Budget Reconciliation
Floor Speech
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Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, really delighted to be here with my colleagues: the Senator from Wisconsin, the Senator from Rhode Island, and the Senator from New Hampshire.
There are a couple things that just need to be faced directly. One is that the President of the United States is not leveling with us, and he is not leveling with the American people. You can't say that you love Medicaid, and it is not going to be touched and in the next breath say you endorse the House bill that cuts a trillion dollars from Medicaid. And it is a responsibility that each of us has to assess the credibility of the President's assertion here.
And we can pretend that we don't know the House bill that is about a tax cut requires a trillion dollars out of the Medicaid budget or we can face the truth and then have a debate about whether we should or should not cut Medicaid.
But the President won't level with the American people or with Congress. And it is tougher on the Republican side of the aisle because he is a Republican President, but the truth here is inescapable. The only way the House bill can get passed and the tax cut that is a goal of many on the Republican side of the aisle can be passed and paid for is to take away healthcare, and Medicaid is the big target.
And my colleagues have talked about the importance of Medicaid, and that is true, so true. In Vermont, in every single State, it is healthcare. And it is healthcare for kids. It is healthcare for seniors. Two out of the three nursing home beds in Vermont are covered by Medicaid. We have these cuts; those people get kicked out of the nursing homes. We cut Medicaid; kids who are totally dependent on Medicaid for access to the healthcare they need lose their care.
It is really, really a problem everywhere. But I think in rural communities, it is even more severe because we have got rural hospitals and we have got rural community health centers that play a major role in rural life. They are all on thin ice financially. They have overworked staff but who are committed to the people in that community. And the only reimbursement they get is through Medicaid. And as we all know, the Medicaid reimbursement is much lower than Medicare and certainly way lower than private insurance. But they pull it together and somehow keep the lights on, keep the doors open, and provide the healthcare that the folks in that community need.
You know, another point I want to make--and, Mr. President, I know you served as Governor of West Virginia, and we have got the former Governor of New Hampshire here. You had to deal with really tough budgets. You have got to balance your budget. And I know in West Virginia, West Virginia expanded Medicaid when that became an option. And God bless West Virginia. I mean, God bless ``West by God Virginia.'' But I have been there, went down into the coal mine. Those are wonderful people. They work so hard. But in order to be eligible for Medicaid in West Virginia, your income as an adult can't be a dollar over $20,782. That is 10 bucks an hour, $10.39 an hour.
And, you know, when I met West Virginians and went in the coal mines, it so reminded me of the hard-working Vermont farmers. That is tough work to do and people show up and they do it. It is like our farmers in Vermont. It is really hard work. They show up, and they do it. But a lot of folks making $20,782--there is no way--no way--they can afford healthcare. There is no way.
And that is another absolute requirement that each of us level with one another. Let's not pretend that there is some fictional healthcare out there that a person who is working 40 hours a week making 10.39 an hour can pay for healthcare. It doesn't exist. And the major responsibility that we have is to make certain that we have a healthcare system where people who work hard, who love their kids, who have an elderly parent, can have some security that the healthcare they need, they will get.
So the President says he is not going to touch the big beautiful healthcare bill and Medicaid, when his action is he is taking a sledgehammer to it. And he is taking a sledgehammer that is cutting off folks in West Virginia, folks in Vermont who are working hard, who struggle every week to pay their bills, and who could get some peace of mind that the child that they love, that the grandparent that they are caring for, can have decency and access to healthcare or a nursing home. It is an absolute disgrace that there is any discussion--that there is any discussion--that we would be taking that away.
Shame on Trump. Shame on Trump.
The other thing I want to talk about is this question of waste, fraud, and abuse. Who of the 100 U.S. Senators is in favor of waste, fraud, and abuse? Not a single one of us. But that is not what is going on here. That is not what is going on here.
You as a Governor, Senator Hassan, former Governor--you are on that. If there are some rip-offs going on in the Medicaid Program in your State, you are on it. You want those people prosecuted and put in jail.
Waste, fraud, and abuse is just being used as a curtain to conceal what the real agenda is, and that is saving money on Medicaid by dumping people off of Medicaid. The savings program here is about taking away the access to healthcare that people have, folks--like in West Virginia--who make $21,000 or so a year.
If we want to talk about the rip-offs, if we want to talk about taking the waste out of the healthcare system--and by the way, I do-- let's go after these pharmacy benefit manufacturers adding billions of dollars to the cost of healthcare, driving out of business our community pharmacies that know the people in their communities and want to take care of them.
By the way, we had a bipartisan bill to get rid of the pharmacy benefit manager rip-offs, and do you know who blocked it? A guy named Elon Musk--the guy who wants to ``save big beautiful Medicaid.'' Rip- off. And he is accomplice No. 1 in allowing the pharmacy benefit managers to continue to stick it to our pharmacists, to our taxpayers.
If we wanted to go after where the rip-off is in healthcare, what about what United Healthcare did with the Medicare Advantage Program, where they literally paid doctors to overdiagnose so they could boost what they charged, and then when people on Medicare Advantage in their program got sick, they dumped them. And we tolerate that. We tolerate that. Billions--hundreds of billions of dollars.
So, yes, the biggest threat to access to healthcare for the people you represent and that I represent is the rip-off in the healthcare industry, with higher than anywhere else in the world prescription drug prices, with rip-offs systemically used in the Medicare Advantage Program, with the gaming of pharmaceuticals by the pharmacy benefit managers.
I want to save money, but I want to save money by stopping the rip- offs. I don't want to save money by dumping people who make $21,000 a year off of the healthcare they absolutely need. And that is what Musk is doing. That is what Trump is doing. That is wrong, and we have to stop it.
We have to stand up for the hard-working people of West Virginia, the hard-working people of New Hampshire, the hard-working people of Wisconsin, and the hard-working people of Vermont.
We have to say no and acknowledge the rip-offs that Donald Trump is trying to inflict on hard-working people in our States so that he can pay for the tax cuts for his billionaire friends.
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