Senate Minority Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) spoke on the Senate floor on Monday.
Schumer was Tuesday’s KVML “Newsmaker of the Day”. Here are his words:
“We enter another week of Donald Trump’s government shutdown, and Republicans seem happy not to work, happy not to negotiate, and happy to let healthcare premiums spike for over twenty million working-and middle-class Americans.
Our country is staring down the barrel of a healthcare catastrophe, and Republicans will spend this week either vacationing or holding pep rallies at the White House. It has been over a month since the House of Representatives even took a single roll call vote. That is shameful. That’s derelict. Government workers must work without getting paid, but House Republicans get paid without working.
What about Democrats? Our position remains the same. We want to end the shutdown as soon as we can, and fix the ACA premium crisis that looms over twenty million hardworking Americans, and many tens of millions more whose premiums will also go up.
Look, the ACA premium crisis is not a fix-it-later issue, like Republicans keep pretending it is. It’s a fix-it-now issue, because very soon Americans have to make some very difficult choices about which healthcare plans they will choose for next year.
When they see the amounts of money – when they see the increase in the dollars these premiums will cost them because these tax credits expire, up to $500 a month, $600 a month, $1,000 a month, and for older couples over $20,000 a year – they’re going to have to make an awful choice: do I cut out healthcare altogether and be left alone, or do I cut back on everything else to afford a healthcare plan? Do I have to look for a new plan with different doctors, different hospitals, higher co-pays, higher premiums? So many Americans – tens of millions – are going to have to start making that choice the next month.
Health insurance prices under the ACA are now available in about a dozen states, and Americans in those states are already seeing with their own eyes the horrifying truth we’ve been warning about for months: that multiple millions of people are going to pay tens of thousands of dollars more for healthcare, so vital to Americans. When you are in a family and you know you can’t provide healthcare for them, or reduced healthcare, and you look at your spouse, you look at your kids, you say, what am I going to do if they get sick? What a frightening experience for people that Republicans are putting America through, all because they wanted cuts to Medicaid and cuts to so much else in healthcare to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy. It’s just perverse. It’s inside out. It’s upside down.
And let’s be very clear about who will get hurt if these tax credits expire, because Republicans have been lying about that too. If ACA premium tax credits expire, the majority of people who will pay more out of pocket are working and middle-class families.
In fact, the majority of people who benefit from the expiring tax credits live in Republican districts. The State of Louisiana, home of Speaker Johnson, is one of the states about to suffer most.
I read an article last week from CNBC. It said – the headline noted that “ACA enhanced subsidy lapse could hit early retirees hardest.” Middle-class couples in their 50s and early 60s who are too young to qualify for Medicare face the largest dollar increase in premium payments. One Idaho couple interviewed by CNBC will see their premiums spike not by 50%, not by 100%, but 300%. Fifteen thousand dollars more a year just to have health insurance. That is what financial ruin looks like.
In fact, if these tax credits expire, older Americans could end up spending 30% of their income just on healthcare premiums. Can you imagine? What kind of country do we live in? What kind of party is this Republican party, that is unwilling to stop this problem that is frightening Americans from one end of the country to the other?
And yet, what are Republicans doing about it? Nothing. They are on vacation. It’s unacceptable and morally repugnant.
Democrats are demanding nothing more or less than what the overwhelming majority of Americans already want, even a majority of MAGA voters want. Fifty-eight percent of those who voted for Trump say to renew the tax credits on into next year.
Americans want to keep their healthcare costs low and avoid financial ruin. Americans want to see the government reopened as soon as possible. And Democrats agree. We are at the ready. We want to get past this crisis. But Republicans need to wake up from whatever dream they’re in, because fixing the ACA crisis will require them to take action.”
The “Newsmaker of the Day” is heard every weekday morning at 6:45, 7:45 and 8:45 on AM 1450 and FM 102.7 KVML.
