Healthcare
Floor Speech
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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, now on healthcare costs, Republicans' ``Big Ugly Betrayal'' will devastate American healthcare this year. Not many years down the line, not a few years down the line. It is going to hurt now.
There is a growing idea among Republican Members of Congress and then the lobbyists who talk to the press all the time that hospitals don't need to worry about the ``Big Ugly Bill'' because there is time to stave off or change the horrible Medicaid cuts Republicans passed and are now running away from. That is garbage.
Donald Trump and Republican leaders forced their Members to walk the plank and cut Medicaid to the bone. So now they are in damage-control mode. They know how bad it is. They want to make their ``Big Ugly Bill'' seem less destructive and seem more palpable when, in reality, it is, quite literally, a death sentence for rural hospitals and vulnerable Americans. And that death sentence for so many of them is not 2 years away; it is now.
Here are the facts that show Republicans' ``Big Ugly Betrayal'' is having an impact right now, not later: At least 300 rural hospitals are at immediate risk of closing because of this bill already--already. Not 2 years from now. Now, this week, 2 weeks after the bill passed. Hospitals in Iowa, Nebraska, North Carolina, and Maine have announced they are closing or are in serious danger of closing. Not in 2027, not in 2028. Now. Now.
Governors in at least eight States--eight States--have called special sessions this summer. Not in 2028, not in 2027. They have called special sessions this summer or are pushing stopgap subsidies to shield doctors and hospitals from the immediate harm. States don't see the ``Big Ugly Bill'' as a problem for years from now. To them, to the workers, and, most of all, to the people who get healthcare in a lot of these rural hospitals, it is a problem right now.
And this fall, more problems. Not in 2028, folks. This fall, people will get notices that their insurance premiums for the Affordable Care Act will go up 75 percent on average because Republicans chose not to extend tax credits for the ACA.
This will also impact people on private insurance. If you don't have ACA, Medicaid, Medicare, you are still going to get increases in your insurance. Everyone is affected by these cuts--just about everyone-- unless you are one of those billionaires who self-insures. You don't have to have insurance because you have got all the money in the world to pay any medical bill. That is not true of the vast majority of Americans.
And what they are doing is just the start. Republicans have made it clear they want even deeper cuts to Medicaid. Many in the House Freedom Caucus--those rightwingers--have said they weren't satisfied with their ``Big Ugly Bill.'' So who is to say that Donald Trump and Russell Vought won't use rescissions or another reconciliation bill to cut healthcare even deeper? And what are our Republican colleagues going to do when the handful of rightwing Freedom Caucus people in this body and the other body say they demand cuts or they won't vote for any bill? Are they going to cave once again? Say: OK?
Let me say it again: All this talk from Republicans that many of their own cuts won't materialize is utter nonsense. Hospitals are closing now. States are reacting now. Insurance companies are adjusting now. And the harm to the American people will happen now, not later.
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