Foreign Agent Lobbying Transparency Enforcement Act

Madam President, we have a number of us gathered here this evening because we are so, so appalled--and that is the word--by the process that is going on with healthcare.

The idea that we could affect one-sixth of the Nation's economy--the life and death, literally, of millions of Americans; the whole structure of our healthcare system, affecting doctors, nurses, and rural hospital workers--and that we could do all of that in such darkness, behind such closed doors is the greatest miscarriage of legislative practice that I have seen since I have been here in the House and Senate.

We heard our colleagues, when the ACA came up, talk about an open process: Read the bill. My good friend the leader will say: Well, we are going to have an amendment process. No, we are not. Unless we change reconciliation, we will have a mere 10 hours of debate on our side and then amendments seriatim for something as important as this? To say that we are having regular order, to say that we are having an amendment process, in all due respect, is a joke.

Let me go over when we were in charge to show the complete contradiction. The Senate Finance Committee held more than 50 hearings--Democrats and Republicans.

How many hearings has the Senate Finance Committee had on this bill, this unknown bill? None. On the House bill--they are using the House bill, as I understand it, as a model. None.

A markup, 8 days--can we get any commitment from our friends on the Republican side that we will have 8 days of markup in the Finance Committee when their bill is ready? I doubt it. Some 130 amendments were considered. Two dozen Republican amendments were agreed to--all in the committee process.

Then, a bill went to the HELP Committee. There were 47 bipartisan hearings, roundtables, and walkthroughs. They considered nearly 300 amendments during the 13-day markup. That was one of the longest in history, as it should have been on such a major bill. There were 160 Republican amendments. Our ranking member on the HELP Committee couldn't be here because of plane delays, but she will augment that when she gets here.

The Senate Finance Committee posted its legislation online for 6 days before the markup. I ask rhetorically of my friend the majority leader: When his bill is ready, is it going to be posted for 6 days prior to debate or markup? Are the American people, our doctors, our nurses, our patients, and the cancer care groups going to get a chance to see it? I doubt it. That is not what it seems like.

The Senate spent 25 consecutive days in session on healthcare reform. Again, I would ask my friend the leader, rhetorically: How many days are we going to spend on it under reconciliation?

So, my friends, this is a travesty. Ask yourself, America: Why are our Republican colleagues rushing through a bill in the dark of night?

I will tell you why. They don't want you, Mr. and Mrs. American, to know about this bill. They don't want you to see that it cuts healthcare for millions. They don't want you to see that it will reduce opioid treatment. They don't want you to see that it will hurt people in nursing homes. They don't want you to see that millions will lose coverage and many more will get such minimal coverage that it will not help them unless, God forbid, they get the most serious of illnesses. That is what they don't want you to see.

They are not going to get away with it because we know one thing: Even if the Senators don't get to see the bill and even if the leader, who is a very good political person, gets 51 votes, the American people will then see the bill, and they will be aghast. They will wonder why they believed President Trump's promises that costs would go down and benefits would go up. They will wonder why they believed the promises that he would not cut Medicaid, Medicare, or Social Security.

It is no conciliation to us, but our Republican friends--House, Senate, White House--will reap the whirlwind. It would be better for them--for them--to debate the bill in open process, even if they keep all their votes, because people will learn about the bill.

When you do a bill in the dark of night, things happen that no one knows about. There are unintended consequences that only a thorough vetting can reveal. When you do things in the dark of night, there are individual accommodations that are made that are going to look ugly when they become public. So the only consolation we will have on this side--small consolation that it is--is the political blunder that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are making that will not serve them well.

I would make one more point. So why are they doing it this way? Why are they being so irrational, hurting people, doing it in the dark of night? One reason. We know who the paymaster is here, we know who the motivator is--the handful of wealthy Americans who will get a huge tax break, benefiting from taking the dollars of healthcare away from millions of average Americans. That is what really runs the other side of the aisle. I had hoped it wouldn't run Donald Trump. He didn't campaign like that, but it is running him too. That is the reason and the only reason.

We will fight hard to prevent this bill from occurring. We will use the procedural means we have, small as they might be. We will. It is a small consolation to us, again, that our Republican colleagues will pay such an awful price to help their wealthy donors.

Maybe it is not too late. Maybe the leader or maybe some of his colleagues on the other side of the aisle will say that as much as they might disagree with the ACA, to have a process in the dark of night is wrong.

We would welcome discussion. That is why we wrote the leader and asked him to have a closed session in the Old Senate Chamber with Democrats and Republicans--without the press, without anything else--to talk to each other. Maybe he will reconsider his rejection of that.

I have a few parliamentary inquiries.

First, is the Chair aware of the number of consecutive days in session and the number of hours the Senate considered H.R. 3590, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act?

Twenty-five days of consecutive session on a bill that was partisan in the sense that Republicans were angry with it, but we still had the courage of our convictions to have a debate on the floor.

The second Parliamentary inquiry: Is the Chair aware that a 25- consecutive-day period of session ranks second in terms of the longest period of consecutive session in the history of the U.S. Senate?

Again, when the shoe was on the other foot, we Democrats, knowing we would take brickbats, knowing there would be criticism, but for the good of the process and the good of the country, we were willing to have debate, hearings, and amendments. Unless there is a dramatic change or I am misreading where my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are going, they are not going there.

Unanimous Consent Requests--H.R. 1628

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that no motion to proceed to Calendar No. 120, H.R. 1628, the American Health Care Act, be in order until the bill has been the subject of a public hearing in the Committee on Finance.

Madam President, I heard what the leader had to say. I think anyone who has observed the reconciliation vote-arama process knows it is not a robust amendment process. There are ways to correct that. Certainly, we have our differences pretty much on partisan lines between repealing ACA and amending it and making it better, but what we ought to be doing is discussing it with one another.

So I would renew my request to the majority leader. What is the harm in us gathering in the Old Senate Chamber, 100 Senators, Democrats and Republicans, and maybe trying to come together? Is there any harm? I would renew my request that he join us in that because what the American people clamor for is some kind of bipartisan coming together. We have different views on how that should occur.

You say: Repeal. Join us in repeal.

We think that would hurt millions of people.

We say: Make it better.

You say that the ACA is irretrievable. I don't agree. But why can't we join together 100 strong in the Senate Chamber, no press, and just discuss our views with one another? Maybe something bipartisan and helpful could come out of this instead of this dark, hidden process. I would renew my request.

I would just renew my request for one other--the leader said no. I get it.

One more. Will we have time--more than 10 hours since this is a complicated bill--to review the bill? Will it be available to us and the public for more than 10 hours before we have to vote for it, since our Republican leader has said there will be plenty of time for a process where people can make amendments? We need time to prepare those amendments.

Will it be more than 10 hours? That is my question.

I rest my case.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object.

None of these Senators have read the bill.

I have the floor.

The bill is 142 pages long compared to the 2,700-page ObamaCare bill. They can read the bill; if they have objections to the provisions, we can debate them, but what they are talking about is a bill that does not exist, which they have not read.

I object.

Mr. President, all Senators have a copy of the discussion draft bill. It is a discussion draft which will be open to an amendment process, with unlimited amendments which can be offered by both sides, before which we will have a fulsome debate.

Our colleagues here are complaining about secrecy that doesn't exist. This bill is online. The American people can read it. You can read it. I would suggest that they do read it before they start criticizing it.

I will.

Mr. President, I would say, in response to my friend from New York, the fact that we are having to conduct this under the reconciliation rules is a result of their refusal to participate in the process, thus necessitating Republicans doing this under budget reconciliation rules.

If they would do this in a true bipartisan way, where we can get 60 votes to get on the bill and open to an amendment process, we could have a better bill, but given the refusal of our Democratic colleagues to participate in the process, this is the only way we can come to the rescue of the people who are being hurt by the meltdown of ObamaCare today.

I do object.

Mr. President, would the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. President, I would ask the Senator from Washington if she is aware of the fact that under the budget reconciliation process, there will be an unlimited number of amendments that could be offered by either side to the bill which is ultimately filed?

Mr. President, I would say, in response to my friend the minority leader, that it is as a result of their refusal to participate in the usual process of passing legislation through the regular order--

--that we have to resort to the budget reconciliation process which has a set of statutory provisions and rules.

There will be a fulsome debate. There has already been a debate on a bill you haven't read. I suggest you take the time to read it, and then we can talk about the details.

This bill--142 pages compared to 2,700 pages of ObamaCare--doesn't take that long to read. This is a start. This is not the finish. This is called the normal legislative process. I suggest colleagues, rather than criticize a bill they haven't read, they read it, and then let's have a credible debate.

Mr. President, I am really taken aback by the characterization of the minority leader here.

The minority has made it clear they don't want to participate in the process of rescuing the American people from the failures of ObamaCare.

It has been made clear to us that you don't want to participate in the process, and you are turning a blind eye to the millions of people being hurt today by outrageous premiums, deductibles they can't afford, and a loss of choices because insurance companies have pulled out of the individual market. Your response to them is: We don't care.

We care, and we are doing our best to deal with this.

This is like going by a car accident with somebody seriously injured, and rather than stopping and rendering aid, just driving on by. That is what our colleagues on the other side are doing. They are turning a blind eye, driving right on by a seriously injured person in a car accident. We are coming to the rescue of the millions of people who are being hurt by ObamaCare today.

We would love to have our Democratic friends join us and do something truly sustainable, but you have to remember, my friends, how this started: Democrats jammed ObamaCare through on a party-line vote and Republicans weren't able to participate in that process.

What we are trying to do is we are trying to save the people who are currently being hurt and whose healthcare has become unaffordable. If you would like to join us in this process, we would love to have you, but failing that, we are going to get it done, and you can just drive by the car wreck.

Mr. President, if I thought that was a sincere offer, I would take it in a minute--in a New York minute, but it is not.

The fact is, insurance companies are having to go to the State regulators as we speak to get insurance rates approved for 2018. That is the urgency we are experiencing here.

Unless we act--and act in an expedited fashion--here, very soon, we will see millions of people have their insurance rates raised by another double digits. It has been 105 percent since 2013--105 percent. ObamaCare was sold under the premise that families of four would see a reduction of $2,500. If you like your policy, you can keep your policy. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. All of that is false. False. This is a failed experiment.

They may not be willing to help, but we will, and we will get it done and help the American people who are being hurt by the failure of ObamaCare today.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, our colleagues are coming here today and saying they want to participate in the process to fix what is broken in the Affordable Care Act. Yet I have in my hand a newspaper article about a letter that the Democratic leader and his colleagues sent saying they refused to participate in the process unless we drop all of our plans to repeal and replace ObamaCare. They refused to participate in the process.

I would point out that the failures of ObamaCare didn't just start today; it has been failing over 7 years. They did nothing--nothing-- nothing to help the millions of people who are being hurt, who had to move from full-time work to part-time work because their employer didn't want to pay the employer penalty for not providing ObamaCare coverage. We know that many people have been hurt by it and not the least of whom are the people who are finding their premiums skyrocketing. They will do so again next year unless we come to their rescue. They have seen their deductibles so high, they effectively have been denied the value of their insurance.

I had a conversation a couple of days ago--I won't name the Democratic Senator because it was done in confidence. The Senator confided to me that his own son had effectively seen his premiums go up so high that he had--it cost roughly $12,500 out-of-pocket to deal with his deductible and to pay his premiums--$12,500. That is not affordable to anybody, certainly in the middle class.

I object.

Mr. President, I would say to the Senator from Michigan that we would be happy to work with you on high drug prices. That is a serious problem and one of the primary cost drivers of healthcare costs today. But this bill doesn't touch Medicare at all. We leave intact the healthcare for seniors, and it is not touched by this at all. When the time comes for us to deal with Medicare, I think that is a debate we should have and we would welcome.

Mr. President, maybe I misunderstood the question initially. I would suggest to the Senator from Michigan that it is the Democrats, under ObamaCare, who burned down the house because the individual market for healthcare has been decimated--decimated. And we are coming to the rescue of those millions of people who don't have employer-provided insurance. They don't get their coverage under Medicare or any other government program. They get it from the individual market. We are talking about individuals and small businesses. Right now people have almost no choices in many parts of the country, and for those who have choices, it is simply unaffordable.

It is an important conversation to have on drug prices and Medicare, and I am happy to do that. That would do nothing--zip, zero, nada--to help the people who are hurting now as a result of the failures of ObamaCare, and that is whom we are determined to help by passing this legislation after an open amendment process and fulsome debate.

Mr. President, several weeks ago the House of Representatives passed a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act and to replace it. It was passed without hearings. It was passed without an amendment process, and it was passed before the Congressional Budget Office provided the traditional analysis that we count on before we take up a measure of such magnitude.

The measure passed with a party-line vote--all Republicans. Had two Republicans voted the other way, it would not have moved forward.

After it passed, the President of the United States decided to have a celebration at the White House. We saw him on television, gathering the Republican Members of the House of Representatives and celebrating the fact that this measure had passed and that, finally, they were going to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

But then the American people took a close look and the Congressional Budget Office issued its analysis, and it turns out that 23 million Americans would lose their health insurance because of this Republican measure that passed the House of Representatives.

It turns out as well that there would be a dramatic increase in health insurance premiums for people between the ages of 50 and 64.

It turns out that in my State and many other States hospitals were in danger. The Illinois Health and Hospital Association says they would lose 60,000 jobs in Illinois with the dramatic cutbacks in Medicaid, endangering hospitals in rural areas and inner-city areas.

The facts started coming out about this repeal bill passed by the House of Representatives, and the President of the United States had a change of heart and announced to the American people that it was a mean bill--a mean bill. The President was right. It was mean legislation-- mean to the millions who lost their healthcare, mean to seniors who would find their premiums going up dramatically, and mean to the people living in rural areas and small towns who count on those hospitals.

The President was right. It was mean.

Then, the responsibility shifts to the Senate. The majority leader, Senator McConnell, and his Republican followers had a chance to do a bill that was not mean. They had a chance to sit down on a bipartisan basis and to have the same process we used to create the Affordable Care Act.

That would have involved public hearings. We had 50 public hearings on the Affordable Care Act. It would have involved a real amendment process. The Affordable Care Act had 300 amendments. How many were offered by the Republicans? There were over 150 offered and adopted in a bipartisan process when we passed the Affordable Care Act. The American people got a good look at the bill. The Congressional Budget Office issued their analysis before we voted on it. We passed it, and I am glad we did, and I am proud of that vote.

But what happened in the Senate when it came to the Republicans? They went into secrecy. Thirteen chosen Republican Senators all sat in a room and wrote the alternative, or so we are told. They met in secret and never once had a public hearing, never once disclosed to the American people what was being debated, never once gave an opportunity for real bipartisan cooperation to strengthen our existing healthcare system--not at all.

So all we have at this moment is truly press accounts of what has been announced to the Republican Senate caucus, what they are going to get a chance to read and see. But it is enough to see that when it comes down to the basics, there is not much of a change between the House of Representatives' effort and the Senate effort.

You can put a lace collar on a pit bull, and it is still a mean dog.

What we have here with the Republicans in the Senate is an attempt to dust off the edges of the House bill and say: This is not as mean. I will tell you, at the end of the day, from the reports we have, this is still a mean dog, and one the people of the United States don't want to see happen.

There isn't a single medical advocacy group--not one in my State, and I don't know of any nationwide--that endorses what the Republicans in the House have accomplished with the passage of their bill, and this bill mirrors it, as well, and we can expect the same result.

So the only thing we can offer the American people is a chance to be part of the conversation on a bill that will literally change healthcare for millions of Americans. If they are going to be part of the conversation, there has to be a chance for amendment and debate, at least, and a chance for the American people to see what is in the Senate Republican measure.

So I ask unanimous consent that any substitute or perfecting amendment offered to Calendar No. 120, H.R. 1628, be subject to a point of order if the text of the amendment has not been filed at the desk and made available on a public website for at least 72 hours, along with an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office of the bill's budgetary, coverage, and cost implications; and that a motion to waive the point of order be in order, and if a motion to waive is made, an affirmative three-fifths vote of those duly chosen and sworn is required to waive the point of order.

Mr. President, what we are seeing here today is just the latest broken promise from President Trump and his Republican Party. After weeks of secret negotiations, back-room deals, shutting out patients, families, and Democrats and even many Republicans from this process, Senate Republican leaders are now just days away from putting a bill on the floor that could not be more impactful or more devastating to families' bank accounts and their health. As even Republicans are pointing out, there has not been a single hearing, no robust debate, no opportunity for the people who will really suffer under this bill to see exactly how bad it would be.

This disastrous TrumpCare bill deserves full scrutiny under an open process, like the process that Democrats conducted when we passed the Affordable Care Act. We held hearings, we took amendments from both sides, and we certainly didn't leave the fate of women's healthcare up to a few Republican men.

Senate Republicans are right to be ashamed of this mean and heartless legislation. Just like the House TrumpCare bill, it will increase premiums, it will undermine protections for people with preexisting conditions, it will defund Planned Parenthood, and it will allow insurance companies--insurance companies--to charge women more. It is going to gut Medicaid. It will take away care for our seniors, pregnant women, people with disabilities, and it will take health insurance coverage away from millions of people across the country--and for what? To give another massive tax cut to the wealthy and well-connected.

I would be ashamed, too, if I had to defend a bill that is cruel. I can certainly understand why Republican leaders do not want to give people time to see what is in this bill and why they don't even want to give their own Members time to see how much their constituents hate it, but that is the bed Senate Republicans have now made. If they are going to try to pass this disastrous version of TrumpCare, at the very least they shouldn't get to jam it through without the public knowing good and well what they are up to.

Mr. President, I ask a parliamentary inquiry: Is the Chair able to confirm that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions considered S. 1679, the Affordable Health Choices Act, which was ultimately incorporated into the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, in executive session on 13 calendar days prior to reporting the bill favorably?

That is confirmed.

So I ask unanimous consent today that any substitute or perfecting amendment offered to Calendar No. 120, H.R. 1628, not be in order if the text of the amendment has not been the subject of a hearing, subject of executive session, during which amendments from both the majority and minority were considered and reported favorably by the Committee on Finance and the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

Mr. President, I heard the objection.

I just have to say, the exchange we just heard is exactly what we have been objecting to. We were told the bill would be online at 9:30 this morning. It was online at 11. I have a copy of it, but we are hearing from the other side now that this isn't the bill. This is a discussion draft. We aren't going to see the bill. We will not see the real bill, apparently, until next week, even though we were told we would see it this morning.

This has been the problem we have had since this discussion started. We started in January with a process which cut us out of this under reconciliation. Thirteen men in a private room wrote this ``discussion draft,'' which is not a bill, that we are supposed to now look at and decide whether we like it--and the American public--a discussion draft, a bill even the other side doesn't know what we have. That is what we are objecting to.

We are asking that the American people--who have a right to know what is going to impact every one of their lives, every one of their families, every one of their communities, every one of their businesses--have more than a discussion draft, more than 10 hours of debate, time to look at it, and know how we are going to do an amendment process next week.

I would be happy to.

Oh, Mr. President, I am well aware of that; and I will remind our colleagues and everybody in this country what will happen: There will be 10 hours of debate, where we hopefully have more than a discussion draft that we will be allowed to offer amendments on, and there will be no debate on those amendments. No one will know what it is. It will be a chaotic process on this floor. The American public will not know. We will be able to tell them days later, after this gets undone.

That is not an amendment process. That is not what we went through when we passed the Affordable Care Act. The American public deserves better.

Mr. President, leader time.

Mr. President, 142 pages thus far of this supposed bill have been printed online, and that is what I have used.

Would the majority leader yield?

I am the minority leader, at this point.

The question is, Does the majority leader know that a half hour before we came to the floor were 142 pages of the bill listed online? That is what we used in our report.

I would ask the majority leader a further question: If there is anything I said--anything I said--that is not going to be in the bill, could he clarify?

Mr. President, would my dear colleague from Texas yield for a question?

I would like to just then tell my friend from Texas: This is the bill. It was posted online a half hour before we came in. I would ask a page to come over and bring it to my dear friend and ask him if this is the bill which we have read.

I would ask my friend from Texas to yield for another question.

Will we get more than 2 minutes to debate each amendment we ask for or will we be under the reconciliation process, where we have 10 hours of debate and then every amendment only gets 2 minutes? Does he consider that--2 minutes, if that is the case--a full and fair debate on each amendment?

Mr. President, I would ask my colleague a question.

What would be wrong with 1 hour of debate on every amendment to this bill? What is the objection to that, since the majority is proposing no debate on amendments, and then saying it is an open process? What is wrong with 1 hour of debate on every amendment offered to this bill?

Mr. President, I would ask my friend, the majority whip from Texas, a series of questions.

What was the date that reconciliation was added to the budget resolution which said we don't need any Democratic votes? Was it May, was it April, was it March, or was it the very beginning of this session?

I would ask him another question. Where were the meetings held to discuss this bill, and were any Democrats invited?

I would ask him another question. Why did the majority leader not accept our offer to go into the Old Senate Chamber--100 Senators, no press, no anything else--and debate the bill?

How can my good friend--and he is a good friend; we are on the bikes in the morning together--my good friend from Texas say there was a bipartisan process when, at the outset--at the outset--our Republican colleagues said the only thing we will debate is repeal and then replace? There was no discussion of whether repeal was the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do. Now, overwhelmingly the American people prefer fixing ObamaCare--which we offered to do--than repeal and replace.

It is no wonder, I would say to my colleague as he answers these questions, that this bill is being brought in the dark of night. It is because my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are ashamed of the bill--because, believe you me, if they liked this bill, they would have brass bands down every Main Street in America talking about it, but they are trying to sneak it through because mainly their goal is a tax cut for the rich.

I would ask my colleague to answer those three questions, and then he can respond to my rhetoric.

Mr. President, here is the correct analogy: Yes, there has been an accident. Yes, someone needs help. Someone who is not a doctor, not a physician, doesn't know how to help the patient--our Republicans friends go by the side of the road, but they don't know what to do.

So the Democrats come by. We are doctors. We say: We know how to fix this system. We know how to fix this patient, and the Republicans say: No, don't help with us. We will drive right by. Now the patient is ailing.

I would ask my colleagues, let's forget the past for the moment because we have a much better argument than you. We had hundreds of amendments offered by Republicans that became part of our bill. I doubt there will be a

single Democratic amendment that will be--we had hours of hearings, hours of debate. You didn't. So you may not have thought the process was perfect, but it was a lot more open than yours.

I have a proposal to my friend. Let us forget this draft bill. Let us right now, Democrats and Republicans, sit down and try to come up with a bipartisan bill. We are willing to do it today, now, this minute. Will you accept that offer?

Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.