The example conservatives cite over and over: a 2017 case in which Becerra defended a law requiring pregnancy resource centers to notify clients of abortion services. The Supreme Court struck down the law, saying it violated First Amendment free-speech protections.
“He is an aggressive culture warrior for the radical left,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said in a speech on the Senate floor, referring to that case.
Even in today’s partisan environment, it’s unusual for a Cabinet nominee to get almost no opposite-party votes.
The one exception is Tom Price, former president Donald Trump’s first HHS secretary, who didn’t get any votes from Democrats when the Senate confirmed him in 2017. But every other recent HHS secretary has gotten some bipartisan votes — and most have received a lot of them. Consider this:
- Six Democrats and one independent voted to confirm Alex Azar, Trump’s second secretary.
- Twenty-four Republicans voted for Sylvia Mathews Burwell, former president Barack Obama’s second secretary.
- Nine Republicans voted for Kathleen Sebelius, Obama’s first secretary.
- Both of former president George W. Bush’s nominees, Tommy Thompson and Michael Leavitt, were approved unanimously.
Like Becerra, both of Obama’s HHS secretaries supported abortion rights.
But Becerra has a track record on religious freedom issues that is particularly detested by conservatives.
“I think among people who are opposed to abortion, he was sort of public enemy No. 1,” said Mary Ziegler, a Florida State College of Law professor who is an expert on laws around reproductive rights.
“While there is extreme polarization, I think the reaction to him is more of a function of who he is and that he’s been out front on culture war issues,” Ziegler added. “That made him controversial.”
Besides defending the California regulations on crisis pregnancy centers, Becerra also challenged the Trump administration’s broadened religious exemptions from a mandate for employers to cover contraception for workers. California also lost that case before the Supreme Court, which sent it back to a lower court for further consideration.
“Seeing a notorious pro-abortion activist elevated to the Cabinet is a bitter disappointment to us all,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the antiabortion group Susan B. Anthony List.
In total, Becerra filed 122 lawsuits against Trump administration policies (which cost the state $41 billion). Those lawsuits have provided plenty of material for Republicans looking for ways to criticize him.
But Becerra’s willingness to go after Trump policies is one of the things Democrats love about him.
As HHS secretary, Becerra will be charged with undoing or changing dozens of policies from the prior administration on health insurance, public health and prescription drugs. Unlike Trump’s HHS secretaries, he’s a strong advocate for the Affordable Care Act, and is likely to advance policies aimed at expanding and bolstering it.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said that “after four years of going in reverse,” Becerra will make it “possible to go to drive and actually make progress for the American people, progress in terms of lowering the cost of health care.”
Most immediately under Becerra’s leadership, HHS will write new rules for the Title X family planning program to override Trump administration rules that had resulted in Planned Parenthood clinics withdrawing from the program and losing out on tens of millions of federal funds. Under those rules, clinics couldn’t receive Title X grants if they referred women for abortions. Yesterday the agency’s Office of Population Affairs announced it is working on proposing a new rule.
“We applaud the Biden administration for delivering on its promise by taking action today to make it right for the Title X program and millions of people who rely on it for care,” said Clare Coleman, president of the National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association. “Across the country, family planning providers have been struggling under the weight of disastrous program restrictions.”
Becerra will also be charged with managing and implementing a wide range of health-care programs, including the individual insurance marketplaces, Medicare, Medicaid and, most immediately, responding to the coronavirus pandemic.
Larry Levitt, senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation:
Democrats have pointed to Becerra’s experience with health policy.
As a longtime member of Congress, he served on the House Ways and Means Committee, where he helped craft the ACA. When Republicans have tried to attack Becerra on the basis he doesn’t have medical training, Democrats have pointed out that few HHS secretaries were physicians.
Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Republicans’ arguments against Becerra “almost verge on the ridiculous.”
Nancy-Ann DeParle, who served in multiple health policy roles during the Clinton and Obama administrations, disputed the notion that Becerra was a particularly controversial HHS pick.
“I don’t think he is polarizing at all,” DeParle told me. “I think the situation is polarized.”
Ahh, oof and ouch
AHH: President Biden said his administration is on track to pass 100 million shots today.
It’s Day 58 of Biden’s presidency. He had promised 100 million coronavirus vaccine doses administered in 100 days – a target that was widely viewed as conservative, based on the number of doses already being administered when he entered office.
“Behind these 100 million shots are millions of lives changed when people receive that dose of hope,” Biden said in a brief statement at the White House on Thursday. He said that his administration would announce a new goal next week.
But as supply increases, vaccine scarcity has given way to vaccine hesitancy.
Both Mississippi and Alaska have made vaccines available to all residents 16 and older. And Arizona’s Gila County and North Carolina’s Craven County have done the same. Both counties are rural and overwhelmingly Republican, demographic factors linked to vaccine hesitancy.
OOF: Biden will send surplus AstraZeneca vaccine doses to Mexico and Canada.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that the plan is to send 2.5 million doses to Mexico and 1.5 million to Canada. She characterized the arrangement, which is still being finalized, as a “loan” that could be repaid with future vaccine doses.
The supply will come from a stockpile of doses that are currently sitting at U.S. manufacturing sites. The doses cannot yet be used in the United States because the AstraZeneca vaccine has not received emergency authorization from the Food and Drug Administration. Both Canada and Mexico have approved the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Officials from both countries say that the agreement on vaccine doses is not a quid pro quo conditioned on increased enforcement. But Mexico has pledged to take in more Central American families “expelled” under a U.S. emergency health order and, on Thursday, announced that it would close its southern and northern borders to nonessential travel because of the pandemic. The closure appears to be in part aimed at making migration from Central America more difficult.
The arrangement also comes as the AstraZeneca vaccine faces scrutiny after a handful of recipients suffered adverse effects, including blood clots. On Thursday, Europe’s medical regulator said that the vaccine is “safe and effective.” Many experts have stressed that the benefits of the vaccine outweigh the risks, and several European countries that had temporarily suspended the vaccine are set to resume inoculations.
OUCH: More than 4 in 10 health-care workers have not been vaccinated, according to a new Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll.
“Health-care workers were the first group in the United States to be offered coronavirus vaccinations. But three months into the effort, many remain unconvinced, unreached and unprotected,” The Post’s Frances Stead Sellers, William Wan, Naema Ahmed and Emily Guskin report.
While some unvaccinated workers said that they were in the process of scheduling an appointment or planning to do so, 3 in 10 workers said that they did not want a vaccine or were unsure about getting one.
“Vaccination rates are particularly low among health-care workers who are Black, those in lower-paying jobs such as home health aides and those with less education. Partisan politics also play a role, with more Democrats saying they have been vaccinated and Republicans more likely to express uncertainty or concerns about the vaccines,” our colleagues write.
The poll also found that 1 in 6 health care workers would give up their job if their employer made the vaccine mandatory. While it is common for health-care employers to require influenza vaccines, so far few have mandated the coronavirus vaccines.
Some health-care workers have struggled to access the vaccine, even if they want to get it. Hospitals have been the most effective at getting their workforce vaccinated, while vaccination rates are lowest for those who work in patients’ homes. Of the health-care workers who plan to get a vaccine but have yet to make an appointment, 3 in 10 said that their employer has not offered them a shot.
Elsewhere in health care
A new lobbying coalition is pushing to make the shift to virtual care permanent.
“Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firm Sirona Strategies formed a coalition earlier this month called Moving Health Home. The organization’s 10 members include virtual-first care company Amazon Care, hospital chains Ascension and Intermountain Health, and risk-based senior care group Landmark Health. Together, they plan to advocate for a suite of policy changes that would widen access to at-home care — and allow providers to be reimbursed more readily for those services,” Stat News’s Erin Brodwin reports.
The moves come as Amazon plans to expand Amazon Care, its internal telehealth program, to its workers nationwide. The tech giant has also said that it will offer its program to employers across the country. (Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, owns The Washington Post.)
