Healthcare

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, finally, on healthcare, ever since Republicans have been handed the keys to both Houses of Congress and the White House after the 2016 election, they have engaged in a protracted campaign of sabotage against our healthcare system. Premiums are going up, coverage is going down, and it is all falling in the laps of our Republican colleagues in the House and Senate.

President Trump and congressional Republicans proposed legislation that would have gutted Medicaid and allowed insurers to charge more and deny coverage just because a person had gotten sick. The legislation would have excluded critical benefits and imposed lifetime or annual limits on care.

Under cover of night, the Republicans dismantled the healthcare law's coverage requirement without putting anything in its place.

The Trump administration canceled the Federal program that helped low-income customers afford insurance and expanded the availability of junk insurance plans that sucker Americans in with low premiums but that hardly cover anything. When people have these plans, they ask: Why did I even buy insurance? They were duped.

Now, worse yet, the administration has directed the Justice Department to stop defending the constitutionality of protections for Americans with preexisting medical conditions--turning its back on the most popular and humane advancement in our healthcare system over the last decade.

I would say to my Republican friends: Go to your constituents. Ask if people have someone who is sick in their families. You will get a lot of hands. Then ask them if they should be excluded from gaining health insurance to help that sick member and see how many support these ideas.

If they try to do this in the dark of night, it is not going to work. In August, we Democrats are going to be talking about this over and over again. Believe me--this will probably be the most important factor in the 2018 election as the American people will rebel from the taking away of healthcare.

Imagine going back to the days when a mother with a child who has cancer can no longer find affordable healthcare for her daughter. When hard-working Americans who fall on hard times are made to suffer by being denied healthcare coverage precisely because they need it, how wrong, how backward, how immoral. That is where President Trump wants to take us, and that is where all of our Republican colleagues seem to be following.

Later this morning--actually, right now--a group of Democrats is announcing how we plan to fight back against this lawsuit and preserve the protections for up to 130 million nonelderly Americans who have preexisting conditions. The elderly, fortunately, are protected since we still have Medicare, despite some efforts by some on the other side to cut it back.

As millions of Americans watch their healthcare costs go up, as they read the news about the latest Republican effort to undo healthcare protections, they fear for the future and wonder who in Washington will be fighting for them. In November, they will have the chance to vote for a party that will check the President's dangerous healthcare sabotage, that will work to bring down costs and improve quality, that will never undermine the protections of Americans with preexisting conditions.

I look forward to the response to my colleagues' announcement.

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