Schumer Floor Remarks On TrumpCare and Drug Prices and China’s Recent Trademark Approvals of Trump Brands
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer today delivered remarks on the Senate floor on the recklessness of Trumpcare and China’s trademark approvals of Trump brands. Below are his remarks as delivered:
Mr. President, I just came from speaking with several Americans about how Trumpcare would affect them.
Universally, these folks were scared. They are worried that their costs will go up. They are worried that their benefits would go down.
One of the concerns that came up – an issue that is on the mind of so many Americans – was the high cost of drug prices.
During the campaign, the president talked the talk on drug prices. As President-elect, he said in December that he would “bring down drug prices.” In January he said that pharmaceutical companies were “getting away with murder.” He repeated the refrain in his joint address to Congress last week. “We should,” he said “work to bring down the artificially high price of drugs and bring them down immediately.”
Immediately, well the immediately is here, Mr. President.
TrumpCare – the repeal and the replacement of the ACA – has been introduced. Trumpcare does absolutely nothing to address the high cost of drugs. In fact, drug prices might start going up faster.
Once again, the President is talking the talk, talking like a populist, but not walking the walk, not helping the average Americans, helping the wealthy, the special interests, but not the average folks he was talking to during the campaign
The president met with a couple of congressmen yesterday and talked about drug prices. Why not put something in Trumpcare? Why not let them negotiate to bring down costs?
Instead, TrumpCare does the opposite. Trumpcare eliminates a current requirement that insurers actually give patients the value of the health insurance they are paying for. Under the ACA, insurers had to pay at least 60 percent of the cost of care provided. For some plans, more. Now, that requirement would be gone.
So that again hurts average folks.
That provision in TrumpCare is a blank check to insurers to cover less and charge more out-of-pocket for a whole host of services. Most experts agree that insurers could charge much more for prescriptions drugs or even ration care.
TrumpCare takes the shackles off insurance companies and lets them decide how or if they are going to cover your prescription drug costs. Letting the insurance companies decide what to charge and cover has never been, and never will be, a recipe to bring down prices.
So on drugs as well as other issues – TrumpCare means higher costs less care. What’s particularly galling, of course, is the fact that the President talks about reducing the cost of drug prices, of negotiating, and he does nothing. He says he’d do it immediately, the immediate is here. TrumpCare is here. TrumpCare makes it very likely that the cost of drugs could go up for average Americans.
It’s just another example of this president saying one thing and doing another. He promises the moon and the stars, but his policies but them even farther from reach. He says “I’ll bring drug prices down,” but his bill does the exact opposite.
And it’s just another way in which this bill is a health care handout for the insurance companies and the wealthy, but a raw deal for average Americans.
TrumpCare is really just a tax break for the rich, it’s really not a healthcare program. The number one motivation is to reduce the taxes on the top 1 percent. If you’re that 0.1 percent your average reduction in taxes is $200,000 more than most Americans make. So this bill is not going to help average Americans it’s going to hurt them, unless you’re in the top 0.1 percent.
Mr. President, as more and more people read this bill, the louder the chorus of opposition grows. The AARP, usually they don’t like to take a political stance. A few weeks ago they had ads on TV praising President Trump because he won’t cut Social Security or Medicare. They came out strongly against the bill yesterday. Why? Because it would hurt seniors. They believe that seniors – many average seniors whose income is $15,000 – could pay up to $4,200 more. The people who might be hurt the most in this bill are average Americans between 50 and 65 whose costs will inevitably go up, whose health care will not be as good.
The AMA another cautious organization, not known to be a big Democratic organization, came out against the bill. Doctors know how bad this will be for their patients and for America.
And the Club for Growth, on the other side, it seems groups, hospitals, doctors, senior citizen groups come out against the bill. The hard right comes out against the bill as do more moderate and liberal groups.
That’s because this bill is one big mess, done quickly in the dark of night. It’s no wonder Leader McConnell and Speaker Ryan don’t want a lot of debate. They’re embarrassed. This bill is an embarrassment to those who put it in, because it doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do.
That’s even led Republican governors like John Kasich of Ohio and Brian Sandoval of Nevada to express concerns over the destruction of the Medicaid program as we know it and the shifting of costs to states. Governor Kasich said that TrumpCare “puts at risk our ability to treat the drug addicted, mentally ill, and working poor.”
It’s almost certain that under this bill, treatment for opioids will be less available because Medicaid is cut and Medicaid helped pay for it. It’s almost certain.
You’re a young person, young family – say you’re thirty, forty years old – but you have mom, dad in a nursing home, Medicaid’s been paying for most of that. It’s going to be cut. What are you going to do? Maybe they’ll have to move in with you. That’s not easy in a growing family with kids. Or maybe you’ll have to pay a lot of money out of your pocked.
So this bill hurts Americans up and down the line. The ideological fervor – TrumpCare must cut back the role of government, whether it hurts people or not – is motivating this bill.
That in the abstract would be fine, but it hurts Americans. It hurts middle class Americans who are young. It hurts middle-class Americans who are middle aged. It hurts maybe the most of all middle-class Americans who are 50-65 years old. And when this bill – as people learn about of this bill, there will be rebellion in the land about it.
My friends on the other side of the aisle ought to start listening to the voices of the average Americans who I met today, who care about actually bringing down the unreasonable cost of drugs. They should listen to the voices of the experts who say that just about the only group of “winners” in this bill are the very wealthy. And they should listen to the voices coming from within their own party who say this bill will hurt their states, and hurt the country.
Trumpcare is a mess. If this Congress if this House if this Senate is smart they will defeat TrumpCare keep the ACA and then we can work together on making it better. Plain and simple.
Mr. President, on another matter, I am concerned about a recent report that the Trump business has been granted approval on a number of trademarks in China.
The president spent most of his campaign talking tough on China. He said China was “ripping us off…and killing our companies” He promised to label them a “currency manipulator” on Day One. On Day One, the president promised. Many times over to say we’re going to label China a currency manipulator, and there was nothing stopping him from doing it. He could have done it with the stroke of a pen. To be honest, my views on trade, particularly with respect to China, might be closer to President Trump than those of either President Obama or President Bush.
But ever since the election, President Trump has been remarkably soft with China. As you know Mr. President, I was the original person – myself and Senator Graham – who came up with the idea that China was manipulating its currency. We discovered it. I did when I went up to Crucible Steel up near Syracuse and they told me how their business was being hurt by China manipulating the currency.
At first when Lindsey and I talked about it they said no it’s not happening. I was proud of the fact that both The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, the editorial pages said China doesn’t manipulate its currency, Graham and Schumer are off base. Now of course everyone knows they have.
President Trump in his campaign said over and over he would label them a currency manipulator. He was going to label them a currency manipulator which would have consequences to then, on day one, first day he took office – but now he has backed off his threats.
He has been in office more than a month. He has not labeled China a currency manipulator.
And then, amazingly enough in his first week he said he was no longer going to honor the One China policy - he was sending a shot over the bow to Beijing, that you can’t keep getting away with what you have been getting away with, with trade and geodiplomacy and cybersecurity, stealing our intellectual property and everything else. When he did that I was pretty pleased, now he’s backed off.
So on the two issues where the president could have been really tough on China, he reversed himself within the last few weeks and now all of a sudden, we learn that China has granted preliminary approval to 38 new trademarks, allowing the Trump brand to market several business ventures there, including hotels and golf clubs.
Before he assumed public office, President Trump had reportedly been working to get trademarks from China for a decade without success. These particular trademark applications, filed during the campaign, earlier this week just sailed through. It raises the troubling question as to whether the Chinese government and the Communist Party, who likely had a hand in granting these approvals, sees some type of benefit from doing so now that Donald Trump is President.
Did the president and his network of businesses personally gain from his office? And will that incline the president to make policy decisions that benefit China and hurt American workers?
We don’t know if there’s a link between the two, we don’t know what was in the mind of the Chinese government or the Communist party there when they all of a sudden granted these 38 licenses. It sure raises troubling questions, and it raises a bigger question, Mr. President.
The wisdom of our founding fathers proves true day in and day out. Over 220 years after they wrote the Constitution their wisdom is coming through now with President Trump because they wrote in the Constitution that anything of value, any emoluments from foreign government should be prohibited from U.S. officials accepting. U.S. officials should not be allowed to accept anything of value from a foreign government.
The founding fathers in those days one of their greatest worries was that they wanted to prevent foreign governments from trying to curry favor with the United States by offering potential financial gain to our officials. This issue has been largely forgotten for a century or so.
But the wisdom of the founding fathers is shining through now because President Trump unlike just about any other president I can remember in recent history, has failed to completely separate himself from huge financial interests, and now the questions arise – is there a relationship? Are the foreign governments seeking to curry favor? Is it affecting Donald Trump’s decision-making?
Nobody knows the answer to these. But the fact that the questions can be asked is extremely troubling.
This president has flouted all tradition and precedent – and, I worry, the spirit if not the letter of the Constitution has been broken – by retaining a financial interest in his business empire, which leads to troubling questions just like the ones raised by these trademarks.
As my colleague from Connecticut who’s an expert on this issue, he’s a brilliant lawyer, Senator Blumenthal said yesterday, I think the circumstances surrounding the approval of these trademarks ought to be looked into by this Congress for a potential Emoluments Clause violation. He’s right and I’m glad he’s going forward.
