House Appropriations Chair Rosa DeLauro: More Money for Hospitals, Vaccines Forthcoming?

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro

[Music]
Marianne O’Hare: Welcome to Conversations on Health Care . This week, we welcome
Congresswom a n Rosa DeLauro on voting rights, Build Back Better , and
what the infrastructure rescue will bring.

Rosa DeLauro: One of the things that was so critically im portant to me was the Child
Tax Credit in the American Rescue Plan. If you are very concerned
about children and their health, it is the Child Tax Credit that I believe
was addressing the issues of poverty.

Marianne O’Hare: Now , here is Mark Masselli and M argaret Flinter on Conversations on
Health Care .

Mark Masselli: There is not one American during the past two years of the pandemic
who hasn’t been affected by the leadership and decisions made by
our next guest. She is the Chair of the Appropriations Comm ittee of
the United States House of Representatives. It holds the power of the
purse. Her policymaking has meant we have had the resources
needed to face COVID - 19, the biggest economic and health crisis in
our country’s history.

Margaret Flinter: Represent ative DeLauro’s leadership has resulted in Congress passing
the largest governmental response the country has ever seen to
rescue individuals, the economy, and the health care system. But we
know her first as our local member of the House, and a passionate
advocate for community health.

Mark Masselli: Congresswoman, thank you for joining us again , a nd right when your
insights are really needed . Let’s start with asking you to share the
latest details about the spread of the Omicron variant and the
responses that have come from both the House and the Senate and
the Biden Administration.

Rosa DeLauro: Well, first of all, I am delighted to be with the two of you, with Mark
and Margaret, and thank you. And thank you so much for what you do
at Community Health Cen ter, what you have been doing now. I
treasure the working relationship that we have had over the years.
You all have been the vanguard of making sure that whatever the
crisis is that you are ahead of it and on top of it. That’s really
extraordinary. So, we are very, very fortunate to have you a n d the
health center and the work that you do statewide. By God , I can go
back to my work on opioids and all of the -- because you and I both
know that it’s the health centers where we are looking at primary
care for over 23 million people in this country.

I go back to the American Rescue Plan , or even before that to the
CARES plan. As soon as the pandemic hit , what we tried to do at every
step of the way was to be able to use Federal resources in order to
address whi ch was the most significant economic and health crisis

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro

that we faced in a generation. And what we did in CARES 1, CARES 2,
the American Heroes Bill, last year with the American Rescue Plan,
was to provide the necessary funding so that we could look at
rese arch, we could look at vaccine development, we could look at
therapeutics and how we were going to begin to distribute testing.
And we know the problems that we had early on with testing, PPE,
and all of those, so the effort to try to overcome all of that.

And at that juncture we were working in areas where we had
bipartisan cooperation with this bill, a significant amount of Federal
resources. With the American Rescue Plan, that was $1.9 trillion ,
l ooking at what we needed to do about making sure that we had the
wherewithal to get vaccines distributed, shots in the arm for people,
setting up the kinds of clinics, the kind of things that you all did,
mobile clinics in places where people could really get access to what
they needed.

In addition, the amount of economic support that went out at that
time was incredible for businesses who could not have survived
without the help, hospitals, health care centers. And this is the proper
role of government. There was a great article many years ago by a
reporter wit h the name of Michael Ignatieff , and he was writing about
Katrina , and he said, “The government is a covenant with the citizens
of this country, and that we have an obligation that when the
challenges are so overwhelming that government steps in,” and he
s aid, “when the lev e es broke, that that covenant was broken. We
needed to have the full force of the Federal government.” Well when
this crisis began , the levees broke. People could not handle all of this
on their own. So the Federal government stepped in t o do what was
necessary.

One of the things that was so critically important to me was the Child
Tax Credit in the American Rescue Plan. And look, you are very
concerned about children and their health. It is the Child Tax Credit
that I believe was address ing the issues of poverty, and you know how
poverty affects children , the food, the nutrition, their education, their
health, what happens in their homes. So the Child Tax Credit I believe
has met the need, and we got to continue to fight for it to be
exte nded. And we have seen already that 50% of kids being lifted out
of poverty , in November 3.8 million kids, th e hunger numbers have
declined, that all of this is so critically important.

Then you look at Build Back Better, which we are trying to get over
t he finish line , with the kinds of resources that are necessary for
health care. The President’s just setting up sites in schools where we
can test, so we can keep kids in school. It’s critical that we do that. But
the Build Back Better expands Medicare ben efits. It reduces drug
costs. We are doing this in Appropriations , providing $1.8 billion to

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro

community health centers, $50 million to support school - based
clinics. If I think about it and you catalog ue, reaching back, you know,
when the pandemic started, t o now, that look at the way we have
almost doubled, tripled Federal resources to address the issue, trying
to create a public health care system with the infrastructure that it
needs. We knew that that collapsed during the beginning part of the
pandemic, a nd in Appropriations bills I am looking at how we buttress
the public health infrastructure system.

That has to do with you. It has to do with the modernization of data.
We are looking at billions of dollars in this case, so whether it was the
beginning, whether it was Delta, and now Omicron, there is the full
force of Federal resources to try to address this health care crisis, and
the accompanying economic crisis where [inaudible 00:07:03]. But
there has been an extraordinary amount of work that’s been d one,
and oftentimes the word isn’t getting out.

Margaret Flinter: Well Congresswoman, thank you for your kind words about our
community health center. But as you know, there are 1400
community health centers in the United States, serving millions of
people across the country. And you are the Co - Chair of the House
Community Health Center Caucus, so you know very well the
research. I know your colleagues in the Congress are interested in
evidence. Community Health Centers save the Federal government
money in the long run through prevention, through primary care,
through managing complex illness es , dental care, behavioral health,
and all of this ultimately helps to save money for the Federal
government and improve health in the United States overall. How can
we have more of your colleagues actually learn about and understand
this return on the investment?

Rosa DeLauro: Now I can recall we had a session in Middletown, and people who
came and talked about how the community health center changed
their lives, what i t did for them. And I will say this, there is really
support in the Congress for the community health centers. I think
people have begun to understand what it is that you do, and that you
are the primary care for so many millions of people in this country.
And I believe it is the stories that people can tell, to talk about how
the centers have been pivotal in their lives and the lives of their
famil ies , and making sure they have the counseling, the dental care,
the physical care, the problems that people ha ve faced with opioids in
our communities , and that the community health centers have been
pivotal in that area.

Again, families came up and spoke up about th e issues and the kind of
help that health care centers could provide. And what we need to do
is to look at what are the wraparound services . And you can tell me
how are we doing in rural parts of America, do we need more in the

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro

area of transportation that gets people to these efforts, what kind of
services do people need in order to take full advantage of the services
that you can provide. We need to build on the experience that you
have and how do we make it better.

I say this about the Child Tax Credit, I haven’t seen a program work as
well as the Child Tax Credit. January, it was in the American Res cue
Plan. March, we voted on it. July, the monthly payments started going
on. Nobody believed we could do it monthly. By the end of December,
November , 3.8 million kids lifted out of poverty, hunger numbers
decreased. Now I say this is a similar parallel f or the community
health centers. This is a success storm. So where are we building on
this success to ensure that you can do what you are doing but expand
what you are doing for families? And the same way I feel about the
Child Tax Credit. How do we build on this success?

Mark Masselli: Well, you not only feel about it, but for 20 years you have been a lone
voice in the wilderness many times talking about the Child Tax
Credits . So, this is just such an important thing, and I know it probably
pains you when you hear critics saying that parents might be wasting
these dollars. It’s really one of the evidence - based policy making
efforts that you have led the charge. I a lso though want to hear your
thoughts about the Build Back Better Act and whether or not there is
going to be a compromise. Give us some sense of where we are trying
to get this concord between the House and Senate.

Rosa DeLauro: I believe that there is a deal to be had. I think we are going to work
through a way in which we have a Build Back Bette r piece of
legislation. As you know, the House is there on this. We have some
stumbling blocks in the Senate. I think we need to work those
through. It may not be that we can do everything that was intended
to get done in terms of Build Back Better, but ho w do we look at what
is most immediate for us to be able to tackle? I know that the myriad
of health issues and building on the Affordable Care Act, looking at
how we can expand Medicare benefits including hearing aids, how do
we deal with closing that Med icaid gap, services for seniors, loved
ones who are disabled, and I include in this a Child Tax Credit , which
as I said, makes sense.

And I think with regard to the Affordable Care Act, now that we are
talking about people only having to pay 8.5% of their income for
premiums, health care is one of the biggest issues that people face
today. They want relief. We need to bring down the costs of the
prescription drugs. You know, capping the cost of insulin is a very high
priority. So we ought to take a look at what we can do again and
building on structures that are there and trying to look at how we deal
with health outcomes of the public health infrastructure.

Now , there were lot of systems that collapsed in the early days of the

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro

pandemic. But I think we hav e to think about the public health
infrastructure, which really collapsed on us, and we cannot let that
happen. So let’s pick and choose the areas within Build Back Better
that can have immediate effect on people’s lives, can have an
immediate health impac t on people’s lives, an immediate economic
impact on people’s lives and let’s try to move forward. I think we can
get to a conclusion on this and get it across the finish line, and I am
going to fight like hell to get that done.

Margaret Flinter: We know y ou are. And I want to go back to something you said about
the early days of the pandemic. Right? 2020 kind of hit us like a brick
wall, and one of the things that a generation [inaudible 00:13:09 ] got
introduced to wa s this concept of stimulus relief . And people saw the
government step forward on a personal level and on a business level
to keep things going until we could rightsize again, and here we are. I
think the question to you a s somebody so concerned with businesses,
you live in a very dynamic city, lots of small businesses as well as
major players. Will there be another round of stimulus r elief? Do you
believe that the restaurant industry needs stimulus relief at this
point?

Rosa DeLauro: Look, there is talk. I don’t have -- there is nothing tangible at the
moment, but there is talk about another COVID relief package, a
supplemental package. First of all, let me step back. I don’t want --
people need to understand the Appropriations process as well, that
$1.9 trillion , $1.1 billion that we did for the infrastructure, and by the
way the Infrastructure Bill has health pieces in it as well in terms of
construction and facilities, etc. s o not to be left behind, Build Back
Better. But the money in Build Back Better would be over a 10 - year
period of time. I want you to think about Appropriations .
Appropriations is $1.5 trillion every single year, so which is why I am
trying to be as aggressive as I can in getting the omnibus
appropriations bill passed, because there is so much in there.

I mentioned the 1.8 f or community health centers , the money for
school - based health centers, the money for the workforce, a public
health workforce and the training there. So we cannot forget that and
the importance of moving forward. It’s money for the CDC , and it’s
money for NIH. All of these things are in the Appropriations Bill. I
believe that there will be another COVID supplemental bill, and that
will take into consideration both the health issues and the economic
issues, Margaret, as you’re pointing out. Yes, relief for restaurants. I
don’t know if there would be more relief for hospitals because we
haven’t -- you know, t he package is not formulated yet. But I will just
tell you this; wherever I went after the Rescue Plan , and the earlier
plans as well, I haven’t heard th is in years from people, “Thank you to
the Federal government. Without the Federal government we
couldn’t have kept our restaurant open, we couldn’t keep our

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro

business open. Our hospital was going to crash. Our school system
wasn’t going to make it. Our chi ld care industry was going to fall flat
on its face.”

So, when is the last time you have heard people say thank you to the
Federal government? And it’s usually, “You are irrelevant in our lives.”
And I think that people have now understood that there is t hat role
f o r the Federal government, and we need to foster and let people
continue to believe that with what else that we are trying to do as
well. So yes, I believe there will be another COVID relief supplemental
package, and we will address the economic issues of businesses and
restaurants and others including vaccines. And probably , you know,
some people don’t think that this is an important issue, but
internationally we need to not only donate, be a donor in terms of
vaccines to other countries, we need to help to provide the delivery
mechanisms that give shots in the arm of people because the
pandemic doesn’t know boundaries. If we are not safe internationally
then we are not safe in United States.

Mark Masselli: It’s a great point, and also just highli ghting the agreement that
happened on the historic Infrastructure Bill, and that the role that got
played by leaders. And I am just thinking a little bit about the speaker
of the House, Nancy Pelosi , and I am wondering if you can, if you still
have time, t alk a little bit about her legacy because it requires
enormous leadership to get these things done. Obviously, you are
part of that leadership, but talk to us a little about Speaker Pelosi.

Rosa DeLauro: I know our speaker, and you know, I think you all kn ow who she is and
what she’s done, and this is not just in the face of a pandemic. You
know, there would not be an Affordable Care Act without Speaker
Pelosi. I was there. I was in the room when there was a willingness to
break it up and do this piece or t hat piece and so forth. She said, “No,
it goes together.” And one of the biggest issue was over women’s
health. Her leadership in this area is really extraordinary. Her
leadership on the Infrastructure Bill that we just passed, or where
she’s come througho ut this pandemic in both the economic pieces
and the health care pieces, I characterize her she has a spine of steel.
She really doesn’t get -- she looks for the way to build consensus to
get it done, and that is carrot and stick. She can be as tough as na ils,
but she is pragmatic. She understands and knows that when you have
to step in, you have to compromise so that you get as much as you
can get.

We have got to make good in terms of delivery for the American
people. That’s who she is . And it comes from her own set of values,
Margaret and Mark. It really does. She has been engaged and involved
and from a family who understands the power of government to do
good. And public service is – you know, it’s in her DNA, and so she

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro

knows the power of the Federal g overnment and how it can work to
benefit to people in this country, and she’s made it work over and
over and over and over again.

Margaret Flinter : Well, Congresswoman, you have referenced women’s health just a
moment ago there, and of course this is somet hing you have long
then associated as a key issue of concern . We have a feeling
reproductive rights hang in the balance somewhat, but you have
taken some proactive steps by introducing the Women’s Health
Protection Act along with others. Tell our audience more about this
legislation and where does it stand right now.

Rosa DeLauro: Well, I believe that the Senate is going to take up a vote on the
Women’s Health Protection Act within the next week or 10 days, and
so there’s overwhelming support in the House, and in essence it
codifies Roe v. Wade and it just allows women to get the kind of
health care that they need and to make the decisions that they need
to make about their health going forward. There’s overwhelming
support in the House for it.

You know, lo ok, I think it’s tougher in the Senate. To be very honest,
one of the things that we face, there is a three or four vote margin in
the House of Representatives today and you know, it’s even in the
Senate so that makes it difficult. But I think on some of t hese issues,
we can count on some of the Republican members, Susan Collins , Lisa
Murkowski , etc. who understand the way to this issue. But it is making
sure that women have the access that they need for the health care
that they need and that women’s healt h is put front and center and it
is not on the back burner, and that requires us to really look at how
Roe gets codified.

We know the barriers that have sprung up all over the country and
with the Supreme Court. But what we can ’t do is to get deterred, we
can’t get stopped, we just have to keep going and use this time. You
know, t ime changes t he environment, the people who are in charge .
That makes a difference in where we come out for the future. So, we
need to get, and I say this to people around the cou ntry, we need to
get to folks in the Senate to talk about passing the Women’s Health
Protection Act. Women’s health needs to be where it is as on par with
men’s health in this country, which is something that the Affordable
Care Act started doing for the f irst time in the country’s history.

Mark Masselli: Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro was first elected in 1990, has since
then served as a representative from the Connecticut’s Third
Congressional District. Her website www.delauro.house.gov , and you
will find her on Twitter @RosaDeLauro , all in one word . Thank you
again for your leadership, for your inspiration, and for joining us today
on Conversations on Health Care.

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro

Rosa DeLauro: I am so delighted to join both of you . And it’s lovely to see you. I miss
seeing you and I would just [overlapping].

Mark Masselli: We miss hugging you.

Rosa DeLauro: I know. That’s it, you know. There is one last point I would make.
When you take a look at the American Rescue Plan, as you ta ke a look
at the Infrastructure Bill , and the potential of Build Back Better, this is,
I think people don’t understand, the paradigm shift in Federal
resources. For decades , the Federal resources have gone to the
richest one - tenth of 1% people in this coun try, to the richest
corporations , many of whom do not pay any taxes. That is now a shift
where we are making investments in families, in children, in their
health, in their economic wherewithal, and that in and of itself is a
change that the Federal govern ment has undertaken over this last
year. So thank you.

Mark Masselli: Thank you so much Rosa. Take care.

Margaret Flinter: Thank you Congresswoman.

[Music]

Mark Masselli: At Conversations on Health Care we want our audience to be truly in
the know when it comes to the facts about health care reform and
policy. Lori Robertson is an award - winning journalist and Managing
Editor of FactCheck.org, a nonpartisan, nonprofit consumer advocate
for voters that aim to reduce the level of deception in U.S. Politics.
Lo ri, what have you got for us this week?

Lori Robertson : President Joe Biden has said his administration will provide one billion
free at - home rapid COVID - 19 tests to Americans starting in late
January . Let’s take a look at some common questions about these
tests.

The rapid antigen tests are viral tests that check for the presence of
SARS CoV - 2 viral proteins in a sample from a person’s nose or mouth ,
to help determine if the person is currently infected with the
Coronavirus . Some of these require a prescri ption, but the ones
people are most familiar with are these self - tests that can be
purchased over - the - counter and can be performed entirely at home,
with the person taking their own sample and reading out the result
within 15 to 30 minutes.

The tests are similar to pregnancy tests, in that they detect proteins in
a specimen using antibodies embedded in a test strip. These types of
tests are generally reliable, but they aren’t as sensitive as molecular
diagnostic tests, such as the PCR test which can take h ours or days for
people to get their results. A positive result on a rapid antigen test is
very likely to be correct, but a negative test doesn’t necessarily mean

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro

someone isn’t infected.

It is not yet known how well rapid antigen tests far e against the
Om icron variant, although most tests are able to detect it . While
some early lab tests suggested a possible reduction in sensitivity, so
far clinical testing of patients show the antigen tests perform similarly
against Omicron as previous variants . However, Omicron infections
appear to have a shorter incubation period or length of time from
exposure to first symptom, which could mean people are testing
sooner after infection than they were previously. That could make it
appear that the tests are less sensitiv e even if they aren’t.

In addition to the Federal government’s new COVIDtests.gov website ,
these rapid tests are sold through retail stores and online , and some
local governments are also offering them to their residents. The CDC
suggests taking one of t hese tests before gather ing indoors with
people from other households .

And t hat's my fact check for this week. I'm Lori Robertson , M anaging
Editor of FactCheck.org.

Margaret Flinter: FactCheck .org is committed to factual accuracy from the country’s
major political players , and is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy
Center at the University of Pennsylvania. If you have a fact that you
woul d like check ed , email us at www.chcradio.com . We’ll have
FactCheck .org’s L ori Robertson check it out for you here on
Conversations on Health Care.

[Music]

Margaret Flinter : Each week Conversations highlights a bright idea about how to make
wellness a part of our communities and everyday lives. Each year,
more than one million ba bies die at birth and another three million
die within the first few weeks of life, often from preventable causes.
And when babies are born prematurely, the risks escalate. Newborns,
and particularly premies, have a considerable amount of difficulty
regula ting their own body temperature, and without access to
incubators babies in the third world often succumb to hypothermia.
That got former Stanford MBA student Jane Chen thinking how do we
develop a low - cost solution to the problem.

Jane Chen: My team and I realized what was needed was a local solution,
something that could work without electricity, that was simple
enough for a mother or a midwife to use, given that the majority of
births still take place in the home. We needed something that was
portable, s omething that could be sterilized and reused across
multiple babies, and something ultra - low cost compared to the
$20,000 that an incubator in the US costs.

Margaret Flinter: Speaking at a recent TED Talk, Chen said that they developed a

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro

cocoon - like device called simply Embrace, a thermal body wrap that
encases the baby and helps regulate body temperature for up to six
hours.

Jane Chen: What you see here looks nothing like an incubator, looks like a small
sleeping bag for a baby. It’s waterproof. There’s no seams inside so
you can sterilize it very easily. But the magic is in this pouch of wax.
This is a phase - change material. It’s a wax - like substance with a
melting point of human body temperature, 37 degree Celsius. You can
melt this simply using hot water , and then when it melts it’s able to
maintain one constant temperature for four to six hours at a time,
after which you simply reheat the pouch. And it creates a warm micro
environment for the baby.

Margaret Flinter: Since launching the product in 2010 th ey estimate that over 150,000
babies’ lives may have been saved with the device. A low - cost, high -
tech, portable temperature regulator, designed to regulate preemies’
body temperatures to ensure that they not only survive premature
birth but ultimately thr ive as well, now that’s a bright idea.

[Music]

Mark Masselli: You've been listening to Conversations on Health Care. I'm Mark
Masselli.

Margaret Flinter: And I'm Margaret Flinter.

Mark Masselli: Peace and health.

Marianne O’Hare: Conversations on Health Ca re is recorded at WESU at Wesleyan
University, streaming live at www.chcradio.com , iTunes, or wherever
you listen to podcasts. If you have comments, please e - mail us at
chcradi [email protected] , or find us on Facebook or Twitter. We love
hearing from you. This show is brought to you by the Community
Health Center.