Schumer Floor Remarks: Let Me Be Very Clear, This Budget Resolution is Not “Repeal and Replace,” It Is the First Step to Repealing the Affordable Care Act
“Whether that vote is tonight or in the dark hours of early morning, with it Republicans are taking the first step into a box canyon.”
“Put this irresponsible and rushed repeal plan aside. Work with us Democrats on a way to improve health care in America, not set it back 8 years.”
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer today spoke on the Senate floor about Republicans’ disastrous plan to repeal Obamacare. Below are his remarks:
Mr. President, I want to speak briefly and pointedly about the budget resolution before us, which will at some late hour culminate in a final vote.
Whether that vote is tonight or in the dark hours of early morning, with it Republicans are taking the first step into a box canyon.
Now, I hear my Republican colleagues are talking more and more about doing “repeal and replace” together. But let me be very clear: this budget resolution is not “repeal and replace.”
It is one thing and one thing only: the first step of repealing the Affordable Care Act -- ripping health care away from tens of millions of Americans, and throwing our whole health care system into chaos. It will make America sick again.
Over the past few weeks, this fact has made some of my more thoughtful Republican colleagues nervous.
My friends the Senators from Maine, Arkansas, Tennessee and Kentucky have all, quite forcefully, voiced their concern with repealing health reform without a scrap of a plan of what to do next.
And now the President-elect has tweeted that they should do repeal-and-replace at the same time. Today, he said Republicans would repeal and replace the law “essentially simultaneously.” But that’s not what this budget resolution would do.
It’s a bit like an Abbot and Costello show –Republicans in Congress and the President-elect are pointing at each other waiting for the other one to come up with the plan.
This confusion makes sense because the Republicans are in a pickle.
They promised every conservative group and audience in the country for the past eight years that they’d repeal health reform “root and branch.” But it is only their base that actually wants the repeal.
Most of America wants us to keep the law and work to improve it.
In a recent Politico/Morning Consult poll, only 28% percent of Americans support repealing the law if there is no current plan for replacing it. Less than one third. That’s the Republican base.
But two thirds of Americans support the provision that prevents insurance companies from denying coverage to patients with pre-existing conditions.
63% support letting kids stay on their parent’s plan until they are 26
And there are similar numbers on the other major benefits of health reform
Those are key features of the Affordable Care Act. The Republicans cannot please their base and the broader public at the same time.
From a policy perspective, they can’t repeal the law and keep in place the provisions that are overwhelmingly popular with a majority of Americans. That’s why they’re in such a pickle.
Mr. President, the Affordable Care Act is not despised by the American people, only the hard right of the Republican base, which is fervently anti-government.
They oppose the ACA because they oppose everything that government does, including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
If Republicans go forward with this plan, they may mollify their base, but they will ostracize and hurt the American people, and ultimately lose in the court of public opinion.
Mr. President, there is a much more responsible course of action that I urge my friends on the other side to consider: abandon repeal.
We Democrats are willing to work with our Republican colleagues on improving the law. We’ll even look at a comprehensive replacement plan if they can come up with one.
We don’t care about the credit. Call it “TrumpCare.” Call it “McConnell Care.” Call it “Republi-Care,” doesn’t matter.
…So long as it covers as many people as the ACA.
…So long as it helps bring costs down.
…So long as it doesn’t move our health care system backwards.
We haven’t seen one so far. I’m skeptical that we will. But we’ll look at one if they come up with it.
Unfortunately, that is not the road we are on. The vote tonight is the first step on the road to repeal which leads straight into that box canyon.
So, I just want to urge my Republican colleagues, sincerely – especially those who have rightly expressed concern about the very serious consequences of repealing without a replacement – to vote against this resolution.
Put this irresponsible and rushed repeal plan aside. Work with us Democrats on a way to improve health care in America, not set it back 8 years. Don’t make America sick again.
Otherwise the consequences of throwing our health care system into chaos -- denying 30 million Americans health coverage, blowing a trillion dollar hole in our deficit, depriving the college graduate from staying on their parent’s plan, women from getting fair treatment, and the family from getting coverage for their daughter who has a pre-existing condition – that falls entirely on the shoulders of my Republican colleagues.
Mr. President, that’s a scenario we’d all like to avoid.
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