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[Page S2798]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Healthcare
Madam President, 133 million Americans under 65 years of age are
living with a preexisting condition of some kind. Right now, because of
the laws on the books, insurance companies cannot charge those
Americans more or deny them coverage simply because they have a
preexisting condition. That is a great thing. That is something
Americans longed for before these protections became law.
But, unfortunately, that could all change and go away if the lawsuit
against our healthcare law brought by Republican attorneys general and
supported by the Trump administration succeeds. It would deprive health
coverage for tens of millions of Americans and risk denial of coverage
or exorbitant premiums for up to 133 million Americans with preexisting
conditions. That scale of cruelty is so large that it is almost
unimaginable--to tell 133 million Americans that you will not get
protections if, God forbid, you have an illness and your insurance
company wants to cut you off. Yet those are the practical consequences
of the lawsuit that the Trump Department of Justice continues to
support. While that lawsuit is a fundamental threat to our country's
healthcare system, led by President Trump and supported by just about
every Republican in this Chamber, the Trump administration has also
spent much of the past 2 years sabotaging and undermining healthcare at
every turn.
As for this ideology that the government should not help people who
have healthcare problems, well, about 90 percent of all Americans do
not agree with that, but somehow it is dominant in the White House and
dominant in the Republican Senate. Last week the House passed
legislation that would reverse the Trump administration. It is good
that the new majority in the House is taking action.
Later this week the House is poised to pass another package of
legislation to further protect preexisting conditions and help
Americans sign up for quality health coverage. But so far none of the
bills that protect Americans' healthcare have received any attention
from the Republican leader, Senator McConnell, and that is a shame--a
real shame.
Leader McConnell has slowly but surely been turning the Senate into a
legislative graveyard, where even the most consequential and
noncontroversial legislation gets buried indefinitely.
Just take the House-passed legislation on preexisting conditions as
an example. This is extraordinarily popular with the American people. A
Kaiser poll found that nearly 70 percent of Americans do not want the
courts to overturn protections for preexisting conditions. I don't
think any of my colleagues would argue on the merits that we should go
back to a healthcare system where insurance companies could
discriminate against a child with cancer. In fact, several of my
Republican colleagues who recently won reelection ran ads explicitly
saying they were for protections for Americans with preexisting
conditions. So why will the Republican leader not commit to at least
putting up legislation to do that? I hope it is not because my
Republican colleagues want to be able to say one thing and do another.
I hope it is not because of the influence of dark money. I hope that is
not why. So I would say to the leader: Do not throw healthcare
legislation into the legislative graveyard. Do not throw the healthcare
of the American people into the legislative graveyard.
The American people are worried about rising costs and declining
quality. They are worried that if they are sick, they could wake up any
day and no longer have access to healthcare. That is a very real threat
that millions of Americans face under the Trump administration.
Healthcare was the No. 1 issue for most Americans in the last election.
We should be doing something to protect American families from the
Trump administration's effort to undermine healthcare. I understand
that my Republican colleagues do not want to cross the President, but
this issue is too important to too many American families to remain
silent, too important for our Republican colleagues not to go to their
leader--especially, those colleagues who campaigned for preexisting
condition protections--and tell the leader that we must bring this
legislation to the floor.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority whip.
Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.