WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, yesterday joined Wolf Blitzer on CNN to discuss the Senate Republicans’ health care bill and recent developments in Syria. 

“I think the same thing was happening in Republican Senate offices that was happening in my office this week: I got thousands of phone calls from Delawareans concerned that proposed deep cuts to Medicaid over a long period of time would leave them or their loved ones behind and concern that the protections they had come to rely on with the Affordable Care Act in terms of the quality and affordability of health care would be taken away by this bill,” said Senator Coons. 

“My concern is that we're getting lost in the partisan game of who is up, who is down, which party is helped, which party is hurt, and we're forgetting about the very people whose lives are at stake, whose health is at stake, as we're fighting over this health care law,” said Senator Coons. 

Full audio and video available here.

Excerpts from the interview:

Senator Coons on the Republicans’ health care bill: I think the same thing was happening in Republican Senate offices that was happening in my office this week: I got thousands of phone calls from Delawareans concerned that proposed deep cuts to Medicaid over a long period of time would leave them or their loved ones behind and concern that the protections they had come to rely on with the Affordable Care Act in terms of the quality and affordability of health care would be taken away by this bill. My hunch is that as more and more Americans finally got a look at the secret bill that was crafted without public hearings, and after they got to learn from the CBO score about just how much of a cut was in store for them for Medicaid over the coming decade that their offices were also flooded with calls and concern. I think that's why this vote is being delayed today. As Republicans go home for the Fourth of July recess, it's my hope they'll hear further from their constituents and think about returning after the recess and sitting down with Democrats, finding a way forward that we can, in fact, deliver what President Trump was calling ‘a plan with a heart,’ and that would be Obamacare fixed and improved through bipartisan work.

More on health care: An important short-term middle ground would be to stop the sabotage of the Affordable Care Act. I sat down with the CEO of the one company that's left providing health insurance in the Delaware exchange just this past week, and he said the reason they have raised their rates this year is because of instability and uncertainty about the path forward. We need to work in a bipartisan way to stabilize the marketplace while we work together over the next couple of months to address some of the issues that haven't yet been solved in the Affordable Care Act. Many of us in the Democratic Caucus are perfectly willing to work across the aisle to address the challenges with the Affordable Care Act. But Republicans first need to abandon a path that includes big tax cuts and long-term reductions in Medicaid as the vehicle for this conversation. 

More on health care: That's right, and part of the reason they were leaving was the lack of reliable reinsurance. There is a bill that my senior senator, Tom Carper, and Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia have introduced that would provide for the sort of reinsurance guarantee for insurance companies that was adopted years ago that stabilized Medicare part D. The fact there is an unreliability as to whether the Trump administration is going to continue to provide cost sharing and a guaranteed issue, the individual mandate, which ensures a certain marketplace, the absence of that certainty combined with some of the challenges the Affordable Care Act faced last year made Aetna decide they should pull out. We can address this, but we have to do it in bipartisan way.

More on health care: My concern is that we're getting lost in the partisan game of who is up, who is down, which party is helped, which party is hurt, and we're forgetting about the very people whose lives are at stake, whose health is at stake, as we're fighting over this health care law. Earlier, the Democratic senators came to the steps of the Capitol to show pictures of actual individuals from their home states. I talked about Kerry Orr from Delaware. I’m going to talk about her more later tonight on the floor of the Senate. Her life was literally saved by the Affordable Care Act. I recognize Republicans have legitimate concerns about the cost and affordability and the rollout of the Affordable Care Act that we have to address. But we also have to recognize that I have real stories of actual Delawareans whose lives have been saved by the Affordable Care Act and there are thousands more behind them. Meeting in the middle, finding a path that will actually help us address the needs of Americans, that's what we ought to be focused on, not what party is up today or tomorrow. 

 

Senator Coons on Syria: I supported the strike that President Trump initiated back in April to punish Bashar al-Assad for his chemical weapons attack against his own civilian population. Assad is a brutal murderer who has killed nearly half a million of his own people, and I'm encouraged by the engagement that President Trump has shown. I was reassured this afternoon by a senior administration official that this announcement late last night was indeed vetted through all the relevant channels in the administration. But I'm concerned that we still lack a clear strategy. On the Foreign Relations Committee we have not yet been briefed on the administration’s strategy with regards to Syria. We're actively engaged in combat against ISIS. We have American troops both flying in the air and serving on the ground, and it's a very conflicted battle space. As you showed in your clip, it's the Russian military that's really the guarantor of Assad. The combination of Russian, Iranian, and Syrian forces arrayed in defense of Assad makes this a very tricky moment. I think it's vital and important that the Trump administration deliver a clear strategy to Congress so that we can hopefully come together and support the red line that he's drawing and have some understanding of how he intends to handle this very difficult and conflicted space. 

More on Syria: We have had constructive conversations. We recently had a hearing on the Foreign Relations Committee about how to move ahead with the Authorization for Use of Military Force.  Americans are in combat in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, and we're way beyond the scope of the 2001 and 2002 authorizations. Many members of the current Senate weren't even serving when those were adopted. And our ongoing war on terror around world has taken on new challenges and new geographies. Unfortunately, there was no witness from the administration at that hearing in front of the Foreign Relations Committee, so I'll just renew my call for the administration to come forward with a strategy that would justify our adopting an authorization for the use of force. Congress has that critical constitutional role. We should step up and do our job even though it's difficult, but that requires a partner in the administration and a commander in chief who takes the responsibility of articulating our strategy, particularly with regards to Bashar al-Assad. 

More on Syria: No. We're operating in a very difficult gray space where the previous administration used the 2001 AUMF to authorize a wide range of strikes. In every case, there was some connection to Al Qaeda or the perpetrators of 9/11 or to allied forces in some way. But a strike against the government of Bashar al-Assad is a new thing. President Obama came to the Foreign Relations Committee and sought an AUMF to attack Bashar al-Assad and received that vote from the committee. It was never brought to the floor of the Senate because President Obama chose not to carry forward an attack against Syria. President Trump has already attacked Syria, and I think he's gotten support from many members of the Congress. But this is a very conflicted and difficult space given the role that Russia plays, given the threats we've received from Russia that they would attack American aircraft operating west of the Euphrates. I think it’s vital that we have both an authorization from Congress so that our troops and families know they enjoy their support and a strategy that justifies that authorization. 

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