Skip to content

Leader Schumer Floor Remarks On The Immediate And Devastating Impacts Of Republicans’ “Big, Ugly Bill” On American Healthcare

Washington, D.C. – Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) today spoke on the Senate floor to call attention to the immediate harm Americans are facing just two weeks after Republicans’ “Big, Ugly Bill” became law. Below are Senator Schumer’s remarks, which can also be viewed here:

Republicans’ “Big, Ugly Betrayal” will devastate the American healthcare this year – not many years down the line, not a few years down the line. It's going to hurt now.

There’s a growing idea among Republican members of Congress and the lobbyists who talk to the press all the time that hospitals don’t need to worry about the “Big, Ugly Bill” because there’s time to stave off or change the horrible Medicaid cuts Republicans passed and are now running away from.

That is garbage. Donald Trump and Republican leaders forced their members to walk the plank and cut Medicaid to the bone – so now they’re in damage control mode. They know how bad it is.

They want to make their “Big, Ugly Bill” seem less destructive, and seem more palpable, when in reality it is quite literally a death sentence for rural hospitals and vulnerable Americans. And that death sentence is not two years away, it's now.

Here are the facts that show Republicans’ “Big, Ugly Betrayal” is having an impact right now – not later.

At least 300 rural hospitals are at immediate risk of closing because of this bill. Not two years from now. Now, this week. Two weeks after the bill passed.

Hospitals in Iowa, Nebraska, North Carolina, and Maine have already announced that they're closing or in serious danger of closing – not in 2027, not in 2028, but soon.

Numerous governors and lawmakers have indicated that they may call special sessions this year, not in 2028, not in 2027. They may call special sessions or are pushing stopgap subsidies to shield doctors and hospitals from immediate harms.

States don't see the “Big, Ugly Bill” as a problem for years from now. For them, the workers and most of all, the people who get health care in these rural hospitals, it's a problem now.

And this fall – not 2028, folks, this fall – people will get notices that their insurance premiums for the Affordable Care Act will go up 75% on average, because Republicans chose not to extend tax credits for the ACA.

This will also impact people on private insurance. If you don't have ACA, Medicaid, or Medicare, you're still going to get increases in your insurance. Everyone is affected by these cuts – just about everyone, unless you're one of those billionaires who don't have to have insurance because they have enough money to pay for any medical bill. That's not true for the vast majority of Americans.  

And what they are doing, that is just the start. Republicans have made it clear: they want even deeper cuts to Medicaid. Many in the House Freedom Caucus and the ultra-right have said they weren’t satisfied with their “Big, Ugly Bill.”

So, who is to say Donald Trump and Russell Vought won’t use rescissions or another reconciliation bill to cut healthcare even deeper?

And what are our Republican colleagues going to do when a handful of right-wing freedom caucus people say they're not going to cut any bill. Will they cave again?

Let me say it again: all this talk from Republicans that many of their own cuts won’t materialize is utter nonsense.

Hospitals are closing now. States are reacting now. Insurance companies are adjusting now. And the harm to the American people will happen now, not later.

###