Motion to Discharge

Floor Speech

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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, we are all gathered here today, the group of us, to make a real case for passing the Build Back Better agenda and what it really means to people back in our home States, as Senator Whitehouse was just explaining about Rhode Island. We get a lot in the minutia here for good reason. We are fighting a lot of forces. But in the end, what I know about this agenda, from the infrastructure in the bipartisan infrastructure bill to the work we are doing as part of this people-first agenda, it is about putting the people of this country first over the pharmaceutical companies, over polluters.

As I see those fires rage in my State, I know we have to do something about it. As I see people coming to me after years and years and years about the costs of common drugs--Lyrica. You see it advertised on TV all the time. What you might not know is that it has gone up 50 percent in just the last 5 years.

What I do know is that the people of this country overwhelmingly-- Democrats, Republicans, and Independents--support bringing costs down for families, support a big middle-class tax cut, and support doing something about pharmaceutical prices.

Chief among the reforms in this bill when it comes to healthcare will be allowing Medicare to negotiate directly for less expensive drugs for our seniors. I think 46 million seniors should be able to get a pretty good deal, and I know they could if someone let them do it.

Right now, in law, because the pharmaceutical companies lobbied to get it done, they got a ban--a ban--on Medicare negotiating better prices for our seniors. This doesn't just help our seniors, to lift this ban; it helps everyone in America because this is the single biggest purchaser of drugs, our seniors, because they need help in their later years. They have health issues.

The stories I have heard in my State--people like Claire from St. Paul. When the cost of the prescription drugs she relied on to manage her arthritis jumped from 60 bucks per month to 1,400 bucks per month, she knew she could no longer afford it. She tried over-the-counter options. Her arthritis advanced. She could barely hold a fork and a knife. I met a woman who was literally holding the drops of her insulin from day to day to day so she could save it for the next day. That is how we are treating seniors in our country?

Let's unleash the power of 46 million seniors, get better prices for the drugs, push this Build Back Better agenda, which puts people first, and bring down the cost of prescription drugs.

Thank you, Madam President.

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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Madam President, as we await the vote this afternoon, I hope we will resolve a number of things today so that we make sure we stand by the full faith and credit of the United States and not let regular people's interest rates go up, the economy go to tatters, and our credit rating be downgraded. I hope we can get this done.

At the same time, just as Americans have gone through this pandemic-- just as those moms and dads have been at home, with their toddlers on their knees and laptops on their desks; just as they have been teaching their first graders how to use a mute button; and just as so many people have lost their jobs or risked their lives while working on the frontline--they are ready to get through this. They see the light at the end of the tunnel or, as we say in Duluth, MN, the lighthouse on the horizon. They see this just as we continue to work, as best we can, with a number of our colleagues we disagree with because we think we should just simply move through this and make sure we are standing by the full faith and credit of the United States and not let our debt ceiling lapse.

As we do that, we are looking to the future just as America is. Just as we are starting to see those jobs come back, they are going back to work; they are starting to see their families again; they are going to family reunions; they are starting to be able to go to weddings again. As all of this is happening--as we get the vaccine out there and as we bring people back together--we also have to plan for that future just like families do every day.

That is what this is about, the Build Back Better agenda. That is what this is about--putting people in front of so many people who, honestly, have done pretty well during this time. There are a whole bunch of billionaires who didn't even have to pay taxes while these families have been struggling through the pandemic. There are a whole bunch of people for whom it is easier to go and get prescription drugs or do whatever they want while other people are having to choose between filling their refrigerators with food or filling their prescriptions at the pharmacy.

So you got a tour in the last half hour from Maryland to Wisconsin, the State of my neighboring friend Tammy Baldwin; to Rhode Island; to the great State of Oregon on the west coast; to my home State of Minnesota; to close by Senator Kaine's State of Virginia. What we are seeing, while our States may be very different, and what we are hearing are the same things: Regular people want to bring costs down. That is what this bill is about--bringing costs down for families in America-- and there are many ways we are going to do this.

One is with straightforward tax cuts for people. Another is with making it easier to afford things. It is that simple. That is what I like most about it in my State. They want to make it easier to get childcare. They want to make it easier to get healthcare. They want to make it easier for their parents at the moment when they go to assisted living or they need to get someone in to help them, just like my dad, whom we lost this year. He got that long-term care insurance. I don't know why he did it, but he did. I knew the day that his money ran out, and he was going to go on Medicaid because that was there for his safety net. So many families in America know exactly what I am talking about, and what this bill does is build on the safety net we have in place.

So let's remember that. Putting our kids first, our seniors first, our families first, our healthcare first--that is what this is about.

We look forward, over the next few weeks, to getting this bill done and getting it agreed to. To me, it is not always about what those top numbers are and everything you hear on the news; it is for what it is going to mean to the families in my State.

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