Chair's Press

WASHINGTON, December 13 — Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today said President Obama signed into law a “Christmas Medical Miracle,” the 21st Century Cures Act, which has been called “the most important legislation of the year” by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and has the potential to help virtually every...

NASHVILLE, December 12 – United States Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today released the following statement after meeting this afternoon with respected Tennessee businessman Andy Puzder – President-elect Trump’s nominee to become the next Secretary of Labor: “Andy Puzder and I had an excellent meeting this...

WASHINGTON, D.C., Dec. 10, 2016 – U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today said the Senate’s vote to fully fund the government through April and keep national parks open would also fully fund his 21st Century Cures bill for next year, “sending $500 million in state grants to boost the front lines in the opioid...

In a day when approval of Congress barely exceeds 10 percent of poll respondents and few believe the body ever gets anything meaningful done, the 21st Century Cures Act is, if you will, a remedy of sorts. The $6.3 billion bipartisan legislation, shepherded through the Senate by Tennessee Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander, chairman of the...

Aboard Air Force One headed for Tennessee on a frosty day two Januarys ago, President Barack Obama gave Sen. Lamar Alexander a preview of his Precision Medicine Initiative, the plan to get genomic and other data from a million Americans to use in developing targeted drug therapies. The Tennessean, who was about to take over the Senate...

On the heels of bipartisan House approval, the Senate handily approved the wide-sweeping 21st Century Cures Act, which includes $1 billion in state grants to treat opioid addiction, by a 95-4 vote Tuesday afternoon.  Now the bill will move along to President Barack Obama’s desk, where it will likely be signed into law. Obama has...

U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., is touting the 21st Century Cures bill, which the Senate and House have now passed and President Barack Obama is expected to sign, as "the most important bill of the year." The sprawling 996-page legislation is the most significant health care law passed by Congress since Obamacare, and it won bipartisan backing,...

WASHINGTON, December 8 — Senate labor committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today released the following statement on President-elect Trump’s selection of respected Tennessee businessman Andy Puzder to become the next United States Secretary of Labor: “Mr. Puzder is a respected Tennessee business leader who understands how...

WASHINGTON, D.C., December 8, 2016 – U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) released the following statement after meeting this afternoon with nominee for Health and Human Services Secretary Rep. Tom Price: “I spent an hour with Dr. Tom Price this afternoon and was greatly impressed with his understanding of the need to begin immediately...

WASHINGTON, December 7— Senate health committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today said “the most important bill of the year is headed towards the President’s desk,” after the United States Senate passed the 21st Century Cures Act by a vote of 94 to 5: “For the second consecutive year, the Senate is sending the...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6, 2016 – U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today said a health care bill he cosponsored in the Senate that will help make the medical brain power of institutions like Vanderbilt University Medical Center available to doctors in rural parts of Tennessee and other rural areas of the country is ready for the president’s...

“For the second year in a row, the Senate is poised to send the President another Christmas miracle for his signature—one that will help virtually every American family… I am looking forward to another successful vote in the Senate tomorrow, so we can send this legislation to the White House where the president has his pen ready...

WASHINGTON, December 5 – Ahead of today's Senate vote to move forward on the 21st Century Cures Act, Senate health committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) announced more than 320 organizations – from leading research hospitals to organizations representing patients with rare diseases – are urging Congress...

WASHINGTON, December 2 — Senate health committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today released the following statement on the selection of Representative Greg Walden (R-Ore.) by his caucus to become the next Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee: “I look forward to working with Representative Walden on repealing...

WASHINGTON, December 2 — Senate education committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today released the following statement on the selection of Representative Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) by her caucus to become the next Chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee: “I look forward to working with Representative Foxx, who is...

“This legislation will help us seize on the breathtaking advances in biomedical research and bring those innovations to doctors’ offices and patients’ medicine cabinets around the country. It will advance Vice President Biden’s moonshot to find cures for cancer, President Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative, and...

“The real winners today are American families whose lives stand to be improved by the Cures legislation passed overwhelmingly today by the House and that we should pass by a wide margin in the Senate. This bipartisan legislation – which Majority Leader McConnell has called “the most important legislation Congress will pass this...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 29, 2016 – U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) released the following statement today after the Senate passed the Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes (ECHO) Act, which Alexander cosponsored: "This bill will help provide a way for people who live in rural Tennessee and other rural and underserved areas who are...

WASHINGTON, November 29 — Senate health committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today released the following statement on President-elect Trump’s selection of Representative Tom Price (R-Ga.) to become the next United States Secretary of Health and Human Services: “Dr. Price has a thorough understanding of health care...

WASHINGTON, November 28 — Senate education committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today released the following statement on the Department of Education’s final regulation for implementing the accountability provisions of the Every Student Succeeds Act: “This regulation goes to the heart of the new law fixing No Child Left...