Committee InfoDescriptionIn recent years, rarely has more heated debate occurred on the Senate floor than as a result of the partisan divide over health care legislation. Unsurprisingly, most of these bills originate from the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee (HELP). This committee is currently back in spotlight, as the Senate debates the future of American health care.The HELP Committee has an extensive past, from negotiating solutions to labor union disputes in the early 1900s, managing the integration of public schools in the 1950s, and finally to settling more recent issues involving genetic privacy. Created in 1869 as the Education committee, the HELP committee has since broadened its jurisdiction to include the wide breadth of social issues that HELP is known for addressing today. After World War II, the committee worked to strength emergency care both for military persons and civilians. In 1946, the committee pushed the Hospital Survey and Construction Act, which modernized the nation's hospital system. By the time Johnson's Great Society programs were in effect, the committee was supporting legislation to support the War on Poverty. More expansion occurred in 1969 with programs to support aging citizens, the arts and humanities, equal opportunity employment, student loans, and biomedical research and development. Currently, the committee is further divided into three subcommittees: Children and Families, Employment and Workplace Safety, and Retirement and Aging. Each subcommittee is lead by a chairperson of the majority party and a ranking member of the minority party. The HELP committee as a whole is structured like this, with Tom Harkin (D-IA) serving as chair and Mike Enzi (R-WY) as ranking member. In 2009, during the current 111th Congress, much progress is being made in regards to “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” which was recently agreed upon by Senators to come to the floor for debate along a string 60-39 party line vote. This bill is very similar to the bill that was passed by the House, and represents a consolidation of the Senate Finance and Senate HELP committees’ work. The leaders of HELP remain split on this bill, however. Chairman Harkin stated that the Senate “…will make history by, at long last, passing comprehensive health reform.” Ranking Member Enzi is focused on working on the details of the bill more carefully: “I hope to defeat this bill so that we can move forward to work on real, bipartisan health care reform.” In the area of health, the committee’s jurisdiction covers most of the agencies in the Department of Health and Human Services, including the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health.. In the area of education, the committee focuses on areas such as refunding and reauthorizing No Child Left Behind, Head Start (a federal preschool program), and decreasing the cost of higher education. With respect to labor and pensions, the HELP committee concentrates on raising the minimum wage, promoting paid sick days for workers, and strengthening retirement security. As clear from the recent vote, the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee is typically divided along party lines. Issues such as universal health care, raising the minimum wage, and education reform tend to create minimal bipartisan cooperation. There are, however, times when certain legislative items earn unanimous approval. These bills, of course, are more symbolic than substantial pieces of legislation that would radically alter the nation's health care or retirement landscape. You can go to http://help.senate.gov/index.html for more information on the committee as well as http://thomas.loc.gov/ for information regarding recent or pending legislation. -------------------- My name is Mark Smyda, and I am a sophomore in the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Penn. I am majoring in computational biology with possible minors in computer science and astronomy. In addition to Penn Model Congress, I am also the co-editor in chief of Penn Triangle, a science and technology magazine of the engineering school. I went to Wheeler High School in Marietta, GA, outside of Atlanta, my hometown. Last year. I served as the chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure committee, and I know this year's event will be even better. Please feel free to contact me at msmyda@seas.upenn.edu if you have any questions about the committee, your bill, or the conference in general. I look forward to meeting all of you. My name is Jeff Rollman and I am a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania in the Health Care Management joint degree program, receiving degrees from both the Wharton School of Business and the Nursing School. While I do envy my classmates going in to finance, I plan to join the US Navy as an officer following graduation. I love getting my hands dirty (quite literally, sometimes) as an EMT with MERT (Penn’s Medical Emergency Response Team) and as a technician at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. I love running through Philadelphia’s many neighborhoods, and I’d be happy to take any of you on a tour. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I do not get squeezed as a health care provider, so I am following the current healthcare debate very carefully. Please feel free to ask me any and all questions you may have regarding HELP, Model Congress or Penn and I look forward to meeting you all soon! My email is jrollman@wharton.upenn.edu. Chairs
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Account LoginConference DatesMarch 31 - April 3, 2011 RegistrationRegistration is now closed. InformationClick here for more details about PENNMC 2011! Check us out on Facebook!
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