hubert humphrey building
What's the legacy of Xavier Becerra?
ILLUSTRATION: CHRISTINE KAO/STAT; PHOTOS: GETTY
HHS Secretary Becerra came into office amid an unprecedented pandemic — when Biden had already installed trusted advisers around him — and a migrant children crisis that few wanted to spearhead. He was called 'invisible' in his first few years and there were even talks of replacing him as secretary.
That's changing, according to my conversations with more than a dozen people about Becerra's day to day, his management style, and his potential legacy. The looming question is whether, with just a year left in Biden's first and potentially only term, he'll have enough time to put his official stamp on what was once considered one of the most consequential Cabinet positions.
No time could be more important than now: The longtime litigator's agency is due before the U.S. Supreme Court this summer to defend Americans' access to mifepristone. There's also the massive hurdle of convincing voters just how much the administration has tried to do on drug costs and health care coverage, even if some of those changes, like the Medicare-negotiated prices, won't be seen for a few years. Read more from me.
2024 budget
Covid clawbacks? More like leftovers
One of the big new additions to the government funding deal that lawmakers announced this weekend was an agreement to rescind $6.1 billion in Covid-19 relief funds. House Speaker Mike Johnson described the news as "real savings to American taxpayers and real reductions in the federal bureaucracy" in a letter to colleagues.
Some of the money is health care-related — but it likely won't cause any real pain, my colleague Rachel Cohrs reports. Some of the clawbacks will come from HHS in the Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund, Johnson spokesperson Athina Lawson said. The fund was the source of the Provider Relief Fund and money for Covid-19 vaccines and tests, among other things. She described the clawbacks as rescinding "recoveries of prior obligations/funds recently returned by states that were unspent."
Health care isn't the whole pot, however. Lawson said other clawbacks will come from broadband grants and technology modernization efforts funded through Covid-19 relief bills.
Stay tuned for news on extenders for Medicare and Medicaid programs and community health center funding, which wasn't announced with the bigger topline package this weekend. Lobbying will be intense — Cynthia Fisher's group Power to the Patients is hosting a fly-in and a concert with Jelly Roll and Wyclef Jean this week to push for the House's health bill to be tacked on.
covid probes
Fauci's return to the hill
Longtime top infectious disease official Anthony Fauci has said it's possible he's testified before Congress more than anyone else — and now he's back. Today marks day two of the retired expert's closed-door questioning with the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, after a nine-hour grilling Monday.
Republicans who lead the committee say they want answers on the virus' origins, gain-of-function research, and public policies like mask requirements and shutdowns. Committee Democrats, meanwhile, have painted the two-day session as a politically-motivated probe that is stalling progress in infectious disease preparedness and vaccination efforts.
Despite that marathon hearing and the dueling sides, multiple lawmakers told reporters outside that the questioning had been "respectful."
Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) said that Fauci "made it very clear that he is open-minded about wherever this virus came from, from the market, or it came from the lab," but also clarified the definition of the gain-of-function field, which involves making viruses more transmissible or potent to study their spread. This type of research was reauthorized in 2017 under the Trump administration.
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