Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On Republicans Exacerbating The Healthcare Crisis And Prolonging The Government Shutdown By Refusing To Negotiate
Washington, D.C. – Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor calling out Republicans and Donald Trump for exacerbating the healthcare crisis in America and unnecessarily prolonging the government shutdown, forcing federal employees and programs to suffer because of their refusal to negotiate. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:
Another week has passed, and the Trump shutdown drags on because Republicans refuse to even negotiate with Democrats in a serious way to fix the healthcare crisis in America.
Let’s be very clear: Republicans are demanding something that hasn’t happened in previous negotiations – they’re saying, “our way, or the highway.” No negotiation, no democratic input. This is a highly partisan bill. And they want us to pass this partisan CR that has zero bipartisan inputs, zero conversation, and frankly zero relief for so many Americans who are afflicted by the healthcare crisis, which grows deeper and deeper each day.
For the last month, the Republican Leader’s favorite number has been 13. He keeps citing 13 CRs that we passed when I was Majority Leader. Of course we did.
What he fails to mention – I’m not sure if he forgets or if he’s deliberately trying to ignore it – is that those 13 CRs were the product of a bipartisan negotiation, of serious conversation. We had to make changes in those bills when our Republican colleagues suggested it. They were in the minority, but they had a right to be heard – a right that has been completely shut out for Democrats under this new Republican majority. It is a new way of doing things, and it's led to the Trump shutdown – aided and abetted by Senate Republicans.
Leader Thune talks about hostages. The truth is the hostages are the American people. The Republican majority and Trump are holding the American people hostage because they won't help them with healthcare.
Americans are demanding we do something and we address this healthcare crisis. In terms of extending the ACA tax credits, 90% of Americans want them extended. Fifty-eight percent of Trump voters want them extended. That's who is being held hostage by the Republican majority. Those are the unfortunate hostages – the American people and the crisis they face with healthcare.
The ACA crisis that is looming over everyone’s head, and yet Republicans seem ready to let people’s premiums spike by tens of thousands. Again, that's who the hostages are: the American people who need healthcare relief and who are demanding healthcare relief.
I will remind my Republican colleagues that open enrollment is in two weeks. That means in two weeks, tens of millions of Americans are going to have to make potentially lifechanging decisions.
Imagine getting a notice that your insurance is going to go up by $15,000 each year, as so many of my constituents and people across America are getting. And imagine having to make the awful decision whether to have healthcare or not. And then having to think, what if my kid gets sick and I won't have healthcare? What do I do if I can't afford $5,000 or $10,000 a year?
That's the position that Republicans are putting the American people in. That's the position that Donald Trump is putting the American people in. I don't know if Republicans comprehend it. I think they do, but when we went to the Oval Office, it seemed – when Leader Jeffries and I told President Trump about it – that he was just beginning to understand the depth of the crisis.
But they either don't understand it, or they're so brutally callus, and so interested in tax cuts for the very wealthy, that they're willing to just savage healthcare for the American people.
Many Republicans don't want to do anything, particularly in the House where they seem to hold Speaker Johnson in a frightened situation because he is so afraid to do anything about healthcare because his right-wing will attack him. But for those who want to act on healthcare, they think we can wait until the very last minute. But the reality is it'll be far too late for the American people and many of them will be stuck paying outrageous amounts of money.
The vast majority of Americans who have healthcare, who have ACA healthcare and other healthcare, are going to have to make decisions by November 1st, not January 1st. Yet despite this crisis, despite the enormity of the increase in costs that Americans will have to pay for their healthcare, Republicans continue to dig in. They continue to say that they don't want to help on healthcare and don't want to negotiate with Democrats on healthcare. They say there's nothing to negotiate. That's got to change soon. It has to change for the sake of the American people.
Democrats want to reopen the government as soon as possible so people can get back to work and so government services are not interrupted, but we need to fix the ACA premiums right now.
If Republicans fail to act now to lower premiums, the American people will correctly – I wish it didn't have to happen, I wish we could solve this – hold the Republicans responsible when they face financial ruin.
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