[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 152 (Wednesday, September 17, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6702-S6704]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               HEALTHCARE

  Ms. SLOTKIN. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about a very simple 
idea: that in the most powerful country in the world, every American 
should have access to healthcare they can afford.
  Protecting Michiganders' healthcare is why I ran for the House 
originally. It is why I am here in the Senate.
  I, frankly, never thought I would run for political office. But, in 
2017, I watched on CNN as my then-Representative smiled and cheered in 
the Rose Garden as President Trump repealed the Affordable Care Act in 
the U.S. House. I looked at my TV screen, and I said: No, you don't get 
to do that. You don't get to ignore your constituents, vote against 
their interest, and keep your job.
  I am a former CIA officer. I served alongside the military. In the 
military, they have a term for this. It is ``dereliction of duty.'' It 
is a fireable offense. I ran that year to fire him, and, in 2018, we 
did just that.
  This issue has particular salience for me because of my mom. My mom 
passed away in 2011 from ovarian cancer, and she had survived breast 
cancer many, many years ago, when I was a little girl. So she had that 
preexisting condition for the rest of her life.
  She lost her job. She had financial issues. She couldn't afford the 
insurance that was on offer to her and walked into an emergency room 
and was diagnosed with stage IV ovarian cancer.
  It was like a grenade went off in our lives. It is something I would 
not wish upon my worst enemy.
  I took a leave of absence. I came home to Michigan. And at the same 
time that she was fighting for her life to get tests and emergency 
surgery, it was the same moment that we were fighting the insurance 
company so that she could get care.
  She fought hard for 18 months, but she passed away in 2011. And that 
experience drives the work that I did in the House and, certainly, why 
I am here on this floor today.
  Sadly, we are nearly a decade after that original attempt by 
President Trump to repeal the ACA, and we are in a similar place. 
President Trump and my Republican colleagues are doing everything in 
their power to cut healthcare for average Americans. They are just 
doing it in different and creative ways because they know it is 
politically unpopular to tell you to your face.
  We are coming up on a big deadline here. We all know that. On 
September

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30, the government runs out of money. I don't know a single person who 
wants a government shutdown. After almost 16 years in the Federal 
Government, where I was on the receiving end of those shutdowns, I do 
not want our government to run out of money. But if my Republican 
colleagues want my vote on that bill, they are going to need to act 
like adults and come talk to me about it.
  And what I will say to the State that I am representing, as well as 
to my colleagues, is that if you want that vote, you are going to have 
to talk to me about healthcare. That is the place to start.
  If we would roll the tape back to just a couple of months ago, the 
President and my colleagues voted on the Big Beautiful Bill. The Big 
Beautiful Bill did important things to change the face of healthcare in 
the United States, and we are only now just starting to feel the 
effects.
  So if you want my vote next week or in the next couple of weeks, we 
are going to have to talk about the significant Medicaid cuts that you 
made, the ending of a bunch of subsidies for the marketplace, or 
Obamacare, and talk to me about putting money back into things like 
cancer research that you slashed, because there are few things as 
fundamental as providing healthcare to your family, and yet there are 
few systems in America that are as broken as healthcare in America.
  I don't know of a single person who thinks that our healthcare system 
is working well. Do you know a single person who thinks they are paying 
too little for healthcare?
  And then, on top of that, we don't even get the health outcomes they 
get in other countries.
  And, now, President Trump has made these cuts even worse. As I 
mentioned, in the Big Beautiful Bill, they did two really important 
things: They cut Medicaid, and they cut the subsidies for Obamacare.
  Why did they do that? That was the math that they needed in order to 
pay for permanent tax cuts for the very wealthy. Right? They didn't 
want to say that out loud: that in order to pay for those tax cuts for 
the very wealthy--those permanent tax cuts--they had to cut healthcare 
in America. They had to, in order to make the math work.
  But we know that those kinds of cuts could potentially shutter 
hospitals, particularly in the rural parts of my State. Community 
health centers could close. Every hospital I have talked to is talking 
about which services are they going to have to cut, particularly things 
like birth and delivery services. You are going to have communities 
that have to drive 30, 40, 50 miles just to have a baby or to make it 
to the ER.
  And, now, Michiganders on the other side of the ledger--those who 
have private insurance--are starting to feel the heat, because if you 
cut those other programs, if you cut Medicaid and Obamacare--and maybe 
you say to yourself: Well, I am not on Medicaid. Well, I am not on the 
marketplace. I don't have Obamacare. The healthcare companies have 
already started, for their private insurance, increasing the rates, 
starting January 1.
  They are starting to send out letters, like this one I have in front 
of me. This was sent to a man in Macomb County, in Sterling Heights. I 
met him this past weekend.
  I said: I am really concerned that private, employer-provided 
healthcare is going to go up starting January 1.
  He is like: I have already got my letter.
  His letter here says: Last year, the cost of your healthcare program 
in total was $36,969--so almost $37,000. Starting January 1, if you 
want to continue this program, it is $43,000.
  That is happening across the State of Michigan already. So if you 
thought that the Big Beautiful Bill was cutting someone else's 
healthcare, that cost--which is so personal to so many people because 
it is whether we can provide health to our loved ones--is now going to 
go up. So every single American is either at risk of losing their 
health insurance or having the price of their health insurance go up.

  Other Michiganders are going to see an even bigger price hike than 
those who are in private insurance, especially if they are one of the 
half million Michiganders who get their coverage through the ACA 
marketplace or ObamaCare. Open season is this November 1. They are 
going to start to feel that pain immediately. We are hearing stories of 
people who are going to get a 79-percent increase in their bill 
starting January 1.
  I had the head of a big Michigan private insurance company come in 
today. She was telling me that other insurers have just decided to get 
out of the business of providing healthcare plans for people on the 
marketplace. You are going to have fewer choices. Companies like HAP, 
Molina, and Meridian have already decided, because of the bill 
President Trump pushed for in July, they are no longer going to be 
offering plans through the ObamaCare marketplace. So less choice, 
higher prices.
  Just to put this in perspective, here is an example of what President 
Trump and my Republican colleagues have brought to working Americans: A 
family of four making $129,000 a year, two kids, if they are on the 
marketplace plan, they are going to see their healthcare plan go up by 
$5,000 next year starting January 1. That is how much they will pay 
just for the increase.
  And a 60-year-old couple, two elderly folks--or 60-year-old folks, 
not elderly--living on about $85,000 a year, they are empty nesters. 
Their kids have left home. They will see their premiums go up by over 
$10,000 next year. What do you do if you are 60 years old, and there 
are two of you? Your plan was already expensive. Now you have another 
$10,000 on top of that.
  You know that those people are thinking to themselves: You know what? 
I am just going to go without insurance. I can't--he is raising my 
bills in every single category, and so I am just going to take the 
risk. I am going to go without health insurance and hope that I don't 
get into a car crash or into a major accident.
  President Trump literally campaigned on lowering your costs. That was 
what this election was about. He said he was going to put more money in 
your pocket. Can anyone name a single place, if you are a working 
American, where your costs have gone down and not up since January of 
this year?
  And many Michiganders are going to end up in the position my mom was 
in--walking into an ER, getting that diagnosis--your brother, your 
mother, your child--needing care and having to choose between 
bankruptcy and getting some sort of care for that terminal illness.
  We can't end the fight there. I am willing to negotiate with my 
colleagues. I know that plenty of my colleagues on the other side of 
the aisle think that it is absolutely insane to raise the price of 
healthcare; that they don't want to be associated with that. There are 
so many people who feel that way. We have people retiring on the other 
side of the aisle.
  But the only way that we move the needle is if we get loud about it. 
That is exactly what happened in 2017. Why is it that cutting 
healthcare was President Trump's signature campaign goal in 2016? Why 
did he talk about it obsessively every day in 2017? While the House of 
Representatives on the other side of this building did repeal 
ObamaCare, but we still have it today--why is that? It is because the 
public said no. The public said: You are not going to take away my 
healthcare, my protections for preexisting conditions, and get away 
with it.
  And the public turned so hard against the Republicans on that issue 
that in this body, on this floor, John McCain cast the deciding vote, 
thumbs down, on repealing ObamaCare. That is why we have it today 
because of the bravery of that man.
  I wish and pray for the bravery of someone like John McCain to be 
back in this body on the other side of the aisle who has the ability to 
say: No matter what my party, I am not going to charge Americans more 
for their healthcare.
  President Trump has done the opposite of that. If you want to 
understand what happens when you get your letter--and they are all 
coming. October for Michiganders is when we understand the plans are 
sending out their letters. When you get that letter and gasp how your 
price has gone up on your private insurance, your employer-provided 
healthcare, you understand exactly who gave you that price increase, 
exactly who put you in that position, exactly who told you that he was 
going to lower your costs, and now

[[Page S6704]]

you are going to have to eat that cost starting January 1. That is 
Donald Trump. That is my Republican colleagues who sit across the 
aisle. That is everyone who said: I am going to do the political thing 
instead of what is right for the average American.
  Healthcare is something that this country should be providing to its 
citizens so that everyone can afford it. That is just a basic thing we 
should do as the most powerful Nation in the world.
  All I ask my colleagues across the aisle, especially as we hit this 
September 30 deadline, is ask yourself: What would John McCain do? What 
would John McCain have done on the Big Beautiful Bill and what would he 
do if he had the chance to restore people's healthcare and he had that 
moment on the Senate floor?
  Please, grow some spine and help your constituents. Let's have a 
conversation about healthcare.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.

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