Reconciliation

Floor Speech

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Ms. STANSBURY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to oppose the cruel and morally bankrupt healthcare agenda moving through this Chamber that would gut Medicaid; gut Medicare; collapse our healthcare systems; and cut food assistance to millions of children, seniors, and veterans across this country.

You don't have to take my word for it because Elon Musk, himself, called this a big, disgusting abomination, this bill that currently stands in the Senate. While here in the House the GOP is trying to gut healthcare and mental health care and addiction services through the budget.

These cuts will be devastating for New Mexico. New Mexico already has a healthcare crisis, where two-thirds of New Mexicans are on Medicaid and Medicare, where even with the best healthcare insurance you can get, you still can't get in to see a specialist, and where thousands of our rural and Tribal residents must travel hours just to get basic care.

Let me be clear. People will die if these cuts go through. What is the GOP doing here in this week? They are running a bill that is at best window dressing, hypocrisy, saying that they are supporting healthcare and addiction programs while they literally gut the programs that fund them. It is a complete lie.

Like so much of what they do, these guts are a scam, not just on the American people, but on themselves because apparently they don't read their own bills.

Let's be clear. Republicans are gutting healthcare and behavioral health programs. DOGE has cut thousands of employees at healthcare agencies, frozen funds for vital medical research, and eliminated mental health and substance abuse programs. They have rescinded a billion dollars in State and local behavioral health programs and cut 40 different mental health programs across the country. They are proposing to literally eliminate the vast majority of SAMHSA, which is the mental health program for this country, in the fiscal year 2026 budget. They just transmitted a rescission package to this Chamber last night that would cut billions of dollars in public health assistance for starving children and people suffering from AIDS and preventable infectious diseases across the world.

I ask my colleagues: What is this country becoming, where it dismantles our own healthcare system and literally allows children to starve and die across the world? What has literally become of the GOP?

Let me just say this. This is personal for me. This is personal in New Mexico, as somebody who grew up in a low-income family, as somebody who grew up relying on public healthcare and assistance programs, as somebody who has lost friends and family from the fentanyl crisis, and as somebody who represents one of the strongest and resilient set of communities in the country but who struggle every single day.

This is not leadership. This is a moral failure.

It is why I show up every single day to this Chamber with my full heart and my full fight for our communities.

It is why I have reintroduced my bill this week to expand Indian Health Service. It is why I introduced legislation to stop fentanyl, to address the public health nursing crisis, and to ensure that our rural communities can access telehealth and that they can actually stay in business with our rural clinics.

It is why I have secured millions for New Mexico for mental health and addiction recovery. It is why I submitted funding this year for the fiscal year 2026 budget to build a state-of-the-art trauma center in Valencia County and mental and behavioral health services in Sandoval.

It is why I have secured millions for transitional housing for veterans; a sobering center; behavioral health centers in Albuquerque; mobile school health centers in APS; and new fire and EMS stations in Moriarty, Sandia Pueblo, Peralta in Valencia. This is what leadership looks like.

I will just say this: In New Mexico, we know, of course, that we are all going to die, but we do not allow people to die because of policy failure and moral corruption.

We are here to fight. We will fight this abomination of a bill. We will fight the draconian cuts in the budget, and we will fight this corrupt rescission package. I will keep working every single day for New Mexicans because that is who we are.

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