Bernard Sanders

The truth is that we now have a retirement crisis in America that demands our immediate attention.

I urge the U.S. Congress and the executive branch to work together to materialize this.

The current research effort on Long Covid does not match the scale and the urgency of the problem.

We must address the challenge of Long Covid.

We need a fundamental overhaul of our health care system with a Congress that is able to do it.

With enough political will, we can fund a Long COVID moonshot that transforms clinical and community care for all of us.

This crisis is made even worse by the fact that long COVID patients often require multiple specialists to treat their complex symptoms.

The symptoms of long COVID are not minor inconveniences. They are debilitating conditions that affect the ability of people to work, to care for their families, and to live full lives.

The reality is we are going to hear from our panelists for a moment, is that long COVID is a very serious illness that can have devastating consequences for those who contract it in America today.

We take it seriously. We think we have not, as a Congress, done anywhere near enough, and we hope to turn that around.

We know that long COVID can include more than 200 symptoms, including serious cognitive impairment and severe cardiovascular and neurological problems that can continue for weeks, months, or even years after initial infection.

And if the system provides barriers, as Senator Sanders said, to drugs that could improve your care and your life and your health, then we haven't succeeded in our mission.

We are going to have to take on 1,800 well-paid lobbyists from the pharmaceutical industry here and all of the campaign contributions that they make.

I consider the high cost of prescription drugs to be one of the great crises facing our healthcare system.

We need Congress to move swiftly to enact the SDP and SDPI funding, as contained in S. 1855.

I thank you Chairman Sanders, Ranking Member Dr. Cassidy, and Members of this Committee for advancing S. 1855--bipartisan legislation led by Senators Susan Collins and Jeanne Shaheen to renew the SDP and SDPI.

The assurance of long-term funding is also important to attract new talent to this field and to maintain a pipeline of future generations of scientists to conduct T1D research.

We need Congress to move swiftly and enact the STP and STPI funding contained in S. 1855.

If just 10 percent of people with obesity on Medicare took these drugs, it could cost Medicare up to $27 billion a year.

We have got to make certain that the treatments available to people with diabetes are affordable for all Americans.

These two important drugs, up to 15 times more expensive in the United States than in other countries.

Now is the time for us to seriously combat the type 2 diabetes and obesity epidemics in America.

Today, we are going to be discussing one of the major health crises in America, and that is the diabetes epidemic.

Thank you, Chairman Sanders, for calling this hearing and giving me the chance to provide my testimony.

For better or worse, nurses are much more respected than politicians.