Healthcare

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Now, Mr. President, on healthcare, tomorrow is a moment of truth for Senate Republicans: Are they going to help bring healthcare costs down or are they going to sabotage our healthcare system and send premiums through the roof? That is what is at stake when the Senate votes tomorrow.

We have 21 days until January 1. After that, people's healthcare bills will start going through the roof--double, triple, even more. People will not be able to afford their healthcare. Millions will lose it altogether. Tens of millions will pay much more than they can afford as deductibles and copays go up, as different doctors leave plans.

You know, you could have had a doctor who had been treating your child for a chronic condition for years, and you had trusted the doctor. She or he is gone, and you have to start all over with someone who is less accessible, less friendly, and more expensive.

There is only one way to avoid all of this. The only realistic path left is what Democrats are proposing: a clean, direct extension of the current tax credits.

But even now, it looks like Republicans still don't get it. Yesterday, Leader Thune announced he would bring another proposal--a Republican proposal, if you can even call it that--to the floor: the Cassidy-Crapo hodgepodge of half-baked ideas, whose fundamental core idea has failed over and over again. I want to be very clear about what this Republican bill represents: junk insurance. Let me tell my Republican colleagues that it is dead on arrival. The proposal does nothing to bring down sky-high premiums. It doesn't extend the ACA premiums by a single day. Instead, Republicans want to send people $80 a month and pretend that it is going to fix everything. It is a ``you are on your own'' bill. If you have a sick kid, if you have cancer, if you need a complete top-to-bottom checkup because something is ailing you, Republicans are telling you: Americans, you are on your own; we are not helping you. That is what they say.

Republicans want to send people $80 a month and pretend that it is going to fix everything? To even qualify for a check, you have to sign up for a bronze plan that comes with outrageously high deductibles-- $7,500, even $10,000 for individuals. Under the Cassidy-Crapo plan, a 60-year-old Florida couple making $85,000 would see premiums go up by $21,000, and their deductible would go from zero to $7,000. That is $28,000 net taken out of their pockets. How are they going to pay for it?

Republicans, have you got an answer for them? This junk insurance won't help them one bit.

Cassidy-Crapo is not a healthcare plan. It is not a plan at all. It is an excuse. It is a figleaf. Because Republicans are so divided and can't come up with a plan that unites them, they have proposed this figleaf. My guess is that most Republicans themselves are grimacing that they even have to vote for this thing. How is a one-time check going to help you if you are paying $1,000 or $2,000 a month more for health insurance? The Cassidy-Crapo plan, even if you can call it that, is downright insulting.

What we need to do is prevent our premiums from skyrocketing, and only our bill does it. It is the last train out of the station to avoid these sky-high premiums from going up and up and up.

What we need to do is prevent premiums from skyrocketing, and only our bill does it. It is the last train out of the station, I repeat.

But Republicans? They seem to care more about banning abortion than lowering premiums. This bill is loaded with a poison pill, so everyone knows it can't come close to passing. By putting that poison abortion pill in it, they basically are saying to Democrats: Forget about it.

You can't even come close to realizing that this might be the basis of any compromise aside from how bad their plan is altogether.

So the bottom line: The Republicans do not have a serious plan to fix our healthcare problems, but we Democrats do--a clean, simple extension to prevent premiums from rising and rising and rising. Republicans still have a day to do the right thing.

Republicans, we are fighting for the American people; you are fighting with each other. Stop fighting with each other, try to help the American people, and vote for our plan.

I implore my Republican colleagues: We need just 13 of you to push this bill over the finish line.

If Republicans vote this bill down, they will unleash healthcare chaos throughout the country.

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