There were few partisan clashes as Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell faced lawmakers on Thursday, and even glimmers of bipartisanship over increasing medical research funding.
{mosads}The impending Supreme Court decision that could gut ObamaCare by invalidating subsidies for 7.5 million people was not mentioned until the last question of the two-hour hearing before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee.
That was a far cry from a House hearing with Burwell in February, when Republicans confronted her with the allegation that her department had a secret contingency plan for the court ruling.
On Thursday, Burwell reiterated her position that there is nothing the administration can do to repair the damage if the court strikes down the subsidies.
A more prominent topic at the hearing was funding for medical research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
“I’m pleased that the department has requested a billion-dollar increase for NIH,” the panel’s Republican chairman, Sen. Roy Blunt (Mo.), said in his opening remarks.
Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.), the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, likewise called for increasing NIH funding, noting that former Republican Speaker Newt Gingrich had written an op-ed this week also calling for an increase.
“I rarely ever praise Newt Gingrich, but I’m going to,” Durbin said.
He called for a bipartisan effort to increase NIH funding by 5 percent, adjusted for inflation, over 10 years.
The bipartisan spirit was also reflected in the tone of the questioning. Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.) noted that Burwell is also a “daughter of West Virginia.”
“I’m very proud of the secretary,” Capito said. “She does a great job representing our state and our nation.”
As opposed to clashes over ObamaCare, senators focused on a range of other topics.
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) raised concerns about new electronic health record requirements for doctors. But he noted he and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) are looking for common ground on the issue.
“Senator Murray and I are trying to get something actually done,” he said.
Democrats raised concerns about spending cuts known as sequestration, arguing they should be rolled back, as President Obama’s budget would do. The president’s budget calls for a roughly $5 billion increase in the HHS budget, bringing it to about $84 billion.
Murray pointed to her agreement in 2013 with Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to ease some of the cuts for two years.
“I really believe that we have got to build on that agreement now and lift the caps,” she said.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) was the one senator to take jabs over ObamaCare, saying “the middle class is getting hosed” by rising premiums.
Burwell countered that the law has helped reduce the number of uninsured by 16 million people.