Mr. President, the so-called reconciliation bill or Mr. Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill that the Republican leadership is now attempting to rush through the Senate is a rather extraordinary piece of legislation. In many respects, given the crises facing our country, this legislation does exactly the opposite of what should be done.
Whether you are a Democrat, a Republican, or an Independent, you know--no one has any doubt about it--that our current healthcare system is broken. It is dysfunctional. It is a cruel system, and it is wildly expensive. We spend over $14,500 per person on healthcare, double what most countries around the world pay per person.
And despite all of that spending, some 85 million Americans today are uninsured or underinsured. And we remain the only major country on Earth not to guarantee healthcare to all people as a human right. And one out of four people who go into a pharmacy to get their prescription drugs can’t afford that medicine because of the outrageously high prices.
So now, given that reality, how does this reconciliation bill address the horrific healthcare crisis that our country is experiencing?
What one might think is that given 85 million people being uninsured or underinsured, this bill would lower that number. It would provide healthcare to more Americans. Given the fact that we are spending twice as much per capita on healthcare as any other nation, one might think that this legislation would lower the cost of healthcare. Given the fact that the insurance companies and the drug companies rip us off every day and make huge profits out of the system, one might think that this legislation would take on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry and the insurance companies.
Well, if that is what you think rational legislation should do, understand that this bill does none of that--in fact, does exactly the opposite.
This legislation, if enacted, would make the largest cut to healthcare in our Nation’s history in order to pay for the largest tax breaks for the rich that we have ever, ever seen--massive cuts to healthcare in order to provide tax breaks for billionaires.
The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that this legislation would cut Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act by over $1 trillion. Those cuts, along with ending the enhanced premium credits for the ACA, will lead to 16 million people losing their health insurance.
That is not what Bernie Sanders has said; that is what the director of the Congressional Budget Office has told us. That is the nonpartisan group that works with Congress.
Mr. President, this bill, further, for the first time, forces millions of Medicaid recipients who make as little as $16,000 a year to pay a $35 copayment every time they visit a doctor. So 16 million people are thrown off of healthcare. Low-income, working-class people are now forced to pay a $35 copayment.
What is the impact of all of that? Well, it will not surprise anybody, if people don’t have access to healthcare, if they can’t get to a doctor when they are sick, people will suffer, and tens of thousands of them will die.
The Yale University School of Public Health and the University of Pennsylvania estimated in a recent study that if the reconciliation bill is enacted, over 50,000 Americans will die unnecessarily every year. That is what we are talking about--50,000 Americans dying unnecessarily because they are thrown off of healthcare; they can’t afford to see a doctor each and every year.
What is the reason for that? What is the motivation for that horrific action? It is to give massive tax breaks to the very wealthiest people in this country, people who do not need them. Not only would millions of Americans lose their health insurance and tens of thousands of our constituents needlessly die if this legislation is enacted, rural hospitals all over this country--rural hospitals that are already struggling--would be forced to shut down, lay off workers, or substantially reduce the services they provide. In other words, at a time when rural America is struggling--and I come from one of the most rural States in America, that is what Vermont is--this bill would be a disaster for rural America.
Further, when Trump and the Republicans in Congress make massive cuts to Medicaid, they are not just attacking individuals, they are also going after and negatively impacting community health centers, which provide primary healthcare to 32 million lower income and working-class Americans in every State in this country. Community health centers rely on Medicaid for 43 percent of their revenue. And when you cut hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicaid, you are significantly cutting back on the access that millions of Americans will have to the primary healthcare they desperately need.
At a time when the healthcare system in America is broken, when primary healthcare is even in worse shape, this will make access to primary healthcare even more difficult.
Some 22 percent of our seniors in this, the richest country on Earth, are trying to survive on less than $15,000 a year. This legislation will make it harder for seniors and people with disabilities to receive the care they desperately need in nursing homes. Nursing homes in Vermont--and I expect in every State in this country--are struggling. They are understaffed. Workers there are underpaid. The quality, in many cases, is not as good as it should be. But when Medicaid now provides 60 percent of the revenue nursing homes rely on, slashing Medicaid will make a disastrous situation even worse for some of the most vulnerable people in our country.
Let us be clear. Let us not run away from it. Let us not double-talk this issue and come up with all kinds of absurd rationalizations. This legislation coming before the Senate this week is the most significant attack on the healthcare needs of the American people in the modern history of our country.
And once again--once again--we are throwing millions of people off of the healthcare that they depend upon to stay alive in order to give massive tax breaks to the very wealthiest people in this country, people who do not need them. Not only would millions of Americans lose their health insurance and tens of thousands of our constituents needlessly die if this legislation is enacted, rural hospitals all over this country--rural hospitals that are already struggling--would be forced to shut down, lay off workers, or substantially reduce the services they provide. In other words, at a time when rural America is struggling--and I come from one of the most rural States in America, that is what Vermont is--this bill would be a disaster for rural America.
Further, when Trump and the Republicans in Congress make massive cuts to Medicaid, they are not just attacking individuals, they are also going after and negatively impacting community health centers, which provide primary healthcare to 32 million lower income and working-class Americans in every State in this country. Community health centers rely on Medicaid for 43 percent of their revenue. And when you cut hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicaid, you are significantly cutting back on the access that millions of Americans will have to the primary healthcare they desperately need.
At a time when the healthcare system in America is broken, when primary healthcare is even in worse shape, this will make access to primary healthcare even more difficult.
Some 22 percent of our seniors in this, the richest country on Earth, are trying to survive on less than $15,000 a year. This legislation will make it harder for seniors and people with disabilities to receive the care they desperately need in nursing homes. Nursing homes in Vermont--and I expect in every State in this country--are struggling. They are understaffed. Workers there are underpaid. The quality, in many cases, is not as good as it should be. But when Medicaid now provides 60 percent of the revenue nursing homes rely on, slashing Medicaid will make a disastrous situation even worse for some of the most vulnerable people in our country.
Let us be clear. Let us not run away from it. Let us not double-talk this issue and come up with all kinds of absurd rationalizations. This legislation coming before the Senate this week is the most significant attack on the healthcare needs of the American people in the modern history of our country.
And once again--once again--we are throwing millions of people off of the healthcare that they depend upon to stay alive in order to give tax breaks to billionaires who have more wealth today than they will need for a hundred lifetimes. And yet, oddly enough, despite the enormity of what this legislation is about, not a single committee in the Senate has held a single hearing on the impact this legislation will have. In my view, really, this is absolutely irresponsible.
I am not quite sure why we continue to even have committees if the Health and Labor Committee, of which I am ranking member, does not hold a hearing on the most important piece of health legislation in the modern history of this country. That is why this morning, I released, as leader of the minority on the committee, a report discussing the impact that this legislation would have on our Nation’s healthcare system. I did that by doing something pretty radical, I guess. We actually reached out to healthcare providers all over the country.
If you are going to decimate American healthcare, you may want to talk to the doctors and the nurses and the healthcare organizations around America. I think that is kind of a commonsense thing to do.
Let me take this opportunity to thank the over 750 healthcare providers from 47 States who responded to my request. I want to thank them sincerely for their thoughtful responses. We basically said: What is this legislation going to do in your State? And we got hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of responses.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this report be printed in the Record.
