WEBVTT 00:00:11.177 --> 00:00:12.812 Well, Like so many Americans, 00:00:12.812 --> 00:00:17.050 my family and my friends have faced mental health challenges. 00:00:17.350 --> 00:00:19.986 And so, you know, I think that there's very few families 00:00:19.986 --> 00:00:23.423 and very few workplaces or communities that can't say that. 00:00:23.723 --> 00:00:27.060 And I think one of the things that I've seen is even as we've made 00:00:27.460 --> 00:00:30.263 advances in the ability to treat mental health, 00:00:30.997 --> 00:00:33.400 the actual delivery of that treatment, 00:00:33.600 --> 00:00:37.871 the affordability and the accessibility has often lagged behind. 00:00:37.904 --> 00:00:42.075 And so one of the things I've been really focused on is trying to make sure 00:00:42.242 --> 00:00:47.313 that insurers, that providers are actually delivering on mental health care. 00:00:47.347 --> 00:00:49.783 When I moved to Orange County ten years ago, 00:00:50.316 --> 00:00:55.422 there were no pediatric mental health beds in the entire county. 00:00:55.889 --> 00:00:58.391 And as I said, you might think, well, it's just a county. 00:00:58.658 --> 00:01:02.162 Orange County is bigger than like 20 some states, 00:01:02.495 --> 00:01:05.265 and yet we had no pediatric mental health beds. 00:01:05.565 --> 00:01:08.568 And so although that's changed with leadership of our children's 00:01:08.568 --> 00:01:12.872 hospital over time, it really goes to show you how difficult it is 00:01:13.506 --> 00:01:17.077 to be able to find mental health care as well as afford it. 00:01:17.310 --> 00:01:19.813 And so when I talk about people being healthy, 00:01:20.013 --> 00:01:22.682 I mean healthy in every aspect of their lives. 00:01:22.949 --> 00:01:25.318 Both physical and mental health. 00:01:32.092 --> 00:01:35.228 Well, talking to different people about their experiences, one of the great 00:01:35.228 --> 00:01:39.132 things about being a congressperson is people share their life stories with you. 00:01:39.165 --> 00:01:41.034 They share their frustrations with you. 00:01:41.034 --> 00:01:45.105 And I think one of the amazing things that we've seen the disability community 00:01:45.105 --> 00:01:49.609 do, over my lifetime, as I was born in the era of the ADA. 00:01:49.742 --> 00:01:50.977 I grew up in Iowa. 00:01:50.977 --> 00:01:52.545 Tom Harkin was my senator, 00:01:52.545 --> 00:01:56.416 I can remember what a big deal it was to have the ADA pass. 00:01:56.416 --> 00:02:00.320 As we've seen the stigma reduced and more and more people feel like 00:02:00.320 --> 00:02:03.356 they can talk about their frustrations and their challenges, 00:02:03.990 --> 00:02:06.392 what they could accomplish, what they couldn't get, 00:02:06.392 --> 00:02:10.130 in terms of wellness, and what they often are falling short on. 00:02:10.130 --> 00:02:12.565 And so, you know I started talking to different people. 00:02:12.565 --> 00:02:14.567 I started looking at things, 00:02:14.567 --> 00:02:17.871 you know talking to psychiatrists in our community, psychologists, 00:02:17.871 --> 00:02:21.975 social workers, schools, teachers, and hearing about their challenges. 00:02:21.975 --> 00:02:25.345 And so I think that's really part of being a representative, is that learning part. 00:02:25.812 --> 00:02:28.081 Learning what the problems are in your community 00:02:28.248 --> 00:02:32.452 and then teaching other people about them to create that momentum to fix them. 00:02:38.925 --> 00:02:43.129 There are real lessons to be drawn from the successes of the ADA, 00:02:43.163 --> 00:02:47.400 from the successes of the advocacy of the disability community 00:02:47.400 --> 00:02:50.470 and those who support the disability community have done, which is that 00:02:50.670 --> 00:02:55.942 allowing every American, regardless of their different abilities 00:02:55.942 --> 00:03:00.513 to achieve their potential, is a great thing for our economy. 00:03:00.547 --> 00:03:05.852 In fact, when we design inclusive things, not only do we create opportunity 00:03:05.852 --> 00:03:09.189 for people with disabilities to contribute to our economy, 00:03:09.189 --> 00:03:13.159 to contribute their talents and their passions to our society. 00:03:13.159 --> 00:03:17.163 But often designing things from an inclusive perspective 00:03:17.397 --> 00:03:20.333 creates a better outcome for everybody. 00:03:20.433 --> 00:03:22.902 And so I heard a lot about this exact thing 00:03:23.336 --> 00:03:25.505 when I chaired my hearing this fall 00:03:25.939 --> 00:03:30.076 on the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee on Natural Resources. 00:03:30.310 --> 00:03:34.380 I was really interested in the topic of the accessibility of public lands, 00:03:34.847 --> 00:03:35.715 and I mean the 00:03:35.715 --> 00:03:39.452 accessibility to a lot of different ways, including the cost of getting there, 00:03:39.619 --> 00:03:43.890 the transportation issues where we locate these public lands in terms of 00:03:44.891 --> 00:03:46.025 environmental justice. 00:03:46.025 --> 00:03:47.894 But I also meant very particularly 00:03:47.894 --> 00:03:49.896 the accessibility for the disability community. 00:03:50.330 --> 00:03:51.931 And here's what I learned: 00:03:51.931 --> 00:03:55.235 Good trail design that helps people 00:03:55.235 --> 00:03:59.038 with physical disabilities is also the right 00:03:59.038 --> 00:04:03.443 kind of trail design to prevent erosion and ensure conservation. 00:04:03.843 --> 00:04:07.213 And so in addition to making these trails more accessible 00:04:07.213 --> 00:04:10.783 for people who, for example, may use wheelchairs, may use different kinds 00:04:10.783 --> 00:04:13.019 of walking assistance or mobility assistance, 00:04:13.219 --> 00:04:17.090 you also make those trails easier for people who use strollers and have kids 00:04:17.290 --> 00:04:20.193 or people who are seniors who may have balance challenges. 00:04:20.627 --> 00:04:24.030 And so the result is more people in our national parks, 00:04:24.030 --> 00:04:25.832 more people on our public lands. 00:04:25.832 --> 00:04:28.935 And this is good, both for our souls, for our spirits, 00:04:29.102 --> 00:04:32.739 but also for our economy and those rural communities around the public lands. 00:04:32.739 --> 00:04:36.609 So I think it's just a false idea that sometimes gets pushed out 00:04:37.143 --> 00:04:41.748 by corporations, or by the business community, that accomodating 00:04:41.748 --> 00:04:46.753 every American to the extent possible, is somehow a burden or an expense. 00:04:46.753 --> 00:04:50.823 To the contrary, it is a benefit and it is a privilege 00:04:51.057 --> 00:04:54.627 that we are able in our country to welcome everybody into these institutions and 00:04:54.627 --> 00:04:56.095 organizations. As a 00:04:57.764 --> 00:04:59.866 Single mom of three kids, who 00:04:59.866 --> 00:05:03.403 is by myself when I have little kids and trying to navigate, 00:05:04.037 --> 00:05:07.140 you know, a lot of the things that our people may 00:05:07.640 --> 00:05:10.843 think of in a strict legal sense as sort of accommodations 00:05:11.077 --> 00:05:14.047 for the disability community, also make those trails 00:05:14.047 --> 00:05:15.782 and those experiences possible for me. 00:05:15.782 --> 00:05:20.219 So a great example here is designing picnic tables 00:05:20.553 --> 00:05:22.522 that accommodate wheelchairs. 00:05:22.522 --> 00:05:25.692 Those same picnic tables also accommodate high chairs 00:05:26.292 --> 00:05:28.728 and accommodate people who need different kinds of seating 00:05:28.728 --> 00:05:30.730 and different kinds of support when they sit. 00:05:30.730 --> 00:05:34.701 So I think these's a lot of inclusive design principle 00:05:34.934 --> 00:05:37.470 that we ought to be bringing to everything 00:05:38.237 --> 00:05:41.374 and recognizing too, that the disability community 00:05:41.774 --> 00:05:44.911 and people with disabilities, it's not just one kind of disability 00:05:45.478 --> 00:05:48.448 and the kinds of technological systems and what's possible 00:05:48.681 --> 00:05:50.416 for people is going to change over time. 00:05:50.416 --> 00:05:54.554 So for more inclusive we can be in those design principles 00:05:54.721 --> 00:05:56.122 we're offering going to better be better 00:05:56.122 --> 00:05:59.826 at achieving our goals and set ourselves up for the future, 00:05:59.992 --> 00:06:03.162 which I hope will continue to see more options and possibilities 00:06:03.429 --> 00:06:05.765 for people with disabilities to fully participate. 00:06:12.505 --> 00:06:15.975 One of the things we've seen is, for example, with housing for our military, 00:06:16.609 --> 00:06:20.747 my teacher, Senator Warren, was pushing to make sure that we're building more 00:06:20.747 --> 00:06:24.384 military housing, that it can accommodate people with disabilities. 00:06:24.684 --> 00:06:28.821 But if we were to design these houses with a "visitability" lens, 00:06:28.821 --> 00:06:31.791 like you said, we would build them all that way. 00:06:31.824 --> 00:06:35.928 And that means as the population of people with disabilities goes up and down, 00:06:36.162 --> 00:06:37.597 we don't run into these shortages. 00:06:37.597 --> 00:06:39.432 and these blockages because we've designed it 00:06:39.432 --> 00:06:41.701 so that it's appropriate for everybody right from the start. 00:06:42.101 --> 00:06:46.339 Orange County, California, really boomed in sort of the seventies, 00:06:46.339 --> 00:06:49.742 and the eighties, and the nineties, and a lot those folds now are aging. 00:06:50.009 --> 00:06:51.644 So, in the district that I represent, 00:06:51.644 --> 00:06:54.914 California's 45th District, we have an aging population. 00:06:55.081 --> 00:06:59.819 We're also home to the second largest retirement community in the United States. 00:06:59.819 --> 00:07:00.987 Laguna Woods. 00:07:00.987 --> 00:07:04.657 Many of us now at different points in our life, will benefit from 00:07:04.657 --> 00:07:07.059 from different kinds of accommodations. 00:07:07.059 --> 00:07:09.262 And so that's why I think about 00:07:09.662 --> 00:07:12.732 accommodating disabilities, not as something that we do 00:07:13.533 --> 00:07:16.869 just for people with disabilities, but it's something we do for all of us. 00:07:16.869 --> 00:07:19.872 We all benefit from having people with disabilities in 00:07:19.972 --> 00:07:24.076 and among places, and we also all benefit from those universal design principles, 00:07:24.277 --> 00:07:26.846 often at different points in our lives. 00:07:33.586 --> 00:07:37.523 People with disabilities often face special health care needs, 00:07:37.523 --> 00:07:43.262 but what they get from the healthcare system is distinctly unfair treatment. 00:07:43.262 --> 00:07:45.932 And we see this in a lot of different ways, everything 00:07:45.932 --> 00:07:49.235 from denial of organ transplants 00:07:49.936 --> 00:07:53.706 to very, very difficult, arduous arguments about 00:07:53.973 --> 00:07:57.910 what is and is not medically necessary for people with disabilities. 00:07:57.910 --> 00:08:01.113 So I've been working across the aisle to address some of these issues 00:08:01.113 --> 00:08:02.415 and I'm really grateful 00:08:02.415 --> 00:08:05.918 for the disability community in helping me understand these challenges 00:08:05.918 --> 00:08:06.919 and raise them. 00:08:06.919 --> 00:08:10.490 So for example, with my colleague Jamie Herrera Butler, a representative 00:08:10.990 --> 00:08:14.594 Republican from Washington, we have introduced the Charlotte Woodward 00:08:14.594 --> 00:08:18.531 Organ Transplant Discrimination Prevention Act, 00:08:18.531 --> 00:08:22.535 and it would end blatant discrimination in organ donation 00:08:22.535 --> 00:08:26.672 against people with disabilities which is often based on perceived years 00:08:26.672 --> 00:08:30.710 of life, years of quality life in ways that are really unfair 00:08:31.210 --> 00:08:33.246 to people with disabilities. 00:08:33.246 --> 00:08:36.616 We've also been working on making sure that we preserve 00:08:36.816 --> 00:08:40.253 the tax deduction for extraordinary medical expenses. 00:08:40.853 --> 00:08:42.555 That is a big issue. 00:08:42.555 --> 00:08:45.825 People with disabilities, particularly if they're facing any kind of surgery 00:08:45.825 --> 00:08:49.795 or procedure to continue to treat disability 00:08:49.795 --> 00:08:53.900 throughout their lifetime, making sure that we preserve that tax deduction. 00:08:54.667 --> 00:08:57.670 And then also looking at what insurers are doing. 00:08:57.670 --> 00:09:01.140 And for me, this started with a real interest in mental health parity, 00:09:01.574 --> 00:09:02.808 the promise that insurers 00:09:02.808 --> 00:09:05.611 that treat mental health and physical health the same. 00:09:05.878 --> 00:09:06.746 They do not. 00:09:06.746 --> 00:09:09.181 They break that promise year after year. 00:09:09.482 --> 00:09:12.718 So I passed a bill to help crack down on insurers, 00:09:12.718 --> 00:09:18.090 and that got me interest in how insurers define medical necessity 00:09:18.658 --> 00:09:21.427 and the way that they do this with regard to things like 00:09:22.929 --> 00:09:24.297 wheelchairs, assistive 00:09:24.297 --> 00:09:27.900 devices, prostheses is really, really problematic. 00:09:27.900 --> 00:09:31.871 And so it's often very, very biased against the disability community 00:09:31.871 --> 00:09:34.240 and prevents them from being as healthy as they could be. 00:09:34.240 --> 00:09:39.345 I've written to the Biden administration and asked them to issue better guidance 00:09:39.679 --> 00:09:44.951 to insurance companies on what they mean by medical necessity, and to police insurers more. 00:09:44.951 --> 00:09:49.922 We should not be putting it on patients, on consumers 00:09:51.090 --> 00:09:55.361 to be able to go to battle with these huge insurance companies with big insurance, 00:09:55.561 --> 00:10:00.333 that is the job of the government to fairly enforce the law and to look behind 00:10:00.866 --> 00:10:05.371 what may seem like a vacuous definitions of medical necessity and see how in 00:10:05.371 --> 00:10:09.508 real life they are discriminating against people with disabilities. 00:10:16.248 --> 00:10:21.053 Yeah, look, healthy air, clean water, being able to be healthy in 00:10:21.053 --> 00:10:24.156 your environment is something that's important for all Americans. 00:10:24.690 --> 00:10:28.027 But it is particularly important for people who may be struggling with 00:10:28.027 --> 00:10:31.931 lung disease, maybe have more difficult to treat conditions. 00:10:31.931 --> 00:10:34.700 And so I think this is an issue about equity. 00:10:34.700 --> 00:10:36.902 It's an issue of justice. 00:10:36.902 --> 00:10:39.639 And we know that certain communities as well, lower income 00:10:39.639 --> 00:10:44.176 communities, communities of color of long than the repository of pollution. 00:10:45.111 --> 00:10:48.948 And so I think it's important that we begin that transition to green energy, 00:10:49.148 --> 00:10:52.284 that we see it as something that we're doing both for our health, 00:10:52.885 --> 00:10:57.023 for our planet, but also for our economic competitiveness. 00:10:57.590 --> 00:11:00.226 So many of our competitor countries, including China, 00:11:00.226 --> 00:11:02.995 are investing much more in green energy than we are. 00:11:03.229 --> 00:11:06.999 And part of the reason they're doing that is they understand that the economy 00:11:07.199 --> 00:11:10.836 that has the manufacturing jobs for the next century 00:11:11.037 --> 00:11:14.607 will be the country that figures out how to manufacture in a clean way. 00:11:15.007 --> 00:11:18.044 And it's the same thing in terms of thinking about housing shortage, 00:11:18.644 --> 00:11:20.813 with is a big issue here in California. 00:11:20.813 --> 00:11:22.515 How can we build more housing? 00:11:22.515 --> 00:11:26.185 Part of that is thinking about how can we build housing in a very green way 00:11:26.419 --> 00:11:30.056 that minimizes the harms on the environment, that lets us 00:11:30.056 --> 00:11:33.192 put more dense housing without harming our environment. 00:11:33.659 --> 00:11:38.097 I think one of the things that's really, really important, as an elected official, 00:11:38.330 --> 00:11:41.200 is to be honest with the American people. 00:11:41.767 --> 00:11:45.304 And that means really pushing some of these fossil fuel companies, 00:11:46.105 --> 00:11:50.509 to push against what we call "greenwashing", which is, you know, when they 00:11:50.509 --> 00:11:53.646 when they say that the're all about clean energy transition 00:11:53.879 --> 00:11:57.283 and yet they continue behind the scenes to spend 00:11:58.050 --> 00:12:02.221 millions and millions of dollars lobbying against clean energy initiatives. 00:12:02.521 --> 00:12:05.224 So I think that's really important, not just to ask, 00:12:05.624 --> 00:12:07.426 do you support clean energy? 00:12:07.426 --> 00:12:09.428 You know, do you like polar bears? 00:12:09.428 --> 00:12:11.330 Everybody's going to say yes. 00:12:11.330 --> 00:12:16.435 But really to say, what action will you take to put behind your words? 00:12:16.469 --> 00:12:19.939 So you know if I had asked when you think back to the conversation 00:12:19.939 --> 00:12:23.342 I had with the CDC director about free COVID testing, 00:12:23.843 --> 00:12:27.079 if I had asked him, do you think that, you know, 00:12:27.113 --> 00:12:31.350 anyone should not get a COVID test because they're worried about the expense? 00:12:31.717 --> 00:12:33.552 He would have said, Oh, of course not. 00:12:33.552 --> 00:12:36.555 I think everybody should get a COVID test who needs one. 00:12:37.123 --> 00:12:40.826 But that doesn't mean that everyone will be able to get one. 00:12:41.026 --> 00:12:44.163 And so you really have to push toward what is the action 00:12:44.163 --> 00:12:46.265 that you're going to be able to connect this to. 00:12:46.265 --> 00:12:50.703 So if you're testifying before me and you're saying that you believe 00:12:50.703 --> 00:12:53.873 climate change is real and you think it's an existential threat, 00:12:54.306 --> 00:12:57.176 I need to hear, the american people need to hear, 00:12:57.176 --> 00:13:00.579 the people of this world need to hear, what are you doing? 00:13:00.946 --> 00:13:02.782 What are you doing to reduce emissions? 00:13:02.782 --> 00:13:04.950 What you doing to change your business model? 00:13:05.217 --> 00:13:07.052 What are you doing to make a difference? 00:13:07.052 --> 00:13:08.921 And it needs to be meaningful and real. 00:13:08.921 --> 00:13:10.689 It can't be empty words.