[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 91 (Thursday, May 25, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3164-S3165]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               TrumpCare

  Mr. President, another matter--healthcare. Yesterday, the 
Congressional Budget Office, led by a Director who was handpicked by 
current HHS Secretary Tom Price, Donald Trump's appointee, released its 
analysis of the House Republican healthcare bill--TrumpCare.
  The report makes clear that TrumpCare would be a cancer on the 
American healthcare system--causing costs to skyrocket, making coverage 
unaffordable for many seniors and those with preexisting conditions, 
all the while leaving 23 million fewer Americans with health insurance.
  Now, when people hear this, they say: Why would the Republicans want 
to do it? That just seems mean-spirited. Well, I will tell you why: 
because their No. 1 goal is to give a tax break for the wealthiest of 
Americans. People making above $250,000 pay an additional charge to 
help everyone else with healthcare on their unearned income--not on 
what they do when they are working, but on stocks, bonds, and 
investments. The No. 1 goal of our colleagues across the aisle, sadly, 
is to help those very rich people get even richer.
  Now, to do that, they have to take away people's healthcare. To get 
the money for those tax breaks, they take away people's healthcare. So 
the bottom line is very simple: Unless you are a healthy millionaire, 
TrumpCare is a nightmare. I think that is why our Republican colleagues 
are having such trouble putting together their own bill, because, as 
Senator Durbin has noted, they have excluded us from their 
negotiations.
  Well, the CBO report ought to be a final nail in the coffin of the 
Republican effort to sabotage our healthcare system. Republicans in 
Washington and the President should read the report cover to cover, 
throw their bill in the trash can, and begin working with Democrats on 
a real plan to lower costs and improve care.
  There is a lot to unpack in this report. It came out late yesterday. 
So I want to focus on a couple of provisions this morning.
  First, on health insurance costs, the CBO report makes clear that 
premiums under this bill are headed up in the next several years. 
Consumers would see their premiums increase by 20 percent for next 
year's plans. Now, Republicans will crow about premiums going down in 
the outer years--years away. But the decrease in premiums occurs for 
only one reason: The quality of the insurance will plummet. If you have 
a barebones plan that hardly helps you, where you have to pay huge 
deductibles, huge copayments, and huge premiums and it covers next to 
nothing, of course, the cost will eventually go down. What good is 
that? Why even talk about that kind of healthcare? People don't need it 
and don't want it. Cheaper insurance isn't going to help anyone if it 
doesn't actually lead to the healthcare people need.
  Listen to this one. Older Americans--everyone in America 50 to 64 who 
doesn't have a lot of income, making say $25,000 a year--TrumpCare is 
going to force you to pinch pennies just to be able to afford health 
insurance. The CBO report says that some seniors could see their 
premiums go up a whopping 800 percent under this bill.
  In one of the newspaper articles I saw, I think the senior citizen 
was in his early sixties. They were making about $25,000 or $30,000 a 
year--not unusual for a senior of that age--and their premiums went up 
from $1,700 to $13,000. How are you going to vote for that, my friends, 
telling these people who have worked hard their whole lives that they 
have to pay a lot more and a lot of that money is going to wealthy 
people for a tax cut?
  What about out-of-pocket expenses? By the way, out-of-pocket expenses 
really bother people. How many of us have heard over and over again: I 
have healthcare, and, when I went to the doctor, they said: You, first, 
have to lay out $5,000. How many of us have heard that? Everybody. The 
Republican bill makes it worse.
  According to the CBO report, out-of-pocket costs could balloon for 
vital services in States where they decline to cover essential health 
benefits. Americans could be paying thousands of dollars more every 
year if they need maternity care or programs that treat substance abuse 
or mental health services.
  Listen to this one. According to reports, in States that elect not to 
include maternity care, which every State could elect to do under the 
Republican bill--and many will--insurers would most likely sell 
maternity benefits as an add-on at $1,000 a month--$17,000 more in 
total. Under TrumpCare, women may well have to pay more--much more 
insurance--just because they are a woman, because of pregnancy. So 
costs go up, up, up. If, God forbid, this bill becomes law and costs go 
up, any citizen of this country should go to their Senators who voted 
for this and say: What the heck did you do? You made it worse.
  Now, uncertainty in the market is the second issue. The CBO report 
confirms that the Republican attempts to

[[Page S3165]]

repeal the Affordable Care Act and the Trump administration's refusal 
to guarantee to continue making cost-sharing payments is causing the 
instability in the market.
  Here is what the report says. Now, this is the report put out by the 
Republican-appointed head of the CBO. So this is not some Democratic 
propaganda-type document. These are ``just the facts, ma'am,'' as Mr. 
Friday said. Here is what the report says: ``Substantial uncertainty 
about the enforcement of the individual mandate and about future 
payments of the cost-sharing subsidies'' have led insurers to withdraw 
from the current marketplace.
  AHIP--that is the biggest organization of our Nation's insurers, the 
insurance companies; they are nonpartisan--said the same thing.

  Why, if our colleagues want more people to stay in the market and are 
complaining that people are leaving the market, don't we come 
together--hopefully, with the President, who thinks that he could do 
this on his own--and say: We are going to make this cost-sharing 
permanent. We all know insurers want certainty in the future or they 
pull out. That is what the insurance business is all about. Yet, 
grudgingly, one little step at a time, they don't take away the cost-
sharing because they know the damage it would do--this is President 
Trump--but they are afraid to make it permanent and that causes 
problems.
  So there is only one word for what the President is doing and our 
Republican colleagues are doing when it comes to the present healthcare 
system--sabotage. If our Republican friends continue to allow the 
President to play coy about these cost-sharing payments--which bring 
premiums down, which bring costs for average citizens down--as a 
potential threat, if we don't make cost sharing permanent, the system 
will deteriorate. Again, it will be on the President's back, on our 
colleagues' backs. I hate to say that, but those are the facts.
  We want to make it permanent. We tried to put it in the 
appropriations bill, to make it permanent, which would have kept costs 
low or kept people in the exchanges. Our colleagues said no.
  Finally, as to preexisting conditions, the CBO report states:

       People who are less healthy would ultimately be unable to 
     purchase comprehensive non-group health insurance at premiums 
     comparable to those under current law, if they could purchase 
     it at all.

  Let me repeat the last part of the CBO report written by an appointee 
of our Republican head of HHS: ``if they could purchase it at all.'' 
Think about that for a minute.
  Under TrumpCare, if you have a preexisting condition, if you are 
sick, your health insurance costs could go up so high that you can't 
afford insurance. Before the new healthcare law passed under President 
Obama, how many of us heard from families: My daughter has cancer, but 
the insurance company won't cover me, or I got kicked off and I have to 
watch her suffer because I can't afford the treatment, the payments. It 
is horrible, heart-wrenching. It is going back to those days under this 
bill, unfortunately.
  This report ought to be the final nail in the coffin of the 
Republican effort to sabotage our healthcare system. It will make much 
more certain that sick people are priced out of insurance companies, 
that the most vulnerable are left high and dry when they need care the 
most, when there is an illness in the family.
  Is that the sort of healthcare system our colleagues envision for 
this country? When you are sick, when one of your family members is 
sick, is that when they are not allowed to give you healthcare? What in 
the heck do you have it for?
  I certainly hope that is not the idea on the other side of the aisle, 
but this bill that the House passed would do it.
  In conclusion, the nonpartisan scorekeepers have spoken loudly and 
clearly--no ambiguity. TrumpCare means higher costs and less care for 
the American people, the average American. Let's not lose sight of what 
is at stake here. The health and well-being of the American people is 
on the line. There are life-and-death consequences for so many millions 
of people. They are relying on us to get this right.
  So for the good of the country, President Trump and our Republican 
colleagues should abandon TrumpCare, stop sabotaging the healthcare 
system, and work with Democrats--we are waiting--to fix our healthcare 
system, not pull it from under them.