[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 6 (Wednesday, January 26, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S532-S533]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     NOMINATION OF MICHAEL LEAVITT

  Mr. BENNETT. Madam President, I understand we are going to soon be 
voting on the nomination of Mike Leavitt to be the Secretary of Health 
and Human Services. I have the privilege of being one of Mike Leavitt's 
friends, one of his political associates, and one of his strongest 
supporters. I introduced him to the committee at the time of his 
confirmation hearings. I don't want to add much to the comments I made 
there, but I do want to take the occasion to note the Senate action 
with respect to his confirmation and to assure my colleagues here in 
the Senate, as well as any who might be listening, that the United 
States is very fortunate to have a man of Mike Leavitt's stature 
available to us to serve in this important Cabinet-level position.
  He served as a Governor but as a Governor who was very innovative in 
many of the areas where innovation will be called for in his new 
assignment. He served as a business executive, building a business, 
growing a business, helping a business to survive. He understands the 
impact of extra taxes on small businesses, and he will be appropriately 
prudent, not only in the way he spends money but in the way he 
promulgates regulations that can impact small business.
  He and his wife Jackie are beloved throughout Utah. He is one of only 
two men ever to be elected to three successive terms as Governor in the 
history of the State, and there are those who believe that if he had 
decided to seek a fourth term, he would have received it without much 
difficulty. He retired with a very high approval rating. He brings 
that, plus the performance in his position as the Administrator of the 
Environmental Protection Agency, to his new assignment.
  On behalf of the people of Utah, I wish him well, and I urge my 
Senate colleagues to give him unanimous confirmation. He will be a 
superb Secretary of Health and Human Services.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, I note that we are in a quorum call. As a 
member of the Finance Committee, I am going to speak in favor of the 
Leavitt nomination to outline some of my concerns.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate is not in a quorum call.
  Mr. WYDEN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, I note that the chairman of the Senate 
Finance Committee and the ranking minority member will be here shortly 
to speak on the Leavitt nomination. Until they get here, I thought I 
would summarize my thoughts concerning this nomination.
  I come to the Chamber to speak in favor of Mike Leavitt to head the 
Department of Health and Human Services.
  I want to begin my brief remarks by talking about the importance of 
bipartisanship in the health care field and to note that at the end of 
the last session of the Congress, there was a bipartisan failure in the 
health care area, in my view, of enormous ramifications. At the end of 
the last session of the Congress, the Congress failed to provide the 
funding necessary for the office of Dr. David Brailer, who is, in 
effect, the national health care technology point man, to try to 
modernize decision making, record keeping, telemedicine, and other 
crucial matters in the health care field. His office, as a result of 
this bipartisan failure by the Congress, was essentially defunded. So 
what you have is a situation where both political parties talk a big 
game about health information technology, or IT. You hear senators of 
both political parties saluting the promise of this exciting field and 
talk about how committed they are, but the response of the Congress was 
to essentially defund it. So rhetoric has been in abundance; concrete 
support has been lacking.
  I come to the Senate floor to say I very much hope--and Mike Leavitt 
has a great interest in health information technology--that this 
deficiency is corrected in this upcoming Congress because otherwise 
there will be great consequences.

[[Page S533]]

  First, I am concerned that as we see the move towards electronic 
medical records, these records and the placement of them is not being 
done in a fashion that will promote interoperability so that they are 
best in a position to be coordinated and maximize their value. They 
simply are not interoperable. It is a very significant concern. If we 
are going to see this trend toward electronic medical records and not 
take the steps to promote interoperability, that will be a very serious 
deficiency as we set up the new system and will cause a great deal of 
confusion.
  Second, I am very concerned that in the information technology area, 
the big and powerful figures, be they high-tech companies or medical 
clinics, will be able to do this work, but it is not going to be done 
by the small physician offices and clinics. Dr. Brailer's office was 
the office that was in a position to give incentives to help those 
small offices go forward. That work is not being done.
  Third, the very promising aspect of health technology has been in the 
area of regional offices, and now we are not seeing the funds that are 
necessary for those regional offices as well.
  The Congress essentially zeroed out the money that Dr. Brailer 
needed. It was a modest amount, $50 million. My sense is to really 
promote health information technology, it is going to take much more 
significant sums, but to have this body on a bipartisan basis 
constantly talking about the value of health information technology and 
then taking the one program that would make a difference and zeroing it 
out is just unconscionable. Both political parties have let down what 
needs to be done in this critical area.
  I see the chairman of the committee. I know he is very interested in 
health information technology, as is Senator Baucus. I hope to lead a 
bipartisan effort in this session of the Congress to ensure that Dr. 
Brailer's office gets the funds that are necessary.
  The last couple of points I would make in support of the Leavitt 
nomination: First, on the question of Medicaid, Mike Leavitt told me, 
in response to a question I asked, that there was no plan to send a 
block grant proposal to the Congress. That was welcome news. But he 
left an awful lot of wiggle room in terms of the details, and so 
bipartisan concerns remain, concerns by the governors as well, about 
what is to come.
  As one Senator who specializes in this field, I send a message that I 
am very supportive of the concept of health care waivers. I think that 
kind of flexibility is certainly a plus. We in Oregon have used them in 
a humanitarian way, to get better quality care to people for services 
that are medically effective. But there is a big difference between 
waivers that are borne out of a desire to use flexibility to serve 
people and a block grant proposal which just sets an arbitrary cap and 
cuts people off.
  Finally, I want to talk about the importance of working in a 
bipartisan way to contain costs for prescription drugs under the new 
Medicare law. As one who voted for that law, believing it was important 
to get started, I said then that the next step has to be to put in 
place a real cost containment effort that looks particularly to the 
private sector. Senator Olympia Snowe, who serves with great 
distinction on the Finance Committee, will be introducing legislation 
with me next week that will say we are going to use private sector 
forces, marketplace forces, to hold down the costs of prescription 
drugs in our country. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why 
Weyerhauser, a big timber company, or an auto company, or a steel 
company, or any other big concern, has marketplace power to hold down 
the cost of medicine but the Medicare Program does not. In fact, I 
don't know of a single buyer in the private sector who, after they 
purchased a certain volume of a particular commodity, looks to buying 
another commodity and then doesn't ask for a discount, doesn't ask for 
some kind of benefit as a result of using their marketplace power.
  So I am very hopeful. Mike Leavitt indicated last week he was open to 
discussions in this area. Certainly, again, there were no details 
discussed, but he showed a flexibility that I found welcome.
  I see the chair and the ranking minority member here. I don't want to 
detain them. I urge the Senate to approve the nomination of Mike 
Leavitt when he comes up for a vote. I thank the chairman of the 
committee, Senator Grassley, and the ranking minority member for their 
indulgence so I could make these comments.
  I yield the floor.

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