Executive Calendar

Floor Speech

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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague for starting this really important discussion that all of us should be very well aware of, and I appreciate his leadership.

People across this country have been absolutely clear. They want us to fight for families who are struggling with high healthcare costs and help to make sure that everyone in our country can get quality affordable care. But while Democrats have been coming forward with solutions and calling on Republicans to come to the table to address the healthcare sabotage they have helped President Trump accomplish, instead, they have been repeatedly on the other side, refusing to fight the fire and having only just shown real interest in fanning the flames.

There are so many glaring examples about how President Trump has worked to sabotage families' healthcare. We are here today to focus on just one--the tireless efforts to undermine Medicaid.

It is a program that helps people across the country get affordable, quality healthcare. State after State has now worked to expand Medicaid in recent years, and time after time, we have all seen the benefits of those efforts. Data shows us that Medicaid has helped reduce racial disparities in healthcare. It has helped us increase access to treatment for opioid use disorder. It is a critical need as our country confronts a nationwide epidemic. It has helped to improve maternal and infant health, another area where we desperately need to make progress.

Medicaid expansion has helped tens of millions of people get quality, affordable healthcare. That is exactly why States that expanded Medicaid have seen their uninsured rates drop more than those that did not.

Yet some Republicans have tried every trick in the book to try to undermine that progress. Back when Republicans were first calling for their harmful TrumpCare plan, they made clear that they wanted to put Medicaid on the chopping block in a very big way--not only rolling back Medicaid expansion but proposing deep cuts for moms and kids and people with disabilities and seniors who need those long-term services and support. Even after people across the country spoke up and pushed back and defeated that backward proposal, Republicans have still tried to take away care from millions of families across the country who rely on Medicaid.

President Trump has called for enormous cuts to Medicaid in his budget proposals. He has pushed for burdensome paperwork requirements that serve no real purpose except to put up barriers that make it harder for people to get the care they need and easier for him to take their care away.

Here in Congress, Republican leadership made clear that their preferred way to pay for the expensive tax breaks they gave to corporations and the wealthy was to cut programs like Medicaid that gave healthcare to those who struggle and are in need.

Even as President Trump and Republicans fight against the wishes of people across the country for these backward proposals, they are fighting to dismantle Medicaid in court as well.

If President Trump gets his way in his blatantly partisan lawsuits, not only will protections for people with preexisting conditions be struck down, not only will young adults be dropped from parents' plans, not only will essential health benefits that ensure coverage and that include prescription drug coverage and maternity care and more go away, not only will lifetime annual caps on coverage return--even for people who are insured through their employer, by the way--but if President Trump has his way in court, Medicaid expansion also will be struck down and tens of millions of families in this country will have the care that they rely on today taken away.

That is wrong, and Democrats are not going to stand for it. We are going to be here to defend patients' care and look to expand coverage and improve quality for families.

I am really proud that my home State of Washington is leading the way. In my home State, instead of taking Medicaid away from people, we are taking on even more challenges through the program. Our State is showing how Medicaid can help to provide people with long-term care benefits in their home, and how it can help address employment challenges and housing needs and other social determinants of health that improve the health of our entire communities.

In short, we are showing how Medicaid can do more, while many Republicans here in the Nation's Capital are trying to get it so it does less.

Enough is enough. It is time for Republicans to stop sabotaging our families' care, stop trying to take coverage away from families and make it more expensive and out of reach, stop trying to undermine Medicaid and the lives of the millions of people who rely on it and start working with Democrats to fight for patients and for families.

If Republicans want to keep sitting by and cheering on the harmful healthcare sabotage proposals, they are going to keep seeing families and patients and Democrats standing up to hold them accountable.

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