Eliot Engel

Well, to help reduce rates of suicide in the United States, I offered the Effective Suicide Screening and Assessment in the Emergency Department Act with Congressman Gus Bilirakis.

There is also a growing concern about a rise in suicide, as we have heard before, which before the pandemic had increased by nearly 30 percent in New York State since 2000 and nationally was the tenth-leading cause of death.

My district in New York, which includes the Bronx and Westchester, has been at the epicenter of the Nation's coronavirus outbreak.

Since the Nation's emergency departments account for close to 50 percent of all patients' healthcare visits each year, do you support a more focused approach on identifying and treating patients at risk for suicide while they are still in…

Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you, Chairman Pallone, Chairwoman Eshoo, for holding today's important hearing on legislation to address ongoing mental health crises in the United States.

We have a unique moment in our nation's history to move forward truly transformational legislation, which will help communities of color access their basic human right to affordable, high-quality healthcare.

This pandemic's disproportionate impact on African American and Hispanic communities highlights the pressing need for a universal healthcare system that guarantees every American access to health care.

Like many of my colleagues on this panel, I believe that access to high-quality affordable healthcare is a basic human right, regardless of one's race or ethnic background.

It is unconscionable to me that my constituents who are African American and Hispanic are twice as likely to die from this virus than their White counterparts.

From the protests in Minneapolis to the marches in New York City, our nation has heard and loud clear-centuries of systemic racial injustices must come to an end.

I will also say expanding Medicaid is really critical.

I cannot think of much that is more dangerous than that.

This leaves the United States vulnerable in public health crises and obviously poses a national security threat the way I look at it.

Every day I hear from my constituents, including doctors and nurses serving on the frontlines of this pandemic about the dire shortages of personnel, protective equipment and therapeutics, PPEs as they call them.

The administration has failed at every turn. The President has sidelined our best scientists, pushed baseless conspiracy theories, and more recently prescribed unproven remedies, like Lysol, to suffering Americans.

Before I close, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Moulton).

I now yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Those efforts have really been a failure: a failure of American leadership, a failure of countries around the world.

It breaks my heart to see what the Syrian people have gone through.

I think this is because our Republican colleagues, even though most of them would agree with most of what I have just said, do not want to get into an argument with the mad king in the White House.

The shake-down of an ally in the middle of an ongoing national security crisis in the Korean Peninsula is absolutely crazy.

I think all of us understand it would cost us more money to bring those troops home than it does to keep them there.

Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute to H.Res. 809 from Representative Engel.

This epidemic also disproportionately affects communities of color, which face additional barriers and challenges in accessing treatment.

Support For Patients and Communities Act was an important step forward. It lacked the federal funding necessary to expand access to treatment.