Baker to testify before Senate health panel
Gov. Charlie Baker is slated to testify next month before the U.S. Senate health committee, whose membership includes Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Baker is part of a panel of five governors who are scheduled to appear Sept. 7for a hearing focused on health care premiums in the individual marketplace, according to an advisory released by the committee.
The event will mark Baker’s first testimony before a congressional committee.
Baker, a former state secretary of health and human services who also spent 10 years as a health care executive in the private sector, has fought proposals in the Senate and the House to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, warning that the version that passed the House posed a “significant threat” to the state and could cost it billions of dollars in federal aid.
Back home, health care has also been a focus. Last month, the governor approved $200 million in new fees and fines on state employers to help pay for skyrocketing MassHealth costs, but did so without a raft of reforms he unsuccessfully pushed in the legislation.
Democratic lawmakers had criticized his proposal to shift 140,000 low-income MassHealth enrollees onto other commercial plans, expressing concerns that the move could hike some of their out-of-pocket costs.
The Senate committee, led by Tennessee Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander, also includes Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New Hampshire Sen. Maggie Hassan.
Baker was named undersecretary of health and human services in Massachusetts in 1991 under Gov. William Weld. He was promoted to secretary a year later.