Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee offered Kennedy a chance to defend himself against Democrats’ attacks in his confirmation hearing Wednesday and suggested they would support him to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
“I think I’ve come to know what’s in your heart,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) told Kennedy. “I think I know the personal and political price you’ve paid for this decision [to serve President Donald Trump]. I just want to say publicly, I thank you for that.”
The panel’s chair, Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), endorsed Kennedy as the hearing ended. “I think you have come through well and deserve to be confirmed,” he said.
Tennessee Republican Marsha Blackburn predicted he would. “I look forward to seeing you help make us healthy again,” she said, referencing Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” slogan.
Democrats took aim at Kennedy’s past work as an anti-vaccine activist, saying it disqualified him to lead federal health agencies.
“He has made it his life’s work to sow doubt and discourage parents from getting their kids life-saving vaccines,” ranking member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said, echoing fellow Democrats who called his nomination “disturbing.”
Kennedy denied being anti-vaccine, despite his history of saying the shots are dangerous.
Democrats also highlighted his past support for abortion rights and accused him of hypocrisy for allying with Trump, who appointed the justices who overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago. They raised questions about conflicts of interest posed by his legal work against vaccine makers.
But the questioning from Republicans suggested Kennedy would gain the Finance panel’s approval — Republicans have a one-seat edge — and that Kennedy would get a vote on the Senate floor. There, he can lose three Republican votes and still win confirmation, if every senator in the Democratic caucus opposes him.
If Kennedy were to pursue even a fraction of the policy agenda he espoused as an activist, it would upend HHS and the public health system.
If he’s confirmed, Kennedy would helm one of the largest agencies in the federal government, responsible for, in part, the health coverage of more than 1 in 3 Americans, creating rules and enforcing laws that govern nearly all health care providers, the preparation for and response to infectious diseases, and the approval of vaccines, drugs and medical devices.
Republicans on the panel focused on areas where they see common ground with Kennedy.
Kennedy answered questions from Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) about sustaining rural health care by explaining that Trump had tasked him with ensuring access to care nationwide — and suggesting artificial intelligence and remote care could be a key solution to improving rural care.
To Blackburn’s question about overmedication of children, Kennedy suggested Americans need more non-pharmaceutical therapies for illness.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who told POLITICO earlier this month he’d sought reassurance about Kennedy’s views on vaccines, used his time to ask what Kennedy would do to improve care for people who are covered by both Medicare and Medicaid. Cassidy, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, will get another chance to question Kennedy about the programs in a hearing Thursday morning.
Kennedy said he wanted to make sure “we take good care of people” without getting into policy details.
Kennedy demonstrated some command of the policy issues facing HHS, saying he believed reform of the pharmaceutical market was needed, a hot topic on Capitol Hill, and suggested he wanted to train doctors to boost treatment of substance use disorder. He said Medicaid, the federal-state insurer for low-income people, needed reform because it had not prevented a rise in chronic disease.
But Kennedy’s command of the intricacies of policy was often shaky. He seemed at one point to confuse Medicaid with the federal insurer for older Americans, Medicare.
Kennedy claimed that most people dislike the Affordable Care Act, despite polling updated on Jan. 17 by the health policy research group KFF found that 64 percent of American adults favorably viewed the 2010 health care law.
He also said many people would prefer to be on Medicare Advantage but can’t afford it. A September 2024 report from the Better Medicare Alliance, a group of insurers and business groups that support the privately run alternative to traditional Medicare, found that 52 percent of Medicare Advantage enrollees make less than $24,500 a year.
Asked whether Kennedy was up to the task of overseeing Medicare and Medicaid, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said: “I think he can learn.”
Chelsea Cirruzzo and Robert King contributed to this report.
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