I appreciate the opportunity to discuss some of the issues currently impacting the veteran population in Puerto Rico.

This legislation will make the insular Medicaid programs more state-like in other important ways.

According to analysis undertaken by the Department of Health and Human Services, Americans living in poverty have significantly constrained budgets that limits their ability to pay out-of-pocket healthcare costs.

I want to thank this committee for taking a critical action last week by passing the Territories Health Care Improvement Act.

We may think that the funding we are providing to each insular area meets their needs and their capacity to use the money.

This health extenders package is good news for the Marianas and all the insular areas.

Thank you, Chairman Pallone, for your visit to Puerto Rico and the commitment you have shown many years for the island.

Those in poverty have literally no available income after they pay for their most basic necessities each month.

We must confront the difficult reality that Americans living in the territories are U.S. citizens that have been neglected and allowed to fall behind.

Puerto Ricans deserve equality in healthcare just like every other U.S.

I have sponsored legislation, H.R.1354, the Territories Health Equity Act of 2019, joined by my colleagues from the territories, and others, to correct the inequities faced by the territories across all of the federal health programs.

Thanks also to Mr. Soto and Mr. Bilirakis of the committee for understanding the urgency of this insular Medicaid crisis.

I'm just thrilled that we have NASA in this country and in my home district.

I think it would actually be really interesting to look at what the regulatory environment looked like back then and what the contracting process looked like back then and compare it to what it looks like today.

That NASA brand worldwide is second to none in my opinion.

This is a topic that's critical to both our national security and the integrity of our democracy.

I recently joined my colleagues on this Committee to introduce the bipartisan Securing American Science and Technology Act.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for holding this important hearing, and thank you to our panel today for your testimony and your tireless work to shed a light on this important issue.

it's important for us, as Congress, to continue to invest into resources like the Great Lakes to reduce biodiversity loss.

It's important for us, as Congress, to continue to invest into resources like the Great Lakes to reduce biodiversity loss.

We are losing providers, we are losing doctors.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And before my time commences, I want to ask unanimous consent to put in the record a memorandum of the Medicaid financing in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands made by the Kaiser Foundation.

Unless Congress acts, we will be faced with potentially catastrophic damage to our Medicaid program and our healthcare system.

So, more than half a million American citizens living in Puerto Rico, they are not covered by Medicaid full programs as they were in the states just because of the lack of funding of the treatment of a state of Puerto Rico.

All these additional sources of Federal funding for Puerto Rico's Medicaid program will expire in September of this year.