WASHINGTON – With measured and circumspect comments, Xavier Becerra deflected attacks on his record of Republican senators who hoped to hinder his appointment to head the Department of Health and Human Services.
If he is confirmed, as seemed likely on Tuesday afternoon, Becerra will be the first descendant of Latinos to head the department, at a time when inequalities in health provision and health outcomes are at the center of national conversations. Currently California’s attorney general, Becerra has no specialization in medicine, which has led some to question why the Biden government appointed him. The 63-year-old lawyer is expected to use his legal background to help protect the Affordable Care Act, a priority for the new administration.
“This is someone who is involved with health policy and health coverage,” said Sen. Christopher Murphy, D-Conn., In his comments during the hearing.
Becerra, a former member of the United States House of Representatives who returned to California to replace then Attorney General Kamala Harris when she was elected to the United States Senate, is, like many other Biden nominees, a well-known entity on Capitol Hill .
In his opening speech, Becerra – the son of Mexican immigrants who settled in Sacramento – alluded to an incident during his childhood, when his mother was rushed to the hospital with a hemorrhage. “The image is engraved in my memory,” he said to the members of the Senate Health Committee standing before him, many of them via telelink. His mother survived, he noticed quickly, and is still alive today. His care at the time was covered by health insurance provided by the union to which his father, a manual worker, belonged.
Republican opposition to the nominee was underway. “Becerra has no training in virology, he never worked for a pharmaceutical company and his only experience in the health field is that he sued the Little Sisters of the Poor,” tweeted Senator Ted Cruz before the hearing, referring to a lawsuit involving a Catholic charity that resisted the ACA’s contraceptive mandate.
Senator Mike Braun, R-Ind., Reiterated Cruz’s line of attack during the hearing, calling Becerra “very extreme on abortion issues”. But the smiling Stanford-trained lawyer did not seem to be bothered by such criticisms, nor by Senator Mitt Romney, R-Utah’s questions about “partial birth abortion”, a term that anti-abortion advocates use for pregnancies terminated after the 20th century. .
“I think we can find common ground on these issues,” said Becerra. Romney was clearly not satisfied with the answer. “It looks like we are not going to come to common ground,” said the senator of the debate on abortion.
At the same time, Becerra gave him little opening to pursue the matter.
The conversation with Romney was indicative of Becerra’s willingness to negotiate with the kind of collateral spent that Washington officer likes to hear. He said, for example, that “science must come first”, a common refrain from the Biden government.
A telling moment occurred during a conversation with Senator Susan Collins, R-Maine, about the reopening of schools, an issue that quickly emerged as a problem for the government. Becerra gave no guarantees, describing the reopening of schools as a local issue over which the federal government had little control.
He also seemed to suggest that the coronavirus was harmful to children in educational settings. “Nobody wants to risk their son’s life,” he said, although there seems to be little evidence that the personal school poses such a risk.
Becerra also praised the Biden government’s goal of vaccinating 100 million people in the first 100 days, although others say the plan is far from ambitious enough.
Republicans who were skeptical of the nominee would have found little guarantee in Tuesday’s proceedings; at the same time, they would also have found few opportunities to build their case against him.
“I’m still not convinced,” said Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, the Republican member of the committee, at the beginning of the hearing. However, it was clear that he and his fellow Republicans were resigned to the fact that in a matter of days Becerra would be the country’s new health secretary.
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