Nomination of Andrea Joan Palm

Floor Speech

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Mr. WYDEN. Madam President and colleagues, very shortly, the Senate will vote on whether or not to advance the nomination of Andrea Palm to serve as the Deputy Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. I strongly urge the Senate to support this nominee because Ms. Palm knows every nook and cranny at the Department. I will tell my colleagues, there is experience, and then there is Andrea Palm's experience.

During the Obama administration, Ms. Palm served in multiple senior roles at the Department of Health and Human Services, including serving as the Department's Chief of Staff.

She also served in the White House as a senior adviser on the Domestic Policy Council. Very importantly, she has played a particularly strong role in looking at policies to tackle the pandemic. She served recently as the head of the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. That put her on the frontlines against COVID-19. There she was a coalition builder. She brought together the State government, the healthcare sector, public health experts, and more to protect the people of Wisconsin and save lives.

She led a collaborative effort to build the State's testing and contact tracing program. And thanks to her hard work, Wisconsin, on a number of particulars, has moved ahead in the country on vaccinations.

Ms. Palm started her career in social work, helping vulnerable kids and their families during times of crisis. During her Finance Committee hearing, she talked about how that experience set her on a path toward public service and how it is going to help her when she returns to the Department of Health and Human Services.

She also mentioned a story that I thought was particularly relevant in these days of polarized government. She mentioned that former Secretary Burwell put her in charge of what was called the common ground agenda. Secretary Burwell knew that Ms. Palm brought people together, Democrats and Republicans, to tackle big challenges.

She said--and I note that there is a senior member of the Finance Committee here, our colleague from Texas. She said to our committee that the common ground agenda is the perspective she is going to bring to the Department. You can sure sign me up to that proposition because there is a lot that needs to be done, as my colleagues know, when it comes to big healthcare challenges.

I mentioned Ms. Palm is going to have to hit the ground running when it comes to the pandemic response as one issue. And my colleague from Texas knows, we are in the middle of a transformation of Medicare.

Back when I was director of the senior citizens--the Gray Panthers, Medicare was an acute care program. If you broke your ankle, Medicare was there for you. If you had a horrible case of flu, Medicare was there for you. Madam President and colleagues, that is not Medicare today.

Today's Medicare is chronic disease, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and strokes. Millions of seniors have two or more of these conditions. In 2017, the Finance Committee, on a bipartisan basis, led the passage of the Chronic Care Act, dealing with modernizing Medicare, and we are very much looking forward to working again on a bipartisan basis with Ms. Palm and Secretary Becerra because there is a lot to do here, particularly as it relates to traditional Medicare.

My colleague and I know together, because we have worked on these issues, that Medicare Advantage has really moved forward on many of these particulars, and we have got a lot to do on traditional Medicare. Ms. Palm is going to be instrumental in that effort.

We also know, on another issue the Finance Committee is dealing with--that millions of Americans feel that they are getting mugged when they walk up to the prescription drug counter at their pharmacy. It is long past time for the Congress to step up and act to bring down the cost of people's medicine. The Senate Finance Committee has worked in a bipartisan way on that. There are other approaches that I support, particularly giving Medicare the authority to negotiate and hold down prices. But we can work together in a bipartisan way on prescription drugs.

Finally, there is an enormous agenda ahead of us in terms of major issues surrounding mental health care. I was given a report by the GAO just a few days ago that really highlights how we have seen so many people falling between the cracks in the mental healthcare system as a result of the pandemic; you know, rural seniors, for example, young people who perhaps are facing learning challenges. They haven't taken to remote learning. The law says that mental healthcare and physical healthcare are supposed to be treated equally, but based on this GAO report that was just given to me a few days ago, that is not the case.

So that is just a handful--a handful of the major issues that Ms. Palm will have on her plate. It is critically important that we have all hands on deck there. This is a person who knows the Department front to back.

When we vote here in a bit, with respect to advancing her nomination, I hope that the U.S. Senate, on a bipartisan basis, will vote for a proven healthcare leader, somebody who is committed to expanding and improving healthcare, who really understands the nuts and bolts of building healthcare coalitions in America.

I see the Presiding Officer of the Senate who has been involved in this work in her State, the State of Illinois. We need these top-notch individuals who have been willing to serve, who are experts in their fields. That is what makes Ms. Palm so qualified for this position.

I support her nomination fully.

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