Motion to Discharge

Floor Speech

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Ms. BALDWIN. Madam President, let me start by asking unanimous consent that the vote on the motion to discharge the Lhamon nomination occur at 3:30 p.m. today.

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Ms. BALDWIN. Madam President, I rise today to talk about the opportunity we have before us to deliver results for the people we work for.

Right now, too many Americans are struggling to make ends meet and get ahead because of the cost and availability of childcare, healthcare, home care, and prescription drugs.

In my home State of Wisconsin, people like Zena, a human resources representative from Twin Lakes, needs us to pass the Build Back Better Budget that invests in working families.

Zena has been battling several severe autoimmune diseases, and she has been battling this for more than 15 years. She fell very ill after contracting norovirus, and she was unable to work and ultimately lost her job, as well as her employer-sponsored healthcare that came with it.

Sick and uninsured, she turned to our State's BadgerCare program for help. But because the Republicans in the Wisconsin State Legislature have refused a Federal investment to fully expand Medicaid coverage, Zena was locked out of the program and unable to access necessary healthcare coverage. Like millions of Americans, Zena found herself in the Medicaid coverage gap and was forced to make choices that no one living in the United States should have to face, choices like paying for life-sustaining medication or paying her mortgage.

Right now, the people we work for are paying two to three times more for their prescription drugs than people in other wealthy countries. This needs to change, and we have an opportunity to get the job done if we simply make the superwealthy and most profitable corporations, like the big drug companies, pay their fair share of taxes.

For years, Congress has been talking about lowering the cost of prescription drugs, so let's finally do it by giving Medicare the power to negotiate lower prescription drug prices that will save taxpayers money. Let's stand on the side of seniors, who should no longer be at the mercy of Big Pharma.

In addition to lowering the cost of needed medications, our Build Back Better budget provides the opportunity to expand Medicare benefits to include vision, dental, and hearing. The last time I checked, your ears, eyes, and teeth are all a part of your overall health, and there is no good reason not to include them in Medicare coverage.

Right now, the United States is also in the midst of a long-term care and caregiving crisis. Hundreds of thousands of older adults and people with disabilities who need and qualify for home- and community-based care services are unable to access them. I know something about this. I was my grandmother's caregiver, and I know firsthand the challenges that family caregivers face.

But we can do something about this, and we should, with Build Back Better legislation that invests in long-term care; creates new, good- paying home-care jobs; and raises wages for care workers who often work around the clock to care for our loved ones yet live in poverty.

All of this and more is doable if Washington finally says we are not going to continue spending trillions of taxpayer dollars on tax loopholes and tax giveaways for huge, profitable corporations, millionaires, and billionaires.

This is all to say that we face an urgent choice: Do we work for the powerful special interests who have too much influence in Washington, or do we work for people like Zena and others like her who simply look for a little help from us to even the playing field and to get ahead?

This is our moment to prove to the American people--to people like Zena--that their government works for them, not just those at the top. I have faith that we can do this for Zena, for Wisconsin, and for the millions of Americans counting on us to get the job done for them.

I yield.

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