Richard Blumenthal

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, we have seen in the course of this debate some very high points and some points that I think in some ways we regretted. One of the high points for me was the return of Senator McCain, and I want to join all of my colleagues in saying how heartfelt our gratitude is for his return and his eloquence here about the need for us to work together. Yet yesterday we also saw, in my view, a shameful and disgraceful mockery of our democracy when Senators proceeded, in effect, to a slogan, a shell of a bill, not a really substantive measure. Yet that shell itself will undermine the exchanges and insurance coverage for millions and millions of Americans by creating uncertainty, and this process itself will aggravate that fear. I have now held five field hearings in Connecticut, and at each one I have heard from countless people with tears in their eyes telling me what the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid have meant to them, what repeal of it will mean to them, and how devastating and cataclysmic the damage will be. Thousands of constituents have written, have called, and have also contacted others of my colleagues, as I have urged them to do, and I want to say how grateful I am to them for their continued activism and advocacy. We need to maintain this fight. I have heard from moms and dads about what would happen to their children. One said to me: We can't thrive as a nation or as individuals if we can't afford to be healthy. So I ask my colleagues to listen to their constituents, to the people in their States, people like Conner and Mackenzie and Amelie and Evan and Amanda and Michelle and Jennifer and Gay. I described them on the floor in my previous talks. These voices and faces need to be brought here because there have been no hearings, no regular order, no democratic process, as we have an obligation to do. If at some point my colleagues abandon this effort to repeal and decimate the Affordable Care Act, I stand ready to come across the aisle to work together to drive down the costs of healthcare-- particularly pharmaceutical drugs--and to open the exchanges to more competition and create more choices for consumers among insurance companies. There are steps we can take together to improve this process. As Senator McCain urged us so powerfully, we need to go back to regular order, come together, and work across the aisle. There is no panacea. There is no instant solution. But we need to work together. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, I intend off the following motion, Amelie, Amanda, and Evan's amendment, to H.R. 1628, and I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record. The motion is supported by Senator Shaheen.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, I intend to offer the following motion to H.R. 1628, and I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record. The motion is supported by Senator Shaheen.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, I intend to offer the following motion, Conner's amendment, to H.R. 1628, and I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, I intend to offer the following motion, Justice's amendment, to H.R. 1628, and I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I want to say that the field hearings I had have shown me that people not only fear but will be justifiably hurt forever by this sabotage of our exchanges and by the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Whether it is called a skinny repeal or any other name, it will fundamentally decimate Medicaid, it will put Americans who are in nursing homes out on the streets, and it will mean that people who need treatment for opioids--the consequences to them and many others whom I have seen in Connecticut and around the country will be absolutely devastating. This shameful and senseless step toward gutting the Affordable Care Act has left millions not only in fear but in potential real jeopardy. We can do better, and the people of Connecticut and around the country know we can do better. We owe it to our democracy to go through the regular order, as Senator McCain urged us to do, and to make sure that we fulfill our promise, our oath that we will uphold the Constitution and do what is right for the American people.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I appreciate my colleagues across the aisle accommodating me for 3 minutes, and I ask that--

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, I intend to offer the following motion, Sean and Frank's amendment, to H.R. 1628, and I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Madam President, I intend to offer the following motion, Gay's amendment, to H.R. 1628, and I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am here to oppose the nomination of John Bush to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. I have been a member of the Judiciary Committee since I was sworn in as a U.S. Senator 6 years ago. I have participated in dozens of confirmation hearings. Over time, I have become accustomed to hearing nominees attempt to dodge our questions. I have rarely come across a nominee who was as reluctant to respond to my questions as John Bush, and I have rarely felt so unsure and concerned about how a nominee would assume the responsibility of a Federal judgeship if confirmed. I should emphasize to my colleagues, as well as to the people of Connecticut, there is no nomination I take more seriously than a Federal judgeship, having been before numerous Federal judges, district court judges, courts of appeals judges, and the U.S. Supreme Court on four cases. Having seen as a law clerk, as well as a practicing lawyer, the enormous impact and profound importance of this position, I take no job more seriously and regard no more steadfastly any responsibility that we have. Mr. Bush has previously stated that originalism was the ``only principled way'' to interpret the Constitution. When our ranking member, Senator Feinstein of California, then, very reasonably, asked Mr. Bush if judges should always use originalism to interpret the Constitution, his response was this: ``My personal views on constitutional interpretation will be irrelevant if I am fortunate enough to be confirmed to the 6th circuit.'' With all due respect to Mr. Bush, I could not disagree more strongly. Asking judicial nominees about how they would approach the task of interpreting the law is extraordinarily relevant to this job. First, judges are not robots. They have views regarding how to interpret statutes and the Constitution. Applying those views is not inconsistent with judicial impartiality, but, especially for a judge on the U.S. court of appeals, those views matter greatly. The American people have a right to know what those views are for an appellate judge, who often cannot simply follow the letter or the exact words of the Constitution or the Supreme Court's interpretation of it. There are all kinds of gaps that may be left and questions that may be unanswered. Circuit court judges are routinely asked to address constitutional questions that the Supreme Court has never addressed or has answered incompletely, and, sometimes, yes, incorrectly. It changes its constitutional view because of a circuit court judge who has the temerity to say that the Supreme Court either hasn't spoken to the issue or, perhaps, has spoken decades ago, at a time when that interpretation of the constitutional law had relevance and correctness, but not now. To do our job reviewing judicial nominees of the President, we need to know how Mr. Bush plans to do his job. His refusal to answer causes me extraordinary concern, particularly because, in light of his previous comments, I have a pretty good idea how he intends to continue to apply what he believes to be the original philosophy. It is one thing to say forthrightly and honestly: ``That's my philosophy originally.'' It is another to completely dodge the question. I am pleased to be on the floor today with one of my really great colleagues, Senator Franken, who will speak after me, and to have followed two other extraordinarily distinguished Members of this body, Senators Murray and Hirono, to focus on these concerns regarding Mr. Bush's approach to the question of women's healthcare and constitutionally guaranteed reproductive rights under the Fourth Amendment. Let me note at the outset that our Republican colleagues have referred to a letter of support for Mr. Bush from someone who is on the board of the Kentucky Planned Parenthood affiliate. That letter in no way represents the position of the organization as a whole. In fact, the president of Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky has stated that Mr. Bush ``lacks the independence and temperament necessary for a Federal judgeship.'' That's the position of the President of Planned Parenthood for Indiana and Kentucky: He ``lacks the independence and temperament necessary for a federal judgeship.'' The issue of a woman's right to make decisions about when she becomes pregnant and whether she has an abortion is a constitutionally guaranteed, protected right of every woman, regardless of where she lives and what her background is and any other circumstances. She has that right. I need to know that any person I vote to confirm to the Federal bench will approach cases involving reproductive rights with the utmost care and respect for decades of hard-won precedent. In coming years, judges will have to determine what constitutes an undue burden--and that is a term of law, ``undue burden''--as States continue to pass new laws that try to restrict women's reproductive rights. They will have to probe the boundaries of the Court's Hobby Lobby decision on how religious and reproductive freedoms might conflict. These issues are far from easy, and the Supreme Court has spoken to them in many respects incompletely or unclearly. So when a nominee will not tell me how he plans to approach constitutional interpretation--even though his record strongly reflects a hostility to reproductive rights--how can I evaluate? How am I to do my job when I don't know how he is going to do his job? How am I supposed to take seriously his pledge to faithfully apply Roe v. Wade and related precedent? All I have left in evaluating the Bush nomination is what he said outside the confirmation process before he was nominated for this position. As many of us know, Mr. Bush was a blogger, authoring hundreds of posts over several years under a pseudonym. I have read his blog. In the words of one of my colleagues, I am not impressed. He once wrote: The two greatest tragedies in our country--slavery and abortion--relied on similar reasoning and activist justices at the U.S. Supreme Court, first in the Dred Scott decision, and later in Roe. Never mind that this statement is absurd on its face. Never mind that the NAACP called it ``offensive and dishonest.'' What concerns me at this moment is how this is the best statement of his views on the constitutionality of women's reproductive rights that we have heard. In light of that statement, how can we expect anything else from this nominee other than the narrowing of reproductive rights? Then along with the question of how John Bush might act as a judge comes the question of how the public perceives him. When you search the internet for information about his nomination, here is what you find on his blog: a post suggesting that someone ``gag the House Speaker,'' referring to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, not current House Speaker Ryan; two posts suggesting that a reader of the blog from Kenya must somehow be connected to President Obama; a post applauding former Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee's statements that he believes ``life begins at conception'' and ``strongly disagrees'' with ``the idea of same-sex marriage''; and a whole collection, a menage of partisan and inflammatory language--to use some euphemism for what can be found here. Reporters who covered this nomination have used words like ``provocative,'' ``controversial,'' and ``not normal.'' This nomination is, indeed, not normal. It is different and profound, not in a good way. The Courier-Journal, Bush's hometown newspaper, chose this headline for their coverage: ``Trump's judicial nominee from Louisville ducks questions about his controversial blog posts.'' The article went on to quote lawyers describing his answers to Judiciary Committee members as ``laughable,'' ``absurd,'' and ``dishonest''--all quotes. The Judiciary Committee heard from 27 LGBT advocacy organizations and 14 reproductive rights groups, and they told us, in no uncertain terms, ``no'' to this nominee. I agree with them. Finally, Mr. Bush wants us to believe that his political views can be separated from his law practice or his prospective service on the court. When asked why he cited unreliable news sources like World Net Daily in his writings, he repeatedly shrugged off the question and declined answering, saying political analysis is different from legal analysis. There is truth to that point. Prior political activity is no disqualification, in and of itself, for serving as a judge, but the importance of public confidence in the judiciary is profound. The confidence of people in the fairness and impartiality of our judges is profoundly important and necessary. The courts have no army. They have no police force of their own. Their rulings are credible and enforceable because of confidence in the fairness and objectivity of our judges. Someone who is so clearly unqualified, by virtue of his record, I cannot support. I encourage my colleagues to join me in voting against Mr. Bush's nomination. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I wish to thank and commend Joe Kaliko for his extraordinarily valuable commitment and service in aiding and advocating for our most vulnerable throughout the community. His many deeds of generosity and caring have made him a go-to person when people need help. His life is a real inspiration for all of us. Joe Kaliko is founder of the Needs Clearinghouse, a private nonprofit organization. He has actively partnered with governmental agencies, in helping provide necessary--sometimes lifesaving--resources to people through programs such as Hug a Hound and the Refugee Assistance Project. He has helped raise funds and contributions to a myriad of charitable causes, touching many, many lives. I have seen those people and the powerfully positive effects on their lives, disabled people who now have ramps for access to their homes, veterans who now have housing, ill people who now have better healthcare, and numerous others. Joe Kaliko is all about making a difference. He is a true hero.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I want to build on the last point my colleague--a great advocate and champion of net neutrality--made about the rule of law and about the need to go to court when there is utter disrespect and contempt for the rule of law, which is reflected in the prospective plan of the Chairman of the FCC to undo that agency's net neutrality rules. It reflects an astonishing lack of respect and care for that agency's rules--in fact, the rules that apply to all agencies under the Administrative Procedure Act. Chairman Pai wants to overturn a rule that was established after a factfinding--an elaborate process of comment and response--without going through that same process that is required under the Administrative Procedure Act, a fact-based docket that requires him to show that something has changed--not a little bit; something significant has changed--in the market since the Open Internet Order was established in February 2015. The burden is on the FCC to make that finding. That finding is impossible, which is why they are avoiding the attempt to do it. The fact is, the Open Internet Order was established based on 10 years of evidence about how internet access service provides people with broadband. It has been upheld by the DC Circuit Court of Appeals twice over the last year. The thicket of law that the Chairman wants to simply leap over--it is not within his discretion to do. The most recent evidence shows that net neutrality has not inhibited network investment at all, in contrast to Chairman Pai's claims. According to statements this year by the internet service providers-- AT&T, in fact, is expanding fiber deployment and calling fiber a growth opportunity. Comcast is saying that it doubles its network capacity every 18 to 24 months. Verizon is announcing a new $1 billion investment in cable. That is why we are here saying we will not and we cannot allow Chairman Pai to succeed in this plan to gut neutrality at the behest of big cable companies. I am proud to speak today in support of the Day of Action to Save Net Neutrality and against the FCC proposal to undo the Open Internet Order because it is really a consummate pro-consumer measure. The Open Internet Order serves the best interests of consumers directly but also the best interests of competition in promoting innovation, new ideas, and insights--an open platform that is necessary for innovation and insights that benefit consumers, as well as the products and services that companies generally provide. The Open Internet Order created three bright-line rules: No blocking, no throttling, and no pay prioritization. These rules apply to both fixed and mobile broadband service, which protects consumers no matter how they access the internet, whether on a desktop or a mobile service. Consumers deserve equal access, an open platform--no walls benefiting the companies that may want their gardens walled in. The walls are against consumer interest, and breaking down those walls is what the open internet rule sought to do. It also has real First Amendment significance. In one of the most recently proposed megamergers--AT&T and Time Warner--clearly content, access, and neutrality are at stake. This merger gives the combined company, if the merger is approved, both the incentive and the means to throttle First Amendment expression. There have been reports that the White House will use this merger, in fact, to throttle the First Amendment rights of CNN, which is owned by Time Warner. This would be a direct threat to all First Amendment liberties. Using antitrust policy and power to diminish or demean the rights of free expression would be a grave disservice to this country, as well as the rule of law. That is why I have written to the nominee for the Department of Justice Antitrust Division chief, the Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust, Makan Delrahim, and asked for a meeting so he can ensure us that, in fact, antitrust policy will be independently enforced, that these reports do not reflect his view or the administration policy. I want him to assure us that this merger will in no way be used to influence or impede any media outlet. But access and an open internet are principles that go beyond the enforcement of antitrust law; they are principles enforced by the FCC for the public good. That is why this Day of Action to Save Net Neutrality is so critically important, because the grassroots movement here is what will save the day. The grassroots and consumer-driven impetus to make sure that the internet remains a free and open platform for consumers and innovators, not a walled garden for wealthy companies, is what we seek today. That is why I am proud to stand with other colleagues who have spoken and to continue this battle and to say to all of our colleagues that we will go to court, because the rule of law and the Administrative Procedure Act are not technical, abstruse, arcane, unimportant rules; they are at the core of fairness and administrative regularity, not just regulation, the rule of law. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor to my colleague from Oregon.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I come to the floor today after a fourth field hearing in Connecticut. Every one of those field hearings has been packed. I spent time at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Hartford, as well as having visited others over the past year. I have spent time with numerous providers and at community health centers and heard firsthand from the people of Connecticut as to why the Republican health bill, which has been unveiled after having been concocted behind closed doors, would devastate the health and finances of Connecticut's families and their communities. The bill that we expect to be disclosed later this week will almost certainly be defective in the same ways as the bills that we have seen. To call these proposals mean or heartless, as the President has, is a gross understatement. The bill, very simply put, would cost both dollars and lives, eroding not just our ability to save money by investing in a healthier future but causing death and despair when neither term is really necessary. This wound would be self-inflicted, but it is a wound that is preventable and avoidable. I pledge to the people of Connecticut that I will fight as long and as hard as necessary to stop this grotesquely cruel and costly proposal. It is not, in fact, a healthcare bill. It is a wealth care bill. It decimates Medicaid, saving, supposedly, close to $1 billion so that those savings can be used for tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. As Warren Buffett has said--and he is one of them--``I don't need it.'' He would rather see it be used for better healthcare and coverage, and that is what the majority of Americans want. That is why this proposal is so deeply unpopular. Now, after weeks of secrecy, followed by chaos, we are back to secrecy again, with Republicans retreating away from their constituents and going behind closed doors. Even over this past week, when we were back in our home States, they were crafting another bill. We have not seen it. We have not debated it. We cannot even say that we know anything about what is in it, and my Republican colleagues know little more than we do on this side of the aisle. We know for sure, despite the secrecy, that the devastating effect would be overwhelming on people across income strata, geographic boundaries, and cultural backgrounds. I am here not to talk in abstractions. I am here to talk about real people in real life and to share the stories that I heard at these field hearings--people's stories that they have entrusted me to bring to you. Many of my colleagues have refused to hear these stories from their constituents because they would hear how repugnant and repulsive this bill is and how deeply angry the people of the country are. The people of Connecticut and the country are outraged. The reason is people like Ariella Botts, and here she is. Ariella is 4 years old. She came to my field hearing last week with her mom, Rachel. Ariella, as her mom told me, has nemaline myopathy, which is a rare form of muscular dystrophy. Their family relies on Medicaid for her care. I want to tell you exactly what Rachel said about Ariella and their family, because her words are far more eloquent and powerful than mine. Rachel said: The fact of the matter is that my daughter's care would cost over $20,000 a month out of pocket between her food, her medication, her care, and the breathing machines that keep her lungs clear. There is no average American family that can pay $20,000 a month of medical costs. We do our part. We have two jobs a piece. We do everything we can do. This is the only thing we ask for help on. Rachel went on to say: Supporters of the Trumpcare bill want you to believe that costs are high because there is this nameless and faceless abuser of the system, but I have spent hours in the waiting rooms of Yale New Haven Hospital and Connecticut Children's Medical Center. I have spent hours in the neonatal intensive care units and the emergency rooms, and I can tell you that the people who are accessing care on my level--they're not abusers. I am going to continue quoting Rachel. I cannot really speak with the same power and authenticity that she has, but we are not allowed to show videos here on the floor. She continued: We're mothers and fathers who know that there's more for our children to achieve. We're tax-paying, community- investing, voting, involved warriors for our families. I asked Rachel what would happen to her family if Ariella did not have Medicaid, and Rachel said: ``It would bankrupt us in less than a month.'' I want to tell you what it is like to spend just a little bit of time with Ariella. She is the most vivacious, animated, beautiful girl, and you would not know anything about her condition but for this apparatus, which is there so she can lead a normal or a near normal life and be the wonderful young lady that she is. I smile when I think of her at this hearing because she brought smiles to all of our faces. I understand the joy and pride that she brings to her family because she is one courageous, strong child, and we are proud of her. Rachel and Ariella were not the only people I heard from whose lives have been made not just better but, truly, whose lives have been made possible by Medicaid. Jeff Pabon was also at a hearing that I held, and he told me about his family when he was growing up. As a single mother, his mom raised him and his four siblings. As a member of the working class, Jeff told me ``she needed as much assistance from the system as the system could provide.'' Years later, as an adult, Jeff proudly served our country in the U.S. Navy during Operation Desert Storm. He now has a family of his own, including a son with autism. He spoke out at my hearing because, as he said, ``I've fought for this country before.'' What Jeff told me touches the core--the heart--of this debate, and I want to read it here on the Senate floor because he said it so powerfully: The healthcare bill being crafted in secrecy by a minority of Republican Senators now threatens Medicaid protections and aims to provide tax breaks for the ultra wealthy, top 1 percent of America. I would like to see sensible, bipartisan legislation which serves the majority of Americans, like the other 99 percent. Let's repair the provisions of the Affordable Care Act that need reparation. We need to be moving forward, not backward. Jeff is right, and so is Rachel. How absurd and reprehensible that costs will rise astronomically while Medicaid funding and the number of those with insurance coverage will go down, just so our Nation's richest can see billions of dollars in tax cuts--laughable, if it were not so deadly serious. ``Deadly'' is the word because this bill will cost lives. We rarely deal in life and death issues in this Chamber. This issue is one of them. It will decimate the lives and livelihoods of so many and threaten not only Ariella but many like her of all ages--the senior who goes into a nursing home after exhausting her life savings and depends on Medicaid, the woman who goes to a Planned Parenthood clinic to be screened for cancer and finds that this pernicious disease has been detected because of that preventive step and the availability of healthcare at Planned Parenthood, the opioid addict who suffers from that disorder or disease--it is a disease, not a moral failing--and seeks recovery through the medicine that is made available by Medicaid. Forty-four percent of all of the medication for opioid addiction treatment comes from Medicaid in the State of Connecticut. All of them are at risk. It is not just their convenience or their comfort. Their lives are at risk. I heard their stories, and I am haunted by them. I can hear their voices, and I can see their faces. I want my colleagues to do the same. I am ready to do what Jeff asked of me. I am ready to work with all of my colleagues--Democrat and Republican--to move us forward, not backward. Let's work together in a bipartisan way to fix the parts of our healthcare insurance system that need repair. Let's go forward, not backward. I am eager for the call from my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that offers solutions--not repeal but real solutions--as to what the American people need, want, and deserve. First, we must bury the efforts to decimate Medicaid, to defund Planned Parenthood, and to repeal the Affordable Care Act. We have a chance right now to improve healthcare--a moment, an historic opportunity--and we must seize it. I feel that we are on the cusp of that dramatic and historic moment, and I look forward to working with my colleagues across the aisle. I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

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

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, over the last 10 days, I have conducted emergency field hearings, giving my constituents in Connecticut an opportunity to be heard, a chance for their voices and faces to be part of considering the Republican healthcare or really, more accurately, wealth care bill. Indeed, that label or characterization of the bill came from one my constituents who said: This plan is not healthcare, it is wealth care because it produces a massive transfer of wealth from the poor and middle-class Americans, whose healthcare would be deeply harmed, to the richest Americans, who would enjoy the benefits of hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts. That kind of voice and criticism deserves to be heard here. Yet my Republican colleagues and their leadership have gone from total secrecy to total chaos. They are in chaos because they have refused to heed the voices and faces of ordinary, average working people--middle-class people, the most vulnerable people--who would be deeply harmed by this proposal. One woman at one of my hearings in Connecticut, knowing what would happen under this bill, said to me: Do the right thing. Save the Affordable Care Act and save our lives. She was not exaggerating when she said lives are at stake. She is right. This very eloquent woman, Amy Etkind, knows all too well what this bill means for Americans like her, and the man she described, literally, as the ``love of her life.'' She told me about him during a hearing in New Haven Friday afternoon--about how he has struggled with addiction, mental health issues, and now diabetes. He is alive today because of Medicaid, and he has access to the services he needs. As she said, ``If Medicaid were to go away, he would be literally dead in a very short period of time.'' When we say the Republican plan would cost lives--it would kill people--it is no hyperbole, no exaggeration. It is plain, simple fact. As Ronald Reagan said, ``Facts are stubborn things.'' The fact is, this bill would cost the State of Connecticut nearly $3 billion in Federal funding over the next 10 years. These cuts, mainly to Medicaid, cannot and will not be replaced, as the CBO has predicted. It would leave States like Connecticut in an impossible position: either raise taxes to pay the difference or cut Medicaid enrollment to insurers, putting people like Amy's husband at risk, literally, of death; putting out on the streets the senior citizens living in the Monsignor Bojnowski Manor in New Britain, where they are enjoying great care--a high-quality environment because of Medicaid. Many of them are middle-class folks who worked hard, played by the rules, and exhausted their savings. They are vulnerable now because of the cost of healthcare and their care, in particular. The focus ought to be on them, on the people who are affected, not so much the numbers, but we know from the numbers that the Republican plan would disastrously raise premiums by 20 percent and would cut enrollment impact on the individual market--premiums and enrollment, apart from Medicaid, on the individual market. These numbers are from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. They are fact. Facts are stubborn things. We know also what the effects would be--what the numbers are for people who are middle income. The elimination of the tax credits for middle-income people paying their premiums would be nothing short of disastrous. We focused on Medicaid. I talked to you about Amy and the love of her life and what the effects would be of the decimation of Medicaid, but here we are talking about the elimination of tax breaks that help middle-income people. I don't need to explain this graph. For someone with $26,500 in income, their premiums under the Senate plan would jump to $6,500 from the present $1,700. For somebody earning in the midfifties, the jump is even greater, and it is true even for people who are earning $68,200. They will have to pay more, a larger share of their income, and receive less. It is not only that the Senate plan is disastrous because it is more costly, it is also going to impact the quality of care by reducing the standards; eliminating the strict requirements on preexisting conditions, the protections on annual and lifetime caps for coverage, defunding Planned Parenthood, continuing the war on women's healthcare. The long and short of it is that this measure is bad for America. Tia spoke to me at these hearings about the opioid epidemic. If there is one example that breaks our hearts and wrenches our guts, it is the effect on people who are trying to recover from opioid addiction and abuse. Their recovery would be shredded--maybe stopped--by gutting Medicaid coverage. Another woman who spoke at my hearing, Donna Sager, called herself ``the perfect example as to why our healthcare plans must include preexisting conditions and not punish people like me with high premiums.'' Donna, as she told me, is 63 years old and not yet eligible for Medicare. When she was 36, she was diagnosed with a rare form of hereditary colon cancer. For 27 years she has been undergoing major surgeries, constant screening, doctor visits to make sure she can remain as healthy as possible. Then she told me about her husband, a man in his seventies, and she said this: He would like to retire, but how can he with all my medical expenses? I am frightened what I will do if the Republican healthcare bill gets passed. Changes to preexisting coverage will be extremely damaging to me, how will I pay these costs and high premiums? The republican healthcare plan wants to punish me for having cancer. She closed by saying: It is as though Washington wants to punish me again for having cancer and being older. . . . I never would have expected that the greatest country in the world would treat me like this. There is a path forward, and it requires our Republican colleagues very simply to start over, to work with Democrats, to abandon this misguided, myopic effort to repeal, repeal, repeal. That mantra simply is not a policy for American healthcare. What is needed is to build on the Affordable Care Act, to improve it, to correct its defects. We can do it if we work together and if we focus on the rising costs of medical care and try to bring them down, if we focus on the regulatory barriers to entering insurance markets and seek to eliminate them, if we focus on the FDA drug approval process and seek to responsibly and safely expedite new drugs coming to market, if we enable Medicare to negotiate drug prices as the VA does. Those examples of improving the present system are doable. They require leadership, which has been lacking and most particularly lacking at the White House. Yesterday, we saw a picture that is worth a thousand words: the President of the United States sitting with Members of this body, but only Members of this body from the other side of the aisle--only Republican Senators. It was almost the entire membership on the Republican side. Not a single Democrat was invited, not a single Democrat consulted, not a single Democrat involved in the continuing process now of producing yet another plan behind closed doors in secrecy. The majority leader announced it just today. The effort is to have another version to be submitted to the CBO by Friday, but that process simply continues the present fatal flaw in my Republican colleagues' thinking, which is that they can do it with only one party. I want to give credit to our Republican colleagues who had the courage and strength to say no because they saw it was bad for America. In closing, I want to say that my Republican colleagues will be going home this weekend. They have been looking at themselves in the mirror, at their consciences, and they have been seeing something they don't like--a moral failing in this bill, not just a political failing or a policy defect but a real moral failing. Healthcare is a right, and even if my Republican colleagues disagree on that point, they have to recognize that taking away healthcare, decimating Medicaid, waging war on women's health, depriving children of the preventive care they need so they can go to school and learn properly, evicting seniors from nursing homes, putting the burden of billions of dollars on my State of Connecticut and every State represented in this body, and other grotesque, cruel, costly impacts of this bill are the wrong ways to go. They know that when they look in the mirror, but they will know it even more powerfully when they look in the eyes of their constituents this week--if they have the guts and courage and heart to do so. This wealth care plan is doomed to failure. Even if it passes, it is doomed to fail America. It is a moral failing, not just a policy failing. The health of our consciences, as well as our physical well- being, hangs in the balance. Thank you. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am proud to be on the floor today, proud to stand with my colleagues, and I hope that at the end of this week, I will be proud of all of my colleagues when we vote to defeat this measure, or at least to delay it, because we owe the American people the right to be heard. Our responsibility as elected representatives is at the very least to listen. I have been listening over the last week but really over the last year to constituents of mine in the State of Connecticut and over the last week at two emergency field hearings that I conducted because no hearings were held by the Senate and no markups and no votes in committee. What we saw here in Washington was complete secrecy, a bill produced behind closed doors, only seeing the light of day for the first time last Thursday. Our Republican colleagues have gone from total secrecy to total chaos. The reason for the chaos is the facts that were most dramatically revealed today--just hours ago--when the Congressional Budget Office told us, not surprisingly, that 22 million Americans would be thrown to the wolves as a result of this measure--thrown to the wolves of no healthcare coverage--and eventually 49 million Americans would be without healthcare insurance by 2026. Next year alone, 15 million more people will be uninsured under the Republican plan, TrumpCare 2.0. Low-income Americans would be unable to afford any plan at all, and anybody who does would be paying higher costs for fewer services of lesser quality. Americans will pay a higher share of their income and receive less as a result. A 64-year-old making almost $57,000 will go from paying $6,800 under the Affordable Care Act to $20,500 under the proposal before this body. This jump in cost is absolutely staggering. It will destroy the financial well-being of middle-class Americans who also, when they need nursing home care, after they have exhausted their savings, will be thrown to the wolves. I visited one such facility just last Friday, where two-thirds of its 60 beds will be unaffordable when those middle-class families find their savings will no longer cover it. These facts are the reason for the Republican chaos. One of our former colleagues, my mentor, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, famously said: ``Everybody is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.'' The administration's statement that the CBO is not to be blindly trusted--nobody has to trust the CBO blindly. Those facts are driven by reality. Their report speaks truth to power and to the American people, and the American people get it. None of us can look our constituents in the eye, look ourselves in the mirror, look inside ourselves, in our hearts, and justify a vote for this bill. The American people are angry, many of them because we are even considering it. It is not an anger that is kind of a shrug of the shoulders; it is a deep, vocal, vehement, vitriolic anger. I have seen it and heard it at those hearings, where I listened to people coming forward and talking about this bill, recognizing it for what it is. It is not a healthcare bill; it is a massive tax cut for the wealthy. Just Friday afternoon, one of the folks who attended the hearing came to the microphone and said: Don't call it a healthcare bill; it is a wealth care bill. In fact, she is absolutely right. This bill cuts hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes for the richest so that they will do better, but it also cuts $800 billion in Medicaid spending and investment to provide for that kind of tax cut. It is not a healthcare bill; it is a wealth care bill. And for most Americans, it is a catastrophic, cruel, and costly insult to their intelligence, their health, and our American values. It is a sham and a charade, making possible those cuts for the rich--tax cuts for them--at the expense of our most vulnerable citizens. And it has been the result of a profoundly undemocratic process--secrecy and speed. Despite the best efforts of our Republican colleagues to keep Americans in the dark about what this proposal would do, I have seen growing awareness, again, not only at these hearings but as I walk through the airport, as I march in parades--twice over this weekend--as I attend public gatherings. Whether it is Boys State, sponsored by the American Legion for 16- and 17-year-olds, or nursing facilities for elderly citizens, there is a growing awareness that this bill is bad-- profoundly bad--for the American people. The people I have heard from have prescriptions to fill, appointments to make, lives to live, but they have come to these hearings on very short notice in Hartford and in New Haven, literally filling rooms so that there was standing room only. I challenge my colleagues to hold the same kinds of hearings, to delay this vote so that they can go home at the end of this week and hold hearings in their State and listen to their constituents about what they have to say and what the consequences will be. Nearly 1 in 10 veterans has Medicaid coverage, meaning that a staggering 1.75 million veterans, including 18,000 veterans in Connecticut, would be impacted by these reckless cuts. Let me repeat that number for all of us who rejoiced in the recent Accountability and Whistleblowers Act. Some 1.75 million veterans--18,000 of them in Connecticut--will be harmed by this reckless and needless insult and injury. Put simply, this bill would make it hard for veterans with mental health disorders like post-traumatic stress disorder to get care. Nearly a quarter of all veterans receive care for mental health disorders outside the VA system, meaning they rely on protections that guarantee their access to affordable care. Under this proposal, those protections would be severely threatened, and the veterans who need that care would see that care at risk. Here we are talking about a choice program that enables veterans to seek care outside the VA system, privately, and we are endangering care for millions of Americans--veterans--who need and seek it by using Medicaid. If my colleagues listen to their constituents, they will hear from many of the people who have come to my townhalls, like Christine Girassi. Christine has two beautiful 4-year-old twins named McKenzie and Cameron. McKenzie was born with Prader-Willi syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that her mom described as ``including low muscle tone, seizures, temperature instability, sleep apnea, infertility, OCD, intellectual disabilities, and developmental delay.'' In the first few weeks of her life, McKenzie was in the hospital for 57 days, accounting for $2 million in costs. Their family was spending $30,000 a year to help their daughter thrive. So when Christine learned that her daughter had received a waiver to become a Medicaid beneficiary, she was overjoyed. Christine told me: When we received McKenzie's diagnosis, we were told that she wouldn't do a lot of things, and at only 4 years old she's already defying the odds. I have no doubt in my mind that if we are able to continue down our current path of the proper therapies and doctors, McKenzie will be able to have her fruitful life. I am terrified if the rug comes out beneath her that she will become just another statistic. Another statistic? There are enough statistics in that CBO report. We will hear a plethora of statistics on the floor, but a picture is worth a thousand words and many more than a thousand statistics, and no one--no one should be consigned to being a statistic. This family is one of the many faces and pictures and stories of Medicaid. They deserve to be heard. If we gut this program, if we strip away the important services it provides, we know all too well what will happen to McKenzie and her family as statistics. Like her mother said, Medicaid has been the path to success for them, and that rug will be pulled from that family, from beneath McKenzie. At the hearing on Friday in New Haven, I heard from Kent O'Brien, who told me about the eight prescription medications he takes--four for psychiatric reasons and four for medical reasons. Of course, mental health parity has been one of the crusades of my life. When I was State attorney general, I worked with Senator Ted Kennedy and Congressman Patrick Kennedy to help advocate for that bill. As a Senator, I advocated for the regulations that were necessary for its enforcement, and we finally got it done. I want to quote what Kent said directly. He told me: Hi, everybody, how are you today? I'm going to keep this brief, because I know the senators are on a very strict time constraint and I respect that. So I'm just going to talk very quickly about my prescription medications; there are eight of them. Four of them are for psychiatric reasons and four are medical. And if I lose my Medicare and Medicaid, I will be unable to pay for them obviously, which in turn I will end up in the hospital. Kent went on: Now, for the Republicans who are seeing this in Washington, can you please listen to me carefully? I am speaking to an empty Chamber. Let nobody make any mistake that Republicans are hanging on Kent's words as I speak now, but every one of them should go to the Record. Every one of them should be listening in their offices. Every one of them should go to the Record. Kent goes on: If I lose that medication, I will end up in the hospital, and it's going to cost the state and the federal government much more money than it would be to simply let me go to the pharmacy and pick up my medication. If there were ever a message that Washington should hear, it is from Kent O'Brien, who closed by simply saying: So I'm just going to close up with that, and don't hurt the American people. Help them! If you met Kent, you would wonder how he was capable of that eloquence. He is an ordinary American, someone who looks like all the rest of us. He has said to this body what it means to hear: ``Don't hurt the American people.'' He couldn't be more right. This proposal would cost our Nation so much, not just financially--Kent had it right--but morally. It will lead to a weakening of what makes our country strong and great in the first place: our ability to care about our neighbor, to fight for what is right, and to listen to the people who represent here in the Senate. First, do no harm. That is what the ethos of the medical profession is. It ought to be our mantra as well. It ought to be what my colleagues, if nothing else, heed as we reach this decision to listen to people who sent us here and hear their stories. Listen to the anxieties and fears and value of America. They will tell you all you need to know about this bill. Kent told me. As he said, the cost will be staggering--not just in financial terms but in human terms. This bill--written behind closed doors, away from the light of day, away from the realities of medical care in the United States of America, away from the voices and faces I have brought to the floor today, and which I will continue to bring to the floor--ignores the most important thing we can do this week. As Kent said, don't hurt the American people. As the doctors tell us: First, do no harm. I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am proud and honored to follow my colleague from Oregon who has been such a steadfast leader when it comes to our Nation's healthcare and insurance and particularly when it comes to women's healthcare. I have been really proud to stand side by side with him, Senator Murray, and other colleagues who have been here today. I must say, sometimes on the floor of the Senate, at this hour of the day or night, we can feel alone, as though no one is listening, but I know millions of Americans are listening because of the voices like my colleague Senator Wyden. I would join him in urging our fellow Americans to make their voices heard, to be loud, and we are going to be loud in Connecticut this Friday, at 1:30 in the afternoon, when I continue the emergency field hearing we began on Monday, giving the people of Connecticut an opportunity to make their voices and their faces known, seen, and heard because, unfortunately, that opportunity has been denied by a process that has been secretive and hasty. Secrecy and speed are a toxic recipe for any democracy. They can disguise deception and mistakes. I am here to call attention to one of the profoundly mistaken courses that this new bill is expected to take. There is no doubt in my mind that the Republican bill will contain language to defund one of the most respected and accessible and significant of our healthcare providers in the United States; namely, Planned Parenthood. I have been an advocate of women's healthcare and reproductive rights and choice since my days as a law clerk for Justice Blackmun in the 1970s. Our Nation has made progress--halting and sometimes it steps back--but Planned Parenthood has helped to improve, enduringly and profoundly, women's healthcare. In my home State of Connecticut, Planned Parenthood has 17 sites and services for more than 60,000 women and men, and they have been covered by the Medicaid Program. That coverage will be decimated under the measure we expect to see. Defunding these clinics could do irreparable damage to the communities that Planned Parenthood clinics serve. As a nurse practitioner at Planned Parenthood in Southern Connecticut told me, patients trust the services they receive at Planned Parenthood because they rely on them, and they know Planned Parenthood clinics have one interest and only one interest in mind, which is the well-being of their patients and clients. Planned Parenthood has, therefore, expanded into primary care. Not only does Amina provide family planning services and STI and cancer screenings, she now screens for and treats patients for chronic medical conditions that disproportionately impact low- income patients, such as depression, diabetes, asthma, and hypertension. In her clinic, my friend who is a nurse practitioner there, Amina, has seen her primary care practice grow from 8 patients initially to 112 a few months later. Her clinic offers these services, in addition to the contraceptive services that are so important to many patients. Patients who will simply go unseen and uncared for have this care at Planned Parenthood, but they will not have it if Planned Parenthood is defunded. In Connecticut, other kinds of healthcare providers, like health centers and hospitals, would need to increase their capacity to provide contraceptive care, and they would have to increase it by 228 percent to overcome the care deficit left by defunding Planned Parenthood. With these craven attempts to immediately and completely defund Planned Parenthood as a part of TrumpCare--really TrumpCare 2.0--it will be even more challenging for so many women to get the healthcare they need and deserve. Defunding of Planned Parenthood also jeopardizes gains our Nation made for women of color and patients who are served in areas where there are few, if any, other options. Planned Parenthood centers and clinics are nothing short of a lifeline for quality healthcare in the underserved communities. The fact is, the Affordable Care Act has worked for women and particularly women of color. Planned Parenthood and other women's healthcare providers are an integral part of that success story, but it isn't only women of color, it isn't only women in underserved communities, and it isn't only women. It is families who have benefited--men, women, and children--because the quality of healthcare and preventive healthcare, particularly, has been raised immeasurably. To decimate that network of care would be profoundly destructive to our Nation. I hope my colleagues will think again before they side with the forces of degrading and demeaning women who seek those protections. We need a national effort and appreciation to make sure our conscience prevails because the repeal of these provisions would mean they are gone, and all women--including healthy women--will see insurance costs rise. It is absolutely clear to me that the Affordable Care Act repeal would be cruel. It would be mean and most particularly to the women who depend on Planned Parenthood for so many of the services that help them and their families. I hope my Republican colleagues will cease to ignore and deny these benefits. We stand ready to work with them to improve the Affordable Care Act, not to repeal it, not to decimate or destroy it, to improve it, to mend its defects, to preserve Planned Parenthood, to make sure the women of America and their families have the healthcare they need and deserve. Thank you. I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am deeply disappointed by the secrecy that has been employed by my colleagues in their reckless attempts to gut the Affordable Care Act. It is clear to me that, in the absence of hearings, of public debate, and of any bill text at all, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will go to any length to suppress the undeniable successes associated with the Affordable Care Act. Unfortunately, that now includes blocking a noncontroversial resolution to promote and bring awareness to National Minority Health Month simply because the text contains facts about the Affordable Care Act. They have decided that concealing the reality of what the Affordable Care Act has brought to minority communities is more important than promoting minority health. I am proud to help lead this resolution with Senator Cardin and my colleagues here this afternoon because raising awareness and finding ways to promote minority health is critically important to the future of our Nation and should be a shared priority amongst my colleagues. As of last year, over half of nonelderly Americans who lacked insurance were people of color and minorities face increased barriers when trying to access the care that is available to them. In the past, our Republican colleagues worked with us on this resolution, which is why it has seen bipartisan and unanimous support. Now, however, like the secret healthcare bill they are drafting behind closed doors, they have turned an important and commonsense resolution into a political football, refusing to pass it unless it is stripped of any and all facts that don't fit their false narrative on the Affordable Care Act. The fact of the matter is that the Affordable Care Act has worked for minority communities. The Affordable Care Act has reduced the uninsured rate for minority communities by at least 35 percent. It has led to a 7 percent drop in the uninsured rate amongst African Americans and has cut the uninsured rate for Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders in half. It has provided new protections for American Indians and Native Alaskans while cutting the uninsured rate amongst those communities by nearly 10 percent. The facts show that minorities have seen some of the largest gains in health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act and, despite the work we still have before us, have more access to affordable coverage than ever before. Still, many in minority communities struggle to obtain coverage and receive quality care, despite chronic diseases disproportionately impacting many minority groups. That is why the Prevention and Public Health Fund, which was created to address and prevent chronic disease under the ACA, is so critical to minority health. That is also why these same communities will yet again feel the brunt of these callous and misguided cuts should the prevention fund be eliminated along with the ACA. African Americans are twice as likely to die from diabetes as White Americans. Thankfully, the prevention fund has invested $291 million in diabetes prevention. Latino women are 44 percent more likely to be diagnosed with cervical cancer than White women. Therefore, the prevention fund has invested $218 million in breast and cervical cancer prevention. Overall, the prevention fund has invested $227 million to the Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health Program. But eliminating the prevention fund wouldn't just negatively impact minority communities. In Connecticut, the Fund has invested over $27 million in our communities since 2010, improving the lives and well- being of people there every day. This strong investment has provided more Connecticut women with screenings for cancer. It has given our State health department the ability to better prevent diabetes, heart disease, and stroke and fight obesity through improved physical activity. It has allowed Connecticut to address school health more successfully, enriching our children's lives and inspiring a new generation of more healthy and happy citizens. It has provided the Connecticut Immunization Program with nearly half of its funding, with the program stating they ``don't know how we could continue to exist without this funding.'' Should the Affordable Care Act be repealed and the Prevention Fund eliminated, with TrumpCare cruelly and inadequately thrust upon our Nation in its place, the consequences would be devastating, not only for minority communities, but for the country as a whole. Bottom line: the Affordable Care Act has improved access to quality and affordable healthcare for all Americans and particularly for those that need it the most. I sincerely hope that my Republican colleagues stop denying, ignoring, and concealing that the Affordable Care Act--and the minority communities that benefited from it--has helped our Nation's health. I stand ready to build upon the great strides made in improving minority health since the Affordable Care Act, and I hope my colleagues are ready to do the same. Thank you.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, earlier this week, on Monday morning at 9 a.m., I held a last-minute emergency field hearing on healthcare. With our colleagues on the other side of the aisle refusing to hold any official hearing on the bill and refusing to even show us the bill-- what almost certainly is almost bad policy that is contained in the bill--I wanted the people of Connecticut to know that their voices and their faces would be heard and seen here in Washington, DC, and their stories would be told with or without an official committee hearing. When I say this emergency field hearing was last minute, it was truly last minute, with many people having not even days but hours of advance notice to come and speak and share with me and others what the Affordable Care Act has meant to them, to their families, to their communities, and what losing it would mean to them. To say the room was full would be a gross understatement. Every seat was filled, and when those seats were gone, people lined the wall two or three deep and squeezed in through the door. They were so anxious to be heard, and they were loud and clear. They were heard by me, and now I want their voices to be heard here. We are continuing this hearing. In fact, we are having a second hearing on Friday afternoon at 1:30 in New Haven. We are sending out notices, blasting them to the people of Connecticut. We will have a third, if appropriate and necessary. The people who came to this emergency field hearing in Connecticut were no different from millions of other people around the country, and they were speaking, in a sense, for all Americans. In my mind, they were speaking for parents who are suffering, providers who are healing, kids fighting back against dreaded diseases. They came because the closed-door discussions held in secret here by a small number of colleagues across the aisle will impact them every single day for the rest of their lives. My constituents and the people of Connecticut and the people of the country are unrepresented in those discussions. That is a travesty and a betrayal of our trust and our job. So, on Friday, we are going to do the same thing. We are holding another emergency hearing in New Haven so people of my State can be heard, despite this disgraceful process that has left them and so many others on the outside looking in. They are excluded from democracy, and that is unconscionable. If nothing else, I hope my colleagues will realize one thing. This is what democracy looks like. This is how we are meant to make decisions with many opinions--much debate, diversity of viewpoint, sometimes messy but always transparent, open, and clear to people whose lives are affected by it. That is what this emergency field hearing was designed to do. Since it is becoming increasingly clear that this bedrock principle of our democracy--the right to open and honest debate--is being denied, I want to share some of the stories I heard on Monday, just some of them, and I will be sharing more of these stories over the coming days. Justice Brianna Croutch was described by her mother as a beautiful free spirit, as you can see from this side of the photo. She was filled with compassion and at 21 years old had a beautiful and meaningful life ahead of her, all of her life ahead of her. She was a full-time student in a dental program, and she had a 4.0 average. Justice, like far too many people, particularly young people in Connecticut and around the country, had a substance use disorder, and she needed effective, long-term treatment to begin that road to recovery. For Justice, this treatment came too late, and on August 23, 2015, she overdosed on heroin. It led to a brain injury. It is likely she will never recover from that injury. ``More likely than not,'' her mother said, ``I will have to make the decision to bring my daughter home with hospice care. No parent should be faced with these decisions.'' That is what Jennifer Kelly said at the hearing on Monday. That is a picture of Justice as she is today. I want to read exactly what Jennifer Kelly said because her words are far more powerful and meaningful than mine could ever be. The American Health Care Act-- The House version of the so-called replacement for the Affordable Care Act-- would reduce Medicaid funding by $800 million, which provides coverage to an estimated 3 in 10 adults dealing with an opioid addiction. This will be so devastating to those seeking treatment for an opioid addition. In a system where families are already seeking help, this will be a tremendous step backwards. So here I am, almost two years later, pleading for life, fighting once again for families I have never met, because I believe that no one should have to fight to get help for addiction in this country like my daughter did. So my question is, Mr. President and the members of the Senate, what number of lives lost will be enough? What is the magic number of sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles that we as a nation will have to lose before you realize this country needs help? I ask that same question of my colleagues today. I ask the question that Jennifer, a brokenhearted mother, asked. What number of lives will be enough? How many is enough? When will others in this body realize that gutting our healthcare system and stripping millions of care will simply make this opioid epidemic worse? Jennifer was unfortunately not the only person who came to speak about the opioid epidemic. For me, the most moving and powerful among those moments came from Maria Skinner, who runs the McCall Center for Behavioral Health in Connecticut, who was there to give her thoughts and share the stories of two young people. I was actually lucky enough to meet both of them. Once again, I am going to share her words directly: What I want to do is talk to you about two people and make that a real, personal, granular, human story. . . . And you know these two people very well; it's Frank and Sean. She was speaking to me. [You] have met Frank and Sean, who were able to access care and get clean and sober because of the Medicaid expansion, because they were able to have coverage. And they've come here, to these rooms, to speak courageously and publicly about their struggle and about their recovery, and about how grateful they are to be able to be clean and sober because of the access of care afforded them through their insurance coverage. We went to Sean's funeral on Saturday, and . . . Frank would be here today if he wasn't as brokenhearted as I am. Sean was 26 and had been doing really well, was on Naltrexone, was taking a Vivitrol shot, and he had to have surgery for a hernia, because he raced motorbikes professionally and the hernia hurt him. He wanted to go back and was doing so well, he was speaking publicly to youth and was anxious to go back into doing what he loved. So he had that surgery and had to come off of his medication to do that. He was very vulnerable after his surgery, and he slipped once, and he used. I've been to too many funerals and seen too many mothers and fathers brokenhearted at the coffins of their sons and daughters. We can't make this any harder than it already is. To me, it is unconscionable. Maria is right, and so is Jennifer. Gutting Medicaid would be unconscionable. Weakening the protections afforded to those with mental health or substance use disorder would be truly unconscionable. Repealing the Affordable Care Act and the provisions within it that have meant more coverage, more healthcare, and more healing for those suffering from substance use disorder and struggling to break the grip of this opioid epidemic would be unconscionable and costly beyond words. Alternative funds, as some reports say Republicans have considered, will never replace a permanent insurance program like Medicaid because Medicaid guarantees that coverage is there when families need it. No alternative can do that. In Connecticut, nearly half of all medication-assisted treatment for people with substance use disorders is paid by Medicaid. My fear is that the Republican bill in place will mean that these people would have no place to go. They would have no support for medications, counseling, and help, no chance to get better, no place to go. I refuse to let us find out the answer to what would happen to them if Medicaid were gutted. I refuse to allow it to happen, if I have anything to do with it. People with substance use disorder are not the only ones who will see their coverage threatened by a weakening of protections for those with preexisting conditions. In Connecticut on Monday, Shawn Lang of AIDS- Connecticut expanded on what this bill would mean for the people living with HIV in this country. Some of us lived through the early days of the plague when we went to funeral after funeral, memorial service after memorial service, week after week, month after month, watching our friends wither away and die. The healthcare bill that is currently secretly weaving its way through Congress would bring us back to the early days of the plague. HIV is a preexisting condition. Over half of the people living with HIV in the country and in this state are over the age of 50 and rely on Medicaid as their primary source of insurance. Most of those people also have other co- morbidities like substance abuse disorders and mental health disorders. What little we know about this bill would be devastating to people with HIV and AIDS, and it essentially would amount to a death sentence. Once again, having lived through those early days, we don't want to go back there. Shawn's story is one of many I heard about the fear of losing coverage due to a preexisting condition. Gay Hyre, a 60-year-old breast cancer survivor, has similar concerns about what gutting the Affordable Care Act would mean not just for her but for everyone around her. She said this about why she came to speak at the hearing: I'm not just worried for me about my own care, although I will be on the receiving end of a lot of bad parts of this. I care passionately about the other 23 million Americans who are my fellow citizens of every age, type, and need. It's about the future, it's about our kids, it's about our grandkids who won't have access to treatments, who won't have access to doctors. I know my colleagues across the aisle don't want to hear these stories. If they wanted to hear these stories from people in Connecticut and around the country, millions of stories, we would have hearings--not just emergency field hearings; we would have hearings here in Washington before the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions and before the Committee on Finance and other committees that have jurisdiction on the House side as well as in the Senate. We would be having a real debate, a robust discussion, and everyone of us here would have a chance to review this bill, if there is a bill, and comment on it and hear from the people we represent. But unfortunately my colleagues across the aisle don't want to hear about the details of repealing the Affordable Care Act. One witness at my hearing, Ellen Andrews of the Connecticut Health Policy Project, really summed up the reason. Here is what she said: We have been working on expanding health coverage, high- quality, affordable coverage to everyone in the state and now everyone in the nation. I looked back, actually, at 2010, how many people were uninsured in this state before the Affordable Care Act, it was 397,000 people, almost 400,000. Last year it was down by 262,000. That is 262,000 fewer people living in our state without insurance because of the Affordable Care Act. I want to share one final story. It is about a little boy in Connecticut who has a lot to lose if the Affordable Care Act is secretly gutted behind closed doors, as is now happening in real time right before our eyes, in secret, invisibly, in this body. I want to tell you about Connor Curran. Two years ago, when Connor was 5 years old, his parents noticed that he was lagging behind his twin brother. They brought him to a doctor. Rather than receiving a simple diagnosis, they learned that Connor has Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a degenerative terminal disease that has no cure. Most people with the disease don't survive past their midtwenties. Connor's family wrote that their sweet boy, who was just 5 and full of life, would slowly lose his ability to run, to walk, to lift his arms. Eventually, they said, he would lose the ability to hug them at all. Connor needs complex care from multiple specialists, costing an estimated $54,000 a year. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, he cannot be denied coverage and has the coverage he needs to receive care. His family also wrote that any elimination of lifetime caps or elimination of essential health benefits will hinder his family's ability to access the care that Conner needs. This is Conner in a picture that has been provided by his family. The ACA removed barriers to Conner's care, and they are concerned-- and so am I--that this reckless, reprehensible bill will put them back to the place that they were when they first learned about Conner's diagnosis. Should Conner's disease progress, he will very likely need access to Medicaid in order to offset the costs of living with a disability, but for his family, the question now is, Will Medicaid even be there? If that devastating day comes, will he continue to receive the care he needs? Conner's family is not about to give up. They have come to my office annually since he was diagnosed in order to fight for a cure and to fight for the Affordable Care Act--sometimes with tears in their eyes. They raise awareness, and they fight for their little boy. I know they would do it a million times over again if it meant that Conner could get better and live a long and healthy life. Conner and others like him are why I am here. Conner and others like him are why I will continue this fight against any attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with a shameful, disgraceful bill that has been written behind closed doors--destroying lives and degrading the quality of life for millions of Americans. The people whom I have met in Connecticut who came to this hearing-- and countless others who have talked to me about the Affordable Care Act--are fighting for their lives and their health and for others who need it as well. Those people whom I met in Connecticut and the others who will come to our hearing on Friday and, perhaps, afterward are the reason I am fighting for better coverage for all of the people of Connecticut and our country. Those people are the best of our country with their fighting spirit and dedication to the people they love, and they deserve to be heard. They are the voices and faces of the Affordable Care Act who have been turned away at the door of this Capitol. I refuse to allow them to be silenced. As I have mentioned, we will be back at it again on Friday because hearing from our constituents is part of our job. It is the bedrock of democracy. It is the fundamental core of what we do--listening to the people whom we represent. Failing to do so is unconscionable just as destroying the Affordable Care Act would be unconscionable, just as denying Conner what he needs would be unconscionable, just as ignoring Justice and Sean and Frank would be unconscionable. I hope my colleagues will listen. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I am proud to join my colleagues tonight because this Nation stands at a precipice--on the verge of a tragic mistake, about to embark on a travesty that mocks the democratic process. Truly, the combination of secrecy and speed are a toxic recipe in our democracy. Secrecy and speed will bring us recklessly over the edge of that precipice to tragic mistakes that belie and betray the people of America and the values that we all share in this Chamber, because they are basic to the American way of life. Healthcare is a right, and it should be recognized as a right. The goal of extensive and comprehensive insurance coverage has to be, ultimately, a goal that we share in common, but, right now, we are speeding secretly toward a betrayal of American values and even of our constitutional duties. I am deeply disappointed that the secrecy employed by my colleagues has brought us, recklessly and reprehensibly, to the verge of gutting the Affordable Care Act. The absence of hearings before the committee, the absence of public debate, the absence of any text of a bill that can be debated and offered for public comment leaves us without the democratic bedrock principle of listening to the people of America and listening to the people who are most affected, who know the most--the experts and the patients. In fact, it is the patients who deserve to be heard here perhaps most of all. Yet my colleagues on the other side of the aisle seemingly will go to any length to suppress the cruelty that lies in their alleged healthcare bill. President Trump has called it mean, and that is an understatement. It is cruel beyond words and costly in lives and in dollars and cents because it will deepen and worsen healthcare issues that can be prevented and made curable or more palatable. Let's be clear. This secrecy--a small group of men making decisions about our entire healthcare system, with no input from women, from Medicaid beneficiaries, from people with substance use disorders, from patients struggling with mental health illness, or struggling with any disease at all--is irresponsible and deadly and truly cruel and costly to our democracy. The way these discussions have been done are a stain on this body and a slap in the face to every American who relies on us to make decisions that are in the best interests of their family as well as themselves. My colleagues seemingly would prefer to ram and rush a deeply flawed and unpopular bill through this body, ignoring the needs and will of the people they represent. That is a sad day in this Chamber. We need public hearings, not for their own sake, not for our sake but for the individual recovering from substance use disorder thanks to Medicaid; for the mother of a little girl with a preexisting condition, terrified of how she will pay for her care and able to do so now because of the Affordable Care Act; for the woman who is at a Planned Parenthood clinic today receiving a mammogram and other cancer screenings and other preventive healthcare testing, as well as men, because of the coverage provided to them by Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. Defunding Planned Parenthood, risking, again, preexisting conditions, eliminating the guarantee of essential health benefits, such as maternity care, is a war on women's healthcare and a disservice to our democracy done in secrecy. My colleagues across the aisle may succeed in gutting our Nation's healthcare system, but the people who pay the highest price will be ordinary Americans, working men and women and their families who now have healthcare coverage to prevent more serious illness and who will now go without it. Secrecy is the reason I convened an emergency field hearing on healthcare today in Connecticut, on very short notice--literally 24, 48 hours--and people came from across Connecticut at 9 a.m. on a Monday morning. My staff did yeoman's work putting together the logistics. The outpouring of anxiety and anger was remarkable, as was the eloquence and power of the insights offered by people about their own situations as well as about others whose interests they advocate. Many decided to stay and stand, even though the room afforded inadequate numbers of seats for everyone. It was standing room only, and they literally streamed out the door. The stories they told are worth hearing, and we have an obligation to listen to these Americans. I told them I would personally bring their voices and their faces to this Chamber, to the floor of the U.S. Senate. In the coming days, that is exactly what I will do because people need to hear the story of a beautiful young woman who now is incapacitated because she suffered from an overdose after seeking treatment, and the effect on others similarly seeking treatment will be so dire and damaging if coverage for addiction treatment and abuse treatment is eliminated. They need to hear the story of Sean, who similarly sought to overcome a substance abuse problem. They need to hear about individuals who would suffer from preexisting conditions. Those stories are what I will be recounting in the coming days, as I share word for word their fears, their anxiety and apprehension, and their worry for America about what will happen if the Affordable Care Act is repealed and gutted. We must build on that act. We must improve its defects and make sure it is worthy of the great goals we share but not destroy it or decimate it, and building on it, acting constructively, coming together is what we owe the American people. The folks who came today to the State capitol in Hartford at my emergency healthcare hearing recognized that if they fail to stand up for Planned Parenthood or mental health or those people with preexisting conditions or Medicaid or their loved one who is battling a dreadful disease, no one will. I am so proud of them and the people of Connecticut who have spoken up and stood up for the Affordable Care Act, and I am proud to bring their voices to the U.S. Senate--literally bring their voices here, as I will do over the coming days, as I read into the Record and put in the Record their testimony. I will hold a second hearing, probably later this week, because we couldn't hear from everyone who came to speak out and stand up. I hope my Republican colleagues will stop their denial, cease ignoring and disregarding those voices, and come to listen to them instead and recognize they cannot conceal the fact that the Affordable Care Act has helped our Nation's health. Gutting it without any hearings or public debate is unconscionable and reprehensible. It is a move they will regret. I stand ready to build on the great strides made by the Affordable Care Act, and I hope my colleagues are ready to do the same. If this Chamber proceeds down this reckless and reprehensible path of secrecy and speed toward repeal and gutting the Affordable Care Act, I promise to do everything in my power and use every tool at our disposal to stop this process. We cannot go about normal business in the U.S. Senate while so many back in our States demand that we fight, and we must fight. I will stand with hundreds of thousands in Connecticut who will lose their insurance--more than 220,000. I will stand with the people of Connecticut who will lose billions of dollars in investment in healthcare. I will stand with more than 20,000 people in Connecticut and 1 million around the country who will lose jobs. According to a study recently done by the Commonwealth Fund, job losses are inevitably the result, at some point in the future, of gutting this program. I will stand with the people of America and my colleagues who will resist--indeed, resist--this secrecy and speed that so disserves the values and betrays the ethos and traditions of this body. I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I came to the floor to talk about healthcare, but I wanted to be here on this occasion to join my distinguished colleague from Texas in supporting this measure because it is so vital to protecting children. Like the distinguished Senator from Texas, I, too, was attorney general, and we in Connecticut have been at the forefront of fighting this internet and cyber threat to the welfare of our children. So I want to express my thanks to him for working in a very bipartisan way. At a time when the public, many commentators, and media question whether we work together across the aisle, this bill is a very apt example of how we can and we must work together to protect our children, to advance our national interests, and to make sure that criminal justice is effectively enforced in this country. I look forward to working with my colleague in making sure this measure becomes law. I yield the floor.

Mr. BLUMENTHAL

Mr. BLUMENTHAL. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.