Sen. Warner Grills RFK Jr. on Vaccine Data, Rural Health Care

WASHINGTON - At a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee, U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-VA) pressed Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on his failure to acknowledge basic facts about the COVID-19 pandemic and raised urgent concerns about the future of community health centers and rural hospitals following the massive Medicaid cuts in President Trump's Big Ugly Bill.

Warner expressed disbelief that Kennedy, after eight months in office, could not answer how many Americans died from COVID or whether vaccines saved lives.

"Mr. Chairman, the Secretary of Health and Human Services doesn't know how many Americans died from COVID. He doesn't know if the vaccine helped prevent any deaths. And you are sitting as Secretary of Health and Human Services? How can you be that ignorant?" Warner said.

Warner pressed Kennedy to support solutions to improve rural health care, including his legislation to raise the Medicare area wage index to better reimburse rural hospitals, and a bill with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) to require safeguards before hospitals can eliminate obstetric services. Kennedy ultimately pledged to work with Warner on both proposals.

"Americans want to get healthier, but they also don't want their basic health care removed," Warner concluded, inviting Kennedy to join him at a Virginia community health center to hear directly from patients and providers.

A transcript of their exchange follows.

WARNER: Mr. Secretary, I agree with a lot of my colleagues' statements. I actually had hoped, even though I didn't support you - I thought taking on chronic illnesses was going to be important.

I've got two kids, as we discussed when you met, that have chronic illnesses. I'm not sure that the focus on red dye and seed oils are going to fully solve that problem.

KENNEDY: Of course they won't.

WARNER: I would say this: that seems where your emphasis is.

I want to go back to just, again, some basic facts. Do you accept the fact that a million Americans died from COVID?

KENNEDY: I don't know how many died.

WARNER: You're the Secretary of Health and Human Services. You don't have any idea how many Americans died from COVID?

KENNEDY: I don't think anybody knows that because the… there was so much data chaos coming out of the CDC and there were so many -

WARNER: You don't know the answer of how many Americans died from COVID?

This is the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Do you think the vaccine did anything to prevent additional deaths?

KENNEDY: Again, I would like to see the data and talk about the data. I'm not fully -

WARNER: You've had this job for eight months and you don't know the data about whether the vaccine saved lives?

KENNEDY: And that's the problem is that they didn't have the data. The data by the Biden administration is absolutely dismal. It was chaos.

WARNER: Who is politicizing? You're saying the Biden administration politicized all the data? Go back to what Senator Cantwell just said, go to the Trump Surgeon General -

KENNEDY: They fired Dr. Grubb, they fired all the people who questioned the orthodoxy. They fired Dr. Gruber, Dr. Krause.

WARNER: Mr. Chairman, the Secretary of Health and Human Services doesn't know how many Americans died from COVID. He doesn't know if the vaccine helped prevent any deaths.

And you are sitting as Secretary of Health and Human Services? How can you be that ignorant?

Like, you know, I remember when we went to the hearing with you, I asked you about community health centers. You didn't know what role they play.

I've been visiting community health - I'm glad you've got to one, I think in April.

I tell you what. What I hear from community health centers, they are terrified, with all due respect to my good friend the chairman, of the Big Awful Bill, because they are going to lose health care across the board. They already live in food deserts. They can't get to a nutritionist because Medicaid doesn't do enough reimbursement.

If you're going to want Americans to get healthier, shouldn't they have access to nutritionists? Should they have access to good science about healthy food?

KENNEDY: Absolutely.

WARNER: Well, then how is that going to happen with the Medicaid cuts that are taking place?

KENNEDY: There are no cuts to Medicaid.

WARNER: Sir, that is an absurd - there is not a single - to my Republican colleagues, there's not a single study that does not - and I can tell you, I was in Franklin, Virginia a couple of days ago. The rural hospital is going to close. The hospital system was so afraid they wouldn't even let me have the meeting there, but that rural hospital is going to close.

And they are looking for where those folks are going to go. I mean, you're supposed to be doing health care policy, not being the doctor in residence for all of America. I hope - I can only say, I'm still going to trust my doctor rather than your health advice. And, obviously, Tom Cotton's going to - who knows who he's going to trust?

But let me - let me go back to policy for a couple - so maybe we can lower the temperature a little bit. I had a bipartisan bill that would be a systemic fix, not a vote-buying mechanism, when Medicaid's getting cut, than what was put in on the rural hospitals. One of the things we could do, Mr. Secretary, is make sure that the folks who work in rural hospitals get an 80 percent reimbursement of what folks get in more urban centers. Would you support that legislation?

KENNEDY: The - are you talking about the area wage index?

WARNER: I'm talking about the area wage index and moving that up to 80 percent so there is, actually, the ability to get rural providers...

KENNEDY: Yeah. President Trump supports that, and we support that.

WARNER: Do you support - do you support - good. So you will work with us to get that passed?

KENNEDY: Yes, Senator. I - I (inaudible)...

WARNER: That will increase costs for both Medicaid and Medicare. So you are committed to that? I appreciate that.

What about, Senator Wyden and I have got a bill - because across America...

KENNEDY: What about what?

WARNER: ... hospitals are shutting down on their ob/gyn services. Try to have a baby - I don't know about all of my other friends' states, but in Southside Virginia, you can't find a hospital. Will you work with us to make sure that before ob/gyn services are taken out of a rural hospital, there has to be a process and procedure?

KENNEDY: I'm happy to work with you on that, Senator, meet with you and - and see if we can work with you on it. I don't know exactly what the issue is.

WARNER: Well, hold it, again. A secretary of health and human services who has said he doesn't know how many people died from COVID, doesn't know if the vaccine saved lives, doesn't understand the issue of ob/gyn...

KENNEDY: I - I didn't know if it saved a mil - (inaudible) if it saved a million lives.

WARNER: Ob/gyn doctors are fleeing rural America because they can't afford it. And with the cuts that are coming up, it's going to be exponentially worse. I would invite you, sir, to come with me to a community health center in Virginia and hear what is on people's minds.

They want to get healthier? Absolutely. Count me in. But they also don't want their basic healthcare removed.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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