Neal Opening Statement at Hearing on the Proposed Fiscal Year 2024 Budget with the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Becerra

(As prepared for delivery)

Welcome back to the Committee on Ways and Means, Secretary Becerra. It's an honor to have you here with us today.

When you testified before us last year, our country was in the midst of an unprecedented economic recovery from the financial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, that progress continues--two years of consecutive economic growth, wages rising, and the strongest jobs record of any Administration in history. And we've accomplished this all while Republicans have been wish-casting for a recession and launching partisan attempts to crash the economy.

We are raising the first generation of Americans that only know life with the Affordable Care Act. At life's most vulnerable moments, they don't have to fear their insurance company cutting off their coverage or being denied coverage because of costs. They only know health coverage free from discrimination against those with pre-existing conditions or even women. In the last 13 years, we have given Americans peace of mind, and we won't go back.

Democrats have supercharged the ACA over the last decade, lowering health care costs and reducing prescription drug prices for millions with the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act. Instead of working across the aisle on constructive solutions, Republicans have unsuccessfully advanced their repeal-without-a-replacement agenda over sixty times.

President Biden's Fiscal Year 2024 budget shares Ways and Means Committee Democrats' commitment to building on the historic progress made last Congress. This budget responsibly invests in the affordability and accessibility of care, giving Americans more breathing room while reducing the deficit. Simply put, this budget puts workers and families over the wealthy and well-connected.

This is how you build an economy from the middle-out and the bottom-up: further expanding Medicare's ability to negotiate drug prices, permanently extending premium tax credits, strengthening Medicare and improving its services, building on the American Rescue Plan's historic investments in child care, addressing America's mental health crisis, and closing coverage gaps in for Americans living in states that have not expanded Medicaid.

Other Ways and Means priorities are included in the President's budget, including investments in the Elder Justice Act and a TANF emergency fund that will protect some of our most vulnerable citizens. Democrats know that investing in health care and caregiving is an investment in our nation's children, families, and economy.

Shamefully, Republicans are making yet another attempt to send our health care system backward. Their plot to repeal the ACA, or even the Inflation Reduction Act, while making deep cuts to Medicaid would devastate millions. Their plan pulls from the same unsuccessful playbook they've been pushing for the last 13 years - shifting costs onto patients, sending the health care system into chaos, and ripping protections from Americans with pre-existing conditions.

Republicans have made it clear who they stand for, and let me tell you, it's not the American people. It's the companies profiting hand over fist on life-saving medication and the top 1 percent who would get billions in tax cuts in exchange for your health coverage. Ways and Means Democrats have stayed the course on strengthening Americans' health care, even as Republicans fought to rip coverage away from workers and families. Countless lives have been saved as a result.

Thank you for being here today, and I look forward to our work together as implementation of these historic laws continues.

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