The white house. Focused on a mission to save lives, meet the needs of our states and health care workers. Along with briefings on the coronavirus pandemic, Supreme Court oral arguments and decisions and the latest from campaign 2020. Be a part of the conversation every day with our live callin program, washington journal and if you missed any of our live coverage, watch any time on demand on cspan. Org or listen on the go with the free radio app. Representative angie craig recently spoke at the hills Virtual Health care summit to discuss the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic, health care disparities, and vaccine distribution. Guest, congresswoman angie craig, as been working to increase Patient Access and affordability. Her bill would seek to drive down Prescription Drug costs just past the house. Thank you so much for joining us. This has been a burning issue for me. We may come up with a vaccine, therapies, we may seek nobodies who have solve this riddle, but there are hundreds of millions , wehis country and around have vulnerable communities, and i do not know the we have thought through the dimension of it. How will be deal with vulnerable communities and people who do not have the health coverage. Rep. Craig thank you so much for having me. It is an honor. This is something we need to be thinking through it now as we search for a vaccine. Equitably distribute that vaccine . We know that this virus has affected in many of my counties black and Brown Minnesotans at six times the rate as white minnesotans. We need to start thinking about now putting together an equitable Distribution Plan for this country. I am glad to follow the secretary. I had some thoughts about how we view this from the capital. It does not matter how we do this at the capital. At the end of the day, if we do not start working together to stop playing politics with our health care in this country, we will not make any progress at all. Many of the issues that the secretary identifies were 1425, which hr passed the house last week increasing tax credits, extending care in medicaid to one year instead of the 60 days. So many of the inequities we see in health care today. Completely a question. You deal in your constituents, many of them are involved in the communities, many of them native american, different backgrounds, somalian and others. ,s ive been discussing earlier much of the Health Care System is a for the caucasian community. There is a lack of trust in some communities. Part of it is getting people covered. Part of it is getting trust. Experiencedoes your tell you about creating a bridge of trust for those communities to they feel like they are included and it is about them . Rep. Craig that is such a great question. I held a town hall on zoom just like Everything Else in the last couple of days on disparities in our Health Care System and i asked our counties about minnesota, what are we doing to help bridge that trust cap . Health of our Community Centers and clinics, it is as simple as making sure we have folks who can speak various languages and communicate effectively. In many cases, it is a matter of helping people understand where they can go to get health care. When i step back and think about my congressional district, this is one of the highest rates of nonelderly with preexisting conditions in the country. In my the nonelderly district have a preexisting condition. To hear the secretary talk about the work of the Affordable Care when people ago, care about is their outofpocket costs, cost of Prescription Drugs. What i am trying to do is to drive down , i hadi came to Congress Responsibility for health care in a major fortune 500 company. Wehad stoploss programs should have required in todays Health Care System. We also had a real challenge to control the cost of our biologic drugs, and we need to make sure we have healthy competition with bio similars. The. E think about we give to drugs in the country . I think we need to step back. We have been having a conversation in this country for a decade about the cost of health insurance. We need to step back and have the conversation about the cost of health care. Host one of the things i want to do real quickly for our audience, many of whom may not understand the various dimensions. I have not talked about this. I know bio similars are a ofatively new advancement multiple molecules, complex molecule treatments that are more pervasive in europe at approved in europe than in the united states. Directorhat the former of the fda was trying to speed that up. I want to put that out there when we look at new drug developments how we focus the spotlight on cost and what would be done to bring down the cost like this. Could you tell us more on the publics behalf about what the bio similar dimension to this is . Rep. Craig right now for certain drugs, biologics, there is a 12 year market exclusivity. Exclusivity period. For drugallow companies to pay off generic providers from bringing healthy competition into the marketplace. For me, this is not about bio similars as a category. How do we create healthy competition . What is a reasonable amount of time for a drugmaker to enjoy ,arket exclusivity and how long which means that there is no competition to drive down price. I worked for a med tech company for 12 years. It may seem odd to have a former med tech executives say we have got to take a look at what is driving cost in this country. We have got to take a look at what is reducing competition. Aca,sonally support the but i also implemented the aca as part of a fortune 500 company, and i sought many problems with it, and i have worked to try to to work on an objective basis that will allow more people to Access Health insurance, but also what are those things that will drive down the cost of health care in our nation . Host we have been talking a lot about not only health of humans but the health of society today. Thest recently interviewed former president of miamidade college. They are saying they have been under orders to be prepared to reopen in person classes at miamidade college. It goes through k12 as well. We have seen the president say if you do not open we may not find you. Have got to have money, support from schools. He was basically saying he is somewhat opposed to this. This are you right now and question of School Reopening and how we should be doing it and whether we should be providing support for schools that are going to be taking our children back . The craig you cannot have conversation about education without starting with the conversation about what should the federal strategy be around the Health Aspects of covid19. I certainly from the start i believe we should have had a more robust federal strategy as it relates to testing, Contact Tracing. I am one of the four founding members of the supply chain ,aucus in the u. S. Congress which members thought would be a sexy topic. Host the supply chain is a hot topic. Rep. Craig it comes down to how do we use the defense production act. I support the administration what i think they are the right track publicly, and i believe it is my responsibility to say out loud we need a federal strategy as it relates to testing, to supply chain, to make sure we have the components for the capacity of testing. We have got to get our testing and our Contact Tracing capabilities ramped up in order to and go back. We needed to do that to effectively reopen the economy. We have shown and many states we have not achieved an effective reopening of the economy. We have got to go back to the source of the issue. I think you will see the same thing as it relates to education in this country. Unless we have a strong testing, ppe, robust pp supply, which i believe would require more robust use of the defense production act. We will be opening, shutting down, we will not have Contact Tracing capabilities in our schools. This is a Health Care Issue. We cannot have the conversation educationeconomy or without addressing the Health Care Issue first. Host representative angie craig, i hope you will come back and talk about this. I hope we can do this again soon. Thank you rep. Craig thank you so much for having me. Sunday night, the american conservatives acting director on a special edition of the magazine. There is a lot going on in our country right now and it is unsettling times for a number of americans. Everything having to do with the covid crisis to the lockdowns to the killing of george floyd and subsequent protests and riots and the president ial elections. A lot of people are taking the opportunity to reexamine First Principles and trying to figure out where we stand as a nation. Watch sunday night at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspans q a. The u. S. House and Senate Return on monday to resume legislative business following their state work. Bank following the fourth of july holiday. The uss considers the 2020 Defense Authorization act with the votes expected as early as 11 30 eastern. The city convenes at 3 00 p. M. Y resume authorization give he has been serving in an acting capacity since july 2019. The Senate Advances nomination on a partyline vote. At 5 30 p. M. The senate votes on the boat confirmation. Watch live coverage of the house when they return on cspan, live coverage on the senate on cspan2. Watch our daily unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house on issues that matter to you. Ongoing efforts to focus on a mission, to save lives, meet the needs of our states, our health care workers. Along with briefings on the coronavirus pandemic, Supreme Court oral arguments and decisions, and the latest from campaign 2020. Be a part of the conversation everyay