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\n

Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee offered Kennedy a chance to defend himself against Democrats\u2019 attacks in his confirmation hearing Wednesday and suggested they would support him to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I’ve come to know what’s in your heart,\u201d Sen. Ron Johnson<\/a> (R-Wis.) told Kennedy. \u201cI think I know the personal and political price you’ve paid for this decision [to serve President Donald Trump]. I just want to say publicly, I thank you for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The panel\u2019s chair, Mike Crapo<\/a> (R-Idaho), endorsed Kennedy as the hearing ended. “I think you have come through well and deserve to be confirmed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Tennessee Republican Marsha Blackburn<\/a> predicted he would. \u201cI look forward to seeing you help make us healthy again,\u201d she said, referencing Kennedy\u2019s \u201cMake America Healthy Again\u201d slogan.<\/p>\n

Democrats took aim at Kennedy\u2019s past work as an anti-vaccine activist, saying it disqualified him to lead federal health agencies.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe has made it his life’s work to sow doubt and discourage parents from getting their kids life-saving vaccines,\u201d ranking member Ron Wyden<\/a> (D-Ore.) said, echoing fellow Democrats who called his nomination \u201cdisturbing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kennedy denied being anti-vaccine<\/a>, despite his history<\/a> of saying the shots are dangerous.<\/p>\n

Democrats also highlighted his past support for abortion rights<\/a> and accused him of hypocrisy for allying with Trump, who appointed the justices who overturned Roe v. Wade<\/i> two years ago. They raised questions about conflicts of interest posed by his legal work against vaccine makers.<\/p>\n

But the questioning from Republicans suggested Kennedy would gain the Finance panel\u2019s approval \u2014 Republicans have a one-seat edge \u2014 and that Kennedy would get a vote on the Senate floor. There, he can lose three Republican votes and still win confirmation, if every senator in the Democratic caucus opposes him.<\/p>\n

If Kennedy were to pursue even a fraction of the policy agenda he espoused as an activist, it would upend HHS and the public health system.<\/p>\n

If he\u2019s confirmed, Kennedy would helm one of the largest agencies in the federal government, responsible for, in part, the health coverage of more than 1 in 3 Americans, creating rules and enforcing laws that govern nearly all health care providers, the preparation for and response to infectious diseases, and the approval of vaccines, drugs and medical devices.<\/p>\n

Republicans on the panel focused on areas where they see common ground with Kennedy.<\/p>\n

Kennedy answered questions from Sen. John Barrasso<\/a> (R-Wyo.) about sustaining rural health care by explaining that Trump had tasked him with ensuring access to care nationwide \u2014 and suggesting artificial intelligence and remote care could be a key solution to improving rural care.<\/p>\n

To Blackburn\u2019s question about overmedication of children, Kennedy suggested Americans need more non-pharmaceutical therapies for illness.<\/p>\n

Sen. Bill Cassidy<\/a> (R-La.), who told Blue Light News earlier this month he\u2019d sought reassurance about Kennedy\u2019s views on vaccines, used his time to ask what Kennedy would do to improve care for people who are covered by both Medicare and Medicaid. Cassidy, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, will get another chance to question Kennedy about the programs in a hearing Thursday morning.<\/p>\n

Kennedy said he wanted to make sure \u201cwe take good care of people\u201d without getting into policy details.<\/p>\n

Kennedy demonstrated some command of the policy issues facing HHS, saying he believed reform of the pharmaceutical market was needed, a hot topic on Capitol Hill, and suggested he wanted to train doctors to boost treatment of substance use disorder. He said Medicaid, the federal-state insurer for low-income people, needed reform because it had not prevented a rise in chronic disease.<\/p>\n

But Kennedy\u2019s command of the intricacies of policy was often shaky. He seemed at one point to confuse Medicaid with the federal insurer for older Americans, Medicare.<\/p>\n

Kennedy claimed that most people dislike the Affordable Care Act, despite polling updated on Jan. 17 by the health policy research group KFF found that 64 percent of American adults favorably viewed the 2010 health care law.<\/p>\n

He also said many people would prefer to be on Medicare Advantage but can\u2019t afford it. A September 2024 report from the Better Medicare Alliance, a group of insurers and business groups that support the privately run alternative to traditional Medicare, found that 52 percent of Medicare Advantage enrollees make less than $24,500 a year.<\/p>\n

Asked whether Kennedy was up to the task of overseeing Medicare and Medicaid, Sen. John Cornyn<\/a> (R-Texas) said: \u201cI think he can learn.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chelsea Cirruzzo and Robert King contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee offered Kennedy a chance to defend himself against Democrats\u2019 attacks in his confirmation hearing Wednesday and suggested they would support him to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. \u201cI think I’ve come to know what’s in your heart,\u201d Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) told Kennedy. \u201cI think I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5486\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}