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Floor Speech

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Ms. WARREN. I do. Mr. President, I am seeking recognition.

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Ms. WARREN. Thank you very much. My friend Senator Jeff Merkley is ringing the alarm bell. He is carrying the momentum of millions of peaceful protesters at No Kings Day, directly onto the floor of the U.S. Senate for all of the spineless Republicans in Congress to see.

I want to be clear here: Peaceful protest is patriotic. Holding the floor to protest the Trump administration's lawlessness is patriotic. Standing up for what is right, that is patriotic, and I am proud to join my friend, Jeff Merkley, in saying this part out loud: Donald Trump is not a King. He will never be a King. And America does not bow down to Kings.

So thank you, Jeff, for reinvigorating that energy and bringing it to the floor of the Senate today and every day. You are a true patriot.

So let's talk for just a minute about what is going on here. New reporting from the Wall Street Journal this morning says that the average cost of a family health insurance plan is now $27,000 a year. That is a stunner, $27,000.

And that is after years of rising costs. The cost of healthcare is rising faster than inflation. Healthcare is too expensive, and families are barely hanging on.

So what do we have to do? We have to protect Americans' healthcare and lower costs for families. Seems pretty obvious, right? Not to Donald Trump.

In fact, Donald Trump and the Republicans are doing the exact opposite. Their genius plan was to pass legislation that would rip away healthcare from 15 million Americans, jack up premiums for millions more, force rural hospitals and community health centers to close down, and shut down the entire government, instead of coming to the table to save healthcare and lower costs.

Now, Republicans just keep bowing down to Donald Trump. They seem to have lost their spines. Every one of them needs to go to the doctor and get a spine transplant. But instead, they are willing to make it more expensive for everyone else to go to the doctor.

Make no mistake, our healthcare system is already broken, but Donald Trump and the Republicans are making the problem so much worse.

Families in Massachusetts are now starting to get notices this week telling them that their healthcare premiums are going up next year. We are talking hundreds of dollars a month. Some families are seeing their premiums more than double; others will get priced out of their plans completely, leaving them with no coverage at all. And it is not just Massachusetts; Americans across the country are counting on us to lower healthcare costs, and I want to share some of their stories right now.

From a family who gets their healthcare through the healthcare exchange:

If our premium doubles, we will simply not be able to afford it. Either my husband or I will have to scramble to find a job with benefits in a saturated market or we will be going without insurance for the time being.

So that is the story of a family that could get kicked off their insurance altogether because their costs will go through the roof.

More uninsured people mean more costs for everyone else, and that is a lose-lose for the American people.

Here is another one from a teacher:

My healthcare costs are going up by 39 percent. How do I even live?

Families across this country are asking themselves exactly the same question. Democrats are here right now fighting for every single one of those families.

Here is a story from someone else:

If my premiums go up, I have to cancel my insurance because my check would be gone, and I have an autoimmune disease. It would be over for me. How could I raise my two boys and care for my parents? I am the stronghold of the family.

That is the reminder that this kind of increase that the Republicans are imposing on American families, this increase in health insurance, it has echo effects. It is not only the person who can't afford insurance for themselves, it is what happens to her two children, what happens to her older parents that she is taking care of.

Families hanging on by their fingernails cannot afford insurance premiums jumping by hundreds of dollars a month.

Those are the families the Democrats are fighting for right this minute. And Republicans won't even come to the table. Republicans are off on vacation.

Here is another story I received from a type 1 diabetic:

I have an ACA plan that makes my insulin affordable. Without it, my insulin would be $1,000 a month. Please don't give up this fight and please continue to stand for people just like me.

We will not stop fighting for you.

Here is another one:

Ours will go from $1,300 monthly to $3,600 monthly. It is paramount.

Look, $1,300 monthly--$1,300 a month for healthcare is already too much, but this family will now have to pay nearly triple. For families already struggling with the rising cost of everything, they cannot afford to shell out extra thousands of dollars every month for healthcare.

So you are hearing all of this right. Americans are struggling to get by, Republicans won't come to the table to fix it and end the government shutdown, and instead of working to lower healthcare costs for Americans right now, Trump is bending over backward to dig up $40 billion to bail out his political buddy in Argentina and help out Wall Street hedge fund investors--$40 billion.

So what could $40 billion do for us at home for a whole year instead? Well, $40 billion could stop health insurance premiums from doubling. It could restore food assistance for families that will be hurt by Trump's cuts. It would cancel a chunk of student loan debt for nearly 4 million borrowers. It would fund public media. It would restore cuts to humanitarian aid and USAID. And to put it in even more perspective, that $40 billion that Donald Trump is sending off to Argentina, it could fund childcare for military families for almost 20 years.

It would fund the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to stop big banks and giant corporations from scamming people for almost 50 years.

And it could pay for 100 Qatari jets, meaning one for every Governor of all 50 States and a backup plane for each and every one of them.

So there you have it. Remember Trump's promise to lower costs for Americans on day one?

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