Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday closed off chances that the Senate would pass anytime soon a House bill that would give most Americans $2,000 stimulus payments.
The Kentucky Republican said the House legislation, approved in a bipartisan vote Monday, “has no realistic path” to quick passage in the Senate and that it falls short of the demands of President Donald Trump. He again blocked an attempt by Democratic leader Chuck Schumer to adopt the House bill to increase the payments to $2,000 from the $600 by unanimous consent.
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Nicole Stelter, Ph.D., is the director of Behavioral Health at Blue Shield of California, a nonprofit health plan with more than $22 billion in annual revenue serving 4.7 million members in the state's commercial, individual, and government markets.
Stelter plays a key role in implementing Blue Shield's Behavioral Health Reimagined strategy. She is also responsible for providing behavioral health and market/provider expertise across Blue Shield of California's behavioral health initiatives, with a focus on commercial lines of business.
Stelter has more than 30 years of behavioral health experience, most recently serving as Kaiser Permanente's director of National Strategic Customer Engagement, Specialty Consulting for Mental Health, and Health Equity. In this role, she led the company's total workforce health portfolio, including providing internal and external consultation and product development for mental health, occupational health, wellness, Employee Assistance Programs (EAP), and disability management services.
Stelter holds a bachelor's degree in Psychology and a master's degree in Counseling Psychology from California State University-Dominguez Hills and she earned a PhD degree from Capella University in Minneapolis.
Stelter is a licensed marriage and family therapist, a clinical trauma professional, and holds certifications in community/organizational disaster mental health. Her clinical focus has been with the first-responder community (police and fire), and she served as a behavioral health officer in the California Army National Guard (State Guard/Reserves) from 2010 to 2015.
The Senate instead will work on combining the stimulus payments with measures on election integrity and rolling back social media liability protections, he said. That responds to all three issues Trump has said he wants, but a bill combining them likely will alienate enough senators in both parties to leave prospects for bigger stimulus payments dead in the Senate.
“The Senate is not going to be bullied into rushing out more borrowed money into the hands of the Democrats’ rich friends who don’t need the help,” McConnell said. The House bill would raise the income cutoff to receive a payment.
The clash over the payments also is entangling another piece of year-end business in the Senate — a vote to override Trump’s veto of a crucial $740.5 billion defense policy bill. Senators Bernie Sanders and Ed Markey said they will continue to delay the defense legislation vote unless McConnell relents and allows a vote on a standalone bill on the bigger stimulus checks.
“We are saying to Mitch McConnell, to allow the United States Senate to do what it’s supposed to do, and that is the vote,” Sanders told reporters. “The House passed the bill, it’s over here right now. Do you want to vote against it? Then vote against it.”
Pennsylvania Republican Senator Pat Toomey later blocked an attempt by Sanders to call up the House bill for a roll call vote.