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Floor Speech
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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, one of the things I have had the most trouble understanding in the time that I have been in the Senate has been Republicans' bizarre fascination with attacking healthcare systems, with taking healthcare coverage away from Americans. It came to a boil in the ``Beautiful for Billionaires'' bill--which cut about a trillion dollars out of Medicaid--and, in a hidden fashion through sequester, cut about half a trillion dollars out of Medicare and then attacks the Affordable Care Act, which so many Americans rely on to be able to afford their health insurance.
I represent Rhode Island. Rhode Island is probably going to lose up to $5 billion in Federal Medicaid funding. The Medicare cuts would be probably about half of that. And the Affordable Care Act is going to hit about 40,000 Rhode Islanders who will see their insurance premiums explode. And that is going to happen soon.
This is a healthcare crisis that Republicans have created, and we would like to try to protect the American public in all of this. These are not going to be small increases in people's bills. We are talking about an 85-percent increase in already expensive health insurance premiums, as much as $1,200 a year for a middle-class family.
Let me give you just an example of what this looks like in real life. I have a constituent named Carla. Carla is 60 years old. She is retired. She was a mental health counselor, which is noble work but doesn't make you rich. She gets $60,000 in annual income, mostly from her 401(k). She doesn't yet qualify for Medicare, so she got insurance from the Rhode Island State health insurance marketplace.
She has a family history of heart disease. She has hypertension. When the tax credits under the Affordable Care Act expire at the end of the year, Carla's monthly premium will go from $427 a month to $904 a month. That is more than double. That is a $477 per month increase to the expenses of a woman whose total income is only $60,000 a year.
We ought to be able to solve this. All we are asking for is serious negotiations to address the Republican healthcare crisis or, I guess, if they refuse, the Republican government shutdown. It is very much up to Republicans where we go from here. All the reports are that the meeting between the President and congressional leaders went badly; no progress was made at all.
It is really up to the Republicans. Will they really choose to shut down the U.S. Government just to indulge their bizarre fascination with taking healthcare away from Americans? Aren't we better than that?
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