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Floor Speech

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, after the Gabbard nomination, the next issue up for consideration by the Senate is cloture on the Robert F. Kennedy nomination to be Secretary of Health and Human Services. This Cabinet position is responsible for implementing the administration's health agenda.

As Secretary, Mr. Kennedy must spend his time focused on improving the health of all Americans, ensuring HHS is transparent and accountable to congressional oversight, and respecting whistleblowers.

I think Kennedy has made it very clear, in life as a citizen, talking about improving the health of all Americans.

So I would like to outline some of the priorities that Mr. Kennedy should focus on at Health and Human Services. And, obviously, I am asking him to focus on things and issues that are very dear to my heart and take up a lot of my time as a Senator from Iowa and a person very concerned about the quality of healthcare in rural America.

Our country spends more than $4.5 trillion annually on healthcare. Growing healthcare costs don't just strain Americans' pocketbooks. Healthcare is also a major driver of widening budget deficits and the Federal Government's unsustainable fiscal outlook.

We are not getting our money's worth for all of that spending. Major healthcare programs spending eats up 34 percent of the Federal revenue today, and that will grow to 41 percent of revenue by 2055.

Mr. Kennedy must--and I think he is committed to--ensure that the key health programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, are protected and strengthened by rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse.

The nominee must increase transparency and accountability. These actions will help make our healthcare system more efficient for the taxpayers and the consumers.

I am the author of major and more recent updates to the Federal Government's most powerful tool in fighting fraud, and that is people that use the False Claims Act. Since the enactment of this legislation--I am talking about reforms to the False Claims Act--the Federal Government has recovered more than $78 billion lost to fraud and saved billions more by deterring would-be fraudsters.

People in the Justice Department, both Republican and Democrat, say that the False Claims Act is their best tool to get after these fraudsters.

In the 1 year of just 2024--and Attorney General Garland reported this to me just a couple of days before he left office--in 2024, there was more than $2.9 billion in False Claims Act settlements and judgments, with $1.7 billion of it involving the healthcare industry.

Now, as you know, I listen to a lot of whistleblowers, and whistleblowers were responsible for helping to recover nearly all of that $1.7 billion.

And I think I discussed the False Claims Act and the use of it by soon-to-be Secretary Kennedy. He seemed to be very enthused about listening to whistleblowers and use of the False Claims Act, and I think that he was probably being made aware of it for the first time. So I hope he will look into how he can use this act and, particularly, by listening to reports from whistleblowers of the waste of taxpayers' money.

Now, the Justice Department and HHS, in combination, need to more aggressively go after healthcare waste, fraud, and abuse and empower and encourage whistleblowers.

My top healthcare priority is lowering the cost of prescription drugs. We can start by putting more sunshine on pharmacy benefit managers' practices and holding these PBMs accountable.

We should also establish price transparency on prescription drug TV ads. Knowing what something costs before buying it is just common sense and very helpful to the consumer. Transparency will bring more accountability and lower costs to consumers.

Mr. Kennedy must also protect and improve access to rural healthcare. The previous administration dragged its feet in opening up spots for what is termed the Rural Community Hospital Demonstration programs. HHS must also listen to the concerns from rural pharmacies and ensure rural hospitals benefit from additional physician slots that Congress has authorized.

I look forward to strengthening the new and voluntary rural emergency program to ensure that it is working for rural communities, extending telehealth access, and supporting physicians getting a fair reimbursement under Medicare.

I also expect HHS to support healthy moms and babies by improving care, coordination, and using telehealth in rural areas.

HHS should work with me to support kids with complex medical needs so these kids and their families are getting the right care at the right time and at the right place. Our programs helping support kids with complex medical needs covers probably six or--well, depending on how many problems these kids have--but they have to navigate across several different programs, and what we are trying to do through legislation we pass is to have help so that when you have to see five or six different specialists, you have somebody saying what is available and what can we do to help you make access to all this.

I also expect HHS to protect the most vulnerable and older Americans.

I have spoken at length with Mr. Kennedy about some comments that he made in regard to agriculture, and I have heard from farmers in Iowa and agricultural organizations and commodity groups in the State, fearful that Mr. Kennedy has some radical ideas on agriculture.

At the end of the hour meeting I had in his office, prior to his hearing before the Finance Committee, I was calmed quite a bit by what he told me about his views on agriculture. I hope that that calm can be maintained. But if it is not, Mr. Kennedy is sure to hear from me. So when we talked about this in my office, Mr. Kennedy prefaced our initial conversation by saying that he, as HHS Secretary, will not have jurisdiction over agricultural issues. So you can expect that I will expect him to leave agriculture practices regulations to the proper Agencies and, for the most part, that is the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency.

I have also sent letters to Secretaries of Agriculture and HHS requiring--requesting they provide information regarding conflicts of interest on the Dietary Guideline Advisory Committee to increase transparencies. The problem there is that there is a feeling among a lot of members of the Advisory Committee that they may have an unjustified conflict of interest in what they are suggesting we eat and the type of diet we have.

So I expect Mr. Kennedy to provide Congress with a confidential financial disclosure from the Advisory Committee before finalizing dietary guidelines so that we know that nobody has a vested interest in however those guidelines are written.

On issues of healthcare and agriculture, Mr. Kennedy said in his nomination hearing:

I agree with all of those provisions--

I am quoting him now.

I agree with all of those provisions, Senator.

Meaning this Senator.

My approach to [the] administration [of] HHS will be radical transparency. If members of this committee or other members of [the committee] want information, the doors are open. . . . [I]f Congress asks me for information, you will get it immediately.

That is the end of the quote. I don't know whether people, even in the Senate here but particularly outside, know how refreshing it is to have a member of the Cabinet say: If Congress asks me for information, you would get it immediately. Because over the years that I have been in the U.S. Senate, it doesn't matter whether it is a Republican or Democrat administration, carrying out our constitutional responsibilities to see that--checks and balances to see that the executive branch and the President faithfully executes the laws is not an easy process, and we have difficulty getting answers to our questions.

Now, I don't know how much of this--I have had trouble with HHS in the past, but I know when Pam Bondi came to my office, I showed her a file of 158 letters that I had written to the Justice Department in the last 4 years to get information and documents in regard to my investigations of wrongdoing, and most of them weren't answered. Or if we got answers, it was merely words on a sheet of paper. Not very helpful.

So thank you, Mr. Kennedy, for your promise. And I am going to quote again: If Congress asks me for information, you will get it immediately.

Because that is what our job is. Every high school student learns in government about checks and balances of government, that we not only pass laws and we not only appropriate money, but we have a responsibility to the taxpayers and the citizens of this country to make sure that a President does what the Constitution says he should do: faithfully execute the laws.

And Cabinet people are bound by that same thing. Every Cabinet member that comes to my office, I tell them about the importance of our constitutional responsibility of oversight, answering our letters, and listening to whistleblowers. And in regard to answering letters, everybody that comes before a committee is asked by the chairman of that committee: Will you answer our letters? And everybody says yes. And I advise them to say ``maybe'' so that they aren't turned out to be liars.

So I expect Mr. Kennedy's Agency to provide timely and complete responses to congressional oversight. Oversight allows us to hold bureaucrats accountable to the rule of law and helps keep faith with the taxpayers.

So I look forward to working with Mr. Kennedy to improve the health of all Americans, make our healthcare system more efficient, and ensure HHS's adherence to Kennedy's radical transparency commitment.

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