[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 60 (Thursday, April 3, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2159-S2168]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ESTABLISHING THE CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET FOR THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT
FOR FISCAL YEAR 2025 AND SETTING FORTH THE APPROPRIATE BUDGETARY LEVELS
FOR FISCAL YEARS 2026 THROUGH 2034
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. MOODY). The clerk will report the
concurrent resolution.
The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
A concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 14) establishing the
congressional budget for the United States Government for
fiscal year 2025 and setting forth the appropriate budgetary
levels for fiscal years 2026 through 2034.
There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the
concurrent resolution.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina.
Order of Procedure
Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that for the
duration of H. Con. Res. 14, the budget resolution for fiscal year
2025, the majority and the Democratic managers of the resolution, while
seated or standing at the managers' desk, to be permitted to deliver
floor remarks, retrieve, review, and edit documents, and send email and
other data communications from text displayed on wireless personal
assistant devices and tablet devices.
I further ask unanimous consent that the use of calculators--and I
know we still have them--be permitted on the floor during consideration
of the budget resolution; further, that the staff be permitted to make
technical and conforming changes to the resolution, if necessary,
consistent with amendments adopted during Senate consideration,
including calculating the associated change in the net interest
function and incorporating the effect of such adopted amendments on the
budgetary aggregates for Federal revenue, the amount by which the
Federal revenue should be changed, new budget authority, budget
outlays, deficits, public debt, and debt held by the public.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, further, I ask unanimous consent for 2
minutes of debate, equally divided, prior to each vote during
consideration of H. Con. Res. 14.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Amendment No. 1717
(Purpose: In the nature of a substitute.)
Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, I call up my amendment No. 1717.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
The Senator from South Carolina [Mr. Graham] proposes an
amendment numbered 1717.
[[Page S2160]]
Mr. Graham. I ask that the reading of the amendment be dispensed
with.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(The amendment is printed in today's Record under ``Text of
Amendments.'')
Unanimous Consent Agreement--H. Con.
Res. 14
Mr. GRAHAM. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that for
purposes of debate time this evening, that all time be yielded off the
resolution.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
The Democratic leader.
Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, a few minutes ago, for the second time
this year, Senate Republicans began the process to pass legislation
eviscerating Medicaid, abandoning our kids, failing our veterans, and
squandering our future--all for the sake of tax cuts for the ultrarich.
This is the Republican agenda: Billionaires win; American families
lose. Billionaires win; American families lose in the Republican plan.
Republicans have failed to be honest with the country about the true
nature of their plans. They have tried to hide their Medicaid cuts.
They have tried to hide their billionaire tax giveaways with budgetary
gimmicks and distractions. They are tying themselves in knots. They
don't want the American people to know what their agenda is. Well, if
Republicans won't be straight with the American people about their
agenda, Senate Democrats are glad to do it for them.
Tonight, my colleagues and I will begin to put the Republican agenda
on trial before the court of public opinion here on the floor of the
Senate. It is going to be a long few days for Senate Republicans.
Democrats will expose the dark corners of the Republican plan. We will
explain the devastating consequences, highlight the many injustices
that Republicans will inflict on people's healthcare, on their
financial security, on their children's futures, and on the very future
of the American dream itself.
We begin tonight with a topic close to home for all of us: Medicaid.
It is my honor to join my fellow Democrats to lay the case before the
American people for how Republicans plan to destroy Medicaid as we know
it and harm millions and millions and millions of Americans. We will
share the stories of people back home. We will illustrate the full
scale of the destruction these cuts would do. And we will make it clear
to the American people that while Republicans work like hell to
eliminate Medicaid to cut taxes for the rich, Democrats are fighting to
protect the healthcare the American people deserve and need.
Medicaid will be the first--the first--of six different themes that
we will focus on here on the floor.
Tomorrow, we will be focused, likewise, as we debate this bill, on
Republicans' morally bankrupt tax breaks for billionaires and on Donald
Trump's dumb and costly tariffs, on the need to stand up for our
veterans and our national security, on the unprecedented corruption
Donald Trump has unleashed in our government, and finally on the
existential fight to protect Social Security from the chain saw of Elon
Musk. These are the themes we will cover today and tomorrow.
This is the fight the American people need to see because people's
lives and livelihoods are at stake. The healthcare that protects our
kids is in danger--our children. Their healthcare is in danger. The
benefits that keep our seniors whole are at risk. Senior citizens, in
their golden era, could have Medicaid--the rug--pulled out from under
them, leaving them in dire straits. The investments that unlock
America's future now stand on the edge of a knife.
Why? Why? Why are Republicans doing this? Why are they being so
cruel? so callous? so thoughtless? Why are those in the billionaire
bubble who seem to run Donald Trump and Elon Musk--why are they doing
this? It is very simple. They are trying to give the ultrarich another
tax break. The Republicans are enthralled with these very wealthy, very
greedy people, and all they want is a tax break.
When Donald Trump became President, they got control of the
Republican Party, and Elon Musk and Donald Trump are in the billionaire
bubble. And when Democrats expose all of these cuts to healthcare and
veterans' aid and benefits for the American people to see, the American
people will think it is sickening.
So, tonight, let us begin with Medicaid.
Seventy million--seventy million--people rely on Medicaid in one way
or another to provide medical care, and tens of millions more are their
families and friends. That includes not just seniors who are within the
70 million but also newborns, parents, Americans with disabilities,
rural communities that have access, perhaps, to a single hospital or
clinic if they are fortunate. Medicaid--Medicaid--makes all these
things possible.
I want to focus on a truly sobering experience I had earlier this
week when visiting two nursing homes in New York: the Silver Lake
Specialized Care and Rehab Center on Staten Island and the Carillon
Nursing and Rehab Center on Long Island. These institutions alone--
there are just 2 of them--serve over 600 residents together and employ
600 people. They are the lifeline to local communities. They help
seniors with dementia, with postsurgical rehab, with physical
disability support, and so much more.
My visit to these communities was clouded by a shadow of fear and
anger. I talked to senior citizens who knew that if Medicaid were cut,
they would lose their healthcare. In fact, the owner of Silver Lake--
one of the most esteemed healthcare facilities on Staten Island--told
me that if the cut were even half what the Republicans are proposing,
his home would close. Hundreds of senior citizens would have no
healthcare, and 300 people would lose their jobs. They were frightened.
They were scared. They were angry.
There is no question about it: Even if Republicans pass a fraction of
the cuts they are pushing, it will devastate these communities.
We have the heads of major hospitals there--many of them not the same
party as mine--telling us what would happen if these devastating cuts
to Medicaid went through.
On Staten Island, we estimated 18,000 people would lose their jobs.
Tens of thousands would no longer get healthcare. It would cause a
recession on Staten Island--like that. Seniors at the centers--new
seniors who are getting out of hospitals or have a new illness that
they are just encountering--would be turned away. There would be no
funding. There would be no beds. There would be no place for them to
go.
It is not just the residents at these nursing homes; it is their
children who now can breathe easy for their parents who helped raise
them and worked so hard through the years to provide for them.
Staten Island is a middle-class community, and so is Long Island--the
two places I visited--but their kids would not be able to care for most
of them. Most of them need more healthcare than just going back to
their kids' homes. It is not adequate healthcare for so many of them.
Others said their children had no extra room for them. What are even
the kids going to do? On both Staten Island and Long Island, these are
middle-class communities. They are going to be devastated by these
cuts.
Some of the residents said their children might be able to take care
of them, but the burden would be immense. These families don't have the
financial means to take care of their parents in their advanced ages.
They don't have space at home. They don't have the medical know-how to
meet the needs like a nursing home does.
For any of you--of the millions of Americans who have a parent who
has struggled with dementia or physical disabilities--to those people,
we know that our parents need the help of medical professionals to care
for them properly. That is why Medicaid is so vital, so important, such
a lifeline to tens of millions of families across America. The
Republican Medicaid cuts would be a gut punch to these families.
It was the same story on Long Island. Senior citizens are scared,
nervous, angry about what these budget cuts would do to them that the
Republicans are proposing, that Trump and Musk are proposing. Workers
worried they might lose their jobs--and they have worked so hard in
these facilities because they care about the patients they are caring
for--are told ``No, no more funding'' for no reason. They are doing a
great job.
[[Page S2161]]
It is the same on Long Island as on Staten Island, and it is the same
across all of America in poor communities, which, of course, depend on
Medicaid.
For so many people, Medicaid is their only lifeline to healthcare--
for middle-class communities and even well-to-do communities. All of
them are nervous, scared, angry, furious at what these cuts would do to
them.
Why? people ask. Why are they doing this? Why are they being so mean?
Why are they being so cruel? Why are they being so callous?
We have to answer: For one reason--they want to give billionaires a
tax cut. They want to take the money away from working families. They
want to take things that working families need. They want to take them
away so there are more tax cuts for the billionaires.
It angers me. It is infuriating that something so wrong, so callous,
so detrimental to America could be right here on the Senate floor with
the support of so many Republican Senators.
I say to the Republican Senators: Listen to your constituents. Listen
to your constituents. They don't want this. You know that. Are you
going to get up on the floor and make a speech that says you are
cutting Medicaid because you want to give tax breaks to billionaires?
That is what you are doing. Get up and have the courage to say it. Get
up and have the courage to say it.
The senior centers I visited were represented, actually, by
Republican Members of Congress on both Staten Island and Long Island.
There, I told every patient, every doctor, every nurse, every
employee who works in these institutions to call their Congress Member
and tell them that their jobs are at risk and, if they are a resident,
to tell them their healthcare is at risk. If they are a child of a
parent in one of these nursing homes, call.
I told them to make it clear to their Congressmen that the Republican
Congressmen and Senators have the power in their hands to stop these
cuts because there are narrow margins in both the Senate and the House.
A handful of Senators and a handful of Congressmen, if they have the
courage to do the right thing--and most of them--or some of them, at
least, know that it is the right thing even though they are afraid to
vote yes--they are afraid to vote no and stop this, but they should
have the courage to do it.
So I told them. I told everyone I encountered in these two nursing
homes and in many other places in New York.
I went to a hospital in the Bronx--one of the biggest hospitals. It
serves 1.3 million people in the Bronx. It is the only cancer care
treatment for all of those 1.3 million. The leaders of that hospital
told me the hospital would probably close if there were a 20-percent
cut to Medicaid, and the Republicans are proposing a deeper cut than
that in this budget bill. Close. The only hospital. One of the biggest
employers. It employees 18,000 people itself. This story could be
repeated. The Bronx has poorer communities. Staten Island and Long
Island have more middle-class communities. But every one of them will
be affected terribly by these cuts. So I told them to call. I tell
everyone: We have to stop this. Public sentiment is everything.
Every American in a similar position to those I spoke to should do
the same. Call your Congressman. Call your Senator. Tell them you don't
want Medicaid to be slashed. Tell them you don't want nutrition
assistance to be eliminated. Tell them you don't want our seniors to be
abandoned. Tell them you don't want to see these cuts--these cruel,
heartless cuts--just so the wealthiest Americans can get another break
they don't need.
That is what the next few days are about: fighting these awful cuts
done to help the wealthiest Americans get a tax break. That is the
fight Democrats will have here on the Senate floor. That is the fight
we will have tonight. That is the fight we will have tomorrow and
beyond.
Democrats are fighting every day in every way against these attacks
against American families, against this plan, which says billionaires
win; families lose.
Democrats stand united. We are unified in fighting this awful bill.
We will fight the Republican anti-family agenda. We will shine a light
on these terrible cuts that Republicans are trying to pass. The
American people will be horrified at what they see.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, families lose, and billionaires win.
That is the Republican plan. It is a plan that slashes $1.5 to $2
trillion from programs that families depend on. And why? To fund tax
cuts for the very richest Americans.
But that is not all the bad news because there are additional tax
cuts for the best and richest in the country--the richest Americans--
and those are unpaid for, and that means debt.
How much more debt does this bill create? The current estimate--and
the estimates keep going up--is $5.3 trillion of unpaid-for tax cuts
over the next 10 years--$5.3 trillion--trillion with a ``t''--over the
next 10 years.
But that is not all. Their plan provides for $37 trillion--at least
$37 trillion--in additional debt over the next 30 years. This is a
phenomenal, phenomenal number.
And, third, they say: We will tell the American people it adds no new
debt; passing this bill adds no new debt.
That is quite a set of plans: slash programs for regular Americans,
enrich the richest Americans, run up an additional $37 trillion in
debt, and then lie to the American people and say it doesn't cost a
thing.
It has become clear, over the last 2 days, about how Republicans are
going to justify this. They say they are going to use section 312--
section 312--of the law. Section 312, they say, says that the cost of a
program or the impact of a revenue cut through a tax giveaway to the
wealthy only costs what the budget chair says it costs. Just take the
chair's word for it.
This is the magic wand. It will add $37 trillion to the debt, but if
the budget chair says it doesn't, then you just pretend it doesn't. It
is kind of like the situation where the king wears the magic robes--at
least he thinks he is wearing magic robes, but he is actually walking
down the street naked because he doesn't have magic robes--in this
case, again, lying to the public about the cost.
In the real world, you have real math. In this special new world
under the Republican plan, you have the magic math.
This was not the vision that was laid out back 51 years ago, in 1974,
when the Senate created, along with the House, the Budget and
Impoundment Control Act.
That act had three pillars. The first pillar was that in a 10-year
period, you have to decrease the deficit with the provisions that were
in the bill. And then, every year after, in every category, it either
has to be deficit-neutral or reduce the deficit according to the
provisions that are in the bill.
Then it said we are going to use honest numbers. Before, there had
been a lot of smoke and mirrors. There had been a lot of gimmicks. And
people on both sides said: No, no, we don't want to do that.
Democrats and Republicans said: Let's use honest numbers. Let's
create a Congressional Budget Office to give us impartial numbers so we
can be honest among ourselves, have a real debate about any given
policy provision or any particular revenue provision, and we can be
honest with the American people because, otherwise, we will just keep
running up more and more deficits while pretending we are not.
My Republican colleagues initially said: Do you know what? We will
just put a clause into the budget resolution. It is called a scoring
rule, and that scoring rule will simply say that we are going to say
this costs nothing, that there is no additional debt.
A scoring rule has been used in the past. OK, it has been used in
multiple years, but it was used to resolve little anomalies in tricky,
little twists and changes in revenue bills or in policies' programs. It
was always narrow. It always was honest about what it was trying to
solve and explainable to the public. It was always consistent with the
law, and it was always involving modest sums--modest by standards of
the national budget.
Certainly, now, this scoring rule that had been proposed by the
Republicans, it was not bipartisan. It was not narrow. It was not
improving the budget. It, in fact, was lying about the budgeting. It
was not consistent with the law. And it was massive--$37 trillion.
[[Page S2162]]
So my colleagues across the aisle, when we pointed this out, they
said: Yes, we had better not do that. That is just wrong.
OK. Thank you. Thank you for deciding not to put in a scoring rule
that was completely wrong and designed to destroy the budget process.
But now my colleagues across the aisle have said: We will use a
different provision called section 312. We won't use the scoring rule.
Instead, we are going to go in a different direction that says simply
that the cost is what the chair of the Budget Committee says it is.
Now, I want to turn back the clock a little bit. I want to turn back
the clock and point out that there were core principles in that 1974
bill, and they were driven by growing bipartisan concern about deficits
and debt.
In the 1958 to 1968 decade, the average deficit was about $5 billion
per year. That doesn't sound like much now, by our standards, when we
are looking at $2 trillion per year, but it was a lot compared to the
past. And folks said: Do you know what? That $5 billion per year over
that 10 years exploded to an average of $20 billion a year in 1971
through 1973. Oh, my goodness, it quadrupled. We have got to get a
handle on these deficits. We don't want to run up the debt--this
fourfold increase in annual deficits adding to the debt.
So Democrats and Republicans came together, and they passed the 1974
Budget and Impoundment Control Act. It created a superhighway for this
special effort to reduce deficits--a superhighway; a super, filibuster-
free highway.
Now, you all may remember Robert Byrd of West Virginia. Robert Byrd
was always the fiercest defender of the filibuster. But he, along with
99 other Senators, said: We will create one exception, and that
exception will be to reduce the deficit.
And it had these three pillars, which I will mention again. It has to
reduce the deficit. The provisions of the bill have to reduce the
deficit over the first 10 years. They have to be deficit-neutral in
every category in each year after the first 10 years. And we have to
use honest numbers.
And to have those honest numbers, we will create the Congressional
Budget Office, an impartial body. We will no longer use smoke and
mirrors, pretend that things don't cost money when they do cost money.
But then what happened? I will tell you. For 22 years, it worked
pretty well. Then along comes the Gingrich revolution, the 1994
election. Now we have the 1995 through 1997 biennium. Some things
happened then that, well, one maybe couldn't have foreseen. Maybe they
could have. There was an effort to do a balanced budget amendment. It
fell one vote short here in the Senate Chamber. It needed 67 votes; it
only got 66.
Then there was: We will do a line-item veto--and that was passed. But
that gave the power to the President to strike down any line.
The Supreme Court said: No, you can't do that. You can't delegate the
power of the purse. The power of the purse belongs with Congress. So
that fell.
Then the Republican caucus in charge said: We are going to, instead,
do a big tax bill giving enormous benefits to the richest Americans.
Then they said: You know, the problem with that is the Democrats
won't work with us. They won't give us 60 votes to do that. Oh, I know,
they said, we will do a nuclear option. We will repurpose the deficit-
decreasing bill from 1974 and say that it can be used in order to
actually increase deficits with tax cuts.
And they succeeded. They had the votes. They repurposed the bill.
They blew up the first pillar of those three pillars. That first pillar
was the reconciliation process, this special process created in 1974
that can only be used to reduce deficits in the first 10 years.
They blew it up and said: OK. Nuclear option. We have reinterpreted
the rule. It can be used to increase deficits.
Well, that was a huge, huge damage to the goal of reducing deficits,
and deficits have gone up ever since.
When that happened--when that happened--there was a big protest on
the floor. The first Budget Committee chair who passed the
reconciliation bill consistent with decreasing deficits was South
Carolina Senator Fritz Hollings. He said:
The whole idea of reconciliation--and I am giving you
firsthand history: It is honest as the day is long--was to,
by gosh, to cut back on the deficit.
That is what it was for. So the Republicans blew up that pillar, all
designed to reduce the deficits, and, instead, repurposed it for
increasing the deficits. Pillar No. 1 drops.
But, at the same time, the second pillar, that no increase in
deficits could occur after 10 years, was sustained by the Chair sitting
and presiding over the Senate, and that was Senator Daschle.
Senator Daschle said--well, actually, he asked the question. He was
asking the question of the Republican Chair.
He said:
If this reconciliation bill does not find a way to end or
offset its tax cuts in the years beyond 2002--
That is beyond 10 years--
would the bill violate the Byrd rule?
And the Presiding Officer responded:
Yes, it would.
So the second pillar, no deficits in any category beyond 10 years,
was preserved--until now.
That was in 1996, and here we are, 29 years later. Now there is a
goal to destroy the second and third pillars of the 1974 bill.
I must say, this is extremely extraordinary and disturbing that my
Republican colleagues, who run on fiscal responsibility, destroyed the
first pillar of the special system to reduce deficits in 1996, and
tonight, they are proposing to destroy the second and third pillars.
In that second pillar, no deficits beyond year 10; every category,
every year has to be deficit-neutral or reduce the deficit.
We can compare that to the law that has just been put forward--or the
guidance that has just been put forward. We can look at year 11, the
instructions that go in every category--year 12, year 13, year 20, year
100. It goes on forever, into the future, and the Republican bill
guidance fails the Byrd test.
Now, the Byrd test really gets applied in a second stage of the
reconciliation process. We are in the budget resolution that sends
instructions to committees. Those committees will send back specific
revenue provisions: increase this revenue here, reduce it there,
proceed to add this policy program, reduce this policy program. When it
comes back, every category--that is, every title--of the reconciliation
bill, in every single year, by the Byrd rule, has to be deficit-neutral
or decrease the deficit.
So we will have that debate, but we will have that debate when the
reconciliation bill comes back from committee to this floor because my
Republican colleagues decided to postpone that debate by taking the
scoring rule out of their proposed budget resolution and said: We will
kick it down the road to the next stage.
And, certainly, we will be here, fiercely defending the deficit-
reducing vision of pillars 2 and 3--pillar 2: no deficit in any
category or any title of the bill beyond year 10; and pillar 3: use
honest numbers from the Congressional Budget Office. That pillar has
survived since 1974. We even put that pillar into law specifically in
1985 in a bipartisan way. We wanted to emphasize how important that
was.
Just think about how much more important this process of deficit
reduction, special rule of the reconciliation bill, is today than it
was back in 1974. In 1974, the debt-to-GDP ratio: 23 percent. Tonight,
in 2025, it is 100 percent. It is equal to the entire gross domestic
product of the United States. In 1974, the annual deficit was about $6
billion. Today, it is $2 trillion. In 1974, total debt: $475 billion.
Today, it is $37 trillion.
Now, consider this: All of the debt run up over the last 249 years
since the Declaration of Independence, right now, is just a little bit
less than $37 trillion. In this single bill--this single bill--
Republicans are saying we will add $37 trillion more--at least that
much. When the numbers really come out, we expect it to be higher, but
$37 trillion more to the debt. That is a much bigger burden on the
future.
And what do the economists say about that bigger burden? They said it
will increase interest rates that families have to pay on their
mortgage and on their car loan since it will decrease the capital
available to private industry and slow down our economy.
[[Page S2163]]
This magic math goes by the name of ``current policy baseline.'' It
sounds very academic, but it is essentially the big lie.
Consider this: You sign a contract to rent a home for a year, and
renting that home costs $2,000 per month so you know you are going to
have to pay $24,000 over the year. And at the end of the year, you say:
You know what, I am going to renew that agreement to rent this
apartment. And your spouse says: You know what, that is going to cost
us another $24,000 in rent.
And you say: No. I am using the Republican magic math. It won't cost
a single dime because we will just pretend that a year ago we had
planned to rent the apartment for a second year; and therefore, it is
no more than we thought we would pay a year ago--except a year ago you
said you were only going to rent the house for a year. In other words,
it is a big lie.
It is the very smoke and mirrors, the very gimmicks that Democrats
and Republicans came together and stopped back in 1974. Fifty-one years
ago, we said this game of lying to the public has to end. But tonight,
my Republican colleagues are saying that game will continue if they
have their way.
Well, we say they must not have their way. We are going to stand up
and say no to families lose and billionaires win. We are going to say
no to magic math that lies to the American people about the cost of
their bill, driven by massive tax cuts to the richest Americans.
It is a simple request: honesty and integrity. We should not be
engaging in a big lie, and Democrats will have no part of it. We are
going to be honest about what every provision of the reconciliation
bill costs. We are going to be determined to make sure that the Byrd
rule stands.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic whip.
Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, this has been an amazing week in the
U.S. Senate, and I have served here for over 25 years. Just 2 days ago,
our colleague Cory Booker, from the State of New Jersey, ended a
filibuster on the floor after 25 hours--broke the record, longest
speech in the history of the Senate. And an impassioned speech it was.
I was happy to be here for a major part of it.
There was a big celebration on our side of the aisle. The Galleries
were filled in a way I have never seen before, cheering Cory Booker for
his achievement. It is a moment all of us who are lucky enough to serve
in the Senate will remember the rest of our lives. But I remember
another moment that affected more people than this miraculous feat by
Cory Booker.
It was July 28 of 2017. It was 2:30 in the morning. I was seated at
this desk, and a historic vote was about to take place. The vote was
whether or not we would keep the Affordable Care Act--or ObamaCare, as
it was known then--extending health insurance to millions of Americans,
some of whom had never had it.
At the time, President Trump was in office, and he and the majority
of the Republicans were determined to eliminate the Affordable Care
Act, to eliminate the insurance that millions of American families
depended on to protect their kids and themselves.
It was the closest possible vote. In the end, at least three
Republican Senators voted to save the Affordable Care Act, but the one
key vote and the one I remember was John McCain's. John McCain, an
extraordinary man, served this country in ways that we could hardly ask
anyone else to serve: a prisoner of war for over 5 years during
Vietnam, came battling back, and was elected to the U.S. Senate from
Arizona.
And he was a real maverick. You never knew where John was going to
end up, but you always wanted to end up with him, if you could, because
it was always a spirited contest, and he usually won it.
And this vote was dragged out for a long period of time--2:30 in the
morning, for goodness' sake. And somebody said: John McCain is the last
person to vote, but he has been called off the Senate floor to go into
a room behind and take a telephone call from Donald Trump.
Donald Trump, President, in his first term, was asking John McCain to
cast the deciding vote to eliminate the Affordable Care Act, health
insurance coverage for millions of Americans.
Madam President, I sat here, and I watched as John McCain came in
from that phone call. And no one knew what he was going to do. Really,
no one knew. John was the kind of person, you could never quite be
sure.
And he walked in the well near the table where the Republicans gather
for votes, and he stood there. And he barely raised his left arm--
because it was broken while he was a prisoner of war--just enough to
get his thumb up and go ``no.'' No. That was it.
John McCain, with that ``no'' vote, saved the Affordable Care Act,
and millions of Americans' health insurance was protected.
This was during Trump's first administration, and he had other
priorities, and they certainly didn't include ObamaCare. He wanted to
eliminate it. John McCain's courage came through that night. He broke
with his party because he knew what was at stake. He knew that, for
millions of Americans, there was no alternative when it came to health
insurance--it was the Affordable Care Act or nothing--and he had the
guts to vote no.
Oh, he was pilloried and criticized by the Republican faithful from
one end of the country to the other, but those of us who believe he did
the right thing will never forget that moment of courage.
In a strange way, today--Thursday, April 3, 2025--we are returning to
that moment in history. The Republicans under President Trump, in his
second term, want to perpetuate his tax cut that he gave primarily to
the wealthiest people in America and add to it at the expense of
healthcare for America.
When we talk about healthcare in America, one of the programs that is
so critical is called Medicaid. In days gone by, Medicaid was a rarely
used health insurance plan for the poorest and disabled people in
America, but it has changed. It has become much different. And let me
tell you why that is an interesting context for where we stand now.
Many Americans from coast to coast followed the stock market today.
The reaction of the stock market to the Trump tariff tax and the chaos
that has been created since he announced we were going into a trade war
with virtually every nation on Earth--they watched carefully as the
stock market reacted to it today.
The Dow Jones Average, which is supposed to be an indicator of the
state of the economy, lost 4 percent of its value today. I don't know
what that means for most people, but I know that most people watch it
because it involves their own retirement plans: IRAs and 401(k)s and
other plans that they have based on the value of stock. There has to be
a sinking feeling--I am sure there is--in many households and families
across America to see so much of the value that they have saved up for
a lifetime disappear in one day reacting to the Trump tariff tax and
what it meant across the country.
And here we come this evening, the same day as this Dow Jones plunge
of 4 percent, to discuss--what?--healthcare, again, under President
Trump. And this time it is connected to retirement and savings and the
future of a lot of families.
Let me tell you a story about one. I am going to try to mask the
details because I don't want anyone to reflect on the actual person.
But he is a friend of mine, and he is a professional in Illinois, a
wonderful guy, a community leader. And he had a beautiful family--he
still does, for that matter--but his wife developed Alzheimer's. This
lovely woman reached the point where she had to be put into a care
facility to take care of her day-to-day. It breaks my heart to even
think about it, but it was a fact. He didn't see it coming. There is no
way he could have.
But, for years now, she has survived physically while mentally she
has deteriorated to the point where she cannot communicate with him or
others. It is an expensive undertaking, that type of care facility. He
can afford it, but many people can't.
So what do they do? What happens when your mother or grandmother,
when someone you dearly love in your family, reaches a point where they
need this kind of care? Well, you do what you can, the best you can,
with your own savings and your own resources. But, ultimately, the
major source of funding for people who are in these facilities is
Medicaid.
[[Page S2164]]
If you cut the Medicaid reimbursement, it limits the opportunity for
these people to get good, professional care--people you love, people
who it has broken your heart because of their illness, but you want to
give them the very best in the parting years of their lives.
So when you cut Medicaid, which is going to be proposed by this
Republican budget resolution, it is at the expense of families' peace
of mind and resources they have saved for their own future, their own
retirement.
That isn't the only one. In the State of Illinois, half of the
children who are born in the State are paid for by the Medicaid system.
What happens if you cut back on Medicaid reimbursement in those cases?
It means less prenatal care; the likelihood, I am sorry to say, that
kids, some, will be born with problems that could have been avoided
and, more seriously, whether or not these children will even survive
birth. That is what Medicaid is all about.
We are talking about cutting health coverage for those in care
facilities, as well as those in hospitals or giving birth.
Why? Why would the Republicans even suggest that we cut this just
like they did years ago when John McCain cast that deciding vote? Why
under a Trump Presidency do they go after healthcare first? Why is that
their target?
They believe that the vulnerable people who receive this kind of
healthcare assistance won't be able to fight back--and they are
desperate to raise more revenue for what purpose? To give tax cuts to
the wealthiest people in the America.
For goodness' sakes, Elon Musk does not need a tax cut. He is a
multi-multibillionaire, the wealthiest man in the world. Why in the
world would he cut back on any kind of healthcare for Americans to give
a man in that station in life a tax break? That is what it is all
about. But there is more to the story.
I am honored to represent Illinois. I love the whole State. It is
where I was born. And I am honored to represent the great city of
Chicago. Oh, it is controversial. There are some people in downstate
Illinois that say they ought to go off and be their own State, retire
them. I am not one of those people. I am proud of the fact that Chicago
is part of our State.
But my roots are in downstate Illinois, born in St. Louis, raising my
family in Springfield. I have lived in and represented the smaller
communities downstate in the rural areas. That is how I got to Congress
in the first place, and that is how I stayed in the U.S. Senate.
What are these cuts Republicans are proposing in Medicaid going to do
to rural and downstate Illinois and other rural and downstate areas
around the Nation? The reality is very clear: Fewer resources to
hospitals in sparsely populated areas mean that many of those hospitals
will not survive. Today, more than half of those hospitals are hanging
by a thread, operating in the red. To cut Medicaid reimbursement to
those hospitals is literally going to close their doors and turn out
their lights.
How important is a little hospital in a community downstate? It is
the economic engine. It is the hub of life for the economy of that
area. Take away that hospital, and it not only endangers the people
living around it, it also means a lot of jobs are lost, too, and
businesses that the people frequent often are going to be threatened as
well.
So why would we cut Medicaid reimbursement and close these downstate
hospitals, giving a tax break to the wealthiest people in America? It
makes no sense. Where are our priorities? Where is our humanity to even
consider that?
I don't understand on the other side of the aisle how Republican
Senators--many of whom represent smalltown America, too, and really
care in their hearts about it--can stand by and let this happen. The
net result of this is going to be the quality of life threatened by the
people who live in those areas.
I want to tell you a story about a community I visited 2 weeks ago--
two communities. One was Taylorville, IL. And I asked the hospital
administrator in Taylorville, which is about 30 miles from Springfield,
to come and invite other hospital administrators from the area and tell
me what the Medicaid cuts proposed by the Republicans to give tax
breaks to the wealthy will mean to these hospitals. To a person, they
said the same thing: They may survive, but it is a big question.
And what difference will it make? Well, in some of these hospitals,
it means that, instead of 30 minutes' drive to the hospital to deliver
the baby, it will be an hour and 30 minutes. I can still remember our
first babies in my family. The thought of being in the car for an hour
and a half with my wife in labor would scare me to death. That would be
the reality for people, and alternatives are just not available.
Why in the world would it reach a point where we would cut that kind
of coverage, that kind of protection, that peace of mind to give tax
breaks to the wealthiest people? It makes no sense.
Medicaid and the CHIP program cover nearly 40 million children, half
of all the kids in America. Medicaid provides health coverage for 60
percent of seniors in nursing homes, the ones I mentioned earlier, and
it is the largest funder of addiction and mental health treatment.
I will tell you, I know the cases pretty well of people who are
desperate for addiction treatment. They realize that they are addicted.
They realize they have a problem, and they are anxious to get started
and cleaning their lives up. Medicaid is the source of funding for that
kind of counsel, and to cut back on that is to really sentence these
people to a lifetime of fear and, sadly, cost many of their lives.
In Illinois, 3.4 million people are enrolled in Medicaid, 1.5 million
children. Under the Republican plans to slash Medicaid, 775,000 adults
in Illinois who gained health insurance thanks to the Affordable Care
Act, the same one that John McCain saved in the first Trump Presidency,
would lose their coverage almost overnight. How would you like to be in
a situation where you don't have health insurance at a critical moment?
I know. I was there. I was a student at Georgetown Law School. I got
married in my second year. God sent us a beautiful little baby girl
right away. We were so happy. And then a few weeks after she was born,
we learned she had a serious congenital heart defect. I was a law
student. I didn't have much income, and I had no health insurance. So
my wife and I took our baby girl over to Children's Hospital here in
Washington, DC.
We sit in the charity ward, and we waited until our name was called.
And we saw a doctor who I prayed to God would be able to save our
baby's life. I never felt more helpless in my life than I did at that
moment, to have this little girl come into this world and her father
couldn't provide health insurance.
Luckily, she survived. Great people did great favors for our family
that I will never forget. I have never forgotten when there is a health
crisis or health issue that is debated on this floor.
All of us want good health insurance, and to cut the programs for no
reason other than to give tax breaks to the wealthiest people makes no
sense whatsoever. It is not sensible. It is not thoughtful. It is not
humane. That is what this debate is all about.
Are we going to protect health insurance for Americans so that they
have some peace of mind that they have access to good care, or are we
going to cut them off, and tell them they are on their own, whether it
is mental health counseling, addiction counseling, or the birth of a
child, or basic healthcare? That is what is at stake here. That is what
is at stake.
So I would plead with my colleagues--and I know that it is unlikely.
I have seen the votes. I know the party discipline. I have seen it on
my side of the aisle. I am sure it is on the other side of the aisle. I
am praying to God there is going to be one or two John McCains who are
going to step forward and lift their hand enough to vote and save
health insurance for Americans across the board. I know some people
would be unhappy; in fact, some may threaten to defeat you politically
because of it.
But I am sure that after John voted no to save the Affordable Care
Act despite President Trump's telephone call in his first term, John
had the satisfaction of knowing that, for millions of Americans, he was
the man and his
[[Page S2165]]
vote was the vote that made the difference. It might have denied some
tax breaks for some wealthy people, but for others, it gave them peace
of mind. John was just enough of a maverick to be willing and able to
do it. He will be fondly remembered in history as a result of it.
Madam President, I am going to close by saying that this is an issue
that is near and dear to my heart, and I think a lot of other people
too. They have gone through experiences much like my own. I know they
realize that we have few moments of opportunity of service in the
Senate to really make a difference in the lives of American families,
to give hope to people who have given up because of a mother who is in
a nursing home or because of a child with an illness.
I received letters. Sophia, a single mom from Palatine, IL--17 years
of age, she gave birth to a baby boy. Her son was born with many
medical complications. He had to undergo two surgeries in his first day
of life. Can you imagine?
By the age of 4, he had undergone eight separate surgical procedures
to address ongoing medical challenges. How did Sophia of Palatine
afford the lifesaving care for her son? He was covered by Medicaid.
She wrote to my office. She said:
I don't want Medicaid. My son needs [Medicaid]. I could not
be able to afford the thousands of dollars of medical care
[to keep him alive without it].
Amber from Springfield, IL, told my office in no uncertain terms: You
cut Medicaid, you endanger my sick child's life.
That is what it is. It is a life and death issue. It is not how many
dollars you have leftover when you file your taxes. It is a life and
death issue that we are debating.
I want to thank those who have spoken this evening already--Senator
Schumer and Senator Merkley--for their leadership on this issue. I
plead with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle: Please, there
has got to be someone over there who will step up and have a McCain
moment that will save healthcare for millions of Americans, and I am
praying that it happens.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
Ms. BALDWIN. Madam President, I rise today on behalf of the 1.2
million Wisconsinites who rely on Medicaid--or as we call it in
Wisconsin, BadgerCare--for their health insurance. And I rise today in
their defense because their healthcare is under attack.
I really want to focus right now kind of taking off where Senator
Durbin left off talking about our children, our babies. One in three
children in Wisconsin rely on Medicare for their life insurance. That
is one in three children in Wisconsin's urban, suburban, and rural
counties who need Medicaid just to see a doctor to get regular checkups
or to get vaccines and to stay healthy.
I have traveled across Wisconsin, meeting with constituents who are
terrified about what these cuts will mean for their families, their
finances, and their health. I would like to share a few of those
stories with you this evening.
I think about people like Megan from Wisconsin, a single mother of
two young children who relies on Medicaid so that her kids can get
regular check-ups to see the dentist. She reached out to me to share
that without Medicaid, her entire paycheck would go to just keeping her
children healthy--with nothing left over to pay for rent or keep food
on the table.
I heard from Shelley in Lake Holcombe, WI, who reached out to me
about her 17-year-old daughter Chloe. Chloe was diagnosed with leukemia
last October. Chloe receives chemotherapy 5 days a week, and her
parents drive her almost an hour each way to Eau Claire, WI, so that
she can get the treatments that she needs. Without Medicaid, the cost
of Chloe's treatment would force Shelley and parents like her to make
an impossible choice between financial ruin or not getting the care
that they need for their children.
I have also heard from dozens of Wisconsin families whose children
live with disabilities. They are terrified of what financial cuts will
mean for their kids' future and their family's finances.
Jennifer in Wauwatosa wrote to my office about her son Will. Will is
a 15-year-old sophomore at Wauwatosa West whom she described as vibrant
and loving. Will also has Down syndrome which, among other medical
care, has meant that he has needed a total of 11 ear tube surgeries
just so that he can hear. Jennifer wrote me that the math on those
costs to their family is pretty simple. Eleven surgeries which cost
$10,000 each, without insurance, would cost her family $110,000. She
said without Medicaid, she and her husband would struggle to give their
children the lives they deserve, including paying for their other son's
college tuition.
She wrote:
If Medicaid is cut, we will struggle financially. We will
not be able to get Will the support he needs to be
independent, get a job, and go to college. It could even mean
one of us having to leave our full-time employment which
could hurt even more. Please don't cut Medicaid.
I also heard from Brooke in Thorp, WI. She shared that because of
Medicaid and the speech therapy for her 4-year-old son that he
receives, she has, for the first time this year, heard his voice utter
more than one syllable.
Imagine that.
She wrote:
It marks the first time I have been called Mom by him, and
I have heard ``I love you'' come from him three times--all
occurring in the last 12 months. He receives speech therapy
five days a week to learn how to express himself, [to]
process emotions, and [to] regulate. This has changed his
life. And these therapies are paid for by Medicaid. Don't
allow people like me to only hear ``love you'' a handful of
times simply because of a budget cut.
We can talk about the number of children who will be impacted by cuts
to Medicaid, a total of over 30 million nationwide. While that number
is staggering, it is important to remember that every single child who
relies on Medicaid has a story like Chloe's or Will's. And they have
parents like Megan and Brooke who just want what is best for their
children and are terrified about their future if Medicaid is taken
away.
If my colleagues on the Republican side want to go through with
cuts--the ones laid out in the House's budget plan--it is these
families Republicans must answer to.
Donald Trump and congressional Republicans can explain why they are
planning to rip away healthcare for children so that the top 1 percent
can get richer.
I, for one, would like them to answer for the chaos, for the fear,
for the heartache that they are causing families in my State.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
Ms. HASSAN. Madam President, I want to thank my colleague from
Wisconsin, Senator Baldwin, for such excellent, poignant, moving
descriptions of the real cost of this budget plan that we are on the
floor to consider tonight.
I rise today to join my colleagues and the people of New Hampshire in
standing up against the attempt by the Trump administration and some of
my Republican colleagues to effectively end Medicaid as we know it and
add $37 trillion over the next 30 years to our national debt, all in
order to pay for more tax giveaways for corporate special interests and
billionaires.
Americans of every political stripe are alarmed because this bid to
end Medicaid as we know it will lead to more families, more children
becoming sick and unable to get care, and because ending Medicaid as we
know it will devastate our economy, weaken our workforce, and, most of
all, make our people less free.
Medicaid is a pillar of America's healthcare system. Tens of millions
of Americans, including working Americans, pregnant women, and millions
of children depend on Medicaid every day for routine care, for
treatment for chronic illnesses, for lifesaving care from serious
illnesses, for treatment for addiction, and for much more.
No legislation has done more to allow more Americans to live longer
and healthier lives than the bills that established Medicaid and
Medicare and the efforts that followed to strengthen both of these
landmark laws.
So before we proceed, let's take a step back for a moment and
remember that Congress created Medicaid for two simple reasons. Prior
to Medicaid's creation, a great swath of our country--tens of millions
of Americans--were
[[Page S2166]]
forced to try and get by without healthcare. For many working people
and their families, the kind of routine and preventive care that many
today take for granted, were luxuries. Serious illnesses were often
left untreated, becoming virtual death sentences.
We established and later expanded Medicaid because we understood
that, in a country as great as ours, we don't turn our backs on our
neighbors. But we also created Medicaid because we know that it is in
all of our economic interests to have more healthy people. When more
people are healthy and able to work, they can get ahead and stay ahead,
provide a better life for their family, join the workforce, and, in so
doing, make our economy stronger.
There is, of course, much more work to do to make healthcare more
affordable for all of our people. But Medicaid saves lives. Over the
course of the program's history, Medicaid has allowed hundreds of
millions of Americans who otherwise would be uninsured to live
healthier lives and to build a future.
But now the Trump administration and some of my Republican colleagues
are poised to end Medicaid as we know it in order to pay for tax breaks
for corporate special interests and billionaires.
The Republican plan to eviscerate Medicaid would be devastating to
our country. The Republican plan is, unsurprisingly, short on details.
But they have put forward proposals that, if you do the math, mean
cutting a third of Federal Medicaid funding, all to give billionaires
and corporate special interests a tax break.
Now, let's look at what this decidedly unreasonable, outrageous, and
dangerous plan would do. Cutting Medicaid by a third means living in a
country where millions of children no longer have healthcare; a country
where more of our friends and neighbors get sick and can't afford to
see a doctor; a country where more of our friends and neighbors stay
out of the workforce because they can't afford treatments for chronic
conditions like lupus, making them too sick to work; a country where
families who have children with disabilities can't find adequate
coverage to provide the kind of complex care, both at home and in
school, that these children need. One issue, in particular, I want to
highlight is the way in which slashing Medicaid would weaken our fight
against addiction.
New Hampshire has been hit hard by the fentanyl crisis. These
Medicaid cuts could kick hundreds of thousands of people struggling
with addiction off of Medicaid, out of treatment, and off the road to
recovery. This will, among other things, make law enforcement's job
even harder, and it will make our children less safe.
So let's be clear about what the Republican plan to slash Medicaid
will do. It will make people less healthy. It will weaken our workforce
and hurt our economy. The fight against fentanyl will only get tougher,
and more people will die who otherwise could have lived.
In the administration's plan to eviscerate Medicaid, the cuts only
appear on the page as percentages and dollar signs, but their impact
will be felt by real people.
My office, as has Senator Baldwin's, Senator Kim's, and Senator
Durbin's, has been deluged with letters and calls from constituents who
are concerned about the administration's attack on Medicaid.
I could tell you hundreds of stories, but instead I will just give
you three.
There is Michelle from Manchester. She was diagnosed with a rare and
frequently fatal form of cancer that upended her career and her life.
To go through the long process of cancer treatment by paying out of
pocket would be daunting, perhaps even prohibitive for most anyone. But
Michelle was covered by Medicaid. She got the care that she needed. She
got healthy. She was able to go back to work. She is now cancer-free
because of her courage and strength and because she was covered by
Medicaid.
Then there is Noa from Merrimack. Now, Noa is 20 years old and
experiences disabilities and is blind. She has had to face challenges
that few of us can imagine. But thanks in part to the support that she
has received through Medicaid, she has been able to have many of the
opportunities that all parents want for their kids and that all kids
want for themselves.
She has a part-time job at a nearby bank. She does charity work
delivering flowers to seniors. She loves horseback riding and has
competed as a Special Olympian. She accomplished all this thanks to her
bravery, optimism, and generosity, but she may not have even gotten
that chance without Medicaid.
And then there is Cheri from Lebanon. Like other Granite Staters, she
has had struggles with addiction, as well as mental health challenges,
but Cheri was eligible for Medicaid. She got treatment and went into
recovery. She was able to go back to work. Today, Cheri is a perinatal
peer support educator and coordinator for Dartmouth Health. She helps
families every day. Because she got care when she needed it, she is now
working to provide care for others, touching untold and unknown numbers
of lives through her work. And she was my guest this year at the
President's joint address to Congress. But none of her recovery,
employment, and lifesaving work would have been possible or happened
without Medicaid.
So if the administration intends to eviscerate Medicaid, if they
intend to go through with their plan to cut Medicaid by a third to pay
for a tax break for billionaires, then before they do, they should at
least stop and explain to these three people--Michelle, Noa, Cheri--who
is the one that they want to kick off of Medicaid.
How would any of us be better off if any of these three people are
forced to go without healthcare?
Most Americans are proud of our capacity to come together and ensure
that our friends and neighbors can get healthcare and be able to work
and raise families. But this administration evidently considers the
provision of lifesaving healthcare to Americans from all walks of life
to be a problem.
Now, beyond the huge pricetag of this budget plan--a plan that
explodes the deficit by 37 trillion more dollars over 30 years--and
let's be clear: The Republican budget writers are going to use
accounting gimmicks to try to hide this cost. And let's be clear too
that the $37 trillion in additional debt won't be used to improve
healthcare. It is to pay for tax breaks for billionaires.
But there is another cost to the President's attacks on Medicaid,
because as important as it is that we protect the healthcare provided
by Medicare--and that is tremendously important--protecting Medicaid
healthcare marks neither the beginning nor the end of what we need to
do to improve healthcare in our country and make it more affordable.
We need to confront real challenges in our country's healthcare
system. Big Pharma keeps drug prices too high. We have the best doctors
in the world, but too few people can afford to see them. Too many
Americans live with chronic diseases.
Labor and delivery centers across our country are more and more
scarce, and rural hospitals are struggling. Americans need to summon
our best ideas and our best efforts to meet these challenges, but we
will not make progress so long as this administration continues to keep
us trapped in old debates and tries to unravel bipartisan support for
the progress that we have already made.
Of course, it doesn't have to be this way. When I was Governor of New
Hampshire, we managed to expand Medicaid and balance the budget at the
same time, and we did both on a bipartisan basis. We did it with the
support of many business leaders and law enforcement leaders who didn't
always vote the same way come November, but they did agree that we are
all better off when people are healthy.
President Trump and congressional Republicans are presenting us with
a false choice. We don't have to choose between keeping the status quo
on the one hand and blowing up our healthcare system on the other. We
don't have to buy the falsehood that, somehow, we have to close rural
hospitals and throw seniors out of our nursing homes to improve our
healthcare system. There are better ideas, and a whole lot of them are
bipartisan.
There are bipartisan bills right now to lower the costs for patients
when they go to the doctor by implementing something called site
neutrality. There are bipartisan bills that will lower drug
[[Page S2167]]
costs by bringing more generic drugs to market. But these ideas only
help if there is a functioning healthcare system to build on--a
functioning healthcare system, as challenged as it is, that includes
Medicaid.
As Americans, we don't shrink from challenges. We don't surrender to
cynicism and lies. We work together. We do hard things. We do what it
takes to build a better future for our country, and we do it in a way
that brings all of us along together, and that includes ensuring that
all of us have healthcare. That is the way we created Medicaid. That is
the way we expanded Medicaid. And it is through that same spirit of
hard work and optimism that we can overcome the healthcare challenges
of today if we can summon the political will to do it.
A will has been so sorely lacking since this President arrived on the
scene. The Senate should not pass a budget that rips healthcare away
from millions of Americans--60,000 of whom live in my State--just to
give tax cuts to billionaires, but that is what this budget will do. It
is un-American, and it is shameful.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
Mr. KIM. Madam President, I rise today to tell the stories of the
nearly 2 million New Jerseyans who rely on Medicaid for their critical
care. I do this because their care is at risk. I do this because the
care of more than 72 million Americans across our country enrolled in
Medicaid is at risk. They are at risk because Republicans in the House
and the Senate have chosen to take away their care so that Elon Musk
and the very richest Americans can pay a little less in taxes.
That is the choice they have thrust upon the American people. It is a
choice that I don't believe they truly understand, so I would like to
take some of my time today on the floor to explain what happens when we
choose Elon Musk's well-being over the people we have sworn to serve.
To truly understand this, you need to understand that for tens of
millions of Americans, Medicaid is their lifeline from the womb to
their final years.
In New Jersey, nearly one out of three births is covered by Medicaid.
But even before that birth takes place, mothers receive prenatal care
covered by Medicaid. That means that for millions of parents across the
country, the first images they see of their child in those early
ultrasounds are because of Medicaid. It means that prenatal vitamins
that provide the folic acid necessary to ensure proper development are
because of Medicaid. It means that if there is a complication in a
pregnancy, those parents can focus on their health and the health of
their unborn child, not whether or not they will be able to cover the
costs of their care. That is because of Medicaid.
So when Republicans are saying we need to cut Medicaid, remember that
it is Elon Musk who wins and those expecting parents who lose.
When those children are born into the world, tens of millions rely on
Medicaid. Nationally, about 40 percent of children are enrolled in
Medicaid or CHIP. In New Jersey, one-third of children--one in three
kids in my State--are enrolled in Medicaid.
As a father of a 7-year-old and a 9-year-old, I can tell you that the
most important thing is knowing that your kids are healthy.
There are a lot of things that are outside of your control as a
parent. You can do everything right, but sometimes you just need help.
Kids get sick, and having that assurance that they can get the care
they need is an important thing.
When you take away Medicaid, you are not just taking away care, you
are taking away the peace of mind that parents deserve. You are taking
away the ability for parents to look their kids in the eye and say: It
is going to be OK.
I wanted to share with you two stories that have stuck with me. I
heard from Nicole, a mother from New Jersey who has a developmentally
disabled son, Jordan. Jordan is 24. His mother said that a Medicaid cut
would be ``catastrophic.'' She said that the care she receives from
Medicaid is ``vitally important.''
That sense of importance and urgency I heard from Nicole I saw echoed
from Jamie from Hazlet. Jamie's son David was born paralyzed,
nonverbal, and he is relying on a feeding tube. Jamie told reporters
that one of David's medications ``can cost up to $1,000 a month.'' She
said that if Republicans are successful in cutting Medicaid, ``we would
have to choose--are we going to eat? pay the bills? or keep him
alive?'' She said, ``It is a life-or-death situation.''
So when Republicans are talking about cutting Medicaid to hand tax
cuts to the wealthiest Americans, the choice they are making is to
leave people like Nicole and Jordan, like Jamie and David behind.
At some point, our children grow up and leave, but even then, so many
across this country rely on Medicaid for their basic care. In New
Jersey, one in seven adults between the ages of 19 and 64 is covered by
Medicaid.
When you look at the choice ahead of us between care and tax cuts for
the superrich, I want you to think about Caroline from Mount Holly.
Caroline called my office asking that I oppose this budget plan. When
she outlined her reason for not cutting Medicaid, she spoke in the
clearest possible terms:
I will die if there are cuts to Medicaid.
Caroline is disabled. Her daughter takes care of her through the
Managed Long-Term Services and Supports Program.
She ended her message by saying:
Please, I need help. A lot of us need your help.
These are the people that need help, not Elon Musk, not the
billionaires.
It is people like Caroline from Hackettstown. Caroline called my
office because her brother is on Medicaid. He is scheduled to get heart
surgery in the next couple of months--something that is scary enough
when you have the certainty of healthcare. But Caroline doesn't have
that if her brother's Medicaid is cut.
She said:
I'm really scared for him. I'm really scared for my parents
who are about to retire. . . . I'm scared for myself, someone
who also has multiple health issues and is trying to keep
down a full-time job despite it all.
These are the people that need help.
Our neighbors who sometimes need the most help are those who are
disabled. In New Jersey, one out of every three working-age adults with
a disability is on Medicaid.
Just last month, I invited Kevin Nunez--a disabled New Jerseyan and
an advocate for his community--down to the Capitol. Kevin relies on
Medicaid for his care, his caregiver, his basic quality of life. I
brought him to the Capitol because I wanted Donald Trump to have to
face someone whose healthcare he was threatening to take away.
But it wasn't just Kevin there at the Capitol; we saw his caregiver
Edna there. The work she does every day is truly incredible.
We should support our caregivers, should honor their service, and
cutting the funding that allows them to do their job is not the way to
do that.
Kevin is 1 of more than 15.5 million people across America with a
disability who are covered by Medicaid. He is 1 of approximately 4.5
million people who use Medicaid for home care workers like Edna.
The choice we are facing is abandoning those Americans like Kevin and
Edna, who just need basic care, or giving another tax cut to those at
the very top. For me, that is not a choice.
Finally, as we go through adulthood and age, Medicaid becomes more
important than ever. Seniors across our Nation are relying on Medicaid
for the care they need to live. Sixty percent of nursing home residents
in New Jersey use Medicaid to pay for care. When seniors are on a fixed
income, like so many of them are, Medicaid can be the difference
between life or death.
Annie, a teacher in New Jersey, called my office recently. Her mother
is on Medicaid--71 years old, recently had hip surgery. She has no
other income than her Social Security and asked that we do everything
we can to make sure that her Medicaid isn't cut.
As someone who is not just a father of two young kids but as a
caretaker of an older parent, it weighs on me, and I understand the
challenges that are there, knowing that you have to do everything you
can to make sure the people you love have the care they need.
Life is hard enough. Care is hard enough. The point of Medicaid, the
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point of government, is to make it a little easier, a little more
bearable.
So when Republicans come to the floor with a budget that threatens to
cut Medicaid so they can give tax cuts and tax breaks to the ultrarich,
the choice they are putting before us is making your lives worse and
make their lives better. It is making your healthcare worse to make
their bank accounts bigger. It is making your future more uncertain to
make their futures brighter.
That can't be an acceptable choice, and it is not one we have to
make. We can reject this budget resolution and save Medicaid and save
healthcare. We can reject this budget resolution and choose to support
that expecting mother who just wants to give birth to a healthy child.
We can reject this budget resolution and choose to support that child
as they grow. We can reject this budget resolution and choose to
support our neighbors who work hard but just need that little bit of
help to stay healthy and achieve the American dream. Finally, we can
reject this budget resolution and choose to support our seniors. We owe
the best care to them in their golden years.
This is the moment to show the 2 million New Jerseyans on Medicaid,
the nearly 80 million Americans on Medicaid, and every other American
across this country that we choose their well-being over the wealth and
power of those who already have plenty. Let's reject this budget
resolution and do the right thing for them.
I yield the floor.
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