Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, this moment is a bit hard to stomach. It is hard to stomach yet another attempt to sabotage the Affordable Care Act, in the words of our colleagues, while extolling the virtues of public health programs by cutting grace periods down to 30 days that will result in hundreds of thousands of people losing access to their insurance.

It is hard to stomach a $1 trillion tax cut being proposed for wealthy adults at the same time that our Republican colleagues are telling us that we can't afford to care for sick kids. It is hard to stomach the indifference shown in this Chamber over the course of the past month as CHIP lapses and panic sets in amongst families whose lives depend on this program.

It is hard to stomach an idea that the only way to give them care is to somehow take it away from somebody else, by gutting the Public Health Fund in the midst of an opioid epidemic or scapegoating patients who struggle to afford the monthly premiums and sometimes fall behind.

Why is it always those patients who are asked to sacrifice?

It is always those communities that are asked to do more with less.

Why do we somehow create a false choice on this floor today that leads 9 million families to an impossible choice tomorrow?

For those families, CHIP is not a privilege or a line item in the budget, it is a lifeline. They deserve the same decency and the same urgency that our Republican colleagues showed the wealthy in their tax plan yesterday.

Mr. Speaker, on Sunday night, in mere minutes, one man took at least 59 lives, forever altered hundreds more, and left invisible, incurable scars on thousands.

On Monday morning, our Nation welcomed all of them into America's fastest growing community: families left with a gaping hole in their hearts caused by a bullet; a community that does not have the luxury of moving on from gun violence after TV cameras leave, after the front pages fill with news stories; a community that includes families Black and White, rich and poor, big and small, Democrat and Republican.

Ending gun violence isn't political. It is personal. So we are now powerless. We are not helpless. We are not hostages to some political organization. We are not bystanders, as bullets tear through our concerts, prayer circles, elementary school classrooms, nightclubs, military compounds, and quiet neighborhoods.

This is up to us, every single American. This is our country, our home, and our families. We can decide that one person's right to bear arms does not come at the expense of a neighbor's right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

We must say, ``No more.''

Mr. Speaker, in this country, we do not retreat. We may stumble and we may struggle, but we press on. Time and again, our greatest challenges have delivered our crowning achievements: the New Deal, the 19th Amendment, the GI Bill, the Civil Rights Act, and marriage equality.

The tougher the moment, the more we demand of ourselves; the bigger and bolder we demand to dream for a fairer, more just nation, for an America where every person counts, where every voice matters, where we are all treated with a decency and a dignity that we deserve, where every American family has access to quality, affordable, accessible healthcare.

Right now, this week, we must fight harder than before to say: Not this bill, not this time. Not this cop-out, not this retreat, not this white flag.

The latest version of TrumpCare is an admission that the wealthiest Nation on Earth will not, by choice, care for all its citizens; that a child in Texas or Massachusetts with pediatric cancer deserves treatment, but not both; that a grandmother in Maine or Oklahoma deserves long-term care, but not both; that a young man in Georgia or West Virginia suffering from substance use disorder can be treated, but not both.

This version of TrumpCare, worse than those before it, pits State against State, American against American.

It is up to every single one of us here today to say: Not this--not in my country, not on our watch. In our Nation, every person counts.

Mr. Speaker, we all suffer when this country breaks its promises. But for our children, that cost compounds. They pay the interest on our inaction and inadequacy. They pick up the pieces of the precious things that we broke, the sacred resources we took for granted, the battles that we were too afraid to fight.

Time and again, by choice and by chance, they have not disappointed. Their broad shoulders carry twice as much twice as far. Their spines prove twice as sturdy as the adults meant to protect them.

American history is littered with the names of young men and women, and even boys and girls, forced to be heroes before their time: the patriots of D-day, memorialized in a statue called the Spirit of Youth in Normandy; 14-year-old Emmett Till, lynched by a lie; Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, all 14, and Carol Denise McNair, 11, four choir girls lost at the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Alabama.

The Children's Crusade. Little boys and girls, kids, who dared defy Bull Connor's firehoses and attack dogs to be arrested and rearrested again and again as a Nation recoiled in horror.

Nine African-American high school students from Little Rock marched into an all-White high school to prove that separate is not equal.

Four college students from Kent State who gave their lives to a war- weary nation's plea for peace.

Thirteen-year-old Ryan White from Indiana who showed our Nation that an HIV diagnosis does not claim your dignity.

The record number of men and women under the age of 21 who showed up at military recruiting stations in 2001, signing up to serve a nation reeling from terror on its soil.

Nineteen-year-old Zach Walls who told us that love is love as he bravely defended his two moms before the Iowa State Legislature.

Seventeen-year-old Lila Perry from Missouri who withstood the sting of stigma by being true to herself and her gender identity.

Thirty-one-year-old Alonso Guillen, a Texan who traveled 120 miles from safety into the heart of Hurricane Harvey's fury on a volunteer rescue mission, who gave his life so that others, strangers, might survive. His courage and sacrifice exemplify the best traits of our Nation. They place him squarely on the long list of young American heroes who have carried us toward a more perfect union.

But this week, President Trump slammed the door on 800,000 people like Alonso. DREAMers. Children raised in our neighborhoods, who run on our playgrounds, who pitch in our Little Leagues, who proudly march in 4th of July parades, who make lemonade stands, build snowmen, go to prom, and get summer jobs, who hit the books, who earn a living, who raise families of their own, who serve in our military, who give to this country just as much, just as faithfully as you or I.

Now, our President told them that they are not wanted, that he would rather see them in handcuffs, their families ripped apart, their futures in limbo, sent to be strangers in a strange land.

Mr. Speaker, sometimes this body has to make hard choices. Sometimes our solutions are complex. This is not one of those times. This one is easy. Our work comes down to a very simple question: What are we willing to ask our children to bear?

We have the power in this body to say: Not this, not again, that we will not ask the youngest among us to force our country's conscience to awake because of the burden that we, the adults in the room, place on their shoulders. We can do better. We can be braver. We can change the course of that history. We will not stand here and leave it for future generations to wonder why we allowed such harm to pass.

Mr. Speaker, when our bravest men and women raise their hand and volunteered to defend our Nation, they defend all of her people, rich and poor, young and old, Democrat and Republican, gay and straight, Americans of all races, religions, ethnicities, beliefs, gender identities.

Our soldiers do not discriminate. They do not offer to pay the ultimate sacrifice for some Americans and not for others. Their government owes them that same courtesy, that same decency in return.

Instead, this morning, our President has told thousands of American soldiers that they will fight for us, but we will not fight for them; that their deeply personal medical decisions are somehow the public's business; that although they are willing to sacrifice their lives to protect our freedom, we will not offer them the most basic freedom in return.

Today, the President of the United States looked American soldiers in the eye and dared to question their patriotism, their courage. He doubted their commitment to their brothers and sisters in uniform. He said that our military couldn't or wouldn't stand for all of us.

To the thousands of brave transgender men and women serving today in uniform, please know that a grateful Nation does not take your service, your patriotism for granted.

You deserve better from your President. You deserve better from your government. You deserve better from your country.

Madam Speaker, I met Ted a few weeks ago. He is a bricklayer from Fall River, Massachusetts. It is hard, proud work, the kind that comes with frequent physical injury. Ted is no exception.

Then came the opioid prescriptions. Then came a long and painful road to addiction.

But Ted fought back. By force of will, faith, he pulled himself up, he got treatment, and he got clean. But his most recent injury cost him his job and his health insurance, and a new diagnosis just came in: liver cancer.

Madam Speaker, this is where a system proves what it is made of. When our people are sick, when they are tired, when they are terrified, and when they have given everything that they have got, do we abandon them? No. We pull them up. We bet on their resilience because there is nothing more fundamentally American than the belief that our people survive, they endure, and they rise to fight again.

They deserve a government that will jump into the ring by their side. Today is that test of what is good and decent for our people.

Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Walden, Ranking Member Pallone, Ranking Member Green, and Subcommittee Chairman Burgess for their leadership in uniting our colleagues across the aisle on a bill that supports patients and the life sciences industry. This user fee bill is a testament to what can be achieved when we debate policies in the open and confront challenges together.

I would also like to specifically focus on one piece of the legislation, the Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act of 2017. A few weeks ago, a friend of mine wrote to me and shared her story of hearing loss. A 34-year-old lawyer, it nearly derailed her career by leaving her unable to argue cases in the courtroom. She continued by outlining the often overlooked side effects brought about by hearing loss--isolation, anxiety, depression, and memory loss--all compounded by prohibitive costs for hearing aids that aren't covered by Medicare or most private insurers. Faced with prices upwards of $5,000, many Americans are denied the relief and the treatment that they deserve.

With this bipartisan bill, we will not only spark innovation and competition, we will help our constituents in their communities, offices, factory floors, and even their own homes. I hope my colleagues will support this bill.

I want to thank Representative Blackburn for her tireless work in getting it across the finish line as well.

Mr. Speaker, Members on both sides of the aisle have offered their share of passionate words about the GOP healthcare bill.

And as can happen, the debate has been deeply polarized here, leaving Americans to wonder sometimes whether the facts get obstructed by the politics of the day.

So I want to take a minute and share what some experts have had to say about the Republican healthcare proposal. These are not politicians; far from it. These words come from folks who operate outside the walls of Washington's halls and have dedicated themselves to fighting for those struggling with mental illness.

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the Republican healthcare plan will ``force people with mental illness out of work, onto the streets, and into jails and emergency rooms.''

The legislation ``shows dangerous disregard for the well-being of people with substance use disorders and their families and erases decades of progress,'' says the Association for Addiction Professionals.

Mental Health America tells us that this bill ``will ultimately do significant harm to people with all chronic conditions, including mental illness, while increasing the cost of healthcare to everyone.''

The National Association for Rural Mental Health agrees, saying, ``these actions will leave millions of Americans with serious mental health and substance use conditions without life-sustaining and essential health insurance coverage, especially at a time when the Nation is suffering from the largest opioid epidemic in history.''

In short, this bill would be, according to the American Psychiatric Association, ``particularly devastating to the millions of Americans in need of mental health and substance use treatment.''

Mr. Speaker, these groups are not political organizations. They are doctors; they are healthcare professionals; they are patients; they are advocates who have dedicated their lives day and night to filling the gaps of a badly broken mental health system. Take it from them.

This is what TrumpCare is offering our country. This is what they are trying to sell us at a time when we are losing nearly 100 Americans a day to an opioid epidemic. This is what is being negotiated behind closed doors as we speak while the rest of us read reports that tell us that the death toll from opioids could reach well over half a million people in the next decade.

So let me be clear: You cannot advocate for comprehensive mental health reform and then stand on the opposite side of nearly every major mental health organization in this country. You cannot claim to be a champion for those suffering from mental illness and then support a bill that guts funding for Medicaid, which is the largest payer of mental healthcare in this country.

You cannot say that you are committed to addressing the opioid epidemic and then stand behind a piece of legislation that gives insurance companies cover to deny those patients addiction treatment and to tell those in the grips of addiction to summon just a little more will.

You have to choose: With these families or with this bill? Which side are you on?

Mr. Speaker, like in anyone's office, the photos and trinkets on display in mine tell a little bit about who I am: a wedding photo, a picture of me and my family on our swearing-in day, a copy of the first bill I had signed into law, the moments that I am proud of, the pieces of me that I want to share with the world.

In this body, the people's House is no different. We have always been proud of our democracy and even prouder to display it for all the world to see. That is why we keep these cameras on whenever we are in session. It is why every single word that is uttered on this floor is documented and preserved long after the day we draw our last breath. It is why we walk beside Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs through the rotunda with the same awe of our Nation's history embodied in bronze statues and bold paintings. It is why every single night this building glows through the darkness; because the light of democracy not only lays bare our divisions and dissent, but it lights a path to our proudest moments.

In times of war and peace, fights over civil rights and equality, our debates in these halls have always been driven by a fierce conviction of our beliefs and a shared vision of a kinder, stronger country. Disagreements, yes, but enlightened by ideals, by vision, by a shared commitment to our American experiment.

And when you stand behind those principles and your policies, you welcome that spotlight; you engage in that debate; you are eager to answer questions; you are ready to be held accountable.

And so, Mr. Speaker, we should all be concerned by what has transpired in our Capitol over the course of the past few weeks. For if you are proud of your legislation, you don't lock it behind closed doors; you don't shield it from the very people that are going to be hurt most by it; you don't turn off the cameras and then call it mean; you don't sabotage a healthcare system and leave a wake of devastation and destruction to score political points.

Drafting TrumpCare under the cover of darkness is an admission that this bill cannot--cannot--withstand the sunlight of our neighbors.

Mr. Speaker, the America that I know would never turn its back on a friend or a stranger in need. TrumpCare does.

The America that I know doesn't tell the sick, the elderly, or the frail that you are on your own. TrumpCare does.

The America that I know doesn't tell the young woman struggling through an opioid recovery that your next relapse, well, that one was one too many. TrumpCare does.

The America that I know understands that our greatness comes from our goodness; that we lean into challenges, you don't yield to them; that the frustration that we see in our streets and our communities is a cry for our government to be as good and as decent as the people we aim to serve. They, we, deserve nothing less. TrumpCare is not that cure.

Mr. Speaker, amidst the breaking news alerts and tweets that have overwhelmed our Nation over the past several days, and as our Nation tunes in to a hearing taking place on the other side of the Capitol as I speak, lies a simple question: Did the President of the United States put his own personal and political interests above the interests of the American people?

Congress cannot allow itself to become desensitized to the gravity of those accusations or be deterred from an aggressive, expeditious, and fully independent investigation conducted in full view of the American public, because the real victims of this investigation's ``cloud'' are our constituents: Americans who wake up every morning praying that their monthly budget won't be compromised by the unexpected; who walk into their office hoping that today isn't the day that that layoff notice arrives; who tuck their son or daughter into bed at night knowing that, despite working two jobs, their kid won't be afforded the

same luxuries as their friend down the street; who look to Washington for a hand and instead see us forced to wrestle with an almost unbelievable question: whether the leader of the free world compromised the security of his citizens and our democracy to a foreign adversary.

Mr. Speaker, there has been an awful lot of talk about loyalty in the past 24 hours. Let's be very, very clear. The American people should never have to be reassured of the loyalty of their Commander in Chief.

Mr. Speaker, Americans aren't asking for much: the ability to put in an honest day's work and provide for your family's basic needs; the chance to wake up in the morning without facing a series of impossible choices--food or medication, mortgage or car repair, a bus pass or school supplies.

In other words, the basic economic dignity that every single person in this country deserves.

The Trump administration claims that their budget is about dignity. Here is what this budget doesn't understand: dignity can be threatened by something beyond your control, by disability, by job loss, by illness, by accident, by automation, by a government that shames you for needing a little help when you are dealt a tough hand, by the pain of having to send your kid to school knowing that he is not going to have the lunch money that he needs.

Countless American families battle these daily heartbreaks and small injustices with their heads held high. For those families, this budget doesn't see them for their dignity, but views them with disgrace.

Mr. Speaker, what this legislation does on the surface is very clear: it makes health care more expensive. The more you need it--the sicker or older or poorer you are--the further out of reach it will be. That is why doctors, hospitals, nurses, the mental health community, and patients have spoken out, and spoken out against this bill.

But this bill doesn't just cut coverage and hike premiums all for a tax cut for the wealthy. It codifies a worldview by this administration that is dead set on dividing America along the lines of the god of your prayers, whom you love, where you come from, and your fate and fortune. We see it in their tax plan, in their budget cuts, in immigration policy, and now in health care, a worldview that scapegoats the struggling and the suffering, that sees fault in illness, and that rejects the most basic universal truth of the human existence, which is that every single one of us one day will be brought to our knees by a diagnosis we didn't expect, a phone call we can't imagine, and a loss we cannot endure.

So we take care of each other because, but for the grace of God, there go I one day, and we hope we will be shown that mercy, too. It is the ultimate test of the character of this country confronting our Chamber today: not the power we give the strong, but the strength with which we embrace the weak.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Kathleen Kruse, a long-time member of Senator Ted Kennedy's staff and a tireless advocate for arts and cultural policy. Kathy is stepping down from her role as Vice President of Institutional Affairs and Assistant Secretary of the Board of Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where she has served with distinction for the past seven years.

Kathy had a long and accomplished career in the Senate as the Cultural Policy Advisor and Senior Counselor for Senator Kennedy for 30 years. In this capacity and throughout her tenure, she was the staff liaison for Senator Kennedy to the Kennedy Center's Board of Trustees. During her time in the Senate, she was a fierce advocate for arts organizations nationally, authored key Kennedy Center legislation and served as a trusted liaison to and friend of the Kennedy family.

I would also like to acknowledge the generosity of Kathy's daughter, Sasha, who has supported her mother's work in public service, and shared her with us during her many late nights in the Senate and at the Kennedy Center.

Kathy is a fixture in the arts and cultural landscape in Washington, DC and across the country, and she will be dearly missed. We are certain that she will find tremendous success in her next professional ventures and that she will enjoy spending more time with her family. On behalf of the Kennedy Center's Board of Trustees, I offer my sincere gratitude to Kathy for her many contributions to the United States Congress, the Kennedy Center and our nation.

Mr. Speaker, I stand proudly today with my colleagues to reintroduce the Equality Act, a bill that would finally fully codify civil rights protections for the LGBTQ community.

It is unthinkable to me that this bill finds opposition in this Chamber, where we stand less than a mile from a sacred American promise that is etched in stone above the doors of the Supreme Court: ``Equal justice under law.'' There is no asterisk. There is no condition or compromise. No caveat. It is a promise that is afforded to each of us; that no one--man, woman, political candidate, or President--can look us in the eye and say that you do not count or you are unworthy.

Some of the most shameful moments of our Nation's history have come when we have broken that promise, when we say that everyone matters except you. Every life counts except yours.

It is time for this body to take a stand and say everyone counts in this country today, on our watch today.

Mr. Speaker, as my Republican colleagues debate TrumpCare amongst themselves, they speak so often of so-called flexibility. But let's be clear about what that wink and nod to insurance companies actually means.

For working families, flexibility is a cold euphemism for less choice; actually, for an impossible choice between caring for a new child or aging parent, between lifesaving treatment or your life savings, between an inpatient bed or monthly mortgage, desperately needed medication or food on your table, between life, and, yes, for some, death, because the moment essential health benefits become negotiable, they become dispensable.

And while insurance companies might enjoy that newfound flexibility, American families and our loved ones will pay that price.