Protect Our Care: Hearings to Confirm Health Care Champion Xavier Becerra Begin

WASHINGTON, Feb. 23 -- Protect Our Care issued the following statement:

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The Senate HELP Committee will begin confirmation hearings for President Biden's pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra. Tomorrow, the Senate Finance Committee will take up Becerra's nomination. Becerra has decades of experience and is well qualified to lead HHS.

In addition to being an architect of the Affordable Care Act when he served in the House, Becerra also led the charge to protect Americans' health care against constant, baseless Republican attacks as California's attorney general. In response to the hearings, Protect Our Care Executive Director Brad Woodhouse issued the following statement:

"Xavier Becerra is a strong advocate for health care and has decades of experience protecting and expanding health care access, reducing the cost of prescription drugs, and fighting for health care equity. As HHS Secretary, he will work with President Biden to build on the strong foundation of the Affordable Care Act and tackle the pandemic, which has caused catastrophic health and economic fallout for Americans.

"The Senate should move quickly to confirm Becerra. Needlessly delaying this confirmation process will put more lives at risk in the middle of a pandemic that has killed 500,000 Americans. President Biden has already taken bold action to combat the pandemic, but he cannot go it alone, and he needs to have a Senate-confirmed HHS Secretary to work to end the pandemic."