WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) discussed health care on the Senate floor following the failure of the Senate Republicans’ latest proposal to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
“In my view, the Affordable Care Act has helped millions of Americans live healthier, safer, more secure lives. Repealing it and replacing it with one of the proposals in recent months would have been very harmful to millions of Americans. But, that doesn’t mean the ACA is perfect. There’s hard work to do. Compromise is needed on both sides. And I think the call that Senator McCain has issued to this chamber is one we should hear. So let’s work together. Let’s listen to our constituents. Let’s listen to faith leaders. Let’s listen to doctors and health care experts. Let’s do the hard work, and together improve, not tear down, our health care system.”
Full audio and video available here.
Senator Coons’ full remarks, as delivered are below:
M. President, yesterday we learned that, once again, my Republican colleagues do not have the votes to pass their latest effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act – even though the budget reconciliation process recurrently under only requires 50 votes, there are not 50 votes.
Many of my colleagues have spoken on this floor about the challenges, the problems, or the issues with the Graham-Cassidy bill, and we’ve also heard as a body from many organizations all over the country that represent Americans in health care—the American Medical Association, which speaks for America’s doctors, American Hospital Association, which speaks for our hospitals, America’s Health Insurance Plans, the American Cancer Society, and many other patient advocacy groups, and the AARP, which advocates for seniors—all have weighed in with the challenges of this legislation.
But, rather than continuing to barrel down on that point, I’d like to just quote a colleague and hero of mine:
Senator John McCain said on this floor, “We should not be content to pass health care legislation on a party-line basis. The issue is too important, and too many lives are at risk, for us to leave the American people guessing from one election to the next whether and how they will acquire health insurance. A bill of this impact requires a bipartisan approach.”
Senator McCain also said, “I hope that in the months ahead, we can join with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to arrive at a compromise solution that is acceptable to most of us, and serves the interests of Americans as best we can.”
M. President, Senator McCain is right.
Fixing and improving our health care system cannot be done on a partisan basis – and when big bills have been attempted to turn into law on a narrow, party-line basis, the results are often not sustainable. That’s why we have work to do together because this issue of providing for America’s health care is too complex, too big, and too important for us to do with only one wing or only one party.
I was encouraged, as were many of my colleagues, Republican and Democrat, when Senators Alexander and Murray, the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate Health and Education Committee, held several bipartisan hearings. They brought in governors, insurance commissioners, health care experts, physicians, hospital leaders from across the country to talk about what we need to do to short-term and long-term to stabilize the health care markets and to lay the foundation for improvements to the system.
So, let’s listen to Senator McCain. Let’s give that bipartisan effort another chance. Let’s work together and do this the right way.
M. President, I ride the train back and forth every day from Wilmington to Washington, and the Delawareans I speak to on the train, at the grocery store, and around my state are simply tired of Congress fighting endless partisan battles with their health care.
And it’s not just frustrating to hear about on television – we know for a fact that uncertainty in the health care markets is causing premiums to go up for Americans all over the country.
The CEO of Highmark, which is the sole provider of individual market health insurance in the ACA market in Delaware now, conveyed to me that half of the rate increase for this coming year was due to uncertainty about whether the Trump administration would continue to enforce the individual mandate, to make the CSR payments and other things that are part of the ACA.
So today, recognizing that the only way this gets fixed in such a closely divided and partisan Senate is if we work together, I’d like to commit again to my constituents and colleagues that I am willing to work together to find bipartisan solutions to our health care problems.
Let’s sit down together. Let’s bring in organizations like the AMA, the AARP, the American Cancer Society, and the American Hospital Association. Let’s listen, let’s listen to them, health care leaders, patient advocates, and, frankly, I think we should listen to the thousands of faith leaders from across the country as well.
We’ve received letters, all of us as a body, letters from leaders of Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, and Buddhist communities across our country. They jointly wrote a letter to Congress urging us to reject the Graham-Cassidy bill and immediately address urgent matters that are right in front of us. The next one is CHIP reauthorization. CHIP, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, covers nearly nine million low-income children, 17,000 in Delaware alone, and it’s going to expire.
There are lots of federal health programs that expire at the end of this week: the Children’s Health Insurance Program, the Community Health Center Fund, which provides access to cost-effective primary and preventive care for 26 million patients throughout the country, the Teaching Health Centers funding, the Special Diabetes Program. There is a whole list of health-related programs that expire at the end of this week.
So I think we need a sense of urgency. We need a sense of urgency for finding ways to work together in the short-term, to stabilize the market, to extend these programs like CHIP that have long enjoyed bipartisan support, and to begin the steps needed to show flexibility and compromise by both parties.
First, as I said, we have to stabilize the individual ACA marketplace. Fortunately, we know how to do that. As I’ve mentioned, there have already been hearings where testimony was received from governors, insurance commissioners, and health care experts and they said the number one priority was funding the ACA’s cost-sharing reduction subsidies, or CSR payments.
Now, that’s something the Trump administration can do today. The administration can simply announce that they will continue to meet the law and continue those payments. And, at least in my state, that will reduce the rate of increase of individual insurance premiums by a significant percentage.
We can also work together to establish a reinsurance program, to support enrollment outreach activities, to enforce the individual mandate, all of this would translate to lower premiums. And, as I said, the president is already authorized under the ACA to take a few of these steps and stabilize the marketplace.
But, from there, we are going to have to find bipartisan ways that we can make this a more workable system. I’ve introduced legislation in the past to make the ACA small business tax credits more appropriately sized for the small businesses that I’ve heard from in Delaware, many of whom can’t afford the increased costs of the Affordable Care Act.
There are ways we can work together to reduce the reporting requirements, so they are less burdensome to employers. I introduced a bill on that in the last Congress and would welcome a chance to work with a Republican colleague to introduce and pass that legislation now.
We could also look at ways to make the tax credits or the ways that subsidies are provided through the ACA both more affordable and more sustainable so that families who qualify aren’t caught in a situation where they qualify for tax credits but they are nowhere near enough to afford comprehensive health insurance.
We also have to take a hard, bipartisan look at what is driving up health care costs across this country. We aren’t just challenged with resolving issues around health insurance. We also have to find a bipartisan path towards addressing health care costs.
The bottom line to all of this, we must work together to return to regular order, to give these programs the stability and certainty they need to serve patients across the country and our constituents at home.
In my view, the Affordable Care Act has helped millions of Americans live healthier, safer, more secure lives. Repealing it and replacing it with one of the proposals in recent months would have been very harmful to millions of Americans.
But, that doesn’t mean the ACA is perfect. There’s hard work to do. Compromise is needed on both sides. And I think the call that Senator McCain has issued to this chamber is one we should hear.
So let’s work together. Let’s listen to our constituents. Let’s listen to faith leaders. Let’s listen to doctors and health care experts. Let’s do the hard work, and together improve, not tear down, our health care system.
Thank you. With that, I yield the floor.
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