At midday on Thursday, March 18, the United States Senate confirmed California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, 63, President Joe Biden’s nominee as Secretary of Health and Human Services, after a confirmation process that had been stalled by a number of different delays in the Senate. The Senate voted largely along party lines, with Sen. Susan Collins of Maine the sole Republican voting in favor of Becerra’s confirmation. The vote was 50-49; Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii was the sole Democrat who did not vote. After President Biden announced Becerra’s nomination on Dec. 6, the leaders of the nation’s largest and most influential national healthcare professional associations announced their support for the nomination, citing his work in protecting the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and long-term advocacy for healthcare access and health insurance affordability during his 12 terms as a U.S. representive. Becerra will be the first Latino to lead the agency.
The Department of Health and Human Services is one of the largest departments in the federal government; in fiscal year 2020, HHS had a budget of $1.293 trillion. Its scope is very broad, and includes the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), which itself has a budget of $1.169 trillion, accounting for more than 90 percent of the overall HHS budget; the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, the Indian Health Service, and the Health Resources and Services Administration.
The Los Angeles Times’s Eli Stokols wrote on Thursday that “The Senate voted 50-49 in favor of Becerra, who will become the first Latino to lead the agency once he’s sworn in. The vote also made him Biden’s 20th Cabinet appointee confirmed by the equally divided Senate. He will have to resign his seat as attorney general of California. All Democrats backed his nomination, while Republicans were nearly united in opposition, with many pointing to his past comments and record as attorney general of having led numerous Democratic legal challenges to Trump administration policies. Becerra will take over the agency just over a year after the coronavirus pandemic began to devastate the country. In his new position, he will play a leading role in the Biden administration’s vaccination and testing efforts aimed at finally turning the tide of the pandemic and enabling businesses and schools to fully reopen,” Stokols noted.
The Washington Post’s Amy Goldstein wrote on Thursday that, “During his confirmation hearing last month before the Senate Finance Committee, Becerra said, ‘The mission of HHS — to enhance the health and well-being of all Americans — is core to who I am.’ In keeping with Biden’s emphasis on portraying his administration’s top rung as diverse and having working-class roots like his own, Becerra told the senators his immigrant parents had insurance through his father’s laborers union, making his family more fortunate when he was a boy than many of their neighbors. As a longtime member of the House Ways and Means Committee, Becerra testified, he worked on several major pieces of health-care legislation, including the Children’s Health Insurance Program created in the late 1990s and changes to the way Medicare is run and financed, as well as the Affordable Care Act. He did not mention that he was a longtime advocate of a single-payer health-care system, akin to the Medicare-for-all proposals backed by several Democratic candidates in last year’s presidential election, but rejected by Biden. Becerra has renounced his previous support since his nomination, echoing the president’s view that affordable insurance coverage should be widened by building upon the ACA.” Becerra was one of the state attorneys general defending the ACA in California v. Texas, the current case before the U.S. Supreme Court. The nation’s high court held oral arguments in the case on Nov. 10, 2020; a decision is expected sometime this spring. Initially, the attorney general of Texas led 20 state attorneys general and two Republican governors in filing the case, while Becerra was one of 17 attorneys general to defend the ACA. After Democratic victories in the 2018 mid-term elections, two states, Wisconsin and Maine, withdrew from the case in early 2019. Meanwhile, four states joined the ACA defense on appeal (see this Kaiser Family Foundation explanation).
The official website of the State of California Department of Justice’s Office of the Attorney General has this to say about Becerra: “The State’s chief law enforcement officer, Attorney General Becerra has decades of experience serving the people of California through appointed and elected office, where he has fought for working families, the vitality of the Social Security and Medicare programs and issues to combat poverty among the hardworking families. He has also championed the state’s economy by promoting and addressing issues impacting job generating industries such as health care, clean energy, technology, and entertainment. Attorney General Becerra previously served 12 terms in Congress as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. While in Congress, Attorney General Becerra was the first Latino to serve as a member of the powerful Committee on Ways And Means, served as Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, and was Ranking Member of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security. Prior to serving in Congress, Attorney General Becerra served one term in the California Legislature as the representative of the 59th Assembly District in Los Angeles County. He is a former Deputy Attorney General with the California Department of Justice. The Attorney General began his legal career in 1984 working in a legal services office representing the mentally ill.”
The website goes on to state that, “Born in Sacramento, California, Attorney General Becerra is the son of working-class parents and was the first in his family to receive a four-year degree, earning his Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Stanford University. He earned his Juris Doctorate from Stanford Law School. His mother was born in Jalisco, Mexico and immigrated to the United States after marrying his father. He is married to Dr. Carolina Reyes, and they are the proud parents of three daughters: Clarisa, Olivia and Natalia.”
Now that Becerra has been confirmed as HHS Secretary, the Senate will need to confirm Chiquita Brooks-LaSure as Administrator of CMS. The Biden administration announced Brooks-LaSure’s nomination on Feb. 19. She is highly regarded in healthcare policy circles.
