Mr. President, I am here today to ask the Senate to pass a bill that helps kids with cancer--the Mikaela Naylon Give Kids a Chance Act. Now, very seldom do I actually read remarks. I typically like to just simply speak about it. But I…
Mr. President, I am here today to ask the Senate to pass a bill that helps kids with cancer--the Mikaela Naylon Give Kids a Chance Act.
Now, very seldom do I actually read remarks. I typically like to just simply speak about it. But I think this is so important that I am actually going to read the remarks that are in front of me because I think it is important for people to know what we are doing, why we are doing it, and who she was--the advocate--and to understand why we are here today.
Mikaela, whom the bill is named after, was a 16-year-old girl from Colorado. As a father of six, this is kind of personal to me, so this is why it is so passionate to me, too, because my son currently--while he doesn't have a cancer like this, we have been going to
Rochester for over a year, and we are doing some experimentative stuff with him too. We got an opportunity--because it is not a death sentence. What he has isn't a death sentence. But we have had to go through this and continue to go through this. So it is even more personal to me now.
In July of 2020, Mikaela was diagnosed with a rare pediatric cancer. She spent nearly 6 years traveling across the country for treatments while also coming to Capitol Hill to advocate for children with cancer. But unfortunately, she tragically passed away October 29 of this year-- advocating literally almost every day of her life.
Mikaela was a fighter. She fought so other children could have an opportunity, that one day, the devastating diagnosis that she received would someday be curable for other kids.
Some things that come across your desk in Congress just make sense, and this is one of them. This bill has 33 cosponsors in the Senate, and they are bipartisan, from liberal Democrats to conservative Republicans.
We worked hard to get this bill passed for over a year, and it passed the House by voice. Not one single person objected to this. Why? Because why wouldn't you want to allow kids, our kids, an opportunity to simply have the same opportunity as adults do with cancer? It is called pediatric cancer. Give kids a chance. Why wouldn't we want to do that?
It is hard to explain why we wouldn't want to do that, but yet I understand the Senator from Vermont intends to object to the Senate doing this. I think it is wrong. I think it is dead wrong.
To think that someone is willing to hold hostage a child who is fighting for their life, who simply wants to have an opportunity to try an experimental drug that may extend their life 1 week, 1 day, or may even cure it, and you are willing to take that away from the family because you have other priorities, because you want to hold it hostage so you can try to do something with community healthcare centers?
I support community healthcare centers. I want them. They are important to rural Oklahoma. But there is a time and place for everything, and to hold this bill hostage because of it is not right. You are stealing from a family an opportunity to spend maybe an extra minute or an extra day or maybe a lifetime with a loved one.
I don't know how you argue this. I don't know how you can possibly stand up here with a straight face and say that it is OK; it is just politics. This isn't just politics. We are playing with people's lives. This isn't politics. This is more than just politics.
But I will tell you, if this is objected to and we can't find a path forward here today, I can promise you I will not stop fighting on this. It won't happen. We are going to rinse and repeat and continue to go down this path until we give the families with these rare diseases an opportunity to live because that is what this is about.
I recognize my friend from New Hampshire who may have some comments about this too.
I yield to the chairman from Louisiana, Mr. Cassidy.
I, too, want to say I support community health centers. As I said, they are very important in rural communities, very important in my hometown of Westville. In fact, it is the only healthcare that is available. I don't want them to be harmed; I want them to be well funded, but that is a separate conversation we can have.
The chairman just said he will work to get it passed next year. Now, there is no reason to hold our kids hostage anymore.
So, as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 1262, which was received from the House; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.
I reserve the right to object.
Mr. President, you know everything that the Senator from Vermont has railed about is why I think he supported the Affordable Care Act a.k.a. ObamaCare. I thought it was supposed to fix all this stuff that he wrote about, and we figured out it hasn't. It has wrecked the system. It is unaffordable for the American people. Yet it was the Democrats that sold us or sold the American people on it--not us, not Republicans, sold the American people on it.
It has been disastrous. And so now he wants to hold kids that are dying of rare diseases and pediatric cancer, wants to hold them hostage, to now try to push his agenda further and not go through the committee of jurisdiction but hold the kids hostage--the kids.
Everything the Senator from Vermont just talked about was political. I am talking about lives. I am talking about giving kids a chance to live an extra day or a lifetime. That is what I am talking about.
This has nothing to do with politics. Nothing. Nothing I am talking about has to do with politics. This has to do with kids. Yet the Senator from Vermont wants to make it about politics. You know, this time of the year at Christmas we talk about grinches, all the time, right? They go in, and they steal the kids' gifts. By the end of the show, their hearts grow bigger and they give the gifts back and they allow kids to be excited about Christmas morning.
What has happened right here in front of us, the grinch is stealing kids' lives, and they are stealing hope from the families, hope from the families that might have an opportunity just to try for a political agenda.
And I hope to God that every single family that is going through this will hold the Senator from Vermont accountable, and the State of Vermont will hold him accountable, too, because he is playing with kids' lives. He is literally killing kids in front of us because of his political movement, and it is ridiculous.
Therefore, I object.
Just speaking the truth.
I am, sir.
