Government Funding and Healthcare
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. MAGAZINER. Mr. Speaker, it was just announced this week that health insurance costs in Rhode Island are going to go up by as much as 22 percent next year, costing working people thousands of dollars more per year to pay for their health insurance. This is money that people don't have. Most people in my State, most people in this country are just barely getting by. They can't afford to pay thousands of dollars more for their health insurance.
It is not just in Rhode Island that it is happening. It is all across the country. State after State is announcing next year's insurance rates with double digit increases. We know why this is happening. It is happening because Republicans and the Trump administration just cut a trillion dollars from Medicaid, and now they are also trying to let the Affordable Care Act tax premiums expire.
When you do that, when you take trillions of dollars out of the healthcare system, you are not just taking away health insurance coverage from millions of Americans, you are also taking revenue away from hospitals, community health centers, and doctors' practices. The only way that those healthcare providers can stay in business is to raise prices on everybody else, and that is exactly what is happening.
We told our Republican colleagues that this is what would happen when they passed that trillion dollar cut to Medicaid. We told them that health insurance costs were going to go up for everybody else in the country, but they didn't want to hear it. They were so desperate to give away tax cuts to the rich, and now those people watching at home are going to be paying the bill in the form of higher healthcare costs.
However, it is not too late. We can still restore funding for healthcare so that everyone back home isn't hit by double-digit cost increases on their insurance.
Congress is about to pass a budget for next year, and we can pass a budget that restores funding for healthcare, that extends the Affordable Care Act tax premiums, that restores funding for Medicaid so that working people aren't stuck with higher costs for their health insurance. Not only can we do this, we must.
I want to vote for a bipartisan budget that funds the government and protects healthcare for the American people, but if, as has been advertised, the Republican majority tries to rush a vote on a budget that does not fix the healthcare crisis, the healthcare crisis that they created, then I will be a ``no.'' All of my colleagues should be, as well.
Republicans control the House, Senate, and the White House. If they refuse to pass a budget that protects healthcare, they own the consequences. If they choose to shut the government down instead of fixing the healthcare crisis that they created, the American people will not forgive them. Restoring Lifesaving Food Aid
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. MAGAZINER. Mr. Speaker, I rise for the 41st time to call on the Trump administration to restore lifesaving food aid for children starving around the world. Edesia Nutrition in my district is about to send 15,000 boxes of this lifesaving food aid to children who are starving in Gaza.
Now, in the past, this would have been done with support from America, from the U.S. taxpayers, and the boxes shipped to Gaza would have said ``from the American people.'' However, because the Trump administration has cut off lifesaving food aid for children, instead this shipment is being funded by the Israelis and nonprofit organizations working with Edesia Nutrition.
This is a missed opportunity for America to be building goodwill in a very unstable part of the world, one of many missed opportunities because when we act to save the lives of starving children around the world, we are not just doing the right thing morally, we are helping make America stronger by building goodwill around the world.
The Trump administration has promised repeatedly that they are going to restore this program, but promises do not save the lives of starving kids. Only nutrition can do that.
I will continue to speak on this floor every day until the Trump administration honors its word and restores this program.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source