Elijah Cummings

If you can pay $150 million fine, this is just a cost of business.

If they live to be 99 years old, they will not be able to get a job.

I agree with you, these folks needed to go to jail.

The fight against unscrupulous companies like Maxim Healthcare Services requires more resources, not less.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I think we need to have additional hearings as our committee, and I am asking for the minority to have hearings, and we would love to have them next week.

I, too, want to thank you all, first of all, for your testimony.

Why did the scores not take into account the strong preference for a full set of services and referrals?

I was horrified. And I just want to make sure, as I know you do, and part of this hearing is about this, making sure that HHS is doing its part to help these young victims address their particular needs.

I have worked on the question of trafficking in human beings all the way back in the Bush administration.

I strongly disagree. If our goal is to analyze these grants in a responsible manner, we cannot ignore the voices of these human trafficking victims.

If our goal is to analyze these grants in a responsible manner, we cannot ignore the voices of these human trafficking victims, many of whom are very young women who have been exploited and raped by their persecutors.

To be clear, this is not about using Federal funds for abortion. This is about providing referrals for a full range of contraception, family planning and other reproductive health services.

And just in fairness to HHS, and I know that they will have an opportunity to respond, is the time up for them to submit documents?

We must address them directly and give these victims a voice.

These victims have survived horrifying abuses that few people in this room can even imagine. These atrocities are simply despicable, almost unspeakable.

I would like to take a moment to remind everyone of our ultimate goal here today, to help victims of human trafficking, forced prostitution and sex slavery to escape their conditions and put their lives back together.

I think if there is any committee that deserves to have the resources that are necessary to do its job is this committee.

Chairman Issa is absolutely right. Our--the job that we do is one of trying to bring about transparency as best we can and accountability.

I recognize the incredible predicament that this puts our health care providers in.

My investigation has focused on determining where some of the companies obtain drugs in critically short supply and how much they mark up the drugs that they sell to hospitals and other health care facilities.

Nobody should be allowed to profiteer at the expense of cancer victims or other patients who are in dire need of these lifesaving medications.

I was very pleased to hear what you just said with regard to looking forward to future hearings where perhaps we could call some of those folks so we might do what you said even earlier, and that was that we would lay our political hats…

If we had them here, we could have asked what they believe are the causes of the crisis and we could have asked their opinion about specific factors that contribute to the insufficient supply of these drugs.

Given the impact that the ongoing drug shortage is having on patients and health care providers, this is exactly the type of issue this committee should be examining.