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Floor Speech
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Mr. KELLY. Mr. President, with all of the chaos in Washington right now, it can feel like it is tough to keep up. In the middle of bombshell revelations, new Executive orders that threaten the safety of Americans, and the administration's plans to give rich people trillions of dollars of tax cuts, what is often lost is how this all impacts the people we represent. The best way to find out, though, is to get out of Washington, DC, and talk to the families and the seniors and the kids who are going to be directly impacted.
Let me tell you: These folks are paying attention, and they aren't happy about it. I know some of my Republican colleagues in Congress are trying to tune out the thousands of phone calls and the emails and have been avoiding townhalls.
But last week, I held a couple of townhalls in Arizona. We focused on Medicaid and brought together healthcare providers and families who rely on it to talk about what Republicans are planning to do and what that would mean for them.
Republicans are working on a plan that could absolutely gut healthcare in our country by slashing Medicaid. There is a number of ways they could do this, but we know it is the plan. The way Republicans talk about it is about dollars saved and pay-fors for those tax cuts for the wealthiest.
When it is framed as a line item instead of what it actually is, which is healthcare that tens of millions of Americans rely on to survive, it is easy to lose track of who will bear the consequences of these decisions: hard-working families, kids, and seniors in Arizona and across the entire country.
My State has one of the largest Medicaid populations. The Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System--or AHCCCS, as Arizona's Medicaid program is called--has been expanded under Republican Governors to be the backbone of healthcare for more than 2 million people.
We are talking about kids. We are talking about seniors. We are talking about pregnant women and people with disabilities. And I heard from them last week. I promised them that I would bring their stories back to DC and share them. Now, I don't think I have enough time here to talk about all of them today, but I am going to share a few.
This is story No. 1. In Scottsdale, along with Senator Ruben Gallego, I heard from a woman named Quianna Brown. Quianna is the mother of a 10-year-old girl that she and her husband adopted from foster care, and she has special needs, and she has a rare form of diabetes. Her daughter was diagnosed and treated, thanks to Medicaid.
Now, along with her husband, who served in the U.S. Navy for 23 years, Quianna works every day to provide for her family, and she is afraid that her daughter is going to lose her healthcare. She finished her remarks at this townhall by comparing Medicaid to a house that Republicans are planning to burn down. She said--and this is a quote, Mr. President. She said:
Would you mind telling your colleagues in Washington that when they're burning down this house, there are people still inside? My kid is inside.
When she said this to me in front of this room of over 100 people, sharing her most personal story, the room went silent. Everyone turned and listened because it was a mother pleading for us to help protect her child in the most straightforward terms. And I told her I would bring this back and share it with all of you.
So, again, let me repeat:
When they're burning down this house, there are people still inside. My kid is inside.
These words from Quianna Brown, a mother and a hard-working Arizonan, should resonate loud and clear on this floor.
Samia from Sierra Vista--this is story No. 2--is the mother of two children, a 15-year-old daughter and a 12-year-old son. Her son only has one kidney and severe scoliosis. Both of them, both of the kids, are autistic and were diagnosed with a rare tumor disorder which cripples their bodies' capacity to stop the growth of tumors. The result is that their chance of getting cancer is 85 to 95 percent. She knows that the best chance her kids have of beating cancer and surviving is to find it early. And Medicaid has allowed her to get the frequent screenings that her children need.
She shared that both her children meet the burden of placing them in a long-term care facility, but thanks to Arizona's Medicaid paid caregiver program, she can care for them at home. That is a success.
Medicaid is a literal lifeline for her kids. I think about her knowing exactly what she needs to do for her kids to keep them healthy and the worry that she faces if she thinks about what would happen to them without it.
Story No. 3 is about Tiffany Leslie Pasillas from Marana. Also she cares for her 6-year-old daughter Aiyana at home. Aiyana is immunocompromised. She is nonverbal. She can't walk, and she requires care 24-7. Tiffany shared that without Medicaid, she would be forced to limit care and evaluate whether she could continue to care for her at home--or would she have to place her daughter in a specialized facility for her severe needs?
In Tucson, AZ, I heard from Chad Durns, who is living with multiple sclerosis and is unable to work. He relies on Medicaid to afford his MRIs and his infusion treatments.
When he spoke at the townhall, he talked about the potential costs of his healthcare if he lost his Medicaid coverage. Through tears, he said:
The level of cost of those things would be devastating for a guy like me.
``A guy like me.'' What are folks on the other side of the aisle talking about doing? They are talking about hurting Chad and guys like him. For what? To give more tax giveaways to rich people, to billionaires.
Here is story No. 5. And this is about Amalia, who is the daughter of Crissy McGann. Amalia is a 5-year-old kid who uses Medicaid to receive care for a rare genetic disorder. She said that she is terrified--so the mom is terrified--that the services her daughter depends on and allow her to thrive would be cut or reduced and called the proposed cuts disastrous for the disability community.
Disastrous, devastating, burning down a house with kids inside--that is what Arizonans had to say about these plans to gut Medicaid.
And these stories exist in every single State, in every single district, red or blue, all of them. But here is the thing: Only some of us seem to care to listen.
Now, I invite all of my colleagues, especially my Republican colleagues negotiating this plan, to listen to the people they represent. Listen to their concerns. They are real concerns that are affecting real people, people that cannot afford to pay for expensive healthcare.
So that instead of pay-fors or line items, maybe you will think about Quianna and her kid or Chad who has MS or the countless other folks whose lives will be flipped upside down if they lost Medicaid.
We are representatives of the people. We are here to make people's lives better, not to ruin them. So to my colleagues, I urge you: Stop trying to burn down the house. Your constituents are inside.
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