Directing the Clerk of the House to Make A Correction in the Enrollment of H.R. 2423

Floor Speech

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Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, as President Trump and the Senate Republicans continue to press forward with their relentless attacks on families' healthcare, the Democrats are going to continue to make clear just what is at stake by lifting up stories of patients and families across the country, starting with Natasha from my home State of Washington.

Because of a diagnosis she received when she was young, Natasha had long believed she could not conceive, so she and her partner were particularly surprised last year to get the news that she was pregnant. With that unexpected news, came all sorts of questions, including whether they could handle the cost of things like maternity care, postpartum care, and newborn care. Fortunately, Natasha's family had coverage through Medicaid, so all of the medical costs she had been so concerned about were completely covered. Instead of worrying about how they would pay for the healthcare she needed, she and her partner were able to focus on getting ready to welcome the newest addition to their family.

Natasha's story shows why families across the country are so worried as the Republicans continue down the damaging path they have been on for years. Since day No. 1 of the Trump administration, the Republicans have been working to raise families' healthcare costs, take away their coverage, and make healthcare lower quality.

In the Senate, the Republicans have stood with President Trump as he has tried to implement draconian caps on Medicaid through his Trumpcare bill and has proposed budgets that slash funding for Medicaid. They have also stood by as President Trump has implemented a gag rule on title X-funded clinics--jeopardizing reproductive healthcare for millions of patients. The Republicans are also opposing the Democrats' efforts to lower skyrocketing prescription drug prices by allowing Medicare to negotiate on behalf of patients and to reverse President Trump's steps to promote junk insurance plans that do not protect patients with preexisting conditions and do increase families' healthcare costs.

The Republicans are even cheerleading a partisan lawsuit that will be catastrophic to families across the country. We could get a ruling on this lawsuit any day now. If the Republicans get their way, protections for the over 100 million people in this country with preexisting conditions could be thrown out the window. Millions of families who are covered through the exchanges and Medicaid expansion could be thrown off of their healthcare, and young adults could be kicked off of their parents' plans before they turn 26. Patients could also be stuck paying tens of thousands of dollars for their care as caps on their out-of- pocket costs are eliminated, as caps on their lifetime and annual benefits come back--even for those, by the way, who are covered through their employers' plans--and as essential benefits that make sure their coverage includes things like prescription drugs and emergency care go away.

For patients like Natasha, the Republicans' healthcare agenda would be a disaster. Not only would it gut Medicaid, which helped her to get the help she needed, but if the Republicans succeed in this lawsuit, insurance companies could discriminate against patients like her for having preexisting conditions, including, by the way, being pregnant, and insurance companies could choose not to cover essential health benefits like maternity care.

The junk plans President Trump is already promoting leave patients facing similar problems today. In fact, as part of their application process, many of those junk plans ask patients whether they are pregnant or are planning to become pregnant. That is because these junk plans are already allowed to deny coverage, exclude benefits, or charge higher premiums for patients with preexisting conditions.

The Republicans' approach to patients' healthcare--making it more expensive, harder to get, and lower quality--is clearly designed to work for big insurance companies, not for people like Natasha. Her story is one of many. In fact, it is one of tens of millions. There are so many other families across the country who are seeing their well- being being put at risk by the Republicans' harmful healthcare agenda. Yet we have seen before what can happen when people share their stories, when we lift those stories up, and when we put faces or names to the people the Republicans could hurt with their policies. When the Republicans tried to jam through their Trumpcare bill, we stopped it because people across the country fought back, and they spoke up.

As President Trump and the Republicans continue using every tool they can to try and undermine families' healthcare, the Democrats are going to be here to continue to remind our colleagues on the other side of the aisle that everything we do and don't do in the Capitol has real consequences for real families, especially when it comes to issues like healthcare, which every family has to deal with.

Whether it is losing coverage right as you finally have the chance to start a family or whether it is being rejected because you have a preexisting condition, we are going to continue lifting up those voices who aren't on the Senate floor, and we are going to continue making clear what the GOP's healthcare plan would actually mean to people's lives. This isn't a matter of politics for families; it is a matter of life and death, and we aren't going to let the Republicans forget it.

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