House Democrats dragged Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during a hearing on Tuesday in which he attempted to defend President Donald Trump’s latest budget proposal. While last week’s hearings focused on RFK Jr.’s failures to protect public health, this round focused on his complicity in the corruption of the administration’s health care policies.

Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York led the charge, highlighting the contradiction between Kennedy’s rhetoric and his recent policy decisions—specificially, sending billions to major health insurers he has previously accused of fraud.

“United [Healthcare], CVS, Aetna—they’re defrauding the American public to the tune of $80 billion a year,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “And so I was surprised to see, about two weeks ago, you had decided to give them another $13 billion, and it was used through the mechanism of the MA [Medicare Advantage] reimbursement rates, but I want to know, why did you do that?”

After Kennedy acknowledged concerns about the industry, he offered up a meandering response, which Ocasio-Cortez politely threw back in his face.

“The industry is saying that they’re increasing these costs, but the industry is defrauding the public. So we know they’re lying,” she responded. “They’re lowering their reimbursement rates, they’re increasing denial. So we know that these folks are lying. We know that they’re bad actors. And if I’m hearing you correctly, we are giving them more money because they’re saying that they need it?”

Things didn’t get easier when Rep. Greg Landsman, Democrat of Ohio, pressed the health secretary on the nearly $1 trillion in health care cuts the Trump administration has used to give tax breaks to the wealthy.

“You had mentioned the rural-hospital piece—$50 billion, largest investment—but there’s a reason why the Senate Republicans asked for a $50 billion rural-hospital investment,” Landsman said. “[It’s] because of the nearly trillion-dollar cut to Medicaid.”

“There’s no cut in Medicaid,” Kennedy replied. “Look at the CBO [Congressional Budget Office] report from this week.”

“Then just do the math with me,” Landsman responded. “That means that they added $3.5 trillion to the deficit. You gotta find a trillion dollars. You either added a trillion dollars to the deficit, or you cut Medicaid by a trillion dollars.”

Finally, Democratic Rep. Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts took off the kid gloves, focusing on the Food and Drug Administration’s National Priority Voucher Program—an initiative widely criticized for being vulnerable to corruption. Auchincloss pointed to the recent controversy involving podcaster Joe Rogan, who boasted about texting the president in order to get the FDA to fast-track research for the psychedelic ibogaine.

“Secretary, this flies in the face of your stated commitment to putting science over politics,” Auchincloss said. “We are literally seeing politics put over science.”

“Do you want to grandstand, or do you want an answer?” Kennedy interrupted.

“I want safety and efficacy to be the standards by which psychedelics are approved, not the president’s attempt to shore up support from his base for a disastrous war in Iran,” Auchincloss shot back.
Like all of Trump’s unqualified cabinet members, Kennedy’s glaring inadequacies continue to haunt Americans.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos