Floor Statements

I announce that the Senator from Michigan (Ms. Stabenow) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Leahy) and the Senator from Michigan (Ms. Stabenow) are necessarily absent.

Mr. President, I rise in open opposition to the nomination of John Bush, nominated to serve a lifetime appointment on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Federal courts of appeal have a significant impact on the lives of many Americans. Because the Supreme Court only reviews a limited number of cases each year, decisions by the circuit courts represent the final word on thousands of legal matters that involve a host of important issues.

The Senate has to take very seriously its obligation to consider candidates for these important courts. We have to make sure they have the qualifications, the temperament, and the judgment to serve for the rest of their lives. Based on Mr. Bush's record and his testimony before the Judiciary Committee, I believe he falls short of this standard.

Over the course of his legal career, Mr. Bush has made dozens of provocative comments, casting serious doubt on his temperament, his judgment, his impartiality, and his ability to serve as a fair and impartial judge.

Consider the following things that this nominee has said or done:

In 2008, Mr. Bush compared abortion to slavery, writing in an anonymous blog, I might add, that ``the two greatest tragedies in our country--slavery and abortion--relied on similar reasoning and activist justices at the U.S. Supreme Court, first in the Dred Scott decision and later in Roe.''

Senator Feinstein and I decided to ask Mr. Bush to explain this statement at his hearing. He did not disavow the comparison he made in this anonymous blog. Here is what he said instead. He claimed that he had referred to Roe v. Wade as a tragedy ``in the sense that it divided our country.''

I asked Mr. Bush to explain his logic, asking whether he would characterize Brown v. Board of Education as a case that divided our country. He answered: ``I wasn't alive at the time of Brown, but I don't think it did.''

That is an incredible statement made by a man who seeks to serve on a Federal circuit court for the rest of his life. His logic and his historical analogy have fallen apart. There is no dispute that Brown v. Board of Education, which ended up in the official desegregation of public schools across America, was a landmark Supreme Court decision that deemed racial segregation unconstitutional and, as a result, led to controversy and division across the United States.

I can't believe a man from Kentucky, a border State--a neighboring state of my State of Illinois--could not measure the impact of Brown v. Board of Education and whether it divided our country. That, to me, is incredible. The reason, of course, he didn't is because he didn't want to concede, quite obviously, that he was just opposed to a woman's right to choose, and this was a rationalization for this position.

There were many other instances in which Mr. Bush expressed provocative and troubling views. He wrote that public financing of election campaigns is ``constitutionally dubious'' and ``runs afoul of constitutional guarantees by forcing taxpayers to subsidize candidates' political speech and contravention of those taxpayers' First Amendment rights.''

This is a view which is hard to understand because it contradicts decades of Supreme Court precedent. Mr. Bush, seeking this opportunity to serve for the rest of his life on a Federal court, has now questioned a Supreme Court precedent which has been on the books for years.

He gave a speech where, sadly, he made an anti-gay slur about the town of Louisville, KY. He wrote blog posts supporting the nomination of a voter suppression advocate Hans von Spakovsky to the Federal Election Commission. In response to a written question I sent to him, he refused to disavow President Trump's claim that 3 to 5 million people voted illegally in 2016. He said it was ``the subject of political debate.'' That assertion by the President has been rejected and discredited by every objective person who has been challenged but not by Mr. Bush, who seeks this lifetime appointment to the court.

Mr. Bush wrote blog posts that repeatedly placed the terms global warming and climate change in quotes, insinuating they did not exist.

He described then-House Speaker Pelosi as ``Mama Pelosi'' and wrote that someone should ``gag the House speaker.''

He posted articles from right wing websites, speculating that former President Barack Obama was born in Kenya.

He wrote in a blog post during the 2016 Republican National Convention, ``Time to roll with Trump.''

The list of comments goes on and on. On a range of policies and legal issues, Mr. Bush has already made crystal clear where he stands.

At his hearing, Mr. Bush asked the Judiciary Committee to trust that he could completely set aside everything I have read into the Record this morning; that he can walk away from his personal views if he is confirmed to serve on the circuit court. Unfortunately, he has given us little reason to trust that assurance. He has no judicial experience demonstrating that he could be impartial. He spent his entire career in private practice.

At his hearing before the Judiciary Committee, Mr. Bush was asked by Senator Tillis, a Republican Senator: ``Do you think that impartiality is an aspiration or an absolute expectation?''

Mr. Bush responded: ``It is an aspiration. I will do my best to be impartial.''

In other words, Mr. Bush claims that he will try to be impartial but that the Senate shouldn't expect that he will be completely successful.

Here is what Senator Tillis, my Republican colleague, then said in reply: ``I actually have a concern with someone who thinks impartiality is an aspiration. I think it is an expectation.''

I agree with Senator Tillis.

I believe Mr. Bush's failure to commit to impartiality disqualifies him from this lifetime position.

Mr. Bush's views are far outside the judicial mainstream. He provided no evidence that he could set aside his views if confirmed.

I understand that Mr. Bush does check many of the boxes we have seen for recent nominees from this administration. Most important and absolutely essential to his nomination is the fact that he is a longtime member of the Federalist Society.

The Federalist Society describes itself as ``a group of conservatives and libertarians dedicated to reforming the current legal order.'' The Federalist Society is funded by big money, rightwing interests like the Koch brothers, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Ed Uihlein Family Foundation. This is the group President Trump personally thanked for selecting his list of Supreme Court nominee finalists. So far this year, every Trump judicial nominee who has had a hearing before our Senate Judiciary Committee has been a Federalist Society member. Coincidence? I don't think so.

I urge my Republican colleagues not to let the Federalist Society serve as the selection committee--the secret handshake--to become a Federal judge for life in the United States of America. We want a Federal bench that welcomes independent and impartial thinkers. Mr. Bush's Federalist Society membership shouldn't be his ticket to the Federal bench.

In conclusion, this vote, when it comes to his nomination, is really not a close call. It is clear that Mr. Bush has friends in high places, but he has demonstrated a temperament and a judgment which we should not put in a lifetime position on the Federal court of appeals. I urge my colleagues to oppose his nomination.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, let me thank my colleagues for coming to the floor and speaking on behalf of Native Americans and the Indian Health Service, its shortcomings and challenges that it creates for us.

I don't have an Indian reservation in my State, but I certainly have visited these Indian reservations in other States and believe we have an ongoing responsibility--social and moral responsibility--to those who were in this country long before many of our ancestors and who have not been treated fairly many, many times when it comes to the poverty they face in this country and the challenges they face.

It is as bad as or worse than any other group in America. We can do better, and we need to start with the Indian Health Service and health services. I thank my colleagues for raising that issue.

Mr. President, it is interesting, this is a historic week in the Senate because we have been engaged in a debate for weeks about what to do about healthcare in America. The Senate, of course, is under the majority control of the Republicans, as the House of Representatives is, and, of course, with a Republican President. They all came to Washington at the beginning of this year and said: The first thing we want to do is to repeal ObamaCare. We have said it for 6 years. We are finally going to do it. We are going to get rid of ObamaCare, the Affordable Care Act, once and for all.

They set out to do it in a variety of ways. President Trump's first Executive order to the agencies of the Federal Government said: Do everything you can to discourage ObamaCare. He turned around and did just that. His agency stopped advertising for people to sign up for ObamaCare. They were determined to put an end to it.

In the House of Representatives, they took a step beyond that. They introduced legislation to repeal it and replace it. What they replaced it with was a disaster. The Congressional Budget Office took a look at the Republican repeal plan in the House and said 24 million people will lose their health insurance.

Beyond that, they talked about the changes that would take place in health insurance policies with the Republican repeal plan. It passed the House by four votes, which meant that if two Republican Members-- and only Republicans voted for it--had voted the other way, it wouldn't have passed. It was that close.

Then it was sent to the Senate, and it was up to the Senate Republicans to decide what they would do with this bill and what they would do with the repeal of ObamaCare. They spent many weeks in conversation and discussion about what they might do. Thirteen Members, Republican Senators, sat in private rooms and talked about what they would do to replace ObamaCare.

Finally, they reported a bill. It turns out their bill was an improvement over the House bill. The House bill eliminated health insurance for 24 million Americans. The Senate bill eliminated health insurance for 23 million Americans. Still, when you look at it, it is a horrible thing.

In my State of Illinois, a million people in my State would have lost health insurance with either the House or Senate Republican bills. It is the reason there has been resistance in my State to this Republican effort from the start.

You would expect it on a political basis. Sure, the Democrats will oppose the Republicans on issues, but this went beyond it. There wasn't a single medical advocacy group in the United States that supported what the Republicans were doing, not one. The hospital associations across America, the medical society of doctors, the nurses, the pediatricians, they all opposed what the Republicans set out to do.

When it looked like there were problems in passing one version of the Senate Republican repeal bill, they sat down to rewrite it. As they sat down to rewrite it, they got into deeper water and bigger problems.

Senator Cruz, the junior Senator from Texas, said: Well, one way to bring down the cost of health insurance is to take out some of the protections of a health insurance policy. We can get premiums down pretty low if we take away the protections of a health insurance policy that are in the Affordable Care Act.

That was his proposal.

Just this weekend, Blue Cross Blue Shield and the major health insurance industry said that this will be a disaster. If you have some people buying real insurance and real protection and others paying rock-bottom premiums for little or no coverage, you are going to create two classes of Americans, and you are going to see premiums going through the roof for those who are buying full-coverage policies. They came out against the Cruz proposal.

This week, we returned to face the votes. We were supposed to be voting today, a vote on whether to repeal ObamaCare. As of last night, things started changing. Two Republican Senators joined two others and said they were opposing the effort, and so the Republican majority did not have the votes it needed to go forward.

They said: Well, at least we will vote on repealing ObamaCare.

Three Republican Senators have announced, as of today, that voting for simple repeal is something they will not do. Many of them make the argument that just repealing ObamaCare without replacing it is irresponsible. They are right.

If you don't like the current system, I believe you are duty-bound, as a Senator or Congressman, to come up with a better idea, something that serves America better. They have been unable to reach that point.

Where are we? At this moment, we are at a standstill. The Republican efforts to repeal and replace have stopped as of this moment. There may be a vote, an official vote this week. I don't know. That is up to Senator McConnell as the Republican leader, but it appears there is no plan coming out of the Republican side to replace the Affordable Care Act.

I am proud to have voted for it. I voted for it for very simple reasons. When it comes to health insurance, I believe that is one of the basics in life. I am one of those politicians who believes healthcare is a right, just like police and fire protection. It should be part of who we are in America. I don't believe it is a question of how rich you are or how lucky you are as to whether you have health insurance in this country.

We can do better as a nation. The Affordable Care Act set out to do that. We reduced the number of uninsured Americans with ObamaCare when we passed it 6 years ago by 50 percent. We reduced by half the uninsured people living in my State of Illinois. Many of them went to the insurance exchanges, bought private health insurance. If they had lower incomes, they got subsidies to help pay the premiums. Others picked up Medicaid coverage as their health insurance. It was significant.

I ran into people all across my State, from Chicago to downstate, who had never had health insurance 1 day in their lives. These are not lazy people. These are hard-working people who happen to have the kind of jobs that didn't offer health insurance.

Ray Romanowski, big Polish fellow, guitarist and musician in Chicago said: Senator, I have never had health insurance. I am a musician. Nobody was ever going to provide me with health insurance.

He said: Lucky I have it now because I have been diagnosed with diabetes. I am in my sixties, and I have, through the Affordable Care Act, health insurance through Medicaid.

Similar story, almost identical story in deep Southern Illinois. Judy, who works as a hospitality hostess in a local motel--she is the one who greets you with a smile when you come in for that free breakfast. Judy is 62 years of age. She never had health insurance 1 day in her life. She holds down two and three jobs at a time. The only health insurance she ever had is what she has now under Medicaid.

What is going to happen to those people if we eliminate Medicaid coverage--which the proposals before us suggested--if Medicaid coverage is cut back dramatically?

Those two people, Ray and Judy, are still going to face health challenges. They are still going to get sick and go to the hospital, but if they don't have health insurance, will the hospital treat them? Yes. What will happen to their bills? Their costs will be passed on to everyone else. That is the way it used to be done.

What we have learned this week in Washington, in this national healthcare debate, is there are of course concerns about whether the current healthcare system is what it should be, and I think it can be improved, but we have learned one basic thing. We are not going back. We are not going back to the days when health insurance companies could deny coverage to you or your family because of a preexisting condition. We are not going back to the days where they put a limit on how much they would pay on your health insurance plan.

Remember when you first realized that a $100,000 limit was not worth that much if you had a serious diagnosis or a serious accident? We are not going back to the days when that health insurance plan literally expired in coverage, forcing you and your family into bankruptcy over medical bills.

We are not going back to the day when families couldn't cover their kids coming out of college. The Affordable Care Act said you can keep your child on your health insurance plan as a family until they reach the age of 26.

Those of us who have had kids who have graduated college realize they don't always get a great job right off the bat. Some of them start as interns or part-time workers, and they don't have health insurance. They now know they have the peace of mind of the family health insurance plan.

We want to make sure we protect that. We are not going back to the day when those young people had no coverage at a critical moment in their lives. We are not going back to the day when we allow these insurance companies to charge whatever premiums they wish.

We put provisions in the law that limit the premiums that can be charged on Americans, that limit the profits that are taken out of health insurance companies. Those were moves that had to be made to protect innocent American families who, unfortunately, were struggling with medical bills before this law passed and now at least have some chance of paying for them.

What we learned in the course of this national debate is significant. We learned that if you put up a proposal, as the Republicans did in the House and the Senate, that takes health insurance away from over 20 million Americans, you have a problem. People are going to push back and say that it isn't fair to take away health insurance and the protection and peace of mind that come with it. If you come up with a plan that ends up dramatically cutting back on Medicaid, you are going to get a lot of people who are concerned about it.

Across America, the Medicaid Program as we know it does many significant things. One-half of the babies born in my State of Illinois are covered by Medicaid. Mom and her prenatal care, the delivery of the baby, and the caring for mom and the child afterward are covered by Medicaid. If you make a cut in the reimbursement for Medicaid, you will endanger the basic treatment needed to have a healthy baby.

The second thing we know is that Medicaid is critical for people with disabilities. I met a mother in Champagne, IL, and she came up and told me

she has a 23-year-old autistic son. It has been a struggle for her and her family, but now he has a somewhat independent life. She said: Senator, if you take away Medicaid insurance from him, I will have to put him in some institutional program that I cannot afford. There is nowhere to turn.

I also want to remind people that Medicaid pays school districts to take care of kids with special education needs, transportation, counselors, even feeding tubes for the severely disabled. That is an important part of Medicaid.

I haven't touched on the most expensive part of the Medicaid Program in America. The most expensive part is for those who are in nursing homes, those who are older Americans and need Medicaid to get by. They have Social Security and they have Medicare, but they need Medicaid. If you cut back on Medicaid as proposed by the Republicans in both the House and the Senate, who will take care of these elderly folks who are in a situation where they have exhausted their savings? Do they move back in with the family? Sometimes that is not even possible, but that is one of the prospects faced.

What we need to do is to accept the obvious. We have reached an important political milestone here where the Republicans don't have the votes to move forward, but we still have the challenge of the current system. I was proud to vote for it, but it is far from perfect. The current healthcare system in America, the Affordable Care Act, needs help, needs changes. We need to do it. We ought to just surprise the heck out of America by working together, both political parties, to solve the problems.

Let's identify a few of the most obvious problems.

No. 1, the Affordable Care Act in America today does not address the cost of prescription drugs. You ask a health insurance company: What is driving the cost of premiums? Prescription drugs.

Did you ever notice that when you turn on the television at certain times of the day, it is all about drugs? It is all about new drugs, things you can hardly pronounce. These new drugs are being advertised on television time and again. And then there is a 2- or 3-minute disclaimer: Be careful. If you take this drug, you might die. Be sure and tell your doctor if you have ever had a liver transplant.

I listen to all these warnings, and I am thinking, this is being sold in advertising for the general population? Did you know that there are only three countries in the world that allow television advertising of prescription drugs--the United States, New Zealand, and Brazil?

Why do the pharmaceutical companies advertise drugs on television? Certainly if you want to inform a doctor about a new drug, you wouldn't buy a television ad, would you? The reason they are on television is so that we, as individual consumers and patients, will walk into the doctor's office and say: Doctor, it took me five times, but I finally figured out how to spell ``Xarelto,'' and I want Xarelto as my blood thinner.

The doctor has a choice: He or she can explain to you that you may not need Xarelto, that there is a cheaper version of blood thinner or that this isn't the one that really fits your needs in this circumstance. Doctors don't do that. Many of them just write out the prescription. That is why the television advertising is taking place-- to convince the consumer, who asks the doctor and who ends up with the high-priced drug being scripted for them. That is the reality of why the costs of healthcare keep going up.

What does the Affordable Care Act do about that? Nothing. It does nothing when it comes to the cost of prescription drugs. I want these drug companies to make a profit, don't get me wrong. If they are profitable while looking for new cures, that is the way it should be. But when they charge through the roof and double and triple the cost of these pharmaceutical drugs, that is not fair. It is not fair to consumers, and it is not fair to taxpayers.

Think about the fact that many of exactly the same drugs made in the United States are sold in other countries for a fraction of what they cost in the United States. Even in Canada, they charge about one-half or one-third for many of the most popular drugs because the Canadian Government said to the drug companies in America: We are drawing the line. We are not going to let you charge anything you want to charge.

Why don't we do something in America to protect consumers? Why don't we at least inform people when pharmaceutical companies are overcharging so that we can put some pressure on them to stop? That is part of the change to the Affordable Care Act that I think will save us money and at the same time deal with an issue most Americans really are concerned about.

We also should be concerned about the fact that when it comes to the individual health insurance market, that is where most of the problems are. Six percent of the American population buying health insurance through the exchanges--half of them have to pay the full premiums, and some of those premiums go through the roof. Why? Because the people who are buying this insurance are usually people with a medical history or they are older folks and they want to have the peace of mind of coverage. The healthy, younger folks aren't buying it. As a result, the insurance risk pool gets pretty expensive when it comes to premiums. We need to fix that, and we can fix that. That is another thing on which we should come together as Democrats and Republicans to try to achieve.

For those who say: Well, I promised my entire political career that I couldn't wait for the day to come forward and vote to repeal ObamaCare, I just want to tell them that they should be aware that when the Congressional Budget Office looked at the impact of just repealing the Affordable Care Act and not replacing it, they said the following: This would force more insurance companies to leave the market immediately. It would increase premiums by 20 percent a year and double the price of premiums over 10 years, and it would take health insurance away from 32 million people.

So taking that vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act may earn you a cheer at some political rally, but it is not responsible. It is not good. It will raise the cost of health insurance for families across our country if we just repeal and don't replace, and it will take health insurance away from over 30 million people, according to the Congressional Budget Office. It is better that we replace it with something responsible, better that we take the current system and make it stronger.

This has been an interesting debate. I have learned a lot in the course of this debate because I went and visited the hospitals in Illinois. The Illinois Hospital Association opposed the Republican plan in the House and opposed the proposal in the Senate. They said it would cost us 60 to 80,000 jobs in Illinois and it would close down some hospitals we need in rural parts of our State, smalltown hospitals that are critically important. I don't want to see that happen, the people who live there don't want to see that happen, and you won't be able to keep and attract good employers and good jobs if that does happen. So I have worked with these hospital administrators and want to move forward with them on an alternative.

I will close by saying this: It is interesting how many people say ``I can't wait until I reach age 65 because I will qualify for Medicare.'' Medicare doesn't discriminate based on preexisting conditions and provides good health insurance for millions of Americans. It is an illustration and a lesson for us that if you have something that isn't driven by the profit motive, that people trust, that has provided basic, good care for Americans, good hospitals and good doctors, that is what people are looking for. Why shouldn't they? That should be part of the American dream. It should be part of our right as Americans.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, for the second time this year, Illinois communities are assessing damage and cleaning up after flooding. My thoughts and prayers are with the families and first responders in northern Illinois who are working to recover after heavy rain caused severe flooding in Lake, McHenry, Kane, and Cook Counties last week.

The water has started to recede in some communities, but in some areas, water levels will likely continue rising this week. Thousands of buildings--including homes, businesses, and schools--have been damaged by floodwaters.

Lake County has been one of the areas most impacted by this flooding. Last weekend, I visited two towns in this area--Libertyville and Gurnee--and I saw street after street of flood damage to homes and businesses. What I saw was heartbreaking. I spoke with residents who were concerned about being able to recover from the flood and resulting damages and who voiced the need to find long-term solutions that will mitigate the impact of future flood events. I am extremely grateful for the hard work of local first responders and county officials. Thankfully, there have been no reports of injuries or fatalities as a result of this historic flooding.

I want to acknowledge the dedication of both the State and local employees and volunteers who have come out to help at every level, from the Illinois Emergency Management Agency and the American Red Cross, to county emergency management agencies. Many volunteers have helped with sandbagging. County board chairman Aaron Lawlor has also been helpful in securing resources and making sure residents have information about where to find shelter and access cleanup supplies.

People from all around the area are pitching in to help their neighbors and even strangers protect property and get back on their feet.

I would also like to thank James Joseph, director of the Illinois Emergency Management Agency, for his hard work. He has been there during a time when Illinois constituents and communities need him the most.

The State has provided 850,000 sandbags and deployed an emergency management assistance team for flood mitigation and response efforts. Representatives from the Illinois Emergency Management Agency are working closely with local officials to make sure communities have the resources needed to protect critical infrastructure and clean up when water begins to recede.

The Governor has declared four counties State disaster areas. In the coming days, the State will work with FEMA and local officials to begin conducting preliminary damage assessments.

Once we have an idea of the scope of the damage, the Governor has the ability to request a Presidential disaster declaration. In the past, it has been challenging for Illinois to receive Federal aid after a disaster occurs, but the Illinois delegation and I stand ready to do whatever we can to help get any Federal assistance needed so that these communities can clean up and recover.

There is more work to be done, and cleanup may be difficult and dangerous, but I have no doubt the people who live and work in the impacted communities will make incredible progress rebuilding with the help and support of volunteers, local officials, and State agencies.

I want to thank everyone who has been engaged in the response and mitigation efforts and all those who will be engaged in recovery efforts in the weeks to come. We will rebuild, as Illinoisans always do, and we will be stronger for it.

I announce that the Senator from Illinois (Ms. Duckworth) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Missouri (Mrs. McCaskill) is necessarily absent.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

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

Mr. President, I represented the congressional district of Springfield, IL, for 14 years, and this is my 21st year in the Senate. It is a big State with 102 counties. We are proud of our diversity in our State, which runs from the great city of Chicago, to deep, deep Southern Illinois, to a town of Cairo, IL, which is literally south of Richmond, VA, by latitude. They grow cotton down there in the State. So it is a very big and diverse State. I am proud to represent it.

I have spent some time doing my best to understand the challenges that businesses, individuals, and families face and to measure their sentiments on issues over the years.

For the last several months, I have spent my time visiting every corner of downstate Illinois, which is the more rural, smalltown area of our State outside of Chicago. It is more conservative politically. President Trump ran well in some parts of downstate Illinois. And I have been in this area--representing it, growing up in it--to measure what I consider to be the topic and issue of the day, and that is the issue of healthcare in America. It is an issue which each of us takes very seriously and personally because each of us is called on in a variety of different ways in our lives to have healthcare for ourselves and our family--the people we love--at critical moments.

We are now engaged in a national debate about the future of healthcare in America. The Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the White House, and have been from the beginning opposed to the Affordable Care Act, which was passed under President Obama. I voted for it. I think it was the right vote. I think it has achieved a great many things. I hope we can build on it to make an even better healthcare system for our Nation. It is not perfect. There are areas that need to be changed, improved, and areas that I think need to be strengthened over the long haul to make sure America has more fairness when it comes to healthcare for our people.

Last week, I visited about a half dozen healthcare facilities in Illinois. I jokingly said to my staff that I have come to know hospital administrators in my State far better today than I ever have.

Here is what they told me. They told me the healthcare bill that Senator McConnell has proposed in the U.S. Senate would be devastating to the families, the patients, the employees, and the healthcare facilities in our State. They told me that nearly $800 billion in Medicaid cuts would cripple rural hospitals and health clinics. Not only would this harm patients in rural communities, but 35 percent cuts in the Medicaid Program would also cost jobs in Illinois. The Illinois Hospital Association in my State estimates that the Republican bill, which passed the House and now is being considered in the Senate, would cost us 60,000 healthcare jobs.

I went to Granite City, IL, which is near the St. Louis area. I met a young woman named Sam, who has Down syndrome and her mother Missy. They are worried about the Republican plan to cap Medicaid spending. Sam's health needs can't always be anticipated. There are not some that can be capped in terms of future needs, and the amount of care can hardly be determined in advance for this young woman who is doing her best to lead an active and involved life facing this disability, which she does. This is so true for so many people nationwide.

Some of my Republican colleagues in Illinois have said: We just don't understand why Medicaid as a program has grown so much. Well, it may be hard to understand until you look inside the program and realize what it does. Medicaid may have started as a small idea, but it has really grown into a major provider of healthcare in America. In my State of Illinois, it is responsible for paying for the prenatal care, birth, and care of mothers and their children after they have been born for more than 50 percent of the kids.

It is an important provider of healthcare resources to our school districts in Illinois, which count on Medicaid to help them take care of special needs students--counselors, psychologists, transportation, even feeding tubes for those who are severely disabled. It is a critical program as well for the disabled community, like Sam and young men and women who are victims of autism or Down syndrome who want to lead a full life but need health insurance. Medicaid is their health insurance.

One woman said to me in Champaign, IL, my 23-year-old son is autistic. He counts on Medicaid, and, Senator, if I don't have Medicaid, my only recourse is an institutional program that would cost us over $300,000 a year. It is impossible for us to even consider that.

So those who would cut back on Medicaid spending in the name of flexibility and saving money or generating enough to pay for a tax cut for wealthy people would leave people just like those I have described in a terrible circumstance.

I haven't described the largest cost of Medicaid. The largest cost in Illinois and across our Nation is the Medicaid services and benefits provided to those who are older--mothers, grandmothers in nursing facilities and care facilities

who count on Medicaid along with Medicare and Social Security for the basics in life.

I heard from Kevin. He is a worker from Urbana, IL, who is worried that the Senate Republican bill is going to increase his out-of-pocket expenses by thousands of dollars. He is worried because he fits into an age category which would see premiums go up dramatically in costs under the Republican bill. The Affordable Care Act, which we passed under President Obama, set limits on the increases in premium costs so no premium paid would be more than three times the cost of the lowest premium that is paid for health insurance in our country. Well, Republicans have changed that. In both the House and Senate, they have raised that to five times. So it means for people, particularly between the ages of 50 and 64, they are going to see a substantial increase in their premiums because of that Republican provision. People are following this closely enough to know that when premium costs go up for many of them, it becomes impossible to buy the coverage they need.

As I returned to Washington, I once again face the reality of what this Republican healthcare plan would mean. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office told us the bill would cost 22 million Americans health insurance coverage--cutbacks in Medicaid as well as cutbacks in private insurance. Think of that. I don't know how the Republicans in our State can go home and explain why a million people in Illinois are about to lose their health insurance in the name of healthcare reform.

I can tell you the notion of repealing the Affordable Care Act may have had some surface political appeal until you realize you might be 1 of the 1 million people in my State who ends up with no health insurance when it is all over. It would cut Medicaid dramatically, as I have mentioned, and then keep cutting--a 35-percent cut over the next 20 years--with devastating impacts on hospitals, clinics, and many other facilities.

By 2020, average premiums in the individual market would increase by 76 percent under the Republican plan. Costs would skyrocket even higher for seniors, rural communities, and those with medical needs.

What happens to people with preexisting conditions under the Republican repeal bill? One out of three Americans has a preexisting condition. In the old days, they couldn't buy insurance or, if they could, couldn't afford it because they had a history of cancer in their family, diabetes, heart disease. Well, this Republican plan would take away the protections of the Affordable Care Act. It would allow States to waive essential healthcare benefits, like maternity care, mental health treatment, substance abuse treatment. People in need of these services would be left to fend for themselves.

The Congressional Budget Office analyzed the Republican bill, and it said: ``People who used services no longer included in the Essential Health Benefits would experience substantial increases in out-of-pocket spending on health care, or would choose to forgo the services. Moreover, the ACA's ban on annual and lifetime limits . . . would no longer apply.''

With this scathing analysis from the Congressional Budget Office, what did the Republican leadership decide to do? Instead of addressing these challenges straight on, they retreated. They shut themselves off behind closed doors and tried to cut a deal within the 52 Republican Senate Members here to pass this measure, as bad as it is. There was not one hearing on this bill--on the Republican healthcare bill--no markups, no amendments, and no support from medical advocates in any part of our Nation. There was no input in the Senate from any Member outside the Republican caucus.

They want to call this bill right away, and it is understandable. The longer it sits out there and the longer people get to know it, the less they support it. You know we still haven't seen the final language. Why? Because Republicans continue to work in secret on a bill that literally impacts one-sixth of the American people and every single person in our country.

This measure affects everybody. Even if you get your insurance through your employer or Medicare, this bill would make Medicare go insolvent sooner and allow employers to, once again, impose annual or lifetime limits on care under their health insurance plans.

Now, the latest we have heard is that the Republicans are meeting in secret, making some changes to this bill. They may be throwing some money at the opioid crisis facing America, but that will not make up for kicking 15 million people off of Medicaid. The amount of money they are talking about to deal with the opioid crisis is literally inadequate to deal with the seriousness of that issue or to provide the substance abuse treatment people currently receive from Medicaid who will be cut off under the Republican plan.

Cutting Medicaid, our best tool to fight the opioid epidemic, and offering a coupon for drug treatment is a cruel step backward. If it ends up buying a vote on the Republican side, shame on my colleagues for selling out so cheaply.

Republican Gov. John Kasich of Ohio is not fooled. He called this idea of a special opioid fund to win some votes on the Republican side ``like spitting in the ocean.'' I called Governor Kasich this last week. He and I came to Washington together many years ago. I have known him, and I like him. We disagree on some political issues, but he is very forthright and frank. He has warned us that what is going to happen to Ohio is going to happen to the Nation, if the Republicans have their way with their healthcare bill.

We have also heard the Republicans are considering adding provisions that allow insurers to offer bare-bones plans. I have just heard some more about this today, and I believe the author of this idea is the junior Senator from Texas, Mr. Cruz.

Here is what he says: If your State offers a health insurance plan that complies with the requirements of the Affordable Care Act, then you may offer it to other consumers in the State insurance plans that do not. He says it gives consumers choice. Well, it sure does, but look at the choice it gives them because if he is aiming for lowering premium costs by offering health insurance plans that are junk plans, health insurance plans that are fake insurance, the net result is going to be people paying a lot more in copays and deductibles and a lot less coverage when they definitely need it.

There are a couple other things it will do. Because these younger healthier people will buy the cheaper plans believing they are invincible, it will end up raising the cost of premiums for those who buy other insurance. The discrimination, in terms of premium costs, will be dramatic, and that, in and of itself, could be damaging to people all across the United States.

So Senator Cruz believes that offering junk insurance plans and telling the consumers we are giving you a choice is going to answer the needs across America. It will not. It will raise premiums on everyone else. It will provide inadequate coverage for those who buy these plans, and sadly many of them are going to be facing deductibles and copays they just can't handle. That is no answer. It may be a political answer to get his vote, but it is certainly not a credible answer.

We have had this before the Affordable Care Act, and do you remember what it was like? People got sick and found out their insurance didn't cover what they needed. Women who were pregnant found out their plans didn't cover maternity or newborn care. People who were diagnosed with a mental health condition found out their insurance covered no treatment for mental illness. So what good is insurance if it doesn't care for the most basic and essential needs of Americans?

Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, we changed it. We required that policies provide real insurance for real families. Do you know what happened, in addition to providing more care for people across America? The number of bankruptcies, personal bankruptcies, have been cut in half since the Affordable Care Act passed. Why? The No. 1 driver of personal bankruptcy and family bankruptcy in America was medical bills--medical bills that were beyond the payment of an ordinary person. There are fewer of those today because of the Affordable Care Act.

Senator Cruz's plan for selling fake insurance or junk insurance plans that will not be there when you need them,

I can just tell you it means more business for the bankruptcy court. It would banish those with preexisting conditions to the world of sky-high premiums, all in the name of Senator Cruz's freedom of choice. Well, freedom isn't free when it comes to relegating so many Americans to such a precarious state when it comes to health insurance. No matter how much the Republican Senators tinker around the edges, they are dealing with a flawed, unfixable bill.

The American people oppose any bill that rips health insurance away from millions of individuals and families, they oppose any bill that causes nearly 1 million people nationwide to lose their jobs, and they are also opposed to a Republican health insurance plan that would cost coverage for half a million American veterans.

The American people oppose any bill that hurts those with preexisting conditions. They oppose a bill that throws millions of people off Medicaid and slashes billions in Federal funding to hospitals, healthcare clinics, and schools.

The American people oppose any bill that is rejected by every major medical and patient group. The Republican bill is opposed by the American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association, nurses, pediatricians, AARP, heart, diabetes, and lung associations. How can you write a bill that draws that much opposition? They did it. They did it behind closed doors, and they don't want you to see what they are doing with it now.

Finally, the American people oppose any bill that takes away nearly a trillion dollars in healthcare in order to provide hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans and large corporations. Case in point: Of the 145 pages of the Senate repeal bill, 94 pages are devoted to slashing Medicaid and providing tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans and pharmaceutical companies.

Last week, one conservative writer penned an article which said that it gives conservatism a bad name when we are giving tax breaks to the wealthiest people in order to cut and eliminate health insurance for the poorest people in America. That is exactly what this bill does.

I am glad the Senate Republicans have delayed their vote on this repeal, but many have not given up. In all of my townhall discussions, the plea from Illinois people has been clear: Improve the Affordable Care Act; don't repeal it.

So where do we go from here?

First, Republicans need to take repeal off the table. We need 3 Republicans out of the 53 to say this is the wrong way to go about it.

Second, President Trump must stop undermining the stability of the marketplaces with his uncertainty and sabotage.

Third, we need to work together on a bipartisan basis to strengthen our current system. We need to address the price of pharmaceutical drugs. The current bill and law does not. That is the biggest driver, according to Blue Cross in Illinois, of premium increases--the cost of pharmaceutical bills. We need to build competition through a Medicare- like public option available to everyone who chooses it across the United States.

Some Republicans, including Senator McConnell, have said that the Republicans have to do this by themselves because the Democrats refuse to work with them. That is simply not true. We are here. We have been here all along, and we want to have a hearing. Bring in some experts. Let's just have a meeting. That would be a breakthrough.

Democrats have asked the Republicans to join us. Let's sit down together, informally, like grown-ups, and address this issue in a responsible fashion. We are ready and willing to work on legislation to improve the individual market for the 6 percent of the people who purchase their insurance there. I fail to see how gutting Medicaid and throwing 22 million Americans off of health insurance in order to provide tax breaks for rich people does anything to help that 6 percent.

This is a critical moment when it comes to healthcare across America. It is unfortunate that we are now considering a bill that was revealed only 2 weeks ago, a bill that has never been subject to a hearing before any committee, a bill that has never been amended in an open process.

When it came to the Affordable Care Act, over 140 Republican amendments were adopted. The Republicans haven't offered us an opportunity to offer one amendment to their proposal--not one. It is a take-it-or-leave-it, closed-door deal. That is not the way the Senate was designed to work. It is not the way the American people want us to work. They expect us to work in a constructive fashion on a bipartisan basis to solve the problems facing our Nation. The biggest single problem is giving peace of mind to Americans and American families across the Nation that they have healthcare they can count on and afford.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I want to take a few minutes to recognize WATT Global Media, a leading provider of business information and marketing solutions for the agribusiness industry worldwide, headquartered in Rockford, IL. More than 100 years ago, on July 6, 1917, WATT Global Media was born.

WATT Global Media's history began in 1917, when J.W. Watt and Adon Yoder purchased ``Poultry Tribune,'' a magazine published monthly for just 50 cents for an annual subscription. Before Watt and Yoder bought the magazine, its circulation was about 5,000. In a few short years, these young entrepreneurs grew the magazine's circulation by 400 percent. Under Watt's leadership, ``Poultry Tribune'' quickly became ``America's Leading Poultry Farm Magazine'' for poultry raisers, peaking in 1940 with a circulation of more than half a million readers.

During the mid-1920s, economic changes in the poultry industry led to the creation of the commercial hatchery industry, which led the staff at ``Poultry Tribune'' to create ``Hatchery Tribune.'' In 1934, Watt added ``Turkey World'' to its growing list of publications. WATT Global Media, originally called the Poultry Tribune Company, changed its name in 1944 to Watt Publishing Company. In that same year, the company acquired Better Farming Methods, ``The business magazine for leaders who train and advise farmers.'' As the evolving poultry industry grew, so did Watt Publishing Company.

In 1949, Leslie Watt--the second generation of family leadership--was named president of Watt Publishing Company and expanded the company into international markets, acquiring ``Industria Avicola,'' a Spanish language magazine targeting the Latin American poultry industry. In 1962, ``Poultry International'' was created to cater to the poultry and egg industries throughout Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Asia. In the 1980s, Leslie Watt took Watt Publishing Company to China by establishing ``Poultry International China Edition'' and became one of the first publishers from North America to make Chinese language business-to-business magazines in the People's Republic of China.

In the 1990s, under James W. Watt--the third generation of family leadership--the company expanded its portfolio to include pet food. In 1993, the Petfood Forum was created and grew into the world's largest annual event of its kind. Overnight, Watt became the global pet food market leader for business information--what an accomplishment.

Greg Watt--the fourth generation President and CEO--modernized the company by taking it into the 21st century, expanding across multiple media channels, including online and digital platforms, live events, and magazine channels. In recognition of its global audience, the Watt Publishing Company changed its name to WATT Global Media in 2014. Today, WATT Global Media serves 180,000 professionals in the pet food, poultry, pig, and animal feed industries from over 140 countries.

I will close with this: In 1907, J.W. Watt came to this country from the Orkney Islands, just north of Scotland. He came in search of the American Dream, and boy, did he find it. Despite WATT Global Media's growth and many achievements, its proudest accomplishment is that it has been family-owned for 100 years, and this family business isn't going anywhere. I want to thank J.W. Watt, Leslie Watt, James W. Watt, and Greg Watt--four generations from the Watts family--for their service to Rockford, Illinois, America, and throughout the world. I know the good people at WATT Global Media will continue its simple guiding mission: ``to improve the health and well-being of people and animals across the globe.''

I hope my colleagues will join me in congratulating WATT Global Media on 100 years of accomplishments, and I wish them all the best for another century of success.

I announce that the Senator from New Mexico (Mr. Udall) is necessarily absent.

Mr. President, I was necessarily absent for the cloture vote on the nomination of Neomi Rao to be the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs within the White House Office of Management and Budget.

On vote No. 155, had I been present, I would have voted nay on the motion to invoke cloture on the Rao nomination.

This administration has dedicated itself to undermining many of the commonsense regulations that protect public health, workers, consumers, students, and the environment.

Ms. Rao's previous writings show that, as OIRA Administrator, she would likely continue this trend and actively work to prevent any new regulations from being implemented.

She has previously called for increased political oversight of independent agencies, like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and dramatically limiting the regulatory authority of other Federal agencies.

This is concerning as OIRA plays a critical role in the Federal regulatory process and often determines how new regulations are implemented.

Therefore, I would have voted against cloture on Ms. Rao's nomination as I do not believe she will adequately defend agencies' duties to set safety standards that protect the public.

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

Mr. President, the Senate will be going home this week for the Fourth of July recess, and most of us will be back in our homes with our families and in our hometowns and

moving around. I still think the topic of conversation is going to be healthcare.

I think this conversation and debate in Washington has really touched a lot of families and businesses and individuals across this country. The reason I say that is because about 6 years ago, I voted for the Affordable Care Act, what is known as ObamaCare. For the longest time, I was sure it was the right vote, and I am still sure today, but I wondered why people didn't appreciate it because what we tried to do-- and we achieved some success--was to provide health insurance for a lot of people in America who didn't have it. In my State of Illinois, we cut the percentage of uninsured people in half because of the Affordable Care Act. A large number of them are now covered by Medicaid, and a large number are able to buy health insurance through private insurance exchanges.

But for the longest time, when we asked people across America ``What about ObamaCare? What about the Affordable Care Act?'' we got mixed reviews. Less than a majority supported it.

Then we embarked on this conversation, this debate in Washington in the Senate over the last 6 months, and an interesting thing happened. When the Republicans, who are in the majority in the Senate and the House, who were determined to repeal ObamaCare, set out to do it, they found out it was a big, heavy lift.

So now, today, we have an interesting thing that has happened. For the first time in the last several weeks, a majority of the American people support the Affordable Care Act. All of those years after we passed it, when we were talking about the good things it did, people were skeptical, but when the notion of repealing it came up, people started saying: Well, what would I lose if you repealed it? And when they thought about what they would lose, they decided those things were valuable to them personally and to their families. And what were those things? Some pretty basic things--first, that you would have access to health insurance.

I have repeatedly told the story of my friend Judy. Judy is in hospitality. She works in a motel down in Southern Illinois that I have stayed in from time to time. She is a sweetheart of a lady. She is 62 years old and has had jobs that don't pay a lot of money, but she goes to work every day--there is not a lazy bone in her body. She is 62 years old, and Judy had never had health insurance in her life until we passed the Affordable Care Act. Now she qualifies for Medicaid, and thank goodness she does because she has been diagnosed with diabetes, and she needs a good doctor she can count on, and she needs good medical advice.

So when we said that we were passing the Affordable Care Act so that more people would have access to health insurance, it happened.

We also said we were going to change the health insurance policies you buy so that you don't get tricked into buying something that is going to provide protection but only enough and not enough when you really need it.

For example, there used to be lifetime limits. People would buy health insurance and say: I am going to keep the premium low. I will sign up for a lifetime limit. How could I ever need health insurance for more than $100,000 a year?

Well, it is an eye-opener, but there are many diagnoses or accidents that could happen to you next week that would cost more than $100,000. So a lot of people found themselves facing personal bankruptcy because they had a limit on their health insurance policy and faced a cancer diagnosis and knew they would have to spend $150,000 or $200,000 for the most basic care.

We also said: When you sell health insurance, you can't discriminate against people because of a preexisting condition.

Well, it turned out that insurance companies defined ``preexisting condition'' to include everything, such as acne when you were a teenager or asthma--you name it. In fact, they went so far as to say that being a woman was a preexisting condition. Some of those things made no sense, so we said: That is over. We are not going to let that happen anymore.

One out of three Americans has a preexisting condition. You can't discriminate against a person because they are of a family with a child who has survived diabetes or is living with diabetes or a spouse who survived cancer surgery. So we said that from now on, under the Affordable Care Act, when you buy a health insurance policy, it is going to cover the basics.

We did something else that I want to mention because I don't want it overlooked. There used to be a Senator who sat back here in the last row, in the second seat, named Paul Wellstone of Minnesota. Paul Wellstone was a great guy. You couldn't help but love him whatever your politics. Over here was Pete Domenici, and he was a conservative Republican Senator from New Mexico. Wellstone from Minnesota, Domenici from New Mexico--what would those two have in common? What they had in common was that each of them had someone in their family with a mental illness, and they watched what happened to their loved one in their family. The two teamed up and said: From this point forward, when you buy health insurance in America, it is not going to be just physical health that it is going to cover, it is going to cover mental health as well.

So many families are touched by mental illness, some very serious forms, some not so serious but need medical help, and they all should be covered. So they put that provision in the Affordable Care Act so that now, when you buy a health insurance policy in America, it is not hit or miss; it covers mental illness, as it should.

Then they added a provision that most of us didn't pay attention to, and we should, and we do now: mental illness and substance abuse treatment. Think of this opioid and heroin epidemic and the people who are dying right and left. Think of families who are absolutely consumed by the addiction of a child, of a teenager, wondering if they can get them into treatment so they can save their lives. For many of them, that health insurance plan is paying for that treatment--treatment that otherwise would come out of their pocket if they could afford it.

So we put all of these things into the law, and the law took place, and when the Republicans said they were going to repeal it, people stood up and said: Wait a minute. I have to face lifetime limits again? I have to face preexisting condition prejudice again? I am not going to have mental illness covered automatically or maternity care covered automatically?

Well, when people reflected on this, they realized their vulnerability. So simple repeal was not enough; the Republicans needed to replace. If they were going to eliminate ObamaCare and all the people protected by it, they needed to replace, and that is when the process fell apart. In the House of Representatives, they went through a process of writing the replacement. When it was all over, they didn't wait for the Congressional Budget Office to analyze it because they knew what was coming. The Congressional Budget Office announced that some 23 or 24 million Americans would lose their health insurance because of the plan that passed the House of Representatives. They also knew that people could again face discrimination based on preexisting conditions. They knew basic health insurance didn't include the protections all of us really need to count on.

Do you remember the provision in the Affordable Care Act that said your son or daughter could stay on your family health insurance plan until you reached the age of 26? It is pretty valuable, isn't it? That son or daughter, whom you like a lot and helped get through college, doing internships and looking for a job--you wanted to make sure they have health insurance, didn't you? That was part of the Affordable Care Act, and we want to make sure the guarantee remains in any future change of the law too.

The House of Representatives passed their measure, and, unfortunately, it was a partisan roll call; only Republicans voted for it. It passed by four votes. If two Republican Congressmen had changed their votes, it would not have passed.

Then the measure came over to the Senate, as we remember from our civics lessons, and the Senate had its chance. So what happened? We had a chance to take this question to the committees of the U.S. Senate-- Labor

and the Health and Education Committee, which is chaired by Senator Lamar Alexander, a friend of mine, Republican of Tennessee, and the ranking member, Senator Patty Murray of Washington. We had a chance to take the bill to the committee and to debate a better approach in the Senate, to have public hearings and witnesses. But we didn't do that.

Instead, the Republican majority said: We are going to do this on our own. We don't need any Democratic input. Thirteen Republican Senators will meet in a room and write the alternative to the House healthcare replacement bill, and they did. It went on for weeks, and no one saw it. There were no reports of what it included and what was inside of it. Then, 6 days ago--6 days ago--it was announced. We took a look at it, and it wasn't that much different from what the House had done.

The Congressional Budget Office released a report on Monday of this week and said that 22 million Americans would lose their health insurance under the Republican healthcare plan--22 million. And--this part was really troubling--there would be a dramatic increase in premium costs for people between the ages of 50 and 64. Some of them would see increases of up to $8,400 a year in premium costs because of the Senate Republican plan.

What was the reaction of the medical professionals across my State to both the House Republican plan and the Senate Republican plan? It was the same reaction. They said: Senator, vote against it.

The Illinois Hospital Association said that if we cut back on Medicaid, hospitals--particularly rural hospitals and downstate hospitals--will have to cut back in services and may face closure.

The doctors in my State, the Illinois State Medical Society, came forward and said: Vote against the Senate Republican plan and the House Republican plan because we know what happens when people lose health insurance. They still get sick. They don't come to see us early on when we can prevent things from getting worse; they come to see us when things are pretty bad and pretty expensive and pretty dangerous.

So the doctors opposed it, the nurses opposed it, the pediatricians opposed it. Not one single medical advocacy group in Illinois supported the Republican bill, which was unveiled 6 days ago.

When it came to preexisting conditions, it wasn't just the medical groups that opposed the Senate bill. The cancer society, the heart association, the lung association--most of the major disease groups stepped up and said: The preexisting condition provisions in this bill are unacceptable, and, sadly, the policies that are going to be sold may not cover the basics that people absolutely need.

Then the other thing came out. What drove this whole debate, what started healthcare reform in the House of Representatives and in the Senate was not healthcare reform, but a tax cut. You see, the Affordable Care Act imposed new taxes, particularly on higher income individuals, and the money from those taxes went into sponsoring people into Medicaid and helping people pay their health insurance premiums. The Republicans in both the House and the Senate said: The first thing we will do is cut those taxes--about $700 billion worth of taxes. Ultimately, they took $1.1 trillion out of our healthcare system with this tax cut and other cuts. When you pull that kind of money out of healthcare in America, fewer people have health insurance, fewer people have a helping hand when it comes to paying their premiums.

The reaction to the Senate Republican bill over the last 6 days has been growing opposition--growing opposition, until yesterday. Senator McConnell announced: We are not going to vote on it this week. We were supposed to, but we are not going to vote on it this week. He said that he may return to it when we come back from the July 4th recess.

Here is the point I wanted to make on the floor today. I am glad we have reached the point that these proposals from the House and the Senate are not going to move forward quickly to become the law of the land. Too many people would be hurt--too many innocent people. Too many families would lose their health insurance. The cost of health insurance would go up dramatically. The premiums would go up, particularly for people over the age of 50. We would see hospitals facing closure across our States. We would see cutbacks in treatment for mental illness and substance abuse. The list goes on and on. It would have been a terrible outcome, and certainly doing this in order to give a tax cut to the wealthy people of this country makes no sense.

Incidentally, how much is the tax cut? If your annual income is $1 million a year, under the Republican plan, your tax cut is over $50,000 a year. The people who are wealthy aren't asking me for that tax cut, and the people who will suffer because of it are folks who aren't making anywhere near $1 million a year.

Here is what we need to acknowledge: The current healthcare system in America needs to be improved. There are things in the Affordable Care Act that need to be addressed, and we need to do it in an honest fashion, and we need to do it on a bipartisan basis.

I have talked to some Republican Senators. Senator McConnell has pulled this bill back, and they want to sit down and talk.

Senator McConnell said that there will be no conversations with Democrats; Republicans will do it by themselves. I hope over the Fourth of July he reflects on that because there are Democratic Senators who, in good faith, want to sit down and make a better healthcare system for America so that more people have the peace of mind and security of health insurance and so that it is more affordable for families all across the board.

The biggest, toughest part of healthcare today is the so-called individual health insurance market; 5 or 6 percent of people who need to buy health insurance plans don't have it where they work, and they don't qualify for Medicaid. Those are the ones who are seeing their premiums spike. Can't we take the collective wisdom of Senators-- Democrats and Republicans--and sit down and address that problem effectively? Of course we can, but we need to have a starting point.

So my plea to the Republican leadership is to listen carefully, as our Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, said yesterday. Once you take repeal off the table, once you take this massive tax cut for the wealthy off the table, we are ready to pull up a chair and sit down at the table.

Wouldn't it be a breath of fresh air in America in this day and age, in light of all that is going on, if Democrats and Republicans worked constructively together to make the healthcare system better, more affordable, and stronger for families and businesses across our Nation? I think that is why we were sent here. I think that is the reason we are supposed to be here, and I sincerely hope that happens next.

So we are ending the debate in the Senate this week, but we are not ending the debate in America. I urge those who think this is an important issue, and I am one of them, to speak up and to go home--I am going home soon--and to meet with people and have a conversation about where we go next as a nation. We can solve this problem, and I know we can do it in a constructive way.

If we show that kind of bipartisan leadership in the Senate, I think the House will join us. I think they will do the same thing. I think they can have a bipartisan approach too. What a relief it would be, with all of the breakdown in comity, all of the breakdown in communications politically, the warring camps that have become the American political scene. If we can show why there is a Senate and why there is a House and why people run for these offices--it is to solve problems, not to put out a press release, not to stake out a political position, but to solve a problem. This is a problem that needs solving.

I hope that over the next week, both parties will reflect on it, and when we return after the Fourth of July recess, we can roll up our sleeves and go to work.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.