reason I didn't talk about these before as I wasn't asked. I agree with you, 100%. >> what about the president impounding money?
▶ 3:36:22Mr. Kennedy: You are saying that is illegal? >> that is correct.
▶ 3:36:25Mr. Kennedy: My job is to uphold the constitution. I will uphold the constitution. >> thank you. >> I believe under what we have discussed I will give one to each of my four colleagues.
▶ 3:36:50Chair Crapo: This vote, they are going to call it in about eight minutes. >> two hours ago I asked Mr. kennedy to reconcile his many anti-vaccine statements with his handful of pro-vaccine statements. Instead he gave us a word salad and duck the issue.
▶ 3:37:17Chair Crapo: The same was true with respect to measles where you wrote a book playing down the threat. Even though american families are very concerned about it and families are still mourning in s amoa. My last point would be Mr. kennedy said today really wasn't about him. I just want to tell him it is all about you.
▶ 3:37:43Chair Crapo: I find your presentation to be both untrustworthy and unprepared because my colleagues have been seeing back and forth between medicare and medicaid. I want colleagues to know there is a lot more information to learn about Mr. kennedy before we vote. I will urge that from my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to not make decisions based on this session.
▶ 3:38:14Chair Crapo: I thank you.
▶ 3:38:16Chair Crapo: One minute each please. >> there has been a lot of conversation about late-term abortions. I want to make clear what rhode island ob/gyn doctors described as what is almost happening -- almost always happening when the late-term abortion is needed. It is a childbirth gone wrong.
▶ 3:38:40Chair Crapo: The family has painted the room, it has bought the crib, maybe even decided on the baby's name and gone to a hospital to welcome the new baby into their family in what is supposed to be a happy event. And then things went wrong. The alarm started pinging. The lights started flashing. The medical professional started rushing in.
▶ 3:39:10Chair Crapo: The question became who lives and who dies? The mom's life is often at risk and she may have other children she needs to care for. The baby's life might be at risk and one or both might die. In that environment, the doctors and the family owned that decision.
▶ 3:39:41Chair Crapo: Government has no place in that room at that point. When that late-term abortion gets bandied about, it is happening to a family who wanted that child and they have been confronted a moment where they have to make the worst decision of their lives.
▶ 3:40:07Chair Crapo: To try to shove the state legislature into that room is really offensive, really wrong, I just want to make clear what rhode island ob/gyn is telling me is the situation when these procedures have to be deployed.
▶ 3:40:29Sen. Warren: I wanted to ask about your role in the 2019 measles outbreak. In july, 20 two children died after receiving a measles vaccine. Nurses mistakenly mixed it with a muscle relaxer. Vaccination rates go down.
▶ 3:40:52Sen. Warren: I asked about this in my office and you told me your visit to samoa had nothing to do with vaccinations. We now know that is not true. I have the documentation. You met with the prime minister, and anti-vaccine influencer who quoted said profoundly mounting mental for this movement.
▶ 3:41:17Sen. Warren: Vaccinations go down, there is a measles outbreak and children start dying. You double down, you didn't give up, just four days after the prime minister declared a sick -- state of emergency, you sent a letter to him promoting the idea that the children died not from measles but from defective vaccines. You are a very influential man.
▶ 3:41:51Sen. Warren: You are called the leader of the disinformation dozen. Unicef and the world health organization investigated this. They say the claims were false, it is not biologically possible. Ultimately, more than 70 people died because they didn't get vaccines.
▶ 3:42:17Sen. Warren: Do you accept even a sliver of responsibility for the drop in vaccinations and the subsequent deaths of more than 70 people?
▶ 3:42:31Mr. Kennedy: Absolutely not. After the two incidents when children died in 2015, it was from the measles vaccine, the government of samoa band the measles vaccine.
▶ 3:42:55Mr. Kennedy: I arrived in july of next year, after the ban was in place for a year.
▶ 3:43:05Sen. Warren: Understanding you wanted to hold us to a minute, I don't get to present all the facts and documentation, how about if we just decide to make entries for the record on exactly what the record shows about his participation. I think he has answered the yes or no question.
▶ 3:43:20Chair Crapo: We will do that. Mr. kennedy and all the senators, every senator's nose that following this hearing they will be able to ask you questions off the record and you will be able to put questions back onto the record. I apologize we are shutting you off. Senator smith, we are way over time.
▶ 3:43:44Sen. Smith: You have said you want to give infectious diseases a break. You spoke about this with senator cantwell. My question has to do with avian flu. The disease spread to dairy cows. Do you intend to give research on bird flu a break?
▶ 3:44:04Mr. Kennedy: I intend to preventing pandemics.
▶ 3:44:13Sen. Smith: What you think is causing the avian flu? In a recent book, I will submit this to the record, Mr. kennedy has question the scientific basis for germs causing disease.
▶ 3:44:28Mr. Kennedy: I have never questioned that. >> one minute.
▶ 3:44:37Sen. Warnock: Based on our conversations, in 2020 president trump approved a proposal for georgia state leaders requiring georgians to jump through bureaucratic hoops and fill out even more paperwork to verify and get access to health care asset.
▶ 3:45:05Sen. Warnock: Federal government because of its waiver spent $70 million on george's medicaid waiver. 82% of that went to administrative costs. Folks are insisting they need to work, 90% of those folks are working. They are caregivers or they have a disability.
▶ 3:45:29Sen. Warnock: Let me give you one example, heather is a traveling nurse from georgia who falls into the medicaid coverage gap. A series of small strokes left her unable to work full-time. Now she cannot afford her own medical care, out-of-pocket costs because she does not make enough to qualify for tax credits. What does heather need?
▶ 3:45:59Sen. Warnock: The she need work requirements or access to health care so she could finally get healthy and back to work?
▶ 3:46:05Mr. Kennedy: The individual that you described would need health care and not a work requirement.
▶ 3:46:12Chair Crapo: Thank you and we are done with your questioning now. I apologize to you and the audience to have to rush here at the end. We have a vote on the senate floor they will close in three minutes. I want to thank you for appearing before this committee.
▶ 3:46:35Chair Crapo: You have an accessible to members on the both sides of the aisle throughout a rigorous process and we want the world to know that you spent hours in meetings answering questions outside of this hearing, documents, responses on issue after issue. You have gone through the most thorough vetting process that any committee in this congress puts anybody through.
▶ 3:47:01Chair Crapo: I think you have come through well and deserve to be confirmed. I would like to remind my colleagues that the deadlines for submitting any questions is 5:00 p.m. Today. Mr. kennedy, we ask that you respond to those questions as quickly as you possibly can. With that, I am going to leave you in this room and run to vote.
▶ 3:47:30Chair Crapo: I encourage the audience to be polite and respectful no matter what side of the issues you might be on. Mr. kennedy, I look forward to working with you.
▶ 3:47:39Mr. Kennedy: Thank you, Mr. chairman.
▶ 3:47:42Chair Crapo: We are -- adjourned.