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Floor Speech
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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Delaware, wise words. And I thank Senator Schumer, all of our colleagues that have gathered here today. We truly come in good faith.
I thank our Republican colleague who is listening to us right now and for the good work that he has done in trying to bring people together.
And we know there are a number of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle who have been working diligently with Democrats to try to resolve this. And we come in good faith because we know this isn't a blue-State or a red-State problem. It is everyone's problem.
When we look at the people who are on these Affordable Care Act plans, they tend not to work at big corporations. If they did, they would have healthcare; they do have healthcare. They tend not to work in government, local, State, Federal; they tend to have healthcare. They work at small businesses.
They are entrepreneurs, like the woman that I spent time with last weekend in Eagan, MN, who has one employee. She is so proud of her business. She has been doing better. He had cancer a few years ago, and he got through it. He is married, has kids. That plan, she pays for 75 percent of the premium for the employee, and he pays for 25 percent of the premiums. And she just looked at what happened, and she said: I don't know if I can keep him on. They are going to double. Those are the people we are talking about.
Farmers and ranchers, 27 percent of the farmers in our country are on this kind of plan. So these are people that are just on the margins so much because they have decided to go out on their own and be entrepreneurs. Or when I talk to my rural hospitals, they tell me how the people who are on these plans, if they can't afford a doubling or tripling of the premiums, which is what we are seeing right now with the numbers that came out on the Marketplace--if it is doubled or tripled, they will just drop their plans because they still got to get groceries. They still got to pay the mortgage. So then they are going to drop their plans, and then the rural hospitals, that are already just hanging on, aren't going to be able to make it.
So it is all of a mix of things that I think would defy people's predictions of who is depending on these plans, and I think we are starting to hear from them now. So we have this opportunity. This is really, I would say, a practical plan. It looks at what we need to do to open the government again. It looks at the work that has been done by our great leaders in appropriations, and it says: OK. What can we do about healthcare right now?
We disagreed with the bill that got passed this summer on our side, but what can we do right now? And what we can do right now is stop this doubling and tripling of these healthcare premiums. And it is not something that is going to help in the end of December or January; it is a now thing. They are making their decisions now.
So that is why we came forward with a lot of people in our caucus, as you can imagine, having differing views and wanting more in good faith, but we figure this is a good idea so that we can, one, help these people in all our States, and then, two, look at reforms. We are open to reforms, and then these reforms would have to be done before these tax credits expire at the end of next year.
But it will get us through this, and, most important, it will get people through it like Elizabeth of St. Peter, MN, who told me: ``I have no idea how I am going to come up with the extra $200'' each month.
This is what is happening. People who are terrified of what is going on.
So we have this moment in time. We are ready to work through the weekend. We hope our colleagues are as well. So let's get to the table.
I hope the President comes and meets with us. The amount of money we are talking about here is about the same as the money that went to Argentina. I am not going to relitigate that, but it shows what we could do and why we could do it. So let's get it done. Thank you.
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