Floor Statements

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, today we begin debate on a position in our government that impacts the daily lives of every single American. If you use a telephone, connect to the internet, watch television, and pay a big cable company to do all of those things, then you need to know who Ajit Pai is.

President Trump nominated Ajit Pai to be the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. While Ajit Pai has devoted many years to public service, I cannot support his nomination. Under Mr. Pai's short tenure, he has made the FCC stand for ``forgetting consumers and competition.''

Let's take a look at who is getting a piece of the FCC pie under Chairman Pai. It is American consumers on the one hand versus big corporations on the other hand. Let's take a piece of this pie and determine who is getting that first slice of what is going on at the Federal Communications Commission.

Let's look at net neutrality. Net neutrality is the basic principle that says that all internet traffic is treated equal. Net neutrality ensures that internet service providers like AT&T, Charter, Verizon, and Comcast do not block, slow down, censor, or prioritize internet traffic.

If Ajit Pai gets his way, a handful of big broadband companies will serve as gatekeepers to the internet. Fewer voices, less choice, no competition, but more profits for the big broadband companies--that is Pai's formula. Yet it is today's net neutrality rules that ensure that those with the best ideas, not merely the best funded ideas, can thrive in the 21st-century economy. It is net neutrality that has been the internet's chief governing principle since its inception.

Consider that today essentially every company is an internet company. In 2016, almost half of the venture capital funds invested in this country went toward internet-specific and software companies. That is $25 billion of investment. Half of all venture capital in America went toward internet-specific and software companies--half of all venture capital.

To meet America's insatiable demand for broadband internet, the U.S. broadband and telecommunications industry invested more than $87 billion in capital expenditures in 2015. That is the highest rate of annual investment in the last 10 years.

So we have hit a sweet spot. Investment in broadband and wireless technologies is very high. Job creation is very high. Venture capital investment in online startups is very high. That is why more than 22 million Americans wrote to the Federal Communications Commission to make their voices heard about net neutrality. They do not want it repealed. Yet Chairman Pai's proposal would decimate the FCC's open internet order.

Chairman Pai has said: ``We need to fire up the weed whacker'' to net neutrality rules. Do we really want a leader at the Federal Communications Commission who, ultimately, is going to implement the agenda of the big broadband companies, which want to crush competition, reduce choice, and then make consumers pay more?

So the first slice of this pie of killing net neutrality goes to the big corporations, and the losers are the consumers.

Let's go to the next slice of the FCC pie. Let's see where that goes as these decisions are being made. The next issue is, in fact, broadband privacy.

Chairman Pai has actively supported efforts to allow broadband providers to use, share, and sell your sensitive information without consumer consent. In 2016, Chairman Pai voted against commonsense broadband privacy protections that gave consumers meaningful control over their sensitive information. When he assumed the FCC chairmanship, Ajit Pai stopped the implementation of data security protections, which would have ensured that broadband providers better protect the information they collect about their users. Can you imagine that? Chairman Pai stopped protections that would improve data security.

I have 143 million reasons as to why that was a bad idea. Just this month, Equifax was subjected to a cyber attack that compromised the personally identifiable information of 143 million consumers. The American public wants more protection, not less. Yet what does Chairman Pai do? He effectively eliminates the very data security protections that consumers need to protect their sensitive information. That is just plain wrong.

Just a few weeks later, Mr. Pai supported congressional Republicans' efforts to rescind the Federal Communications Commission's broadband privacy protections. Now your broadband provider can relentlessly collect and sell your sensitive web browsing history without your consent.

You may wonder why Chairman Pai would actively support efforts to undermine the privacy of American consumers. The answer is simple. He wants that slice of the pie to go to the biggest corporations. How do they use it? They take that data--your personal data, the information you put online--and just sell it without your permission in order to make money for the big corporations. Once again, rather than consumers, the big corporations get the benefit of that decision at the Federal Communications Commission.

Let's take a look at the next issue. The next issue goes to the question of mergers, the mergers of big telecommunications companies.

The Sinclair deal has led to a proposal to merge with Tribune Media, granting one company an unprecedented market power of over 200 broadcast stations around the country. In order to help Sinclair, Ajit Pai reinstated what most consider to be an antiquated rule, the UHF discount, to pave the way for the merger. The UHF discount makes the FCC count only half of the stations on certain frequencies toward companies' ownership percentages. This merger would allow Sinclair to reach into 72 percent of American households, but with the discount, the FCC counts it as only 45 percent. Putting this discount back on the books is Chairman Pai's first step to helping Sinclair stay within the national ownership cap of 39 percent.

What will be the impact of this massive telecommunications mega- merger? Less local news, sports, and weather that millions of Americans count on today. It will lead to the continued squeezing out of independent programmers, and it will mean higher prices for consumers. What signal does approving this merger reveal? It reveals that the FCC and Ajit Pai have put out the welcome mat for the consolidation of other communications companies.

So this third slice, once again, goes to corporations and not to consumers. They are left out in the cold.

Let's look at the fourth slice and see what happens with that at the Federal Communications Commission under the approval of Ajit Pai's nomination on the floor of the Senate. The next slice is one that deals with the education rate, or the E-rate.

The E-rate has proven to be exceptional in linking up schools and libraries to the internet. We went from a country in 1996 in which only 14 percent of K-12 classrooms had internet access to a near ubiquitous deployment today. The E-rate has ensured that students from working- class neighborhoods can connect just like students from more affluent communities. The E-rate democratizes access to the opportunities and technologies that lead to bright futures. Over $44 billion to date has been committed nationwide.

Again, Ajit Pai does not take that perspective. At his confirmation hearing in July, I explicitly asked him whether he would commit to preserving the success of this bipartisan program and protecting the funding level or whether he would make programmatic changes that could undermine or weaken the E-rate. He would not make this commitment to maintain current funding for E-rate.

Students and library users around the country will not be able to afford this slice of the pie. Once again, consumers will lose and corporations will win.

Now we go to the final slice of that communications pie at the FCC.

Telecommunication is the great equalizer, but a household with no access to basic telecommunications services could lose educational and employment opportunities as well as emergency services. That is why the FCC's Lifeline Program is truly a lifeline for millions of Americans who are able to connect to the world. In Massachusetts alone, more than 180,000 low-income Bay Staters rely on the Lifeline Program to access voice and internet service.

The value of this universal service has always been a bedrock of our telecommunications policy. Yet one of Ajit Pai's first actions as FCC Chairman was to undermine Lifeline and make it more difficult for low- income people to access affordable broadband. I was dismayed by his decision to abruptly revoke the recognition of nine additional companies as Lifeline broadband providers just weeks after they were approved. Mr. Pai's action did nothing but unfairly punish low-income consumers by limiting choice.

So the final slice, again, goes to the Federal Communications Commission's supporting corporations and not supporting consumers.

That is the pie--the FCC pie--as it is put together on net neutrality, on privacy, on mergers, on E-rate, and on Lifeline. It is all the same. The FCC winds up standing for forgetting consumers and competition. That is the era that we are now in, and it will only intensify as each day, week, and month goes by. That is why I am recommending a ``no'' vote on Ajit Pai as the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.

Which side are we going to be on--that of the consumers or corporations? Are we going to side with innovators? Are we going to side with those who are trying to continue to take these platforms of dynamic change in our society for consumers, for entrepreneurs or are we going to allow for a closing of this revolution?

This is the era in which we live in the 21st century. This is the choice that people must make. In which direction are we going?

I urge a ``no'' vote by my colleagues on Ajit Pai's nomination. Of all of the things that we are going to do this year, this is very near the top of the list. In many ways, this telecommunications revolution is the organizing principle of our lives here in the United States and around the planet, and we have to make sure that we are heading in the right direction--more openness, more competition, more consumer protection, more privacy protection, and more access in libraries and schools to these technologies, not fewer and fewer and fewer and fewer. It is just the wrong direction to head in. I urge a ``no'' vote.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, today I wish to recognize the Massachusetts Walking Tour. Founded in 2010 in Webster, MA, the Walking Tour recognizes and celebrates local arts and culture throughout Massachusetts by featuring a nonprofit concert tour across the Commonwealth. Every concert is unique as it pairs the traveling musicians with local artists and outdoor recreation enthusiasts and is free for the whole community. These memorable events include diverse artistic and musical performances and even discussions about public land use with outdoor educators and trail managers. Since its founding, the Walking Tour has visited 90 towns in Massachusetts, playing 101 free community concerts. I thank founders Mark Mandeville and Raianne Richards, as well as all of the performers, artists, educators, and nature enthusiasts who have made Walking Tour such a success across Massachusetts.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I would like to start my remarks today by offering my prayers and my support to the people of Puerto Rico and to their family members and friends here in the United States, many of whom have still not been able to get information about their loved ones.

Massachusetts is home to the fifth largest Puerto Rican community in the mainland United States. It is a vibrant community, an engaged community, and since Hurricanes Irma and Maria, it has been a mobilized community. They are horrified by the images that are emerging from the island, pictures and videos of destroyed homes and of the massive flooding and widespread devastation. These images are difficult for any of us to see, and for those who have family there, these scenes beg for immediate action. Thousands of families are homeless, infrastructure is almost beyond repair, and much of the population will be without power for an indefinite period of time going into the future.

We need to act now. We must treat Puerto Rico just like any other U.S. State that is experiencing a natural disaster. That means that the United States should continue deploying its military and civilian assets to provide lifesaving search-and-rescue, food, shelter, and power to residents of the island. Congress must also act to immediately provide additional aid and funding so that the island can begin the long process of rebuilding.

Puerto Ricans, like Texans, like Louisianans, and like Floridians, are U.S. citizens. They are our sisters and brothers, and it is our moral obligation to provide them with help and relief in this time of their greatest need.

As we debate healthcare, let's remember that in the wake of these devastating storms, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands will have enormous public health needs. They will be subject to an increased risk of disease transmission from a lack of clean drinking water, to physical injury from the storm, and to mental and behavioral trauma from the remarkable losses they are suffering. For those who are suffering from chronic conditions, such as diabetes and cancer and heart disease, finding and accessing treatment will be a daily struggle. Puerto Rico is a medical tragedy that is happening right before our eyes. History will judge us by how quickly we respond to this catastrophe.

Healthcare

Mr. President, we should remember that this debate over healthcare is not confined to just this week, and it is certainly not confined to this building or even to this mainland.

Yesterday, I held an emergency roundtable with the leading healthcare leaders in Massachusetts. These are the healthcare heroes who provide compassion and treatment each day to their patients. They all spoke poignantly about the devastation that would come from repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act.

Dr. Peter Slavin, president of Massachusetts General Hospital, said: ``To repeal the [Affordable Care Act] would be a horrible sin for this country.''

Yet that is exactly what the Graham-Cassidy bill is. It is a cruel and inhumane sin that would damn millions of American families.

In some cases, this most recent TrumpCare proposal is even worse than the failed bills before it. The bill proposed the use of a totally subjective formula which was changed at the whim of the bill's sponsors to entice more Republicans to vote in favor of it. The bill was nothing more than something that had political plastic surgery that had been performed, but it was fundamentally the same bill.

At the roundtable I held in Boston yesterday, Dr. Henry Dorkin, president of the Massachusetts Medical Society, said: ``I fear that if Graham-Cassidy were to pass, we would go back to attending more funerals of children.''

There is simply no reason to go back to a time when people died of preventable or treatable conditions simply because they did not have access to insurance.

Just moments ago, we learned that the Republican leadership will not hold a vote on this disastrous bill. They simply did not have the votes. Right now, millions of Americans are again breathing a sigh of relief.

I applaud my colleagues Senator John McCain of Arizona, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, and others in this Chamber who are calling for a bipartisan process to strengthen and improve our healthcare system. We have done it before on the opioid crisis. We have done it on Alzheimer's and other medical research funding. I still believe we can do it here. We need to do what we have done so many times before and focus on bipartisan solutions instead of partisan exercises.

I hope we can put Graham-Cassidy and other TrumpCare proposals behind us and embrace bipartisan negotiations led by Senators Alexander and Murray to stabilize the individual health insurance market.

Just last week, Senators Wyden and Hatch introduced bipartisan legislation to reauthorize the Children's Health Insurance Program for 5 more years. There are a number of bipartisan healthcare issues that need immediate attention this week, such as the funding for community health centers and extending the number of Medicare policies.

This bill was not our only option. It is not even really an option, at least not for those Americans with preexisting conditions, who are on Medicaid, or who need opioid treatment.

We need to work together in this Chamber to improve health in a way that works for all Americans regardless of where they live or who their Governor is. That is the responsibility of those who serve here, and now let us have a new beginning, where we begin to work together to solve those problems.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, in July, millions of Americans awoke from a months-long nightmare, as the Senate did the right thing and voted down multiple Republican proposals to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The American people breathed a sigh of relief when the future of their healthcare and of their children's healthcare was safe for the time being.

Unfortunately, Republicans want us to go back to that nightmarish time by reigniting their proposal to threaten healthcare coverage for millions of Americans. While the bill the Republicans are supporting today may have a new name, it contains the same mean, devastating policies. It is a zombie bill that despite best efforts and against the will of the American people, will not die.

Like its TrumpCare predecessors, the Graham-Cassidy bill will result in less coverage and increased costs. It eliminates the built-in protections for Americans with preexisting conditions, causing many of them to see their premiums skyrocket just because of a diagnosis. Some experts estimated that an individual with diabetes could face a premium surcharge of $5,600 under Graham-Cassidy.

Graham-Cassidy will also allow States to decide what insurers have to cover and what they don't; meaning, once again, your ability to have comprehensive healthcare coverage would depend upon where you live.

This is not the type of healthcare reform people in this country want or need, and it is certainly not the type of reform to help us overcome our Nation's opioid use disorder epidemic.

With 91 Americans dying every day from an opioid overdose, we are clearly in the midst of our Nation's preeminent public health crisis. Over these last few months, we have heard time and time again that access to substance use disorder care is the linchpin to stemming the continually rising tide of opioid overdoses. Unfortunately, it appears our Republican colleagues have not been listening.

To be fair, access to treatment today is still a challenge. Only 1 in 10 people with substance use disorders receive treatment. Right now, an estimated 2 million people with an opioid addiction are not receiving any treatment for their disorder.

Yet the solution is not to block-grant funds which would otherwise be used to help people get care for their substance use disorders. The answer is also not kicking people off their insurance, but that is what my Republican colleagues are yet again proposing to do.

As with the previous versions of TrumpCare, Graham-Cassidy would threaten insurance coverage for 2.8 million Americans with a substance use disorder. It would end Medicaid expansion and cap the program, slashing its funding and decapitating access to lifesaving care. This bill would simply take a machete to Medicaid--the leading payer of behavioral healthcare services, including substance abuse treatment.

Also, in the same vein as earlier proposals, Graham-Cassidy would allow States to waive the essential health benefits the Patients' Bill of Rights put in place under the Affordable Care Act that ensures that every plan provides comprehensive coverage. Because covering mental health and substance use disorder treatment is expensive, this would likely be one of the first benefits to be cut. As a result, someone struggling with opioid use disorder would have to pay thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket costs, likely forcing many to forgo lifesaving substance use disorder care.

This epidemic of opioid abuse and overdose deaths will only get worse as long as we have a system that makes it easier to abuse drugs than to get help for substance use disorders. Graham-Cassidy would only exacerbate this already dire problem in our country.

Just last week, a leading sponsor of the bill said: ``We recognize there are circumstances where states that expanded Medicaid will have to really ratchet down their coverage.'' ``Rachet down,'' that is not improving healthcare. That is ripping insurance coverage away from the one in three Americans struggling with opioid use disorder who relies on Medicaid. That is gutting billions of dollars in addiction care and treatment.

Graham-Cassidy isn't a new block grant program, it is a chopping block program--for Medicaid, for coverage, for access to critical substance use disorder services.

I believe past is prologue here. Just as Americans rejected the inhumane and immoral TrumpCare of months past, they are already seeing this new attempt is more of the same and, in some cases, worse. Many patient, provider, and other healthcare groups have already come out against Graham-Cassidy, citing the bill's inability to maintain the healthcare coverage and consumer protections currently provided in the Affordable Care Act. It is deja vu.

Enough is enough. Republicans newest shortsighted stunt is detracting attention from bipartisan efforts to stabilize the individual insurance market and to help decrease costs. Let's end this partisan gambit to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act and start focusing on ways to make the healthcare system in our country better, not worse.

We need all of you, in every corner of the country, to once again stand up and fight against these mean attempts to harm the health of our family members, our friends, and our neighbors. We need your energy, your commitment, and your passion to do what you did a few months back to help make sure our better angels once again will prevail. You have done it before, and I know you can do it again.

My Democratic colleagues and I will be fighting right here with you to finally put this zombie healthcare bill to rest.

This is the time. This Chamber will be the place where we have this debate within the next week on whether there is going to be a destruction of the Affordable Care Act, a destruction of the promise of access to healthcare for every American. The Republicans are coming back, once again, to try to destroy that promise.

The Republicans harbor an ancient animosity toward the goal of ensuring that there is, in fact, universal coverage for every single American; that it is a right and not a privilege. What they want to do is to leave these programs as debt-soaked relics of the promises that have been made to ensure that there is, in fact, coverage for every American.

So this is going to be the debate.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the great Senator from New York, used to say that when you do not want to help a program or to hurt a program, you engage in benign neglect--benign neglect. What the Republicans are doing is engaging in a program of designed neglect--of ensuring, after this designed program is put in place, that there is a reduction in coverage, that there are fewer people who get the help they need, that older people have to pay more, that fewer people get access, and that Planned Parenthood is defunded. It is all part of a program of designed neglect of the healthcare of all Americans.

This is a historic battle. It was not completed in July. Now, in the next 10 days, we must complete this fight and make sure they are not successful.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, before I start my remarks on the dangers of nuclear war, I want to take a moment to congratulate the Watertown High School field hockey program in Massachusetts.

Up until this past week, the Watertown Raiders had not lost a single field hockey game since November 12, 2008. For nearly 9 years, the Raiders have been truly perfect. Their 184-game winning streak was our Nation's longest in high school field hockey history. Their leader, Head Coach Eileen Donahue, is one of the most historic figures in Massachusetts high school athletics.

To all the former and current players, coaches, parents and supporters, I offer my congratulations on this incredible accomplishment.

Go, Watertown Raiders. Congratulations on a historic streak of victories.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I join with the Senator from Illinois, and I thank him for his great leadership on this issue. He has been doing this for a long time. His partnership with Senator Lindsey Graham is inspiring.

I want to begin by thanking Senator Durbin and Senator Graham for leading this effort and making it bipartisan and making it possible for us to talk about an issue as Americans and not as Democrats and Republicans and having a discussion about who falls into the category of being an American who is entitled to the benefits of being in this country.

For the last 5 years, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals--or DACA--Program has created security and opportunity for young immigrants across this country. Now, the futures of some 800,000 young people-- 7,900 of them in Massachusetts--have been needlessly put in jeopardy because President Donald Trump feels the need to keep an ill-considered campaign promise made to his base and to break another one made to the best and brightest of our young people by repealing DACA. And because the House of Representatives has refused to debate and hold a vote on comprehensive immigration reform legislation, our immigration system remains tragically broken.

Yesterday, I met one of these Dreamers, Diana Ortiz. Her mother brought her to the United States nearly 20 years ago. Diana studied history at Pomona College in California, and she recently received a master's degree of divinity from the Harvard Divinity School. She hopes to become a U.S. citizen. Diana literally wants to do God's work here on Earth.

DACA has provided Diana and more than a million other young immigrants safety, security, dignity, respect, and opportunity. These are young people who play, study, work, and live next door to us each and every day.

What will the repeal of DACA mean for the Dreamers and for our country? It will mean bad news for our economy. Many of these Dreamers have started their own businesses and are beginning their careers. Over the course of the past 5 years of the program, 91 percent of the Dreamers have found gainful employment. Removing DACA recipients from the workforce would reduce our gross domestic product by more than $460 billion over a decade and would cut contributions to Medicare and Social Security by more than $24 billion over that same 10-year period.

It will mean misplaced criminal justice priorities, with law enforcement focusing not on targeting drug dealers, human traffickers, and the real criminals in our society, but on the Dreamers instead. These young people are not the so-called ``bad hombres'' that President Trump said would be the focus of his administration.

Most tragically, it will mean unnecessary pain and suffering for countless young people and families across Massachusetts and across the United States whose futures will be uncertain. Instead of going to sleep tonight knowing they will be able to live their lives in peace and plan for the future, they are again left with uncertainty, vulnerable to deportation and unable to work legally.

This is heartbreaking. It is unjust, and it is just plain evil. We should not punish these young people who have no other home than the United States of America. We should not go back on the word we gave when we told these young people to come out of the shadows.

These Dreamers are engineers. They are police officers, teachers, and students, many in our great Massachusetts universities. They serve bravely in our military right now--in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. They are our best and our brightest, and they are making the most of the opportunities that the United States has always provided immigrant communities.

I stand here this evening as a testament to the future that any family can achieve in this country. When I announced for the Senate 4 years ago, I decided--really, for the first time in my life--to go up and ring the doorbell of the house that my father grew up in. You pretty much grow up where your mother tells your father he is going to live. So my mother was from Malden, and my father was from Lawrence, and we grew up in Malden.

My father always said: Well, Lawrence is just this great city. So I went up to ring the doorbell at 88 Phillips Street in Lawrence, in the shadow of the old south mill. It is a triple decker; that is, a three- family home, stacked one on top of the other. My father grew up on the first floor of 88 Phillips, with five brothers and sisters and a mother and father in this very tiny space.

I rang the doorbell to see who lived there now, and the door opened. It was a Dominican family with their children. The accents were different, but the aspirations are just the same for that family as it existed for the Markeys.

Now, my father graduated from Lawrence High School, from the vocational program, and his son is a U.S. Senator from the State of Massachusetts. That was a dream that my father had or his father and mother had to be here in America and to give opportunities, not so much for themselves but for the next generation.

Well, that is what we are talking about. We are talking about these young people whose parents brought them here to give them a better chance, but the children didn't have a choice in whether or not they would come here. They saw the promise that hard work, education, and opportunity--helped a little bit by the government--worked for the people.

So that is really what we are talking about, and that is why I believe it is a new level of inhumanity for President Trump to betray the foundational values of this Nation by repealing DACA. He is no better than Pontius Pilate by having Attorney General Jeff Sessions make the announcement yesterday. President Trump is providing absolutely no leadership for his party or the American people on an issue that even he says is an important one, and I can only hope that he recognizes and understands the cruelty that repealing DACA will inflict on innocent young families, innocent young people all across this country.

So if President Trump wants to take away these protections, then, Congress must act. The ball is in the court of the Republican leadership in the House and in the Senate. Speaker Paul Ryan and Leader Mitch McConnell can either listen to a growing chorus of their own colleagues and to the business leaders and CEOs--including Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, General Motors--and to academic leaders and countless college and university presidents who all support DACA, or they can side with the forces of intolerance and injustice.

Congress should pass the Dream Act so that individuals who were brought here at a young age can earn citizenship by serving in the military or pursing higher education.

Ultimately, the House of Representatives must also debate and vote on comprehensive immigration reform. I have long supported a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million immigrants who are living here in the shadows.

We are the United States of America. We are a nation of immigrants. We are called on not simply to tolerate but to celebrate our immigrant communities, to understand not only the need but the value of our immigrant communities, to embrace not just the differences but the diversity of our immigrant communities.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said: ``Remember, remember always that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.'' No one knows that better than the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. We have always believed that no matter who you are or where you come from, you can achieve the American dream. We recognize that our economy and our security are stronger because of the immigrant families who have enriched our Nation since its founding.

That is why this decision from the Trump administration cannot stand. We will not let it. With Congress now back in session, Republicans should prepare to have a historic debate--a debate about the fairness that we should extend to all of these young people. There are going to be voices, calls, marches, and protests all demanding protections for these innocent Dreamers.

I pledge my support to the 800,000 Dreamers all across our country, and I will not stop fighting for them. We will not stop fighting for them. Millions of people are going to stand up. I believe that the American dream for all of these young people is achievable, and it must be here in the Senate that the realization of that dream begins.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I intend to offer the following motion to H.R. 1628, and I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record. The motion is supported by Senators Leahy, Shaheen, Van Hollen, and Warren.

Mr. President, I intend to offer the following motion to H.R. 1628, and I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I intend to offer the following motion to H.R. 1628, and I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.

Madam President, I intend to offer the following motion to

H.R. 1628, and I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record. The motion is supported by Senators Warner, Brown, Carper, Reed, Blumenthal, Warren, King, Klobuchar, Menendez, and Van Hollen.

Madam President, I intend to offer the following motion to H.R. 1628, and I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record. The motion is supported by Senators Manchin, Whitehouse, Brown, Blumenthal, Warren, King, Nelson, Warner, and Van Hollen.

Madam President, I intend to offer the following motion to H.R. 1628, and I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record. The motion is supported by Senators Carper, Warren, Casey, Brown, Hirono, Stabenow, Menendez, and Van Hollen.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. President, earlier today the Senate voted on a bill to dismantle this country's healthcare--a cruel bill that would affect every single American and one-sixth of our economy; a heartless bill that was crafted in secret, without public debate and without input from the families who will be impacted; an inhumane bill that would make health insurance unaffordable for millions of Americans and leave millions more with no access at all.

Despite this legislative malpractice, despite numerous independent analyses and nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office findings that millions of Americans will lose coverage and face increased costs, despite Americans from across the country pleading with Republicans not to rip away their coverage or take a machete to Medicaid, despite all that, President Trump and Republican leadership put politics ahead of people and voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act. That is a travesty.

I have often said that the proudest vote of my career was the one I cast in favor of the Affordable Care Act. The second proudest vote is today, voting no on this cruel, heartless, inhumane bill.

To all of my constituents in Massachusetts, please know that I vote no with you in mind.

Massachusetts is the home of universal healthcare. We have a model for the Affordable Care Act. Because of our belief that healthcare is a right and not just a privilege, 98 percent of Massachusetts residents have healthcare coverage. That was a dream of the great Teddy Kennedy, the lion of this Chamber, and it is a reality in Massachusetts.

We cast this historic vote today to proceed to debate on healthcare legislation, but rest assured, the fight to protect the Affordable Care Act is far from over.

It is a testament to how divided the Republican Party is over how to replace the healthcare law that we still don't know which version of TrumpCare we will proceed to vote on for final passage. It is not because Republicans haven't had time--they have had 7 years to craft a plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Rather, the chaos we have seen so far from Senate Republicans is because millions of Americans are finally benefiting from insurance coverage, many for the first time, and they don't want these protections taken away.

In many ways, it doesn't matter which bill they bring up for a vote because all versions of the Republican healthcare bill are terrible. Republicans still have no idea how they will go about protecting those with preexisting conditions and ensure that millions aren't kicked off their current insurance plan.

Senate Republicans have so far proposed three bills that would each devastate the healthcare sector, take a machete to Medicaid, and make the poorest in our country pay for tax breaks for the wealthiest. These bills are the bad, the worse, and the ugly.

First, the bad.

Senate Republicans proposed legislation at the end of June--just a month ago--that would rip away health insurance from 22 million Americans and give the top 400 wealthiest people in our country a tax break worth $33 billion.

Then the worse.

They introduced yet another bill that would also kick 22 million Americans off of their health insurance and cut Medicaid by $750 billion. They tried to buy Republican votes with a separate opioid fund, but that craven, political Hail Mary was not fooling anyone.

Then the ugly.

When Republican leadership realized that they did not have the votes for either of these cruel replacement bills, they decided to just repeal the healthcare law without any kind of replacement. This proposal would take coverage away from 32 million Americans and double premiums over the next decade.

That is the slate of Republican healthcare bills--the bad, the worse, and the ugly. All of these healthcare proposals have one thing in common: heartlessness. They all reduce coverage. They all increase costs for Americans. They all eviscerate Medicaid, causing irreparable damage to a program that provides coverage for 70 million Americans, and they all hand over billions in tax breaks to the wealthiest in our country, who do not need them or deserve them. Even in Massachusetts, the Republican proposals would mean more than 260,000 people would lose coverage, often the lowest income residents in the State. It would cost the State more than $8 billion by the year 2025.

There are no changes, no so-called fixes, no modifications to make any of these bills less cruel. Each of the Republican proposals will just exacerbate the most devastating public health crisis facing the country--the battle against opioid overdose deaths.

Leader McConnell said today that he would be thinking about the families who are hurting in Kentucky when he casts his vote to kick at least 20 million Americans off of their health insurance coverage. Yet do you know who will really be hurting? It will be the families of the nearly 1,000 people who died of an opioid overdose in Kentucky last year.

In a blatantly craven attempt to make TrumpCare more palatable, moderate Republicans from States that have been ravaged by the opioid crisis included a paltry opioid fund in the most recent version of the GOP replacement fund. Those are crumbs compared to the amount that the Affordable Care Act would likely spend on covering opioid use disorder treatments if we would just leave the law alone to work as intended. This opioid fund is not a fix; it is a falsehood. It is a false promise to the people who are suffering from opioid addiction. It is a false future that will not include critical Medicaid funding for treatment and recovery services, and it is a false bargain that Republicans will make at the expense of families who are desperate for opioid addiction treatment.

The American people will not be fooled. They realize that opioid funding in this proposal is nothing more than a public health pittance--a wholly inadequate response to our Nation's preeminent public health crisis. No amount of money in an opioid fund can replicate the access to treatment that is provided through the comprehensive health insurance program that the Affordable Care Act represents. Families of those who suffer from substance abuse disorders have been shouting from the rooftops that cutting Medicaid and hamstringing access to health insurance coverage will only make a difficult situation worse.

We should be making health coverage and treatment access more robust, not weaker. Today, only 1 in 10 people with substance addiction receives treatment, and it has been estimated that 2 million people who live with opioid use disorders are not receiving any treatment for their disorders. It should not be a surprise to anyone that the epidemic of opioid abuse will only worsen as long as we have a system that makes it easier to abuse drugs than to get help.

These Republican proposals will be a death sentence for millions of people with substance use disorders. A vision without funding is a hallucination. They are cutting the funding for substance abuse. Republicans are turning their backs on their vow to combat the opioid epidemic, and President Trump is beginning to break his own promise from the campaign trail to ``expand treatment for those who have become so badly addicted.'' Instead, they are moving forward with a proposal that threatens insurance coverage for 2.8 million Americans with a substance use disorder--all to give hundreds of billions in tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations--and slashing funding for our Nation's preeminent public health crisis is just part of it.

Creating a separate fund for opioid use disorders just further stigmatizes the disease and pushes it back into the shadows. This is not how we treat chronic health conditions in this country, and it is insulting to those 33,000 Americans who lost their lives just last year from opioid overdoses.

This latest political maneuver proves yet again that TrumpCare has never been about creating health. It has always been and still is about concentrating wealth--tax breaks for the rich coming from the cuts in healthcare coverage for those who need it the most in our country. They are abandoning hard-working families so that they must fend for themselves while they bestow those gifts of billions in tax breaks to the wealthy. That is shameful.

The GOP replacement plan also imposes an age tax on older Americans, allowing insurance companies to charge older Americans five times more than younger Americans for the same coverage. That is unconscionable.

The GOP plan reduces access to care for those with preexisting conditions--Americans with cancer, diabetes, women who have had children. They want to force them to pay for a Cadillac, but they then hand over to them a tricycle. That is just plain wrong.

On this floor, it is going to be a battle to the very end on this bill, and I am going to keep speaking and keep fighting until my Republican colleagues understand how important these issues are to every single family in our country.

The American people who believe in quality, affordable healthcare will not be silenced by today's vote. Instead, we will be invigorated to call out the callousness in any of these bills that would threaten the economic security for low-income and working families in order to fill the already overflowing bank accounts of the 1 percent. Oh, no. This fight is just beginning out here on the Senate floor because the lives of all

Americans who would be hurt by the Senate's vote today to begin debate on repealing the Affordable Care Act are simply too important for us to stop fighting.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am speaking today because proponents of TrumpCare have their heads stuck in the sand. Many of the Republicans in this Chamber are clearly in denial that we live in a country where 91 Americans die each and every day from an opioid overdose; where 1.3 million Americans went to the hospital for an opioid-related issue in 2014; where 2,000 Massachusetts residents died from an opioid overdose just last year, and 69 percent of those cases had the illicit opioid fentanyl in their bodies. If people across the country were dying from overdoses at the same rate as in Massachusetts, that would be 100,000 people per year--two Vietnam wars' worth of deaths every single year. Over 10 years, that would be 1 million people who die if they were dying at the same rate as they are in Massachusetts--1 million people over 10 years dying from opioid overdoses in our country.

If these Republicans took their heads out of the sand, they would hear the near-unanimous calls from the experts and the pleas of mothers and fathers to stop this machete to Medicaid which they have brought with their new healthcare reform bill. They would hear the alarm bells Americans across the country are ringing against this cruel and heartless and immoral legislation.

These desperate voices should be enough to get Republicans to abandon their efforts to rip away insurance coverage for treatment and recovery services for Americans struggling with substance use disorders, but instead of accepting the truth and listening to their constituents, they have decided to take a cynical path and replace these lifesaving services with a paltry opioid fund of $45 billion over 10 years.

There has been a lot of talk from the Republicans about so-called fixes that they can work on with Democrats, but this opioid fund isn't a fix, it is a falsehood. It is a false promise to the people suffering from opioid addiction. It is a

false future that won't include critical Medicaid funding for treatment and recovery services. It is a false bargain that Republicans will make at the expense of families desperate for opioid addiction treatment.

This opioid fund is a politically craven effort to buy votes from Republicans whose States are being ravaged by the prescription drug, heroin, and fentanyl crisis, but the American people will not be fooled. This opioid funding is nothing more than a public health pittance, a wholly inadequate response to our Nation's preeminent healthcare crisis. In fact, the amount included in this latest version of TrumpCare is not even half of the amount that the Affordable Care Act would have spent on covering opioid use disorder treatment if we just left that law alone to work as intended.

Here are the numbers. The Center for American Progress has estimated that the Affordable Care Act would spend $91 billion for opioid coverage alone over the next decade, compared to the $45 billion the Republicans are putting into their bill which they announced today.

We already know that access to treatment is a challenge. Only 1 in 10 Americans with substance addiction receives treatment. There are estimated to be 2 million people with an opioid use disorder who are not receiving any treatment for this disorder.

It should not be a surprise to anyone that the epidemic of opioid abuse will only get worse as long as we have a system that makes it easier to abuse drugs than to get help for addiction disorders. And the paltry GOP fund that provides less than half of the funding of the Affordable Care Act is only going to accelerate the death sentence for the millions of people with substance use disorders.

Sadly, we know that my Republican colleagues who are attempting to jam this immoral and callous TrumpCare bill through this body actually are aware of the crisis facing their States. They speak to the same constituents. They read the same newspapers. They see the same obituaries of Americans who lost their lives to the opioid overdose epidemic. And that is why we have been able to make some bipartisan progress. Last year, we passed the CARA bill. We passed legislation to fund $1 billion for treatment. But support for the TrumpCare bill and this opioid fund is a betrayal of all of that hard-fought progress we were making.

Republicans are turning their backs on their vow to combat the opioid epidemic, and President Trump is breaking his promise from the campaign trail to ``expand treatment for those who have become so badly addicted.'' Instead, they are moving forward with a proposal that would rip insurance away from 22 million people and threaten insurance coverage for 2.8 million Americans with a substance use disorder.

This bill would eviscerate Medicaid--the leading payer of behavioral health services, including substance use treatment--by nearly $800 billion, and all of this to give billions in tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations.

One analysis has found that under the Senate's previous version of TrumpCare, Republicans provided a nearly $33 billion tax break to the top 400 earners, the top 400 billionaires in America, which is the equivalent of ending Medicaid expansion for too many people in our country.

Let's look at what they are planning. They are planning to cut from $91 billion down to $45 billion the amount of money we spend on opioid treatment in the United States. At the same time, they have $33 billion that they are going to give in a tax break to the wealthiest 400 billionaires in America. Where is that money going to be better spent in our country over the next 10 years--$33 billion for the 400 wealthiest people or adding that money back in so that we can have treatment for people who have opioid addiction problems in their families? What is going to be better for America?

Well, the Republicans say: We need all that money that would go for treatment to give it to the wealthiest people in our country.

They can afford their treatment. Their families will have all the healthcare coverage they need if they have problems in their families. But the Republicans don't care. If you kicked this bill in the heart, you would break your toe. That is how bad it is.

So, for me, this is without question, at the heart, a simple explanation of what is fundamentally wrong with this Republican bill. There are many other things wrong with it--preexisting conditions, go all the way down the line--but how can you, when we have this plague hitting our country, take all that money away and give it away to billionaires? It is just wrong. There are too many families, too many letters, too many conversations that we have all had with these families. There are too many tears that we have seen. So, for me, there can be nothing that is worse than doing that to families--taking away their hope.

This is going to be a battle of monumental proportions. All I can tell you is that for the 2,000 families who had someone who died in Massachusetts last year, we are going to make sure this is a battle that everyone knows because if the American people understood that they are doing this to all of those families who have an opioid problem right now, there would be a revolt that would rise up across this country. Over this next week, the American people are going to learn about what is in the soul of this bill.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I join with the Senator from Hawaii, the Senator from Washington State, and I know the Senator from Oregon is going to be joining us very soon and taking this long, hot summer day in Washington and turning up the heat on the Trump administration and the big broadband companies.

Today the internet is having a protest. More than 80,000 websites are participating in today's national day of action on net neutrality to stand up for the fundamental right for a free and open internet.

Today's action involves some of the internet's biggest names: Netflix, Twitter, Amazon, Snapchat, Mozilla, Yelp, Airbnb. It also includes many others. My own website and other Democratic Senators and House Members have joined in today's protests.

Earlier today, right outside on the Capitol lawn, I gathered with many of my Senate and House colleagues, along with businesses and advocacy, consumer protection, nonprofit, and political organizations to send a singular message: We will defend net neutrality.

Net neutrality is the basic principle that says that all internet traffic is treated equally. It applies the principles of nondiscrimination to the online world, ensuring that internet service providers--AT&T, Charter, Verizon, Comcast, among others--do not block, do not slow down, do not censor or prioritize internet traffic.

Yet today, the internet--this monumental, diverse, dynamic, democratic platform--is under attack. President Trump and his FCC Chairman, Ajit Pai, are threatening to disrupt this hallmark of American innovation and democracy by gutting net neutrality rules. They have put internet freedom on the chopping block. We are facing a historic fight.

If Trump's FCC gets its way, a handful of big broadband companies will serve as gatekeepers to the internet. We cannot let this happen. That is why millions of Americans are standing up and making sure their voices are heard at the Federal Communications Commission.

They know the internet--the world's greatest platform for commerce and communications--is at stake. It is net neutrality that ensures that those with the best ideas, not merely the best access, can thrive in the 21st century economy; that a garage-based startup in Malden, MA, can have the same online reach and scope as a major tech firm in Silicon Valley.

It is net neutrality that has made the Internet an innovation incubator and job generator for the entire Nation. It is net neutrality that has been the internet's chief governing principle since its inception.

Consider that today essentially every company is an internet company. In 2016, almost half of the venture capital funds invested in the United States went toward internet-specific and software companies. That is $25 billion worth of venture capital funding in our country. Half of all venture capital went into that sector, this innovation sector that continues to transform not only our own economy but the whole world's economy. At the same time, to meet America's insatiable demand for broadband internet, U.S. broadband and telecommunications industry companies invested more than $87 billion in capital expenditures in 2015. That is the highest rate of annual investment in the last 10 years by the broadband companies.

We have hit a sweet spot. Investment in broadband and wireless technologies is high. Job creation is high. Venture capital investment in online startups is high. That is what we want. We want both the broadband companies and all of these smaller companies--whose names escape us because there are tens of thousands of them--to have a chance to coexist and have the innovation continue, even as the large companies continue to invest in broadband expansion.

It is the free and open internet that has allowed us to enter a new phase of the digital revolution--the internet of things era--where our devices, our appliances, and everyday machines now connect with one another.

The digital revolution is a global economic engine, and net neutrality is its best fuel. Taking these rules off the books makes no sense. With these net neutrality protections in place, there is no problem that needs fixing. It is working right now perfectly.

In May, Chairman Ajit Pai and the Republican FCC voted to begin a proceeding that will effectively eliminate net neutrality protections, allowing a handful of broadband providers to control the internet. Chairman Pai's proposal would decimate the open internet order and the net neutrality rules that are protecting the free flow of ideas, commerce, and communications in our country.

Now the big broadband barons and their Republican allies say we need a light-touch regulatory framework. Let's be honest. When the broadband behemoths say ``light touch,'' what they really mean is ``hands off''-- hands off their ability to choose online winners and losers.

We are not fooled when AT&T engages in alternative facts and says they support net neutrality and today's day of action. They don't support title II, and they don't support net neutrality. We must shine light on this kind of corporate deception.

What the broadband providers really want is an unregulated online ecosystem where they can stifle the development of competing services that cannot afford an internet easy pass.

Chairman Pai says he likes net neutrality but simply wants to eliminate the very order that established today's net neutrality rules. That is like saying you want to have your cake and eat it too. It makes no sense.

President Trump and his Republican allies are waging an all-out assault on every front that they can on our core democratic values. Whether it is healthcare, immigration, climate change, or net neutrality, they want to end the vital protections that safeguard our families and hand over power to corporations and special interests. We know better.

We need to make our voices heard. A political firestorm of opposition will protect our economy, protect our free speech, protect our democracy. We must protect net neutrality as a core principle in a modern 21st century America, in a modern America where the smallest company online can aspire to reach all 320 million Americans in a nondiscriminatory way, where the smallest company can raise the capital in order to accomplish that goal, where the smallest company doesn't have to ask for permission to be able to innovate in our society, where the smallest doesn't have to first raise the money to ensure they can pay to have access to this incredible economic engine of entrepreneurial expression that has been the internet for this last generation, where free speech, the First Amendment, this ability to be able to speak unfettered, uncontrolled by corporate America and whether or not you can afford to speak, is something that continues to be protected in our country.

That is what net neutrality is all about. The principles of nondiscriminatory access is what gave us Google and eBay, Amazon and Hulu, YouTube and Etsy, Zulily, Wayfair, TripAdvisor, and company after company that knew they could access every single potential consumer in our country and could, as a result, raise the capital necessary to ensure that engine of economic entrepreneurial innovation could be deployed from their minds in changing fundamentally the economy of our country and the economy of the world.

In 2017, every company is an internet company. Every company depends upon free and open access to the internet. That is what we have been transformed into in just the last 20 years.

I was the Democratic coauthor of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. In 1996, not one home in America had broadband. Can I say that again? Just 20 years ago, not one home in America had broadband. But we changed the rules to create this chaotic entrepreneurial world where all of a sudden all of these companies whose names are now common household names could be created, transforming our economy.

There is no problem. They are trying to fix a problem that does not exist.

We need to give the next generation of entrepreneurs the same opportunity to innovate that the last generation had--not to get permission, not to ask: Pretty please, may I reach all 320 million Americans? No, ladies and gentlemen, that is not what this revolution is about. That is not what young people all across this country--with brilliant new ideas to further transform our American economy online-- want to have as an obstacle.

What will happen now is you will have an idea, but if you can't raise the money to pay for this fast-lane broadband access, that is going to throttle back your ability to be able to move in this agile way that the internet provides. Instead of agility, it will be hostility that you will be feeling as an entrepreneur, feeling you can't take the risk--you are not sure you can reach your customers; you are not sure you can pay the broadband company--rather than ensuring that you can reach all these consumers for your revolutionary idea.

This internet day of action we are having across the country is going to raise from 5 million, to 6 million, to 7 million, to 10 million, to 15 million, to 20 million, the number of Americans who are going to be saying to the Federal Communications Commission and to the U.S. House and Senate that something is fundamentally wrong with this FCC and its potential change of the internet--Open Internet Order.

If they do move, we are going to court. If they do move, we are going to be taking this all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States of America because that is how important this issue is. It goes right to the fundamental nature of what has happened to our economy in the last 20 years. And that is all it took. We moved from the black rotary dial phone to a world where everyone is carrying a computer in their pockets. It happened just like that. It could have happened before that, but it wasn't possible because the broadband companies didn't even exist. There were just telephone companies and cable companies that did not have a vision of the future. Their vision of the future is a lot like their vision of the past before that law passed, which is, let's go back to total control by a small handful of companies in our communications cocktail, rather than thinking of the future, as tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of smaller companies can be started up in dorm rooms and garages across our Nation.

This is a dangerous and harmful plan the FCC has on the books today. Today's day of internet action will be increasing as each moment goes by between now and the day they make that decision at the FCC.

Mr. President, I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, we have now reached a point where the Senate majority, the Republicans, and President Trump, have been unable to put together the package that allows them to take Medicaid and try to successfully turn it into a shadow of what it once was in our country, to turn it into a debt-soaked relic of what it is today by taking out $770 billion that otherwise would have gone to the families of those in our country who need healthcare services, who need help in providing for those who need it the most within our country.

The same thing was true in the House of Representatives when they were moving through their bill over there. People said: Trump doesn't have the votes. The Republicans don't have the votes. They are not going to be able to be successful. However, this TrumpCare Hail Mary that they threw in the House, notwithstanding the remarkable defense put up by the American people--the millions of phone calls, protests, and rallies--they still were able to find the votes to ultimately pass this incredible attack upon the healthcare of tens of millions of Americans.

What they did in the House is what they are doing in the Senate. The GOP retreats; they wait for the defense to disperse, but then they plow through to get this bill over the finish line, hoping that a 2-week hiatus will be sufficient for the energy level of the defense against these cuts to so wane that then they can come back and finish off the job on their second try in the same way they did in the House of Representatives. Right now it is only halftime.

It is halftime. They are coming back. The ball is in their court. They will attempt again to destroy the healthcare system of our country as we know it today. We have not defeated this bill yet.

Now is the time for those who oppose this bill to redouble their energy, to play even tougher defense against this Republican attempt to undermine Medicaid, to undermine access to care to everyone in our country. Their bill is now down, so let's keep it down for the count. Let's make sure this bill cannot get up and come back and haunt us in the middle of July.

The Senate proposal right now has $188 billion, which is now going to be within the hands of the Trump administration, in the hands of the Republican leadership as a slush fund to be used to get the votes they need in order to pass their bill. That $188 billion is right now being divided up in a way that will help them to get the votes.

What is the ultimate goal of the GOP? The ultimate goal is to take a machete to Medicaid because they harbor an ancient animosity toward Medicaid, and I will throw in Medicare and ObamaCare--all of it. They see this as the best opportunity they have had in two generations to be able to leave these programs as debt-soaked relics of what they are today. When they say: Well, we are going to cap the funding and send it back to the States with more flexibility--when they say ``cap'' the funding, they are talking about decapitating the funding, to cut it in half, send it back to the States, and then say to the States: You figure it out. You try to help those people who are poorest in your State whom you were never able to figure out how to help in the first place, which is why we put the Federal programs on the books in order to help those who are most in need in all of those States.

What is their real goal? It is pretty simple: Slash these programs and then turn them into one huge tax break for the richest people in America. That is what this program will do. One little example of that $770 billion--let's take $33 billion of it. That $33 billion gets divvied up by the 400 wealthiest families in America; 400 billionaires walk up and say: Can I please have my $7 million that I get as part of taking away coverage for cancer, coverage for Alzheimer's, coverage for opioid treatment? Can I now get my payoff for the success in your wealth-income transfer program? Because that is what you have. You don't have a healthcare program; you have a wealth care program. The wealth of the wealthiest--please make them even wealthier; that is what their entire plan is about.

By the way, that $33 billion would be enough to take care of the healthcare of 700,000 people in our country, but the Republican priority is to give all that money back to the wealthiest people in our country. That is immoral. That is inhumane. It is just plain wrong. The American public has to rise up and

fight against the greatest legislative injustice that has been perpetrated or attempted to be perpetrated on the American people in more than a generation.

This bill is ``the bill'' of my entire career in the U.S. Congress, which is now 41 years. This is the worst bill. It is the greatest attack upon the well-being of our Nation. This program is of the rich, for the rich, by the rich, and where are they going to take the money from? From the poor, from the sick, from the elderly, from the disabled. It is selfishness on stilts.

To think that there is a plan to take healthcare away from the poorest and sickest and most disabled people in our country in order to give a tax break to the wealthiest is the most indecent action that may have ever been perpetrated on the floor of the U.S. Congress.

There are billions in tax breaks for those who don't need them or deserve them, paid for by people who cannot afford it. It is healthcare heartlessness; that is what it is. If you kicked these people in the heart, you would break your toe. There is no heart. There is no sense of decency toward those families who are going to see their loved ones' diseases get even worse or to see them ultimately die because of lack of coverage.

The Republicans say that their plan--at least they purport it as their plan--is to decrease the deficit by passing this bill, but what do they do with the money that they save? Ah, a tax break for the wealthy.

I thought that you were shedding tears about your concerns of subsequent generations having such huge deficits, but we know those are crocodile tears about future generations because you want to pay off this generation of billionaires and this generation of millionaires who need no additional wealth for their families today.

So there is no real concern about the deficit. This is, once again, just an attack on the programs that the Republicans have always opposed, and if they combine it as a tax break at the same time, all the better.

From my perspective, people are just going to wind up paying more for healthcare, and they are going to be getting less. They are going to be paying for a Cadillac but only getting a tricycle as the people go forward. For too many families, they will not be able to afford anything, and there will be no subsidy to help them get healthcare for their families. The anxiety of suffering from an illness will only be exacerbated by their families' understanding that they cannot even afford the care for their loved ones because of the financial insecurity in their own families.

This is going to be a historic 2 weeks in which we must raise our voices as they have never been raised before--in which we stand on the ramparts and let those Republicans know that they are in for the fight of their lives. Cassandra-like, we must warn of the dangers of complacency, of the misunderstanding of what is happening right now.

The Republicans have removed the healthcare bill from the Senate floor for consideration. They are not defeated. They are just at halftime. They are now trying to construct a plan that will bring it back as soon as we return and with the votes now secured, from their perspective, in order to pass this bill and send it over to the House of Representatives and then down to President Trump for his signature.

These next 2 weeks will be the most important 2 weeks for the healthcare of our Nation in two generations. This battle is the battle to ensure that they are not successful. From my perspective, this is a fight that each and every American has to be a part of because it is your families who are going to be harmed.

If we just take opioid addiction coverage in Massachusetts, 2,000 people died from opioid overdoses last year. We are only 2 percent of America's population. If that number were to multiply across the whole country, that would be 100,000 people overdosing and dying. That would be two Vietnam wars of deaths in one year from one disease--a disease that we could begin to reverse if there were the treatment for families and if the prevention were put in place. Yet, if there is no treatment, if there is no prevention, if there is no access, then people, who otherwise would have been able to live normal lives with treatment, will now die.

If you have Alzheimer's, if you are in a nursing home, there is a very high probability--since two-thirds of all grandmas and grandpas in nursing homes are on Medicaid, if you slash Medicaid, the care that loved one is now receiving in a nursing home is going to be slashed. Grandma and Grandpa in that nursing home are going to see the services that they otherwise would have been provided not being available to them. That is what this Republican plan is going to do.

It says to a kid--a family member--with opioid addiction problems, it says to Grandma and Grandpa in a nursing home, it says to a woman who has cancer, it says to a man who has diabetes: I am sorry. We no longer can afford in America to help you get the healthcare you need.

We are better than that. We are a better country than that, and we are definitely a better country than our saying that we are going to take away that healthcare from all of those people and then give it as a tax break to billionaires. We are better than that. That is just wrong. So this is the battle, the most important battle.

In 1967, Martin Luther King said that the most important civil right was access to healthcare because health is the first wealth. Without health, you have nothing. That is what we are fighting for right now. We are fighting for that fundamental civil right for everyone.

This slashes coverage for those who are disabled in our country. We have made progress over the last generation in reconfiguring how we view the disabled in our country. We have given them access to the help they need so that they can be fuller citizens in our society. This bill slashes the funding to help 20 million disabled in our country live fuller, more functioning lives in order to give a tax break to a billionaire.

It is wrong. It must be stopped. We must put up the defense against this bill's ever becoming law. For the next 2 weeks, while they sit and plot to try to find a way of camouflaging what they are doing, the American people must rise up and say: No, America is better than that. We will not allow this to happen. God help us in 2017 in the United States of America.

I yield the floor.