Bernard Sanders

The idea that you are willing to go without paychecks to deal with--to walk on picket lines, to deal with all of the stuff out there in order to protect your patients is rather extraordinary.

They tell me that they are stressed out. They are burnt out and are leaving the profession they love in droves because they are overworked, undervalued, and are forced each and every day to do more work with less resources.

What the nurses have told me, and I have had the opportunity on several occasions to sit down and talk with these nurses, is that what this strike has everything to do with is the safety of their patients.

For working class people, lower income people, the gap in their life expectancy with the rich is about 10 years in America.

The function of a humane and civilized health care system is to provide quality care to all, not to make huge profits for the insurance companies, the drug companies.

In the United States of America, we spend almost twice as much per capita as any other major country.

We owe them a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid.

I have been on the Senate Health, Education and Labor Pension Committee for 18 years, and you know what, we have never had a larger meeting than this.

This is a hearing designed to discuss the working conditions that nurses at the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital are facing and why they have been on strike for almost 3 months.

Right now, we pay by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs.

What does one say to a person to say thank you for your tax dollars developing the drug, but I am sorry you can't afford the treatment you need to save your life.

Every treatment I have received was supported by NIH funded research

The status quo is not working. We need fundamental changes in the way that the NIH addresses the crisis of prescription drugs.

We need a NIH Director who is prepared to take on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry.

The health care system in our Country is broken and it is failing.

One out of four Americans cannot afford to pay for the medicine they need.

We spend almost twice as much per capita on health care as any other industrialized nation.

The outrageously high cost of prescription drugs in America is a crisis and it must be addressed.

In America today, 40 percent of parents report being either very or extremely worried that their child is struggling with anxiety or depression.

Let us never forget, and sometimes it is easy to forget, we remember the million people who died during the pandemic.

What type of impact does social media have on the mental health of our Nation's youth? That is an issue that we have got to really explore at great length as a Nation.

Two out of every five teenagers felt persistently sad or hopeless, and tragically, one out of every five teenagers in our Country has seriously considered suicide.

This debate really has everything to do with the fact that Julie Su is a champion of the working class of this country.

I strongly support Ms. Su's nomination. She has been an excellent Deputy Secretary of Labor for the last 2 years.

Julie Su should be confirmed as our Secretary of Labor because she has spent her life fighting for those working families.