Burwell Nomination

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. WYDEN. To close for our side, I would like to strongly urge my colleagues in a few minutes to support the nomination of Sylvia Mathews Burwell to be the next Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

I want to start with a simple fact. Sylvia Mathews Burwell's nomination has a breadth of bipartisan support because she is really that good, she is really that capable, and she is really that qualified.

I am going to say to colleagues, nobody has to take my word for it. We all know that our colleague on the other side of the aisle, Senator Coburn, is a man of strong views. He says what he means, and he means what he says. As a ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Senator Coburn has had many opportunities to work closely with Ms. Burwell during her service as the OMB Director.

For example, he emphasized the nominee's competence, saying: The fact is when you have somebody who is confident, competent, and also has strong character, you find a way to get past your differences to try to solve problems.

He emphasized she is a good listener and that she is communicative.

He said:

Responsiveness is key for the Congress, and I have to tell you I found her remarkably responsive. The fact is she is going to be committed to do the right thing and to keep Congress involved.

Finally, in a quote that I thought was particularly striking, Senator Coburn said:

Even when she has made up her mind, which sometimes happens, she will listen to another point of view to get information she might not have.

Senator Coburn also said:

That is a characteristic too often that we don't see, as Members of Congress, and in members of the administration, whether they are Republican or a Democrat.

Senator Coburn is not the only one who is part of this we could call it choir of bipartisan support for Sylvia Mathews Burwell.

When she went before the HELP Committee, our Republican colleague from North Carolina, Senator Burr, said:

I support her nomination. I will vote for her in the Finance Committee, and it is for one primary reason, it is because she doesn't come with a single experience that would make her a good Secretary. She comes with a portfolio of experience that would make her a tremendous asset at addressing some of the challenges the agency specifically and uniquely has.

Senator Burr continued:

I look forward to her confirmation being quick and our ability to then work together to be every bit as quick.

These are statements that reflect a nominee who is going to be, in my view, an active agent of bipartisanship. She is somebody who has already shown she can bring Democrats and Republicans together to solve big challenges, and I think she is going to show it at the Department of Health and Human Services.

Suffice it to say, we know Health and Human Services will need to have strong leadership in the days ahead. We know the debate about the Affordable Care Act is going to continue. It is going to continue in Hawaii, Oregon, and across the country.

My hope, as chair of the Finance Committee, is that Sylvia Mathews Burwell can help bring together Democrats and Republicans to build on the Affordable Care Act, just as many of us did to work with former President George W. Bush, to strengthen the Part D Program, the Medicare prescription drug program. Many of the first stories about Medicare Part D were much like the first stories about the Affordable Care Act. Yet Democrats and Republicans came together, were able to strengthen Part D to the point where now--enormous support among seniors--it has come in at more than 30 percent below the cost projected by the Congressional Budget Office.

So let's all work together with Sylvia Mathews Burwell to do for the Affordable Care Act what we did with George W. Bush's program on prescription drugs, and that has worked in a bipartisan way.

One of the reasons I am so enthused about Sylvia Mathews Burwell is we have big challenges that both sides, Democrats and Republicans, are going to have to team up on to tackle in the days ahead. For example, Medicare in 2014 is dramatically different than Medicare when it began in 1965. In 1965, for example, if a senior broke their ankle, if he or she needed to see a doctor, they went perhaps to an outpatient program, Part B of the Medicare Program. If they needed more attention--perhaps the ankle needed to be reset--they had to go to the hospital, they would get assistance in the hospital under Part A.

Today that is not primarily what Medicare is all about. Today, well over 80 percent of Medicare is tackling chronic disease. We are talking about diabetes, we are talking about cancer, we are talking about strokes and heart disease. Certainly if you add Alzheimer's on top of it, that is 90 percent of the Medicare Program. That broken ankle, when the senior has one, of course, has to be taken care of. But most of Medicare is about chronic disease.

What we are going to need is Democrats and Republicans coming together to tackle an issue that, frankly, has gotten short shrift in Washington, DC. It didn't come up a whole lot in the debate about the Affordable Care Act on any side, and yet it is going to be the issue that dominates the future of the flagship health care program in this country, Medicare; and much of what is done for chronic disease for the Medicare population will also be copied for the under-65 population, since the trend historically, when Medicare takes bold action, is often replicated in the private sector.

Some of this work has begun, but the fact is we need a strong leader with bipartisan support, as I have tried to highlight with Dr. Coburn's comments, Senator Burr's comments, and others. I think it was all summed up when Dr. Coburn and Senator Rockefeller--the senior Democratic Senator from her home State--teamed up that first day and set the mood about how this would be a nominee with exceptional ability to reach out and tackle the big challenges of our time.

Medicare, of course, in my view, is the biggest. But

the issue of family support, the child welfare programs the Department manages, these are programs that are critical lifelines for struggling Americans across the country. So many of our people are now falling between the cracks--falling between the cracks into poverty since the recession. The Department of Health and Human Services plays a powerful role ensuring that we have a strong safety net.

I have talked about her credentials before, but her education includes a stellar background, a graduate of Harvard and Oxford, where she was a Rhodes scholar. She was a staff director of the National Economic Council. This is someone who is very savvy on the big economic challenges, and she has superb experience. In 1977 she became Deputy Chief of Staff to the President and moving the following year to become the Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

She also has extensive experience in the nonprofit world. At the Gates Foundation she led efforts to tackle some of the most pressing global health challenges of our time.

At the Walmart Foundation, where she served in 2011, she offered outstanding leadership in the fight against hunger and to improve economic opportunity for women.

As Senators consider this nomination in the last couple of minutes before the vote, I only want to remind--perhaps not subtly--the Senate confirmed Sylvia Mathews Burwell for the position of Director of Office of Management and Budget 96 to 0. I think that is a very rare statement of bipartisanship for an extremely important position that not only has Sylvia Mathews Burwell discharged very well, she has won additional plaudits for her bipartisan work, as I have indicated today.

She is going to respond to the biggest and the big challenges in a way that I believe brings Americans together. That is what Senators have said throughout the process, and they have said it whether you have a D or an R next to your name. What the country needs, in short, is somebody who is a true agent of bipartisanship.

I conclude my remarks by saying I have gotten to know Sylvia Mathews Burwell well in the past few years. She is the right choice for the right time, and I strongly urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me this afternoon in supporting her nomination.

I yield the floor.

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