Political Quotes

“I will be brief in my remarks here. I know that you have heard several concerns expressed about this entire process, and I would certainly share those concerns. I do think that this is a great opportunity to address a bipartisan issue that is important across America. But it appears this bill was negotiated quickly, in secret, and outside the committees of jurisdiction. Neither outside stakeholders nor Members who have worked extensively on telehealth policy were consulted, as far as I can tell, and the closed rule under which this is being considered has precluded any opportunity to improve or amend the bill. An issue this important deserves an open and transparent process that follows regular order, allowing Members to offer input and highlight important needs which might otherwise have been overlooked. We call this legislating. If we had worked together on the Ways and Means Committee with our Energy and Commerce friends and had included the various ideas and innovations, this would have been a true and real bipartisan bill. I am confident that the telehealth extension we are considering today would be even better, as has been mentioned by my colleagues. In fact, back in May, I introduced a bipartisan bill almost identical to this one called the Connecting Rural Telehealth to the Future Act.…”