More Mental Health and telemedicine options. Hello and welcome to axios Virtual Event health care 2021. I am sam Baker Health Care at are coming to you from my home in washington dc. I would like to thank the United Health. For making these conversations possible and thank her audience. Follow along on twitter using the or following. Over the next three minutes we will unpack best way to unpack Health Insurance access and coverage in the United States and exactly what that path forward looks like following the election and in the midst of a pandemic getting worse every day. Our first guest is senator tina smith of minnesota. Thank you. It is terrific to be with everyone today. I would like to start off framing this conversation. Obviously, Health Care Access and coverage has been a hot topic for a long time but i think the pandemic has highlighted and illustrated some of the gaps we are dealing with in the system. We have seen millions of people lose their health determines because the
Partnership for Public Services center for president ial transition. Why is a successful president ial transition so important . Safety isabout our the ultimate answer here. When you think about it, our democratic system envisions transfers of power when you have election so you have accountable government. That means that a new team has to figure out how to take charge immediately on january 20 in an effective way. Its a big task. When you think about our government you are looking at trillions of dollars, 4 million of people 4 million people, hundreds of operating units, and historically president s have aborted 4000 political appointees. Its a massive underage have appointed 400 political employees. Its a massive undertaking. The world is such a dangerous place that there is not a lot of time on the other postosted january 20 january 20 to do your learning curve, you have to be on top of it right away and have plans in place and work well together. That is work that takes lots of pe