National Defense Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2018--Motion To Proceed--Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. President, Wells Fargo creates 3.5 million fake accounts, charging customers fees and ruining credit scores. Equifax lets hackers steal personal information on 143 million Americans, putting nearly 60 percent of American adults at risk of identity theft.

What is the Republican Party's response? To take away your legal rights to hold companies like Wells Fargo and Equifax accountable.

I know that sounds nuts, but it is true. Here is the issue. If you have a checking account, a credit card, a private student loan, or any other number of financial products, there is a good chance that you have given up your right to go to court if this financial firm cheats you. That is because millions of financial contracts include a forced arbitration clause that says that, if you want to legally challenge something your financial company did to you, you can't join with other customers in court. You have to go to arbitration all by yourself.

Think about what that means in the real world. You wake up one morning, and you find a mysterious $30 fee on your account statement.

You call the bank and say: Hey, I didn't agree to this. The bank tells you: Go pound sand. So what are your options?

Well, if there is no forced arbitration clause in your contract, you can join a class action lawsuit against the bank for free. Chances are you are not the only customer who got hit with an unauthorized $30 fee.
A class action gives you a chance to get some of that money back, and, just as importantly, the bank might actually have to cough up some real money and think twice before hitting you and their other customers with hidden fees again.

Think what happens if there is a forced arbitration clause. You can't join with other customers in court. Your only option is to go out on your own and file an arbitration claim, which will cost you $200 or more just to get started. OK. Who is going to pay $200 to get back a $30 fee? No one. And that is exactly what the banks are counting on.

They can get away with nickel-and-diming you forever.

Earlier this year, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau put a stop to that. They issued a new rule that prohibits financial companies from forcing you to give up your right to join in a class action. The rule guarantees your right to join other customers in court and to hold your bank accountable.

But Republicans in Congress are now coming after the rule. House Republicans have already voted to reverse the rule, and now Senate Republicans are gearing up to follow suit.

Make no mistake: Anyone who votes to reverse this rule is saying loud and clear that they side with the banks over their own constituents, because bank lobbyists are the only ones who are asking Congress to reverse this rule. Every other organization--all of those that represent actual human beings--want the rule to be saved.

Let me read from just a few. The Military Coalition, which represents more than 5.5 million veterans and servicemembers, supports the CFPB rule because ``our nation's veterans should not be deprived of the constitutional rights and freedoms that they put their lives on the line to protect, including the right to have their claims heard in a trial.'' The Coalition says, ``The catastrophic consequences these [forced arbitration] clauses pose for our all-voluntary military fighting force's morale and our national security are vital reasons'' to preserve the rule.

The AARP, which represents nearly 40 million American seniors, says that the CFPB rule should be preserved because it ``is a critical step in restoring consumers' access to legal remedies that have been undermined by the widespread use of forced arbitration for many years.'' And the Main Street Alliance, which represents thousands of small businesses, says the CFPB rule will help small businesses fight against big financial firms that try to drive up their fees.

There it is: veterans, servicemembers, seniors, small businesses, consumers--all lining up to support the CFPB rule. But that is not all.

Let Freedom Ring, which is an organization that proudly touts itself as ``supporting the conservative agenda'' likes the CFPB rule too. They say it is ``in keeping with our Framers' concerns that without appropriate protections, civil proceedings can be used as a means to oppress the powerless.''

That is the thing we have to understand. The effort to reverse the CFPB rule isn't about promoting a conservative agenda, and it sure as heck is not about promoting a working people's agenda. It is about advancing the donors' agenda, the big money agenda. That is it, period.

It is amazing. Not even a decade ago, the banks sparked a financial crisis that hurt millions of working families. And while the big banks got a taxpayer bailout and are back to doling out multimillion-dollar bonuses to their executives, a lot of working families are still struggling to recover.

Yet, here in Congress, the Republican Party is still carrying water for the big banks. The big banks say: Jump. The Republican Party asks: How high? The big banks tell Congress to take away their customers' rights to hold them accountable, and the Republican Party says: You bet. The big banks say: Take away those rights right now--right on the heels of Wells Fargo and Equifax sticking it to millions of customers.

The Republican Party, without an ounce of shame, says: Yes, sir, just keep those donations coming.

The Republican Party will stop carrying water for the big banks only if you demand it. There are a lot of dollars on the other side, but your votes, your calls, your emails can make a real difference. Tell your Senators to stand up to the big banks and vote no on this resolution.

Mr. President, over the past several weeks, families all over this country have raised their voices yet again. They have not given up, nor have they been shouted down, and they have made it very clear where they stand on the issue of healthcare.

The American people don't want tens of millions of people to lose their healthcare coverage. They don't want to open the door to insurance companies discriminating against people with preexisting conditions or eliminating addiction coverage or denying care for people with mental illness. They don't want to kick our grandmothers out of nursing homes or tell the parents of babies born prematurely that they are on their own to deal with a multimillion-dollar hospital bill. They don't want the Republican healthcare repeal bills--not any of the bills that have come before and not the latest version that was revealed this morning that is still as rotten to the core as every bill that has come before it.

Doctors and nurses don't want the Republican repeal. Neither do hospitals and insurance companies and nursing homes and Governors and State insurance commissioners.

But Senate Republicans plow ahead anyway. They are so desperate to destroy the Affordable Care Act that they keep yelling about how our healthcare system is in crisis, how it is imploding in front of our very eyes, trying to convince everyone that we need to blow the whole thing up in order to save it. But the thing is, while Republicans try to manufacture an imaginary healthcare crisis to justify their cruel repeal bill, there is a real crisis about to unfold--a crisis created by the Republicans.

September 30 is the deadline for several healthcare provisions. If Congress doesn't act this week, Federal programs that help children, pregnant women, people in need of addiction treatment, veterans, Medicare beneficiaries, and other populations will run out of funding or just expire altogether. In many cases, Republicans and Democrats have bills stacked up, just waiting to get a vote, the agreements all hammered out. But instead of bringing those bills to the floor, the Republican leadership is fixated on repealing health insurance coverage. They insist on voting again on something that most of America doesn't want while they ignore the work on healthcare that needs to get done now. This is beyond stupid.

One of the most important programs that will be expiring is the Children's Health Insurance Program, which provides coverage for 9 million low-income children and pregnant women across this country.

Senator Ted Kennedy and Senator Orrin Hatch wrote this legislation together back in the 1990s. Today, that program works with Medicaid to provide health insurance for one out of every three kids in this country, including foster children and kids with special health needs.

Senator Hatch and Senator Wyden--a Republican and a Democrat--have a bill ready to go to extend this program. Funding expires on September 30, but instead of holding a vote on that bill, Republicans want to spend this week trying to squeeze reluctant Senators to support the Graham-Cassidy bill, which contains permanent cuts to the Medicaid Program.

Then there is the funding for community health centers, which provide high-quality, integrated care. In Massachusetts, our community health centers serve one in every seven residents. Our health centers are on the frontlines of the opioid epidemic. They are working to eradicate tuberculosis. They are improving nutritional health. They are taking the stigma out of mental health treatments. And they save money, promoting prevention and reducing the use of hospital emergency rooms.

Community health centers are a big part of what is working well in healthcare today--more coverage at lower cost. They work, but they are running out of time. Funding for community health centers runs out on September 30. Last week, 70 U.S. Senators--including 24 Republicans-- signed a letter urging Congress to act to extend this funding. But instead of extending these funds, the Senate Republican leaders say: Too bad, we are too busy trying to knock millions of people out of healthcare coverage.

Then there is the funding for medical training at a special type of health center--teaching health centers. This program helps train primary care doctors. Greater Lawrence Family Health Center in Massachusetts was the very first community health center in the country to have a residency program like this. Almost 80 percent of their residents continue to work in underserved communities after they graduate--areas that often have a shortage of primary care physicians.

Funding for this program also runs out on September 30. Senator Collins and Senator Tester--a Republican and a Democrat--have a bill ready to go to extend funding for teaching health centers. But instead of holding a vote on that bill this week, Republicans have said: Sorry, we are too busy trying to take away healthcare coverage from the many people who walk through the doors of community health centers.

What else is at risk if Senate Republicans refuse to act before September 30? A whole package of Medicare Programs, which help seniors and people with disabilities access the care they need. In Massachusetts, this includes the SHINE Program, which helps Medicare beneficiaries pick the right health insurance plans.
Medicaid payments that go to hospitals treating large numbers of low- income patients are also going to run out.
Funds for the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program, which funds home visits to new and expectant parents to help give them the training they need and the help they need to keep a new baby healthy and safe, will run out. Senators Grassley and Menendez--a Republican and a Democrat--have a bipartisan bill ready to go. But instead of voting to help those new babies and their families, Republicans want us to vote on a bill to take away health insurance.

Let's not forget the bipartisan compromise that Senator Alexander and Senator Murray--a Republican and a Democrat--were working on to lower health insurance premiums. In order to keep insurance premiums down for millions of insurance plans, the bill has to pass this week. But Republicans walked away from the table because it is more important to them to rip healthcare from millions of Americans than to lower healthcare costs for hard-working families across this country.

There is a whole list of concrete things that Republicans and Democrats could be working on together to improve healthcare in this country--healthcare for babies, for new moms, for seniors on Medicaid, for people with disabilities, and for every American who buys an ACA insurance plan. In fact, behind the scenes, Republicans and Democrats have already been working together on these programs. The bills are ready to go. They are drafted, they are printed up, and they are just waiting for a vote.

We are on the edge of a healthcare crisis. It is a healthcare crisis created by the Senate Republican leadership that insists that we burn time off the clock this week, voting on yet another effort to rip away people's health insurance.

The Senate has real work to do--work that could help millions of American families. It is time to drop this cruel effort to repeal healthcare and instead focus on making sure that important health programs don't run out of funds in the next few days. That is what the American people want to see us do.

Mr. President, I yield.

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