And at the witness table, the Homeland Security secretary, xavier becerra, getting ready to give testimony on the president s 2025 budget request. The priorities of the budget, focusing on Health Care Coverage in the United States, as well as Maternal Health and mortality, Mental Health and suicide in cancer research. Pecting the hearing to start shortly, we have the chair and the Ranking Member in their seats now. Again, senators hearing budget request from health and Human Services secretary xavier becerra. Today, we meet to discuss the year ahead for health care in america. Thank you, secretary becerra, for joining us. I will start off with a little bit of history. Topic one, drug prices. In july of 2020, donald trump said since the day i took office, i have made reducing drug prices one of my highest priorities. For four straight years, donald trump complained about high drug prices, did lots of finger pointing at others about the problem and repeatedly talked about how he was the
Pharma. Big pharmas holy grail, what they cared abo prohibiting negotiation for a better deal on medicine. Look at wth going to court, trying to stop any negotiation. But we have it written in the law that there isation. On top of it, most americans have access to free vaccines. Osts for seniors were capped at 35 a month. As we said, when the government leads on these issues, particularly the showpiece of American Health care, medicare almost always the private sector copies it. We have seen Real Progress in the private sector as well. We want every buddy in america to get that pricing relief but we are making Real Progress. We also created price gouging penalties ■7qfor the rst time to hold big pharma accountable for high drug costs. Those are benefiting patients and taxpayers. Plenty more to it is essential that finally, after all of this debate, we get pharmacy manager or Pharmacy Benefit Management and congress can finish this crucial change thats going to help all of these wonde
Do you feel like youve got the visibility and transparency and tools to address it. It makes me nervous because this has echoes of 20082009 when vacancy rates were declined rapidly. How do you feel . Does that risk continue to be manageable . Chr. Powell i would say yes to that. I think it is manageable and weve been working hard for some time now really and what it really is is its a lot of downtown real estate where theres too much officesupply because of work from home and also the Downtown Retail that is no longer as profitable. Things like that are at the heart of it. So what we have done is weve looked at banks that have significant concentrations and weve been in touch with them to make sure they have a plan to deal with that. There will be losses by some banks. Its really medium and small sized banks that have these higher concentrations. Its good to be this problem we work through for several years and the idea is you have to have enough capital and liquidity and a plan to tak
You may submit Public Comment in writing either the following ways. Email them to myself. The rules Committee Clerk at victor. You and g at sfgovtv. Org if you submit Public Comment via email, it will be forwarded to the supervisors and included as part of the file. You may also send your written comment via us mail to our office at one. Doctor Carlton B Goodlett place, room 244, San Francisco, california 94102. Please make sure to silence all cell phones and Electronic Devices documents to be included as part of the file should be submitted to the clerk. Items acted upon today are expected to appear on the board of supervisors agenda of may 21st, 2024, unless otherwise stated. That completes my initial announcements. Thank you and i would like to make a motion to excuse supervisor Sherman Walton from this meeting. Yes, on the motion to excuse, vice chair walton, supervisor Preston Preston, i supervisor safai safai chair. Ronan i ronan i the motion passes without objection. Motion pass
Committee meeting. Im supervisor hillary ronen, chair of the committee. Im joined by committee, temporary member dean preston. And we shall be joined by supervisor ahsha safai shortly. Our clerk is victor young, and i would like to thank matthew ignored sfgovtv for broadcasting this meeting. Mr. Clerk, do you have any announcements . Yes. Public comment will be taken on each item on this agenda. When your item of interest comes up and Public Comment is called, please line up to speak. Alternatively, you may submit Public Comment in writing either the following ways. Email them to myself. The rules Committee Clerk at victor. You and g at sfgovtv. Org if you submit Public Comment via email, it will be forwarded to the supervisors and included as part of the file. You may also send your written comment via us mail to our office at one. Doctor Carlton B Goodlett place, room 244, San Francisco, california 94102. Please make sure to silence all cell phones and Electronic Devices documents to