Pennsylvania, wisconsin. We are glad to have the great lakes represented here today. We thank everyone for tuning in to the livestream. We hope you will share your story. Please go to americaspeaksout. Or trumpcare. This is an ongoing conversation that we want to have, not just today. We know that there are other Critical Issues that have come up, but we feel it is so important that we remain focused on one of the most important issues to all of us as americans and our families. The ability to see a doctor, take our child to the doctor and have a for double medical care when you need it. Last week, republicans passed a bill that is a triple whammy for families. In my state of michigan and across the country. Higher costs, Less Health Care, forto pay for tax cuts millionaires and billionaires. Unless you are a very wealthy person, trumpcare is a bad deal. 24 Million People will lose insurance. Medicaid will be cut by 880 billion to pay for the tax cuts for the very wealthy, leaving millions of seniors and Nursing Homes, children, people with disabilities and working families with Less Health Care or no coverage at all. Seniors get hit with a huge tax, paying five times more for health care than younger people. Employer coverage is at risk for tens of millions of americans, and no preexisting conditions are not really covered. As democrats, we know that we need to Work Together to continue to make Health Care Including americans, outofpocket drug costs. That is not what the Republican Administration is doing. The Trump Administration is working overtime to administratively unravel our Health Care System. They limiting payments to companies that guarantee preexisting conditions and other things are covered. No longer doing strong outreach so younger and healthier people are part of the insurance pool. The new secretary of health and Human Services has cut enrollment time to sign up, in half. Why . So Insurance Companies will stop participating in the marketplace, and the republicans can say, its a mess. People cannot get affordable insurance. Obamacare is failing. We know that health care is affordable to all of us and our families. We continue to hear your voices. Republicans held no hearings, no public discussion. They didnt wait for the analysis by the Budget Office of the cost and impact on people. That is not how democracy is supposed to work. That is why we are so grateful. You have traveled here today to share your stories with us. I would now turn to the Ranking Member of our leader and the finance committee. For what you are doing. Im happy to be here with my partner, senator murray. Inaudible] friends must not filibuster friends. I will be short and make a couple of points. The reason it is so important to have all of you here is that political change is not top down. It doesnt start in government buildings or trickles down to the grass roots. It bottoms up. As all of you, with your terrific organization, go out and mobilize, go to community meetings. Go to marches. Rally for the agenda today, it will make a huge difference. People are paying attention. I will touch on that. I want to come back to the point that senator stevan know senator stabenow has made. Billions of of dollars in medicaid cuts and the hundreds of billions of dollars in terms of tax breaks for the fortunate few for the wealthy sides of the same point. If you cut medicaid dramatically, people will suffer. This idea of giving thousands of dollars of tax relief annually to the most fortunate and most wealthy defies common sense. It does not past the smell test. You are hearing talk about how maybe the Senate Republicans will rewrite the bill. As of this afternoon, there is no evidence that they are moving hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts and medicaid. The last point that i would like to mention is that when i was home, and a described this as a we wentuffering generation by generation. If alld be very helpful of you might consider that. No one knows more about this than senator hassan. We have 40 of the School Districts getting help. That is an area where the medicaid cuts will hurt. 18 and you have a brush with cancer and are cured, these folks are able to redefine preexisting conditions, those High School Students may carry that cancer condition like a Scarlet Letter for their whole life. Then i talked about workers. The far right are trying to say that you guys are homefree. On house will lift the cap outofpocket costs that people can pay. This means that the cap which limits how much you can pay, it will be busted. You get a cancer condition, and you will bust that cap in a hu rry. Finally, the indignity, with respect to Nursing Homes. Medicaid pays for two out three of the nursing home beds in america. This is pain and suffering that spans generations. Senator murray, senator stabenow, and i, between us, are on the committees that will deal with it. Were lucky to have our colleagues with us. Chair stabenow, senator murray, thank you so much. Sen. Stabenow senator patty murray, our ranking democrat, our leader on the health committee. Sen. Murry thank you for your leadership in putting this together today. Im grateful to all of our witnesses, especially those of you sharing your personal stories. Im hearing from people like you whose lives will be at risk. Hear especially often is worry about people who could withstand the skyrocketing premium, and higher outofpocket costs would pass. Trumpcare would end the guarantee of the essential Health Benefits and decrease the availability of tax credits. Families at risk of losing access to Mental Health and Substance AbuseDisorder Services or Prescription Drugs would be in trouble. Up one costs will go middleclass, and trumpcare would be especially devastating for Older Americans by allowing plans to charge higher premiums, brazing raising what is known as the age tax. What is clear is that trumpcare is not about helping patients or families, but is about President Trump getting his way and delivering massive tax cuts to trump companies, Insurance Companies. It is not good for patients or families. My hope is that todays hearing will help bring more discussions that will allow Senate Republicans to get them the me ssage that they should drop their damaging, politically motivated effort to undermine our Health Care System in ways that raise costs. I hope it will work with us to continue fixing the Health Care System. I am confident that millions of people who have been speaking up and making themselves heard will continue to do so and are repaired toand are hold for and are prepared to hold republicans accountable. I think all of my colleagues who are coming, and are here now. This is one of the most important things to families that we should be talking about. Sen. Stabenow we are grateful for all of our colleagues who have joined us. We stand united in our concern and our determination to make sure that people in this country, that we all have the health care that we need. That we are working together to make things better. I will introduce everyone. We will start with mrs. Johnson. Cindy johnson is from bloomington indiana. Cindy will share her familys story of fighting for health care for her daughter. Gina washington. She will share her story with Preventative Health and family planning. Excuse me, planned parenthood. Carol hardaway. I think we have two additional michael dunkley. I will turn to senator kaine for this one. Michael has a very powerful story. He shared it with a because i put a story on my Senate Website and i asked people to share what would happen to them if the aca were repealed as the house did and as we fear the Senate Republicans are trying to do as well. He is a fulltime caregiver for his wife, who has ms. At age 64, he was diagnosed with cancer. Dealing with both being a health care caregiver for a wife with a serious condition, and a cancer diagnosis, that is more than anybody should have to bear. Dealing with a system with a humane Health Care System versus one with no health care safety. Et is dramatically different sen. Stabenow next we have teresa miller, the pennsylvania insurance commissioner. She will speak about the Health Care Markets in pennsylvania and how trumpcare will affect her state. Senator casey was singing your praises and so grateful for your being here today. Nelson. On rod president and ceo of his company in michigan. I want to thank you for being here. Congratulations on your hospitalon as world leader of the year. We are privileged to have you with us today. Rod is here to talk about the challenges for rural families in accessing quality care. Ms. Johnson thank you so much. It is my great privilege to be with you this afternoon. I want to thank senator stabenow for this invitation to share my story. Its my parents were among working for. Working poor. I became the first person in my family to go to college. I worked as a math teacher for a number of years. When i wanted to start a family, i discovered i would have a baby girl with down syndrome, my life changed dramatically. It became very clear after her birth that i would need to be a stay at home mom. We went from being a stayathome a twoincome family with no medical expenses, with single income family massive medical expenses. I renumber opening up an envelope i remember opening an envelope from the hospital with a bill for 64,000, just to rent the equipment at the hospital the month before. I began to realize this was our new reality, because more bills would soon be showing up. The lifestyle and worked so hard to attain was slipping away. Over the next several years, the bills added up. There were many expenses that the insurance did not cover. ,edical equipment outofnetwork specialist, therapies, specialized feeding supplies, and more. Our outofpocket costs are spiraling with no end insight and my daughters condition was deteriorating. We took out a home equity line of credit because the cost of my daughters care was fast approaching the lifetime cap. Then came the Affordable Care act in a gained peace of mind knowing that lifetime cap had been eliminated. After eight years on a waiting list, a daughter became eligible for medicaid disability. That covered much of what private insurance did not. That covered a much greater financial future for my family. I have reentered the workforce and have made progress paid down our debt and even saving for college for my other children. Im grateful for the protections of the aca. I know and love in their stories i share with my consent. For my son am a his fifth grade classmate he has epilepsy and lives in the same as mrs. Senator young. For my former colleague, who stutter a court daughter requires a tracheotomy. For my friend in indiana whose quadruplets sons, two of whom are on the autism spectrum and one of whom has Cerebral Palsy has been able to seek employment and live more independently in their community. Whom iriend in louisiana only know through facebook has many medical struggles struggles. His son has a mental condition due to a rare disease he contracted at three months of age. My my friend here who has back. The mother of this beautiful 11yearold who was born blind and has Cerebral Palsy and microcephaly. For my own precious daughter with down syndrome who had Successful Surgery last year and is attending school fulltime and speaks with pure joy but the friends she is making. Parent, nothing else matters when your child is sick. Caruldve sold my house, my , i would have done anything to make sure my daughter had access to the care she needed. No ferret should ever need to ife that worry and wonder they will have the lifesaving provisions that their child needs. The Affordable Care act meant the difference between life and death for my daughter and Financial Stability for my family. It is given us a chance to seek a financially secure life that would have been hard to achieve otherwise. Whatever iso do necessary to preserve the provisions of the aca, those with preexisting conditions of coverage for essential Health Benefits. I urge you to reject anything to funding including the per capita models would reduce access for people with disabilities, low , ande households, seniors expectant mothers. I ask you to encourage health care for americans because we do everything we can to keep it cover heads of. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. We apologize for the microphone going on and off. Thank you for your testimony. Mrs. Walking to. Thank you for inviting me to be here today. Share my story with all of you. My name is Gina Walkington and i am mother to three rambunctious, energetic, amazing voice. I am here today because i know that if i did not have access to planned parenthood in my 20s, i would not be a mother today. In two dozen six, when i was 20, my best friends and i made appointments at planned parenthood. We went for three reasons. At 20 i was uninsured. Though i was insured through my parents commit the topic of sexual Effective Health is not something we ever discussed. The sliding scale of transparency at planned parenthood was essential to me as a 20yearold woman. A week after i had a pap test and got a supply of control. A week after planned parenthood called to explain that my test came back abnormal and they found precancerous cells in my cervix. For a 20yearold woman in college that is terrifying. So many things run for your head when you hear precancerous cells will stop i knew that if it were left untreated, i might not able to have children. As a 20yearold, i hadnt really thought about kids. I wasnt sure if it was something that i wanted, but when faced with it being taken away, it suddenly becomes very precious to you. The clinician at planned parenthood walked me through what to do next and helped me move quickly so the cells did not have a chance to spread. Ofm now a healthy mother three. Had planned parenthood not been so affordable to me my life might have turned up different. Had i waited to get care, i could have lost the ability to have children, or even died. I am not the only person who can say that. Met, party ms. Christie, went her name is christy, went to get a pap test at planned parenthood. She had cancer cells that were far more developed. She was able to get them removed, and is here today, but is not able to have children. If she were here, she would tell you that planned parenthood saved her life too. Hadly 72,000 people earlystage cancer or abnormalities in 2014 alone. I joined with four of those to draw attention to how essential planned parenthood is. Through the network, i met a woman who could not get an appointment to check out the lump in her breast for three weeks. She called planned parenthood and they got her in that day. Amet a woman who at 19 had footballsized tumor on her ovary. Wouamerican Health Care Act on p able to rely the republicans supporting this bill have suggested that those people could go to Community Health centers. Riley there are two qualified Community Health centers that provide screenings and Birth Control. They have said that they would not be able to accommodate the patient load from planned parenthood as they are overloaded and refer many to planned parenthood. For women, it should not be treated as a luxury. It is irresponsible and dangerous to block access to an woman because of where they live or how much money they make. Arehink of my three boys who here because of the care that i received. Im telling my personal story because i have learned to be brave. I need to speak up because there are millions who need care that planned parenthood provides. Im asking you to be brave, for me, for my community, please stand with planned parenthood. Sen. Stabenow you are looking at a lot of people here. And a lot of brave people here. I mentioned earlier that senator van hollen would be joining us. Inhofe senator van n thank you for telling your personal stories. That along with my colleagues it will be that personal testimony that you provide that will turn the tide. Statistics about the , but you can tell that story in human terms. Fisherolleagues, carol is here to tell her story. Ms. Fisher thank you for convening this critical hearing and for the opportunity to share with this house repeal bill would mean for me and my care. My name is carol hardaway. When i was 32 years old i reached into my babys crib only to realize i could not feel him. My arm felt like it was asleep. I grabbed my son with the other hand and did not give it much of a thought. Ithin minutes after arriving could not hold the glasses and shakers i needed to do my job. Something was wrong. The tested me for everything, stroke, meningitis met you name it. Latersent home a week with no diagnosis. Four years later, i had issues with my vision. It began to rapidly deteriorate taking me from nearperfect vision to near legally blind. I went to an optometrist. He passed me to an ophthalmologist, then retina specialist, then a narrow ophthalm