-9999
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, people of good will can see things differently, and I certainly respect my colleague from Wyoming. He is a friend and has been for many years. But I certainly disagree with his analysis of the big beautiful Trump budget bill.
The day before yesterday, I had a visit in my office here in Washington from the head of the largest dental insurance company in the United States. Some of us are fortunate to have dental insurance. We know that it doesn't cover the complete cost of dental care, but it is helpful, and many of us feel fortunate to be in that position.
As a result of the big beautiful Trump budget bill, which was just described by the Senator from Wyoming, 4 million Americans are going to lose their dental insurance because of that bill. Why? Because that bill, unfortunately, cut $900 billion--$900 billion--from Medicaid. It means that premiums under dental insurance are likely to go up over 90 percent, and 4 million Americans will lose their dental insurance.
Is that something that we bargained for? Was that part of the deal that is being described as successful in helping American families?
Meanwhile, up to 17 million Americans are going to lose their health insurance. Has the Presiding Officer ever been in a position where you had no health insurance and a serious medical problem in your family? I have. I will never forget it as long as I live. It is a terrible feeling to feel that you just can't ask for the very best medical care because you don't have health insurance.
Up to 17 million Americans will lose their health insurance because of the big beautiful Trump budget bill, which was passed exclusively with Republican votes. And as far as local hospitals, I invite my colleague from Wyoming to come listen to the leaders and administrators of rural hospitals in Illinois. They do not sing the same song that he just did on the floor. They are worried that many of them cannot survive these cuts in Medicaid.
Medicaid is a critical program not only for hospitals and clinics but also for nursing homes. I have nursing home organizers and executives who have contacted me and have said they don't know if they can keep their doors open.
If you have found a good, safe, trusted place for your mother, grandmother, or someone in your family and now run the risk of a facility being closed or the help that is necessary to keep your loved one in a nursing home disappears, you wonder to yourselves: What is next? Where are we going to send Mother or our grandmother or someone in our family? That is the reality of what we are facing with the cuts in the Big Beautiful Bill.
So why--why--would the Republicans, going into an election cycle, want to have 17 million Americans lose their health insurance; 4 million lose their dental insurance; rural hospitals, many of them, facing closure; clinics unable to stay open in rural areas and downstate areas; and to have nursing homes close as well? Why would they be for such a thing? Because they had an overriding determination to make sure that tax breaks were extended for the wealthiest people in America. That was what is behind all of it. Why did they want to cut $900 billion from Medicaid? So they could give it in tax breaks primarily to wealthy people.
Now, they dispute it when we say that they go primarily to wealthy people. Let me give you an example. A family making $35,000 a year, barely getting by, how much of a tax break do they get out of the big beautiful Trump budget bill? The equivalent of $3 a week--$3 a week. Now, wait a minute. How about those folks with big money, the Elon Musk category of individuals who are very wealthy? If the little guy gets $3 a week, how much do these folks get a week? Six thousand dollars a week in tax breaks for the wealthiest people in America--$6,000 a week. Does Elon Musk need that additional $6,000 a week? What is he going to do with it? How is his life going to be improved?
I will tell you this: For the people who are struggling paycheck to paycheck trying to pay the bills, this tax break means little or nothing to them. But for the wealthiest people in America, it means more money piled on at the expense of folks losing their health insurance.
That was the choice we were given. Yes, every Democrat voted against it. I was one of them. All the Republicans voted for it, and now they have to try to explain it.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source