Floor Statements

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, as soon as tomorrow, we could be voting on a motion to proceed to the Republican healthcare plan. What that plan is, I am not sure anybody really knows. My friend the majority whip, when reporters asked him if his own Members would know what they would be voting on, said: ``That's a luxury we don't have.''

We have been on the topic of healthcare for 7 months. Republicans have been talking about repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act for over 7 years. Yet here we are, 1 or 2 days from a vote on the motion to proceed, and we don't even know what the Republicans plan is to vote on. We are potentially 1 or 2 days away from a vote on a bill that would reorganize one-sixth of the American economy and impacts tens of millions of American lives, and no one knows what it is. It is sort of like ``Alice in Wonderland'' around here. It comes down to this bizarre game where the Republican leader has basically said: Let's spin a wheel and see what we are going to vote on. This is no way to treat a matter as serious as healthcare--so near and dear to the lives of so many Americans.

I don't know how a single one of my Republican friends can in good conscience vote to proceed to a truncated debate on something as important as healthcare without knowing what bill they will ultimately be voting on. Isn't this the same party that shouted ``Read the bill, read the bill'' from the rafters when the Affordable Care Act was debated? It is completely bewildering.

Maybe we will be voting on the Republican repeal-and-replace bill, which will cause costs to go up and care to go down, which will cause 22 million Americans to lose their insurance, and which will so cruelly exchange healthcare for millions of working Americans for another tax break for the wealthy and the special interests. Maybe we will be voting on repeal without replace, which is even worse, which will cause our healthcare system to implode, creating chaos for 32 million Americans who would lose their insurance and chaos for millions more who would see their coverage diminish or their premiums rise. No one knows what we will be voting on. We know one thing: All the options are bad.

There is no good way out of this. The truth is, the Republicans are completely stuck when it comes to healthcare. Every single version of their repeal-and-replace bill is rotten at the core. Repeal without replace is even worse. The American people don't want tax breaks for the wealthy or the slashing of Medicaid. They don't want to repeal all the progress we made in healthcare without any plan to put in its place.

It is time to start over. It is time to go back to the drawing board--abandon tax cuts for the wealthy, abandon cuts to Medicaid, abandon repeal and run--and come together, both parties, around a set of nonideological proposals to improve our healthcare system. That is what we Democrats want to do.

I have called several Republicans. Some in their leadership are saying: Leader Schumer doesn't want people to talk to each other and won't let that happen if the bill fails. Well, first, I couldn't prevent it if I wanted to, and second, I don't want to. I want us to sit down and come up with ways to improve ACA. No one said it is perfect.

So if the bill fails tomorrow, we will start right away trying to work with our Republican colleagues to stabilize the marketplace and improve the cost and quality of healthcare. Whether they join us in that effort is entirely up to them.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, first, on a sad note but one always of hope when it comes to Senator McCain, his cancer diagnosis sent a shock wave through the Senate last night. He is one of my dear friends, as he is a dear friend to many in this body, and from the bottom of my heart, I wish him and his family well. So does every Member of this Chamber. The respect that this man has is broad and deep, both based on his service to America and on what he has done here in this Chamber.

I agree with what the majority leader said earlier, in that John McCain is an American hero. There is no one who has done more to serve his country and this Chamber than Senator McCain. There is no one who is more passionate in the defense of our soldiers and in our defense than Senator McCain.

The same courage that he showed as a soldier he showed here. John McCain and I led a group to deal with immigration reform. He had to take so many tough positions to do what was right. He was fearless. His word was good. He was good at compromising, and he was good at making his views known.

With that bill, which passed this body with 67 or 68 votes--a large number of Democrats and Republicans--had it become law, our country's economy would have been better, and our security would have been better because it was so tough on the border. We would have been in a better place for it had that bill passed.

The point I want to make is not with regard to the bill but to McCain--how we were in rooms for hours and hours, day after day, and we got to see the mettle of the man. Boy, the more you knew him, the better he looked, and the better he was.

So we know that, against this new battle, Senator McCain will fight in the only way he knows how--with every fiber of his being. We wish him well. Our prayers are for him and his family. We hope that he joins us very soon because this country needs John McCain now more than ever.

Mr. President, on the issue of healthcare, yesterday President Trump seemed intent on pushing forward the Republicans' failing healthcare plan with a vote sometime early next week. We have been on the topic of healthcare for 7 months, and I am still not sure which version of the Republican plan we will be voting on.

Will it be repeal and replace? Will we be voting on the Senate bill that would cause 22 million Americans to lose their coverage and that would cause costs to go up and care to go down? Will it be with the Cruz amendment, which would annihilate the ``preexisting condition'' requirement, in quoting my friend Senator Grassley? Or will it be repeal without replace, which would cause our healthcare system to implode, creating chaos, which would cause millions to lose insurance and millions more to have their coverage diminished?

The CBO confirmed last night that repeal without replace would cause 32 million Americans--that is about a 10th of the country--to lose their insurance and would cause premiums to double after 10 years.

It was a horrible idea in January and was rejected, wisely, by our Republican colleagues. We were not involved. The door was closed on us on January 4. It is a horrible idea now.

So will that be the focus next week or will it be a new bill that has more money thrown in, as some have suggested--the same core bill of devastating cuts to Medicaid, tax breaks for the wealthy and the special interests, the cruel Cruz amendment, and an extra $2 billion slush fund? Is that going to be the bill?

We Democrats do not know what our Republican friends are planning to vote on next week. I will bet that many Republicans do not know yet either. What we do know is that a $200 billion slush fund, tacked onto a bill that would gut Medicaid and other services by well over $1 trillion, is like putting an old bandaid on a bullet wound. The $200 billion in additional funding would only offset 17 percent of the bill's total cuts to coverage. It would not come anywhere close to covering the wound that the Republicans are inflicting on Medicaid, on Americans in nursing homes, on Americans in rural areas, on those who are suffering from opioid addiction. It just will not work, and repeal without replace is even worse. All of the options are horrible options for the Republican Party, but, more importantly, they are horrible options for the American people.

It is time to start over. It is time for our Republican colleagues to drop this failed approach and work with Democrats on actually improving our healthcare system. They closed the door on us on January 4 in passing something called reconciliation, which basically says: We do not need the Democrats; we will do it ourselves. Let them open the door now that they have

seen that that failed approach does not work. I outlined three specific, nonideological proposals yesterday that we could work on together, right now, to stabilize the marketplaces and help bring down premiums. I believe they would pass quickly. My Republican friends do not seem to know what to do. My suggestion is to drop these failed ideas and work with Democrats on the commonsense, nonideological solutions that we Democrats have offered.

Here is one more point. I have heard some of my colleagues say they may vote for the motion to proceed next week because they are in favor of debate. I will remind them that the rules under reconciliation only allow for 20 hours of debate to be equally divided between the parties and 1 minute of debate allowed per amendment. That is not debate. The idea that you would vote on the motion to proceed in order to have a healthcare debate is absurd. If my colleagues want to debate healthcare, they should vote no on the motion to proceed and urge their leader to hold a real debate--in committees, in public hearings, on the floor, and through regular order, which is a process that they have spurned for 7 months--not 10 hours for each party, with 1 minute per amendment, on such an important proposal. That is not a debate. It is the legislative equivalent of ``Beat the Clock.'' This is serious business--the health and welfare of the American people--not some game show.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, according to the majority leader, there will not be a vote on the motion to proceed to the healthcare bill until next week. In the time between now and then, my Republican friends have a choice to make about how they want to move forward on what looks like will be a failed vote.

Do they want to take the path of President Trump, who yesterday said that he wanted our healthcare system to fail, or do they want to work with Democrats on legislation to improve the law? It is that simple.

We Democrats know the Affordable Care Act isn't perfect, and we propose specific legislation that could pass right now to stabilize marketplaces and lower premiums for Americans across the country. These proposals are specific, nonideological, and could pass quickly and make life better for millions of Americans. A decent number of Republican Governors and even Senators have said that these are the kinds of proposals we need.

Here they are:

First, we have proposed a bill by Senator Shaheen that would guarantee the premium reduction payments that insurers say is the No. 1 thing we could do right now to stabilize the individual marketplace.

Second, we have proposed a bill by Senators Carper and Kaine that would create a reinsurance program for the individual health insurance market, again, aimed at stabilizing the marketplaces.

Third, we have proposed a bill by Senator McCaskill that would enable any American living in a bare county--that is, a bare county that lacks health insurers--to purchase the same insurance we get here in Congress.

All three of these would stabilize the markets and help to prevent premiums from going up further and coverage from decreasing. They address the actual issues in our healthcare system. I have mentioned they are not ideological and exactly the kind of legislation we could work on together. If our intent is to make things better, this is something we can come together on--all three of these proposals. They address the actual issues that we have and should be something we can do together immediately.

The Republican approach--decimating Medicaid to give a tax break to the wealthy--doesn't solve any of the problems Republicans claim to be so worried about: high premiums, high deductibles, bare counties. In fact, by most objective reports, it makes them worse. The CBO said that under each version of the Republican plan, premiums would go up on many Americans, deductibles and copays would go up, there would be even more bare counties than there are today, and tens of millions would lose insurance.

Repealing the healthcare law without any replacement is even worse. It would cause our healthcare system to implode, creating chaos. Millions more would lose insurance, and for millions more than that coverage would be diminished, all of which is even worse than under the Republican bill.

I hope my colleagues will join with us in working on these three nonideological, practical problem solvers that will reduce premiums and make healthcare better for many, many Americans. Again, many Republicans have spoken favorably of these ideas, and I hope we will go forward.

The worry I have is that our Republican colleagues follow the policies of President Trump. President Trump's promise to let our healthcare system collapse is just mind-boggling. It is hard to believe he could say something like that.

President Trump's promise to let our healthcare system collapse is so, so wrong on three counts: It is a failure morally, it is a failure politically, and it is a remarkable failure of Presidential leadership.

First, the President's position is a moral failure. It is morally wrong to intentionally undermine the healthcare system in this country, using Americans as political pawns in a cynical game. It is morally wrong to play a political game with healthcare in this country. There is no religious teaching or moral precept that could advocate such a cynical ploy.

The President didn't say that he wanted the system to change in a way to make it better. He said: I have lost, and I am going to make things worse for everyone to show you that I should have won. As I said, that is a moral failure that none of our religious leaders of any of the great religions would ever, ever accept, nor will the American people.

Second, saying ``I am not going to own it'' will not work politically. The President is the President. He is in charge. Americans look to him for leadership. They know that Republicans control both branches of Congress and the White House. They know they are in charge.

Earlier this year, the Kaiser Family Foundation found that two-thirds of Americans would blame President Trump and congressional Republicans for the future problems in our

healthcare system. Just as they blamed President Obama when he was in charge, they are going to blame President Trump while he is in charge. He is tweeting away that someone else is to blame when he is in charge, which will not work politically, particularly when it comes to something as near and dear to Americans as healthcare--God's great gift to us, life itself.

It just will not work to say that Democrats are to blame. Believe me, we are not going to stand idly by and shrug our shoulders when American people are suffering because the President is sabotaging our healthcare system for political purposes. We are going to point it out, and the spotlight will be on those whom the American people in November put in charge.

Elections do have consequences, and one of the consequences, Mr. President, one of the consequences, Mr. Trump, is that you are in charge. You have to make things better, not simply point fingers and tweet.

Finally, the President's position is an astonishing failure of Presidential leadership. His own party has failed to pass a bill--his own party, which controls both Houses of Congress, his own party, which has used special rules designed to exclude Democrats from the beginning. President Trump blames Democrats and threatens to hold our Nation's healthcare system hostage out of pique--out of pique.

The President was being petty; the President was being small; the President was not Presidential at all. The President would rather throw up his hands than roll up his sleeves and get to work. He would rather cast blame and point fingers than even try to work with Democrats to make the healthcare system better. That is not what Presidents do. It shows a tremendous lack of leadership. The American people want their President to lead. The American people, when there is a problem, want the President to fix it. The American people know that, when facing a defeatist President, you don't just sit in the corner and pout and get angry. You go on from there and try to make things better, as I hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will do. Some of them have indicated they will.

Let's recall another President--President Truman. President Truman famously said: ``The buck stops here.'' He was admired for it. This President's words, shirking responsibility and casting blame, were exactly the opposite of President Truman's. ``The buck stops here'' made President Truman look tall. President Trump's blame game makes him look small and diminished, and people will begin to totally realize his lack of leadership, and respect for him and the office will diminish.

The President should rise to the incredible responsibility of the office, not quit and take the ball home every time the game isn't going the way he likes. The President of the United States, for better or for worse, is responsible for the healthcare of the country, for the healthcare of Americans who voted for him and for Americans who voted against him. He took an oath to faithfully execute the laws of this country, not just the ones he likes.

There is no ducking responsibility as President. The buck stops with you, President Trump.

So if the procedural votes fail next week, I sincerely hope that my Republican friends here in Congress reject the premise of the President to let our healthcare system collapse and hurt millions. Instead, I hope they work with us in the areas I mentioned and many others to do what is right for the American people.

Mr. President, a brief word on the circuit court nominee on whom we will be voting for cloture soon. The nominee, Judge Bush, in my view, is not fit for the austere office of circuit court judge. He has made some extremely troubling comments about the rights of women and the rights of the LGBTQ community. He has employed anti-gay slurs in his speeches and writings. He has disparaged a woman's right to choose, drawing an offensive and false moral equivalency between choice and slavery. How can my Republican friends vote to elevate to the Sixth Circuit a man who has said things like this?

He clearly lacks the temperament required of a circuit court judge, and I urge all of my colleagues to vote no on cloture and no on the nomination.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, last night we learned that the current Republican healthcare bill lacks enough support to even reach the floor of the Senate. After numerous delays, false starts, false predictions, and two pulled votes, it should be crystal clear to everyone on the other side of the aisle that the core of the bill is unworkable.

It is time to move on. It is time to start over. Rather than repeating the same failed partisan process yet again, Republicans should work with Democrats on a bill that lowers premiums,

provides long-term stability to the markets, and improves our healthcare system.

I heard the Republican leader this morning say that Democrats ``decided early on that they did not want to engage seriously'' on healthcare. In the same speech, the Republican leader also admitted that the very first thing the Republican majority did this Congress was to pass reconciliation so they could pass healthcare on a party-line vote--50 needed, no Democrats needed. Early on, the majority leader told Democrats: We don't need you. We don't want you.

Respectfully, I take issue with the idea that Democrats didn't want to engage on healthcare. The majority leader admitted that he decided the matter for us when he locked Democrats out of the process at the outset. At the very beginning of this Congress, President Trump and Leader McConnell said: Don't come knocking on our door on healthcare. We don't need you.

Now that their one-party effort has largely failed, we hope they will change their tune.

It seems like many Republicans are ready for a truly bipartisan effort on healthcare, indeed. My friend Senator McCain has urged it quite strongly saying: ``The Congress must now return to regular order, hold hearings, [and] receive input from members of both parties.'' He said that while recuperating in Arizona. So that is how strongly he feels about it.

Other Republican Senators have made similar comments, but the Republican leader still plans to ignore their advice and instead plans on holding a proxy vote on a straight repeal of our healthcare law first.

Make no mistake about it. Passing repeal without a replacement would be a disaster. Our healthcare system would implode. Millions would lose coverage. Coverage for millions more would be diminished. Our healthcare system would be in such a deep hole that repair would be nearly impossible.

In fact, passing repeal and having it go into effect 2 years later is, in many ways, worse than the Republican healthcare bill that was just rejected by my Republican colleagues. It is as if our healthcare system were a patient who came in and needed some medicine and the Republicans propose surgery. The operation was a failure. Now Republicans are proposing a second surgery that will surely kill the patient. Medicine is needed--bipartisan medicine, not a second surgery.

We urge our Republican colleagues to change their tune. Passing repeal now is not a door to bipartisan solutions, as the majority leader suggested this morning. Rather, it is a disaster. The door to bipartisanship is open right now, not with repeal but with an effort to improve the existing system. The door is open right now. Republican leadership only needs to walk through it, as many Republican Members are urging.

The door is to accept the progress we have made in our healthcare system and work to improve it. The Affordable Care Act isn't perfect, but repealing all of the good things about the law will create such chaos that there will hardly be anything left to repair.

Republicans don't need to wreak havoc on our healthcare system first in order to get Democrats to the table. We are ready to sit down right now, if Republicans abandon cuts to Medicaid, abandon huge tax breaks for the wealthy, and agree to go through the regular order--through the committees, with hearings, and onto the floor with time for amendments. That is how we perfect legislation here. That is how it has been done for 200 years.

Almost inevitably, when you try to draft something behind closed doors and do not vet it with the public, it becomes a failure--in this case, a disaster. So again our Republican colleagues don't need to wreak havoc on our healthcare system first in order to get Democrats to the table. We are ready to sit down right now, again, if Republicans abandon cuts to Medicaid, abandon tax breaks for the wealthy, and agree to go through the regular order. The door to bipartisanship is open right now. Republicans only need to walk through it.

I would remind my Republican friends that the CBO has already scored the idea of a clean repeal bill, and it would be a catastrophe. Listen to what the nonpartisan CBO said. The head of CBO is appointed by the Republican leader of the Senate and the Republican leader of the House. Here is what CBO said about repeal: It would cause 32 million Americans to lose their insurance. Premiums would double, while cutting taxes for households with incomes over a million dollars by over $50,000 a year. It would end Medicaid expansion with no grace period or option for States that like their Medicaid expansion and want to keep it. In many ways, it is just as cruel, if not crueler, to Medicaid as the TrumpCare bill, but in a different way.

So I would expect that the same Senators who are concerned about the TrumpCare bill's Medicaid cuts will be equally concerned about what repeal and delay would do to Medicaid. Many of my Republican friends rejected roundly the idea of repeal and delay several months ago at the beginning of the year when President Trump first proposed it and it seemed like that was really what Republicans would do. Here are just some of the names back then who said repeal and then replace later doesn't work: Cassidy, Alexander, Collins, Corker, Cotton, Hatch, Isakson, Moran, McCain, Murkowski, Paul.

Well, I would tell those colleagues and all of the others: The idea hasn't magically gotten better with age. It is still nothing more than a cut-and-run approach to healthcare that will leave millions of Americans out in the cold and will raise costs on everyone--the young, the old, the sick, the healthy, working Americans, and middle-class families. Everyone will be hurt but the very, very wealthy.

Every day that Republicans spend on trying to pass their now failed partisan TrumpCare bill, every day they spend cooking up new tricks to bully their Members to get on a healthcare bill is another day wasted, another day that could have been spent working on real improvements to our healthcare system.

Democrats want to work with our colleagues on the Republican side to stabilize the marketplaces and improve the cost and quality of care, and we want to do it via regular order, a process this body has used time and again to produce consensus, bipartisan, historic legislation.

The majority leader said in 2014, in a speech entitled ``Restoring the Senate,'' ``When the Senate is allowed to work the way it was designed to, it arrives at a result acceptable to people all along the political spectrum.'' But if it is ``an assembly line for one party's partisan legislative agenda,'' it creates ``instability and strife'' rather than ``good stable law.''

I want to repeat that. These are the words of Leader Mitch McConnell. I hope Leader McConnell is listening and remembers these words. He hasn't for the last 6 months, and it has only led to trouble for him and his Republican colleagues in the Senate. Let me read it again, the 2014 speech, ``Restoring the Senate'' by Mitch McConnell. ``When the Senate is allowed to work the way it was designed to, it arrives at a result acceptable to people all along the political spectrum. But if it's ``an assembly line for one party's partisan legislative agenda,'' it creates ``instability and strife'' rather than ``good stable law.''

Leader McConnell, I couldn't agree more. It is time to start over on healthcare, abandon the idea of cutting Medicaid to give a tax break to the wealthy, abandon this new repeal and run, and use the regular order to arrive ``at a result acceptable to people all along the political spectrum,'' as Leader McConnell once said. I dare say it would create a much better result for the American people as well.

Thank you.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, first, I want to tell my colleague from Florida

that it is always a pleasure to listen to him. He is erudite, well- researched, and passionate--always about a subject that matters.

On the subject he just spoke about, no State in our entire Nation has more experience with the frailties of this planet, given that it is heating up, as the Senator from Florida, given all the low-lying, heavily populated areas on the oceanside and the Gulfside. I thank him for his continued pursuit of these issues that are very important to every one of us.

Mr. President, before I begin, for once I would like to express my hope--and I think the hope of every Member of this Chamber--that the senior Senator from Arizona, my good friend John McCain, has a full and speedy recovery from his recent surgery. There is no one who has done more to serve this country in this Chamber than John McCain. There is no one who is more passionate in his defense of our soldiers and our defense than John McCain. He is just an outstanding man and a very, very good friend. I admire him very much, treasure his friendship, and wish him the best. Godspeed to Senator McCain and his family.

Mr. President, because of Senator McCain's recent illness, it seems that it will be at least another week until the Republican majority forces a vote on the Republican TrumpCare bill. I would suggest to my good friend, the Republican leader, that he use this time to hold public hearings on the bill.

My Republican friends propose to pass legislation that would reorganize one-sixth of our economy and touch the lives of every American without a single hearing. Is that amazing? There has not been one hearing, even though we have been on the bill for 7 months now. There has been no opportunity to hear from experts in a public setting, let alone consider amendments.

So I say to my friend, Senator McConnell: Let's use this extra week or extra weeks to do what Republicans should have done a long time ago. Hold public hearings and allow the stakeholders to come in and express their concerns.

Today we Democrats sent the leader a letter to make this request formally, and we will include a list of nonpartisan stakeholders we believe should have a chance to air their views on the Senate Republican healthcare bill. These are groups known for their followings and for the good they do, known for not being political at all, like the American Cancer Society, the American Lung Association, the American Hospital Association, AHIP--the largest trade group for insurers--to name a few. Let's have these groups testify on the policies in this bill so that the American people will have a chance to hear what experts and patient advocates have to say.

I say to my friend, the leader: When you don't have hearings, when you try to hide a bill, it usually results in poor legislation. That is what is happening now: a bill done behind closed doors by a handful of Senators--even Republican Senators didn't know what they were putting together. It doesn't work.

The wisdom of the Founding Fathers, the wisdom of this body through the centuries is to do it in public, have a discussion, have a debate, and the crucible of the legislative process will make it better. The suggestion we are making--obviously we oppose many parts of the bill; obviously so do the American people. But maybe something that would be said at a hearing would change things around.

Additionally, we ask the majority leader to wait for a complete score from the Congressional Budget Office before proceeding to his bill. The Republicans now have a week--maybe more--to get their bill scored by the nonpartisan CBO. They have no excuse to proceed to a bill of this significance without knowing its cost or consequence. Now that they have plenty of time to get that done, we Democrats hope there will be a full CBO score before a vote on the motion to proceed. We make these requests respectfully.

Let me just say one more thing about the CBO. The White House has had an awful tendency--when they don't like a fact, they call it fake, and they try to discredit the fact giver. We have never seen a Presidency like this. I say to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle: Don't let this infection spread to you.

CBO is a nonpartisan organization. The head of CBO was appointed by the Republican leaders of the House and Senate. To discredit CBO simply because you don't like the answer they give is not the American way. The American way is to debate the facts, not deny them, not call them fake because you don't like them.

Unfortunately, our President has made this a hallmark of his Presidency. Anything he doesn't like is fake, even though it is real. His son gives an email, gives a statement, and he says that is fake-- what was said is fake. Let it not spread to this body. CBO is a respected organization, as I said, with leaders appointed by Republicans, not by us. Let's hear what they have to say, and let's take it seriously, even though we may not agree with the outcome of where their facts lead.

I would like to make some additional points on one of the more controversial parts of the Republican TrumpCare bill--the Cruz amendment. The Cruz amendment, by allowing insurers to sell junk insurance, would actually increase out-of-pocket costs on average Americans. Premiums might come down for some plans because insurers wouldn't have to cover very much, but the reduction in premiums would be more than offset by skyrocketing deductibles and copays. So the average American would be paying more, not less. The average American, or so many of them, would likely get junk insurance.

My friend Senator Coons of Delaware put it best when he said: Yes, we will sell you a car. It will be cheaper, but it will have no bumper, no steering wheel, and no carburetor. It will be cheaper, but it will not serve its purpose. It will not get you where you have to go. On these Cruz insurance policies, the insurer can say: no hospitalization, no payment for drugs. What good are they? It is a talking point, but it doesn't help people. It hurts them.

The Cruz amendment would also make insurance unaffordable for Americans who need it most, creating what even the very conservative American Action Forum says would be a death spiral in the marketplace. My friend the senior Senator from Iowa said the Cruz amendment would ``annihilate the preexisting condition requirement.'' That is not Chuck Schumer or Bill Nelson speaking. That is Chuck Grassley, one of the most senior Republican Senators from the great State of Iowa, who says that. It is not fake. It is real, what he said. You can't wash it away.

The Cruz amendment winds back the clock in America to the days of the worst practices of insurance companies. It seems that the raison d'etre of the Cruz amendment is to let insurance companies do whatever they want. In the 1890s, that philosophy may have governed, but America has learned under Republican and Democrat alike that it doesn't protect them. It would allow insurers to sell policies without the ban on preexisting exclusions, without covering essential health benefits, and without lifetime limits on out-of-pocket costs. It would even allow insurers to sell policies that include excessive waiting periods of more than 90 days.

If your kid has cancer, this policy in its fine print says that you have to wait 90 days while you watch your child suffer. What kind of freedom is that? It is freedom for the insurance company. It sure isn't freedom for the family with a child who is suffering.

I find that the Cruz amendment--and sometimes my good friend from Texas cares about freedom for very wealthy people, for millionaires. What about average people? You need freedom to be able to have your insurance company pay when your kid has cancer. You need to be free of that--that they can't pay or will not pay or that you have to wait 90 days. But the Cruz amendment blesses those kinds of restrictions. Remember, the Cruz amendment was added to a bill that slashes Medicaid in a way that would shatter protections for Americans in nursing homes, those struggling with opioid addictions, and Americans in rural parts of the country. The Cruz amendment is a cruel insult adding to a devastating injury.

We have another week or more before the Senate will vote on this bill. The Republican leader can spend that time trying to find new or ever more cynical ways to buy off necessary votes with

bailouts and giveaways to certain States, or he can do what he has promised to do repeatedly as majority leader--return this body to regular order, go through the committee process, have hearings and a robust amendment process--and, I dare say, the resulting product will be a lot better than the one we have before us. I dare say that is why the Founding Fathers set up a Congress--not to have a few people get in a room and rush through a bill that affects a huge percentage of the American economy.

``Made in America'' Week

On another matter, Mr. President, the administration has termed this week ``Made in America'' Week. So I would urge every American to use this opportunity to look at the administration's and this President's ``Made in America'' record.

President Trump said in his inaugural address that his administration would follow two simple rules: ``buy American'' and ``hire American.'' But President Trump's own businesses don't even follow those rules. If you are going to preach something, start at home. Start at home.

Trump shirts and ties are made in China. Trump furniture is made in Turkey. While President Trump and his administration are importuning others to make it in America, maybe he should demand it of his businesses first.

The American people should also take a hard look at the Trump administration's policies on the issues of trade and outsourcing. Again, the words in the President's inauguration and his actions contradict each other, just as do the actions of his company. Earlier this year, President Trump refused to insist that pipelines and water infrastructure be made with American Steel. Buy American, hire American--why did he refuse to do that? We Democrats wanted it done. I think many Republicans wanted it done. If President Trump were serious about the ``Made in America'' Week, he would demand that Senate Republicans put Senator Baldwin's bill requiring that infrastructure be made with American Steel on the Senate floor.

Another example is the upcoming National Defense Authorization Act, prepared by the Republican majority. It includes rollbacks--actual rollbacks--to the ``Buy American'' rules. If President Trump was serious about ``Made in America'' Week, instead of a lot of show and a lot of talking, why doesn't he oppose those rollbacks and threaten to veto any bill that dilutes or rescinds ``Buy American'' rules, which the Defense bill coming to the floor does.

So, again, as ``Made in America'' Week commences, I urge the American people to study the policies of this President and the practices of the businesses that bear his name, because, at least thus far, the Trump administration's push for ``Made in America'' is a bit like Mr. Putin's proposing a cyber security task force.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, after 2 weeks of delay, we have now seen the revised Republican TrumpCare bill. It appears that little has changed to the core of the bill.

The Republican TrumpCare bill still slashes Medicaid. The cuts are every bit as draconian as they were in the previous version--a devastating blow to rural hospitals, to Americans in nursing homes, to those struggling with opioid addiction, and so many more. The Republican TrumpCare bill still allows insurers to charge older Americans five times or more than they charge younger Americans. Premiums for so many people aged 55 to 64 will go way up. Americans in their sixties could be paying tens of thousands of dollars more than they do today. The Republican TrumpCare bill still blocks funding to Planned Parenthood, limiting access to affordable healthcare for millions of women.

So what is new in the bill? Well, it appears that Republicans have included a new $60 billion tax break on health savings accounts, which only benefits those wealthy enough to afford putting money into them. For Americans who are struggling to pay for insurance coverage, for the average family who sits down on a Friday evening and says: How are we going to pay our existing bills, and for middle-income families who struggle to make ends meet, a tax break on health savings accounts will not help. It will only help wealthier Americans, who sometimes use these accounts as tax shelters.

It appears the Republican TrumpCare bill includes something like the Cruz amendment, which makes the overall bill even worse than before. The Cruz amendment causes costs to go up by letting insurers sell cutrate insurance policies with lower premiums but huge, huge deductibles and copays, so that out-of-pocket costs would actually go up, not down, even if premiums are lower.

The Cruz amendment drives Americans with preexisting conditions into markets with unaffordable coverage. They virtually would have no coverage at all. Even Senator Chuck Grassley said the amendment would likely ``annihilate the pre-existing condition requirement.'' The Cruz amendment will likely cause death spirals in the insurance markets for Americans who need coverage the most. Even the conservative American Action Forum said the Cruz amendment is ``the definition of a death spiral.''

From what we are seeing, the new Republican TrumpCare bill is every bit as mean as the old one, and, in one big way, it is even meaner, with the addition of something like the Cruz amendment.

Moderate Republicans looking at this bill should be able to see that the incredibly modest changes to the tax provisions--the small pot of funding for opioid abuse treatment and these other tweaks around the edges--are like a drop in the bucket compared to what the bill does to Medicaid, to seniors, and to Americans with preexisting conditions. It is clear that the core of this bill will remain until the bitter end.

So a vote on the motion to proceed will be a vote on the core of this bill. It is a vote on the idea that middle-class Americans and seniors should pay more for less healthcare. It is a vote on the idea that it should be harder for the neediest Americans to afford healthcare. It is a vote on the idea that corporations and special interests deserve another tax break.

If you are for that idea, vote yes on the motion to proceed. But my Republican friends should not be tempted by the promise of amendments to fix this bill. It is clear that the Republican leadership wants and needs to keep the core of this bill--a dagger to the heart of Medicaid and tax giveaways for corporations and special interests--to the bitter end.

Republicans keep talking about needing to change the status quo on healthcare, but you don't change the status quo to make it worse. That is what this bill would do. This is far, far worse than the status quo. We, Republicans and Democrats, can work together to actually improve our healthcare system, to stabilize the marketplaces, and to reduce the costs that average Americans pay for their healthcare, particularly for prescription drugs.

We can do it, but my Republican friends need to abandon this wrongheaded, partisan, behind-closed-doors approach, and they ought to do it on the motion to proceed next week.

Madam President, we Democrats sent a letter to our Republican colleagues laying out our principles on appropriations so that Republicans would know exactly where we stand and we could avoid the possibility of their shutting down the government. We have three principles: relief from damaging sequestration cuts, parity between defense and jobs and economic growth funding, and no poison pill riders, like the ineffective border wall. These are the same principles we laid out during the last budget negotiation, which resulted in a strong and bipartisan package.

But on Tuesday--which is why I am on the floor speaking--the House Appropriations Committee released a draft of its Homeland Security bill, which includes funding for an unnecessary, ineffective, and expensive border wall with Mexico, paid for by American taxpayers, breaking the President's promise, repeatedly given, that Mexico would pay for it. The bill also funds an unacceptable deportation force and unnecessary detention beds.

The President's budget calls for funding a new eminent domain strike force--a team of Trump lawyers that the administration wants to send to the border to take private land away from the American people to build this wall. This proposal has met with stiff resistance from homeowners living in border communities. Republicans and Democrats on both sides of the aisle have rightfully come out against this proposal. Not a single border State Republican supports the idea. The Senate should reject it outright.

If House Republicans keep on this path--the path of these poison pill amendments and dramatic cuts in programs that help working Americans--I fear they are steering us toward a train wreck.

Remember, the President said he wanted a shutdown. He tweeted earlier this year: ``Our country needs a good `shutdown' in September to fix mess!'' He wants one. His budget director, Mick Mulvaney, has always been for a shutdown. By including border wall funding in their proposal and dramatically cutting domestic spending, House Republicans, unfortunately, are playing right into their game.

I urge my Republican colleagues, please, let cooler heads prevail. To my Republican friends in the Senate, I would say persuade your colleagues in the House to abandon this dangerous, irresponsible path they put us on, which can only lead to a government shutdown. I guess they want it.

We should be working together on a responsible way forward on appropriations, in line with the principles we laid out which produced a successful bipartisan deal on the last budget.

Madam President, I yield the floor.