Frank Pallone: “I listened to my colleague from Kentucky, but as much as I respect him, I totally disagree with what he has been saying…”

“I listened to my colleague from Kentucky, but as much as I respect him, I totally disagree with what he has been saying here. Under the public law right now, the emergency--when it starts, when it ends--is done by the administration. Specifically, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, I guess, recommends to the President. There is a reason for that, and that is because he gets all this information from various sources about the science, about when we should be doing this. I disagree to say that we, as the Congress, should be the ones that make that determination either to begin or end. In addition to that, the gentleman from Kentucky mentioned in response to one of my Democratic colleagues the provision that we passed in the last Congress in the Inflation Reduction Act to negotiate prices for prescription drugs under Medicare. The fact of the matter is that wasn't a cut to Medicare. That was a way of trying to make drug prices more affordable for our seniors. To suggest that somehow that is a cut I don't think is accurate. I mean, this is a major savings to seniors out of pocket once this program goes into effect. By way of background, again, some of my Democratic colleagues have stressed that we hear constantly from the other side of the aisle this idea that the Republicans are going to refuse to raise the debt ceiling unless they can cut Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid and other vital programs.…”