Leader Schumer Floor Remarks Demanding Republicans Negotiate To End Healthcare Crisis Using A Real Example Of How The Premium Spikes Will Impact Republicans’ Own Constituents
Washington, D.C. – Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor urging Republicans to come to the table and join Democrats in bipartisan negotiations to fund the government and find a solution to the American healthcare crisis. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:
It has now been over two weeks since Republicans shut the government down because they refuse to work with Democrats in a serious way to fix the healthcare crisis looming over the American people.
Open enrollment starts in just two weeks – and Americans will be forced to choose healthcare plans that will send costs skyrocketing.
As we speak, families are receiving letters for their new health insurance rates, and more states are opening their window-shopping period for what health insurance will look like next year. With open enrollment around the corner, Republicans cannot continue to kick this can down the road. It's happening now.
The healthcare crisis is now – the public agrees, Democrats agree, the White House privately admits it, even some Republicans in Congress know it’s the truth. And yet, Republican leaders – especially Speaker Johnson – continue to dig in.
The Speaker has now kept House Republicans on vacation for three weeks, as if they can make the issue go away by letting House Republicans hide. Well, the American people don’t have time for Republican inaction.
This morning, let me show my Republican colleagues precisely what will happen if they continue to insist on no negotiation.
Let’s take a look at this chart. These are real numbers. These are the actual numbers for New York’s healthcare exchange, for the average couple in Plattsburgh, New York. This is in the heart of New York’s rural North Country, and it’s Congresswoman Elise Stefanik’s district.
Right now, with the ACA tax credits, this healthcare plan, a bronze plan, is $282 a month. That's still a lot for a working family. It's a lot of money. It ends up coming close to $3,500 or $4,000 a year.
But that’s nothing compared to if these credits expire. If the tax credits expire, the same healthcare plan will go up to nearly $1,700 a month next year. That’s an extra $1,400 extra every single month – a 495% increase.
For the average family or small business owner or farmer in rural upstate New York, an extra $1,400 a month on healthcare is financial ruin. That's $15,000 a year. How are people – even people making decent money – going to afford that?
This is not just true of New York. This is similar to what’s happening in all the states around the country. Every day now, people are getting notices. And we're getting close to November 1st, when people are going to have to decide: do they give up health insurance altogether and watch their people, their children, their spouses suffer?
So, I say to my Republican colleagues, especially in the House: you can’t hide from your constituents forever. The American people expect Congress to fix this healthcare crisis.
Because otherwise, people will go bankrupt, people will get sick, people will lose insurance, people will fail to get the care they need, and more people will needlessly die.
Republicans know this, and yet neither the Trump administration nor Republicans in Congress are even pretending to try and solve the healthcare crisis.
Democrats are ready and willing to negotiate with Republicans. We want to work in a serious way to reopen the government and spare tens of millions of American the threat of financial ruin, and an extra $15,000, or even more, a year.
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