Sen. Bill Nelson took to the Senate floor this evening to discuss the Senate Republicans’ health care bill that, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s report today, would cause 22 million more people to be uninsured by 2026.
“If the Senate bill were enacted, 22 million people would lose health insurance coverage,” Nelson said. “That’s not too much different from what CBO said about the House bill that was passed a couple of months ago… 22 million people. Is that the direction that we want to be going in?”
“The bottom line is this: if we want to fix the ACA, we can fix it,” Nelson continued. “but you can’t do it one party against the other. you’ve got to have the will to come together in a bipartisan agreement to fix it.”
Nelson shared the story of a Florida kindergarten teacher, Megan Geller, who passed away in 2015 at the age of 28 after a two-year battle with leukemia. Megan’s total medical expenses reached nearly $8 million throughout the course of her illness, but thanks to the Affordable Care Act, Megan’s mother had to pay only $70,000 out-of-pocket.
“The mom of this girl,” Nelson said pointing to a picture of Megan on the Senate floor, “had she been faced with this without insurance coverage, she would be bankrupt. She wouldn’t have been able to even afford the first transplant, much less the two years of extra life that her daughter had fighting for her life. And anybody who goes through something like Elaine and her daughter Megan did knows that every second counts. That’s what this health care debate is really about, giving people peace of mind, giving them that financial security, that certainty, putting people’s health ahead of other things, like company profits.”
“This bill is just as bad as the House bill,” Nelson warned. “It’s going to wither the more it is examined in the glare of the spotlight. They claim that it maintains the ACA’s protections for those with preexisting conditions. Can anybody really say that with a straight face? It leaves it up to the states.”
“Fixing our nation’s health care system shouldn’t be a partisan issue,” Nelson continued. “That’s why I’ve joined bipartisan with colleagues to introduce a bill that I described a moment ago that would lower health care premiums by 13%, and that bill would stabilize the ACA’s insurance marketplace through that creation of a permanent reinsurance fund.
“What we ought to be doing is trying to look for ways to help people like that single mom, Elaine, and that daughter of hers, Megan. We should be working together to make the ACA work better. We shouldn’t be plotting behind closed doors in the dead of night with a secret document that we now know will make it worse.”
Following is a rush transcript of Nelson’s remarks, and here’s a link to watch video of his speech: https://youtu.be/uc26QSIqKCI.
U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson
Remarks on the Senate Floor
June 26, 2017
Mr. Nelson: Mr. President, last week I spoke with a very brave mother. She had endured what no one of us ever want to have to endure while she watched her child go through cancer over and over and over again.
That mother is from my state of Florida, Elaine Geller, and I want to show you her daughter. This is her daughter. This is Megan. She was working as a kindergarten teacher when she was diagnosed with leukemia back in 2013 at the age of 26. And at the time she was admitted to the hospital, Megan’s blood count was 4. She had pneumonia and she had water on her heart. She ultimately checked in to one of the very good cancer centers down at the University of Miami, and she stayed there for seven months. And so she went through the regiment of chemo. She spent months in the hospital receiving multiple rounds of chemo, biopsies, and various other treatments. And eventually Megan’s doctor told her that she had to have a transplant, and that required $150,000 up front payment. I think you see where I’m going with this story. A payment, 150 grand, that very few families would be able to afford, especially a single mother.
So I am hearing this story last week from Megan’s mother, and she said thanks to the Affordable Care Act, she didn’t have to write a check for the transplant. In fact, she didn’t have that money. In fact, because that transplant was provided for under the Affordable Care Act coverage, she knew that that was one worry that could be taken off of her mind. She had enough to worry about as a mother, what she should be doing in such a situation. And of course she wanted to give all of her attention to her daughter.
So the cancer went into remission after the transplant. However, after leaving the hospital, 63 days later the cancer came back. And so this time they go to MD Anderson Center in Houston. And I asked the mom why she wanted to do that, and she said “when your child is dying, there’s nothing that you will not do.” I think all of us as parents can identify with that. But we’re so very fortunate that we haven’t had to go through it.
So if you can’t put a price on a life — and maybe as we get ready to vote on this health care bill, on the republican alternative which, by the way, just came out on CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, today and said if the Senate bill were enacted, 22 million people would lose health insurance coverage. You remember, that’s not too much different from what CBO said that the House bill that was passed a couple of months ago, that there’s been such a negative reaction to, CBO said it would have 23 million people in this country would lose their coverage as a result of the House bill. Okay, we just got the score minutes ago from CBO 22 million people. Is that the direction that we want to be going in?
Well, so Megan is still going through treatment, and the cancer was only in remission for 32 days before it came back again. So, Megan received multiple blood transfusions. Now remember, this is a single mom trying to keep a daughter in her 20’s alive who has been through school and is a teacher. And this time all of the blood transfusions started to take another toll on her. She became so weak when trying to walk, she faltered, she fell, she hit her head at age 28, and she passed away.
Now let’s get to the bottom line of this discussion other than our hearts go out to all the Megans all across America. The bottom line is that that whole treatment over two years cost $8 million. There was not a cap on the total amount of money that could be paid under the existing law, the Affordable Care Act, an insurance company cannot put a cap on how much you pay — you can have your medical bills reimbursed.
Suppose before the ACA, suppose that cap was $50,000. Her single mom could not even have come up with the money for the initial transplant which looked like it worked, and worked for several months. In fact, $8 million over time — two years — how in the world could any one of us afford that?
You know, a lot of people say, well, the ACA isn’t doing it. Well, why don’t we all get together in a bipartisan way and fix it. And one of the fixes would be because certain health care problems like Megan’s cause the insurance company to pay out a lot of money. You know what we can do about it? We can create a reinsurance fund, which is a bill that I have filed, and it is to reinsure against that catastrophic health care problem like Megan’s of $8 million to reinsure the insurance company. And you know what that would do in the state of Florida if we passed this as a fix to the ACA? It would lower the premiums in the ACA in Florida 13%. That’s reinsurance. It’s not unlike what we’ve done for hurricanes. Catastrophic hurricane, it could be so much more than the insurance company has assets for. And, therefore, you create, or you go and buy from somebody like Lloyd’s of London or other reinsurance companies, you buy insurance in case of the catastrophe. The insurance company does that. And then if an insurance company did not have to pay out this $8 million because it had insured against that kind of catastrophic loss, everybody else’s premiums are going to be coming down. Otherwise, they have to make premiums actuarially sound. They’ve got to raise them in order to take care of the cases that are prohibitively expensive.
Now, all of this sounds down in the weeds, but the bottom line is this, if we want to fix the ACA, we can fix it. But you can’t do it one party against the other. You’ve got to have the will to come together in a bipartisan agreement to fix it. And, of course, the mom of this girl, had she been faced with this without insurance coverage, she would be bankrupt. She wouldn’t have been able to even afford the first transplant, much less the two years of extra life that her daughter had fighting for her life. And anybody who goes through something like Elaine and her daughter Megan did knows that every second counts.
That’s what this health care debate is really about, giving people peace of mind, giving them that financial security, that certainty, putting people’s health ahead of other things, like company profits. You can do it all and solve everybody’s problem, including the insurance company that obviously is in business to make a profit. You can do it. Elaine said her daughter would be proud to know that we are telling that story today. It matters. It matters to her, albeit deceased. It certainly matters to her mom. It matters to their senator. And it matters to a lot of other people.
The ACA, the existing law, the one that there was such a fractious fight over five to seven years ago, it’s working. And here’s a good example. And so then we see that what the aim of our friends on that side of the aisle is, they want to just repeal it. They don’t want anything that has the taint of Obamacare. And so they concoct something down in the house, and you see what kind of greeting that has gotten in the country. I think there was something in the upper teens of a poll that showed that it was viewed favorable. In other words, it’s viewed very unfavorably. And then the Senate majority leader, in order to come up with something that he can repeal Obamacare, in the dead of night, in secret, even the republican senators don’t know what it is until they hatch it in the public last Friday, and so this bill is just as bad as the House bill.
Now they will claim on trying to stand up this bill — and by the way, it’s going to wither the more it is examined in the glare of the spotlight. They claim that it maintains the ACA’s protections for those with preexisting conditions. Can anybody really say that with a straight face? It leaves it up to the states. This senator, before I came to Washington in the Senate service, I was the elected insurance commissioner, state treasurer of Florida. It was my job to regulate the insurance companies, all kinds of insurance companies, including health insurance companies. I can tell you that I have seen some insurance companies use as a preexisting condition, asthma. And, therefore, that’s the reason that they would not allow the person who needed insurance to be covered. Said you have a preexisting condition, we’re not going to insure you.
I have even seen insurance companies that would use as an excuse, a rash as a preexisting condition. And that means we’re not going to insure you. Under the existing law, the ACA, they can’t do that. You’re going to have the security of knowing that you’re going to have coverage.
And you know something else you’re going to have the security of knowing? You’re not going to deal with some of those insurance companies that I regulated where they would, of your premium dollar for health insurance, they would spend 40% of that dollar not on health care, on your health care. They would take 40 cents of that premium dollar that you paid, and that was going to executive salaries. It was going to administrative expenses. It was going to plush trips. Don’t tell me that that’s not a true story. I’ve seen it over and over in the 1990’s as the elected insurance commissioner of Florida. You know what the existing law says? It says of every premium dollar that you pay, 80 cents of that premium dollar has got to go into health care. It can’t be commissions, it can’t be executive salaries, it can’t be the executive jets for the corporate executives — 80 cents of that premium dollar has to go into health care so you get that for what you pay in that premium dollar.
So at some point there’s going to be an attempt to undo that. If you start leaving things up to the states, watch out. All right. When Megan was in the ICU., she had a respiratory failure that costs thousands of dollars more, and thanks to the ACA, her insurance coverage carried — it was covered, but under the Republican bill that has been released, states could let their insurance companies pocket more of those premium dollars to pay for those things that I just shared that I had seen back in the decade of the 1990’s as the insurance commissioner. Well, we shouldn’t be padding the pockets — the premium dollar for health insurance. It ought to go to health care.
Now, the Senate bill cuts billions from Medicaid. We haven’t even talked about that. Medicaid. Who gets Medicaid? Well, millions of people in this country do. It not only the poor, it’s not only the disabled, it’s 65% to 70% of all seniors in nursing homes are on Medicaid, and it’s also some children’s programs.
Let me just give you one example. So I go to the neonatal unit at Shands Hospital in Jacksonville a hospital affiliated with the University of Florida, but in Jacksonville. And the doctors and nurses are showing me of how these miracles occur of these premature babies, that they keep them alive. Then what they wanted to show me with the opioid epidemic, which has hit my state just like it has hit other states, they wanted me to see and understand when a pregnant mom is addicted to opioids, she’s passes that on in her womb to her unborn child when born that baby is opioid dependent, and the doctor showed me the characteristics, the high shrill cry, the constant scratching, the awkward movements. You know what they do to wean them — wean those little babies off of opioids over the course of a month? They use doses of morphine.
Now, you want to devastate Medicaid? You want to take over $800 billion of Medicaid over ten years out of Medicaid. What about those single moms that the only health care they get is Medicaid? What about those babies that I just described that are also on Medicaid? You start capping the amount of money that goes to the states on a federal state program for health care, Medicaid, and you’re going to be throwing a lot of people out of any kind of health care, including senior citizen in nursing homes. And so a Medicaid block grant or a cap would end the health care guarantee for millions of children, people with disabilities, pregnant women, and seniors on long-term care. 37 million children in this country — children, 37 million — rely on Medicare for care. They are all the seniors, the poor, the disabled, the children, — they are all vulnerable to the cuts that would occur.
And if that’s not enough to vote against this bill that is coming to the floor this week — if that’s not enough, the Senate bill actually imposes an age tax for older Americans allowing insurance companies to charge older Americans up to five times more for coverage than a young person. You say, well, older people have more illnesses and ailments. Older people ought to cost more if that’s your argument. Well, that’s true, and age rating in the existing law, the ACA, is three to one, this changes it to five to one and five to one means one thing — more on the premiums for senior citizens until — I’m talking about all insurance policies — until they reach that magic age of 65 and can be on Medicaid. Now, do you want an age tax on older Americans as a result of this bill? I don’t think so. But that’s what’s in there.
So fixing our nation’s health care system shouldn’t be a partisan issue. That’s why I’ve joined bipartisan with colleagues to introduce a bill that I described a moment ago that would lower health care premiums by 13%, and that bill would stabilize the ACA’s insurance marketplace through that creation of a permanent reinsurance fund. I’ve seen the policies work, as I described with catastrophic hurricane insurance.
So there’s nothing magic about my idea. It’s just an obvious fix — to fix the existing law and ideas like that can bubble forth in a bipartisan way to make sustainable the existing law that we have and so what we ought to be doing is trying to look for ways to help people like that single mom, Elaine, and that daughter of hers, Megan. We should be working together to make the ACA work better. We shouldn’t be plotting behind closed doors in the dead of night with a secret document — a secret document that we now know will make it worse.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Senator Bill Nelson
Nelson files bill to lower health insurance premiums by 13 percent
U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) has introduced legislation that could lower health insurance premiums for some Floridians by as much as 13 percent.
The legislation, which Nelson and others introduced in the Senate yesterday, would create a permanent reinsurance program to help stabilize the individual health insurance marketplace. That stability, according to one Florida insurer, would likely lower premiums in Florida by up to 13 percent.
“We have to focus on fixing our nation’s health care system and finding ways to make health care more affordable,” Nelson said. “This bill, which will help reduce Floridians’ health insurance premiums by as much as 13 percent, is one step in the right direction.”
If approved, the legislation would create a permanent reinsurance fund to help health insurance companies cover the cost of larger-than-expected insurance claims.
The reinsurance fund would be available to health insurance companies participating in state and federal exchanges, encouraging these companies to offer more plans in more markets. This increased competition among insurers would eventually help drive down prices for consumers who purchase health insurance through HealthCare.gov.
Specifically, the reinsurance fund would reimburse insurers 80 percent of claims ranging from $50,000 to $500,000 from 2018 until 2020. Starting in 2021, the fund would cover 80 percent of claims ranging from $100,000 to $500,000.
The bill also provides additional funding to help states improve outreach and increase enrollment in insurance marketplaces. It now heads to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee for consideration.
Full text of the legislation can be found here.
Sen. Nelson's remarks on Senate floor re: Pulse
Sen. Bill Nelson spoke on the Senate floor this evening to honor the victims of the Pulse nightclub attack. Earlier today, Nelson and Sen. Marco Rubio introduced a resolution in the Senate to honor the victims. A copy of the resolution is available here.
Below is a rush transcript of Nelson’s remarks and here’s a link to watch video of his speech.
U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson
Remarks on the Senate Floor
June 12, 2017
Sen. Nelson: Madam President, I will not be addressing the matter before us because I have just come from Orlando, where so many are feeling such deep, deep sorrow today, it being the on one-year since the tragic attack on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.
And the horror of that early morning — that still remains so fresh for so many, especially those hundreds and hundreds of people that gathered at the Pulse nightclub this morning on the occasion of a one-year since the tragedy. There was quite a ceremony, and it was basically to remember the 49 innocent souls that we lost.
It was a massacre of huge proportions. It was done by a terrorist, and what terrorists want to do is they want to divide people, they want to terrorize them, they inject fear.
Interestingly, the terrorist, although he changed the lives of so many people, his name was Omar Mateen. He took the lives of 49 people, and he changed a lot of other lives that were wounded and, of course, the families of the 49 victims are still suffering.
But, interestingly, when a terrorist wants to divide and inject fear, it has had the opposite effect in Orlando. It has unified people. It has unified the community like I have never seen before. It has unified our state. Indeed, it has unified our nation. And so quite the opposite effect has happened from what the terrorist intended, other than the slaughter of 49 innocent lives.
Sadly, these are the 49. And they are all being honored today. It was a very moving ceremony.
One of the causes that came out of the unification of Orlando was that instead of creating a number of victims’ funds, they put it all in one fund. Tens of millions of dollars have now gone into that fund, and in fact it is helping finance some of the victims who survived and their medical expenses, some of the families and the loved ones of those who were lost.
And it’s interesting, as you were there, suddenly those moments came rushing back. I had heard about it early on Sunday morning when the news broke from the massacre the night before that had occurred in the early morning hours. And as I raced from my home into downtown Orlando on South Orange Avenue, I was able to get on the telephone the number three at the FBI, and he gave me authorization to tell what they originally were anticipating, what had happened. And once I got to the scene, I was able to share that. Of course, they had the representative of the FBI. on the scene. They had set up a command post. The mayor, Buddy Dyer, had taken charge. And it was quite a scene.
The tales of heroism are nonstop. The Orlando police department swat team that went inside — and before they could get the SWAT team there, members of the police department and the sheriff’s department. One block away is a fire station. It became a triage point. First responders got there trying to save people’s lives. Because of the massive number of casualties — 49 — that while the gunman Mateen was holed up in one of the bathrooms with hostages, some he had already shot and bled to death — while he was back in the bathroom, police and paramedics were going into and pulling people out in those early morning, dark hours. And, of course, they were just using whatever vehicle — if there was a pickup truck, they would take the victims and put them on the truck. And, fortunately, Orlando Regional Medical Center is only about six to eight blocks away. And, of course, it is a trauma center hospital.
About a week later, I went in to see the trauma surgeons. There had been a resident getting his residency there as a trauma surgeon, and he was so moved by that experience, he put on his Facebook page and told what he was feeling and showed a picture of his bloody shoes that he didn’t even recognize because he was so busy, until the next day he looked at those shoes. He took a picture of that, put it up on his Facebook page. And then he wrote, you know, to be a trauma surgeon and have just surgeon and have just waves of people coming in. I didn’t know if they were black or white, I didn’t know if they were gay or straight, all I knew is I was doing everything I could to save lives.
In some cases, they would make an initial prep and then they would get the victim who was still living and they’d get them on up to the operating room where other surgeons were taking over. In some cases, they did not have time. They had to do the operation right there in the trauma center. And, fortunately, the one trauma center in all of central Florida is right there at Orlando Regional Medical Center.
So a terrorist — perhaps aided and abetted by his wife — this is an open question and that determination has not been made. A terrorist tried to divide us as a nation, just like they have before on 9/11 and at San Bernardino and in so many other cases where they’ve been foiled or others who you couldn’t label a terrorist but they are in their own ways, involve the killings that have occurred at schools. You lump all of that together, they tried to divide us, and yet Orlando came together united.
And they have a catch phrase for it. It’s called “Orlando Strong.”
America is a nation of compassion, generosity, kindness, and respect. And those are precisely the qualities that we saw from the people of Orlando when they came together a year ago. And this senator saw that again in livid detail this morning.
We are forever grateful for the bravery and the heroism police, the first responders, the sheriff’s department, the FBI, the families, the victims helping other victims.
We are forever grateful for the trauma surgeons and the operating room nurses and doctors, as they save lives.
We’re forever grateful for the hospital and how it completely accommodated all of this mass confusion and how it forgave all of the medical expenses for those who had been victims, both the living and the dead.
We’re forever grateful for those who rushed to the scene that night in the face of uncertainty in the pitch darkness of that nightclub, not knowing where the shooter was.
We’re forever grateful to the skill of the negotiators, as they tried to talk the shooter down and ultimately when he came out with guns blazing, the automatic weapons blazing, they had to take him down.
So to all of those heroes, we want to say thank you.
To all of those heroes also that are the families of these victims, we want to say thank you and to the victims’ families and loved ones, we want to say that even though you lost those loved ones, they did not die in vain.
What we see is out of evil, what we have seen is good.
So thanks to all of Orlando for not only what you did that night, but thank you for what you do every day. And a year later, Mr. President, I can report to the Senate that we are Orlando Strong.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
Nelson-Rubio introduce resolution to honor Pulse victims
U.S. Sens. Bill Nelson (D-FL) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) today introduced a resolution in the Senate to honor the victims of the tragic shooting that took place at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando one year ago today. A copy of the resolution is available here.
Nelson calls for public hearings on NOAA's proposal to allow seismic testing in the Atlantic
U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) is leading a group of Senate Democrats in calling on the administration to hold public hearings and give the public more time to review and comment on NOAA’s proposal this week that would open the door to allowing seismic testing off the Atlantic Coast.
“On June 6, 2017, NOAA released a proposal to approve five applications submitted by companies seeking to conduct seismic airgun blasts along the Atlantic Coast,” Nelson and others wrote in a letter today to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. “This was done with little notice, an extremely short public comment period, and no scheduled public hearings.”
The lawmakers, after noting that these applications had been denied by NOAA just five months earlier, went on to say, “in the interest of transparency, government accountability, and meaningful public participation, we urge you to extend the comment period for these activities to at least 150 days, conduct public community meetings, and clarify key elements of the proposal.”
In addition to Nelson, the letter was also signed by Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Tom Carper (D-DE), Christopher Coons (D-DE), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Ed Markey (D-MA), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Jack Reed (D-RI), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI).
Below is the full text of the senators’ letter, and a PDF copy is available here.
June 9, 2017
The Honorable Wilbur Ross
Secretary
U.S. Department of Commerce
1401 Constitution Ave NW
Washington, DC 20230
Dear Secretary Ross,
This week, we celebrated World Oceans Day. At a time when the global community should be discussing new ways to protect the marine environment, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) instead announced a proposal to issue five authorizations that could seriously affect coastal economies along the entire Atlantic seaboard. This was done with little notice, an extremely short public comment period, and no scheduled public hearings. And possibly most problematic, these applications were declined by NOAA just five months ago. In the interest of transparency, government accountability, and meaningful public participation, we urge you to extend the comment period for these activities to at least 150 days, conduct public community meetings, and clarify key elements of the proposal.
On June 6, 2017, NOAA released a proposal to approve five applications submitted by companies seeking to conduct seismic airgun blasts along the Atlantic Coast, authorizing the harassment of marine mammals during the course of their surveys for oil and gas deposits. The Federal Register notice allows for only 30 days of public comment on a complex 91-page document proposing to authorize five separate activities with the potential to harm marine mammals.
For context, in July 2015, when NOAA announced the receipt of seismic applications, it solicited 30 days of public comment on a 2-page document. During that time, 720 pages of unique public comments were submitted to NOAA—many with significant scientific and economic concerns and outright opposition to issuance of approval to harass marine mammals.
And as of today, 125 Atlantic Coast communities, over 1,200 elected officials, and an alliance representing over 41,000 businesses and 500,000 fishing families have publicly opposed seismic airgun blasting and/or offshore drilling. The Mid- and South Atlantic Fishery Management Councils, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Department of Defense, and the Florida Defense Support Task Force have also expressed concern about ongoing and future oil and gas operations.
Furthermore, the proposal itself is confusing and vague. We urge you to issue clarification on several important topics. For example, the Federal Register notice includes two applications that NOAA has not previously included in a public notice of receipt, and does not include a map showing each of the five applications proposed to be approved. Also, one of the applications has changed names since it was first filed. To allow for relevant, timely, and thorough public comment on the proposal, it is essential that NOAA publish clear maps for each application, and each application should be cited using a consistent name.
Finally, despite the potential to affect coastal resources along the entire East Coast, it does not appear that NOAA intends to conduct any public meetings. We find this lack of stakeholder outreach unacceptable. We would expect that NOAA would conduct public meetings in each of the states most likely to be impacted by this activity, including Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey.
The Marine Mammal Commission wrote in 2015 that in considering these kinds of surveys, NOAA should minimize duplication, address inconsistencies in the estimates of marine mammals that would be impacted, and fully evaluate and monitor whether proposed mitigation measures are likely to be successful. NOAA’s current proposed approvals do not address these recommendations.
The science suggests that airgun surveys themselves have the potential to cause significant harm, and could jeopardize the continued existence of the critically endangered North Atlantic Right Whale. Given the widespread and strong public interest in this issue, it is essential that NOAA provide thorough and transparent information, and a reasonable opportunity for the public to participate in the review process.
Sincerely,
Sen. Bill Nelson statement on Comey hearing
Following is a statement from U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) on former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony today:
“The special counsel got a lot of material from Comey. The ultimate goal is to get to the truth. The American people deserve nothing less.”
Sen. Nelson statement on Orlando shooting
Following is a statement from U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) on the shooting in Orlando this morning:
“The city of Orlando, which is still healing from the Pulse massacre, has seen too much violence this past year. We must do more to address mental health issues in this country.”
Sen. Nelson re: Paris climate agreement
Following is a statement from U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) on news today that President Trump will likely withdraw from the Paris climate agreement in the coming days:
“Sea-level rise caused by the Earth heating up is a real threat to Florida. If the U.S. isn’t going to do its part to combat climate change, then the rest of the world won’t do theirs and millions of Floridians living along the coast will be at risk.”
Nelson and several other senators sent a letter to Trump last week urging him not to withdraw from the agreement. A copy of that letter is available here.
Nelson's letter to Secretary Price re: Zika funding
U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price today to express his concerns over the administration’s plan to cut funding to several federal programs aimed at curbing the spread of the Zika virus.
Nelson’s letter comes just one day after the Treasure Coast reported its first case of the Zika virus this year.
“I am concerned the Administration’s budget proposal would damage our country’s ability to adequately respond to the Zika virus,” Nelson wrote. “No state has been harder hit than Florida … Unfortunately, the Administration’s budget fails to continue our commitment to protect America’s public health, and instead slashes the very programs that have been effective in combatting the spread of the Zika virus.”
“Families in Florida and throughout the country deserve better,” Nelson continued. “I urge you to reconsider these cuts, and I stand ready to work with you to provide the resources our country needs to respond to the Zika virus.”
More than 1,300 cases of the Zika virus were reported in Florida last year. The Florida Department of Health has reported at least 50 new cases of the virus this year, including 19 in Miami-Dade, 12 in Broward, 3 in Orange, 3 in Hillsborough and 3 in Palm Beach.
Sen. Bill Nelson statement on president's budget
Following is a statement from U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) on the president’s budget proposal released today:
“This plan cuts some of our most critical programs including Medicaid and food stamps. It also cuts funding to agencies such as NIH, which is working to find cures for cancer and Alzheimer’s, and the EPA, which protects our environment. Slashing these vital programs will hurt millions of hardworking families. We should be focused on helping people, not hurting those who need our help the most.”
