[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 107 (Thursday, June 22, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3698-S3699]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                         Healthcare Legislation

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, we are beginning to receive the first 
bits of information about the Senate Republican healthcare bill, which 
has until now been shrouded in absolute secrecy.
  I can see why. Even as we continue to get more details, the broad 
outlines are clear. This is a bill designed to strip away healthcare 
benefits and protections from Americans who need it most in order to 
give a tax break to the folks who need it least.
  This is a bill that would end Medicaid as we know it, rolling back 
Medicaid expansion, cutting Federal support for the program even more 
than the House bill, which cut Medicaid by $800 billion.
  Let me remind everyone in this Chamber, Medicaid is not just a health 
insurance program for Americans struggling in poverty, though that is 
an important and necessary part of it. Medicaid is increasingly a 
middle-class program. Medicaid is how many Americans are able to access 
opioid abuse treatment, Medicaid foots the bill for two-thirds of all 
Americans living in nursing homes, and Medicaid provides the cushion, 
particularly in rural areas, so hospitals can survive and give topnotch 
healthcare to all of us.
  From what is reported, in just 3 short years under the Senate bill, 
Republicans will take millions off their Medicaid coverage, and then, 
starting in 2025, the plan will institute even more Medicaid cuts, and 
each year those cuts get deeper than the year before. Within 10 years 
of this new funding system, the cuts to Medicaid could total hundreds 
of billions of dollars above the more than $800 billion the House bill 
already cuts from the program.
  Every senior in America should read the fine print of this bill. It 
looks as if American seniors could be paying way more. Why do this? 
Looking at the bill, the answer is, because the Republicans want to 
give a tax break to the wealthiest Americans--those making over 
$200,000 a year--and set themselves up to give these folks another, 
even larger tax cut in their tax bill.
  Even though much of the early reporting says that the bill will keep 
certain protections for Americans with preexisting conditions, the 
truth is, it may well not guarantee them the coverage they need by 
allowing States to waive essential health benefits. What the bill is 
saying to those Americans is that insurance still has to cover you, but 
it doesn't have to cover what you may actually need. It doesn't have to 
cover all or even most of your costs.
  If you need treatment for opioid addiction, your plan may no longer 
cover it. If you are pregnant and need maternity care, your plan may 
have decided that is too expensive. The coverage that Americans with 
preexisting conditions actually need may well become either 
unaffordable or even nonexistent under this bill.
  Simply put, this bill will result----
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, will the Democratic leader yield for a 
question?
  Mr. SCHUMER. Not right now--at the end of my remarks.
  Simply put, this bill will result in higher costs, less care, and 
millions of Americans will lose their health insurance, particularly 
through Medicaid. It is every bit as bad as the House bill. In some 
ways, it is even worse.
  The President said the Senate bill needed heart. The way this bill 
cuts healthcare is heartless. The President said the House bill was 
mean. The Senate bill may be meaner.
  The Senate Republican healthcare bill is a wolf in sheep's clothing, 
but this wolf has even sharper teeth than the House bill.
  It is clear that Republicans know that cutting Medicaid will hurt so 
many people in the middle class, so many in my home State of New York. 
Republicans know that people want essential health benefits, so they 
have created a disguise by saying that these changes will not occur for 
a year. But, in reality, the Senate Republican bill is a wolf in 
sheep's clothing, only this wolf has even sharper teeth than the House 
bill.

  We are potentially voting on it in a week--with no committee 
hearings, no amendments in committee, no debate on the floor, save for 
10 measly hours, on one of the most important bills we are dealing with 
in decades. That brings shame on this body. We won't even know the full 
cost or consequence of the bill until CBO scores it, and that could 
take a few days more.
  How can my friend the majority leader expect this body to fairly 
consider this legislation, prepare amendments, and debate it in 1 week 
with only 10 hours of debate? How can he expect his own Members to do 
the same? Many of them on the Republican side are learning the details 
of the bill the same way we Democrats are: They are reading it today.
  Now, listen to what the majority leader had to say in 2009 when we 
were debating healthcare--his words:

       This is a very important issue. . . . We shouldn't try to 
     do it in the dark. And whatever final bill is produced should 
     be available to the American public and to Members of the 
     Senate, certainly, for enough time to

[[Page S3699]]

     come to grips with it. . . . And we are going to insist--and 
     the American people are going to insist--that it be done in a 
     transparent, fair, and open way.

  Is 5 or 6 days enough time for the American people and the Members of 
the Senate to come to grips with a bill that affects one-sixth of the 
economy and the lives of every American in this country? I don't think 
so, neither do the American people and neither do a whole bunch of 
Republican Senators.
  Senator Cassidy: Would I have preferred a more open process? The 
answer is yes.
  Senator Collins: I don't think it gives enough time to thoroughly 
analyze the bill, but we will see when it comes out.
  Member after Member--Rand Paul, Lindsey Graham, Jerry Moran, Marco 
Rubio, Bob Corker--has repeatedly said that this process--in their 
words and now in mine--is unfair, it is truncated, and it is rushed.
  For my dear friend the majority leader to say we are going to have an 
open amendment process is turning truth upside down. I would ask our 
leader, rhetorically, because I know the answer: Can we allow at least 
1 hour on each amendment, not 2 minutes? Will we have more time than 10 
hours to debate the bill? I hope so. But, if not, please don't call 
this an open and fair process. If you want to rush it through, admit 
the consequences.
  The debate over healthcare has been fierce. We know that Republicans 
and Democrats had differences when we debated the Affordable Care Act. 
At least we had a debate. At least we had committee hearings and a 
process. More broadly than that, at least we Democrats were trying to 
pass a healthcare bill that helped more Americans afford insurance and 
tried to bring costs down and end some of the most egregious practices 
of the healthcare industry.
  What is this bill--TrumpCare--trying to achieve? It seems designed to 
slash support for healthcare programs in order to give tax breaks to 
the very wealthy.
  When the CBO score comes out, I believe it will verify that millions 
of Americans in this great country will be unable to afford insurance 
or the insurance they can afford won't cover the services they need.
  Somewhere in America there is a family who takes a trip each Friday 
to visit grandma or grandpa at a nursing home, who sacrificed all of 
their savings to pay for their healthcare until they had no more 
savings and now rely on Medicaid to help pay the cost of long-term care 
in a nursing home.
  Somewhere in America there is a father who is eaten up inside 
watching his son struggle with opioid addiction, who knows in his heart 
that his son will be able to go on and live a healthy and fulfilling 
life if he could only afford treatment to get him out from under this 
devastating addiction.
  Somewhere in America there is a parent whose child has cancer, a 
mother and father who stay up late at night worried that their 
insurance will either not be available or run out when the family needs 
it most.
  In the America that my Republican friends envision with this 
healthcare bill, those Americans, and many more besides, might not get 
the coverage and care they need.
  We live in the wealthiest country on Earth. Surely, surely, we can do 
better than what the Republican healthcare bill promises.