[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 213 (Wednesday, December 17, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8820-S8823]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Unanimous Consent Request--H.R. 1262
Mr. MULLIN. Mr. President, I am here today to ask the Senate to pass
a bill that helps kids with cancer--the Mikaela Naylon Give Kids a
Chance Act.
Now, very seldom do I actually read remarks. I typically like to just
simply speak about it. But I think this is so important that I am
actually going to read the remarks that are in front of me because I
think it is important for people to know what we are doing, why we are
doing it, and who she was--the advocate--and to understand why we are
here today.
Mikaela, whom the bill is named after, was a 16-year-old girl from
Colorado. As a father of six, this is kind of personal to me, so this
is why it is so passionate to me, too, because my son currently--while
he doesn't have a cancer like this, we have been going to
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Rochester for over a year, and we are doing some experimentative stuff
with him too. We got an opportunity--because it is not a death
sentence. What he has isn't a death sentence. But we have had to go
through this and continue to go through this. So it is even more
personal to me now.
In July of 2020, Mikaela was diagnosed with a rare pediatric cancer.
She spent nearly 6 years traveling across the country for treatments
while also coming to Capitol Hill to advocate for children with cancer.
But unfortunately, she tragically passed away October 29 of this year--
advocating literally almost every day of her life.
Mikaela was a fighter. She fought so other children could have an
opportunity, that one day, the devastating diagnosis that she received
would someday be curable for other kids.
Some things that come across your desk in Congress just make sense,
and this is one of them. This bill has 33 cosponsors in the Senate, and
they are bipartisan, from liberal Democrats to conservative
Republicans.
We worked hard to get this bill passed for over a year, and it passed
the House by voice. Not one single person objected to this. Why?
Because why wouldn't you want to allow kids, our kids, an opportunity
to simply have the same opportunity as adults do with cancer? It is
called pediatric cancer. Give kids a chance. Why wouldn't we want to do
that?
It is hard to explain why we wouldn't want to do that, but yet I
understand the Senator from Vermont intends to object to the Senate
doing this. I think it is wrong. I think it is dead wrong.
To think that someone is willing to hold hostage a child who is
fighting for their life, who simply wants to have an opportunity to try
an experimental drug that may extend their life 1 week, 1 day, or may
even cure it, and you are willing to take that away from the family
because you have other priorities, because you want to hold it hostage
so you can try to do something with community healthcare centers?
I support community healthcare centers. I want them. They are
important to rural Oklahoma. But there is a time and place for
everything, and to hold this bill hostage because of it is not right.
You are stealing from a family an opportunity to spend maybe an extra
minute or an extra day or maybe a lifetime with a loved one.
I don't know how you argue this. I don't know how you can possibly
stand up here with a straight face and say that it is OK; it is just
politics. This isn't just politics. We are playing with people's lives.
This isn't politics. This is more than just politics.
But I will tell you, if this is objected to and we can't find a path
forward here today, I can promise you I will not stop fighting on this.
It won't happen. We are going to rinse and repeat and continue to go
down this path until we give the families with these rare diseases an
opportunity to live because that is what this is about.
I recognize my friend from New Hampshire who may have some comments
about this too.
Ms. HASSAN. Mr. President, I thank Senator Mullin for yielding.
I support the motion to send this bipartisan package that you are
speaking about to the President.
Obviously, the provisions that Senator Mullin, my friend from
Oklahoma, is discussing are incredibly important. There are other
provisions in this bill, too, that have bipartisan support.
This bill would cut costs for prescription drugs through a bipartisan
provision that I worked on with Senator Paul to speed up getting
generic drugs to market.
Now, I understand Senator Sanders' perspective about wanting to
attach to this package increased funding for our country's community
health centers. They are incredibly important, lifesaving resources to
millions of Americans. So as we are talking about saving lives here, we
have to recognize the role that community health centers play in that.
They provide vital services in our communities, and I fully support
passing this funding increase for them through the House and the Senate
as soon as possible. But as I understand it, the House will not act to
do so at this time.
So as disappointed as I am that the House isn't ready to support
increased funding for community health centers, I also believe that it
is important to take action on this package now to help address
pediatric cancer and lower prescription drug costs, so I am
disappointed that this bill will not move forward today.
Having said that, I hope we can come together and find a way to
continue to work with my colleagues on a bipartisan basis to get this
package over the finish line next month.
Thank you for yielding.
I yield the floor.
Mr. MULLIN. I yield to the chairman from Louisiana, Mr. Cassidy.
Mr. CASSIDY. Mr. President, I rise to support Senator Mullin's
legislation, the Mikaela Naylon Give Kids a Chance Act.
Mr. President, I am a doctor, and people become desperate because of
their illness, and they want just one more chance for themselves, their
child, whomever.
The folks who are most desperate are the parents for their child, and
we all know that, because if someone dies when they are 70, it can be
tragic, but they have lived 70 good years, and when someone dies when
she is 6, she is denied 76 more years. It is the desperation of these
families that kind of cries out for this piece of legislation. They
want this passed.
The goal of this legislation is to get cures for pediatric cancer to
the patient more quickly.
Now, we have been working on this for several years--Democrats and
Republicans--trying to make it so that those families, their desperate
pleas are actually heard. And just as the Senator from Oklahoma noted,
the legislation was recently renamed to the honorable legacy of Mikaela
Naylon, who spent her final days advocating for better pediatric drug
research.
The irony here is that the objection is going to come out of a
genuine concern that people achieve healthcare, a concern I share for
increased funding, for funding to be extended for community health
centers. I share that concern.
But there is no one way to treat the ills, literally the ills of the
United States of America. And to think that we can do it all at once,
it is just not true.
But also to say that you are not going to give a chance for children
to have a cure for cancer if you don't get what you want, is just not
true. It is selfish. It is tragic. These parents are desperate for this
act.
Now, this will expand the research and drug development for these
pediatric illnesses, and I commit as chairman of the Health, Education,
Labor, and Pensions Committee that I will work to pass community health
center legislation. I will work to have it well funded. I will not let
it sit on the back burner never getting done. There is a commitment
from the chairman to work with my Democratic colleague to get it passed
this year. If that is the only barrier between offering these children
hope, I ask that that not be a barrier.
I yield the floor.
Mr. MULLIN. I, too, want to say I support community health centers.
As I said, they are very important in rural communities, very important
in my hometown of Westville. In fact, it is the only healthcare that is
available. I don't want them to be harmed; I want them to be well
funded, but that is a separate conversation we can have.
The chairman just said he will work to get it passed next year. Now,
there is no reason to hold our kids hostage anymore.
So, as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask
unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate
consideration of H.R. 1262, which was received from the House; further,
that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the
motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
Mr. SANDERS. Reserving the right to object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, let me be very clear: In the midst of a
broken and dysfunctional healthcare system, we must do everything that
we can to find new cures and treatments for pediatric cancer, and I
strongly support that effort, period.
I think we can all imagine the kind of heartbreak that parents go
through
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when they learn that their babies or their young children have been
diagnosed with cancer. And I should say that as the former chair of the
HELP Committee, I was actively involved in the bipartisan agreement
that we reached over a year ago, which included the Give Kids a Chance
Act, bipartisan support, ready to go.
Sadly, that enormously important legislation was torpedoed, as some
of you will recall, by a series of tweets by Elon Musk. And Republicans
became frightened, and they gave up on that bipartisan legislation.
As the current ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor, and
Pensions Committee, I believe that we must revive that bipartisan
agreement that was worked on month after month after month by Democrats
and Republicans.
Therefore, in a minute, I will be making a unanimous consent request
to include this bipartisan healthcare package, again, an agreement that
was supported by the leadership of the House and the Senate as an
amendment to the Give Kids a Chance Act, and I hope very much that my
Republican colleague will support that amendment, and we can go forward
together.
And let me very briefly describe what my amendment would do, which I
hope my Republican friends will support. And I say this at a time, as
all people know, not only that our healthcare system is broken but our
primary healthcare system is especially broken. Tens of millions of
Americans today cannot get to a doctor when they need to. And there are
estimates--you talk about people dying, there are estimates that tens
of thousands of people die in the United States of America because they
are sick, and they can't afford to get to a doctor when they should.
And that is why community health centers are so very important and
provide healthcare today, dental care, low-cost prescription drugs,
mental health counseling to over 30 million Americans.
All we are doing here is asking my Republican colleagues to support
the bipartisan agreement we had last year, which would increase funding
for community health centers by $340 million.
In fact, according to the Commonwealth Fund, health centers today are
facing a disastrous situation. In fact, they face losses of nearly $42
billion in revenue over the next 5 years. So community health centers
are a lifeline. They are the way the low-income, working-class people
in rural America, urban America, get the healthcare they need, and we
are seeing them under enormous financial strain.
Just this past year, we had a health center site in Vermont and I
understand two in New Hampshire that were forced to shut down because
of lack of funding.
What do you think happens when people can't get to a doctor? You know
what happens when they are sick? They die. This is happening all over
America. We all know that primary care is critical for children. In
fact, in detecting cancer early, saving lives, how do you think
children with cancer, how do we learn about it? They go to a doctor.
They don't go to a doctor, we don't find out about it.
Researchers at the Emory University School of Medicine and the
University of Chicago found that having access to primary care in
childhood has been shown to lower the rate of death in blood cancer by
over 10 percent.
It is vital that we begin to increase funding for community health
centers. If Republicans agree with it, if Democrats agree with it, let
us do it, let us do it right now.
Further, the amendment would extend mandatory funding for the
National Health Service Corps for 2026. Guess what. In the richest
country in the history of the world, we don't have enough doctors; we
don't have enough nurses; we don't have enough dentists.
And what that actual health service corps does is forgive medical
debt to those professionals who practice in underserved areas where
they are desperately needed. Let's do it.
Further, this amendment would extend mandatory funding for the
Teaching Health Center Program through September 29, 2029, on an
annualized rate that reaches $300 million. Teaching health centers are
extraordinarily important because they allow medical school graduates
to do their residencies in community health centers, not just in large
urban hospitals.
Finally, this amendment would provide $200 million a year for the
Special Diabetes Programs, which are so very important. Again, this is
not a radical amendment. I am not coming here saying let's do something
we have not talked about. I am not talking about passing Medicare For
All here. I am talking about doing what the Republicans and Democrats
agreed to a year ago but was torpedoed by some tweets from Elon Musk.
Therefore, I ask that the request be modified, that my amendment at
the desk be considered and agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be
considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to
reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the modification?
Mr. MULLIN. I reserve the right to object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. MULLIN. Mr. President, you know everything that the Senator from
Vermont has railed about is why I think he supported the Affordable
Care Act a.k.a. ObamaCare. I thought it was supposed to fix all this
stuff that he wrote about, and we figured out it hasn't. It has wrecked
the system. It is unaffordable for the American people. Yet it was the
Democrats that sold us or sold the American people on it--not us, not
Republicans, sold the American people on it.
It has been disastrous. And so now he wants to hold kids that are
dying of rare diseases and pediatric cancer, wants to hold them
hostage, to now try to push his agenda further and not go through the
committee of jurisdiction but hold the kids hostage--the kids.
Everything the Senator from Vermont just talked about was political.
I am talking about lives. I am talking about giving kids a chance to
live an extra day or a lifetime. That is what I am talking about.
This has nothing to do with politics. Nothing. Nothing I am talking
about has to do with politics. This has to do with kids. Yet the
Senator from Vermont wants to make it about politics. You know, this
time of the year at Christmas we talk about grinches, all the time,
right? They go in, and they steal the kids' gifts. By the end of the
show, their hearts grow bigger and they give the gifts back and they
allow kids to be excited about Christmas morning.
What has happened right here in front of us, the grinch is stealing
kids' lives, and they are stealing hope from the families, hope from
the families that might have an opportunity just to try for a political
agenda.
And I hope to God that every single family that is going through this
will hold the Senator from Vermont accountable, and the State of
Vermont will hold him accountable, too, because he is playing with
kids' lives. He is literally killing kids in front of us because of his
political movement, and it is ridiculous.
Therefore, I object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard. And I remind Senators
that in the course of debate not to disparage other Senators' motives
or character.
Mr. MULLIN. Just speaking the truth.
Mr. SANDERS. Well, let's speak the truth.
Mr. MULLIN. I am, sir.
Mr. SANDERS. Don't interrupt me.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the modification? Is
there objection to the original request?
Mr. SANDERS. Yes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
Mr. SANDERS. The Senator from Oklahoma says that I am talking about
politics. Well, if talking about politics means that millions of
children have the right to see a doctor, I guess I am talking about
politics.
If talking about politics means that kids can get dental care when
their teeth are rotting in their mouth or get mental health counseling,
I guess I am talking about politics.
So, once again, this important piece of legislation, I support, but I
also support passing the bipartisan piece of legislation that was
worked on last year.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Louisiana.
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