Blumenthal Votes to Confirm Xavier Becerra as Secretary of Health & Human Services

[WASHINGTON, DC] – U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) voted today to approve the nomination of Xavier Becerra to be Secretary of Health and Human Services. Ahead of the Senate’s vote, Blumenthal spoke on the Senate Floor yesterday in support of Becerra and encouraged his Senate colleagues to vote in favor of his nomination.

“I stand here as a former Attorney General, actually for twenty years, I know well how much of that job is spent on health care policy. And I know also the management skills it takes to achieve real concrete results,” Blumenthal said on the Senate Floor. “Attorney General Becerra is deeply qualified because of his work as state attorney general, but he also enjoys a wealth of other experience, both personal and professional, that make him exactly the right person at this moment for that job. He knows the importance of health care, equitable health care, reducing the disparities of health care in our country that afflict us now.”

Blumenthal praised Becerra’s strong record of working to pass the Affordable Care Act while in Congress and then working to defend the law while California Attorney General, saying: “He was a warrior in fighting to preserve the ACA and he will continue to fight for the men and women who depend on the ACA, and more and more of them, fortunately, are taking advantage of it because of the American Rescue Plan.”

Blumenthal also lauded Becerra’s wealth of experience, from taking on Big Tobacco and working to defend reproductive rights and LGBTQ rights to expanding access to mental health care services and fighting to lower prescription drug prices, emphasizing that this essential experience will make him successful as Secretary of Health and Human Services at this critical time after four years of failures from the Trump administration. “He will take on those interests that may be against the health care goals and purposes of the American people, and we need him now more than ever in this critical position.” 

The full transcript of Senator Blumenthal's remarks is available below.

Now, a bright spot for America today is the confirmation, which we hope will happen in the next 24 hours of the first Latino secretary of Health and Human Services in America – the first. He was the first in his working-class family to go to college. He broke barriers throughout his career. Xavier Becerra, presently the Attorney General of California, will be a leader of toughness, bravery, and vision at the Department of Health and Human Services.

I stand here as a former Attorney General, actually for twenty years, I know well how much of that job is spent on health care policy. And I know also the management skills it takes to achieve real concrete results. Attorney General Becerra is deeply qualified because of his work as state attorney general, but he also enjoys a wealth of other experience, both personal and professional, that make him exactly the right person at this moment for that job. He knows the importance of health care, equitable health care, reducing the disparities of health care in our country that afflict us now.

We've been in a health care crisis for more than a year. The deepest, most painful health care crisis in our lives and maybe for a full century. A time of heartbreak and hardship when a deadly, insidious virus has threatened economic upheaval and disaster. It's a pandemic that has left no family untouched, as all of us in this chamber know, and no community unscathed. We’ve lost more than half a million of our fellow citizens and people to COVID-19, including 7,800-plus in Connecticut.

While there's light at the end of the tunnel, each day brings a new loss, and we don't know how long that tunnel may be. The Biden administration has been laser focused on ending this pandemic since day one. Every day more and more Americans are receiving the vaccine. Every day more and more Americans are beginning to see the big, bold benefits of the American Rescue Plan that President Biden signed last week and every day we're seeing strong leadership from the Biden administration in addressing this deep crisis.

So while there's hope at this moment, there are immense health care challenges still to be overcome from increasing health care affordability and reducing the uninsured rate to lowering drug costs to fighting back against health care disparities and protecting reproductive rights and I would repeat, lowering prescription drug costs. Job number one for America, lowering prescription drug costs. Job number two, lowering prescription drug costs. We need to reduce the prices of medicine that Americans need every day, aside from the pandemic, every day, prescription drug prices plague them, cause them worry, force them to make tough choices between eating and using the medicine, paying their rent and buying the drugs they need to survive.

Attorney General Becerra served as Deputy Attorney General in California and later as a member of the State Assembly before he went to the House of Representatives here in the Capitol for more than two decades. As a Congressman, and I think this point it is really important, then-Representative Xavier Becerra fought to pass the Affordable Care Act, and then he fought to defend it against the Trump administration as California’s Attorney General. He was a warrior in fighting to preserve the ACA and he will continue to fight for the men and women who depend on the ACA, and more and more of them, fortunately, are taking advantage of it because of the American Rescue Plan.

He's also a leader on taking on Big Tobacco. I sued the tobacco companies, helped to lead a multistate attorney general group, and I know it takes courage to stand up and speak out and act against Big Tobacco and he's done more, he's taken that fight to a new frontier. He's committed to protecting our children from this scourge of flavored tobacco and the insidious products, often they are flavored too, that are sold by vaping giants, which now include some of the tobacco companies.

Attorney General Becerra is a leader in protecting reproductive rights. He is a leader in expanding mental health care services, he's a leader in the fight against the opioid epidemic. He's a leader for LGBTQ health and for ending the disparities. We are in a racial justice movement now – a racial justice movement that is seeking to end those deep disparities causing twice as many people in communities of color to die during the pandemic and only half as many now to have the vaccine so far because we have lived through four years of dishonesty and disregard for science and four years of attacks on our health care system, particularly for the underserved.

That is the challenge, among others, that Attorney General Becerra will confront, he will be vigorous, brave, and tough, and he will work to lower the cost of prescription drugs. He will take on those interests that may be against the health care goals and purposes of the American people, and we need him now more than ever in this critical position. I urge my colleagues to vote for him tomorrow when we have a chance to do so. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor. 

-30-