New York

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, now on my 62-county tour and the cost of healthcare: Well, today is a special day for me as I completed my annual 62-county tour. Every year, I visit every one of New York's 62 counties, and today's 62nd county was Columbia County, with a visit to the Ooms Dairy Farm in Columbia County.

When I first ran for the Senate, I promised New Yorkers I would visit every single county at least once a year, and I have kept that promise up for 27 years. This is the 27th year I have had that tour. I love it today just as much as I loved it then. You learn so much. You see people face to face. Sitting behind a desk, just answering the phone, doesn't suffice if you want to be a good Senator. You have to get out there, meet people, shake hands, hear about their concerns, hear about their anguish, hear about their happiness and joys, and that is what I do in every county.

New York is a tremendously diverse State. We have one of the largest rural populations in America. Our upstate cities are like Midwestern cities, and, of course, we have New York City and its suburbs--the largest metropolis in the country--so I get to see and learn everything. I consider what I do in visiting each county a work requirement. I can't do my job if I don't talk to New Yorkers face to face and see firsthand what is going on with them every single day.

Now, I have to say this: This year's 62-county was somewhat different than the ones in the past. This year, I heard from New Yorkers in every corner of the State, of every profession and every age, of every race, creed, color, gender, and preference about the rising cost of living. It was a universal chorus of complaints that our country is not doing enough about the cost of living.

Every county I visited--all 62--had the same story. People are struggling to pay for the things they need. Some of their worst moments are while simply sitting around the dinner table after a Friday evening dinner and saying: How are we going to pay this bill? Maybe we should pay this one and not that one or do without this or do without that. For families with children, it is particularly hard when their kids need things that will be good for them, and they can't afford them.

Here are some instances, and I met so many: a man named Thomas, who is the owner of a beautiful brewery, the 1812 brewery in Watertown, NY, on the shores of Lake Ontario, where the War of 1812 was fought. His beer was taken off the shelves in Canada because of Donald Trump's stupidity and name-calling of the Canadians.

In northern New York, we have had a great border--a peaceful, wonderful, prosperous border--between Canada and New York. Trump just about destroyed it in a minute with some jerky comment that he always typically makes.

Well, Thomas's costs have gone up in his brewery, in addition to the anger for the Canadians not buying his beer. Tariffs have made it more expensive for him to can his beer and buy the grain he needs to brew his beautiful product.

I have met scores of businesspeople like Thomas, some of whom have gone out of business. A chocolatier who just loved making her chocolates but who can no longer afford it had to fire the people who had worked so hard in her company.

I met with another New Yorker, a man named Jeremy. He lives in the Hudson Valley, in Kingston, NY, who relies on the ACA tax credits to pay for health insurance. As his tax credits expire, Jeremy is going to pay more than double. Nearly $1,000 every single month is what he is going to have to pay, and that is not an expense he can deal with or that people like him can deal with. He makes a good salary, and he is a hard-working guy, but he can't afford such a dramatic jump in the price of his healthcare insurance. That is the kind of financial shock that Jeremy will have about which I heard over and over and over and over again.

What do you do--sign up for healthcare you can't afford or go uninsured? Go broke or go uninsured?

What a terrible choice our Republican colleagues are forcing people like Jeremy and thousands and thousands of other New Yorkers to make.

And, finally, I met a woman named Roberta who lives in Wyoming County, one of our big dairy counties, by the way. She told me she relies on SNAP benefits to put food on the table. I took a picture with her. She had six of her seven beautiful children there, many of them redheads, like their mom.

She told me that, now, with rising grocery prices and budget cuts to SNAP, she can't put food on the table for all of her seven kids. She is living on the edge--what a horrible story to hear.

Can you imagine those beautiful redheaded kids? And they have to decide who is going to get the eggs, who is going to get the vegetables, because she doesn't have enough money, and SNAP doesn't give her the food she needs to feed her family.

So here is what I say to you, Donald Trump: If you are serious about focusing on affordability, come take a road trip with me through Upstate New York so you can see what a disaster your policies have been.

The stories were the same everywhere I went.

Under Donald Trump, costs are up, and financial security is down. People are having such a tough time affording the things they very much need--not luxuries, not frivolities--things they need: food, medicine; got to fix the car that just broke down and which you need to get to work, and you don't have the money to do it--over and over and over again.

And, of course, the tip of the spear in these higher costs is what is becoming of healthcare. Nowhere do costs matter more. In no place have they accelerated more greatly than with healthcare.

Last week, the Senate had one last chance to halt the imminent spike of people's healthcare costs by supporting our legislation to extend the ACA premiums by 3 years--the ACA tax credits by 3 years. But Republicans blew it by voting our bill down, and now they have all but guaranteed that millions of people, including countless New Yorkers, will see their premiums go up.

In fact, sadly, today is the last day for Americans to sign up for January Marketplace coverage. And over the next 2 weeks, this holiday season--this Christmas season, this Hanukkah season--millions of people will see their skyrocketing premium amounts deducted from their bank accounts, wondering how they are going to make the numbers work, how they are going to balance their own books. That is shameful--shameful.

The No. 1 thing I heard this year during my 62-county tour is that people are worried about paying for the things they need--healthcare, above all.

Donald Trump and Republicans, meanwhile, have intentionally sent people's costs up and up and up. The idea of reducing costs on day one, which Donald Trump promised in the campaign and many people voted for because of that promise, is out the window. No one is even paying any attention to it. Donald Trump really is not paying attention to it.

People don't believe it anymore. They don't believe any of the promises that Donald Trump has made. Donald Trump has broken faith with the very same people he promised to fight for, and I have felt that frustration through my 62-county tour this year.

If Donald Trump and Republicans stay the course, the frustration people feel right now is probably only the beginning.

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