Floor Statements

Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chair, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chair, I am so proud to be voting today to stabilize healthcare for millions of Americans and to bring down the cost of prescription drugs.

I came to Congress, like many of my fellow colleagues, to protect healthcare for my constituents with preexisting conditions and to make healthcare more affordable and accessible. I myself have a preexisting condition, having suffered breast cancer twice.

My amendment today is focused on ensuring that our future pharmacists and those in the workforce are provided with materials regarding generic drugs and biosimilar biological products. Specifically, it would have the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Secretary of Education make every effort necessary to ensure appropriate outreach to institutions of higher education to ensure that students and faculty at schools of pharmacy are provided with appropriate materials.

This will allow for students and faculty to have material on how generic drugs and biosimilar biological products are equivalent or like brand-name drugs, the impact of these products on consumer costs, requirements for substituting these types of drugs with corresponding drug products, the impacts of these products on consumer costs, and more.

Pharmacists spend a great deal of time with individuals when they come to the counter to fill an order. They provide guidance and educate patients on the prescriptions that they are taking. I have even met with my own local pharmacists many, many times to discuss my own prescriptions.

They are very intelligent individuals who are relied on by their community daily. By instilling them with the information that they need to know to best help those whom they serve, we will all be better off.

Mr. Chair, I urge all my colleagues to support this amendment and the underlying package.

Mr. Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I yield myself as much time as I might consume.

Mr. Chair, I would like to say that, as a two-time breast cancer survivor myself, I have relied many, many times on the specific information and guidance that has been given to me by my own pharmacist.

Our pharmacists should be allowed to be able to give resource information to help the patients that they serve. By tying their hands and not being able to give them the information that they need to really best serve their patients, we do them a great disservice.

I truly believe that this information is very relevant. Giving pharmacists the ability they need to do their jobs is of great importance.

Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, healthcare is an issue that is deeply personal to me. I, myself, like millions of Americans, live with a preexisting condition.

As a two-time breast cancer survivor, I understand what it is like to have your life turned upside down by a diagnosis. Treatment was exhausting, both physically and emotionally. I did it all while raising my family and working full-time. I was terrified.

Despite being lucky in having health insurance through my job, I was still worried about my financial security. I was concerned about making it to my radiation treatments every single day, sometimes for weeks, and then back to work and then back home to raise my son, Jordan.

I had to do it, just like millions of Americans out there who share a similar story like mine. I truly don't know what I would have done or what would have happened if I had lost that healthcare insurance.

Over 300,000 Georgians in my State, in my district have a preexisting condition. Over 45,000 of those people are children under the age of 17.

My colleagues here are worried about the health and well-being of their constituents, and we have heard countless heart-wrenching stories from Americans across the Nation--our neighbors, our friends, and our loved ones.

Americans are simply worried about their healthcare. I am worried about their healthcare. They are tired of these games.

Let's stop playing politics with the health and well-being of the American people. It just needs to stop.

Last year, the Trump administration allowed the expanded sale of junk insurance plans, many of which do not cover maternity care, mental and behavioral health, or coverage to treat preexisting conditions.

Under these plans, women can be charged more than men; insurance companies can cancel coverage as soon as an enrollee gets sick. People enrolled in these plans might seek care for themselves or for a family member only to be left out in the cold without coverage.

No matter what the White House or my colleagues on the other side of the aisle cook it up to, the American people have said time and time again that they oppose plans that rip healthcare coverage away from those with preexisting conditions.

While the motion does attempt to fund vital public health services and programs that have long garnered bipartisan support, the funding levels fail to provide greater investments to these programs. I know that we can work together to fund these programs, but keeping the administration's junk plan rule on the books would harm public health and not help it.

We don't have to make these false choices. This underlying bill combines key pieces of legislation that lower drug costs, strengthen healthcare, reverse the sabotage, and rescind the administration's junk plan rule.

We are making it easier for American families to assess and sign up for affordable healthcare.

We are making sure that plans cover essential health benefits, like maternity care and treatment for substance use disorder.

We are making sure that patients do not face annual or lifetime caps.

We are making sure that patients are not discriminated against based on their preexisting conditions, like myself.

This is what we are elected to do for the American people.

Republicans plan to support protections for preexisting conditions, but they have failed to condemn the administration's decision asking the courts to invalidate the entire ACA. They have failed to call on the President to reverse course. They have refused to join us in condemning the administration's refusal to defend the law of the land.

If our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are serious about protecting preexisting conditions, they will support the underlying bill and defeat this MTR.

Action, not words, is what the American people demand, and it is what they deserve. Democrats are committed to putting consumers first.

We will fight relentlessly to protect individuals with preexisting conditions and expand coverage to more Americans.

We will make sure no one--absolutely no one--has to choose between a prescription drug or their mortgage. That is unconscionable.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join us in standing for ensuring Americans have access to affordable healthcare and prescription drugs. I stand in opposition to this MTR. I urge my colleagues to join me in opposing the political ploy that would hurt American families, those with preexisting conditions, and those who are trying to afford their healthcare and prescription drugs.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I will be short and to the point.

The number one way that women in America are being killed by their intimate partners is with a gun. We cannot address the epidemic of gender-based violence without addressing gun violence.

The NRA sees it differently. They don't want us to close the boyfriend loophole. They don't want to keep firearms out of the hands of those whose actions show that they are a threat. Their solution to gun violence is by arming women, selling more guns, even though we know that this would make women less safe.

Nearly 1 million American women alive today have been shot or shot at by an intimate partner. They deserve better.

Mr. Chair, I ask my colleagues to vote ``yes'' to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act for those we have lost, for those who have survived, and for the safety of all Americans.

Madam Chair, I thank Chairman Nadler for yielding.

Madam Chair, I rise in support of H.R. 1112, the Enhanced Background Checks Act of 2019.

After losing my son Jordan to gun violence in 2012, I began reaching out to other families who recently lost a loved one to gun violence. I would send them letters. That is how I came to know Reverend Sharon Risher of Charlotte, North Carolina.

On June 17, 2017, Reverend Risher lost her mother, two cousins, and a childhood friend when a young man shot and killed nine people during a prayer service at the Emanuel Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Today, with H.R. 1112, we can close the loophole in background checks for the gun purchase that led to their terrible loss. I support this legislation for Reverend Sharon Risher and the memory of her family and her loved ones.

Tragically, this was not the last time our country witnessed horrific violence in a place of worship. A few months ago, the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, took the lives of 11 human beings.

Our places of worship, whether they are churches, synagogues, mosques, or something else, should be safe places of love, support, and community. H.R. 1112 would allow law enforcement the time that they need to make sure all these community centers are places of peace and safety.

Yesterday, we voted to expand background checks. Today, we vote to make sure those background checks are thorough, even if a few of them take a few more days to process. Those few extra days will save lives.

In the days after the Emanuel shooting, I was there in the community praying with the community and dealing with their pain and loss. America deserves better than this.

Why not make sure that we are doing everything that we can to protect them? A few more days in making sure that the FBI has the ability to really soundly make a conscious and critical decision, America deserves that.

Madam Chair, I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting this bill.

Mr. Chairman, I thank Chairman Nadler for yielding.

Mr. Chairman, today marks a very pivotal moment in our fight to prevent gun violence and to ensure the safety of every community across our Nation.

I thank the more than 230 of my colleagues who have cosponsored H.R. 8, the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019. I thank Chairman Nadler, Speaker Pelosi, Congressman Thompson, and Congressman King for making gun violence prevention a priority in this Congress. I am so proud to be an original cosponsor of this historic legislation.

As many of you may know, gun violence is an issue that is deeply personal for me. Gun violence prevention and a desire to make meaningful change is the very reason I am here today, in this legislative body, speaking to every one of you.

In 2012, my son, Jordan Davis, was shot and killed by a man who opened fire on a car of unarmed teenagers at a gas station in Jacksonville, Florida. My son was only 17 years of age. Jordan would have turned 24 this month.

After my son's death, I dedicated my entire life to advocating for commonsense gun safety solutions, but it was the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, last year, that finally motivated me to join this legislative body.

The overwhelming bipartisan support for universal background checks symbolizes the power of advocacy and the incredible power of the survivors, family members, and students who have shared their stories as they advocate for commonsense gun safety solutions and demand that we act to address gun violence.

Today, we are truly taking this action. H.R. 8 will ensure that mothers and fathers have one less reason to worry. It will give students one less thing to fear when they walk into a school. Most importantly, it will make our communities and our Nation a safer place to live, and every human being in America deserves such.

Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on H.R. 8, the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019. It is time.

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to gun violence, we talk about Parkland, we talk about Trayvon Martin, and we talk about Jordan Davis. But I want to take a moment today for the victims whom we don't always talk about.

I want to talk about the nearly 100 Americans who lose their lives to gun violence in this country every single day.

I want to talk about the mothers and the fathers who have suffered tragic loss--the voices that we don't always hear.

Just last week, four lost their lives in a shooting just a few miles outside of my district in Georgia. Those four families are torn apart forever.

Each day, nearly 100 families are torn apart forever. For those loved ones, thoughts and prayers are simply not enough. We need policy and we need change. It is on us here in Congress to do something.

Mr. Speaker, I pray that my colleagues here and in the Senate will support me in acting to pass meaningful gun safety legislation

Madam Speaker, at its most basic level, the government should keep us safe. On the 34th day of the longest government shutdown in our Nation's history, hundreds of thousands of Federal workers tasked with keeping us safe are working without pay.

As the men and women of TSA, air traffic control, the FBI, the United States Coast Guard, and many other government agencies continue to perform their duties, many live with the uncertainty and fear of not knowing how they are going to pay their mortgage or feed their families.

In less than 2 weeks, millions will come to Atlanta, Georgia, the district I represent, and they will be flooding in for the Super Bowl. Having been a flight attendant for 30 years, I am very afraid. I am deeply concerned for the Atlanta airport's TSA agents, air traffic controllers, and for the Federal agencies tasked with ensuring the public safety during this event.

President Trump said he would shut down the government for a wall that he claims will make us safer, but, in fact, his shutdown has made us less safe. I will continue, along with my Democratic colleagues, to support bipartisan funding packages to reopen the government.

Mr. Speaker, 7 years ago, my son was violently torn from my life, a victim of gun violence, a victim of a person who had a gun who should never have received one.

Today, I join my colleagues and former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords to prevent more families from facing the horror and heartbreak wrought by gun violence.

Later today, Congressman King and Congressman Thompson will introduce bipartisan legislation to ensure that no one is able to get a gun from an unlicensed sale without a background check. Background checks empower law enforcement to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and domestic abusers. Quite simply, they save lives.

I am honored to cosponsor this bipartisan legislation for my son, Jordan, and for the safety of every family in this country. I ask my fellow parents, my fellow Members, and my fellow Americans to stand with me today, in support of universal background checks. Together, we will make our communities safer.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore