During Tuesday's Senate Finance Committee hearing, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) questioned HHS Nominees about service cuts and supporting American's healthcare.
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00:00Senator Wyden, do you want to ask a final question?
00:03I have one question that I'm going to brief for closer.
00:06Mr. O'Neill, I saw a comment you made about wanting every American, this is your quote,
00:13every American to wake up vibrant, energetic, and free of disease.
00:20And that that's President Trump's vision to make America healthy again.
00:27But what we have seen in the last three months, and what we have talked about this morning
00:32as recently as my colleague talking about the safety of firefighters, is we have seen
00:39unprecedented efforts in one way or another to derail the ability of Americans to get
00:48good health care.
00:50So if Republicans are gutting Medicaid, terminating coverage for millions of children and family
00:58and seniors, and just in that discussion with my colleague about firefighters, those firefighters
01:04and people going to wake up the next morning feeling vibrant?
01:08Senator, as I told your colleague, I have not a chance to review that particular program.
01:15But in general, to answer the first part of your question, it's been frustrating to a
01:20lot of people for years that junk food is cheaper than healthy food, that nutritional guidelines
01:29are confusing.
01:30I didn't mention junk food.
01:31I talked about the programs that are being cut, that are being waylaid, the programs that
01:37used to help people, but now they're being studied.
01:41You said that Americans ought to wake up, you know, vibrant.
01:45I'm, of course, excited about that.
01:47That would be a great idea.
01:48I just don't see how that's consistent with all these cutbacks in essential healthcare services.
01:54So maybe you can tell me specifically how those two are reconciled, that everybody's going
02:00to be vibrant when their healthcare is cut, measles, all these kinds of programs.
02:03How does that work?
02:04I'd be happy to try, Senator.
02:06So the vision the Secretary laid out for the proposed reorganization was that functions
02:13of HHS be preserved and be carried forward in the most efficient way possible, sometimes
02:20by combining related functions into the same place, by reducing duplication, by eliminating
02:26middle management where that is not a good use of money.
02:29And leveraging the department's money and people towards succeeding in the most essential functions.
02:37And from what I can tell on the outside, that is the vision that has actually guided the proposed
02:42reorganization.
02:43Mr. Chairman, we've got colleagues on the way.
02:47I just want to say for this last area of questioning, I think what the witness and both of them are
02:56really doing is they're ducking on the question of whether anything is actually going to be
03:01done to make America healthy again.
03:04And I think what they're offering up is an approach that's going to leave people sicker,
03:09a nation living in fear, confusion with unprecedented levels of disease in a modern era.
03:15We're supposed to be making progress, guys, in terms of people dealing with these dread diseases.
03:21And what we have cited from the time of my opening statement are areas where it's getting worse.
03:28And you all are doing studies and you're looking at various agencies and like.
03:33Meanwhile, people are getting sicker.
03:35And that's not what we want in America.
03:37That's not what we were told we were going to get.
03:39It certainly doesn't seem to me to be consistent with making America healthy again.
03:43And I appreciate your courtesy, Mr. Chairman, with respect to my colleagues.
03:46I believe at least one is on the way and and and that should be resolved quickly.
03:53Well, we will pause for a few minutes to see if if another colleague shows up for questioning.
03:57If if we don't get some attendance soon, we will wrap up.