New Year, New Opportunities for Congress to Work on Behalf of the American People

Statement

It's a New Year and a new opportunity for Congress to achieve progress for the American people, yet Republicans are beginning the year just as they governed in 2015: voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act and defund Planned Parenthood. Speaker Paul Ryan has said that House Republicans are ready to put forward ambitious policy ideas, but in our first week of 2016, Republican leaders have only wasted time on political messaging bills. The American people expect Congress to address the issues facing our nation, such as supporting job creation, addressing Puerto Rico's debt crisis, fixing our broken immigration system, passing comprehensive tax reform, reforming our criminal justice system, and taking action to address gun violence. I will continue to urge Speaker Ryan to work with Democrats to find bipartisan solutions to these issues.

This week, President Obama unveiled his plan to address the scourge of gun violence that plagues our country. I was proud to join him at the White House for his announcement, and I strongly support his decision to act to keep guns out of the hands of those who shouldn't have them. Expanding background checks is a commonsense measure, and one that a majority of Americans support. While this Republican-led Congress has failed to take meaningful action to protect Americans from senseless gun violence, I'm encouraged that President Obama is acting and I will urge my colleagues in Congress to take additional steps to keep Americans safe.

Finally, the end of January marks the end of the 2016 open enrollment for plans on the Health Insurance Marketplace. Millions of uninsured Americans have already signed up through state-sponsored and the federal exchanges, and I encourage you to visit healthcare.gov to explore your options. If you wish to have coverage by February 1, the deadline to sign up for coverage is January 15. The final deadline to sign up for health insurance in 2016 is January 31 for coverage effective March 1.

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