Becerra narrowly confirmed as Biden’s health secretary
WASHINGTON — The Senate on Thursday confirmed California Attorney General Xavier Becerra as President Joe Biden’s health secretary, filling a key position in the administration’s coronavirus response and its ambitious push to lower drug costs, expand insurance coverage and eliminate racial disparities in medical care.
The 50-49 largely partyline vote makes the 63-yearold Becerra the first Latino to head the Department of Health and Human Services. The $1.4 trillion agency encompasses health insurance programs, drug safety and approvals, advanced medical research, substance abuse treatment and the welfare of children, including hundreds of migrants arriving daily at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Becerra has been California’s attorney general since 2017. He sued the Trump administration 124 times on a range of policy issues, earning the ire of conservatives. Before that he represented a Los Angeles-area district in the U.S. House for 24 years. A lawyer, not a doctor, his main experience with the health care system came through helping to pass the Obama-era Affordable Care Act and defending it when Donald Trump was president.
“I understand the enormous challenges before us and our solemn responsibility to be faithful stewards of an agency that touches almost every aspect of our lives,” Becerra said recently at his confirmation hearing. “I’m humbled by the task, and I’m ready for it.”
He comes from a working-class Mexican American family.
Leading Republicans have dismissed Becerra as unfit. But the American Medical Association and the American Hospital Association supported his nomination. Two influential lobbying groups, representing the drug industry and health insurers, said after the vote that they look forward to a collaborative working relationship.
But to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., “the distinguishing feature of this nominee’s resume is not his expertise in health, medicine, or administration — that part of the resume is very brief. What stands out are Mr. Becerra’s commitment to partisan warfare and his far-left ideology.”
Becerra was reliably liberal while in the House, but he was not seen as a leftwing firebrand. His issues were education, immigration and equal treatment for minorities. His profile was of a low-key insider who could work with Republicans.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said GOP arguments against Becerra “almost verge on the ridiculous.” Schumer said Republicans “complained loudly that he had no direct experience as a medical professional, even though Republicans voted in lockstep” to make pharmaceutical executive Alex Azar health secretary under Trump.
Core components of HHS are the boots on the ground of the coronavirus response.
The Food and Drug Administration oversees vaccines and treatments. Much of the underlying scientific and medical research comes from the National Institutes of Health. The Centers for Disease Control andPrevention takes the lead containing the spread of the virus and developing guidance to safely reopen schools and offices. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services provides insurance coverage for more than 1 in 3 Americans, including vulnerable seniors, as well as many children and low-income people.
Becerra also will also be the point man on Biden’s health care agenda, which includes insurance for all Americans, deputizing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices and tackling persistent racial and ethnic disparities in the health care system.