Cable Television Companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. Senate republicans are planning a vote on a Health Care Law repeal and replace as early as next thursday. The legislation has not yet been made public or scored by the congressional budge office. Monday budget office. Monday Senate Democrats held the Chamber Floor to speak on the republican effort. Minority Party Members are protesting that Senate Republicans have not held Committee Hearings on the repeal and replacement legislation. Next, a portion of monday nights debate. We democrats are here on the take a stand against a bill thats a disaster for our o Nations Health care. Medicaid patients, families with loved ones in nursing homes, people who struggle with opioid addiction, women who rely on planned parenthood, people who work in the health care industry. And so we stand with them and for them f tonight. But we also stand for the American Public who is being left in the dark about what trumpcare will mean for them. This is not the normal order of senate business. The republicans are going about this in a way that is so procedurally flawed that it is an embarrassment to democracy itself. They are hidingoc this bill. Theyre hiding this bill because people will beus outraged when they find out whats in it. Thats why a republican aide said that they arent releasing the bill because, quote we arent stupid. Think about a what that statemet means. T first, it means they have a bill. Finish second, it means they think its political suicide to make the bill public. And so they are bypassing the normal and necessary process needed to make good legislationh the way you make legislation is you allow the sun to shine in. And that starts with hearings. Every legislative body in theun country from a school board to a county council has hearings because we figured out that for all of our flaws, we figured ouh that over the centuries that you need hearings. Not just to placate the masses,r but to figure out whether your legislation is any good or not. Republicans have not held a single hearing on trumpcare. Ne no one knows no one who knowt anything about health care is s allowed to say anything about this bill because they arent even allowed to see it. But anyone whos ever tried to understand the American Health i care system knows that its complicated. The president d s said so himsel. You need expert testimony, you need public input, and you need t time to talk to your home state. Thats the way you get a gooduc product. R but republicans have totally bypassed the two committees that exist to consider legislation like this. Think about it. Under normal circumstances this legislation would be in the finance and Health Committee jurisdiction. There would be hearings and there would be a markup. But thats not the process thats being used. Theres no markup, there are no Committee Hearings. Itsri just 13 dudes, and they e rushing to d pass a bill without women, without democrats and without input from the American People p. Heres the order of thee. People who get to see the Health Care Bill; 13 men in secret, republican lobbyists, politico, republicans, democrats and then the American People. This is shameful. This is a violation of the way democracy itself should work. When they are done, the product will be the fruit p from a poisonous tree. It cant be good, because the process that produced it was is so flawed. There are many, Many Americans who dont support this bill k h and im going to highlight three groups who stand to lose. People who are going to pay more for their insurance, lose their insurance altogether or lose their ability to choose their provider. Families wont be able to afford nursing home care for their loved ones or pay the hospital bills for a parent after she has a heart attack. Americans with preexisting conditions will struggle to buy insurance because Insurance Companies will be able to charge more for conditions like diabetes or cancer or asthma. Women will be blocked from crediting annual checkups or cancer screenings at their local planned parenthood clinic. All of these people stand to lose if the bill moves forward. Second, you have people whose jobsse may be at risk. Health care makes up about onesixths to onesixth of the american economy. You can bet those jobs will be affected by this bill. One study found that trumpcare will take away nearly one o million jobs by the year 2026. Were supposed to be helping american workers, not taking away their jobs or making itak harder for them to get health care. Finally, this bill hurts the working poor. These are the people who will struggling even more under trumpcare. And i dont know why we wouldou punish them. Why would we leave them withha nowhere to turn or . I know that millions of americans feel the same way i a do. They care deeply ant the poor, the vulnerable and the sick among us. Newsstanding up for their neighbors. One woman named jessie went to a town hall, and she said its my understanding that the aca mandate requires everybody to have insurance because h the Healthy People pull up the sick people, right . And as a christian, my whole philosophy is pull up the unfortunate. The individual a mandate, the Healthy People pull up the sicks people. If we take those people and put them in a high Risk Insurance pool, theyre costlier, and theres less coverage for them. Thats the way its been in thei past, and thats the way it will be again. So we are effect ily punishing our effectively punishing our sickest people. And i end the quote. Look, we may not agree ongr policy, but i hope we can agree onon the process. So what will it take . What will it take for this process to be restored and for trumpcare to be considered in the waypc that it ought to be considered . The answer is actually very straightforward. We need three republicans. It only takes three republicansa and you can be a or person who hates the Affordable Care act or has mixed feelings or anywhere in between. It only takes three republicans in the United States senate to restore the United States senate itself, to restore the hearing process, to restore Public Confidence and restoresa bipartisanship. All we needal are three republin senators to say i wont vote for anything if there hasnt been a public b hearing. I wont vote for anything thats beingn jammed down americasg throats. I wont vote for anything without being able to go back home and figure out how it wille impact my states hospitals. This is not an unreasonable ask. Were just asking for three republicans to say lets be a senate again. Lets restore order and transparency and to things the righton way. Because thats the only way this bill will not be a total disaster. Is i yield the floor. Mr. President in. Senator from new jersey. Im grateful for the recognition. I amsefr grateful for my colleae from hawaii. Really my colleagues from across the country who are going to be coming to the floor tonight. This is going to be a long evening because there are a lot of f folks who are frustrated. Now,no its not just frustration about the actual bill itself. A lot of this frustration right brokenness of this process. Be a process that is right now about secrecy, a process that has been conducted behind closed doors, in back rooms, aot process thats not reflective of our history, our traditions ore many of the calls from bothot sides of the aisle that in my shortterm time in the Senate Hearing an echo, a chorus of myo colleagues on both sides of the aisle who talked about regular order, regular order, regular order. Several ofse my colleagues and i earlier were asking for unanimous consent, trying to use the process ofro the senate to bring about a better process, a process that would bring this legislation out into theat lighd of day and create an opportunity reflective of the American Health carere act where we would have people able to put input into this process. A debate would happen,n discussion would happen. And, actually, we would come about with a bill the American Public would see go through the debates. In fact through the process. Y the very Constitutional Convention of this country, perhaps some of the biggest issues ofge humanity, were debad in an open forum. We have records of those discussions, records of those deliberations. Everything from the representation that each state should haveat to issues as profoundue as slavery were right there out in the open. Tonight its remarkable to me, its almost tragic to me to see a process that is to is broken that ispr so broken, a process that is so secretive, a process happening in back rooms and everything that americans dislike about politics of old. People working in secret on a bill that theyre going to try through congress withno no public input, no hearings, no meetings, no markups, no debate, no public accountability. And so therell be a lot of voices tonight. Sure, speaking about the realities of this legislation. Ne im one of those folks. I came from a Childrens Hospital this afternoon with parents, with children that w suffered accidents, Car Accidents and more telling meho how they were relying on medicaid. I think its onedi of their most terrifying things thats about to happen. Because people look at the house bill, a bill that our president even called mean, and theyre communities, fearing formi families like theirs. Understand the substance ofil this bill should have many country were going to be when you just look at the house version of the bill. Itte violates our common values and ideals as a nation. To give massive tax breaks worth hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars to the wealthiest and at the same time cutting the social safety net at a degree that we havent seen in my lifetime. The substance of this is frightening, but the process to me, it violates the values that iow know so many of my colleagus hold. That any of us watching this happen in an objective way would criticize this process. So we know the starting place in the house. Ou we know the details of that bill. 23 million americans losing Health Insurance. Ghe the gutting of medicaid by 800 billion. Throwing onesixth of our economy into cry is sis. Crisis. But its a process that eat fundamentally thatssp fundamentally at odds with the principles and the values especially of this body, the senate. When i was running for this office, i had so many people come to me and say this is thehe greatest deliberate deliberative body on the planet earth, the senate. Which slowed things down. The saucer that cooled the tea, as our ancestors called, this body it has a history for grappling with issues. I but this process is so at odds with everything that i believe about this body and how its supposed to operate. The senateth is meant to be a place of careful consideration,c of debate, of discussion. Now, the history of this body and its debates and discussions is reallyy interesting. The longest consecutive session in Senate History was a debate during the First World War about whether to arm merchant ships. Thats s the record. And by the way, issues of war and peace, i would hope that w theyd bring about substantive, deliberative debate, discussion, open air. This body is probably in fact, the elder statesmen and women in this body as ive talked to them both sides of the aisle tell me sometimes the most difficult decisions theyve made are involving war and peace. But what is interesting if you look at the history of the body, the longest debate, con executive session debate consecutive session debate, wass about war and whether to arm merchant ships in the First World War. E the second longest debate in Senate History was actually health care. Or, more specifically, it was t the Health Care Debate in 2010 about the Affordable Care act or socalled obamacare. In fact, here we are looking at the process that seems to be screaming something to the floor, no hearings, no markups,m no committee sessions. Screaming to the floor in the shadow of the second longest consecutive session of debate. That, to me, is a contrast that speaks volumes about the wrongness of this moment in history that anyone objectivelyi standing back would agree and concur that for something that is f so deeply at the core of wt our country is about, we literally founded this nation because of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Life. And what more fundamental aspect of life is there . A critical constituent part of that has to be how we preserve life, how we embolden life, what is our state of our health care. For this great, historic, deliberative body to be doing that without so much as a pause, with the Brilliant Minds on bote sides of this aisle work the thoughtful people on both sides this aisle, people who have come through portals and processes where they expose themselves and their lives to public discussion, public debate, thats what a democracy is. Thats what this republic isun founded upon. Not secrecy, not back rooms. This body reflects the best of what democratic d principles ar, and now were rushing something through. That fundamentally affects life. And were pushing it to floor with an insult to our history, an insult to our values. Said before, but iha remind you that the Affordable Care act had a lengthy process before that near recordbreaking consecutive days of session. The senates Health Committee held 14 bipartisan round tables, 13 bipartisan hearings, 20 bipartisan walkthroughs and considered nearly 300 amendments. Finish the Affordable Care act actually accepted over 160 amendments, 160 republican amendments to shape the bill. The finance Committee Held 17 round tables, summits and hearings, 13 member meetings,ri bipartisan meetings and walknews, 38 meetings and walkthroughs, and the longest markup in over 20 years. In the end, the Affordable Care act went through a lengthy process through which the policy experts, market experts, medical professionals, health nonprofits, insurers, hospitals, families all came to this senate and put forward their input and their ideas. This wasnt a republican bill or a democratic bill on thems politicians themselves. America was invited to the table. And hours of hearing records show that people finish whether the bill ended up reflecting their ideas or not, they had their say. Thats whats beautiful aboutir this democracy. Is the dignity and the voice and opinions of others is i was mayor of newark during the time that t this process was gog on. And people of my community were rivetted by it and knew that issues that would affect their life or were going on here in the United States w senate. At a time that the number one reason for personal bankruptcy in my state was people declaring bankruptcy because of their insurance bill. Something that because of their Health Care Bill. Something thats not happening now at those levels. People who are caring and concerned about what was going on and representatives from my Community Came down. Aw i saw how that process shaped the bill. I saw how republican ideas shaped the bill. I saw how hospitals and insurers and advocates and doctors and nonprofits, the aarp and others let their voices be heard, shaped the process, had input, had voice, their dignity and perspectives were respected. Mr. President . Me yes. Mr. President , would my colleague yield for a moment . The majority leader has returned to the floor tour hear a unanims consent yes request, actually hem i fully yield to the majority leader. Without objection. Thank you, mr. Er president. This weekend i i was out doing town halls in rural oregon. I was in clement county and lake county and grant county andma wheeler county, counties that on any map would be described as solidly red. And at my town halls, people were turning out with one huge anxiety, and that is the healthl care bill that might be considered next week with noco consideration in committee, no consideration for amendments, no opportunity for experts to weigh in and most importantly, no opportunity for the citizens of america to weigh in. And so two veterans came up to t me after one of the town halls at the paisley saloon, and they said does d. C. Understand the despair, the anxiety in rural oregon over this Health Care Bill plan . And the answer, of course, at this point is, no. But we hope the answer will be yes. And then i was y visiting ais nursing home, and two different to noted that virtually everyone on longtermc care was there through medicaid. And they said, you know, if we lose medicaid, were out on the street. As woman, deborah, said to me, she said ill be out on street, and i cant walk so thats a problem. Well, yes, it is a problem for folks in longterm care to behy dumped onto the street. And thats why at this moment im canning for our normal process for any asking for our normal process for any bill, certainly a major bill, to get thorough, democratic consideration in this beautiful, we the, people, democraticte republic. And that mean Committee Hearings that means experts testifying. Experts and that means i