Protecting the Healthcare of Hundreds of Millions of People of the United States and Preventing Efforts of the Department of Justice to Advocate Courts to Strike Down the Patient Protection and Affordable

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Harris), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), the Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Schatz), and the Senator from Montana (Mr. Tester) are necessarily absent.

The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 82, nays 6, as follows: [Rollcall Vote No. 196 Leg.] YEAS--82 Baldwin Barrasso Bennet Blumenthal Booker Boozman Braun Brown Burr Cantwell Capito Cardin Carper Casey Cassidy Collins Cornyn Cortez Masto Cotton Cramer Crapo Daines Duckworth Durbin Enzi Ernst Feinstein Fischer Gardner Gillibrand Graham Grassley Hassan Heinrich Hirono Hoeven Hyde-Smith Inhofe Johnson Jones Kaine Kennedy King Klobuchar Lankford Leahy Manchin Markey McConnell McSally Menendez Merkley Murkowski Murphy Murray Perdue Peters Portman Reed Risch Roberts Romney Rosen Rounds Schumer Scott (FL) Scott (SC) Shaheen Shelby Sinema Smith Stabenow Sullivan Thune Udall Van Hollen Warner Warren Whitehouse Wicker Wyden Young NAYS--6 Cruz Hawley Lee Loeffler Paul Toomey NOT VOTING--12 Alexander Blackburn Blunt Coons Harris Moran Rubio Sanders Sasse Schatz Tester Tillis

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Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, the selection of the person to fill the Supreme Court vacancy is a historic moment in Washington. This is the seventh time that we will be in a position to at least meet someone who is aspiring to that position. I have had opportunities with each one of them to ask some questions before the formal hearing. I hope I have the same opportunity with the current nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett.

What is different about this particular moment is the fact that we know that there is an issue at stake here and one that is likely to be decided almost immediately by the new Supreme Court Justice. It is the only explanation I can find--perhaps one other--the only two explanations I can find as to why there is this hurry to fill this vacancy.

You see, it was 4 years ago, when there was a vacancy on the Supreme Court with Antonin Scalia's death--and that occurred on the February before the election--that Senator McConnell, then the Republican Senate leader, argued there was no need to hurry. Why hurry about it? Leave the vacancy on the Supreme Court. Wait until after the next Presidential election. Let the American people decide who will be filling that vacancy.

He made that argument, despite the clear history in this Chamber that did not support him, and he won the support of his position by every Republican Senator. They went so far as to say that if President Obama, in his last year in office, nominated someone to fill the Supreme Court vacancy, they wouldn't give that person a hearing.

Well, President Obama, in his last year of his Presidency, nominated Merrick Garland, a person who was widely respected as the chief judge in the DC Circuit Court--the second highest court in the land by some measure--and Merrick Garland came to Capitol Hill in the hopes that he would get his day in court, so to speak, in the Senate. But Senator McConnell said: No way. Words out, Republican Senators, don't meet with him. A couple of them broke his rule and met with him anyway. But the word was out not to even give him the courtesy of a meeting 4 years ago. So Merrick Garland never had his day before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and his nomination departed with the Presidency of Barack Obama.

Senator McConnell's new theory prevailed on how the Senate should treat Supreme Court vacancies. Every one of his soldiers on the Republican Senate marched in lock step with his theory. Well, guess what happened 4 years ago later. An incumbent President had a late vacancy on the Supreme Court with the untimely death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, just a little over a week-and-a-half ago. And the obvious question to Senator McConnell is: Will you be consistent now and say that that vacancy should not be filled until a new President is elected, and that President should have the option to fill it? And Senator McConnell said: Of course not. It is not to my political advantage--he didn't add those words; I did--not to my political advantage. I am going to change this hard-and-fast rule of 4 years ago, and I am going to ask all of my Republican Senators to march before a camera and a microphone and to look down at their shoes and say the position they took 4 years ago, they are abandoning today. And all but two of them did it. All but two of them walked away from their pledge that they were under the old McConnell rule.

That McConnell rule was stated in just a few words. Here is what Senator McConnell said 4 years ago:

The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new President.

The McConnell rule was thrown out just a few days ago. Why? Because it was to Senator McConnell's advantage to fill this vacancy and to the President's and not to wait for the outcome of the November 3 election. So what is the issue? What would cause Senator McConnell to change so quickly and to ask all of his loyal Republican Senators to go through the embarrassment of recanting the position they took publicly 4 years ago? What is the big deal, Senator McConnell? Well, it turns out we know what the big deal is. It is the Affordable Care Act. To paraphrase a Senator from Arkansas, Dale Bumpers, the Republicans and President Trump hate the Affordable Care Act like the devil hates holy water. They have tried every imaginable way to eliminate it, to change it, to water it down, and to discourage it. There were 50 different votes in the House of Representatives to eliminate the Affordable Care Act, and were it not for the Democrats in the Senate, they might have had some luck in doing that, but it didn't work. So they tried it on the Senate floor under reconciliation. They thought: Here is our chance. We just need a majority. We should be able to pull this one off.

And we had this historic moment just 3 years ago when, at 2:30 in the morning, John McCain came through those doors, and, with his ``no'' vote and the vote of two other Republican Senators, saved the Affordable Care Act. Imagine the frustration of Mitch McConnell. Here was his moment to finally drive that dagger deep in the heart of the Affordable Care Act, and John McCain voted no. What was he going to do to get this job done?

Well, it turns out he figured he would get it done across the street in the U.S. Supreme Court. So 18 Republican State attorneys general filed a lawsuit to eliminate the Affordable Care Act. And then the Trump administration said: We are on board too. Let's get rid of it completely.

Off they went through the long treacherous journey in the courts all the way up to the Supreme Court across the street. Guess when the argument is scheduled to be heard. It is to be heard 7 days after the election. So you wonder why there is such a hurry to put another Supreme Court Justice on the Court who also opposes the Affordable Care Act? And make no mistake, President Trump made that one of the conditions of employment for anyone he would name to the Supreme Court. You have to be ready to march right in there and put an end to it.

So if we can vote under Senator McConnell's timetable on or before the election, November 3, the new Supreme Court Justice sworn in, in her black robe, ascends to the bench in the Supreme Court on November 10, listens to the oral argument on the Affordable Care Act, and then a few weeks or months later puts an end to it. That is why we are in such a hurry, because if that Supreme Court vacancy is not filled by November 10, then whomever is chosen, as they do by tradition, could vote on the actual outcome of the case in the spring. That is what this is all about.

As someone told me long ago in this business of politics, there is always a good reason, and then there is always the real reason. The real reason for the mad dash of the Senate Judiciary Committee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy, the real reason why Republican Senators are asked to march in lockstep and say that what they pledged 4 years ago meant nothing today--the real reason--is to put an end to the Affordable Care Act.

Let me tell the story, if I can, about the Affordable Care Act. I voted for it and am proud to have done it. Twenty million Americans have insurance because of it--600,000 in Illinois and, I might add, protections for people all across America. Let me discuss one of the protections of the Affordable Care Act that will go away and be eliminated if President Trump, the Republican Attorney General, and the Republican Senators who are supporting Mitch McConnell have their way. Here is one of the provisions in the law.

Here is the story.

A couple of years ago, Tom from Palatine, IL, a suburb of Chicago, wrote to me about the Affordable Care Act. I will show a picture here. This is him. At the age of 30, Tom, married with dreams of fatherhood, was diagnosed with cancer, a tumor in his chest. He underwent 20 rounds of chemo and major surgery to remove the tumor. Thankfully, after that, he was cancer free.

There is Tom in his better days, racing to Wrigley. And there he is fighting his way through cancer in a hospital bed.

How much did it cost him for all of that care? Two million dollars. Two million dollars was the bill.

Before the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies imposed arbitrary annual and lifetime limits on how much they would actually reimburse a patient for medical bills. If you pass the limit, you are on the hook personally. That is why for years, medical debt was a leading cause of bankruptcy in America.

A fellow like Tom, racing along here, looking as healthy and fit as possible, ends up with a cancer diagnosis and goes through months and months of therapy and a bill of 2 million bucks, and the insurance company says: It is all yours. There is a limit in your policy.

That is the way it used to be before the Affordable Care Act. The Affordable Care Act put an end to those limits. Without those protections, Tom wrote to me and said that he ``would most likely have capped [his] coverage and be bankrupt.'' It is pretty clear.

Thousands of other Americans could also be right there with him without the Affordable Care Act. Although Tom wants to continue working and contributing to society, he said he is scared to death. He is ``terrified''--in his words--that protections for preexisting conditions would be ended. You see, Tom having defeated surgery and declared this great victory--I am sure his friends and family couldn't be happier--is now branded by the insurance companies as a man with a preexisting condition.

In the old days, before the Affordable Care Act: Good luck, Tom. Good luck, because if you had a preexisting condition--and almost anything would count: acne, asthma, being a woman who might get pregnant, and on and on and on--you were subjected to higher premiums, maybe even no insurance at all. Those were the days before the Affordable Care Act.

Now, President Trump, the Republican attorneys general, and the Republicans in the Senate are dutybound to send a new Supreme Court Justice in to put an end to that protection, to put an end to the Affordable Care Act. They are so determined to get rid of ObamaCare at any cost that they could care less about Tom and people just like him with these lifetime limits.

If the Affordable Care Act is struck down, insurers could once again deny coverage to millions of Americans with preexisting conditions. That isn't all.

The Affordable Care Act also made it clear that if you are a family with a son or daughter who goes to college, comes out of school looking for a job, maybe had taken that gap year, maybe had taken an internship, but likely not to have health insurance, the Affordable Care Act says don't worry. Until that young man or young woman in your household reaches the age of 26, they can stay on your family's health insurance plan--a provision of the Affordable Care Act and a provision that a lot of families count on.

Our family needed something just like that when our daughter graduated college and didn't have health insurance and assured me that she sure didn't need it and she was so healthy. Well, that is scary talk for a parent to hear. But when it came to the Affordable Care Act, we would have been able to keep our young daughter under that policy-- our family policy--for a period of time. The Republicans want that to go away--to go away with the Affordable Care Act.

You say to yourself: Well, clearly, Durbin, you are not telling the whole story. You are not telling us what the Republican plan is to replace the Affordable Care Act.

It is true--guilty as charged. I am not describing to you the Republican alternative to the Affordable Care Act because it doesn't exist. It does not exist. That is why John McCain and two other Republican Senators said: You can't eliminate the Affordable Care Act unless you have a replacement that is as good or better. Otherwise, too many American families will lose their insurance and lose their protection.

We had a hearing a few weeks ago, and I asked the leaders in the health community under the Trump administration the basic question: What have you heard about the Republican substitute for the Affordable Care Act? President Trump has told us over and over and over and over again that it is just a week or two away. So what have you heard about preparedness?

They said: Nothing. We have heard nothing.

There is no Republican substitute for the Affordable Care Act. They are just dutybound to eliminate ObamaCare, and, sadly, the consequences would be awful.

That is what this is about. So if you think, I don't want to tune in to this whole debate about a new Supreme Court Justice from Indiana; I don't want to hear all these arguments because what difference does it make to me--if you are that person in America--I would say to you, please, take a look at what we are really facing here--an effort to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court in a timely way to eliminate the Affordable Care Act. That is what this is all about.

Then, the President, just for good measure, tossed in another issue last week. How about this one--the first President in the history of the United States to not publicly declare that he would accept the outcome of an election? How about that? It is nothing short of a constitutional outrage that any President would say that. It is no surprise with this President because, when he was a candidate, he said basically the same thing: If it doesn't turn out that I win, then, I am not sure I want to live by the results.

He makes up these contrived arguments against paper ballots and how fraudulent they are. There are five States--five States in America-- that use mail-in ballots exclusively. They include, of course, the State of Oregon, which might have been one of the first, and they include the State of Utah, as well, and Hawaii. Other States do it. How much fraud is there? Almost none. But that doesn't stop the President from claiming that mail-in ballots are fraudulent.

How does the President vote, incidentally? By mail-in ballot. What hypocrisy for him to make that kind of statement when he is casting his own vote with a mail-in ballot.

So now he said that he wants that Supreme Court vacancy filled: Do it now because I need nine Justices sitting on that Supreme Court if there is any election contest to follow.

It is pretty obvious what this is all about. The President needs a sure vote on the Supreme Court.

What a shame that we have reached this point, that we have denigrated the U.S. Senate to the point that we change the rules at our convenience, that we have reached the point where we are prepared to eliminate protections for 20 million Americans with nothing to replace it, and that we have reached a point where a President is so brazen as to say he wants to fill that spot on the Supreme Court just in case he runs into an election contest.

You would think there would be a chorus--a bipartisan chorus--of outrage for that statement by the President. Not so. There may have been others--and I will scour the records to make sure--but two Republicans stepped up and said that the President's public statement on not abiding by election returns was terrible.

Who were those two? Senator Mitt Romney, here, the only Republican Senator I know of. If there were more, I will come back and correct the record. But I heard him clearly say that what the President said was intolerable. Then there was the Republican Governor of Massachusetts. I watched that press conference. He wasn't just declarative. He was upset to think that any President of either party would make that kind of statement. That is what we are up against.

Two weeks from yesterday, they want to hold a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee on this nominee, Judge Barrett, and they want the vote before the election, before the argument on the Affordable Care Act, and before the President faces any possibility of an election contest.

What a point we have reached in this country. The silence of Republicans across the Nation is deafening. They ignore the obvious.

You cannot have a viable, trustworthy democracy if you don't have viable, trustworthy elections, and in order to have that happen, you need Presidents of both political parties who are committed to fairness, committed to honesty, and committed to our Constitution.

Sadly, at this moment in time, we do not have a President who is, and there are too many of his own political party who stand back in the shadows in silence, recanting on pledges they made 4 years ago, doing whatever is necessary to win the favor of this President.

I hope another day will come soon with different leadership and a different view of this country. I am genuinely concerned about what we face on November 3 and the days that follow, but I have never given up on America, and I never will. I believe this democracy will prevail, and I hope that after he is gone, some Republicans will step forward and say: It is time to create a party not in his image.

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