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Floor Speech
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Ms. HASSAN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
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Ms. HASSAN. First of all, my question starts with a thank-you, Senator Merkley, for raising the issue of the growing threat of authoritarianism in our country. I thank you for noting and being a champion of the very principle that our country was founded on, which is that we are a country--a government--of, by, and for the people.
As I think about what that principle means, I think about the fact that in a democracy, what our Founders wanted to ensure was that our governing bodies, our elected officials, would, in fact, be accountable to the people.
So what does being accountable to the people you represent mean? Well, about 50 years ago, this Congress came together and, in a bipartisan way, passed something called the IDEA, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Why? Because families all across this country, from every political persuasion, understood that their children with disabilities could learn and thrive if they had access to public education just the way other kids did. Because families spoke up, because individuals spoke up, we now have seen 50 years of IDEA special education in our schools.
We have more work to do in that direction, to be sure. We need to get more resources to our local schools the way the IDEA originally promised we would from the Federal Government. But because families demanded it and their elected representatives heard them and listened and acted and believed they were accountable to them, the quality of life for children and families with disabilities has improved exponentially.
Then I think about Medicaid expansion. When I was Governor of New Hampshire and the Affordable Care Act passed, one of the things that States had the opportunity to do was adopt expanded Medicaid so that people who had mental illness, for instance, or substance use disorder, addiction, could get care under Medicaid, or people who were working part time and had chronic illnesses could actually get healthcare.
At first, in a divided legislature--a legislature that was one Chamber Democratic and one Chamber Republican--the Republicans blocked Medicaid expansion. But gradually, the people in my State of New Hampshire, the ``Live Free or Die State,'' spoke up, spoke out, and said: This is really important to our families.
As a result, we found bipartisan agreement to expand Medicaid and provide health insurance coverage so that people could get better and could get fully employed and could then go on to private insurance-- something that is critically important.
Again, this happened because the people in my State--the elected leaders in my State believed they were accountable to their constituents.
Now, I think a lot about authoritarian regimes and their lack of accountability because authoritarians don't believe that they are accountable to the people; they believe that their people are their subjects and are accountable to them. That, of course, is what we are seeing from Donald Trump right now.
I think about the fact that in 2022, we passed in this body the PACT Act, and it was signed into law. That is the law that provides healthcare to our veterans who have been made ill from toxic exposure during their service. These are our brave heroes that we owe everything to, that we owe our very freedoms to. And this body came together because veterans all across this country--and their families and their supporters--came forward and said: We have been made ill in our service. We need healthcare.
And we came together, and on a bipartisan basis, because we believe and know that in a democracy, we are accountable to the people, we then delivered something so that the people--the veterans, our heroes, the people that we owe the most to, that we owe our way of life to--could get the healthcare they needed.
That is the difference that having elected leaders in a democracy makes.
So, as I think about this administration taking healthcare away from millions of Americans right now, one of the challenges we are facing is that people who get their health insurance on healthcare.gov--those premiums are due to at least double on November 1.
In my home State, that means that a 60-year-old couple earning $85,000 a year is likely to see their health insurance go up by $14,000 a year. A recent report says that if you are family of four in New Hampshire and earn $100,000 a year, you cannot make ends meet because of the cost of housing and groceries and energy, daycare, healthcare.
So we now have an administration led by a President whose authoritarian tendencies you have laid out so well who is standing idly by while this healthcare calamity is facing us, because, of course, it is not just people who get their health insurance on healthcare.gov who will see their costs skyrocket; it is going to be the entire health insurance premium marketplace that is going to see increases.
So we are looking at a President who is busy building ballrooms, buying vanity airplanes for his Secretary of Homeland Security, doing all these things to satisfy himself and the people around him but who doesn't seem to believe he is actually accountable to the people.
I always thought that in the United States of America, we weren't subjects to be ruled; we were citizens to be heard.
So, Senator Merkley, can you speak a bit to how this administration's attacks on our democracy have real impacts on the day-to-day lives of Americans?
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Ms. HASSAN. Would you yield for another question, Senator?
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Ms. HASSAN. As you were talking and as I have been thinking about the various ways in which a true democracy delivers results for its people--I mentioned in my prior question the fact that we passed in 2022 the PACT Act.
You know, I was with a group of veterans right after we passed the PACT Act, and I thanked them for all the advocacy that they had done to get it over the finish line.
Then we got to talking about the war in Ukraine and why it was so important to stand up with the Ukrainian people, who are fighting for the very freedom, for the very form of government that we so cherish-- our democracy. I found myself asking them a question, and I will ask it to you now, Senator: Would Vladimir Putin take care of his veterans the way the PACT Act proposes to take care of our veterans?
What are your thoughts about that?
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