Chris Van Hollen: “I join my colleague in opposing the nomination of Dr. Gottlieb and thank him for laying out the case. The FDA, of…”

“I join my colleague in opposing the nomination of Dr. Gottlieb and thank him for laying out the case. The FDA, of course, is an important part of our healthcare system, and just last week we saw the House of Representatives jam through a piece of legislation that would wreak havoc on the healthcare system. In fact, many people are appropriately calling what they did ``wealthcare'' because it represents a huge transfer of wealth away from caring for patients to the very wealthiest in our country, including many powerful special interests. I think everybody understands--Republicans, Democrats, Independents alike--the Affordable Care Act is not perfect and specifically that we need to address the issues within the Affordable Care Act exchanges. We need to address those issues to lower the deductibles, lower the copays, and make it more affordable. There are some very straightforward ways of doing that. One good idea is to create a public option within the Affordable Care Act exchanges, a Medicare-for-all-type choice. What will that do? It will create more competition. That will drive down the price of insurance within the Affordable Care Act exchanges, and it will ensure that you have a provider everywhere in the United States in every community of this country. Even better, the Congressional Budget Office, the last time they looked at it, concluded that it would save taxpayers $160 billion over 10 years, so it would reduce our deficit.…”