Xavier Becerra has been sworn in as the 25th Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. As Secretary, he will focus on ensuring that all Americans have health security and access to health care.

Follow the Secretary on Twitter at @SecBecerra

Xavier Becerra is the 25th Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. As Secretary, he will focus on ensuring that all Americans have health security and access to healthcare.

Throughout his career, the Secretary has made it his priority to ensure that Americans have access to the affordable healthcare they need to survive and thrive —from his early days as a legal advocate representing individuals with mental illness, to his role as the Attorney General of the state of California.

Secretary Becerra was a 12-term Member of Congress. He served as a member on the Committee on Ways And Means — as Ranking Member of the Ways And Means Subcommittee on Social Security and as member of the Subcommittee on Health. He spent 10 years in the leadership of the House of Representatives, both serving as the Vice Chairman and Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. As a senior member on the Committee on Ways And Means and as a member of the House, he worked to develop the Children's Health Insurance Program, the Affordable Care Act, reduce health disparities in Medicare and Medicaid, and protect Social Security and disability insurance. In addition, he also served as Chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

As California Attorney General, Secretary Becerra led the second-largest Department of Justice in the country to defend the healthcare of working Americans. In his tenure, he created the Health Care and Rights and Access Division. The division's mission was to protect consumers from defective medical products, price gouging, anti-competitive behavior, and health care privacy breaches. As California Attorney General, Secretary Becerra won judgments against device manufactures with defective products, drug manufacturers that wrongly increased prescription drug costs, and an unprecedented anti-trust case against one of the largest health systems in the nation. He also worked to hold opioid distributors, whose activities led to the opioid addiction epidemic, accountable.

While leading the California Department of Justice, Secretary Becerra championed the three-year federal court fight to save the ACA and with it, the protections for the 133 million Americans with preexisting conditions. He expanded the California Department of Justice's efforts to reduce Medicaid fraud and elder abuse by elevating the Division of Medicaid and Elderly Abuse and launched Operation SAFE, a new initiative to ensure that care facilities funded by Medi-Cal are doing their part to keep the elderly safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, he created the Bureau of Disability Rights, which won cases that ensured that students with disabilities received their legally required benefits from school districts.

Born in Sacramento, Secretary Becerra is the son of working-class parents. He was the first in his family to receive a four-year degree, earning his Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Stanford University. He earned his Juris Doctorate from Stanford Law School. His mother was born in Jalisco, Mexico, and immigrated to the United States after marrying his father, a day laborer turned construction worker. He is married to Dr. Carolina Reyes, and he is proud of his three daughters —Clarisa, Olivia, and Natalia —and son-in-law Ivan.

Xavier Becerra introduced himself to the American People as Secretary Xavier Becerra in a welcome video in English and Spanish.

• Message from HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra to the American People:

ENGLISH TRANSCRIPT

My name is Xavier Becerra and I have the privilege to serve as the Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Joe Biden. President Biden made a commitment to the American people to fight hard for them. As Secretary of Health and Human Services, I commit to you that when I get up in the morning, I am fighting to make sure you have health and hope each and every day. You can't have health and hope unless you have access to good healthcare and you know you have health security. I say that very personally because I know growing up I didn't have very much. My parents worked very hard, but there's one thing we did have – we had health access because my father had health insurance through his union job. That gave us security. And we had the peace of mind that comes from knowing that if one of us had gotten ill, my parents could have taken us to the doctor or the hospital and not had to worry about whether we could still pay the rent or the mortgage, or have to go bankrupt. For too many Americans, that peace of mind isn't there. Health access and health security should be our goal. To give each and every one of us access to the best care we can have. To make sure that during this time of COVID pandemic, we all have the vaccine that we need; that we'll have the information to keep our families safe; that we get that care timely, when we need it. That will be my commitment to the American people to work hard every day to make sure that you have access and security when it comes to your healthcare. I thank you for this opportunity to serve. I thank President Biden for his confidence. And I look forward to working on behalf of the American people. Thank you.

SPANISH TRANSCRIPT

Hola, soy Xavier Becerra, el secretario del Departamento de Salud y Servicios Humanos. Y tengo el privilegio de tener ese puesto bajo el presidente Joe Biden. El presidente Biden hizo una promesa al pueblo – de luchar siempre para todos nosotros. Como secretario, yo quiero unirme con el presidente Biden para hacer esa lucha, porque yo sé que en cuanto nuestra salud, necesitamos saber que tenemos esperanza. Así que, para nosotros en el Departamento de Salud y Servicios Humanos, la lucha para su salud, y la esperanza para todos, va ser el trabajo numero uno. Porque sin esa salud y sin esa esperanza, es difícil tener la seguridad que necesitamos todos. Yo lo digo de experiencia. De joven, cuando crecí, yo vi a mis padres siempre trabajar duro. Siempre estábamos buscando mejor modo, pero lo que si teníamos era nuestra salud. Y la teníamos porque mi papa tenía seguro médico bajo su empleo como miembro de un sindicato. Algo muy importante. Yo quiero ofrecerle a cada familia americana esa misma seguridad de saber que si uno tiene que llevar a su hijo al doctor o al hospital, lo puede hacer sin tener que faltar a un pago de su renta. Sin tener que tener el temor de ir en banca rota. Esa seguridad nos da la tranquilidad de saber que vamos a avanzar. Así que en este Departamento de Salud y Servicios Humanos, bajo el presidente Joe Biden, vamos a luchar cada día, para su salud y su seguridad y esperanza. Muchas gracias.