Healthcare Crisis

Floor Speech

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Mr. COSTA. Mr. Speaker, with only 10 voting days left in this year's calendar, Congress must act if we are to avert a full-blown healthcare crisis. I rise today to bring attention to the affordability and healthcare crisis that is pending upon us.

I think this is what Americans want us to do as opposed to bailing out Argentina or figuring out how to finance a $300 million ballroom that will dwarf the size of the White House.

What Americans are concerned about is premiums that are climbing.

What Americans are concerned about is the increase in their grocery bills.

What the Americans I represent in the San Joaquin Valley are concerned about is bearing more and more of this burden and not seeing any potential light at the end of the tunnel.

Families are forced to make impossible choices between putting food on the table or whether or not they should keep their healthcare coverage.

In July, President Trump's one big--I never thought it was beautiful--bill became law. It slashed over $1 trillion from Medicaid, from children's healthcare coverage, from Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act, adding $4.2 trillion to our national debt.

Programs that protect children, seniors, and working families are being gutted. In my district alone, over 65,000 people risk losing their Medicaid coverage, threatening access to essential healthcare for vulnerable populations.

Now, despite the passage of the fiscal year 2026 continuing resolution, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, once again, have failed us, I think.

Republicans are threatening the Affordable Care Act's enhanced premium tax credits that will expire at the end of this year in just four weeks. Open enrollment is now, and Americans are seeing the cost that they are paying for this effort, which has failed so far. But there is still time.

There is still time when families can avert the stark choice of having to pay more for their healthcare or make sacrifices elsewhere in their lives. There is still time to continue these tax credits, so that we can avoid the dramatically higher healthcare costs that our constituents are paying in copayments and deductibles, which is impacting up to 22,000 people in my congressional district alone.

To illustrate what this means, a couple who are 60 years old in Fresno earning $82,000 a year will pay $18,000 more per year for coverage. A family of four in Tulare County earning $64,000 a year will pay $2,500 more.

This is not fiscal responsibility. This is a Republican healthcare tax hike on working families, imposed in the richest country in the world. I think it is unacceptable. These are not just numbers on a page. These are real people.

It is a mother in Fresno who has to choose between filling her prescription and paying rent. It is a father in Tulare County who may have to decide whether his children can see a doctor when they are sick. It is seniors who have delayed care, skipped medications, or avoided preventive screenings because of these rising costs. These are the consequences of inaction. But there is still time.

Mr. Speaker, the Democrats have a plan.

Our plan is to keep the premiums affordable.

Our plan prevents Republican healthcare tax hikes.

Our plan requires President Trump to carry out a bipartisan budget. That is what we are supposed to do, a bipartisan budget.

We know healthcare cannot wait, and our families cannot wait. Our Nation needs certainty, affordability, and leadership more than ever.

Let us come together at the table in a bipartisan fashion. That is what my constituents expect of us.

Let us extend the Affordable Care Act tax premiums.

Let us keep healthcare affordable for Americans.

Let us show the American people that Congress can act responsibly, that we can protect our families, that we can deliver on the promises to ensure that no one has to choose between healthcare and their basic needs of the safety net that is a contract that we have with the American people.

Mr. Speaker, our constituents are counting on us. Let us not fail them. Americans deserve affordable healthcare, and we have until the end of this month to make that happen.

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