The Senate voted to confirm Xavier Becerra to be the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services after a contentious nomination process, positioning him to lead the U.S. pandemic response and help shape liberal healthcare proposals.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra made it through by a vote of 50-49 after much of the early afternoon debate consisted of Republican senators arguing against the nomination on the floor Wednesday, citing legal actions they argue infringe on First Amendment rights and religious freedoms. Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who is often willing to go against party orthodoxy, voted to confirm Becerra.
“Attorney General Becerra is going to be laser-focused on the key priorities for the days ahead,” Oregon Democrat Sen. Ron Wyden said Thursday before the vote. “Central to his agenda is going to be the distribution of vaccines and bringing together … our country to have a coordinated strategy for dealing with the pandemic.”
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Republicans, meanwhile, argued against the nomination until the last minute on Thursday.
“Becerra is not fit to be our secretary of Health and Human Services, and I say this because of his appalling track record disrespecting the sanctity of life, blatantly attacking First Amendment rights, and his extreme policy views,” Oklahoma Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe said Thursday.
During his Senate confirmation hearings, Becerra faced questions about his past support of a single-payer healthcare system that would do away with private insurers to be replaced by a system in which the federal government covers the costs of healthcare claims. He said in 2017 that he would support Sen. Bernie Sanders’s “Medicare for All” proposal and told Kaiser Health News two years later that he has been “a single-payer advocate all my life.”
He has since distanced himself from the “Medicare for All” proposal, insisting during the Senate Finance Committee hearing on Feb. 24 that he would help President Biden shape his vision for instituting a public option, a more moderate plan that would create a government-run health insurance program to compete with other, more expensive, private health insurance plans.
“I’m here at the pleasure of the president of the United States,” Becerra told the Finance Committee. “He’s made it very clear where he is. He wants to build on the Affordable Care Act. That will be my mission, to achieve the goals that President Biden put forward.”
REPUBLICAN COLLINS VOTES WITH DEMOCRATS TO ADVANCE BECERRA NOMINATION FOR HHS SECRETARY
Becerra has been a staunch defender of Obamacare since his time in the House of Representatives, where he was pivotal in helping draft the law, Pennsylvania Democrat Sen. Bob Casey Jr. said Wednesday. Then, as California’s chief law enforcement officer, he led 20 blue states in a legal fight against the Trump administration’s effort to scale back the law.
“[The GOP] will try to take down the nomination, or oppose anyone who wants to uphold [Obamacare], uphold all protections for preexisting conditions, uphold and support the expansion of Medicaid, one of the best expansions of healthcare in American history,” Casey said.
He will also oversee health agencies, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, both of which are crucial in monitoring COVID-19, distributing vaccines, and authorizing new ones if they are deemed safe and effective.
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Becerra narrowly managed to move through a procedural Senate vote on March 11 to advance his confirmation to a full floor vote. Centrist senators Collins, and Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, waited until the last minute to announce that they would vote to support his nomination after speculation that they would withhold their crucial votes.
The Senate Finance Committee had deadlocked earlier this month on reporting Becerra’s nomination to the floor. Under Senate rules, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was tasked with bringing the nomination up for a procedural vote to break the stalemate.
