Bill Nelson: “I wish to talk about Alex Azar's nomination as Secretary of Health and Human Services. I wish to explain how I am going…”

“I wish to talk about Alex Azar's nomination as Secretary of Health and Human Services. I wish to explain how I am going to vote no by virtue of what I asked him in his hearing in front of the Finance Committee. Needless to say, programs such as Medicaid, Medicare, the Federal marketplace for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, and the Children's Health Insurance Program are all healthcare programs that are absolutely essential not only to my State of Florida but to all States. Since we have a higher percentage of the population who are senior citizens, obviously, Medicare is an extremely important one to that segment of our population, who depend on Medicare for their healthcare. When you look at the Affordable Care Act, which brought healthcare through health insurance to millions and millions of Americans who had not had it before, my State of Florida signed up more people than any other State. Some 1.7 million Floridians signed up for coverage through healthcare.gov. That was despite the Trump Administration's efforts this past year to undermine the health law by doing such things as not allowing people to get out and give the counseling. So it was on a much lower scale than what had been done before. My worry is, looking out for the people of Florida, that Mr.…”