[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 207 (Tuesday, December 19, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8080-S8081]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          HEALTHCARE AND DACA

  Mr. MURPHY. Mr. President, when you are the father of a 9-year-old 
and a 6-year-old during the holiday season, you spend an awful lot of 
time reading holiday stories, you spend an awful lot of time watching 
Christmas specials and Christmas movies on TV, and it is wonderful. I 
love it. I love getting to relive my childhood through the eyes of my 
kids.
  If you remember all of these stories and specials, there is a 
familiar theme that runs through them, and it is a really nice theme 
for kids to hear. The basic idea in many of these stories is that 
Christmas, Hanukkah, the holidays we celebrate today, aren't about 
pageantry, and they aren't about pomp and circumstance or the presents 
or material things; it is really about celebrating each other. It is 
about sort of understanding what is important to us and who is 
important to us and using this little break we get at the end of the 
year to spend time with each other.
  My youngest's favorite of all of these stories and specials is the 
iconic Doctor Seuss poem about the Grinch. It ends like this:

     He hadn't stopped Christmas from coming! It came!
     Somehow or another it came just the same!
     And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow, 
           stood puzzling and puzzling: ``How could it be so?''
     ``It came without ribbons! It came without tags!''
     ``It came without packages, boxes or bags!''
     And he puzzled three hours, 'til his puzzler was sore.
     Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before!
     ``Maybe Christmas,'' he thought, ``doesn't come from a 
           store.''
     ``Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more!''

  Maybe it is the most famous of all of the passages from Christmas 
stories explaining that premise; that this time of the year is a time 
in which we think about each other.
  I hope we do that in the Senate and in the House over the coming days 
before we wrap up for the year because as we approach the Christmas 
season and as creatures of good fortune--those of us who get to serve 
in the U.S. Senate--as we begin to prepare to go home and share time 
with our family and our loved ones, we need to think about the crisis 
many families are in today and will be in over the holiday season if we 
don't choose to do some basic things here, attached to our 
responsibility as U.S. Senators.
  We need to think about the position we are going to put people in 
because of our inability to act and to pass legislation that, prior to 
this holiday season, seemed relatively noncontroversial.
  Christmas is about celebrating our love for one another. If we really 
do believe in brotherhood--if we really do believe that our role as 
U.S. Senators is to try to lift people up around us--then we need to 
understand that the debates around health center funding or the 
Children's Health Insurance Program or the status of children who were 
brought here by their parents at a very young age from another country 
aren't about politics. They are not about scoring political points. 
They are about people and what we will do to people as we head into the 
holiday season.
  Adrianna Bigard is a single mom from Hamden, CT. For her, the CHIP 
program has been a lifesaver. She is doing everything we would ask a 
young woman to do. She received her master's degree in public relations 
from Quinnipiac University. She is now working as a public relations 
specialist. She has a young son--a 6-year-old, Carter--and she is a 
single mom. She gets a paycheck every week, but it goes out as quickly 
as it comes in. She is one of the millions of Americans who are 
working, who are playing by the rules but are living paycheck to 
paycheck.
  She gets insurance through her employer, but when she was told how 
much it would cost to add her son to her coverage, she simply could not 
afford it. She literally did not have the money in her monthly paycheck 
to be able to pay for gas and for groceries, for rent and for coverage 
for her son. So the CHIP program was a lifesaver for her.
  Her son now is enrolled in what we call HUSKY B in Connecticut, which 
is the name we use for our CHIP program. Without it, she says, things 
would dramatically change. If HUSKY goes away--if CHIP goes away--once 
all benefits, taxes, et cetera, are paid, I will not have enough money 
left in my paycheck to pay my rent.
  That is what is consuming her this holiday season.
  She just got a notice from the State of Connecticut telling her that 
on January 31, her son Carter will lose healthcare insurance, meaning 
on January 31, Adrianna will not have enough money to pay for her rent 
or she will have to leave her son uninsured. That will be her choice 
come January 31. That is a pretty terrible, awful way for her to spend 
her holiday season.

  In northeastern Connecticut, I heard from a woman who works in 
homelessness, and she was telling an inspiring story of a gentleman who 
had been living the last 3 months in a tent and suffering deeply from 
severe joint pain, fevers, and weakness, and had no access to 
healthcare until he was connected with the local community health 
center. That local community health center was able to get him in for 
care to stabilize him and potentially save his life. Yet that community 
health center--it is called Generations, and it serves thousands of 
people in northeastern Connecticut--will lose 70 percent of its funding 
next year.

[[Page S8081]]

  On January 1, many health centers in Connecticut will lose more than 
half of their funding, and they will shut their doors to thousands and 
thousands of people like this man who wouldn't receive healthcare but 
for community health centers.
  In rural America, the slashing of community health center funding 
will be absolutely devastating because sometimes it is these health 
centers that are the only way for people to get care, particularly 
mental health care and addiction. Community health center patients are 
spending this holiday season trying to digest the news that they may be 
shut out from their psychiatrists. They may no longer be able to see 
their child's primary care doctor come January 1. A 70-percent cut is 
not something you can manage with efficiencies; it means an elimination 
of services.
  Faye is from Norwalk, CT. She came to this country when she was 11. 
She now has DACA status. She, like so many other Dreamers, has done 
everything we asked. Faye went to school. She got an advanced degree. 
She is now holding down two jobs--one of them as a radiology scheduler, 
working in our healthcare system. She is working two jobs because she 
wants to have access to the American dream of home ownership, and she 
is saving and saving so that she can buy a house. Now she is faced with 
being deported to a country that she doesn't recognize. She has been in 
the United States for 19 years. She lived in Connecticut for 16 years. 
She is spending her holiday season--as are the other 800,000 DACA 
recipients in this country--fearing that her life as she knows it is 
going to end at the beginning of next year.
  Christmas, the holiday season, is not about presents. It is not about 
those Christmas specials. It is about people. It is about recommitting 
ourselves to this uniquely American notion that we are all in this 
together and that we are weaker as a whole if individuals who live 
amongst us are in crisis, especially individuals who have done 
everything we have asked and have played by the rules. That is Adrianna 
and Faye--people who are going to have something taken from them and 
their loved ones and are going to be put into crisis because we will 
not do our job.
  By the end of this week, we have to protect these Dreamers, we have 
to provide a permanent extension for health center funding, and we have 
to provide a permanent extension for children's healthcare insurance 
funding because it is our job and also because it is cruel to send all 
of these millions of families into the holidays with that kind of 
anxiety while we all sit around our holiday tables safe and sound.
  My kids remind me over and over again about what they learned from 
these Christmas specials. Christmas isn't about the presents. It is not 
about the trees. It is not about the decorations. The holidays are 
about our commitment to one another. We can re-up on that commitment 
this week by doing the right thing.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas is recognized.

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