This past week the Senate continued to work on a draft health care bill. Senate Majority Leader McConnell made a wise decision to delay voting on the bill and give senators time to reach an agreement. There are some differences remaining, but this issue is important enough to the country that if we need another few days to get it right, we ought to do that.

It's important to remember that the alternative to the draft Senate health care bill is the current law that leaves 162,000 Tennesseans who make less than $12,000 a year without aid to buy insurance, and as many as 350,000 Tennesseans in the individual market facing the real possibility of having zero insurance options next year.

The draft Senate health care bill makes no change in the law protecting people with pre-existing conditions, no change in Medicare benefits, and annually increases Medicaid funding— that’s TennCare—at least at the rate of inflation. It will help stop skyrocketing premiums, allow states to approve lower-cost health plans, increase the number of insurance choices available for next year, and lay groundwork for a long-term solution. But it won’t finish the job. We’ll have plenty left to do.

I talk more about what this draft Senate health care bill could mean for Tennessee here and here. 

Last Tuesday, I met with the Tennessee Farmers Co-op and discussed priorities such as continuing construction on Chickamauga Lock and rural access to broadband.

The FDA is taking seriously its responsibility to help ensure nothing like Tennessee’s deadly meningitis outbreak ever happens again

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released an update on its progress implementing a 2013 law I sponsored to help ensure the safety of compounded drugs, after the 2012 deadly meningitis outbreak that took 16 Tennessee lives. The outbreak was a nightmare for Tennesseans—we expect the drugs we pick up at our pharmacies and receive at doctors’ offices and hospitals to be safe. Congress passed this bill making it clear who is in charge of overseeing each compounding facility to help ensure nothing like the outbreak ever happens again, and I appreciate that the FDA is taking its responsibility seriously.

I spoke on the phone with Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Seema Verma about how supercomputers at our national laboratories, like at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, can be secret weapons in finding millions of fraudulent Medicare and Medicaid claims. I talked with Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price about creating this new partnership at a hearing earlier this month.

Encouraging the Labor Department to rework the overtime rule

I outlined the problems with the Obama Administration’s overtime rule and encouraged Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta to rework the regulation with these considerations in mind. Under the rule, the salary threshold under which certain salaried employees qualify for overtime pay was set to double overnight, which would result in workers having less flexibility and opportunity for advancement in the workplace. I have also heard from non-profits about the harm this rule would cause, especially colleges and universities who have told me they would have to raise tuition by a large amount to accommodate the overtime increase.

Ensuring that an agency that touches the lives of almost every American is properly funded

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers touches the lives of almost every American by maintaining our inland waterways, keeping our ports open, and managing river levels to prevent flooding. On Wednesday, I chaired a hearing to review the president’s FY2018 budget request for the Corps of Engineers where I said that if we look at the condition of the locks and dams that the Corps operates across the country, for example, we can easily see exactly why we need to spend more – not less – on water infrastructure. Critical projects, such as replacing Chickamauga Lock in Tennessee, have been piling up for years due to a lack of funding, and many of us in Congress have recognized that we needed to take steps to increase funding for the Corps of Engineers to address this backlog. I focused my questions at that hearing on 1) Making our nation's water infrastructure a priority; 2) Properly funding our inland waterways system; 3) Adequately funding our nation’s ports and harbors; and 4) Using a more common-sense approach to making funding decisions. Click here to read more.

Headed to Washington, D.C., on a family trip this summer? If you’re going to be visiting on a Tuesday when the Senate is in session, sign up to attend Tennessee Tuesday, the weekly breakfast Senator Corker and I host. My office can also arrange tours of the Capitol and other attractions.

Taking the next step toward stopping regulation of Tennessee farmers’ mud puddles

The Trump Administration proposed a rule to rescind an Obama Administration regulation that would give the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers the ability to regulate nearly all the water in the country. I’ve been fighting this regulation since it was announced, and I’m glad the administration is taking the next step towards stopping it. You can read more here.

Click here for my statement on President Trump’s selection of William Emmanuel to serve on the National Labor Relations Board, following last week’s nomination of Marvin Kaplan to serve on the board.

Here are some articles from this week I thought you would enjoy:

Wall Street Journal: Editorial: The ObamaCare Waiver Breakthrough 

Wall Street Journal: Kimberley Strassel: The Simplicity of a Health Deal

Channel 10, Knoxville TV: Draft of NPS report on Chimney Tops 2 fire complete

Washington Examiner: Businesses, GOP praise Trump pick for labor board

Channel 8, Knoxville TV: Bipartisan legislation proposed to ban cell phone calls on airplanes

Expect the truth from children.

At a fundraiser in Nashville for Sen. Fred Thompson, which included Tammy Wynette, Hank Williams Jr., Lorrie Morgan, and Sen. Trent Lott, nine-year-old Ashley Johnson asked for my autograph.

“Why, thank you, Ashley,” I said as I signed her book. “But there are a lot of people here more famous than I am.”

“I know,” she said.

- #138 in Lamar Alexander’s Little Plaid Book