Updated: RFK Jr. To Get Vote Before Full Senate

In a decision that many expected, the Senate Finance Committee voted 14 to 13 to send the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr as HHS Secretary for a vote before the U.S. Senate.

All 13 Democrats on the committee voted against sending the nomination to the full Senate, and all 14 Republican voted in favor, including Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, at the Senate Health, Education and Pensions hearing on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s nomination to be HHS secretary

Cassidy has said he was struggling with the decision of whether to support Kennedy, someone who won’t accept the vaccine evidence that already exists. At last week’s hearing, Cassidy also pressed Kennedy to offer some specifics about reforming Medicaid, he responded with general answers about telehealth, artificial intelligence and value-based care. At one point, Kennedy misstated that Medicaid is fully paid for by the federal government when in actuality it is financed jointly by states and the federal government.

Some news reports this morning said Cassidy might decide to vote for Kennedy today, expressing his reservations but taking the position that the full Senate should decide the fate of his nomination, not just the Senate finance committee.

Despite — or perhaps because of — the build up to his vote and all the attention on him, Cassidy did not speak at the hearing. Four senators offered comments before the vote was taken. The committee's chairman, Sen. Mike Crapo, an Idaho Republican, said he believed that Kennedy would deliver change to the nation's healthcare system. “He has spent his career fighting to end America's chronic illness epidemic, and has been a leading advocate for health care transparency, both for patients and for taxpayers.” The ranking Democrat, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, called Kennedy "singularly unfit" to be HHS secretary and that do so would create "a grave threat to the health of the American people." Wyden said Kennedy was given ample opportunity during the Jan.29 hearing before the finance committee to "recant his decades long career peddling anti-vaccine conspiracies."

"Instead," Wyden said, Kennedy "spent his time with us dodging and weaving and gave no indication that if confirmed as HHS Secretary, he would stand by the long-settled science surrounding routine vaccinations.”

Most of the senators left quickly after the vote. Sen.Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, explained that he voted yes on Kennedy’s nomination because he is looking for a “disrupter,” who will hold healthcare professionals accountable, make school lunches healthier, improve the health of nation, and make changes in Medicaid.

Tillis said that at the hearing, Kennedy assured the committee that he would let the scientists of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention the National Institutes of Health and other organizations to work independently.

Regarding President Trump’s comment about having Kennedy “go wild on HHS,” Tillis said “I hope he goes wild, instead of having the discussions that we have had for the 10 years that I've been in the Senate of making Medicaid work and making people on Medicaid healthier,” Tillis said. “I hope he goes wild on food safety on so that we can actually improve our food safety supply. I hope it goes wild on the healthcare supply chains, and tries to make sure that drug prices go down and make sure that we do this right reduce the cost of bringing a vaccine to market and bringing drugs and therapeutics to market.”

Elizabeth Warren

Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts, said the vote was mistake and expressed concerns about Kennedy’s conflicts of interest and his ongoing vaccine litigation. “Mr. Kennedy refuses to say that he will not participate in these lawsuits financially the day after he leaves office,” she said after the vote. “This is an appalling conflict of interest, and it’s one in which the American people had reasonably asked: is Mr. Kennedy's plan to help the American people, or is he planning to use this job to further enrich himself.”