Unanimous Consent Request--Executive Calendar

Floor Speech

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Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the nomination of Robert Gordon. Earlier this year, Mr. Gordon had strong bipartisan support in the Finance Committee when his nomination came to a vote. Mr. Gordon is President Biden's nominee to serve as the Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Financial Resources, and he has a long history of dedication to public service.

More recently, he served as director of the Department of Health and Human Services for the State of Michigan. He played a central role in the State's pandemic response and managed an agency of 14,000 employees and a multibillion-dollar budget.

Before that, he held senior roles in the U.S. Department of Education and the Office of Management and Budget, where he championed evidence- based policymaking to use taxpayer dollars wisely.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Gordon served as a senior official at the New York City Department of Education. He was a senior aide on Capitol Hill, a law clerk for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and a White House aide.

In his time at the White House, he supported the development of the AmeriCorps program.

In his long career in public service, he has worked to ensure that government programs work for those they serve and that they do so through responsible use of taxpayer dollars. Such experience is essential to the work of the Assistant Secretary for Financial Resources at the Department of Health and Human Services.

HHS has responsibility for critical programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children's Health Insurance Program, just to name a few. The Assistant Secretary for Financial Resources must ensure that these programs and many others under the umbrella of the Department remain strong for future generations.

762, Robert Michael Gordon, to be Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services; that the Senate vote on the nomination, without intervening action or debate; that if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

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Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I want to respond, at least preliminarily, to my friend from Tennessee. I appreciate his advocacy for hospitals in his home State of Tennessee. So given that he is seeking this assurance about these disproportionate share hospital payments, my understanding is that the reconciliation bill we are about to consider this week does not contain any provisions that are directly relevant and any provision that would impact these disproportionate share hospitals or uncompensated care pool funding.

So given that and given that he is seeking this specific assurance about the pending reconciliation bill--and I think it is evident or will become evident that the bill does not contain these DSH provisions or uncompensated care payment cuts--I would ask him just this question, if he would entertain this question: If the Senate does pass a reconciliation bill, which I hope will be by the end of this week, and that bill is then subsequently enacted into law, will he lift his objection and allow this and other relevant HHS nominations to be confirmed by unanimous consent?
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