Schumer Remarks on Senate GOP’s ‘Meaner’ Healthcare Bill
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer today delivered remarks during a press conference regarding the recently released Senate GOP healthcare bill. Below are his remarks:
Okay. I want to thank both of them, our ranking members on HELP and Finance, for the fabulous job that they are doing.
Now, when the House passed their healthcare bill, a bill that President Trump called “mean,” I thought it wouldn’t be possible for the Senate Republicans to conjure up a bill even worse than that one. Unfortunately that is what they have done.
The Senate version of Trumpcare is even meaner than the House bill. There is a lot to unpack in this bill, but its general outline is very simple and very clear. They’re getting up and saying this is a draft, but I asked Mitch McConnell on the floor, you may have seen it, is there anything that I said, which I’ll say now, that is not in that draft and he just sat down, he didn’t answer. So my guess is it’s all in there.
The bill take dollars out of healthcare for millions of Americans and puts them right back in the pocket of the wealthy. It cuts healthcare for those who need it most, just to give a tax break to those who need it least. Senate Republicans with this bill are proposing to defund Planned Parenthood, to drastically slash Medicaid which helps middle class families with loved ones in a nursing home and sends those dollars to the very richest people in America. Senate Democrats have been pouring over the bill now that it’s come out from behind closed doors, and here are just a few things that this bill will do.
First it will cause healthcare costs for middle class and working families to go up. By cutting back tax credits and making Americans pay an even bigger percentage of their income for their premiums. They’re going to send costs soaring.
Second, the bill will kick millions off Medicaid. By making even deeper cuts than the House bill. If you’re a middle class family with a loved one in a nursing home, the cost of that care is going to go up.
Third, it abandons people with preexisting conditions, putting at dire risk maternity care, mental health coverage, by allowing states even more latitude to get out of covering essential health benefits.
Fourth, it defunds Planned Parenthood, making it harder for millions of women to obtain the healthcare they need and deserve. Now why are they doing all of this? To provide a giant tax break to the wealthiest Americans. Simply put, the bill will result in higher costs, less care. Millions of Americans will lose their health insurance particularly through Medicaid. It’s every bit as bad as the House bill, in some ways, even worse.
The president has said that the Senate bill needed heart. The way this bill cuts healthcare is heartless. The president said the House bill was mean. The Senate bill may be meaner. The Senate Republican healthcare bill is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Only this wolf’s teeth are even sharper than in the House bill.
Somewhere in America, Mr. President, there’s a family, who takes a trip each Friday to visit grandma, or grandpa at a nursing home, who sacrificed all of their savings to pay for their healthcare until they had no more savings.
And now they rely on Medicaid to help pay the cost of long-term care in the nursing home. Somewhere in America, President Trump, there’s a father, who is eaten up in side, watching his son struggle with opioid addiction, who knows in his heart that his son would be able to go on and live a healthy and fulfilling life, if he could only afford treatment to get him out from under the devastating addiction.
Somewhere in America, there’s a parent, whose child has cancer. The mother and father who stay up late at night worried that their insurance will not be available or run out before their family needs it most. In that America that my Republican friends envision, with this healthcare bill, those Americans, and many more beside, might not get the coverage they need.
We live in the wealthiest country on earth. We’re proud of it as we should be. But surely, we can do better than what the Republican healthcare bill promises. Every American should be asking their Republican Senators one simple question this weekend: why did the wealthy deserve a tax cut more than we deserve healthcare?
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