Floor Statements

Mr. President, today I wish to propose a new day in U.S. relations with the country of Cuba. With his recent imposition of new restrictions, the President presented one vision of that relationship-- one that looks backwards and reverts to a failed policy of isolation that has done nothing to improve the lives of the Cuban people and has harmed the American economy. I would like to present an alternative vision--one that looks to the future and at fostering the exchange of ideas and commerce between the two countries.

It is often noted that Cuba is less than 100 miles away, but decades behind the United States, in no small part because of the U.S. embargo. Decades of the same, tired, failing economic policies left the Cuban Government in place and only hurt the Cuban people and American farmers and manufacturers.

As Cuban-American relations thawed under Presidents Bush and Obama, the Cuban Government decided to try something different. Private entrepreneurs are operating an increasing number of restaurants, taxis, and other tourist-related businesses. Cubans are opening up their homes for visitors to stay in and selling products directly to visiting Americans. In addition, the government's grip on information and communication is necessarily weakening as technology and the Internet inevitably permeate the country.

The U.S. has come a long way since the 1990s and hardly resembles the world of the 1960s. Our policies toward Cuba should reflect that change. The U.S.-Cuba Trade Act of 2017 would completely remove the architecture of sanctions against Cuba and establish normal trade relations with that country.

I want to be clear that this is not a free pass for the Cuban Government. I continue to have grave concerns about its suppression of pro-democracy movements, but I reject the view that continuing to try and ostracize Cuba will bring positive change. The past five decades provide empirical evidence that it will not. I also reject the cynical argument that the U.S. must choose between engagement with Cuba and support for basic human rights and dignity. Indeed, if the past half century has shown us anything, it is that smart, principled engagement is the way to bring about greater economic and political freedom for the Cuban people.

Just as important as what the embargo means for the Cuban people is what it means for U.S. farmers and businesses. Even with the changes made by the Obama administration, it remains almost impossible to do business in Cuba. Cuba is a natural customer of the United States, but restrictions on credit and travel, among others, have severely hampered the ability of U.S. exporters to do business in the Cuban market. The question is: What are we getting by surrendering a market that should be ours to the EU, China, Brazil, and others? I am afraid that the answer is nothing.

That is why I introduced the U.S.-Cuba Trade Act of 2017, to finally put an end to the ineffective embargo against Cuba.

Mr. President, today I wish to recognize the historic event of the Great American Eclipse that will cross the continental United States on August 21. That morning, the eclipse will first pass over my home State of Oregon, then sweep across the U.S., ending in South Carolina. Millions of people across Oregon and the country are planning on watching those few moments when the moon will cover the sun and everything will go dark.

It has been 99 years since a total solar eclipse has occurred across the entire country, and whether someone is 5 or 95, this may be the only time they will ever see a total eclipse. It is truly a once-in-a- lifetime event.

This solar eclipse is a rare occurrence where the wonders of science will come right to the front doors of millions of people. That fact hasn't been lost on schools and science organizations throughout Oregon. Educators from the coastal areas of the State to the mountains of eastern Oregon have been working hard to use this eclipse as an opportunity to engage students in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, commonly called STEM.

One of the best science museums in the country, the Oregon Museum of Science Industry, OMSI, has planned an amazing viewing party, with the hope of engaging folks of all ages in the science behind the eclipse. Oregon native Don Pettit, who is a NASA astronaut, will even be there to share his experience of viewing eclipses from the International Space Station. Over the years, OMSI has been a leader in getting students excited about STEM fields. I am so glad the museum is using this eclipse as yet another opportunity to get communities involved in science.

Universities throughout the State are also doing their part to ensure students and community members get the most out of the event. In Corvallis, Oregon State University is hosting a 3-day eclipse event, with astronomy exhibits and a series of science lectures. I also understand that Portland State University, with the help of NASA, will launch video cameras attached to high-altitude balloons, giving anyone the ability to tune in and watch a live stream of the eclipse. Programs like these are so important because they make scientific events more accessible to the younger generations.

I also want to take a few moments today to recognize the local leaders,

first responders, and the National Guard who are working tirelessly to ensure that communities throughout the State enjoy the eclipse festivities safely. These public servants have been a shining light in making sure Oregonians and visitors alike have the best experience while viewing the solar eclipse.

As the eclipse arcs across the country and folks from the West Coast to the East Coast don their eclipse glasses to look up at the darkened sun, it is my sincere hope that it ignites a ray of passion in students throughout the country to explore STEM fields more deeply.

Mr. President, today I am, along with Senator Rubio, introducing the Corporate Transparency Act of 2017. This bill will help us end the abuse of anonymous shell companies by criminals who use these entities to launder money, finance terrorism, promote sex trafficking, and evade taxes.

Each year criminals use anonymous shell companies to carry out their elicit schemes. Viktor Bout, the so-called ``merchant of death,'' utilized a vast network of shell corporations, several of which were in the United States, including one suspected of having provided weapons to the Taliban. Another anonymous U.S. company owned a large share of a Manhattan skyscraper and used its anonymity to facilitate $4.5 million in payments to an Iranian bank that was designated by OFAC as a key financier to Iran's nuclear and ballistic missiles program. Anonymous shell companies have been used to rip off taxpayers as well. In 2010, Michel Huarte was sentenced to 22 years in prison after using a network of 29 shell companies in several States to defraud Medicare, using the entities to submit claims of more than $50 million.

Last year, the release of documents known as the Panama Papers leaked from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca highlighted the use of American shell companies to carry out potential crimes. Shell company abuse is not just in occurring in offshore tax havens, but right here in the United States, and this bill seeks to put a stop to that.

In the United States, company registrations take place at the State- level. The Corporate Transparency Act of 2017 directs the Treasury Department to issue regulations requiring entities formed in the United States to declare their beneficial owners--the real, natural persons who control each company and benefit from it financially. The bill would do this by setting minimum disclosure standards for States to follow. If individual States choose to collect this information on behalf of businesses formed there, then that's all that a new business would need to do to comply. Participation by the States is completely voluntary. If companies are formed in States that do not collect this information consistent with the new minimum standards, they will need to disclose their beneficial owners directly to the U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.

Collecting beneficial ownership information at the time a company is formed will offer the transparency law enforcement needs to investigate these kinds of financial crimes. Under the bill, the new beneficial ownership information would not be available to the public, but available only to appropriate state and federal authorities. Finally, the bill provides civil and criminal penalties for improper disclosure.

The bill is constructed to exempt many legitimate businesses, and the information requested is already provided by most companies in the normal course of business. Collecting beneficial ownership information at the time of incorporation relieves later compliance burdens for legitimate businesses, while at the same time prevents illegitimate businesses from operating in secrecy.

The House companion to this bill, H.R. 3089, was introduced with bipartisan support and efforts to identify the true owners of shell companies have the support of business groups like the Clearing House Association and the B-Team, law enforcement groups like the Fraternal Order of Police, and anti-corruption advocacy groups like the Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency (FACT) Coalition and Global Witness.

The Corporate Transparency Act of 2017 is a much needed step in stopping financial crimes and the abuse of anonymous shell companies. I thank Senator Rubio for joining me in introducing this bill, and I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting this bipartisan bill.

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

Mr. President, today I am, along with Senator Rubio, introducing the Corporate Transparency Act of 2017. This bill will help us end the abuse of anonymous shell companies by criminals who use these entities to launder money, finance terrorism, promote sex trafficking, and evade taxes.

Each year criminals use anonymous shell companies to carry out their elicit schemes. Viktor Bout, the so-called ``merchant of death,'' utilized a vast network of shell corporations, several of which were in the United States, including one suspected of having provided weapons to the Taliban. Another anonymous U.S. company owned a large share of a Manhattan skyscraper and used its anonymity to facilitate $4.5 million in payments to an Iranian bank that was designated by OFAC as a key financier to Iran's nuclear and ballistic missiles program. Anonymous shell companies have been used to rip off taxpayers as well. In 2010, Michel Huarte was sentenced to 22 years in prison after using a network of 29 shell companies in several States to defraud Medicare, using the entities to submit claims of more than $50 million.

Last year, the release of documents known as the Panama Papers leaked from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca highlighted the use of American shell companies to carry out potential crimes. Shell company abuse is not just in occurring in offshore tax havens, but right here in the United States, and this bill seeks to put a stop to that.

In the United States, company registrations take place at the State- level. The Corporate Transparency Act of 2017 directs the Treasury Department to issue regulations requiring entities formed in the United States to declare their beneficial owners--the real, natural persons who control each company and benefit from it financially. The bill would do this by setting minimum disclosure standards for States to follow. If individual States choose to collect this information on behalf of businesses formed there, then that's all that a new business would need to do to comply. Participation by the States is completely voluntary. If companies are formed in States that do not collect this information consistent with the new minimum standards, they will need to disclose their beneficial owners directly to the U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.

Collecting beneficial ownership information at the time a company is formed will offer the transparency law enforcement needs to investigate these kinds of financial crimes. Under the bill, the new beneficial ownership information would not be available to the public, but available only to appropriate state and federal authorities. Finally, the bill provides civil and criminal penalties for improper disclosure.

The bill is constructed to exempt many legitimate businesses, and the information requested is already provided by most companies in the normal course of business. Collecting beneficial ownership information at the time of incorporation relieves later compliance burdens for legitimate businesses, while at the same time prevents illegitimate businesses from operating in secrecy.

The House companion to this bill, H.R. 3089, was introduced with bipartisan support and efforts to identify the true owners of shell companies have the support of business groups like the Clearing House Association and the B-Team, law enforcement groups like the Fraternal Order of Police, and anti-corruption advocacy groups like the Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency (FACT) Coalition and Global Witness.

The Corporate Transparency Act of 2017 is a much needed step in stopping financial crimes and the abuse of anonymous shell companies. I thank Senator Rubio for joining me in introducing this bill, and I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting this bipartisan bill.

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

Mr. President, there has been a lot of talk here on the Senate floor about this so-called skinny health package, and if you believe the reports, the skinny health package was going to be written today at the Senate Republican lunch. On the day that the Senate is supposed to vote, the future of American healthcare may have gotten an overhaul between the salad course and the entree.

I would like to talk a little about where things are and really contrast these reports about the skinny health package with the process that brought together the Affordable Care Act.

Our colleague, the Presiding Officer, now serves on the Finance Committee. There were dozens of hearings in the Finance Committee about the Affordable Care Act, and there were dozens of hearings in the HELP Committee. Both committees had markups that lasted longer than a week and incorporated ideas from both sides. I was a pretty junior member of the Finance Committee at that time, and I remember a flock of Republican amendments being added, in the Finance Committee, to the Affordable Care Act. When the bill came to the floor, the Senate debated it for 25 legislative days. It was the second-longest consecutive debate in history.

We are not seeing anything that resembles that today. You have a rush job. So I am going to try to spend a few minutes talking about what comes out when you have a rush job and about some of the red flags that I think my colleagues might want to think about, particularly some on the other side of the aisle who are thinking about voting for this skinny package.

Any Senator who believes that Medicaid makes it out of the skinny package without taking a hit ought to take a look again. Senator Murray and I spent a long time in working with the Congressional Budget Office to, in effect, get them to do some analysis of some of the ideas that are part of a CBO package. What the Congressional Budget Office said-- and it is the impartial, nonpartisan umpire--is that under this skinny package that is not supposed to do any harm to Medicaid--and it is on the first page of the CBO report--Medicaid gets hit with a $220 billion reduction for over a decade under this so-called skinny proposal.

So if you are one of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle who say they really feel strongly about Medicaid and about seniors-- Medicaid, we all know, picks up the cost of two out of three nursing home beds, and it covers a wide variety of community-based services.

I have loved to watch the development of those community-based services. We started them in Oregon back in the days when I was the director of the Gray Panthers.

In this so-called skinny budget, according to the Congressional Budget Office, Medicaid would get hit with a $220 billion reduction. I think my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who are saying ``Hey, the skinny package isn't going to have any implications for Medicaid'' would want to take a look at it because I think the Congressional Budget Office is saying there really are implications for vulnerable seniors, for kids with special needs, for the disabled, and for all of those Americans who are walking on an economic tightrope every single month in balancing their food costs against their fuel costs and their fuel costs against their health bills.

The numbers on skinny repeal show that 16 million Americans will lose coverage and that premiums are going to jump by 20 percent immediately if it becomes law. Industry experts are saying there is not any way this can work. It just causes too much bedlam and uncertainty. It is like pouring still more gasoline onto the fires of uncertainty in the marketplace. Republican and Democratic Governors have come out against the skinny bill.

By the way, as the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee-- I guess we have 100 percent of the Senators who are here who serve on the Finance Committee. I do not even see Republican Senators making much of an attempt to defend the skinny bill on its merits. In fact, in the halls, many of them seem to be telling folks, including some folks, I believe, in the press, that they are kind of worried about its becoming law.

There are a few directions for this process to take. It is possible that, if you pass it, the House could just take up the skinny repeal and then they could pass it. My guess is that when people around here think about what that means and what those CBO numbers mean, the premium hikes and the implications for Medicaid, they will look at those CBO numbers and probably get a little heartburn--my Republican colleagues in this Chamber who are thinking about being for this.

The other possibility is that passing the skinny repeal bill leads to a conference. I am telling you that if it heads to conference, a skinny repeal is sort of a gateway drug to TrumpCare. The fact that a conference is going to fix every problem and solve every disagreement is just fantasy. If this gets to conference and if suddenly there is a new Republican replacement plan that everybody likes--that is about as likely to happen as my joining the NBA for the upcoming season.

Let's take an honest look at how the debate has unfolded.

Republicans have had 7 years to come up with a replacement to the Affordable Care Act that they can all agree to. Obviously, that has not worked out. In the Senate, the process flatlined until the majority leader began the shell game that has culminated in today's vote. There were not 50 votes for TrumpCare here in the Senate. There were not 50 votes for repeal. That is why a skinny repeal is the only proposal left on the table. As I indicated, who knows what was done at the Republican lunch today at noon between the salad course and the entree?

Yet let's be clear about what is likely to happen when the House gets involved. The guarantees that Members of this body will get to protect their constituents are out the window--kids with disabilities and older people--say, a baby boomer. My colleague in the chair, who is a skilled physician, understands this. You have a baby boomer who has had a stroke, who is in his late fifties, early sixties, and he is in a nursing home. He is going to really face some challenges in terms of how to be able to afford that care with the kinds of cuts that, on page 1 of the report to Senator Murray and me, the CBO has said it believes will take place in Medicaid.

We know these rural hospitals are the economic engine of communities. I have made eight stops on a rural healthcare listening tour in my home State, and what we see is, without rural healthcare, you aren't going to have rural life. It is going to be particularly important because other efforts could conceivably result in seniors between 55 and 64 paying five times as much as younger people and getting fewer tax credits. Nobody can honestly say that the millions of Americans with preexisting conditions will be shielded from discrimination, and what a step backward that would be.

Before the Presiding Officer was here in this body, 14 Senators--7 Democrats and 7 Republicans--joined me in the 2008, 2009 period. Many of them are still here on both sides of the aisle. Republicans were a part of the effort and Democrats were a part of the effort. We wrote a bipartisan bill that had air-tight, loophole-free protection for those who have preexisting conditions. We got it in the Affordable Care Act. All of the Senators who joined on that bill ought to feel pretty good about taking a big step to move America away from healthcare that is just for the healthy and wealthy. Now we are talking about the prospect of policies that will walk that back.

It is my view that the clear choice for my colleagues who don't like the risks in skinny repeal and don't like TrumpCare is to reject the process. It seems to me the surest way to prevent a bill you don't like from becoming law is to vote against it. Quaint idea: Just vote against it.

I want to turn, as well, to another bit of breaking news, which comes from our Parliamentarians who do so much good work, and they have an extraordinarily stressful job. Another key part of the Republican plan has been deemed ineligible in the last few hours to move forward via the partisan approach--reconciliation. The decision pertains to a proposal that lets States undo the consumer protections built into insurance marketplaces under the Affordable Care Act. That proposal will not get fast-track privileges or a 50-vote threshold under reconciliation here on the Senate floor.

Here is what that section of the bill was all about. I wrote a provision--and, again, our group of 14 bipartisan Senators, seven Democrats and seven Republicans, can take credit for this as well-- about an issue that the Presiding Officer and I have talked about a number of times: letting the States be the laboratories of democracy, taking the lead on creative health solutions.

So out of our bipartisan bill--14 Senators--we said that we are going to give the States the chance to do better. The States would have the chance to do better. When we did it, we got some flak from all over the political spectrum. But we pushed very hard, and we got it in to the final legislation. It was about providing flexibility to States because so many on both sides of the aisle--my guess is our friend from Pennsylvania, and anyone who is on the Finance Committee, has heard again and again that State officials, business leaders, and others have said: If you just give us the freedom, we can do better. They don't say: Give us the freedom to let us do worse. They say: Give us the freedom to let us do better.

That is what section 1332 was all about. It said that States could chart their own course on healthcare as long as they were going to do better--better for coverage, better for affordability. They made it clear that if you feel you can do better--if the Louisiana Legislature says: We have ideas for what works for Louisiana, which may not necessarily work for Oregon; give us the freedom to go do our thing-- that is in the Affordable Care Act, the freedom to do better.

I would be the last person to tell my friend from Louisiana, a skilled physician who has a great interest in health policy--I would be the last person to say: Hey, I am going to dictate to Louisiana what an approach involving a waiver should be all about. It is quite the opposite. I am prepared to say to Louisiana, to Pennsylvania, to all of our colleagues, if you have ideas that are going to do better by people--better coverage, more affordable--God bless you and your constituents. That is what 1332 is all about.

We said that all we are going to say is we have to have some basic consumer protection here. You can't just get a waiver and go off and do nothing or just spend the money on some pork kind of project; you have to do better by people--better coverage, more affordable coverage, having basic consumer protections. The Senate TrumpCare bill tried to basically throw those consumer protections out the window. States would be able to get waivers to opt out of basic consumer protections--basic, plain, vanilla consumer protection for coverage and affordability. My view was that kind of stuff is a backdoor way to set up junk insurance--junk insurance that wouldn't cover much more than gauze bandages and aromatherapy.

Some people may wonder why this is important today, since the Senate resoundingly voted down the Better Care Reconciliation Act earlier this week.

The answer is that my colleagues on the other side still seem to be trying to shoehorn this scheme for worse coverage--not better coverage--under a waiver into the skinny repeal proposal the Senate is going to vote on in a matter of hours. But the decision has come down. The decision has come down from the Parliamentarian that regulatory changes that gut consumer protection, that was right at the heart of that waiver in the Affordable Care Act, isn't going to fly. And, frankly, I think it calls into question what the Parliamentarian said-- it calls into question whether any of these big anti-consumer schemes are going to get 50 votes.

So this is yet more uncertainty ahead if Senate Republicans pass this skinny repeal bill and the debate drags on.

Now, at the risk of boring our wonderful pages and the staff who have heard me on the floor saying this before, there is a bipartisan approach. I think I have shown my bona fides over the years with respect to bipartisanship. I mentioned our universal coverage bill--the first time Republicans, Democrats came together and said that this is something where there is common ground because it is common sense. I have worked with colleagues who are perhaps some of the most conservative Members of the Congress on initiatives to move healthcare forward. That is what I have wanted to dedicate my entire professional service to--bipartisanship in health. Ever since those days with the Oregon Gray Panthers, that is what I always thought was the most important thing because if Senator Toomey, the Presiding Officer, all of our colleagues--all the people here--if you don't have your health, then pretty much everything else is uphill. So healthcare has always been the most important issue--an important issue we have to deal with in a bipartisan way.

I have said--which is why I wanted to alert the pages and the professional staff about the prospect of true boredom and just nodding off through the afternoon--that there is an alternative. If Republicans drop the reconciliation, the our-way-or-the-highway approach, colleagues on this side have said that they want to work on a bipartisan basis. It doesn't take rocket science to figure out what that needs to be.

The first thing that Democrats and Republicans would do is stabilize the private insurance market--the first thing. Everyone over here has said that the Affordable Care Act is far from perfect. We have colleagues here, including Senator Kaine with his reinsurance proposal, Senator Shaheen with her cost-sharing effort, Senator McCaskill to try to help areas where there is little or no coverage, and I am certain there are Republicans who have ideas that would be part of a good bipartisan package if we drop this our-way-or-the-highway partisan approach.

We ought to be working together to bring down prescription drugs prices. I have spoken on a number of occasions with the Presiding Officer about the fact that literally out of nowhere over the last few years we saw a whole industry develop around prescription drugs, where a bunch of middlemen are supposed to be getting the consumer a good deal on medicine, but nobody knows what they put in their pocket and what they put in the consumers' pocket. They are called pharmaceutical benefit managers. So I said: How about a little sunlight on that? How about a little sunshine, the best disinfectant?

I sure think people ought to be able to work together on those kinds of things. That, colleagues, is not what is on offer right now.

I urge my colleagues to say: We are getting out of this shell game. Nobody has to accept the skinny repeal option or the dictates of the other body. If you are unhappy with the option on the table--and I hope more people will be unhappy now that I have outlined what some of the key considerations are in this Budget Office report Senator Murray and I worked hard to get--I hope some people are going to think again, especially on the other side of the aisle, about voting it down. Twenty percent premium hikes--those go into effect on January 1 of 2018. And I expect we will have more information on it, but I think there are going to be 20-percent hikes after that. That is real. That is not what some interest group made up or some liberal partisan or anybody else who has an ax to grind. That is what our impartial umpire found.

So if you are unhappy with a proposal with those kinds of options, you ought to vote it down.

I want to close by way of echoing a point that so many colleagues on this side have said. This is not about saying: Look, we are just against what you want to do. Quite the opposite. For all my time in public service, I have said what I want to do is try to find common ground with people with common sense.

Let us defeat this skinny, sham, shell game kind of process that looks like what we are going to be voting on tonight and then get serious about doing what legislators do, which is not take each other's crummy ideas, but take good ideas and work on them in a bipartisan way.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, how much time remains on our side?

Mr. President, I will be very brief.

To respond to my friend from Pennsylvania, No. 1, none of what he has discussed has come up in the Senate Finance Committee. What I can tell you about past debates is that our side was always interested in reform-minded ideas, for example, bringing the private sector into the delivery system of Medicaid. That is No. 1. No. 2, we still have not seen the skinny bill.

I said earlier: Who knows what happened at the Republican Senate lunch between one course and another. We would like to see the skinny bill. I think, once again, we have heard from the other side that they disagree with the umpire. They disagree with the impartial CBO, and I think that is unfortunate.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, will my colleague yield for a question?

Mr. President, just very quickly, the Senator pointed out this analysis we have gotten where the premiums go into the stratosphere. Senator Murray and I worked a long time on it.

Wages for working people are going up about as fast as a snail trying to climb uphill. I am curious what you think that means for working- class families in Virginia, because I know in my home State--and Senator Merkley and I have talked about this--we have working families right now who every single month are walking on an economic tightrope, balancing their food bill against the fuel bill, the fuel bill against the rent bill.

Because my colleague was correct with respect to the fact that this would start, by the way, in January--this is not some kind of far- removed thing--people are going to feel the hit of these skyrocketing premiums right away. What does my colleague think that is going to mean for working-class families in his home State?

Thank you, Mr. President.

I thank my leader, Senator Schumer.

Colleagues, before morning, millions of Americans could be on their way to lives filled with healthcare misery, eye-popping cost increases, hollowed-out coverage, and gutted consumer protections.

Colleagues, there are already stories of Americans hoarding pills and clamoring for screenings because they fear what the future is going to bring. These are the Americans who took deep breaths of relief 7 years ago when the Affordable Care Act became law. Women were no longer penalized for their gender. Cancer survivors no longer had to worry about busting a limit on coverage and facing personal bankruptcy. Entrepreneurs with a big idea had the freedom to set out on their own, no longer tied to their employer insurance because they had a preexisting condition. Now all of them are looking at lives on hold.

The skinny repeal package makes a mockery out of the President's promise to lower premiums. He made that promise repeatedly to the American people: no reductions in coverage, no increases in premiums. This bill makes a mockery out of that Presidential

pledge. Don't take my word for it. The Congressional Budget Office--the independent umpires--have told us the premiums are going to jump 20 percent next year as a result of this bill. That goes into effect, colleagues, January 1 of this year. Some happy New Year: Your premiums have jumped through the roof.

Colleagues, vote for this and try to explain it to the people you represent and have them tell you that there is not going to be anything they can sacrifice to pay for that rate hike. Their wages are flat, they are on an economic tightrope, and they are going to have to have premium hikes with a 20-percent hit.

The Finance Committee is accountable for funds that are critical for women's health. This measure begins the effort to take away the right of women to go to the provider they choose. That, too, will be hard to explain to millions of Americans who simply want what we have: the right to make your own healthcare choices.

Colleagues, the damage may get worse. Skinny repeal could be the gateway drug to TrumpCare. We still don't know what is going to happen with Medicaid so seniors are worried, kids with special needs, disabled folks. If the Senate and the House head to a conference--that is a big ``if''--this body is going to face a radical set of demands from a very stubborn extreme on the other side of the Capitol.

My time has expired. I appreciate Leader Schumer getting me this time. The promises Senators have gotten to protect their constituents, those promises could well be in the trash can within 48 hours.

I urge my colleagues to think about what it is going to be like to go home and explain to their constituents how this misery--how this healthcare misery came to be a part of their lives every single day. I don't think they are going to be able to make the case.

I urge my colleagues to support Senator Murray on this motion to recommit.

I yield back.

Mr. President, I want to recognize Les and Eva Aigner, two brave Oregonians who lived through the horrors of the Holocaust. I want to honor Les and Eva in the Senate today and share how they survived Nazi atrocities and went on to live in Portland, OR, where they have taught countless young men and women about the dangers of intolerance and hate.

Eva Aigner, nee Speigel, was born in 1937 in Kosice, Czechoslovakia, where she lived with her sister, mother, and father. Two years after her birth, Eva's father lost his business license due to growing anti- Semitism, prompting the family to move to Budapest. There they hoped they would be safe from Nazi extremism, but even in Hungary, as a Jew, Eva's father struggled to find work.

As time went on, new laws forced Eva and her family to wear the yellow star, and Eva and her sister were soon unable to attend school due to growing intolerance. Soon after, Eva's father was taken to a forced labor camp where he was killed. Eva and her remaining family members were then taken to the Budapest ghetto where the Nazis selected Eva's mother for deportation to a concentration camp.

The remaining children, including Eva and her sister, as well as the sick and the old who were unable to work for the Nazi war machine, were taken to the Danube in the middle of the night to be shot. Eva and her sister only managed to survive because their mother escaped from the deportation train and bribed a guard to spare their lives. From there, they were taken back into the Budapest ghetto where they hid, without food or running water, until the Russian soldiers liberated the ghetto on January 18, 1945. The rest of Eva's extended family, who remained in Czechoslovakia, with the exception of one cousin, did not survive the Holocaust.

Like Eva, Leslie ``Les'' Aigner was born in Czechoslovakia. In his case, the small town of Nove Zamky, on June 3, 1929. He had two sisters--one older, one younger. The Aigners moved to Hungary in the early 1940s to escape the growing Nazi threat, settling in Csepel, on the outskirts of Budapest. Since Jewish children were not allowed access to higher education, Les went to a trade school to become a machinist. Eventually, it became unsafe for Les to even walk to school, and his devoutly religious family stopped attending synagogue for fear of attack. Les's father was soon taken to a labor camp, and his 16- year-old sister was taken to a paper mill to do forced labor. Les, his mother and his 8-year-old sister were then forced into the Budapest ghetto before being taken to Auschwitz. Upon arrival, the Nazis selected Les's mother and sister for the gas chambers and took Les to the camp.

Les spent 4 months in Auschwitz. He worked in the kitchen and survived by stealing food. During his imprisonment in the concentration camp, Les was injured after a guard threw a pitchfork through his foot. While Les was in the hospital with an infection from this injury, a Dr. Epstein warned Les that the Nazis planned to execute prisoners who were no longer able to walk. At Dr. Epstein's urging, Les limped out of the hospital in the middle of the night to avoid being taken to the gas chamber. Dr. Epstein, a prisoner himself, saved Les's life that night.

Les then exchanged his clothing with another prisoner who wanted to stay with his father in Auschwitz and was transferred to Landsberg, a sub-camp of Dachau. He performed hard labor for several months and was then transferred again to Kauffering Camp, where he contracted typhus before being sent to Dachau on the so-called Death Train.

By the time he arrived, Les weighed only 75 pounds. He was finally freed by American soldiers on April 29, 1945. It took over a month of treatment before Les was able to walk on his own. When Les finally regained his health, he made his way back to Budapest, where he reunited with his father and older sister. Most of their other family members had been killed.

After the war, both Eva and Les began to rebuild their lives in Budapest. They finished school and joined the workforce, Les as a machinist and Eva as an office worker at a collective fur company. In 1956, Les and Eva where introduced to one another by Eva's colleague, who happened to be a distant relative of Les. Les and Eva quickly became engaged and were married only 59 days later. When the Hungarian Revolution began against the communist regime, Les and Eva, along vat Les's father and stepmother, fled to Austria and then the U.S., eventually settling in Portland, OR.

Starting over in a new country was challenging, but the Aigners carried on and made a life in Portland, finding work and starting a family. Les continued to work as a machinist, and Eva worked as a cosmetologist, eventually opening her own salon. Eva's mother came to live with them in Portland as well. Les and Eva are the proud parents of their daughter Sue, and their son Rob, who blessed them with four wonderful grandsons. They are waiting to welcome their first great- grandchild.

Les and Eva rebuilt their lives, but they never forgot the horrors they had endured. As Holocaust deniers became increasingly vocal in the 1980s, the Aigners began telling their stories publicly and speaking out against discrimination and intolerance. They have worked with the Holocaust Memorial Coalition since its inception in 1994. Eva was even the vice chair of the project to build the Oregon Holocaust Memorial, which she said was the proudest achievement in her life besides giving birth to her children.

Many of my colleagues in the Senate have heard me speak about my own family's experience fleeing the Nazi regime during the Holocaust. We lost family and loved ones on Kristallnacht and at Theresienstadt. Tolerance, inclusiveness, and compassion are issues my family takes very seriously. That is why I am so deeply honored to be able to recognize the Aigners today and to pay tribute to the invaluable work that they do.

At a time when hate and intolerance seem increasingly pervasive in our social and political discourse, it is now more important than ever that we remember the horrors that so many people endured at the hands of the Nazi regime, the death and pain they suffered in the name of hate, discrimination, and fear. In Eva Aigner's own words, ``Discrimination can start with little things. It can start with as much as racial jokes or religious jokes. It can start with just small hatred which can grow. . . . The way to fight is to educate the young people. To let them know what discrimination can do. And how innocent people can get killed and go through such terrors . . . and have their family pulled apart.''

We must not forget; we must educate. We must educate ourselves and each other so that nothing like the horrors of the Nazi regime will ever happen again. Les and Eva Aigner have dedicated their lives to exactly that, and that is why I am so incredibly grateful to honor them today, for their strength, their compassion, their generosity, and their willingness to educate and make Oregon, our country, and our world a more tolerant, safer, and better place.

For that reason, I offer both Les and Eva Aigner my deepest affection and warmest thanks for using their voices to teach generations to come to never, ever forget.

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

Madam President, on this matter of repealing the Affordable Care Act, soon the Senate is going to vote on just whether or not to repeal the Affordable Care Act. I think it is important to note that this would walk back months and months of Republican promises to directly link repealing the Affordable Care Act with a replacement-- a replacement that would improve coverage, lower premiums, and be better for the American people. In fact, the President of the United States said repeatedly over the last few months that these would be inextricably linked, that repeal and replace would go hand-in-hand. That is not what is on offer right now. What is on offer are specific changes that would actually harm Americans.

For example, no more middle-class tax credits for healthcare--that is something that is critically important to the millions of middle-class folks who are walking on an economic tightrope every month, balancing their food costs against their fuel costs, their fuel costs against their medical costs.

I was struck this morning when I heard that, under this repeal approach, there is not going to be any real pain, that everything is just put off. Make no mistake about it. The pain for our families under this repeal measure is going to start right away. Nobody says they are going to be part of a marketplace if they believe it is not going to exist in a few years. Seventeen million fewer Americans are going to have healthcare 1 year from now. An analysis from the Congressional Budget Office--and this is only a week old--said that half of the country will have zero insurance choices in the private marketplace under this scheme.

I would like to repeat that so people understand that, as to this idea that there is really no pain here and that nothing starts for a long time, the Congressional Budget Office--our nonpartisan, impartial umpire--doesn't agree with that. They said just last week that half of the country will have zero insurance choices in the private marketplace under this scheme. That goes up to 75 percent of Americans with no options in later years.

So my view is that this is just legislative malpractice, first because of the pain and harm it is going to cause so many Americans. The Congressional Budget Office says that kind of misery is going to kick in quickly.

Second--and I don't think this has been discussed on the floor--this walks back months and months of Republican promises. The American people were told again and again that repeal and replace were going to be directly linked. The President said it multiple times. Then he went over the top and told people that they were going to have lower costs and better coverage.

I am happy to yield to my friend.

I would say to my colleague, the ranking member of the Budget Committee, that we are talking about one-sixth of the American economy.

My colleague is being logical, and heaven forbid that logic should be introduced into this, because we would automatically assume that on a matter like this--we are talking about one-sixth of the American economy--the Senate Finance Committee would have hearings. There have been no hearings.

None.

I can tell my colleagues that Senator Murray and I, the two of us--the ranking member on the Budget Committee and I--have actually made public the overwhelming opposition from providers on this. So, in effect, providers and patients are standing together in opposition to this.

They are opposed, as I have indicated. I think it is particularly important to see this provider-patient partnership that this time is saying the patients come first and this bill hurts patients.

That is correct.

What I can tell my colleagues is that, again, those hospitals have not been in front of the Finance Committee.

One of the things I appreciate about so many colleagues on this side of the aisle is that they said: Well, if we are not going to hear from these providers, like the hospitals, in the committee, we are going to go out to the country and listen to them. I have had townhall meetings throughout rural Oregon, as my colleague Senator Merkley has had. The rural hospitals, which are the economic engines of so many rural communities, are opposed to this legislation.

The AARP has also not been in front of the Senate Finance Committee. I want to say again that Senators have said: If they are not going to be in front of the Senate Finance Committee, where we ought to actually hear testimony in line with the regular order, we are going to go out to the country and listen to AARP members and organizations. They are overwhelmingly opposed to this because people between 55 and 64 would pay five times as much as younger people, and they would get fewer tax credits.

It is hundreds and hundreds of dollars and, in a number of instances, more. The reality is that I think they are going to have a lot of trouble getting coverage at all. The reality is, when you pour gasoline on the fires of uncertainty--and this is particularly important right now as plans are thinking about signing up--that makes it more likely you aren't going to have plans at all. The Congressional Budget Office has also found that the Paul legislation makes that worse.

While the senior groups have not been able to come before the Finance Committee to discuss this issue, I can say--and I have been working with a number of these organizations since my days with the Gray Panthers--that they are overwhelmingly opposed to this. I think, in particular, this idea that we heard from the Congressional Budget Office last week--that half of the country will have zero insurance choices in the private marketplace under this repeal scheme, and that it goes up--will just cause even more seniors to be against it.

Under this legislation, you would have a massive rollback of the Medicaid Program. So for all of those older people who scrimped and saved all of their lives--they didn't take that vacation; they tried to make sure they could educate their kids--Medicaid picks up the costs of two out of three nursing home beds in America. This legislation would produce a massive rollback of the Medicaid Program, and I believe so many older people are going to find long-term care unaffordable--millions.

That is correct.

That is correct. It would be accompanied with further misery because it would leave the millions suffering from opioid addiction with nowhere to turn for coverage as a result of this massive rollback in Medicaid coverage under this amendment.

Yes, the fortunate few would benefit under the House bill. There is no question about it.

To give my colleagues an idea of how regressive those efforts are, they would actually be retroactive. So this idea that these tax cuts for the well-to-do were in some way going to create jobs is just absurd. They are made retroactive. So they aren't going to be creating jobs going forward.

A few hundred families benefit so greatly that it could actually cover Medicaid expansion in several States.

That is correct. The special interests get very, very substantial tax breaks. Those working-class people lose tax credits, so they actually lose, and, in effect, those dollars can be used for the tax cuts for the fortunate.

There is nothing that would give Medicare bargaining power to make sure seniors get a better deal. There is nothing for the kind of effort our colleague from Vermont and Senator Klobuchar have pursued, which would allow, under circumstances where there were safety precautions, for pharmaceuticals to come from other countries. There is nothing to go after pharmaceutical middlemen. So, yes, there is nothing in these bills to hold down the cost of pharmaceuticals.

My colleague is right. There is a very regressive effort going forward in the House, the House Budget Committee, and, clearly, this is to try to set up tax cuts for the fortunate few.

I was struck by the fact that the President has talked about a 15- percent corporate rate. You lose $100 billion for every point you lower the corporate rate. The corporate rate is now 35 percent. If you move it to 15, that is $2 trillion that goes out the door.

Yes, I am very troubled that the House effort plus this legislation is really an effort to begin the unraveling of America's social safety net, and the funds that provide for those very vulnerable people would be used for these additional tax breaks.

I think my colleague is making an important point, as well as my friend from Vermont.

Part of the reason that many Republicans want these tax cuts for the fortunate few is arcane to people, pretty complicated. What they really want to do is get them now, to put them in the budget baseline in order to open up the opportunity when tax reform comes along to have even more tax breaks for the fortunate few. So, yes, Medicare and Medicaid are going to face real challenges.

In fact, as my colleagues know, the Affordable Care Act had a modest additional tax on people who earn over $250,000 a year, and it was to go just to Medicare. You see your paycheck--everyone gets a paycheck-- and the Medicare tax is right on it. The only people under these Republican plans who would get the Medicare tax cut would be couples who make over $250,000 a year.

When my colleague from Vermont asks ``What does this mean for Medicare?'' it isn't necessarily about some bill far off in the future. It is about right now. By the way, taking that money away--the money that comes just from the modest additional tax on couples over $250,000--reduces Medicare solvency by several years. It actually reduces Medicare solvency, which breaks yet another Trump promise not to in any way injure Medicare.

Two points are raised by my colleague--very good points. First, in the immediate, those people will go to the hospital emergency room, which means that, once again, we are turning back the clock toward approaches that don't provide better care at lower costs.

I wish to also mention, when we are listening to folks at home-- because they don't get to testify here in the Senate--people appreciate the part of the Affordable Care Act that ensures their lifetime limits on what they can be charged by insurers. Almost all of these Republican bills create an arrangement where a State could waive that protection. Not only would people who are facing cancer and serious illnesses and probably have to go to the hospital emergency room a fair amount be hurt now, but people who have employer-based coverage are going to be hurt in the future. So 160 million people don't even know what is coming out.

My colleague has described how the Senate works best when she says: Look, bipartisanship is not about taking each other's lousy ideas. Bipartisanship is about both sides getting together, having hearings, listening to all alternatives and ideas, and often coming up with something no one has thought of.

My colleague knows a lot about bipartisanship in healthcare because my colleague was part of our effort in 2008 when we put together the first bipartisan universal coverage bill in the history of the Senate-- seven Democrats, seven Republicans. By the way, a number of those Republicans are still serving in the Senate today. We know that is a better path.

To wrap up this portion of the debate, I wish to say to my colleagues that the best way to proceed is with a kind of two-part effort. The first is to say that we all agree the Affordable Care Act is not perfect. We are going to take steps immediately to stabilize the private insurance market.

We have a number of our colleagues--Senator Shaheen, with her effort to make sure people can get some help when they have deductibles and copayments; our colleague from Virginia, Senator Kaine, with reinsurance; Senator McCaskill with a fine idea to help areas that are bare in terms of no coverage. We have to move to stabilize the private market quickly because at the end of August, the plans are essentially signing contracts for premiums for 2018.

My colleague is absolutely right. We ought to knock off this partisan our-way-or-the-highway approach, move on a bipartisan basis to take steps to improve the Affordable Care Act now after we have hearings, input, and the opportunity to have people in front of the committees of jurisdiction. After that, we then move to the broader array of issues, starting with the immediate challenge my colleague has led on, which is clamping down on the cost of pharmaceuticals. You take steps to stabilize the market immediately, and then you move again in a bipartisan way on what our constituents are talking about at every community meeting, which is that their Social Security checks, the benefits they get, aren't coming close to keeping up with the rise in the cost of prescriptions.

I thank my colleague for her very helpful questions and our colleague from Vermont, Senator Sanders.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague for an excellent statement and for appealing to the better angels.

Mr. President, I am rising to speak about the Donnelly amendment, which is very much needed because the President--and now Republicans-- are walking back a clear commitment.

The President said in the campaign that he would not cut Medicaid, he wouldn't touch it, but even before the inauguration, the Trump team eagerly signed on to a Republican plan to slash it by more than $700 billion. They stared into television cameras, looked American voters in the eyes, and said that somehow these massive cuts to Medicaid wouldn't in any way harm the seniors. Medicaid picks up 2 out of 3 dollars with respect to seniors in nursing home beds and special needs kids and disabled youngsters.

When we hear that Medicaid picks up the cost of two out of three nursing home beds and compare that to the President's statement that he wouldn't cut Medicaid--wouldn't cut it--when we are now faced with a plan to cut it by more than $700 billion, one, that is walking back the President's solemn pledge in the campaign, and, two, it is going to make it harder for older people in this country to be able to afford long-term care.

The majority has brought the TrumpCare debate and the extreme Medicaid cuts that I just described directly to the floor of this Senate without a single committee hearing to justify this ill-advised policy.

Our colleague from Indiana, Senator Donnelly, has put forward an important amendment to stop this ideological crusade to unravel the Medicaid safety net. Senator Donnelly's proposal would send this partisan attack on Medicaid back to the Senate Finance Committee, where it should have been raised and struck down in the first place.

Mr. President, I am the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. My focus in public life has always been to try to find common ground with people of common sense. And I wrote with colleagues--many of whom still serve on the Republican side and on the Democratic side--a universal coverage bill that pulled together both sides of the political spectrum.

So unless you provide an opportunity to have a discussion about the Medicaid safety net in the Senate Finance Committee, you are not going to be able to have policies that get to common ground on this vital issue. What you are going to have is what is really on offer now--an anti-Medicaid crusade that is a grave threat to the health and well- being of tens of millions of Americans.

Over the last few months, I have heard Republican colleagues say that Medicaid is a disincentive to work and that there are too many able- bodied adults enrolled. If you look at the facts, that is not what the program is all about. Medicaid is a vital source of coverage for our neighbors and friends who live in poverty. It tells those families that healthcare is covered while they work to climb the economic ladder in the private sector.

In addition to that, for the older people I have mentioned--these are the folks who have done everything right in life. They went to school, they found jobs, they worked hard in their careers, they raised families, and they scrimped and saved all through their lives. Growing old in America is pretty costly. So what happens is that millions of seniors who have done everything right spend down their savings, and that is when Medicaid steps in to help. It covers two out of three seniors living in nursing homes. It is a major source of funding for community-based care, and people generally don't know that. Now they may have heard about nursing homes, but it also picks up the costs for community-based care, where older people are more comfortable, and it often costs less than institutional care.

Seniors who lose those benefits due to TrumpCare Medicaid cuts are going to have to find somewhere else to live. A lot of families want to be able to help elderly parents and grandparents. It is going to be pretty hard because a lot of them are walking on an economic tightrope, and if they go looking

for nursing home care, it is going to cost on average more than $90,000.

So it is seniors, and it is disabled folks who count on Medicaid to have a chance to be productive. With the Medicaid benefits under threat, people with disabilities are going to find it hard to be able to attain the productive role in our society that they so fervently want to have. Our communities are so much better off when folks with disabilities can contribute, and Medicaid makes that possible. It covers services that many private insurers don't. It helps people make it out of bed and provides safe transportation to jobs. It helps them avoid unnecessary illnesses. It is not a disincentive for people with disabilities to work; having the support of Medicaid is what makes it possible for disabled folks to work.

Across the country, there are millions of kids with special needs who rely on Medicaid every day for services--behavioral care services, mental health services. Mom or dad might have good insurance through work, but private plans don't always cover the care those vulnerable kids need.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for 1 additional minute.

Mr. President, I have commented on the secret process that went on in this discussion, but I will close with this: One version of TrumpCare has already been voted down here in the last day. Nobody knows where this debate will wind up, but what is important now is that Senators support the Donnelly motion. The Donnelly motion is going to ensure that the Finance Committee, where Senator Enzi serves so admirably, and all of our colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, is going to be able to look at this issue in a way that is going to bring the Senate together, not divide it, as we would be without the Donnelly motion.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Madam President, Team Wyden will shortly lose one of its stalwarts, but before John Michels of my Portland office takes his well-deserved retirement after two decades of service to the people of Oregon, I want to take just a few minutes to recognize his many, many contributions.

John joined my office in the late 1990s through a work-study program run by the Department of Veterans Affairs. He had previously worked in construction, and he served as a jet engine mechanic in the U.S. Navy before coming to my office, so suffice it to say that he was no stranger to long hours and tough assignments.

As a member of Team Wyden, John put his shoulder to the wheel to help other veterans when backlogs, bureaucracy, or red tape held up the care or the recognition they had earned. In his years of service, John has managed thousands of cases for Oregon constituents struggling with one Federal agency or another.

John has also always been a practical soul and has a passion for tinkering and fixing things. He brought these skills to bear as our resident IT expert and computer whisperer in Oregon.

Anybody who has worked in the government can tell you it can be tough. The pace can be grueling, the cynicism can be frustrating, and the bureaucracy can be maddening, but as John will attest, there are few more rewarding experiences than helping a veteran receive overdue recognition or bringing a new VA facility to a rural community or ensuring seniors and people with disabilities receive the Social Security benefits they so richly deserve.

John is not the type of person to trumpet his service from the rooftops, but he has an enormous heart and a passion for public service. The bottom line is that John has found ways to help me help countless people across Oregon.

Now, as John knows, we never really let anybody leave Team Wyden, so I am sure we will still call upon his wealth of knowledge and experience. In the meantime, I want to thank him for all the help he has provided over these past two decades. I have been fortunate to have him on my team, and we will all miss him greatly.

Mr. President, the pitch to Republican Senators this afternoon before the first vote was that it was nothing but a little bit of throat clearing--just a first step to get the conversation started.

Let's be clear, nobody can pretend the stakes aren't real now. In a few minutes, the Senate will be voting on yet another version of the Senate TrumpCare bill. I call it the BCRA 3.0. It features a special gut punch to consumer protection offered by Senator Cruz.

My view is, the Cruz proposal is a prescription for misery for millions of Americans dealing with serious illness and bedlam in the private insurance market. Forget, colleagues, all the talk about bringing costs down. This bill is going to send health expenses like deductibles and copayments into the stratosphere.

TrumpCare 3.0, BCRA 3.0, tells insurance companies: Look, you are off the hook for basic consumer protection. You get to bring back annual and lifetime caps on coverage, and those caps would hit people who get their healthcare through their employer, as well as those who buy it for themselves in the individual market. You can forget about essential health benefits. You get to flood the market with bargain-basement insurance plans, as long as you offer one, single, comprehensive option, the kind of plan that actually works for people with preexisting conditions and, by the way, you get to price that through the roof.

Under the Cruz proposal, we will be looking at a tale of two healthcare systems in America. The young and healthy are going to opt for the bare-bones insurance plans that don't cover much of anything, but there are millions of people in this country who cannot get by with skimpy Cruz-plan insurance. They are people who have had a cancer scare or suffer from diabetes. They are people who get hurt on the ski slopes or in a car accident. The only coverage that works for them will come with an astronomical pricetag.

There was no hearing in the Finance Committee, no hearing in the HELP Committee. Senators are flying in the dark, and as far as I can tell, the proposal is going to be before us without having been scored by the

Mr. President, before he leaves the floor, I want to commend my colleague from Connecticut for a very thoughtful speech. I think he has made the case that the challenge ahead is really a two- part drill--first, to stop something that is especially ill advised, and second, to then move to a better way that really focuses on sunlight and bipartisanship. So I thank my colleague for his very thoughtful comments.

Mr. President, I am here to speak about healthcare, but before I turn to that subject, I want to spend a few minutes talking about our wonderful colleague John McCain.

Some of the most satisfying moments I have had in public life have been serving with John McCain. When I came to the U.S. Senate--Oregon's first new U.S. Senator in almost 30 years--I had the honor of being chosen to serve on the Senate Commerce Committee, which was chaired by John McCain. And what an exhilarating way to begin serving in the Senate. We tackled big, meaty, important issues of the future--the question of multiple and discriminatory taxes on internet commerce. We focused, for example, on Enron and what went wrong there when so many consumers were ripped off. We dug into consumer rights. John McCain was an early advocate for saying that if you rode on an airplane, it didn't mean you ought to sacrifice basic consumer rights, and some of those same issues are getting more attention today.

Then, of course, we built on this floor the Y2K measure. When everybody was so concerned about what would happen at that time, Senator McCain gave me the honor of being his Democratic partner in putting together a bill. We had the benefit of incredible work from the private sector and first responders and smarter Federal policies. We all know that some of the calamitous predictions about Y2K didn't come to pass.

John McCain did some extraordinary work at that time. As a young U.S. Senator, what a thrill it was to be able to be involved with a real American hero on some of those first experiences I had in the Senate.

As we begin to absorb the news of last night, what struck me is that now we are counting on John McCain's legendary strength to give cancer its toughest fight ever--toughest fight ever.

I just wanted to come to the floor today and say we are rooting for you, dear friend. We are rooting for you and Cindy and your wonderful family, and we are thinking about you this afternoon.

Mr. President, before he leaves the floor, let me just commend my friend from Connecticut on a very thoughtful statement. He has worked on these issues for many years since his days as attorney general in Connecticut. He is, in my view, the Senate's best lawyer. So it is great to have a chance to team up with him and our colleagues.

I think this issue can really be summed up in a sentence, and that is this: Without net neutrality, you do not have a free and open internet because the essence of the internet--and I will explain what we have today--would simply not be the same.

Today--and this is what net neutrality is all about, in a sentence-- after you pay your internet access fee, you get to go where you want, when you want, and how you want, and everybody is treated the same. From the most affluent person in America to those who are walking on an economic tightrope every single day, they all can use the internet to get access to those fundamental opportunities that are so essential to increasing the quality of life for our people. This, for example, is how a young person will have a chance to learn. If they are in a small, rural community in Colorado, Oregon, or elsewhere, this is how they get access to the kind of information that affluent kids get, who might live in Beverly Hills or Palm Beach or in any one of a number of communities where there are affluent people. This is what puts that youngster on the same plane as the affluent person. This is how, for example, those who are searching for jobs can go to the net and quickly get access to information where they will have a chance to get ahead.

The internet--and a free and open internet--is particularly important to our startups, the innovators, and the small businesses that we are all counting on to have a chance to grow big. When you talk, particularly, to the small tech startups, they will say: Our goal is to be Google or Facebook. Innovation is what makes it possible to have those kinds of dreams. If you are starting small, with real net neutrality, as I have described it, you have the same chance to succeed as everybody else in America.

Now the challenge here is that very powerful interests--the cable companies, for example--want to change that. They want to change what I described as net neutrality. They would like to set up what they call priority lanes, special lanes, or toll lanes, where, if you pay more, you can get access to more. You can get access to more content, and you can get access to data and information more quickly.

What this really does is that it means those other people I was talking about--that startup trying to come out of the gate and be a success in the marketplace, students, and people who need information about healthcare and jobs and the like--are not treated the same way as the people with the deep pockets. All of a sudden their access to data and information is going to be different. It might be slower. Maybe they will not get it at all.

The big powerful interests aren't going to tell everybody in America that they are against net neutrality. They will not be holding rallies saying: We have gotten together to oppose net neutrality. They will not be showing up in Denver, Minneapolis, Portland, or anywhere else and saying: We are against net neutrality. The reason they can't is because the public overwhelmingly supports net neutrality, as I have described it.

They are going to say things like this: They are for net neutrality, but they just don't want all this government associated with what they have. They will be for voluntary net neutrality.

I know the Presiding Officer of the Senate has young children as well. I can tell you that we are about as likely to make voluntary net neutrality work as we are to get William Peter Wyden, my 9-year-old son, to voluntarily agree to limit himself to one dessert with his deciding whether he has met his limit. It is not going to happen.

Voluntary net neutrality isn't that different than what we have had in a lot of instances before we had real net neutrality. The big cable companies and others were always looking for dodges and loopholes, and they found ways to tack on fees and the like because that has always been their end game. Boy, it is a lawyer's full employment program because they have the capacity to litigate this.

So this idea that people are going to hear a lot about in the next few weeks--that they are really for net neutrality, but we will just make it voluntary--I want people to understand that the history of those kinds of approaches is not exactly sterling. I think it is about as likely to be successful as limiting my kid to voluntarily holding back on dessert.

I also want to make clear what our challenge is going to be about because the Federal Communications Commission--Senator Blumenthal talked about it and others--is going to be making decisions on this before too long. We know where the votes are. This is going to be a long battle, but one of the reasons I wanted to come to the floor today is to say that this is another one of these issues that is going to show that political change doesn't start in Washington, DC, and then trickle down to people. It will be bottom-up, as more and more Americans find out what is at stake here.

A few years back, I would say the Presiding Officer of the Senate-- and I see my colleague from the Finance Committee here, as well--and my colleagues will remember the PIPA and SOPA bills. These were the bills, PIPA and SOPA, that were anti-internet bills. As with so much, people can have a difference of opinion, and the sponsors said: We have to fight piracy. We have to fight piracy, people ripping everybody off online. To fight piracy, we will use these two bills to kind of change the architecture of the internet, particularly the domain name system, which is basically the phone book of the internet.

I looked at it, and I said: We are all against piracy. We are against people selling fake Viagra, or whatever it is online, but why would we want to wreck the architecture of the internet in order to deal with it? There are other kinds of remedies.

So I put in a bill with a conservative Republican in the other body to come up with an alternative approach, and I put a hold on PIPA and SOPA. Here in the Senate, at that time, 44 Senators were cosponsors of that bill. That is an army--out of the 100, 44 Senators.

Everybody said: You know, Ron is putting a hold on it, and, well, he is a nice guy and, you know, he is from Oregon.

Everybody smiled, and I said: OK, I understand that you think this is going to be a slam dunk, but I think I will tell you that you should know that there are more Americans who spend more time online in a week than they do thinking about their U.S. Senator in 2 years, and they aren't going to be happy with a whole bunch of powerful interests messing with the internet, just as we are doing with this situation where people want to unravel real net neutrality.

So a vote was scheduled on whether to oppose my hold--in effect, lift my hold--on this flawed bill, and 4 days before the vote, more than 10 million Americans called, texted, tweeted, and logged in to say to their Senator: Do not vote to lift Ron Wyden's hold.

About 36 hours after Americans had weighed in, the Senate leadership called me, not very happy, and said: You won. We are not going to have a vote. Your hold has prevailed.

I bring this up only by way of saying that it is going to take that same kind of grassroots uprising for Americans who want to keep real net neutrality, which is what you have after you pay your internet access fee, and you get to go where you want, when you want, and how you want, and everybody is treated equally in those efforts. For all of us who want to keep that, we need to understand that we are in for a long battle. We know where the votes are at the Federal Communications Commission, but that is just the beginning. That is just the beginning.

So now is the time to make your voice heard. Go to battleforthenet.com so your voices can be heard. Make sure that Donald Trump's FCC Commissioner knows your view that the internet is better and stronger with real net neutrality protections. Americans have only until July 17 to do this.

I have already been speaking out in other kinds of sessions. So I think I will leave it at that.

I wish to close by saying again that without real strong net neutrality, which is what we have today, we will not have a free and open internet for all Americans to enjoy. So I come to the floor to say this is going to be a long battle. Nobody thought we had a prayer to win the fight to protect the internet that was PIPA and SOPA, and I am sure a lot of people are saying that this is another one where the powerful interests are going to win.

I say to the Senate again: Not so fast. You are going to see the power of Americans speaking out. I urge all the people of this country who are following what goes on in the Senate today and in the days ahead to be part of this effort, because I think if they do, if we show that political change isn't top-down but bottom-up, it is going to be a long battle, but we will win, and our country will keep a bedrock principle of the free and open internet, which is real net neutrality.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, first of all, I wish to thank Senator Murray, a member of our leadership, for taking this time to talk about accounts from home, what we have heard from those we have the honor to represent, and I think this is exactly what is appropriate at the beginning of this work period.

I just come off of eight open-to-all townhall meetings in my home State of Oregon. Five were in counties won by President Trump, three were in counties won by Hillary Clinton, and the single unifying issue that dominated each one is that TrumpCare is a loser. Across the political spectrum--Democrats, Republicans, liberals, and conservatives--what I was told is that the Congress ought to set this TrumpCare bill aside, that the one Mitch McConnell has been working on ought to be dropped, and after it is dropped, Democrats and Republicans ought to get together and look for the common ground by trying to show some common sense.

I am going to spend a little time talking about what I heard, what people are concerned about, and then briefly talk about, as Senator Murray said, what we would like to do if our colleagues on the other side of the aisle will drop this ill-advised, ``our way or the highway'' approach and do what the Senate has traditionally done when we are talking about tackling a big issue, which is find common ground.

It doesn't get much bigger than healthcare. We are spending $3.2 trillion each year now on healthcare. It comes to something like $10,000 for every man, woman, and child. We are spending enough money; the real question is whether we spend it in the right place, and this very flawed TrumpCare bill will compound that problem.

During those eight townhall meetings over the past week, Oregonians asked me: When is this flawed TrumpCare bill coming to a vote? How are my frail, not physically well, older parents supposed to get by if this bill passes and they lose their health care coverage?

As I have talked about with Senator Murray, we know that Medicaid picks up the bill for what amounts to two out of three older people in nursing homes. What often is not mentioned is that it also covers home- and community-based services for seniors. I remember from my days as director of the Oregon Gray Panthers that the whole goal was to create this continuum of choices for older people and, as Senator Murray touched on, the older people who need nursing homes and nursing home benefits. She is absolutely right. We also need to protect the Medicaid guarantee for the seniors for whom care is appropriate in other settings, such as home- and community-based services.

At those townhall meetings at community centers and auditoriums, folks knew that I am the senior Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee.

We have another talented member from the committee, Senator Bennet, here, as well as my knowledgeable colleague from Oregon, Senator Merkley.

I have worked on these issues with respect to taxes and healthcare for some time, and I have really dedicated my professional life to trying to find that common ground, show common sense in the areas of healthcare and taxes. But the fact is, this version of TrumpCare is a tax break for some of the most powerful special interests masquerading as a health plan, and when Oregonians heard that, whether it was in a Trump county or in a Clinton county, everybody started nodding.

The secret is out. This is not a plan to fix anybody's healthcare or hold down the premiums; this is one big handout to the most powerful special interests. People heard that Republicans were saying those tax cuts were going to create jobs. That is not very likely when they have made the tax cuts retroactive. What that means--they made the big one retroactive to January 1--is that if you have a capital gain say in March, and if this bill is passed in its present form, if that capital gain is $1 million, you get a tax break of $38,000. That is not creating jobs, it is creating windfalls, and the American people have caught on.

Now that the Senate is back in session, the public is reading about the newest proposal on offer. It is a Hail Mary pass from Senator Cruz and Republican leaders, trying to put together $50 billion for their version of TrumpCare. And we know in the Finance Committee, they have billions and billions of dollars that they can use to try to find those extra votes.

I will tell you, this Senator Cruz proposal as it relates to healthcare is a prescription for mayhem in the private health insurance marketplace. It is going to mean misery for so many Americans dealing with illnesses. Forget the talk about bringing costs down. This plan is going to send health expenses into the stratosphere.

The plan tells insurance companies: You are off the hook as it relates to basic consumer protections. You get to bring back annual and lifetime caps on coverage.

Think about that. In the State of Alabama and everywhere else in America under the Affordable Care Act, the 160 million people who get their care through their employer heard about this bill and said: We are home free. It really does not affect us. They got a little extra bonus. The Affordable Care Act gave them a major catastrophic benefit if they had that employer coverage. With this Republican bill, all of those folks who thought they were home free with the employer coverage should know that once again there would be limits on what insurance companies could pay.

I will tell you, for anyone who is listening to this, if someone gets cancer at home, they are going to bust that cap in a hurry. This bill means they are not automatically protected. You can forget about essential health benefits. You get to flood the market with bargain- basement insurance plans as long as you offer one comprehensive option, and you get to price that plan through the roof.

If you pass this bill--the Cruz fantasy proposal--it is going to be a tale of two health symptoms. The young and healthy will opt for the barebones insurance plans that don't cover much of

anything, but there are millions of people in the country who can't get by, can't make it with skimpy insurance that covers nothing but stitches and aromatherapy.

There are people who have had a cancer scare or suffer from diabetes or people who get hurt on the ski slopes or slip off a ladder. The only coverage that works for them will come with an astronomical price tag.

By the way, the people between 55 and 64, who can get charged five times as much as younger people, get fewer tax credits under this Republican proposal. They can't get by with skimpy coverage. A lot of them have really serious health problems. Skimpy coverage for them is just a prescription for trouble.

The fact is, this new proposal basically starts marching America back to the days when healthcare was reserved for the healthy and wealthy. What I will say is that there would be plenty of opportunities for Democrats and Republicans to find common ground if this proposal is set aside.

Nobody has said the Affordable Care Act is perfect. What we would do is go to work to stabilize the private insurance market. That would be business No. 1. We would look at ideas, as Senator Nelson has just thoughtfully outlined, like reinsurance. Then a special priority of mine is to clamp down on skyrocketing prescription drug prices. I think there are a number of ideas that are teed up for both sides to come together.

I recently put in a bill called the SPIKE bill. What it says is that these big drug companies should have to justify their big price hikes. I don't think that is an extreme position to say they ought to have to publicly, justifiably make it part of the public record.

In the last few years, we have had a whole new industry emerge. They represent States and companies and labor unions, and they are supposed to be negotiating a good deal for patients. They are called pharmaceutical benefit managers, but we don't know what they put in their pocket and what they put in our pocket.

I have said: How about some transparency, folks? Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

Those are the kinds of ideas--reinsurance, stabilizing the private insurance market, clamping down on prescription drug prices, particularly using the power in the marketplace--that both sides ought to be able to get together.

The recess is over, but the healthcare debate is far from over. What I will say is what I told my constituents. I see my friend Senator Merkley here. We had rallies at home. I said: Folks, in stopping the McConnell bill before the July break, you proved that political change in America is not trickle-down; it is bottom-up.

For weeks before that July break, Americans of all ages and political philosophies called and texted and wrote and came to rallies and town meetings. They said: This TrumpCare bill is a loser for us. It doesn't work. Drop it and move on to approaches that involve common sense. Look for common ground that both sides could support. It is absolutely vital.

The events of the last few weeks have shown the power of the grassroots. I walked through for my constituents what could have happened if 2 weeks ago the Republican leader had brought his bill to the floor. It was in the morning. I described how the bill could have gotten through the Senate. Maybe the House would have stayed in; maybe the House would have passed it; maybe the President would have signed it. One of my constituents said that morning: If that had happened and we had lost the ACA, even though it is not perfect, that morning we would have been in mourning.

Let us show today that we can tackle this in a way that the Senate historically has worked best. Let's block the deeply flawed bill, and then let's turn around immediately to show that we can come together, find common ground.

I see one of our colleagues, the distinguished Senator from Virginia, who has one of the important reinsurance bills here. We have a variety of ideas that we can pursue, that I think would have appeal on both sides of the aisle, but there is a step you have to take before you get on to those commonsense ideas. You have to stop the flawed bill before the U.S. Senate at this point.

I ask the people of this country to continue what they have done over the last few weeks and show political change, bottom-up rather than top-down.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, the last few days have proven, once again, that political change in America doesn't start in Washington, DC, and then trickle down. It is from the bottom up.

Because millions of Americans called and texted and tweeted their opposition to an abomination of a health plan, that plan is not going to be on the Senate floor this week, thanks to grassroots America. It is so appropriate at this hour. I also want to make clear we have a bottom line for the next 2 weeks. We have an incredible amount of heavy lifting we have to do to make sure working families and seniors get a fair shake from the American healthcare system.

I say that because, as we speak, Senate Republicans are at the White House strategizing with the President. The horse-trading has already begun, and the Senate Republicans have a slush fund paid for by working families that contains hundreds of billions of dollars that can be used for sweetheart deals that would get them the 51 votes needed to pass this horrendous healthcare bill in the U.S. Senate.

Now I will turn to what we need to focus on in the next 2 weeks at townhall meetings, civic group lunches, discussions with rural healthcare providers. That focus has to be to highlight what this flawed Republican bill really means and how it can't be fixed no matter how much money the Republican leadership throws at these problems. This bill is a healthcare smash-and-grab, designed to benefit the fortunate few, and is paid for by hundreds of billions of dollars in reductions from Medicaid--tax breaks for the wealthy that Senate Republicans are so anxious to dole out, they are willing to make them retroactive. Contrary to what Senate Republicans say, their tax changes don't create jobs. They do create tax windfalls.

Exhibit A, under their bill, you have a $1 million capital gain in February, and, if this bill passes, that lucky person would get a $38,000 tax break. Many of these gains go directly into the pockets of America's 400 most affluent families, while disabled kids, those with opioid addictions, and families where a baby boomer has the misfortune of having a stroke and needs nursing home care face the prospect that the crucial health services they need--services that are life and death for them--will not be there because of this flawed healthcare bill.

Next, I want to point out that over the next 2 weeks, we are going to lay out how this legislation would send costs into the stratosphere for millions and millions of Americans. Start with older people who are about to get hit by what I call a double-age tax. If this bill goes through, insurance companies will have a green light to charge older Americans more than they charge younger people. As if that doesn't raise their costs enough, older Americans are also going to be forced to pay a higher share of their income on healthcare costs because the Senate Republican bill shrinks their tax benefits as they age. Older Americans need more healthcare. They can't afford to skimp out on bare- bones insurance. So many of our older people are going to see their premiums nearly quadruple.

It is not just older Americans who are going to see their costs jump. Right off the top, hundreds of thousands of middle-class families across the country are going to lose tax cuts for healthcare because the Republican bill snatches away their eligibility.

When it comes to the private insurance market, this bill is centered on a plan to push Americans into bargain-basement healthcare coverage. After all the talk about deductibles and out-of-pocket costs being unaffordable, this

Republican proposal ties middle-class benefits to high-deductible, low- value insurance plans. It is a sleight of hand to make it look like consumers are getting a better deal and lower premiums.

Here is the reality. Of course you can make premiums go down if you force people into insurance that only covers bandaids and a bottle of aspirin. When people get sick or suffer an injury, they are going to read the fine print on their insurance. With this legislation, if it were to pass, they would see sky-high deductibles and cut-rate coverage. For working families, they would face the prospect they would get buried under medical debt because their insurance doesn't cover the care they actually need.

Finally, not even people who get their insurance at work--those folks probably thought they were home free in this debate--not even folks who get their insurance at work are safe from the Senate Republican healthcare plan. Four million Americans are going to lose their employer-sponsored insurance coverage just next year if this bill goes through. Tens of millions of Americans could once again face some of the worst insurance company abuses--annual and lifetime limits on coverage. Those are limits the Affordable Care Act banned, but Republicans are proposing to bring them back.

Let's be real clear. If you bring them back and don't protect people from skyrocketing costs, it means that if they develop cancer, they could bust through their coverage limit, and, once again, we would go back to the days in America where those folks were forced into personal bankruptcy because millions of people without coverage will be unable to pay for the care they need. People with employer-based insurance are going to get hit with a hidden tax in the form of higher premiums.

So if an American listening to this is considering early retirement, think again. The cost could well be too high. If you were thinking of leaving your job, becoming an entrepreneur, and starting your own business, you can think again. Your costs could be higher under this plan, especially if you have specific medical needs.

Then there is the generation of adults in the workforce today--people who are middle class, who are doing everything they can to support their families and save whenever possible. They may not be thinking about the expense of long-term care, but the fact is, growing older in America really costs a lot.

Because of this bill, millions of people will no longer be able to count on Medicaid being there to cover their long-term care in a nursing home or at home where they are most comfortable later in life.

I want to close by way of saying that what we have to do now is make sure that--to beat this destructive Republican bill; this is the only way to do it--Americans keep tweeting, keep sending letters, keep finding rallies to attend, tell your stories about how you are going to do worse with this bill. And then tell your friends' stories and your family's stories. It is a virtual lock that this bill is going to come back around.

I close today by way of saying that grassroots America, by speaking out--the fact that they did that and did all that work I have described is why this flawed bill is not going to be voted on in the Senate this week. We need everybody over the next 2 weeks, seniors and working families and people all across this country--my message is that we need you to stay loud because that is the only way we will finally stop this bill in its tracks.

I yield to our friend from Maryland, Senator Cardin.

Will my colleague yield for a question?

I know my friend from Maryland is a real expert on this whole matter of private insurance, going back to his days in the State legislature, and I was director of the Gray Panthers.

I think what you are saying is that it is critically important that we get more predictability and more certainty in the private insurance market. What I am struck by is, of course, this is the private sector. This is not the government. This is the private sector. The President has been basically pouring gasoline on the fires of uncertainty in the private insurance market because he is always in or out on this question of cost sharing, and the private insurers then say: We can't really predict what our rates are going to be, and maybe we have to pull out or we have to raise rates.

Could the Senator again highlight his thoughts with respect to more predictability and more certainty? It is such an important point.

After my good friend from Maryland has made that point, I know the Senator from Delaware is interested in the same subject.

Will my friend yield?

The Senator, as a Governor, really has helped educate me over the years on this whole question of the States being ``laboratories of democracy'' and trying fresh approaches. Delaware has done that and Oregon has done that.

I ask the Senator: As a former Governor, what would it mean to you if you are staring at a 20- or 25-percent reduction in Medicaid? Because as you know, that is what is contemplated with the Senate Republicans.

I thank my friend. Would my friend like to add anything else or should we yield to Senator Cantwell?

Before Senator Cardin leaves the floor and we yield to our friend from Washington, who is also so knowledgeable about healthcare, on this point with the States being the laboratories of democracy, during the debate with my colleagues over the Affordable Care Act, we wrote a provision, 1332. It gives the States the authority to do better, to come up with, as the distinguished Senator from Delaware, Mr. Carper, said--it is a chance to do better and try out those fresh ideas on my colleagues.

The problem is, with the Senate Republican bill, they are talking about giving the States the right to do worse, to waive out some of these essential protections. Again, I think this is natural for something that could be bipartisan, where Democrats and Republicans could work together to really encourage States to do better. Let's not go the other way and abuse that provision in the Affordable Care Act so States can work.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Washington State who was for care coordination, moving away from fee-for-service, using bargaining power, locally driven approaches long before it really became a buzzword in American healthcare. I thank her very much for this.

Mr. President, of course.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague.

Senator Warner.

I thank the Presiding Officer. At this point, we are just going to hear from Senator Warner.

Mr. President, before he yields the floor, I just want to thank Senator Warner for his insightful comments. As a Governor, he really understands why a Medicaid cut of hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars is going to permanently damage the lives of so many people in Virginia. I thank him for his comments.

Let me yield now to Senator Menendez.

Mr. President, I believe we are very close to consuming the hour that the Finance Democrats have, so I ask unanimous consent that at this time Senator Casey be recognized for his remarks and at the conclusion of his remarks, I be recognized for some final comments.

To wrap this up, Mr. President, I was struck when Senator Menendez talked about the Senate Republican health bill being more for less. I think millions of Americans might say it is a classic bait-and- switch. After the horrible House bill was passed, Senate Republicans and the Trump administration promised something new. It would have more heart. It would be less mean. But essentially what they have done is doubled down on exactly what the American people rejected in the House bill--the secrecy, the fact that the breaks went to the fortunate few and the pain went to millions of Americans who needed nursing home care, who have youngsters with special needs, or who are disabled.

The fact is that the process Senate Republicans have used on this health reconciliation bill hasn't gone well. That is why they can't go forward with consideration of their healthcare bill this week. And it looks as though--I heard remarks from one of our senior colleagues early this afternoon--it looks as though the same darn thing is going to be used for tax reform. Once again, a bill processed behind closed doors, without any input from the other party--it looks as if that is the route that is going to be taken on tax reform. I think that is unfortunate.

I have made it very clear--very clear--to the Trump administration that the history of successful tax reform is bringing both sides in early and finding ways to secure principles that each side feels strongly about that the other can live with. There has been no such consultation--zero--with respect to this administration and Democrats on the Finance Committee.

I am struck, because I wrote, over the last decade, what are the only two bipartisan Federal comprehensive tax reform bills--first with our former colleague, the distinguished Senator from New Hampshire, Senator Gregg, and most recently with the new head of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Senator Coats, and we have had no consultation on the substance of tax reform. That is a prescription for trouble. It is, in effect, walking away from the history that the only way to get a sustainable, bipartisan tax reform plan is to get both sides together, not do what is being discussed now openly in the media: that the Republican leadership and the Trump administration are going to write a tax bill and then just pop it on the American people in the fall. And I anticipate it will be more of the same in terms of stacking the deck dramatically in favor of the fortunate few.

I say this because we heard again what appears to be the plan of the Senate Republicans to kind of double down on the flawed strategy of healthcare, which is just to do it in secret and then expect to see if maybe they can get a couple of Democrats to go along. Then they can say: Oh, that is a bipartisan bill.

That is not a bipartisan bill.

A bipartisan bill is the kind of work that was done in 1986 with my predecessor, Senator Packwood, and Bill Bradley of New Jersey, who was another tall Democrat on the Finance Committee. A big group got together and worked out a bill that made sense, broadened the tax base, and gave everybody in America the chance to get ahead.

My hope is that over the next 2 weeks, in terms of defeating a flawed healthcare bill and showing that there needs to be a different path for tax reform, the American people will keep making those calls, keep tweeting, keep texting, keep going to rallies, keep going to meetings where healthcare providers get together and say: Look, this healthcare bill that Republicans are talking about does not work for us, and it does not work for our parents and our grandparents and youngsters and the disabled folks and those who need opioid services.

Again, I thank my colleagues from the Finance Committee. We have had something like eight colleagues participate in this over the last hour.

I would just say to the American people that the reason we have been able to hold off this horrendous Senate Republican healthcare bill is that grassroots America showed again that political change does not start at the top and trickle down but comes from the bottom-up. It was all of that citizen involvement that caused the Republican leadership to put this bill off, but it is a lock--an absolute lock--that it is going to come up again in a couple of weeks.

As I wrap up my remarks this afternoon, I hope that over the next 2 weeks, the American people will be loud, will come out to their elected officials' events, and will tell them what they are for and what they are against.

On behalf of the Senate Finance Democrats, I yield the floor.