Schumer Floor Remarks on the Uncertainty Surrounding the Upcoming Healthcare Vote and ‘A Better Deal’

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer today delivered remarks on the Senate floor regarding the uncertainty surrounding the upcoming healthcare vote and the Democratic economic agenda that was rolled out earlier today. Below are his remarks:

Madam President, as soon as tomorrow, we could be voting on a Motion to Proceed to the Republican health care plan.               

What that plan is – I’m not sure really anybody knows. My friend the Majority Whip, when reporters asked him if his own members would know what they’d be voting on, said “that’s a luxury we don’t have.”           

We’ve been on the topic of healthcare for 7 months. Republicans have been talking about repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act for over 7 years. And yet, here we are, one or two days from a vote on the Motion to Proceed, and we don’t even know what Republican plan to vote on!

We are potentially one or two days away from a vote on a bill that would reorganize one sixth of the American economy, impacting tens of millions of American lives – and no one knows what it is! It’s sort of like Alice in Wonderland around here.                                             

It’s come down to this bizarre game where the Republican Leader has basically said, let’s spin a wheel and see what we’re going to vote on.

There’s no way to treat a matter as serious as healthcare; so near and dear to the lives of so many Americans like this.  

I don’t know how a single one of my Republican friends can, in good conscience, vote to proceed to a truncated debate on something as important as healthcare without knowing what bill they are ultimately voting on.

Isn’t this the same party that shouted from the rafters “read the bill, read the bill” when the Affordable Care Act was debated?

It’s completely bewildering.

Now, maybe we’ll be voting on the Republican repeal and replace bill: which causes costs to go up and care to go down, which causes 22 million Americans to lose their insurance; which so cruelly exchanges healthcare for millions of working Americans for another tax break on the wealthy and the special interests.

Maybe it will be repeal without replace, which is even worse; which would cause our healthcare system to implode, creating chaos for 32 million Americans who would lose their insurance and chaos for millions more who would see their coverage diminished, or their premiums rise.

No one knows what we’re voting on – we know one thing: all the options are bad. There is no good way out of this.      

The truth is, the Republicans are completely stuck when it comes to health care. Every single version of their repeal and replace bill is rotten at the core. Repeal without replace is even worse. The American people don’t want tax breaks for the wealthy or slash Medicaid. They don’t want to repeal all the progress we’ve made in healthcare without any plan to put in its place.                          

It’s time to start over. It’s time go back to the drawing board – abandon tax cuts for the wealthy, abandon cuts to Medicaid, abandon repeal and run – and come together, both parties, around a set of non-ideological proposals to improve our healthcare system.

That’s what we Democrats want to do. I’ve called several Republicans – some in their leadership are saying ‘oh, Leader Schumer doesn’t want people to talk to each other and won’t let that happen if the bill fails.’

Well first, I couldn’t prevent it if I wanted to, but second, I don’t want to. I want us to sit down and come up with improving ACA. No one said it’s perfect!

So, if the bill fails tomorrow, we’ll start right away trying to work with our Republican colleagues to stabilize the marketplace and improve the cost and quality of healthcare. Whether they join us in that effort is entirely up to them.

Now, on another matter.

Madam President, today, in Berryville, Virginia, the Democratic Party began presenting our vision for the future of the country.

As I’ve traveled New York State, from upstate rural, republican areas like Sodus Bay (where I was Friday) to suburban Long Island, to the inner-city Bronx, I find one thing in common: average families feel they’ve been pushed around by large economic forces and they’re losing that traditional, American faith in the future.

Too many families in America feel like the rules of the economy are rigged against them. They feel like they’re getting a raw deal.

And they're right.

American families deserve a better deal so this country works for everyone, not just the elites and special interests. Today, Democrats started presenting that better deal to the American people.

There used to be a basic bargain in this country that if you worked hard and played by the rules, you could own a home, afford a car, put your kids through college and take a modest vacation every year while putting enough away for a comfortable retirement. I should know – I grew up in that America. My father was an exterminator. He worked really hard, but managed to be able –not making a whole lot of money – to build a good life for his family.

But things have changed.

 Today’s working Americans are justified in having greater doubts about the future than almost any generation since the Depression. Corporate interests and the super wealthy are allowed to spend unlimited, undisclosed money on campaigns and lobbying so they can protect their special deals in Washington. And for too long, far too long, government has played along, tilting the economic field in favor of the wealthy and powerful, taking the burden off them and putting it on the backs of hard-working Americans.

The result is an economy that has created enormous wealth at the top, while producing less work and less pay for average Americans. Incomes and wages have flat-lined while everyday costs are skyrocketing.

Democrats, frankly have too often hesitated from directly and unflinchingly taking on the misguided policies that got us here — so much so that many Americans don’t know what we stand for. Well Madam President not after today. Democrats are showing the country that we’re the party on the side of working people — and that we stand for three things.

First, we’re going to increase people’s pay. Second, we’re going to reduce their everyday expenses. And third, we’re going to provide workers the tools they need for the 21st century.

Today we announced three new policies to advance these goals.

• Right now, there is nothing to stop vulture capitalists from egregiously raising the price of lifesaving drugs without justification. We’re going to fight for rules to stop prescription drug price gouging and demand that drug companies justify price increases to the public. And we’re going to push for empowering Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices for seniors.

• Second, right now our antitrust laws are designed to allow huge corporations to merge, padding the pockets of investors but sending costs skyrocketing for everything from cable bills and airline tickets to beer and food and health care. We’re going to fight to allow regulators to penalize big companies if they’re hurting consumers and making it harder for companies to merge if it reduces competition.

• And right now millions of unemployed or underemployed people, particularly those without a college degree, could be brought back into the labor force and retrained to secure full-time, higher-paying work. We propose giving employers, particularly small businesses, a large tax credit to train workers for unfilled jobs – with a requirement to hire that worker at a good wage once the training is complete.

In future weeks we’ll offer additional ideas, from rebuilding rural America to fundamentally changing our trade laws to benefit workers, not multinational corporations.

Now, we are in the minority in both houses of Congress, we know that; we cannot delude anyone that this Congress will begin passing our priorities tomorrow. But this is the start of a new vision for our party. This set of economic policies will form the backbone of our agenda. And we welcome our Republican colleagues to join with us in any of these ideas that they might find acceptable.

"A better deal" is not just a slogan; it's a mission. It’s about reorienting government to work on behalf of people and families. It's not going to be the work of only one Congress and it shouldn't be the work of one party – as I said we welcome any Republicans willing to work with us on these issues – because there is an American imperative and a moral imperative to do what we are doing here.

If that torch, held by the lady in the harbor of the city in which I live – that symbol of optimism and hope for the future – starts flickering, it’s a different America, an America no one will like.

American families deserve a better deal: a government that has their back and helps make the economy work for them. That’s how we’ll restore the fundamental optimism that defines the American spirit.

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