Zika Virus Funding and Obamacare
Floor Speech
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Mr. WICKER. Madam President, I wonder if the Senator will yield for a question.
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Mr. WICKER. Madam President, the Senator makes an excellent point about the tremendous cost increases that American taxpayers and American medical consumers have experienced, as well as the number of insurers that are just leaving the scheme altogether. So Americans really are not any better off.
I appreciate the Senator coming to the floor time and again with the facts about this issue, but in particular I want to go back to a point the Senator made with regard to what we are going to vote on in a few minutes. Do I understand from my friend from Wyoming that we will soon be voting on--at the top of the hour, we will be voting on a proposal that funds the Zika disease at an amount that the CDC says is necessary and at an amount that our friends on the Democratic side have argued for and voted for time and again? Do I understand that to be correct?
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Mr. WICKER. This very bill we will be voting on funds Zika at that amount?
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Mr. WICKER. I was disappointed to hear the Senator say that he believes the Democrats will come in and once again block this funding this afternoon. If that happens, when will be the next opportunity that this body will have to vote on this vital funding?
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Mr. WICKER. Madam President, I would just observe--and there may be others who wish to speak in the very short time we have--I would just observe that we have a bill before us that gives the administration what they have been requesting, that gives our friends on the Democratic side of the aisle what they have asked for time and time again, saying that the Senate should act. We have an opportunity to do that today and to leave here with a victory for health care and a victory for the American people. Yet, if we do not act--and it appears we will not because Democrats will come in and object and not get the 60 votes--then it is going to be a month and a half to 2 months before we can provide the funding for this vital disease-prevention legislation.
So I would just say that I would call on my colleagues, here at the eleventh hour, to reconsider their position. Let's go out for the conventions on a positive note and give the American people the funding the experts in our government tell us is necessary.
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