00:00General Lee is back now, recognize the chairman of the full committee, Chairman Guthrie, for five
00:05minutes for his opening statement. Thank you, Chairman Griffith. I congratulate you on your
00:09new role and excited as you lead your first health subcommittee hearing today as chairman,
00:14and I thank all the witnesses for being here before us today. I think Representative Carter
00:19had to run upstairs. Two hearings kind of going on today upstairs. I just want to commend him on
00:24his excellent work, as we talked about yesterday, and point out, I want to say this correctly,
00:29so I want to be misquoted, that he was at the funeral of his granddaughter's cousin. So it
00:35was not his granddaughter's, granddaughter's cousin, who all three of them were at Count
00:39Mystic, and fortunately his granddaughter survived. It's so sad for the Hunt family and the loss of
00:44their, and all the others. But he did a great job leading this committee, and he's going to
00:49continue to help Americans from a new role he's seeking here in Washington, D.C., and excited for
00:55him. But we're here today to discuss the reauthorization of FDA's over-the-counter
01:00monograph drug user fee program known as OMUFA, as well as several health workforce and rural
01:09health care programs administered by HRSA, which are all set to expire on September 30th of this year.
01:16This is the first reauthorization of OMUFA, and I look forward to hearing from the FDA's Dr. Jacqueline
01:22Corrigan-Curray, I think that's correct, on the implementation of the program and outcomes of
01:27the first five years of the program. The original bill reformed the regulation of over-the-counter
01:32drugs, products that so many of us and our constituents use every day to reduce the bureaucracy,
01:38increase transparency, and allow innovation to flourish. The safety and efficacy of these
01:43products is critical, which is why reauthorizing this program in a timely manner is so important.
01:49And I'm also looking forward to hearing from our witnesses about ways we can improve participation
01:54in the health care workforce and increase access to care in rural areas. Rural areas like my home
02:00state of Kentucky face a unique set of challenges ranging from limited access to emergency services
02:06and specialized medical care to higher rates of chronic conditions like high blood pressure and
02:12obesity. It is imperative for lawmakers to understand these nuances and ensure federal support is
02:18targeted to those areas that need it the most. I'm hopeful that this hearing will provide us with an
02:22update on how these various programs are operating and any gaps that may need to be addressed to
02:28streamline and improve health care outcomes. And I appreciate my good friend from Colorado as she
02:35ended her opening statement saying that time for us to find opportunities to work together. I believe this
02:40is one of those great opportunities and we'll have others. Some of the great pieces of legislation
02:46that are lasting and standing came out of this committee like cured. You worked with cures
02:50with our previous chairman, Fred Upton, and hopefully we can follow some of those pathways and
02:56and find ways to work together. When we were on the other side of this, this majority, well, on the minority
03:03side, we, we had issues that we didn't support that came out in a partisan way, but we found ways to work
03:09together. And I know that we'll be able on other issues, we'll be able to do that as well. So thank you for that. And I think the
03:15witnesses for your participation today, and I look forward to today's discussion and can end up going
03:21working together and I will yield back.
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