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RFK Jr. Grilled on Vaccines and Insurance

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was grilled by Senators in his first affirmation listening to for Secretary of Well being and Human Providers (HHS) on Wednesday, throughout which he struggled to persuade lawmakers that he’s not “anti-vaccine” and appeared unfamiliar with key features of healthcare insurance coverage packages and different insurance policies he would oversee.   

Showing earlier than the Senate Finance Committee, President Donald Trump’s nominee to guide the nation’s main well being company insisted that he has been mistakenly labeled as anti-vaccine, regardless of his previous remarks the place he unfold misinformation concerning the security and effectiveness of immunization. “I’m pro-safety,” mentioned Kennedy, a former environmental lawyer who ran as a Democrat after which impartial candidate within the 2024 presidential election earlier than endorsing Trump

“All of my children are vaccinated,” he mentioned. “I’ve written many books on vaccines. My first guide in 2014, the primary line of it’s, ‘I’m not anti-vaccine’ and the final line is, ‘I’m not anti-vaccine.’”

Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the highest rating Democrat on the committee, referenced Kennedy’s appearances on a number of podcasts, wherein Kennedy falsely claimed that no vaccine was protected or efficient and mentioned he regretted vaccinating his kids. “Mr. Kennedy, all of these items can’t be true. So are you mendacity to Congress right now while you say you might be pro-vaccine, or did you lie on all these podcasts?” Wyden requested.

Learn Extra: Public Health Experts Alarmed at Trump’s Pick of RFK Jr. to Lead HHS

Whereas Kennedy confronted vital questioning from Democrats, he and different cupboard nominees have benefited from strong help amongst Republicans, who maintain a 53-47 majority within the Senate. Trump’s nominee to guide the Protection Division, Pete Hegseth, was confirmed regardless of extensively being thought-about one of the controversial picks. Kennedy’s appointment has sparked widespread debate, with opponents, together with members of his circle of relatives, warning that his views might undermine public well being efforts. On the eve of his first affirmation listening to, his cousin, Caroline Kennedy, accused him of “preying on the desperation of fogeys and sick kids,” citing his function in stoking vaccine skepticism within the U.S. and overseas. Nevertheless it’s not clear that greater than three Republicans will vote in opposition to his affirmation, which is what can be required to sink it if all of the Democrats vote collectively.

Listed here are a few of the key moments in Kennedy’s first day of affirmation hearings.

Vaccines

Democrats raised Kennedy’s controversial historical past with Samoa, accusing him of touring to the nation and spreading anti-vaccine misinformation after the federal government had briefly paused on distributing vaccines for measles, mumps, and rubella when two infants died in 2018 after receiving improperly ready photographs. Quickly after Kennedy’s go to, a measles outbreak in Samoa killed 83 individuals, most of them kids. Kennedy denied the allegations, saying he “went there, nothing to do with vaccines” and insisting, “You can’t discover a single Samoan who will say, ‘I didn’t get a vaccine due to Bobby Kennedy.’”

Learn Extra: RFK Jr. Denied He Is Anti-Vaccine During His Confirmation Hearing. Here’s His Record

Kennedy mentioned that he supported the measles and polio vaccines and vowed that he wouldn’t do something that may make it tough for or discourage individuals from getting immunized. However Democrats continued to push again, itemizing their considerations together with his earlier controversial statements on vaccines.

“We have simply had a measles case in Rhode Island, the primary since 2013, and albeit, you frighten individuals,” mentioned Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island.

Medical insurance

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an impartial who caucuses with the Democrats and was seen as a possible swing vote on Kennedy’s nomination, started his questioning by saying that he agrees with Kennedy’s “Make America Well being Once more” slogan. However as he pressed the nominee on his medical insurance views, he appeared disenchanted when Kennedy refused to say that healthcare is a human proper. 

Kennedy has, previously, mentioned little concerning the medical insurance packages that make up roughly 1 / 4 of the federal funds and canopy more than 150 million Americans. Throughout Wednesday’s listening to, he appeared to typically confuse Medicaid and Medicare (Medicaid is a state-federal program that gives protection for low-income individuals, whereas Medicare is a federal program that gives protection for older and disabled individuals). 

Republican Sen. Invoice Cassidy of Louisiana, a doctor thought-about a vote Kennedy must win affirmation, repeatedly requested Kennedy to share how he would reform Medicaid, a taxpayer funded program that might be topic to funds cuts to fund Trump’s agenda. “I don’t have a broad proposal for dismantling this system,” Kennedy mentioned.

Learn Extra: RFK Jr.’s Confirmation Hearings Could Be Banner Moment For Anti-Vax Movement

Kennedy mentioned that “most people who find themselves on Medicaid are usually not joyful” as a result of the premiums and deductibles are “too excessive.” However most individuals enrolled in Medicaid don’t pay premiums or deductibles. He additionally advised that the majority Individuals would favor non-public insurance coverage, eliciting laughter from Democratic Sens. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and Sanders.

“I’d ask any of the Democrats who’re chuckling simply now: Do you assume all that cash, the $900 billion that we’re sending to Medicaid yearly, has made Individuals wholesome? Do we predict it’s working for anyone? Are the premiums low sufficient?” Kennedy mentioned.

Abortion

Kennedy additionally confronted questioning from Senators of each events about his flip-flopping stance on abortion. When Sen. James Lankford, a Republican from Oklahoma who has referred to as himself “the Senate’s most pro-life member,” requested Kennedy about abortion, the nominee replied, “I agree with President Trump that each abortion is a tragedy” and that he agrees with the President that abortion coverage needs to be left as much as the states. 

However many Democrats, together with Hassan and Sanders, referenced Kennedy’s previous feedback expressing help for bodily autonomy and folks’s proper to decide on, slamming him for what Sanders referred to as a “main U flip” on his beliefs.

“It’s outstanding that you’ve such an extended file of combating for ladies’s reproductive freedom, and actually nice that my Republican colleagues are so open to voting for a pro-choice HHS Secretary. So Mr. Kennedy, I’m confused,” Hassan mentioned. “You’ve gotten clearly acknowledged previously that bodily autonomy is one in all your core values. The query is, do you stand for that worth or not? When was it that you simply determined to promote out the values you’ve had your entire life so as to be given energy by President Trump?”

Kennedy stumbled when requested about particular abortion policies he would oversee if confirmed to guide HHS. When Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat from Nevada, requested Kennedy if he agreed that the Emergency Medical Therapy and Labor Act, a federal regulation requiring hospitals to stabilize sufferers experiencing life-threatening conditions whether or not or not they will pay, protects a pregnant individual’s proper to an emergency abortion, Kennedy paused earlier than replying, “I don’t know.”

Senators questioned Kennedy about what actions he would tackle the abortion medicine mifepristone. The drug, which was accredited by the Meals and Drug Administration for abortion functions greater than twenty years in the past, was just lately unsuccessfully challenged in court by a gaggle of anti-abortion medical doctors and organizations. The Biden Administration helped facilitate entry to mifepristone by permitting it to be prescribed through telehealth and obtained by mail. Kennedy had a imprecise reply when requested concerning the drug, saying solely that Trump requested him “to check the security of mifepristone” however that the President “has not but taken a stand on learn how to regulate it.”

Conspiracy theories

One other contentious second ensued when Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat from Colorado, challenged Kennedy on his previous controversial statements, together with his assertions that COVID-19 was a genetically engineered bioweapon that targets Black individuals and spares Chinese language and Ashkenazi Jews, and that Lyme Illness was an engineered bioweapon. “I most likely did say that,” Kennedy mentioned about Lyme Illness. 

Democrats on the committee appeared pissed off and unconvinced by Kennedy’s insistence that he’s not a conspiracy theorist, and plenty of criticized the nominee for being unqualified and unfit to run the highest well being company.

“What’s so disturbing to me is that, out of 330 million Individuals, we’re being requested to place someone on this job who has spent 50 years of his life not honoring the custom that he talked about originally of this dialog, however peddling in half truths, peddling in false statements,” Bennet mentioned.


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