Supplemental Appropriations Bill

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, last week I described how Congress could quickly secure supplemental funding to combat the coronavirus. The way to secure these urgently needed resources with speed and certainty was to forgo partisan posturing, forgo micromanagement at the leadership level, and let the bipartisan appropriators do their work.

Since then, Senator Shelby, Senator Leahy, and their counterparts in the House have worked on bipartisan, bicameral discussions. Thanks to their good work, we are close. The funding legislation appears to be about at the 5-yard line. I hope to complete the legislation and deliver this funding this week. We are close.

In order to finish up, both sides will need to continue doing what has worked thus far and resist the temptation to impose any last-minute ideological demands. In particular, I have heard that the Democratic leadership may be contemplating a last-minute demand that this funding legislation also test drive some untried, untested, and controversial parts of their Medicare for All proposal that relate to the pricing of new drugs and innovations.

So, look, everyone agrees that the potential diagnostics, therapeutics, or vaccines that might come out of this new funding cannot only be available to the ultrawealthy. We all agree on that. Everyone agrees. We already have longstanding, tried-and-true procedures so the government can buy and distribute new medicines in scenarios like this to ensure accessibility. These mechanisms are already in place. There is no need and this is no time to begin experimenting with ideological proposals that could jeopardize research, development, and innovation. Like I said, the accessibility of treatments or vaccines is a priority for everybody, but before new technologies can be accessible, they obviously have to be available.

This is a moment to empower innovators, to incentivize innovators. It is a time to remove hurdles to innovation, not build new hurdles and create new uncertainty through ideological experimentation.

So I hope these rumors do not prove true. I am optimistic we will be able to close out the remaining questions and process this legislation in short order. This moment calls for collaboration and for unity. Our bicameral, bipartisan talks have made great headway. It is time to give our public health experts and healthcare professionals the surge of resources they need at this challenging time.

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