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Floor Speech
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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I come to the floor today because we have a choice here, and the Democratic leaders in both the Senate and the House just went to the White House. They had a long meeting. I am glad that meeting happened. I hope something will come out of it.
But the President has repeatedly said: Well, we don't need Democratic votes. Well, we can do this on our own.
The problem is the more he says that, the more the American people are saying: What about me?
``What about me?'' says the farmer whose soybean market is dried up, whom I met with last week. ``What about me?'' says the mom coming out of the grocery store and looking at her bill or the student thinking ``I can't afford this electricity bill'' or everyone that is starting to look at these healthcare numbers, looking at the insurance premiums, looking at the fact that this administration has not stood up for them on healthcare?
So if they would open their eyes right now and see what is going on out there or maybe go to those 13 rural counties that I just visited in Minnesota, maybe they would see that this is a moment where people are expecting the President and congressional Republicans to work with us on these unfolding crises.
The tariffs may be decided in the courts or the Congress can decide enough is enough, but this healthcare crisis--that is on this body to do something right now. The President has sadly made his position clear. He would rather shut down the government than work with congressional Democrats to address this skyrocketing healthcare cost crisis.
So our colleagues, many of whom I work with every day, they can decide: Are they going to rubberstamp what he does or are they going try to work with us?
So one of the things that one of the farmers said to me last week, at one of my meetings, is this: Between my entire market drying up--in Minnesota, 60 percent of our soybeans are exported to other countries; of course, China hasn't purchased a bushel since this President came in--and the cost of fertilizer going up because of the tariffs on potash out of Canada--and even then, though they were reduced, it is still a major driver--between the issues with visas and not having enough workers--he described it, as he looked at the healthcare policy and what is happening there, since about 28 percent of our farmers are on the Affordable Care Act because they are individual businessowners-- he said it is the perfect storm of ugly.
I think that is a good way to describe it. So what do you do when there is a storm--a perfect storm of ugly--coming at you? Do you go out there with an umbrella and say, well, maybe we can look at this in a month or two?
You don't have that luxury. The American people don't have that luxury. This is not a December thing. This is not a January thing. This is a now thing.
So I hope our colleagues will see it as the opportunity that it is, and that is to finally do something to help the people that are facing this.
NBC recently reported on one family that currently pays $278 a month for health insurance, thanks to the healthcare tax credit. If Republicans in Congress and the President let this expire, this family's premiums could soar to $1,800 a month, an increase of $1,500 a month.
The estimate is that nationally it will be a 75-percent increase in premiums. In rural, it will be double. I was actually surprised at our rural hospitals--of course, they are concerned about the Medicaid cuts--that the $500 billion in Medicare cuts that is coming at them, because of the fact that the debt was increased so much in that bill with the tax cuts for the wealthy that it triggered an automatic $500 billion of Medicare costs.
All of that is worrisome, but maybe I just hadn't thought it through. The Affordable Care Act premium increases, without any tax credits, really concern them. Why? Because so many of their people that are going into their hospitals in rural areas are either on Medicaid or they are on what we call in Minnesota MNsure, their policy through the Affordable Care Act.
Those people won't be able to afford double--no way--because they are already in that perfect storm of ugly. So then they aren't going to have insurance, and they are going to show up in their emergency rooms, in these midsize towns, with no insurance. So they said this could make a major, major difference for them.
Our legislation would have kept the lights on. Our bill, it got more votes than the Republican bill. I would like to point that out. A whole bunch of people didn't even show up for the vote that we just had a week ago, and our proposal that did something about healthcare--to restore people's healthcare--actually got more votes than the Republican proposal.
So we want people to work with us and prevent millions of Americans from losing their healthcare. This is our opportunity to show why we came here to begin with, and that is to stand up for our constituents.
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