In the News
Two lawmakers who led a bipartisan medical innovation bill last year are warning that President Trump's hiring freeze on federal workers could harm its implementation.
Reps. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) said Tuesday at an event hosted by The Hill that they want the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to be able to hire more workers in order to expedite the approval of new drugs and devices, as their measure, the 21st Century Cures Act, intends.
En route to becoming the most decorated Olympian ever, Michael Phelps competed at five Summer Games and six world championships. The mistrust around the swimming pool was so deep, he says now, that not once did he feel those international competitions were completely free of dopers.
"I can't describe how frustrating it is to see another athlete break through performance barriers in unrealistic timeframes, knowing what I had to go through to do it," said Phelps, who retired last year with 28 career Olympic medals.
So many people registered for a town hall meeting held by U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette on Saturday morning that the venue had to be changed.
DeGette communications director Lynne Weil told Denverite that after the congresswoman notified constituents of the event via her email newsletter, enough people planned to attend that the meeting needed to be moved from a room at Regis University to a hall inside the Police Protective Association with seating for 999.
By Diana DeGette
Last month, President Barack Obama signed into law a bipartisan measure revolutionizing biomedicine in the United States that I co-authored: the 21st Century Cures Act.
While writing that bill with Republican Fred Upton of Michigan, I learned what this country's researchers, heath care providers, patients and private-sector stakeholders needed to modernize the federal approach to biomedicine — changes that will lead to better, faster treatment and cures.
One day before President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration, the vast majority of House Democrats are warning him to think twice before supporting and signing Republican laws that they say would undermine women's health care.
U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette plans to attend President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration Friday, but as the longtime Democratic congresswoman told a classroom of South High School students on Tuesday, it's more about supporting the institution than the actual man taking the oath of office.
"It's about the stability and the strength of the United States as a country, that we have a peaceful transition and we respect the results of our election process," DeGette said. "It's important, even if you don't like the guy."
U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, Rep. Ed Perlmutter, Colorado Lt. Gov. Donna Lynne, Colorado House Speaker Crisanta Duran and some 200 people who couldn't fit in the Laborers International Union Local 720 building turned out Sunday to fight against the repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette and other Democratic state and federal lawmakers rallied Obamacare supporters Sunday, urging them to fight against repeal of the law and promising to protect it from Republicans bent on scrapping it.
Repealing the law could strip health care from previously uninsured people who benefited from the 2014 launch of the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, DeGette said.
Republicans in Congress are preparing to repeal the law but so far have presented no plan to replace it.
From Rewire
House Republicans will attempt to defund Planned Parenthood as part of the fast-track legislative process to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
"Planned Parenthood legislation would be in our reconciliation bill," Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, told reporters Thursday during his weekly press conference.
The Cures Act, formally known as H.R. 34 or the 21st Century Cures Act,1 passed overwhelmingly in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate in the waning days of the 114th Congress and was signed into law by President Barack Obama on December 13, 2016. Weighing in at nearly 1000 pages, this bipartisan bill is the product of years of hard work by Republican and Democratic lawmakers, in collaboration with a broad array of diverse stakeholders.