Senate Minority Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) spoke on the Senate floor urging President Trump to immediately negotiate an end to the government shutdown and take action to prevent a healthcare crisis as open enrollment approaches.
Schumer was Tuesday’s KVML “Newsmaker of the Day”. Here are his words:
“Open enrollment is five days away. Starting this Saturday, tens of millions of Americans face the specter of financial crisis, all while Donald Trump is dancing on the tarmac in Malaysia.
Donald Trump may be having a nice time abroad, but people here at home are dreading – dreading – open enrollment. Insurance plans that cost $300 or $400 a month will suddenly cost $2,000 a month or more, because Republicans prefer to shut the government down over working with Democrats to extend the ACA tax credits.
Consequently, the average ACA plan is set to more than double – double – starting next year. The average 60-year-old couple making $85,000 a year will soon pay an extra $22,000 or more just to have health insurance. Imagine the specter. The devastation will be felt across the country, even by Americans with private insurance. They’re not exempt. Their insurance is going up quite a bit, too. The rate of people without insurance will spike by the millions. More people will get sick. More people will lose coverage. More people will go bankrupt. More people will die from preventable illness.
Americans have never seen a healthcare crisis like this, the one about to begin this Saturday, and Donald Trump is nowhere to be found. Americans are going to sit at their kitchen tables on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and say, how the heck can we pay these bills? What are we going to do without health insurance? What if our kids get sick? What if we get sick? And there is Donald Trump, overseas not even paying attention to this crisis.
Instead of sitting down with Leader Jeffries and me, Trump skipped town for his second foreign trip in less than a month. Open enrollment is just days away, and Trump’s message to the American people facing financial disaster is “greetings from Malaysia.”
Here is what the president needs to do: he should negotiate with Democrats to reopen the government and end the ACA premium crisis right away. The president should stop focusing on foreign escapades, on ballrooms, on bailouts for Argentina, and start focusing on negotiating with Democrats to lower people’s healthcare costs.
But Donald Trump isn’t taking this crisis seriously still, as millions of Americans are just frightened – tens of millions – about what will happen.
Trump continues to use the American people as pawns. This weekend, we learned that the Trump administration, for instance, ordered the USDA, the Department of Agriculture, not to tap into emergency funds to keep SNAP benefits, food benefits, flowing to the states. The very same administration that sent $40 billion to Argentina at the drop of a hat to help Trump’s MAGA ally is now telling hungry families that they can’t have nutrition funding. What gall.
The administration’s decision to let SNAP freeze is callous, is cynical, and entirely unnecessary. Donald Trump says there’s no money to pay [for food for] hungry kids, but he’s spending: $40 billion to bail out Argentina, $300 million on his vanity ballroom, $172 million on two luxury jets for Kristi Noem, and hundreds of millions for outfitting his foreign jet. But nothing, nothing, nothing to help hungry kids. What warped priorities. What a bubble this president lives in, apart, away, and not caring about the trauma the American people are facing when it comes to healthcare.
Let’s be very clear: the administration is making an intentional choice not to fund SNAP this weekend. The emergency funding is there. The administration is just choosing not to use it. And for those who say the money can’t be moved around so easily, that is a load of bunk. If this administration can cough up $40 billion for Argentina, they can find money for SNAP by this Saturday. This administration, that all year long has trampled over the rule of law and illegally impounded funds left and right, suddenly says the law won’t let them fund SNAP to feed hungry kids? Give me a break.
Even Republicans privately know that Donald Trump’s SNAP ploy is outrageously cynical. Here is what one House Republican said on the issue: “I find it hard to believe a department with so many slush funds can’t find the money for a month of SNAP benefits.” That’s a quote from a House Republican.
So, make no mistake: Donald Trump is manufacturing a SNAP crisis, instead of working with Democrats to reopen the government and end the healthcare crisis, which is very real for tens of millions of American families.
Because after all, what Democrats are pushing for is the same thing that the American people want. Americans want to see their healthcare premiums go down. Americans want to see the government reopen. They don’t want to pay an extra twenty thousand dollars a year just to have health insurance. And we Democrats want to solve this crisis right away.
Lowering healthcare [costs] is not a crazy demand. It’s not some left-wing pipedream, which it seems the Senate Republican Leader wants people to believe. It’s rather just common sense. And most Americans – even MAGA voters – agree. Fifty-five percent of those who voted for Trump want to see the ACA credits extended. But Donald Trump and his Republican colleagues in the Senate – and even more so in the House – are nowhere to be found.
So, the choice to keep the government open or keep the government closed is entirely in Doanld Trump and Republicans’ hands. Time is short. Americans are on the brink of a crisis that could send millions and millions of families into financial disaster. Donand Trump and Republicans, meanwhile, are not even here in Washington to deal with the crisis headed straight towards us.”
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.
