Senator Hassan Meets with Health and Human Services Nominee

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Maggie Hassan, a member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and Senate Finance Committee, today met virtually with President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra.

“The Department of Health and Human Services is tasked with protecting the health and safety of all Americans, and that responsibility is more important now than ever amid the COVID-19 pandemic,” Senator Hassan said. “I appreciated hearing from Mr. Becerra about his plans to try to fix the broken vaccine distribution process. We also spoke about the importance of ensuring that New Hampshire continues to get the resources that we need to help combat the substance misuse crisis, as well how the Biden administration will work to immediately reverse the damage done to the Affordable Care Act over the last few years. In addition, we discussed the bipartisan efforts that I led to help end the practice of surprise medical billing and how the Department plans to implement this new law. I look forward to working with the Department and my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to continue addressing the COVID-19 pandemic, lower health care costs, and combat the devastating substance misuse crisis.”

As a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and Senate Finance Committee, Senator Hassan is focused on ensuring that all Americans and Granite Staters have access to affordable, high-quality health care. The COVID-19 relief and government funding package that was recently signed into law includes provisions to help end surprise medical billing, which Senator Hassan has led bipartisan efforts on for the past two years. The bill also includes $69 billion for vaccines, testing and tracing, community health and health care provider support, which is funding that Senator Hassan fought to include.

In 2018, Senator Hassan helped negotiate a bipartisan agreement that resulted in a large national increase in opioid treatment funding through the State Opioid Response (SOR) grant program. Senator Hassan also helped negotiate a 15 percent set-aside of federal funding for hardest hit states, including New Hampshire.

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