[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 91 (Thursday, May 25, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3183-S3184]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
HEALTHCARE LEGISLATION
Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I thank Senator Whitehouse for his
important words and all the Senators who have come to the floor this
afternoon to talk about the Republican plans to dismantle our
healthcare system.
As we speak, Republicans in the Senate are busy behind closed doors
working overtime to come up with a secret health plan to ram through
the Senate. I guess they are afraid of how the public would react if we
could see the full scope of their plans, but in the last 24 hours, we
have seen new details about what they want to do. The formula is as
clear as it is cruel: destroy healthcare for tens of millions of
Americans, including people struggling under the weight of our national
opioid crisis. Why? In order to give tax cuts to rich people.
These plans are simply unforgivable, and I say ``unforgivable''
because I cannot find any justification that makes it
[[Page S3184]]
OK to take away health insurance from 23 million Americans. I cannot
come up with a single sliver of an argument that says it makes sense to
rip away more than $800 billion from kids with complex medical needs,
seniors in nursing homes, and one of the largest sources of help for
people and families struggling with substance abuse disorder, all to
produce tax breaks for a handful of millionaires and billionaires.
The Republican agenda is destroying healthcare in this country, and
it has never been clearer. President Trump released his budget proposal
this week. If the healthcare bill is a punch to the gut, his budget is
a knife in the ribs. The Trump budget is about the future, and for the
future, Trump says there is too much medical research. He wants to cut
more than $5 billion from the NIH budget. That is the place where
research is ongoing about treatments for Alzheimer's, cancer, diabetes,
ALS. That is America's future that President Trump wants to cut by more
than $5 billion.
Then there is the Republican effort to blow up our existing
healthcare system. The Republican bill would open the door to
discriminating against people with preexisting conditions, and there is
more. Insurance companies could drop coverage for mental health and
substance abuse disorders. Insurance companies could decide not to
cover pregnancy or maternity care. They can drop coverage for
prescription drugs. Insurance companies could, once again, impose
lifetime limits on diseases like cancer and heart conditions, even for
people on employer plans in States like Massachusetts that want nothing
to do with the waivers the Republican bill allows.
The CBO says that out-of-pocket costs for these services that are no
longer covered would rise ``thousands of dollars a year,'' but cutting
out cancer patients and mamas and newborn babies and people with
preexisting conditions just wasn't enough for the Republicans.
President Trump used his new budget to cut hundreds of millions of
dollars from the Federal agency leading the fight against opioids. Tens
of thousands of people are dying, and the Trump budget cuts money
needed in the fight against opioids. It gets even worse.
Together, the Republican healthcare bill and the President's budget
rip well over a trillion dollars out of the Medicaid Program, which
provides health insurance to one in five people in this country.
Medicaid funds more than half the people in nursing homes. When a new
baby is born in this country, Medicaid pays for about half of those
births. Seniors in nursing homes and new babies are just targets for
the Republican cuts.
Then, like extra chocolate sauce drizzled over this misery sundae,
the budget also cuts the Children's Health Insurance Program by 20
percent over the next decade. Children's health insurance is the
program that works together with Medicaid to provide health insurance
for one out of every three kids in this country. Trump and the
Republicans say: Let them go sick.
What does that mean? Don't repair a hole in their hearts or fix their
broken arms? Don't treat them when they get ear infections or does it
just leave someone else to pay? If that is the answer, then tell us
who? Who exactly is going to pay for the healthcare for these children?
I just don't get what the Republicans in Congress are thinking. I
know they have people back in their home States who are begging them to
keep healthcare coverage. Disease, accidents, old age, substance abuse,
these misfortunes don't ask whether you are a Democrat or a Republican
before they come knocking at your door. I just don't get how
Republicans can turn their backs on people who will be hurt, but I
understand whom the Republicans are helping.
The CBO score lays it out in black and white. The budget lets you go
line by line to see just whom the Republicans do care about. The
Republican healthcare bill burns down healthcare access for millions of
people in this country in order to hand out tax breaks to a tiny
handful of millionaires and billionaires.
The Republican budget rips away coverage for people with disabilities
so that giant corporations can keep more of their giant profits. The
Republican budget tosses seniors out of nursing homes and puts the
brakes on Alzheimer's research so the richest people in this country
can rake in millions in tax cuts. That is not puzzling; that is
unforgivable.
Let's be clear about what is at stake here. A couple of weeks ago, I
was at Malden Care Center, which is part of the Cambridge Health
Alliance. Health providers like these in Massachusetts are on the
frontlines, and they are fighting back against the opioid epidemic.
The folks at Cambridge Health Alliance told me that before the ACA,
they were lucky if one out of every three people walking through their
doors had health insurance. Today, after years of hard work in
Massachusetts to pass bipartisan health reform and then to implement
the ACA, more than 97 percent of the people in our State have
healthcare. More than 9 out of 10 people coming into Cambridge Health
Alliance clinics now have coverage. Because of that coverage, CHA could
offer a wide range of services, including treatment for opioids. They
are making headway: More lives saved, more success stories, more
healthy babies.
I am not going to tell the seniors and the mamas and the people on
the frontlines of the opioid crisis they have to give up those gains to
pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest people in this country. If Senate
Republicans want to defend this indefensible budget and unforgivable
healthcare bill, then they can start by coming out from behind closed
doors where they are conducting secret negotiations over healthcare.
They can look the American people in the eye and admit they care more
about the wealthy few in this country than they do about hard-working
families and people who need our help. They can be straight up, and the
American people--Democrats, Republicans, and Independents--can hold
them accountable for what they are trying to do to our families and to
our country.
I yield the floor to my colleague from Maryland.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cassidy). The Senator from Maryland.
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