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Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, Paul Harvey was a radio commentator. He used to say ``And now for the rest of the story.''

I would like to respond to my friend from Wyoming's comments he just made on the floor of the Senate. One of the proposals Democrats stand by is to reestablish the tax credit for Americans who are buying their health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. It could be up to 15 million Americans stand to lose their health insurance coverage because of changes in the law on the big beautiful Trump budget bill. Among those who stand to feel hardship, at least, or maybe lose their insurance, are some 60,000 residents of the State of Wyoming.

Last night, Senators came to the floor to discuss this issue of the cost of health insurance, which is going to go up dramatically for many Americans as of the 1st of October. The example was given by Senator Welch of Vermont of an individual making $80,000 a year in the State of Wyoming, which he would see his ACA health insurance premiums go up $3,000, $3,000 a month--$3,000. I doubt that many of us could put that sum on the table without some sacrifice. Many people would end up giving up their health insurance entirely.

This was referred to as a liberal radical idea to protect that tax credit which was taken away by the Republicans in their big beautiful Trump budget bill. I don't think it is radical. If you have ever lived without health insurance and had a sick child in your family, you will never forget it. I have been through that experience. So this notion that this is a radical idea is wrong.

The Senator from Wyoming goes on to say that we are cutting out $50 billion in a special program for hospitals across America. What he doesn't tell you is that that $50 billion was a small lifesaver put in the Big Beautiful Bill because the Republicans voted to eliminate $1 trillion in Medicaid spending, an essential program for small town and rural hospitals. So we restore--in addition to the ACA tax credit, we restored the $1 trillion which was in the Medicaid Program, which will spare many of these hospitals from closing.

So when you look at the specifics of the situation when it comes to healthcare, this really makes a difference. I also want to tell you that the policy, healthcare policy that we currently see with this administration is frightening. Let me tell you a story.

When I was growing up as a little boy in East St. Louis, IL, we were afraid of polio. One of our classmates would go to school healthy in the morning and would be paralyzed before dinner. When I was in the first grade, my friend disappeared for weeks. When I asked where she went, they just shook their heads and said ``Polio.'' When she finally returned, she couldn't walk without leg braces. I will never forget the agony I saw on her face.

For decades, polio ravaged America, killing and paralyzing thousands of people a year and then--and then--a vaccine was discovered. The Salk vaccine was a miracle. By 1979, polio was eradicated in the United States. A disease that struck fear in the heart of everyone soon became--thank God--a distant memory. We repeated that success early this century with diseases like measles and rubella.

Unfortunately, those vaccine victories are now under attack by the Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy, Jr. His actions threaten to reverse 50 years of progress in infectious disease treatment and prevention.

Let me tell you about the chaos that has occurred at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention since Secretary Kennedy was confirmed.

In February, Secretary Kennedy moved to fire--dismiss--more than 1,000 CDC staff members. That is 10 percent of the workforce. This included key members of the Agency's pandemic prevention and laboratory safety staff. In August, he fired Dr. Susan Monarez from her position as Director of the CDC, despite the fact that she had been nominated by President Trump and confirmed by every Senate Republican just weeks before. Yesterday Dr. Monarez testified before the Senate HELP Committee about the circumstances surrounding her firing, and the revelations in her testimony were deeply, deeply troubling.

Dr. Monarez told the committee that Secretary Kennedy plans to upend our Nation's vaccine recommendation schedules this month. You see, the CDC's vaccine advisory committee meets regularly to make recommendations based on science on what vaccines Americans should receive at various points in their life.

States use these recommendations, professional medical recommendations, to develop guidelines for what vaccines our children should receive. Health insurance companies are required to cover the full cost of the recommended vaccines from this panel. Unfortunately, Secretary Kennedy unilaterally fired all of the members of the CDC Vaccine Advisory Committee, many of whom were infectious disease and vaccine experts. He fired them all. He replaced them with people who have espoused anti-vaccine views and aligned with extreme health- related conspiracy theories.

This new panel is set to meet today, and I fear they are about to upend decades of progress in preventing unnecessary illness by wiping out recommendations and access to childhood vaccines.

Dr. Monarez testified yesterday that she was fired from not preemptively agreeing to rubberstamp these new vaccine formulas absent scientific evidence that changes would warrant.

Think about that. Secretary Kennedy fired President Trump's pick to head the CDC because she insisted that the Agency's vaccine recommendations be actually backed by science.

Many States who see this anti-vaccine movement at the highest levels of our government are taking things to an even further extreme. Florida announced it would end most of its vaccine requirements, and other Republican States are likely to follow suit. The rising vaccine skepticism promoted by Secretary Kennedy and the Trump administration will cause a resurgence in preventable disease across America.

In Texas, two unvaccinated children died from measles earlier this year, the first such deaths in America in 10 years. Louisiana is experiencing its worse whooping cough outbreak in 35 years. More than 30 infants have been hospitalized, and many were not vaccinated with the DTaP vaccine that could have protected them. Tragically, two of these infants have already died.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., will be the first Secretary of HHS with a body count. He is a danger to the children of America. Kennedy's onslaught has targeted more than just vaccines; he and President Trump have spearheaded a historic level of dysfunction at the National Institutes of Health. They have frozen medical research funding and fired scientists and researchers. Think about that. This is going to make America great again--firing medical researchers?

I have been a supporter of the NIH in all the time I have served in Congress. The research gives people hope when they are faced with devastating diagnoses.

For 10 years, I have been part of a bipartisan task force to raise the NIH research budget. In those 10 years, we increased the budget by more than 60 percent, raising it from $30 billion to $48 billion today. But Trump and Kennedy's proposed budgets for next year eliminates this $18 billion increase in medical research. Every penny of the increase I fought for for the last 10 years is gone with this Trump budget. It will mean fewer novel cures and treatments for patients who need them. It will dramatically reduce research into Alzheimer's, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes. They have been suspended because of the Trump- Kennedy cuts.

Does anybody believe that America is greater as a nation with less cancer research? I don't. Patients desperate for cures for horrible conditions like glioblastoma are in agony today because President Trump and Secretary Kennedy canceled the research funding they depend on.

Secretary Kennedy's cuts will stifle a generation of researchers and jeopardize our medical research infrastructure. We will feel the effects of this rash decision for decades to come.

I call on my Republican colleagues to stand up to this public health massacre. Some of the Members are doctors or parents themselves who have vaccinated their kids or spent their careers trying to improve our healthcare system.

My colleagues know that Secretary Kennedy is unqualified, unhinged, and dangerous, and I hope they will find the courage to join me and speak out against the terrible decisions he has fostered. If they don't, I fear there will be dire consequences if we allow Secretary Kennedy to continue to serve in a role where lives are on the line, and he is clearly unqualified.

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