The increase in the number of deaths in Virginia, as in Tennessee, as the Chairman indicated, was largely attributed to the flooding of the market with fentanyl.

We're going to have to consider the costs of not doing something, the economic costs, and cost in social services and so forth.

Eighty percent of those were opioids, and of that number, 80% of the opioid overdoses were people whose addiction began when a doctor wrote them a prescription.

this war on opioids really needs to be a war on addiction

Like everyone here, I am proud of our work to pass the 21st Century Cures Act.

Unfortunately what we continue to see is simply not enough.

These were important steps, no doubt about it, but we can and must do more.

We must make healthcare more affordable, more available, and more tailored to what individuals want and need in their care.

I have to say with concern that my review of your record leaves me with serious doubts that you will.

Third, we must harness the power of Medicare to shift the focus on our healthcare system from paying for procedures and sickness to paying for health and outcomes.

It utterly failed to see the urgency of the public health crisis that is still unfolding today in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

the absolute last thing our Nation's health department should be spending time on is encouraging more discrimination in our healthcare system.

Would you try to do the same thing in Medicaid?

the Department of Health and Human Services under President Trump so far has been determined to create problems.

Rather than allowing women to make their own healthcare choices, the Department has tried at every turn to impose right wing ideology on women.

your nomination, still, could be an opportunity for HHS to reset, to put aside the extreme politics that are actively endangering people nationwide.

Do individual actors in the system have no culpability? Do the drug companies themselves have no culpability for this?

But this Administration, and its health department, did the opposite. It proposed gutting Medicaid, which offers critical wraparound services.

To most middle class families, yesterday, this bill stopped being a tax bill and started being a healthcare bill.

CBO admitted that it's very hard to understand what happens when the mandate disappears.

Higher percentages of people with insurance.

Their voices simply aren't heard.

I encourage you to continue looking at ways that you can be an advocate for people suffering advanced illness.

In your opinion, is Indiana a healthier community?

But you would agree with me, though, that the percentage of people with health coverage is a pretty important component of the health of a community.