Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. I rise in strong support of this bill, and I salute Congresswoman Harman for her excellent work on this and perceiving where there was a need and how that need could be met. There are plenty of studies out there, and there's also a lot of anecdotal evidence that there are really severe shortages across our health workforce, and this is an area to which I brought particular attention, looking at where these shortages are, in trying to think not just how we look at the traditional pipelines to bring people into these positions, but how we think outside of the box at some of the nontraditional sources where we can find the expertise and the experience to bring that through the pipeline and to fill these shortages. H.R. 3199 proposes a very innovative way to meet the needs that we have across the country for emergency medical technicians. It recognizes that military medics who are returning have acquired very valuable experience during their service, which positions them extremely well to meet those needs and to fill those positions. It also recognizes that there's obstacles, that there's significant costs sometimes associated with the training that goes with certification, that it can be difficult in terms of getting that done in a timely fashion. What this bill does is address those issues.…”