Budget Reconciliation Bill

Floor Speech

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Mr. COURTNEY. Madam Speaker, for the last 5 months, across the country, people have been waiting with bated breath to see what this big, beautiful bill is that the Republicans have been working on behind closed doors, much of it down in Florida putting it together, particularly America's healthcare sector. It has been clear from the outset that the Medicaid program, the program which provides more coverage for more Americans than any other program, 72 million Americans, was a target in this budget reconciliation bill.

Over the weekend, the measure had been released and we finally get to see what, in fact, it looks like. The chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, who is a good friend and a good guy, came right out and said that Democrats are going to use this as an opportunity to engage in fear-mongering and misrepresent our bill as an attack on Medicaid.

Madam Speaker, it is not just Democrats and Republicans that have an opinion about what is happening here, it is about the people that the Medicaid cuts are going to impact, particularly our healthcare sector, particularly the hospital sector.

This morning, Politico's headline shows what their reaction has been over the last 48 hours, which is ``Hospital groups slam cuts to Medicaid in megabill.''

This is a sector that has many trade associations, the biggest one, the American Hospital Association, came right out and said that it will lead to millions of Americans losing access to healthcare and leaving many of our hospitals struggling to maintain services and stay open for their communities.

The Catholic Health Association said, Congress has a moral obligation to consider the harm that this would have for America's most vulnerable communities, cascading effects of lost coverage and cost-shifting will impact nearly every American.

Children's hospitals, who depend on Medicaid, can't cost-shift to older patients on Medicare. They have been blasting this proposal from day one and they have continued it.

Essential hospitals, which are the safety net hospitals for this country, have also said that it is going to lead to closures of hospitals as well as the private-sector hospitals.

The Federation of American Hospitals, Director Chip Kahn, came right out and said that it is imperative that congressional Republicans go back to the drawing board. Too many lives depend on it.

The American Cancer Society, not a Democrat organization, said the results of these Medicaid cuts will be devastating. Lives will be lost and State economies will suffer.

It is not too late for this Congress to finally engage in a bipartisan negotiation about ways that we can address the budget deficit and protect the most vulnerable people in our country, but unfortunately, part of this plan, this, megabill, is a tax cut, and this chart shows who benefits.

This bar here, that is the rich folks in this country, the top 20 percent; everybody else gets peanuts. That is what this cut is aimed at trying to offset, the impact, the fiscal impact, on the deficit that these tax cuts will produce over the next 10 years.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget issued their report last night and they conclude that this plan is going to add $4 trillion to the national debt. That is even with the cuts that were part of the Medicaid plan, which I talked about a little bit more. We have a bill, which is going to cut services, basically put one of our most vulnerable sectors in our economy which we all rely on, our hospitals, at greater financial risk all for the benefit of the small slice of America's population and it is going to add to our national debt, which according to what the committee said is now $36.2 trillion.

Last month, we paid $89 billion in interest on that national debt. That is the second biggest expenditure for the Federal Government. It is bigger than the Department of Defense last month in terms of what was paid, and that is what we are faced with.

This is a gut check moment for this country in terms of where are your values? Where are your priorities? Are you going to listen to the caring professionals, the people who are the nurses and the people that take care of us in times of healthcare crisis? Are we going to listen to that top 1 percent who are clamoring to make sure that their tax cuts--the Bezoses, the Musks, the Gateses--they don't really need the help. The people who are working their butts off every day in hospital wards making sure that we are all healthy and safe and cared for, they are the ones that need the help.

We need to reject these Medicaid cuts and reject this plan. Let's go back to the drawing board, as Mr. Kahn said from the Federation of American Hospitals, and do it the right way. Let's protect our values and protect our priorities, which all Americans depend on.

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