John Rice Carter: “Again, let me be clear about my standing on this bill. I support this bill. We support telehealth. We are all in favor…”

“Again, let me be clear about my standing on this bill. I support this bill. We support telehealth. We are all in favor of telehealth, but we also support the fact that we have committees that this type of legislation needs to go through, and we missed an opportunity here to make this a better bill. That is simply what we are saying. No one is saying they are not in favor of telehealth. Telehealth has become an integral part of our healthcare system during this pandemic. There is no question about that. All of us agree on that. It needs to be extended. But, again, the committee process is exceptionally important, and we need to make sure that we follow that, particularly when we are talking about subject matter as important as this because it is important. Again, since I have been a Member of Congress, I have been working to make healthcare accessible and available, and telehealth does just that. This is exactly what we want, but there are ways that we could have made this better. One example is that we need to make sure there is no waste, fraud, and abuse. That is one thing that could have been tightened up in this legislation. Another example is to make sure that we are not having any information that is inadvertently or intentionally being released. That is extremely important as well.…”