Terminating Cdc Requirement for Proof of Covid-19 Vaccination for Foreign Travelers

Floor Speech

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Ms. SCHRIER. Mr. Chair, I thank the ranking member for yielding.

Mr. Chair, our healthcare workforce is stretched to capacity after having spent now 3 years on the front lines of the pandemic, and add to that recent spikes in RSV and flu.

Our hospitals have been overpacked, with a shortage of available beds and a real worry and sometimes a reality that there won't be room in a hospital if we get sick or injured.

Due to stress and burnout, hospitals across the country are experiencing staff shortages. What healthcare workers and hospital workers really don't need right now is more stress on an already stressed system, and that is exactly what this bill will do.

As we all know, and as I can tell you, as a pediatrician, people who are not vaccinated have a significantly higher risk of being hospitalized if they contract COVID. Why in the world would we invite people from around the world to come to visit the United States without that protection and then put our hospital systems at further risk of overcrowding and collapse? Not to mention the higher risk of getting and spreading the disease around our country or even potentially bringing new variants to our shores.

Vaccination is safe. I speak as a doctor. It is effective in keeping people out of hospitals and curbing transmission. We should rightly expect that those traveling to the United States get immunized because we should not risk further stressing an already strained healthcare system.

It was only a few months ago when hospitals in my State, in Washington State, were full. Patients with life-threatening illnesses, bleeds, life-threatening injuries had to be flown to distant cities to get care. Whatever we can do to prevent that from happening again, we should do. Making sure we get vaccinated and insisting that those visiting our country get vaccinated help do just that.

Public health decisions should be made by doctors and public health professionals based on data, not by Members of Congress for political expediency.

This bill is a political stunt. It has no basis in science. It fails to recognize the reality that our hospitals are facing right now and that any one of us might face if a loved one needs a hospital bed and that bed is not available. Please leave public health decisions to public health professionals.

Mr. Chair, I include in the Record the text of my amendment.

Ms. Schrier moves to recommit the bill H.R. 185 to the Committee on Energy and Commerce with instructions to report the same back to the House forthwith, with the following amendment:

Add at the end the following new section: SEC. 2. EFFECTIVE DATE.

The provisions of this Act shall not take effect until the date on which the Secretary of Health and Human Services submits to Congress a certification that such provisions will not result in--

(1) a decrease in hospital bed capacity in the United States;

(2) a reduction in health care resources available in the United States; or

(3) any staffing shortage for health care providers in the United States.

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