Al Franken

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I intend to offer the following motion to H.R. 1628, and I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. 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 Senators Cantwell and Klobuchar.

Mr. FRANKEN. 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 Senators Baldwin, Duckworth, Reed, Carper, Blumenthal, Brown, Warren, Stabenow, Booker, Udall, Feinstein, Shaheen, Coons, Nelson, and Van Hollen.

Mr. FRANKEN. 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 Senators Baldwin, Casey, Coons, and Blumenthal.

Mr. FRANKEN. 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.

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

Mr. FRANKEN. 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 Senators Shaheen and Blumenthal.

Mr. FRANKEN. 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 Udall.

Mr. FRANKEN. Thank you, Madam President. Madam President, I rise this evening to speak in opposition to the Republican plan to dismantle our healthcare system. Their effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act and gut Medicaid would put the health, as well as the financial security of millions of Americans, at risk. Let me tell you how this would affect Minnesotans such as Annie and her 5-year-old son Carter. Carter has autism spectrum disorder and relies on Medicaid to help cover necessary therapy services. When Carter was 2, he did not talk, make eye contact, or interact with anyone. But now, because of the treatment he receives under Medicaid, Carter speaks full sentences and is entering kindergarten. Annie explains how none of that would be possible without Medicaid. If Republicans succeed in imposing drastic cuts to Medicaid, which is what they want to do, and States are forced to cut back services, Annie and her family would not be able to afford the therapy that Carter needs to thrive. Think about that. Think about what that does to one life. Think about the other millions that would be affected in such a negative, tragic way. There is also Mari and Chrysann, both from Moorhead, MN. Moorhead is in northwestern Minnesota, right across the river from Fargo. Mari took care of her aging mother in her home as long as she could, but when Chrysann's health began to decline, Mari helped her mom move to a nursing home where she could access the higher level of care she needed. Mari and her husband work full time and still have children at home. I visited the nursing home where Mari spoke, and she got emotional when she told me that if it were not for Medicaid, her family would not have any other way to pay for her mother's care. She does not know how she would care for her mom or what would happen to her. Chrysann, Mari's mom, is worried too. She spoke at this roundtable at the nursing home. She is worried about how the Republican plan will affect her own future and those of others who are in similar situations in nursing homes. Sixty-four percent of Americans in nursing homes have their care paid for by Medicaid. Chrysann told me this plan is not about taking care of people but simply about ``survival of the fittest.'' Is that really the healthcare system we support in the United States of America--the survival of the fittest? How about Chuck? Chuck is the CEO of Perham Health. It is a rural hospital that is doing really innovative work in Northwest Minnesota. It is kind of central, north. It is in rural Minnesota, not unlike the rural areas in the Presiding Officer's State. Chuck told me: ``Cutting Medicaid as drastically as they are proposing will force us to cut staff in areas that are actually saving the system money today.'' These cuts would affect nurses who run the hospital's medical homes, community paramedics, and other staff who are helping to keep people out of the Emergency Department, reduce readmissions, and keep people healthy overall. This is part of the innovation they are doing there. This is part of the innovation that Minnesota leads the Nation in. Perham Health is one of the largest employers in town so taking away jobs does not just impact the patients and the hospital, it affects the community and rural economy. Cutting jobs and getting rid of successful reforms just does not make sense, and this would be repeated over and over and over again in rural America. Again, the question is, Why are Republicans pursuing such a reckless and irresponsible strategy? All of the bills they have proposed thus far will increase patient costs, including premiums and out-of-pocket costs, will increase the number of uninsured Americans, and will rip apart our healthcare safety net. These are not the changes Americans want. In fact, this is the opposite of what Americans want and are asking for. Now, over the last day, we have heard a lot more about another path Republicans may pursue--a scaled-back plan that eliminates a handful of the ACA provisions, including the employer mandate and individual mandate. While these two changes may be politically expedient, they would, according to the Congressional Budget Office, drive up premiums and cause millions of Americans to become uninsured. What is more, as the New York Times points out, this plan does nothing to address the criticisms Leader McConnell, President Trump, and their allies continue to lodge against the Affordable Care Act. For example, this approach does nothing to improve competition and choice in the individual market and, in fact, injects far more uncertainty into individual health insurance markets, which are already rattled by the administration's deliberate efforts to sabotage them. Should this plan pass the Senate, it will surely get much worse when the differences between the plan and the House bill are reconciled in the conference committee. According to news reports, a number of my Republican colleagues are arguing that passing this scaled-back version of repeal is really just a means to get to conference, where Members can further negotiate the House and Senate repeal and replace bills. In fact, some are even suggesting that the provisions in the House-passed bill would be a guidepost for negotiations. I think all of us remember how awful, far-reaching, and--according to President Trump--mean the House-passed bill is. What is more, we can see the worst provisions of the Better Care Reconciliation Act resurface in the conference committee, which is the Senate repeal and replace bill that was defeated on a bipartisan basis. Overall, pursuing this path is dangerous, given the tremendous number of unknowns. Not only would this half-baked--that is being generous-- quarter-baked, scaled-back version of the ACA repeal destabilize health insurance markets, but it would also serve as a vehicle for Republicans to take up the most controversial measures included in the defeated BCRA and the House-passed bill. Why on Earth would we support that? Frankly, it is also delusional to believe that a small group of House and Senate leaders can craft a workable solution in a matter of days or weeks. They have had 7 years to come up with an alternative. They do not have one so how can we expect them to, all of a sudden, come up with a viable plan that affects one-sixth of our economy? Look, this whole process has been and continues to be irresponsible. In fact, this is one of the most irresponsible policymaking processes I have seen in my time in the U.S. Senate. What we should do is just what Senator McCain called for in his speech yesterday, which is to pursue regular order, work together--Republicans and Democrats--and seek out compromise. If we reject this wrongheaded effort, then I and many of my colleagues are ready and committed to work in a bipartisan way on reforms that will expand coverage, lower costs, and improve care. Let's have bipartisan hearings on the individual market, on drug prices, and more. Let's call in nonpartisan expert witnesses. Let's have meaningful committee and floor debates. Let's fix what needs fixing in the Affordable Care Act. Annie, Carter, Mari, Chrysann, Chuck, and millions of other Americans need us to do just that. To my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, please, stand up to the bullying, stand up to the lies, and work with us to improve people's lives, not make them worse. Paul Wellstone said that politics is not about winning, that it is not about power, that it is not about money. Politics is about working to improve people's lives, and that is what we should be doing. You owe it to your constituents. You owe it to yourselves. Thank you. I yield the floor.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, there aren't many votes like this in a Senator's career so let's just lay this out. If you support the vote tomorrow, the following are some of the specific consequences that could follow and in many cases would follow. First, it is a vote that would open debate on bills that would undermine protections for people with preexisting conditions. This could happen in one of two ways. This vote could open debate on the potential Cruz amendment, which would allow insurance companies, as long as they offer ACA-compliant plans on the exchanges, to also sell bare-bones, skimpy plans outside of the exchanges, with almost no consumer protections. Under this amendment, insurers would be allowed to deny coverage and charge higher rates to women, older adults, and individuals with preexisting conditions. To my Republican colleagues, I ask: Do you know someone who is pregnant? Do you know someone who has diabetes? Asthma? Depression? Cancer? Multiple sclerosis? Substance use disorders? Arthritis? Dementia? Sleep apnea? Parkinson's? All of these people could be denied coverage under the Cruz amendment, just as they were prior to the ACA. The Cruz amendment will also bring back annual and lifetime limits, coverage exclusions, and more. When I was campaigning in 2008, and I would go around Minnesota-- cafes, VFW halls, bars--there would be a flyer up for a family who had gone bankrupt for someone who had gotten sick. This would bring back those annual limits, those lifetime limits. Do we really want to go back to that? The Cruz amendment is intended to deceive. The amendment is designed to make people think it would lower premiums since it would allow insurers to offer stripped-down plans that don't comply with the ACA's consumer protections, but what it actually does is skyrocket the price of insurance for people with preexisting conditions like epilepsy, Crohn's disease, and stroke, while eviscerating the quality of insurance for those who don't yet need, or know they need, such coverage. In fact, America's Health Insurance Plans, which is the national political advocacy and trade association of companies that sell health insurance to Americans, and the BlueCross BlueShield Association have said this proposal is ``simply unworkable in any form and would undermine protections for those with preexisting medical conditions, increase premiums and lead to widespread terminations of coverage for people currently enrolled in the individual market.'' The fact is, these high-deductible, bare-bones plans are a dangerous rip-off, and many people will not even realize what garbage insurance they have until it is too late. Here is the thing. Even if the Cruz amendment were removed from the bill, the Better Care Reconciliation Act would still undermine protections for people with preexisting conditions. That is because the bill would allow, and even incentivize, States to waive ACA protections like the guarantee of coverage for basic essential health benefits. If you are allowed to offer plans that don't cover basic services like mental health, prescription drugs, and maternity care, then you have a backdoor channel to charge people who need those services more than those who don't. Not only that, States that seek waivers and end the guarantee of essential health benefits bring us right back into the world of annual and lifetime limits--a world where your care would end not because your doctor said so but because the insurance company would stop paying for it. This could be true even for people who get their health insurance through their employer. In fact, even if you work in a State that hasn't taken this waiver, your employer could have gotten their health insurance from a State that had. In short, with or without the Cruz amendment, the Better Care Reconciliation Act breaks President Trump's promise to protect people with preexisting conditions. Second, yes, tomorrow is a vote to end Medicaid as we know it. Medicaid is a lifeline, providing health insurance and access to care for more than 70 million Americans. That is about one in every five Americans. It includes seniors, pregnant women, people with disabilities, families with children. Senator Klobuchar was right about this being a lottery. Any of us can be in an accident. Any of us can be diagnosed at any time. Any of us can have a child who is diagnosed at any time with something unexpected. Healthcare really should be a right. I don't understand people who say: I am healthy. My kids are healthy. Why should I suffer? I am the victim here. Nothing has happened to me. Why should we have a system where I am paying for people with preexisting conditions? Really? Is that the attitude my Republican colleagues are taking? Because that seems to be the logic. Medicaid had been a bedrock of our healthcare system since 1965. It was and is a Federal promise made to States and to all Americans over 50 years ago. And most of all, Medicaid works. But the Better Care Reconciliation Act would gut it. It would end the program's coverage guarantee, leaving States to either roll back coverage or slash other vital programs in order to meet their citizens' needs. Finally, a vote to support the motion to proceed to this bill is a vote to drive up people's total healthcare costs. The Republicans' plans decrease or eliminate the ACA's tax credits, which help people afford their insurance--that was part of the construct--and it dramatically hikes premiums for older Americans, although ones younger than I--I am now 66, but from 50 to 64. It drives up deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs that many people have to pay in order to receive care. Americans don't like these proposals. In fact, new polling shows that only 17 percent of Americans think they and their families will be better off under the Republican plans. That is 17 percent. What Americans want is for Republicans and Democrats to work together to build on and improve the Affordable Care Act. So why do my Republican colleagues continue to push forward on these terrible bills? It doesn't have to be this way. There is another option. This body can reject the wrongheaded and ill-thought-out proposals and allow for an open, bipartisan process under regular order where we can work together and do the things the American people actually sent us here to do-- expand coverage, lower costs, and improve care. We should have bipartisan hearings where we hear from nonpartisan expert witnesses about the challenges facing the Affordable Care Act so we can work together to fix what isn't working in the ACA. What we do know from the last few years is that coverage matters. This is important. Coverage matters. Just having coverage matters. Healthcare isn't really about these big, heroic emergencies. A person's health is about some of those events, but what it is really about is having coverage and getting continuous care throughout your life. Rigorous studies have shown that for every 300 to 800 adults who get coverage, 1 life is saved per year. Research summarized by Atul Gawande and his colleagues in a recent New England Journal of Medicine piece finds that health coverage expansions have improved people's access to care, improved their financial security, meaning fewer bankruptcies and medical bills sent to collections, improved chronic disease care and outcomes, improved self-reported health, and more. Overall, health insurance has been shown to help Americans live longer, healthier lives. Now is not the time to roll back our progress. I urge my Republican colleagues to think about what a vote for proceeding on this terrible legislation would mean for the American people. Paul Wellstone said that politics isn't about winning; it isn't about money; it isn't about power; it is about improving people's lives. Our constituents sent us here to improve their lives. So I urge my Republican colleagues to vote no. Let's work together to fix what needs to be fixed in the Affordable Care Act and do all we can to make sure people have access to affordable, high-quality healthcare when they need it. Mr. President, I yield the floor to the Senator from New Hampshire.

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I rise to talk about the effort by Republicans in the majority to rip apart our healthcare system and jeopardize the protections for people with preexisting conditions and to throw millions of people off their health insurance. Now, it is deeply troubling at this point that with less than 24 hours until the expected vote, we don't even know which version of repeal the Republicans hope to pass. Do Republicans support the Better Care Reconciliation Act--the bill that according to the Congressional Budget Office, would cause 22 million more Americans to become uninsured, which would drive up healthcare costs and dismantle the Medicaid Program? Do they support the Cruz amendment, which would bring back junk insurance plans that offer virtually no protection and drive up out-of-pocket costs for vital services or will they rally behind their backup option, a plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with nothing--that is, nothing--an approach that would add 32 million more Americans to the ranks of the uninsured and cause average premiums in the nongroup market to double or will it be something else entirely? We don't know. This is reckless. This is irresponsible. The American people deserve better. Let's be clear. A vote for the motion to proceed is a vote to move forward with conceivably any one of these bills, and all of these bills are terrible. They jeopardize lifesaving care and treatment for millions of American families, especially those with preexisting conditions. They tear apart our safety net and give tax breaks to powerful corporations. Let me remind my Republican colleagues that a vote in support of the motion to proceed will have real-world consequences for your constituents who may lose their health insurance. Perhaps these are people you have met; people, many of whom may be losing sleep out of justified fear that their children or their parents, their loved ones or they themselves are at risk of losing their healthcare. I have talked to so many people in my State about these dangerous proposals. There is Kristi. Kristi is a young farmer in Greater Minnesota whose husband and two kids relied on Medicaid to access care when their farm was struggling. There is Sandy, whose mom is in a nursing home and who doesn't know how she will pay for the round-the-clock care her mother needs if Medicaid, which covers more than 6 in 10 nursing home residents nationwide, scales back coverage. Then, this is Sheri, who said that if it weren't for Medicaid, her son Brandon, who has cerebral palsy and hydrocephalus, probably wouldn't be here. I met Brandon. I think he is 18 or 19. He was born 15 weeks early, in Minneapolis, about a pound and a half. They took him to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. The Mayo Clinic said: We can't handle him, so they sent him back to Minneapolis to Gillette Children's Hospital, which could. They told Brandon's parents: He is going to require $1 million in care the first day to save his life. Brandon has had, I think, 37, 38 surgeries. He spoke at a meeting we had on Medicaid a couple of weeks ago in Minnesota, and he stood--he had a walker. He had just gotten an A-minus in his first college course. He was actually, in a way, the last person in the room I was worried about because his resilience--this guy, this kid is going to be amazing. I don't think he would be here if we didn't have the kind of Medicaid we have and the kind of Medicaid my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are talking about limiting in a way that will affect so many people I have met across my State. This is one of those votes that will go down in history. It is one of those votes that all of us will be answering for wherever we go for the rest of our lives. The former Republican Senator from Minnesota, David Durenberger, outlined some of the reasons Senators should not vote for this consequential legislation in an excellent op-ed, a piece he wrote, and it was in USA TODAY today. Senator Durenberger--again, a Republican from Minnesota and someone whom I talk to a lot about healthcare--wrote this piece, saying resist the bullying, don't vote for a mystery healthcare bill. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record Senator Durenberger's op-ed.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I rise also in opposition to the nomination of John Kenneth Bush. Mr. Bush, who has been nominated to serve as a judge on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, has the dubious distinction of having anonymously written scores of blog posts that aren't just offensive--which, believe me, they are--but that call into question the nominee's ability to be a fair and impartial arbiter of the law, which is the job of a judge, especially a circuit court judge. In my view, the nominee's lengthy record of inflammatory and intemperate writings stands as evidence that Mr. Bush falls far short of the high standards that the Senate should demand of nominees to the Federal bench. Over the course of nearly 10 years, Mr. Bush wrote under the pseudonym ``G. Morris.'' He wrote under a pseudonym on a political blog operated by his wife, where he published hundreds of incendiary posts. Let me be absolutely clear. Being politically active or expressing political opinions is not a disqualifying characteristic in a judicial nominee--at least, not in my view. But as I said during Mr. Bush's hearing, it is important for the Senate, in attempting to determine whether a nominee is qualified to serve as a Federal judge, to assess that nominee's judgment as a judge--to assess his or her judgement--and that is what I would like the President and all our Members to consider. In the hundreds upon hundreds of posts that Mr. Bush anonymously published on his wife's blog, Mr. Bush did not demonstrate what any Member of this body would characterize as good judgment. It was far from it. During his hearing, I questioned the nominee about a series of posts in which he seemed to fixate on President Obama's Kenyan heritage. In one post, Mr. Bush discussed an article that suggested a reporter was detained by the Kenyan Government because he was investigating ``Barack Obama's connections in the country'' and that authorities had locked up the reporter in order to prevent him from publishing what he discovered. The article Mr. Bush quoted from and linked to was published on World Net Daily, a website known for peddling conspiracy theories, bogus claims, and White nationalism. In fact, World Net Daily is widely known for trafficking in birtherism-- the widely debunked and racist belief that President Obama was not born in this country. Nonetheless, Mr. Bush presented the World Net Daily article as fact. This is a guy who has been nominated to be a circuit court judge calling a World Net Daily article fact. So during his confirmation hearing, I asked Mr. Bush--and I asked him over and over again--how he decided which sources to rely upon in his writings and how he determined a particular source was credible. In my view, whether a nominee is capable of discerning real news from fake news or blogs that traffic in conspiracy theories from legitimate journalism directly speaks to the nominee's judgment. Again, the job is judge. Really now, World Net Daily? Whether and how a nominee evaluates the credibility of a claim or a source of information provides a window into how he might approach the factual record in a case, for example. That is what judges do. But Mr. Bush couldn't answer my question. Instead, he said: ``As a blogger, I was finding things that were in the news that were of note, I thought.'' In response to a written question I posed, Mr. Bush said that rather than perform original research to support his claims, he instead ``relied upon readily available sources on the internet.'' That would be the prestigious internet. Really? Really? From a nominee for the circuit court? This begs the question: How did Mr. Bush find these articles? Does the nominee consume a steady diet of disinformation and conspiracy theories? I asked him that question in writing. Mr. Bush responded that he did not remember how he came upon those sources and that, in fact, aside from the articles he quoted, he did not recall reading any articles from those sources, despite the fact that he linked to and quoted liberally from conspiracy-minded websites many, many times in his writings. Despite Mr. Bush's claims that he can't remember how it was that World Net Daily found its way onto his computer screen and despite his claim that he can't recall how he discovered and then later cited the writings of a birther conspiracy theorist, I suspect that in Mr. Bush's case, the simplest explanation is probably the right one. I suspect the reason Mr. Bush quoted from sources like World Net Daily so frequently is that Mr. Bush frequented those sources, that he frequently read the material they published, and I suspect he enjoyed it. That is just a suspicion based on my judgment. The fact that a man who anonymously wrote inflammatory and offensive blog posts and who consumed information from sources that routinely publish lies and racially insensitive material could be confirmed to a lifetime appointment on one of the U.S. courts of appeals should shock the conscience of each and every Member of the Senate, no matter what your politics are. I have served on the Judiciary Committee for 8 years, and during that time I have had the opportunity to evaluate countless judicial nominees. I understand that each Senator has his or her own way of determining whether a nominee should be confirmed. Some Senators prefer nominees who embrace a judicial philosophy of originalism or strict constructionism, others reject that view. For some Senators, a nominee's view of the Second Amendment or Roe v. Wade serves as a litmus test. Setting aside the usual yardsticks by which we measure judicial nominees, Mr. Bush should strike each and every Member of this body as manifestly unqualified, by any measure. Through his writings alone--and I urge all of my colleagues simply to look at his writings on his blog or on his wife's blog that he wrote with a pseudonym. They are awful. They are disgraceful. Please, I beg my colleagues, read these and say to yourself: Are these writings the writings of a man--no matter what his leanings are in terms of how constitutional law should be decided, what his philosophy is, whether conservative, progressive, or liberal--how we can confirm someone to the circuit court, to a Federal judgeship for life, who writes anonymously these awful, incendiary things, relying on sources that are known for spreading hatred and linking to them. I don't think we have been here before. I don't think we have been here before. I would beg my colleagues, before you cast this vote--I believe you could not justify to your constituents, that you could not justify to your family--please read these blog posts by this nominee and check your conscience--not at the door, check it. This is one of those incredibly unusual circumstances where somebody comes before us who, I believe, is uniquely unqualified for the job. Thank you.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Thank you, Mr. President. I thank my vice chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee, and I thank the Presiding Officer, who chairs the committee. I am honored to serve under both of them. I rise to discuss the devastating effects the various Republican healthcare proposals that have been made would have on Indian Country. Republicans are now considering a straight repeal of the Affordable Care Act, with no replacement. This policy, like others that have come before it, would have a devastating effect on Native communities. Today, I want to describe some of the healthcare challenges that these communities face, how the Affordable Care Act has helped to address some of those challenges, and how repealing the Affordable Care Act would undermine these gains and further jeopardize healthcare for an already vulnerable population. I have served on the Indian Affairs Committee for the past 8 years, and I am continually shocked by what I hear almost every week from Tribal leaders and other witnesses about the challenges that face Native communities. One of the biggest challenges is that the Federal Government consistently falls short of its responsibilities to Indian communities. There is a lack of attention to the concerns of Native communities. There is a dysfunctional bureaucracy and a Congress that doesn't adequately fund Indian programs, and this can create a vicious cycle. When programs don't have adequate funding, they don't work as they should. Some of my colleagues who have failed to provide Indian Country with the funding they need point to the resulting program inefficacies as justification for continuing to cut and underfund critical programs. That just doesn't make sense to me. Healthcare has fallen prey to this vicious cycle even though the Federal Government has a trust responsibility to provide healthcare to Tribes and to their members. Medicaid and the Indian Health Service are both part of this trust responsibility. Over the years, the Indian Health Service has suffered from lack of resources, poor staffing, and other challenges. The vice chairman was right: ``Don't get sick after June'' is unfortunately something we hear over and over again, and it is said with some irony but also hurt in Indian Country because the funding runs out then. These challenges mean that many in Indian Country, particularly those living in remote areas, don't have reliable access to the medical care they need on a timely basis. This is healthcare that was promised by treaty and by our Constitution. Prior to the ACA, funding shortages meant that IHS was only able to provide people with the most basic services, so a lot of the care that people needed was simply not available. For example, prior to the passage of the Affordable Care Act, the Indian Health Service could not afford to provide vital services, including women's health screenings, like mammograms, or basic diabetes care. If you suffered from diabetes, you often had to wait until dialysis was required or limb amputation was needed before being able to receive care. That is just unconscionable. That is terrible. What is more, American Indians and Alaska Natives were more likely to be uninsured than non-Native populations, which meant that many people who needed care that wasn't covered by the IHS simply went without. The ACA helped change all of this for the better. First, the ACA gave States the option to expand their Medicaid Programs to include low- income adults without dependent children. Thanks to Medicaid expansion, 11 million Americans, including more than 290,000 American Indians and Alaska Natives, were able to get health insurance. The ACA's Medicaid expansion made it possible for an estimated 60 percent of uninsured American Indians and Alaska Natives to qualify for healthcare coverage. This expansion, coupled with other Medicaid policy reforms, such as those that simplified the enrollment process, helped increase the total number of people covered under the program. In fact, IHS reported earlier this year that 42 percent of patients receiving services--of those who receive the services--did so because they had coverage through Medicaid. That is what the Indian Health Service said. Forty- two percent of those who received healthcare services did so because they are covered by Medicaid. In Grand Portage, which is a beautiful spot on the northeastern corner of Minnesota, this meant that well over 20 more band members, many of them children, received coverage. We know from a recent report out of Georgetown University that, nationwide, 54 percent of children in American Indian and Alaska Native families were enrolled in Medicaid in 2015, compared to 39 percent of all children. This program has been a vital source of coverage, and, with health insurance coverage, people have finally been able to access the healthcare they need. That is what healthcare is really about. Healthcare is about having coverage so that you have routine visits for primary care. So if you are diabetic, you have routine visits. It is not about the emergency heroic event; healthcare is about the constancy of care. That is what improves people's health. That is what improves their lives. Another way the ACA helped improve healthcare for Native populations was by transitioning the IHS to be the payer of last resort. By establishing that Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance would be the primary payers, the ACA ensured that there was more money going to provide a wider range of services that people needed, while simultaneously reducing the financial burden on the IHS. Yet there is more that we need to do to strengthen the Affordable Care Act and improve rates of coverage and access within Native communities. For example, we need to do more to address workforce shortages and lack of competition in insurance markets in rural areas. The Presiding Officer knows that. Also, it is imperative that we tackle the opioid epidemic in Indian Country. But recent Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act will do nothing to address these outstanding needs and would undermine the recent health and coverage gains Tribal communities have been able to achieve. I know the last bill had money targeted at opioid treatment, but it wasn't anywhere near what will be taken away when the Medicaid expansion and cuts to Medicaid are figured in. The Republicans' proposals would hurt Indian communities in a number of important ways. First, they would cause tens of millions of people, including many American Indians and Alaska Natives, to lose coverage, with between 15 million and 18 million Americans losing coverage immediately. For example, Republican plans would end the Medicaid expansion, as I have said, which has been central to providing health coverage to many in Native communities. Second, they would jeopardize the sustainability and stability of the individual market, while giving huge tax breaks to powerful corporate interests. Finally, they would increase premiums and reduce subsidies that low- income people receive to help pay for their healthcare, which would put private health coverage out of reach for so many. Efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act are just bad for Native communities and bad for the country as a whole. As many of my colleagues know well, American Indians and Alaska Natives are twice as likely, as compared to non-Hispanic Whites, to be overweight, obese, diagnosed with diabetes, and experience hopelessness and depression. In Minnesota, American Indian women are also more likely than Whites to be diagnosed with maternal opiate dependency during pregnancy, and more children are born opioid dependent. Reducing coverage and driving up healthcare costs is the last thing these communities need. Indian Tribes in Minnesota and in North Dakota and in all of our States are grappling with challenging and complex healthcare needs. They need our help. They don't need legislation that is hastily put together for ideological reasons. They don't need policies that undercut their care and livelihood. I believe we need to work together across partisan lines. I really hope that is what we are going to do. The Republican healthcare plans that have been put forward so far break the Federal Government's trust responsibility and undermine the very programs that are helping Indian communities. That is what I sincerely believe. I urge my colleagues to reject Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and instead work with us on a bipartisan basis, in regular order, with hearings before our committees, to strengthen care options for our Native communities and for all Americans. I believe we can do that, and I believe we can work together. It is just the right thing to do. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield to the vice chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee, the Senator from New Mexico.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Thank you, Mr. President. I rise to talk about the effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. Before I begin, I thank Senator Hirono for sharing her story and for leading us all here in the discussion tonight. I thank the Presiding Officer who has been listening, and I appreciate that. I really do. In recent days, we have finally gotten to see the plan that 13 Republican Senators have been working on in secret and behind closed doors. I really thought the Senate bill would be better. I thought it would be better than the House version that was passed. Even Senator Burr said of the House bill that it was ``dead on arrival'' in the Senate, but, unfortunately, the Senate plan is just as bad. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office announced just today that, under the Senate plan, 22 million more Americans would be uninsured. That has consequences. Perhaps worst of all--and partly because this causes the reduction in the number of Americans who would be covered--the bill ends the Medicaid expansion and cuts the funding for the Medicaid Program by nearly $800 billion--a program that has been a vital part of our social fabric since 1965. This bill--and I do not like to say this--is mean. The President said that of the House bill. I do not like to characterize something that way, but it is mean and would have far-reaching effects for millions of Americans across the country. This past weekend, I hosted a healthcare forum in Burnsville, MN. It is a suburb that is south of Minneapolis, of the Twin Cities. It was on the importance of Medicaid and how the Republican plan's devastating cuts would affect Minnesotans. Over 230 people showed up to share their stories about how Medicaid changed their lives, and it was very moving. I think it is really important to tell this in terms of people, not in terms of numbers, although the numbers are pretty stark. Brandon and his mom spoke, Brandon and Sheri. They are both from Burnsville. Brandon was born 15 weeks premature. He weighed just 1 pound 13\1/2\ ounces. He was so small that his parents' wedding rings could slide on his arm. He was also born with cerebral palsy and hydrocephalus, which is a condition that causes fluid to collect in Brandon's brain, which results in brain damage. Brandon, who is now 17, got up with a walker at the event. He told me that he was taken immediately to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. He was born in the Twin Cities, but Mayo said that his case was too complicated to handle, so they sent him back to the Twin Cities, to Gillette, which is a children's hospital. It is a great children's hospital, a great hospital. Within 24 hours of his birth, the hospital told Brandon's parents that his costs were already over $1 million--a terrifying addendum to what must have been a harrowing, harrowing experience. Over the years, Brandon has needed 38 surgeries--surgery to reduce the fluid in his brain. He has a shunt. He has had surgeries to straighten out his legs. He has had eye surgeries and more. He has also needed extensive physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, and across his lifetime, he has needed other interventions to help him do basic tasks, like eat and now walk. He could not turn over. He could not do the things that babies do, that we parents and grandparents relish in every day. But guess what. He is thriving. In fact, he just passed his first college course at Dakota County Technical College. He proudly told me and the rest of us that he received an A-minus, and he hopes someday to get a job at Gillette, the Gillette Children's Specialty Healthcare, which is the very place that provided him with the unique and high- quality care that he has needed over the years. All of this has been possible because Brandon and his family were able to get health insurance through Medicaid. Sheri, Brandon's mom, said: ``If we didn't have Medicaid, Brandon probably wouldn't be here''--meaning at our forum--``and he wouldn't be doing as well as he's doing.'' Brandon similarly noted: Kids with special needs are referred to as ``special needs,'' and I like to think I'm pretty special. I also like to think our needs are also special depending on the kind of care we need and that's what Medicaid provides. I really believe that all of us here tonight must do all we can to protect these kids and protect their families and everyone who relies on Medicaid, and I sincerely believe that means we have to defeat this bill. My colleague Senator Hirono stated last week: ``We are all one diagnosis away from a serious illness.'' That is the case. Do you know what else? We are also just one accident away from a life-changing injury. Another Minnesotan, Deborah, shared her story with my office. She described for me a car crash and the subsequent traumatic brain injury that she survived in 2012. She explained: It was just another day. I was on my way to work. I lost control of my SUV after sliding on a patch of ice and slammed into a concrete median. Her whole life changed at that moment. She had to relearn basic tasks--reading, walking, talking, and eating--but all of it was possible because of the home- and community-based services she was able to receive through Medicaid. She said: Without the services funded by Medicaid, my goal of returning to paid employment would be impossible. I honestly worry that proposed changes to the Medicaid program could significantly diminish my overall health outcomes and even leave me facing long-term homelessness. As my colleagues and people at home who are watching this debate well know, this week could prove to be an extremely consequential week in the history of this country. The decisions we make--the 100 of us--over the next few days could literally mean life or death for many Americans. Lives are on the line. Tomorrow, I will give a speech that is more about the data, and we have heard about some of that, but there is a study in the New England Journal of Medicine that came out this week that reads that Medicaid-- having the insurance--improves people's lives and that--this is not precise--for every 300 to 800 who will lose healthcare, who would lose Medicaid, there will be a premature death. This is a study that is going to be summarized in the New Yorker, in an article by Atul Gawande, that the effect of having insurance is not about dramatic emergencies. This is especially about things like diabetes and heart illness and cancer--the day-to-day. It is about having access. Because you have insurance for care, it improves the health of people, and it extends mortality. This is real stuff. What we are doing is really serious. I strongly urge my Republican colleagues to talk with their constituents about the bill that was drafted. Again, it was behind closed doors, and many of my Republican colleagues did not see it until last week. I urge them to talk to their constituents about the consequences this bill would have for seniors, for children, and parents who have Medicaid coverage. Talk to the people who would see their healthcare costs rise. Talk to the families who may lose their health insurance. People are afraid. I am a cochair of the World Health Caucus. I go all around my State. I talk to roundtables at rural hospitals and nursing homes. These are the parts of my State that voted for Donald Trump. During the campaign, Donald Trump said that he would not cut Medicaid. These are people who are scared, whose elderly parents stay home because Medicaid pays for their home healthcare, and they are afraid because that will go away. Both she and her husband work--this was a woman in Herman, MN--and they do not know what they will do. Please, listen to your constituents. You need to do the right thing and vote no on this bill for their sake--for the sake of your constituents. I yield the floor.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Thank you, Mr. President. I rise today to talk about the Republican effort happening in total secrecy behind closed doors under the direction of Leader McConnell to repeal the Affordable Care Act and gut Medicaid in order to give huge tax breaks to the wealthiest Georgians, the wealthiest Americans. Just about 5 months ago, I came before this body. I issued a simple request to Republicans. I asked you to show me your plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. I asked you to show me the plan that was going to be ``terrific.'' As to the bill that President Trump promised during his campaign and the one Republicans had 7 years to come up with, I asked you to explain how you would meet the standards set by one of President Trump's top advisers, Kelly Anne Conway, who said: ``We don't want anyone who currently has insurance to not have insurance.'' I asked you all to show me the plan that retains coverage for the nearly 20 million people who have gained it, continues to contain healthcare costs, and ensures that nobody gets denied or has to pay more because of their gender or because of preexisting conditions. I never got that plan from you. Instead, what we received was the American Health Care Act, or the AHCA, a heartless, terrible bill that passed the House in early May, a bill that President Trump heralded in the Rose Garden, after its passage, as ``great.'' The AHCA is a far cry from what President Trump and his allies promised. If the AHCA becomes law, 23 million more people would be uninsured. The bill ends protections for people with preexisting conditions and drives up healthcare costs dramatically for older, sicker folks. Worse still, the AHCA would end the Medicaid expansion and slash Medicaid by $834 billion over 10 years. For what? To offer massive tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans, for the wealthiest Georgians in the Presiding Officer's State. The average tax savings for the 400 richest families under this plan is $7 million apiece each year--$7 million each for every year, because they need it. No wonder people are outraged. Just 8 percent of Americans think the Senate should pass this bill into law unchanged. Well, 8 percent has to be a new low. Americans do not want TrumpCare. Three in four Americans want President Trump and his administration to do what he can to make the ACA work rather than undermining it. Even President Trump reportedly now considers the House bill to be ``mean.'' It went from ``great'' to ``mean.'' In the Rose Garden, it was great. Now, a few weeks later, that same great bill is mean. Instead of listening to the American people, Republicans are pursuing a strategy that former Acting Administrator of CMS Andy Slavitt has described as sabotage, secrecy, and speed. Up first, sabotage. In a few years, Republicans have choked off the Risk Corridors Program, which was designed to help stabilize premiums in the first years of the new exchanges. The Trump administration has gone even further. It has stopped enforcing the individual mandate, has undermined outreach efforts to help people sign up for health insurance, and has cut in half the amount of time that people have to sign up for health insurance coverage. Perhaps the most troubling of all is that Republicans have refused to commit to funding cost-sharing reduction payments. These payments help low-income families cover their out-of-pocket costs. Since insurers are not sure if they can count on the administration to continue to provide these payments, some are pulling out of the individual market or are dramatically increasing their premiums to account for this instability, this uncertainty. There is much more we can do to shore up the individual market, but my colleague Senator Stabenow had it right when she said to Secretary Price, of the Presiding Officer's State, regarding the administration's sabotage efforts: ``It's like pulling the rug out from under somebody and going, `Oh, my gosh. They fell down.' '' That was from Debbie Stabenow, of Michigan. The next tenet of the Republican approach is secrecy. A group of 13 men has been meeting in secret to draft the Senate version of the AHCA. What little we do know is that Senator Cornyn estimates there will be about an 80-percent overlap between the Senate and House bills. Prior to now, our understanding was that the Senate Republicans would completely rewrite the bill, with Senator Burr even saying the House bill was ``dead on arrival.'' It sounds like that plan has been jettisoned, but we cannot be sure because the Senate has had precisely zero hearings, zero days of public floor debate, and we have yet to see or hear about the revised draft of the AHCA, despite the forthcoming vote. I urge my Republican colleagues to recall that during the long debate over the Affordable Care Act, the Senate held nearly 100 bipartisan hearings, roundtables, and walkthroughs, and had 25 consecutive days of public floor debate. Let me repeat that--nearly 100 bipartisan hearings, roundtables, and walkthroughs in the Senate alone, with 25 consecutive days of public floor debate on a bill that affects one-sixth of our economy. In the Senate HELP Committee, Senators considered nearly 300 amendments during a 13-day markup--one of the longest in congressional history--and ultimately accepted more than 160 Republican amendments in the process. In 2009, then-House Budget Committee Ranking Member Paul Ryan argued: Before Congress changes healthcare as the American people know it, we must know the likely consequences of the House Democrat legislation, including the number of people who would lose access to their current insurance. The irony is palpable. Feel the palpable irony. Do you feel it? Does everybody feel it? That brings me to the final component of the Republican approach, and that is speed. Leader McConnell would prefer to have a vote on the Senate plan before the July 4 recess or shortly thereafter. That timing only leaves us with a few days to go. There will just not be enough time to truly understand how this bill would affect the healthcare system, which, again, is one-sixth of our economy and affects all of the millions of Americans who rely on it. Republicans plan to schedule the vote in such a way as to keep the American people in the dark about this bill for as long as possible. The American people deserve a chance to weigh in on a bill that would affect their lives and those of their friends and families in my State of Minnesota and the Presiding Officer's State of Georgia. My office has received over 15,000 letters from very worried Minnesotans these past few months, and I have gone to visit rural healthcare facilities that would be among the hardest hit by the AHCA. My constituents--the people of Minnesota--are frankly scared about what will happen to them or their families if they lose their health insurance, and I am too. As I did in January, I would like to encourage my Republican colleagues to join me on a trip to Minnesota to meet Leanna. Leanna's 3-year-old son Henry has been diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. His treatment will last until at least April of 2018. He needs around-the-clock care to manage his nausea, vomiting, pain, and sleepless nights. Henry's immune system is so compromised that he is not supposed to go to daycare so Leanna left her job to care for him. Henry and Leanna are supported by Leanna's spouse, but they cannot pay for his treatment on one salary. Leanna says: It is because of the ACA that Henry gets proper healthcare. Henry can get therapy and the things he needs to maintain his health and work towards beating cancer. Henry is still with us because of the ACA. He is 3. Let me say that again: ``Henry is still with us because of the ACA.'' I will do everything I can to fight the Republican effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, strip away consumer protections, and gut Medicaid. To all of my constituents who care about this, I need you to keep fighting. Now is the time to make your voices heard. I thank the Presiding Officer for his attention. I yield the floor.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Katie Wright, a fellow in my office, be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the year.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I rise today to talk about the House Republican healthcare bill and the devastating effect that it would have on people with mental illness and those affected by the Nation's opioid epidemic. Nationwide, more than 52,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2015, the most recent year for which data are available, with 63 percent of those deaths involving an opioid. This means that drug overdose deaths now surpass the number of people who die each year from automobile accidents or from firearms. That same year in Minnesota, we lost more than 570 people to drug overdoses. About half of those deaths were tied to prescription medication--particularly, opiate pain relievers--and another 20 percent of those deaths were associated with heroin. We saw drug overdose deaths jump 11 percentage points in Minnesota from 2014 to 2015. The opioid epidemic knows no boundaries. It has touched people and families of all incomes, of all races, and of all ages. Some communities in Minnesota have been hit particularly hard by this crisis, including our Native American population. Not long ago, I visited the Bois Forte Indian Reservation. Bois Forte is a small, beautiful reservation up in northern Minnesota, a community where people know each other and trust each other. In fact, historically, the trust has run so deep that folks in Bois Forte didn't even lock their doors at night. But the opioid epidemic--I was told this by the Tribe chairman--and the impact it has had on the people in the reservation has changed that. Opioids are changing and destroying families and communities, and one clear sign of this is that people now are locking their doors, the chairman told me. Right now, we need to be doing all we can to help people, families, and communities that have been devastated by opioid addiction. We must provide support for treatments and other necessary interventions, and we need to be focusing on prevention. That is why we passed the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act just last year, and why we followed it up with the behavioral health provisions in the 21st Century Cures Act--again, just at the end of last Congress. Now these important advances are under threat. The so-called healthcare bill that Republicans pushed out of the House of Representatives would undermine the very programs that help people with opioid addiction. For instance, as the CBO confirmed yesterday, the bill guts Medicaid, cutting the program's budget by more than $830 billion over 10 years. These losses are compounded by the additional $610 billion in cuts to Medicaid proposed in President Trump's budget yesterday. In total, these cuts would amount to close to a 50-percent reduction in the funding for the Medicaid Program, causing at least 14 million people to lose Medicaid coverage over the next decade. Medicaid is the No. 1 payer for behavioral health services in the Nation. It covers both prevention and treatment for people at risk for or actively battling opioid addiction. For example, Medicaid pays for about one-quarter of medication- assisted treatment for opioid and heroin addictions. Because of the Medicaid expansion, 1.3 million additional people gained access to behavioral health services, which reduced the number of low-income adults needing substance use treatment but not receiving it by 18 percent. To further undermine coverage, the House bill would also allow States to eliminate essential health benefits. The essential health benefits are 10 key benefits that plans exchanges must offer, including maternity care, prescription drugs, and mental health and substance use disorder services. What we know is that before the ACA was passed, many people with private insurance did not have coverage for the mental health services they needed. One in three did not have coverage for substance use disorder treatment, and close to one in five did not have coverage for mental healthcare. Now is not the time to be cutting back on those benefits. In fact, last year, the Surgeon General issued a report on addiction, which found that there are more people with substance use disorders than people with cancer. What the CBO score confirmed yesterday was that people who live in States that rollback essential health benefits, who still need the services that are no longer included in the essential health benefits would ``experience substantial increases in out-of- pocket spending on health care or would choose to forgo the services.'' The report goes on to call out the fact that out-of-pocket costs for these patients could increase by thousands of dollars a year, and the benefits would again be subject to annual and lifetime limits. Substance use disorder services are highlighted as specific benefits that CBO anticipates States will exclude first. I want to make this clear to my colleagues and to the American people: You cannot say that you want to address our country's opioid epidemic and at the same time support this bill. Those things are in direct opposition to one another. So, to all of my colleagues who supported CARA and supported the 21st Century Cures Act, I urge you to work with us to build on the ACA so that we can effectively address the opioid epidemic ravaging our country. My colleague on the other side of the aisle, Senator Corker from Tennessee, had it right when he remarked on the secret partisan process currently underway in the Senate. Earlier this week he said: It's a very awkward process, at best. There are no experts. There's no actuaries. . . . Typically, in a hearing, you'd have people coming in and you'd also have the media opining about if a hearing took place, and X came in and made comments. Senator Corker is spot-on. The American people deserve an open and transparent discussion on how we can best improve healthcare in our Nation. Many Americans are struggling just to keep their heads above water, paying their bills, raising their kids, caring for their parents, and coping with health problems. Families in Minnesota and in all of our States have been or are currently being ripped apart by opioid addiction. They need our help. They don't need a bill or a budget, for that matter, that is hastily put together for ideological reasons. They don't need policies that undercut their care and their livelihood. Ninety-one people die every day in the United States from an opioid overdose. Only one in five people who currently need treatment for opioid use disorders is actually getting it. American lives hang in the balance. People are counting on us to do the right thing. So let's do it. I yield the floor.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I would like to commend my colleague from Alaska. Closer to the Poles, you see the effect of climate change more starkly. I am glad that she spoke on this issue. She is a real champion for her State, which means recognizing that climate change is having an effect on the Arctic and on those villages up there. It will have a lot of consequences going forward. I say thank you to Senator Murkowski.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I rise to talk about the healthcare bill the House of Representatives passed and is currently being considered behind closed doors by my Republican colleagues. I travel around greater Minnesota all the time, and when the Republicans' healthcare plan first came out, I traveled to rural Minnesota to meet with rural hospitals, nursing home providers, and constituents to hear how this bill would impact their lives and communities. They are upset and they are frankly scared. In Perham, MN, I heard from a woman who was in tears, not knowing where her mother would go if the Republican plan passed and she lost her nursing home coverage. This woman and her husband work full time, but together they cannot afford the around-the-clock care her mother needs. Later, at a nursing home in Moorhead--that is in Minnesota across the river from Fargo--I also heard from a resident, Chrysann, who said this new plan wasn't about taking care of people but about ``survival of the fittest.'' The hospitals and nursing home administrators I met with said the financial blow they would receive would cause them to cut services and in some cases even close their doors. What I heard, and the real panic that I saw, is a far cry from what President Trump promised this past January when he said: ``We're going to have insurance for everybody.'' He went on to say it would be ``much less expensive and much better.'' Versions of these promises keep coming from President Trump, his Cabinet, and from his allies in Congress--coverage for more people, at lower costs, with better quality. Those things all sound great, things that might help people like Chrysann, but the fact is, the Republican bill does the exact opposite. It takes coverage away from people, it drives up costs, and it makes coverage worse. In other words, the GOP is selling this healthcare bill on false pretenses. Today I would like to explain how the Republican bill betrays each one of these three fundamental promises, and let's take them one by one. We can start by the number of people who will be covered. President Trump promised that everyone would have insurance, but an analysis of an earlier version of the healthcare bill--the first iteration of this, which is actually not as bad as this one--an earlier version analysis conducted by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that under current law the House Republican plan would leave 24 million fewer people with health insurance by 2026. That means by 2026, nearly 1 in 5 Americans under the age of 65 would be uninsured, compared to just over 1 in 10 today. One particular way the Republican bill cuts coverage is by gutting Medicaid, a program that covers more than 60 percent of all nursing home residents nationwide, covers kids with disabilities, and benefits nearly 70 million Americans. The Republican plan ends Medicaid expansion. It fundamentally undermines the structure of the Medicaid Program and cuts the program's budget by as much as one-quarter over 10 years, a more than $800 billion cut. On May 7, journalist Jake Tapper of CNN asked Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price whether the hundreds of billions of proposed cuts would result in millions of Americans not getting Medicaid. Secretary Price responded: ``Absolutely not.'' Well, that is absolutely false. When I say ``absolutely,'' I mean that literally. It doesn't take an expert to know that if you take funding away from this program, which provides health coverage for millions of Americans, the program will suffer, and the human beings who rely on Medicaid will suffer as well. Specifically, according to the Congressional Budget Office, 14 million of those 24 million people who will lose coverage under the Republican bill would lose their health insurance because of cuts to Medicaid. ``Absolutely not,'' says the Secretary of HHS. It is bad enough to push a bill that will take away care from millions who need it; it is extra galling to be so fundamentally dishonest about it in the process. Look, the Affordable Care Act is far from perfect and we have problems that need to be fixed, but let's step back and review how far we have come because of the ACA. Since it came into effect, about 20 million Americans have gained health insurance coverage, producing the lowest uninsured rate in the history of this country. In Minnesota, the number of uninsured dropped by nearly half, with people in rural areas seeing the largest gain in coverage. As a result, we have eliminated the gap in coverage between rural and urban Minnesotans. These coverage gains have increased access to vital health services, including access to treatment for mental illness and substance use disorders, but the Republican healthcare plan throws all of these gains into jeopardy, which is particularly troubling given that the country is still in the midst of battling a devastating opioid and heroin epidemic. Researchers estimate that 2.8 million Americans with substance use disorders will lose some or all of their insurance coverage under the ACA repeal. Let's be clear. People will lose coverage as a result of the proposed Medicaid cuts; people will lose coverage because of the proposed insurance reforms; and tens of millions of more people will be uninsured and without care in the Republican plan than under current law. Let's move on to the second point; the assertion that is repeated constantly by President Trump and by others that their bill brings down costs. In his Rose Garden celebration after the Republican health care bill passed the House--not after signing it into law but sort of an unprecedented Rose Garden celebration after merely the House passed the bill--President Trump said: ``As far as I am concerned your premiums they are going to start to come down.'' When Secretary Price was asked, again by Jake Tapper, if he stands by the President's statement, he responded: ``Absolutely.'' On an earlier date, Secretary Price actually said: ``Nobody will be worse off financially'' under the Republican plan. This is just blatantly wrong. Republicans are actively sabotaging the individual market, needlessly driving up premiums in the short term, and in the long term what they are doing will result in exorbitant premium hikes for older, sicker people--so much so that CBO estimates some will eventually drop out of the market altogether. Let me explain. For years, Republicans have taken deliberate steps to sabotage the individual market. First, Senator Rubio ran through a last-minute change to the 2015 spending bill that undercut the Risk Corridor Program. The Risk Corridor Program, which was modeled after a similar program in the Medicare Part D Program, was included as part of the ACA to offset high costs incurred by insurers as they took on new enrollees in the early years of the ACA. Here is how it worked. The Federal Government would make payments to health plans that enrolled a group of people who were sicker than expected and had higher healthcare costs than the insurer predicted when it set its premiums. On the flip side, the Federal Government would receive payments from health plans that enrolled a group of people who were healthier than expected and needed less care. By limiting losses incurred by insurers, the Risk Corridor Program was designed to help make premiums more affordable for individuals and families who bought coverage on the exchange. Senator Rubio's provision undercut all of this. It severely curtailed the payments that could be made under the Risk Corridor Program, which meant that premiums soared and health insurers left the market. For example, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota lost about $220 million between 2014 and 2016 under the weakened Risk Corridor Program, which the CEO told me in a meeting late last spring was a huge setback for the company. I was dismayed but not surprised when I heard, shortly after our meeting, that the company was leaving the individual market, which affected coverage for more than 100,000 Minnesotans and contributed to average premium increases of 36 to 67 percent in Minnesota's individual market in 2017. Insurers across the country faced similar destabilizing losses, but that is not all. On top of that, for months, President Trump has been doing his part to sow uncertainty by repeatedly arguing that the individual market is in a death spiral. For example, on May 4, in response to Aetna's exit from the individual market in Virginia in 2018, President Trump shouted on Twitter: ``Death spiral!'' This is similar to his post on March 13 in which he said: ``ObamaCare is imploding. It's a disaster and 2017 will be the worst year yet, by far!'' But he is wrong. Even the CBO noted in one of its scores that barring any significant changes, the individual market would probably be stable in most areas. This confirms what other research has found, which is that this year markets were starting to stabilize, which led Standard & Poor's to issue a report last December predicting that 2017 could see ``continued improvement, with more insurers getting close to breakeven or better.'' But this didn't faze President Trump or any of the Republicans. Instead, they seem to have used these reports as a guidebook on what changes are necessary to actually cause the individual market to collapse. For example, President Trump has been playing games with payments that are due to insurance companies that reduce out-of-pocket costs for working families. On numerous occasions, he has threatened to stop these payments altogether, but in practice, he has been holding these payments hostage on a month-to-month basis to push forward other insidious reforms. Just yesterday, his administration announced that it would seek another short-term delay in the House's lawsuit, which aims to stop these payments permanently. These games are driving up the premiums for families and rattling health insurance markets. Lastly, the administration has stopped enforcing the individual mandate. As a result, we are seeing enrollment in the individual markets stall for the first time since 2010, and if this results in younger, healthier people dropping their coverage, we could see prices rise dramatically for those left behind. That is right. President Trump and the Republicans are actively attacking the insurance markets, causing premiums to go up. So if these markets falter and consumers suffer, it is because of what Republicans are doing right now and have been doing for years to undermine the individual market. Still, you will often hear Republicans talk about the need to reduce costs. They even claim that their proposed healthcare plan would lower premiums in the long run. For millions of Americans, that is not true, but the reasons why it is untrue are slightly complicated. It goes to the CBO report for the Republican healthcare plan. The March 13 CBO score says that average premiums for single people in the individual market would be 15 to 20 percent higher than under current law--than under the current ACA--in the first 2 years of its implementation. But it does say that they would be roughly 10 percent lower in 2026 under the House bill than they would be under current law. At first blush, this sounds like prices would be coming down for people, right? That is certainly what the Republican leadership wants you to think. That day, House Speaker Ryan stated: ``This report confirms that the American Health Care Act will lower premiums and improve access to quality, affordable care.'' House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy got more specific. He said: ``After 10 years, premiums will be 10 percent lower than under ObamaCare.'' But Speaker Ryan and Majority Leader McCarthy are being deliberately misleading. One of the reasons that average costs go down is that the price for some people would go up so much that they couldn't afford any insurance at all. If the people facing the most expensive insurance simply dropped out of the market, sure, average costs go down. Here is how this works: Under the Republican plan, insurers would be able to charge older enrollees five times more than younger ones, which would dramatically increase premiums for people aged 50 to 64 years old while decreasing premiums for younger people. Meanwhile, the tax credits that help older Americans afford their premiums would be drastically slashed. The result is that, especially for older people of modest means, coverage would become unaffordable, so they disappear from the market. If only younger, healthier people can buy insurance, average premiums go down, but you have actually made the system much worse and much more expensive for the people who really need it. But that is not all. The Republican plan would also allow States to waive crucial protections for patients with preexisting conditions, which means that in those States, we could go back to something like the old days when insurance companies could charge people with preexisting conditions much more--potentially as much as $25,000 more for their coverage, as estimated by the AARP. Republicans are quick to point out that their bill maintains a requirement that insurance companies have to offer plans to everyone, but it abandons the principle that the plans must be affordable, and an unaffordable plan does people about as much good as no plan at all. If you are young, if you have no preexisting condition, it might be true that your premiums will go down under the Republican plan. But for millions of Americans, though, if the Republican bill passes, insurance costs are going to go up. For many people, they will go up so high that they will be out of reach. That brings me to the third claim the Republicans are peddling--that their plan will result in higher quality coverage. In fact, Republicans want to open the door to junk insurance. In defending the House Republican plan, Secretary Price recently stated that the plan allows ``for every single person to get the access to the kind of coverage that they want.'' We have heard this before. This is a code for allowing insurers to offer garbage insurance plans that offer skimpy benefit packages and impose much higher deductibles and cost sharing on consumers. Under the Affordable Care Act, you cannot sell junk plans on the insurance exchanges. Plans have to cover the essential health benefits. This is key. Under the ACA, plans have to cover the essential health benefits--10 key categories of benefits such as prescription drugs, maternity care, and mental health services. On top of that, the law prohibits insurers from imposing annual or lifetime limits on these essential health benefits. The goal is to make sure that when people get sick or if they have a preexisting condition, they don't go broke getting the care they need because of fine print in their health insurance plan. The Republican bill would allow States to eliminate these essential health benefits. Consumers would be left with plans that leave them up a creek if they actually get sick. And plans for people who are sick-- the price of those plans will go sky high. No one would call that ``better care,'' which is why Republicans aren't really being straight about it. What they call ``flexibility'' is actually just the removal of consumer protections. To review, the Republican plan covers fewer people, costs too many people more--in many cases, much, much more--and provides worse coverage, and it is being sold by misleading people on each of these points. It is not as though there aren't ways to cover more people, reduce costs, and provide better coverage. You could do a public option, for example. You could reduce prescription drug costs--an issue on which I recently introduced a comprehensive bill. You could improve coverage by increasing the number of healthcare providers in rural areas, as I proposed last year in my rural health bill. But the Republican plan does none of these things, which raises the question: What does it do? Why would anyone take the time to propose such a terrible bill? The answer is this: It gives a giant tax cut to the wealthy. That is the real point of this bill. It is not a healthcare bill; it is a ``take healthcare away from people who need it and use the money to give a tax break to the rich'' bill. As Chrysann in Moorhead, MN, said, it is about ``survival of the fittest.'' The average tax savings for the 400 richest Americans under the Republican plan is $7 million each--again, $7 million each. For households earning $1 million or more a year, it is more than $50,000 apiece, each year. But for households earning $50,000 a year, which is about the median income in the United States, the tax cut is next to nothing, or you could even face a tax increase. There are tax cuts specifically for insurance company CEOs. There are tax cuts specifically for drug companies. There is nothing comparable for the middle class. And all of those tax cuts are paid for by cutting healthcare programs that keep people alive, by cutting off funding that lets seniors age with dignity, and by cutting services for kids with disabilities. This bill would take us back in time and roll back our progress. It is up to us here in the Senate to stop that from happening. This bill is literally sickening. It is vicious, it is cruel, and it should never be passed into law. I urge my Republican colleagues to walk away from this cruel effort and work with us to actually improve healthcare for Americans. And I urge everyone considering this bill to be straight with the American people about exactly what it is that this bill will do to them. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. FRANKEN

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

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Thank you, Mr. President. I rise to discuss the Trump administration's effort to undo the open internet order. Together we must protect net neutrality and ensure that all content on the internet receives equal treatment from broadband providers regardless of who owns the content or how deep their pockets are. Two years ago, American consumers and businesses celebrated the FCC's landmark vote to preserve the free and open internet by reclassifying broadband providers as common carriers under title II of the Communications Act. The vote came after the SEC received nearly 4 million public comments, the vast majority of which urged the agency to enact strong rules protecting net neutrality. Consumers urged the Commission to protect their unfettered and affordable access to content. A wide range of advocacy organizations pressed the Commission to ensure that broadband providers couldn't pick and choose which voices and ideas would actually reach consumers. Small and large businesses alike asked that the internet remain an open marketplace where everyone can participate on equal footing, free from discrimination by companies like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T. The FCC responded by establishing rules that are strong, clear, and enforceable; rules that prevent broadband providers from blocking or throttling lawful online content, and rules that stop providers from charging websites for access to fast lanes. Perhaps, most importantly, the FCC implemented these rules within the time-tested legal framework that allows the agency to respond to challenges to net neutrality that arise in the future. Following the commonsense path I have long urged, the FCC recognized that broadband access is a title II service--a classification that the DC Circuit has upheld and had previously signaled was necessary in order to establish strong rules. The FCC's vote to implement strong net neutrality rules was an important victory for American consumers and for American business, and that victory demonstrated the overwhelming power of grassroots activism and civic participation. In 2014, millions of Americans from across the political spectrum organized to ensure that their voices were heard, and in the process, they redefined civic engagement in our country, but in the 21st century, that kind of participation requires an open internet, a place where people can freely share information and engage in meaningful public discourse. Because of net neutrality, a handful of multibillion-dollar companies cannot bury sites offering alternative viewpoints or attempt to control how users get their information. Because of net neutrality, people from across the Nation can connect with each other, share their ideas on the internet, and organize a community effort. I have always called net neutrality the free speech issue of our time because it embraces our most basic constitutional freedoms. Unrestricted public debate is vital to the functioning of our democracy. Now, perhaps more than ever, the need to preserve a free and open internet is abundantly clear. That is why I am so concerned about Chairman Pai's proposal to gut the strong net neutrality rules we fought so hard for. Tomorrow, the FCC will vote officially to initiate a proceeding to undo the open internet order, but, importantly, American consumers and businesses will once again have an opportunity to make their voices heard. I hope the American people will contact the FCC, that they will remain engaged and willing to speak up, and that they will continue to use the internet to spread ideas, organize support, and ultimately counter the deep-pocketed ISPs and the politicians who seek to undermine net neutrality. Two years ago, the best principles of our democracy won out. I do believe that with the same energy and determination that has gotten us this far, net neutrality supporters can garner another win for the American people. I thank the Presiding Officer for this opportunity to speak. I yield to my good friend from the State of Hawaii.

Mr. FRANKEN. I would.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I rise to address President Trump's stunning dismissal of FBI Director Comey yesterday evening. We know the Russians interfered in the 2016 election. We know the Russians did so in order to undermine confidence in our democracy. We know the Russians carried out this attack with the goal of benefiting the campaign of Donald Trump, whom the Kremlin preferred to see win the election. These facts have been confirmed by our intelligence agencies. What we don't fully yet understand is all of the reasons why, all the reasons why the Russians favored Donald Trump and whether associates of the President or members of his campaign assisted in the Russian operations to sway the election in his favor. These questions are the subject of an ongoing counterintelligence investigation, an investigation conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and, until last night, an investigation led by James Comey. As former Director Comey recently testified to the House Intelligence Committee, ``[T]he FBI, as part of [its] counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election--and that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia.'' The timing of Director Comey's dismissal raises serious questions, and President Trump's decision to abruptly fire the man leading an investigation that could implicate the Trump administration should shock the conscience of every American who believes that no man or woman is above the law and who has faith in the fair and impartial pursuit of justice. The White House attempted to preemptively dispel any suspicion by announcing that President Trump fired the Director ``based on the clear recommendations'' of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. The White House released several documents to back up that claim: a letter from President Trump to Director Comey, firing him; a letter from Attorney General Sessions to President Trump, recommending that Comey be fired; and a memo written by Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein, which cited the Director's handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation as damaging the FBI's reputation and credibility. These documents create more questions than they answer. First, the letter from President Trump to Director Comey firing him. President Trump, ever eager to put distance between the Russian inquiry and himself, wrote: ``While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau.'' Again, we know the FBI is conducting a criminal investigation into whether members of the Trump campaign coordinated with the Russians in their efforts to influence the election. Director Comey confirmed that before he was fired. Whether President Trump is personally under investigation by the Bureau or whether investigators are merely scrutinizing his advisers and associates, the President's clumsy attempt at misdirection does little more than remind us of the many unanswered questions about his and his people's connections to Russia. Second, Attorney General Sessions' letter to President Trump. The Attorney General writes that based on his review of Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein's memo, which cites the Director's handling of the Clinton email investigation, that Attorney General Sessions has concluded that the FBI requires new leadership and a fresh start. Attorney General Sessions recommended that Director Comey be fired. Attorney General Sessions should not have had any involvement in this decision at all. On March 2, the Attorney General called a press conference to announce: ``I have now decided to recuse myself from any existing or future investigations of any matter relating in any way to the campaigns for president of the United States.'' The reason Attorney General Sessions made that announcement was because news reports revealed he had provided misleading testimony in response to a question that I asked during his confirmation hearing; that Attorney General Sessions had falsely stated: ``I did not have communications with the Russians.'' In fact, he did meet with the Russian Ambassador during the campaign twice. Having provided misleading testimony under oath about a matter that could potentially be the subject of a criminal investigation by the FBI, Attorney General Sessions was forced to recuse himself. I find it deeply troubling that Attorney General Jeff Sessions--who misled the Judiciary Committee about his own communications with the Russian Ambassador and who pledged to recuse himself from this investigation as a result--betrayed that pledge by involving himself in the decision to fire the Director of the FBI, who was leading the investigation into Russia's interference in our elections, including whether members of President Trump's campaign were involved in that interference. Attorney General Sessions was a member of that campaign, and he misled the committee on whether he had met with the Russians, and he did that under oath. That is why he recused himself, and yet he inserted himself in this firing. Finally, there is Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein's memo, which asserts that Director Comey's handling of the Clinton email investigation caused the public to lose confidence in the Bureau. Director Comey spoke publicly about the Clinton email investigation twice, in July and October of last year. Setting aside whether Director Comey's decision to discuss the investigation was unorthodox or broke with Justice Department and FBI protocols, his actions were well known to both President Trump and Attorney General Sessions, and both of them celebrated his actions at the time. After Director Comey wrote to Congress on October 28, informing us that the FBI had discovered additional emails and would therefore reopen its investigation into Secretary Clinton, then- Candidate Trump praised his decision. He said: ``What [Comey] did was the right thing,'' and ``It took guts for Director Comey to make the move that he made in light of the kind of opposition he had.'' Appearing on FOX Business Network, then-Senator Sessions said that Director Comey ``had an absolute duty, in my opinion, 11 days [before an election] or not, to come forward with the new information that he has and let the American people know that, too.'' If President Trump or Attorney General Sessions truly objected to the way that Director Comey conducted the investigation into Secretary Clinton's emails, I suspect they would have said so at the time rather than heap praise upon him. But their previous statements lauding Director Comey's handling of the Clinton email probe cast suspicion on the extent to which they relied on the Deputy Attorney General's purported rationale. Further, and this is important, if Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein were truly concerned that Director Comey's handling of the Clinton email investigation had damaged the reputation of the Bureau, then why not wait for the conclusion of an investigation by the very respected DOJ inspector general into Comey's decision during the election--his decisions--an investigation that had been underway since January? The shifting positions of President Trump and Attorney General Sessions lead me to believe something else is going on here, that this is not about Hillary Clinton's emails but about turning the page on Russia. In fact, last night, a White House spokesman said so. Appearing on FOX News, White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked how Director Comey's firing would affect the Russia investigation. She replied: When are they going to let that go? It's been going on for nearly a year. Frankly, it's getting kind of absurd. There's nothing there. It's time to move on. Frankly, it's time to focus on the things the American people care about. The American people care about whether a hostile foreign government influenced our election. They care about whether advisers and associates of the President helped that foreign government do that. The events that have occurred over the past 24 hours are deeply, deeply unsettling. As my Republican colleague Senator Flake said last night: I've spent the last several hours trying to find an acceptable rationale for the timing of Comey's firing. I just can't do it. And I can't either. In my view, the timing and the circumstances surrounding Director Comey's dismissal are very suspicious. For example, just this morning, it was reported that Director Comey recently asked the Justice Department to provide additional resources for the Russian investigation--a request that purportedly he made personally to Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein. This raises grave concerns about the Trump Justice Department's ability to conduct a full, fair, and impartial investigation. In order to address these concerns, Attorney General Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein should come to the Senate and explain their involvement to all of the Senators in this body. In the wake of what I believe was a politically motivated decision to remove Director Comey, I no longer have confidence that the Department of Justice can fulfill its obligation to resolve this matter impartially. The situation now calls very clearly for the appointment of a special prosecutor to oversee the investigation into whether associates of the Trump organization or former members of the Trump campaign had knowledge of or participated in the Russian attack on our democracy. I join my colleagues' calls for an independent inquiry so the American people can have confidence that the individuals who conduct this investigation will follow the facts no matter where they lead. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. FRANKEN

Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, before I begin my remarks on Judge Gorsuch, I just want to take a minute to talk about the chemical attack in Syria. Words cannot describe these vicious attacks against civilians. We have all seen the horrific footage of the victims, many of whom were children. These are innocent men, women, and children who, through no fault of their own, are caught in the middle of a bloody civil war, stuck between a brutal regime, armed groups, and foreign powers. My heart goes out to the victims and their families. The world has come together and unequivocally condemned these acts and their perpetrators. We must work together to find a path toward peace and stability in Syria, and the United States must take a leadership role in that effort. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to serve as an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court. After meeting with the nominee, carefully reviewing his record, and questioning him during his confirmation hearing, I have come to the conclusion that elevating Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court's bench would merely guarantee more of the same from the Roberts Court--a sharply divided, already activist Court that routinely sides with powerful corporate interests over the rights of average Americans. I think it is important to start by acknowledging just exactly how it is that Judge Gorsuch came to be before the Senate; namely, this body's failure to fulfill one of its core functions. Immediately following the death of Justice Scalia, in a move as cynical as it was irresponsible, Senate Republicans announced that they would not move forward with filling the vacancy until after the Presidential election. Before President Obama had even named a nominee, the majority leader said: ``The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice.'' The only problem with the majority leader's reasoning was the American people did have a voice in the decision; they had voted to make President Obama the President of the United States. Nonetheless, Republican members of the Judiciary Committee gathered behind closed doors and vowed to defy the eventual nominee a hearing. Many Republicans refused to even meet with the nominee. They said it didn't matter who the President nominated; they said this was about principle. But Senate Republicans had a difficult time justifying their obstruction--that is, until they decided to mischaracterize a speech delivered by former Judiciary Committee chairman Joe Biden in June of 1992. In that June of 1992 speech, then-Senator Biden discussed the possibility of a Supreme Court Justice resigning in an election year in order to ensure that a President of the same party could name a replacement. Under those circumstances, he said, the President should refrain from nominating a replacement and the Senate should not hold confirmation hearings until after the election. My Republican colleagues seized upon this small portion of Senator Biden's speech and dubbed it the ``Biden rule.'' Chairman Grassley said the Senate ought to abide by the Biden rule, which he said holds that there are ``no presidential Supreme Court nominations in an election year.'' The majority leader said: ``As Chairman Grassley and I declared . . . the Senate will continue to observe the Biden Rule so that the American people have a voice in this momentous position.'' So in order to justify a truly unprecedented act of obstruction, my Republican colleagues pointed to the so-called Biden rule and said they were standing on principle. That was the principle. But my Republican colleagues chose to overlook a few important details. First of all, the scenario Senator Biden described in his 90-minute speech was not the situation our country faced last year. No one strategically resigned last year. A Justice died. No one dies to game the system. Second and most importantly, my Republican colleagues ignored the actual point that Senator Biden made in that speech. If they had bothered to read the entire speech--and I suspect they actually had-- they would have found that further down, Senator Biden said--and this is important. This is what Senator Biden said in the speech used as the justification not to take up Merrick Garland. Senator Biden said in that speech, ``If the president [then George H. W. Bush] consults and cooperates with the Senate or moderates his selections absent consultation, then his nominee may enjoy my support, as did Justices Kennedy and Souter.'' Allow me to dwell on that for a moment. Senator Biden said that if a Supreme Court vacancy arose during an election year and the President consulted with the Senate or, absent consultation, put forward a moderate, consensus candidate, that candidate should enjoy the support of the Judiciary Committee's chairman. That is the Biden rule. That is the Biden rule. If Senate Republicans had actually followed the Biden rule, we wouldn't be here today. Merrick Garland would be sitting on the Supreme Court bench. Over the past few days, I have heard my Republican colleagues denounce Democratic opposition to Judge Gorsuch by claiming that there never has been a partisan filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee. But if the shameful and unprecedented obstruction that Republicans used to effectively block President Obama from appointing a Supreme Court Justice wasn't a partisan filibuster, then I don't know what is. Perhaps my Republican colleagues were concerned that President Obama would seek to replace Justice Scalia--a reliably conservative member of the Court--with a jurist whose view would place him or her on the opposite end of the ideological spectrum. That seems to be the concern that my good friend Senator Hatch expressed when he said: [T]he President told me several times he's going to name a moderate, but I don't believe him. [President Obama] could easily name Merrick Garland, who is a fine man. He probably won't do that because this appointment is about the election. So I'm pretty sure he'll name someone the [Democratic base] wants. But as it turns out, in recognition of the forthcoming election and the Republican-controlled Senate, President Obama did exactly what then-Senator Biden said a President should do: He named a moderate, consensus candidate. He named Merrick Garland. Judge Garland was supremely well qualified for the job. Here is a guy who was his high school's valedictorian, who attended Harvard on a scholarship, won clerkships with legal legends like Second Circuit Judge Henry Friendly and Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, and left a partnership at a prestigious law firm to become a Federal prosecutor during the George H.W. Bush administration. He later joined the Justice Department, where he prosecuted the men responsible for bombing the Oklahoma City Federal Building in 1995, and Merrick Garland kept in touch with the survivors' and the victims' families. That is the reason why one of the very first of three Republicans agreed to meet with Judge Garland--Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, a staunch conservative--because people of Oklahoma had such regard for Merrick Garland. After Judge Garland was confirmed to the DC Circuit in 1997, he earned a reputation for working with his colleagues from across the ideological spectrum to identify areas of agreement and to craft strong consensus opinions, often by deciding a case on the narrowest grounds possible. Judge Garland was the right choice at the right time. He wasn't a partisan warrior or a partisan political animal; he was a judge's judge, and everyone knew it. That is why my Republican colleagues had to hide behind new and misleading so-called rules in order to deny him a hearing and a vote. Judge Gorsuch is no Merrick Garland. Judge Gorsuch is a creature of politics. That is not what Judge Gorsuch told me when I met him earlier this year. I asked Judge Gorsuch if he was bothered by the way the Senate treated Merrick Garland. He responded by telling me that he tries to stay away from politics. But documents that the Judiciary Committee received from the Department of Justice, including emails between Judge Gorsuch and Bush administration officials, show that Judge Gorsuch was very heavily involved in politics. A resume he sent to President Bush's political director in November 2004--back when Judge Gorsuch was looking for a job--detailed his work on Republican political campaigns dating back to 1976 and highlighted an award he received from Senate Republicans for his work to advance President Bush's judicial nominees. Ken Mehlman, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, later recommended Judge Gorsuch for a post at the Justice Department and described him as a ``true loyalist.'' Understand, being politically active or being a Republican is not a disqualifying characteristic in a Supreme Court nominee, at least not in my book, but Judge Gorsuch's resume is relevant here because, contrary to what he told me, his resume establishes that he is not just intimately familiar with politics; he knows the politics of the judicial nominations process and he knows it well. Let me explain why I think that is important. During the campaign, then-Candidate Trump spoke openly about his litmus test and what kind of a judge he would appoint to fill Justice Scalia's seat on the Court. He said that he would ``appoint judges very much in the mold of Justice Scalia.'' During the final debate, he said, ``The justices that I'm going to appoint will be pro-life. They will have a conservative bent.'' Part of the reason that then-Candidate Trump could say that with such conviction is because he had already outsourced the job of coming up with a list of potential nominees to the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation, both rightwing organizations. The groups produced a list of 21 conservative judges for then-Candidate Trump, a list that included Judge Gorsuch. Presumably, the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation knew something about the judicial philosophy of the men and women who it had decided to include on that list, given Judge Gorsuch's previous work to push judicial nominees through the Senate. I am sure he knew a thing or two about the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society, as well. In fact, Judge Gorsuch first learned that he was under consideration for the vacancy from the Federalist Society's vice president, who was working with the transition team. Judge Gorsuch went on to interview with a host of other members of the transition team, including now- White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and Chief Strategist Stephen Bannon. Weeks later, President Trump had officially nominated Judge Gorsuch. Both Mr. Reince Priebus and Mr. Bannon appeared before rightwing activists at CPAC and talked about his nomination. Mr. Priebus told the crowd that Justice Gorsuch would bring about ``a change of potentially 40 years of law.'' He said: ``Neil Gorsuch represents . . . the type of judge that has the vision of Donald Trump, and [his nomination] fulfills the promise that he made to all of you,'' gesturing to a crowd of conservative activists. So whether Mr. Priebus was suggesting that, if confirmed, Judge Gorsuch would unsettle 40 years of precedent--like Roe v. Wade or Chevron--or whether he was suggesting that Judge Gorsuch would be a reliably conservative vote for the next 40 years, it seems clear to me that confirming Judge Gorsuch is central to President Trump's political agenda. Now, my Republican colleagues would have you believe that nothing could be further from the truth. In their view, they say that judges call balls and strikes--nothing more, nothing less. Earlier this week, for example, Senator Cruz said: ``Conservatives understand that it is the role of a judge, and especially the role of a Supreme Court Justice, simply to follow the law.'' He said that Senate Republicans ``are not confirming someone who will simply vote with our team on a given issue.'' It is Democratic judges, according to Senator Cruz who, ``by and large view the process as achieving the result they want and view the process of adjudicating a case as a political process.'' Let me explain why I take issue with that. If my Republican colleagues truly believe that a judge's proper role is to call balls and strikes and to decide cases narrowly, they would have confirmed Merrick Garland, a judge with a proven track record of crafting consensus opinions built on narrow holdings. But a judge who calls balls and strikes isn't really what my colleagues want. Contrary to what Senator Cruz said, what my Republican colleagues want is a results-oriented judge. Why else would they hold open a seat on the Supreme Court bench? Why else would they turn to the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society for candidates? Why else would they trample on the traditions of the Senate? What my Republican colleagues really want is a judge who will vote with their team, and that is the judge they will get by confirming Neil Gorsuch. That is what this is all about. That is what this is about. Unlike Merrick Garland, Judge Gorsuch has little interest in reaching consensus or in citing cases narrowly. Now, Judge Gorsuch took great pains to paint himself as a mainstream nominee. He pointed out that the Tenth Circuit ruled unanimously 97 percent of the time, and that he was in the majority 99 percent of the time, but that is not unusual, and it doesn't provide any insight into his approach to being a judge. After all, the Courts of Appeals are required to follow Supreme Court precedent in all circuits around the country, and the vast majority of their cases are decided unanimously. So in order to really understand Judge Gorsuch's approach to deciding cases--in order to really understand how he views the law--it is critically important to look at the cases where he chose to write separate concurrences or dissents. These concurring and dissenting opinions offer the clearest window into how he really thinks. Judge Gorsuch tends to write a lot of concurring and dissenting opinions. Even when Judge Gorsuch agrees with the majority and joins their decision, he frequently writes his own concurrence, setting out his own views. Judge Gorsuch has done this 31 times, including writing two concurrences to majority decisions that he, himself, had written. That is not seeking out consensus. That is holding his nose to join a consensus opinion, and then writing separately in order to point the way to broader, more sweeping rulings that other courts might issue in future cases--other courts like the Supreme Court, which doesn't have to follow precedent, which he is now poised to join and where he will not be restrained by precedent. Judge Gorsuch is a results-oriented judge, and his record demonstrates that he approaches cases with a very specific outcome in mind. Contrary to what my Republican colleagues would have you believe, he doesn't hide that judicial philosophy. Whether it is his concurrence in Hobby Lobby or his dissent in TransAm Trucking, Judge Gorsuch wears that philosophy on his sleeve. It only underscores a disturbing pattern: siding with corporate interests over average Americans. That philosophy was on full display in the dissent that Judge Gorsuch wrote in TransAm Trucking. It seems clear to me that Judge Gorsuch approached this case with a specific outcome in mind, which was siding with a company over a worker. And in order to just justify that outcome in his dissent, Judge Gorsuch twisted himself into a pretzel. You may have heard this story, but I want to lay it out as efficiently as possible because I think it reveals a great deal about Judge Gorsuch's philosophy, and it helps to explain exactly why I am voting against him. In this case, trucker Alphonse Maddin is driving a rig on the interstate through Illinois. He is pulling a long trailer that is fully loaded. He makes a stop. He takes a break. Then, at 11 p.m., he is about to pull back onto the interstate, but discovers that the brakes on his trailer are locked. It is 14 below zero out. These brakes are literally frozen. So he calls his dispatcher to ask for repairs. And he waits. While he is waiting, the heater in his cab stops working, and he falls asleep and is awakened by a call from his cousin. When Maddin sits up to answer the phone, he realizes that his torso is numb, and that he can't feel his feet. He is having trouble breathing. His cousin later says that Maddin's voice is slurred, and he wasn't tracking. According to the Mayo Clinic, these are all symptoms of hyperthermia. Maddin calls into the dispatcher again. He is told to hang on. He says: I can't. His boss tells him he has two choices, wait there until the repair truck comes, or he can take the whole rig on the road, including the trailer with frozen brakes. Those are the two options he is given by his boss. Maddin knows that if he waits, he may very well freeze to death. That is his first option, or he can go out on the interstate at 2 o'clock in the morning, dragging a fully-loaded trailer with frozen brakes at 10, maybe 15 miles per hour max, posing a safety hazard to other drivers at the interstate. Remember, it is 2 o'clock in the morning. It is dark. It is probably icy. Imagine a car going 80, 85 miles per hour--as people do at 2 o'clock in the morning on an interstate--coming up over a hill behind that rig, and then coming down and seeing this rig going 10 or 15 miles per hour, where you are going 80, 85. That would be like suddenly coming down on a stopped tractor trailer while you are going 70 miles per hour. That is his second option. Instead, Maddin does what any of us would do. He unhitches the trailer and drives down the interstate to find someplace warm, and he does get warm. Then he returns to the trailer when the repair truck finally shows up, and he is fired. He is fired for abandoning his cargo. Now, there is a law to protect people in Maddin's situation. So he files a case. When it gets to the Tenth Circuit, a three-judge panel agrees with him, with Maddin. They find that the trucking company shouldn't have fired Mr. Maddin, but one judge dissented--Judge Neil Gorsuch. So during my question, I asked Judge Gorsuch a very simple question: What he would have done if he had been the truck driver; if he had been driving that truck. I asked: Which would you have chosen? What would you have done? And here is Judge Gorsuch's response: ``Oh, Senator, I don't know what I would have done if I were in his shoes.'' Now, is there anyone here who would not have done what that driver did? I don't think so. Of course, you would unhitch the trailer and find someplace warm as quickly as possible--of course. But Judge Gorsuch said he didn't know what he would have done? Is that possible? I asked him if he had even thought about what he would have done if he were Maddin. You know, he had heard the case. He did not answer. So I asked him again. I asked him, given the choices of sitting there and possibly freezing to death or going on the road with an unsafe vehicle, or doing what Mr. Maddin did, and Judge Gorsuch responded: Senator, I don't know. I was not in the man's shoes. Judge Gorsuch said he decides cases based on the facts and the law alone. ``I go to the law,'' he said. But so, in fact, did the majority. Here is the operable law. Here is the law: ``A person may not discharge an employee who refuses to operate a vehicle because the employee has reasonable apprehension of serious injury to the employee or the public because of the vehicle's hazardous safety or security condition.'' The majority ruled that the company could not fire the truckdriver because he had refused to operate the rig, the entire rig, because it was unsafe. But Judge Gorsuch said no. While operating the cab, he was operating the vehicle. Therefore, he did not refuse to operate a vehicle. Judge Gorsuch said he made that decision by applying the plain meaning rule. I pointed out that the plain meaning rule has an exception: ``When using the plain meaning rule would create an absurd result, courts should depart from the plain meaning.'' It is absurd to say that this company was within its rights to fire him because he refused to choose between possibly dying by freezing to death or possibly killing other people by driving a semi on an interstate at 10 miles an hour at 2 in the morning. Frankly, the company is fortunate that Mr. Maddin made the choice he made because otherwise they may very well have faced a wrongful death claim. Everyone who was in the hearing knows what Judge Gorsuch would have done in Alphonse Maddin's situation. If Judge Gorsuch had answered honestly, he would have said that he would have done exactly, exactly what the driver did. Everyone would. Judge Gorsuch just did not want to admit it. That is because there is no good answer. If Judge Gorsuch said that he would do the very same thing that Mr. Maddin did, that would make his dissent look pretty bad. But if he had said ``I would have done what the company told me to do,'' that would be an absurd answer. That would make you question the man's judgment. No one would believe it. So, instead, Judge Gorsuch said: I don't know what I would have done. But of course he did. He just was not being honest. Judge Gorsuch approached Mr. Maddin's case with an outcome in mind, siding with the corporation, and the dissent that he wrote makes that perfectly clear. When I joined the Senate back in 2009, I arrived here in June, a little later than the rest of my class. Just a few days later, my fifth day in office, Judge Sonia Sotomayor appeared before the Judiciary Committee for her first day of her confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court. I have been thinking a lot about Justice Sotomayor's hearings because the concern I expressed about the direction of the Court back then is just as relevant as today. Back then, almost 8 years ago, I voiced concern about it becoming more difficult for Americans seeking a level playing field to defend their rights and get their day in court, from bringing a discrimination claim to protecting their right to vote. Back then, I said: ``I am wary of judicial activism and I believe in judicial restraint. Yet looking at recent decisions on voting rights, campaign finance reform, and . . . other topics, . . . there are ominous signs that judicial activism is on the rise.'' That was my first opening statement, the first opening statement that I ever delivered at the first confirmation hearing that I ever attended. But in the years that followed, my concerns have proved to be justified in one 5-to-4 decision after another. We have seen the Roberts Court go out of the way to answer questions not before it, to overturn precedents, to strike down laws enacted by Congress, and to do all of this at great cost to consumers and to workers and to small businesses and to middle-class Americans. In decisions such as Shelby County, the Court gutted one of our landmark civil rights laws, 5 to 4. During the oral argument, Justice Scalia suggested that when the Voting Rights Act had last been passed 97 to 0 in the Senate, the Senate had done it because of the name of the Voting Rights Act. How could you vote against the Voting Rights Act? What a great name. He was showing contempt for this body. What is more judicially active than overturning a law voted on unanimously in the Senate because the Senate just liked the name? Of course what that did was get rid of preclearance. What is preclearance? Preclearance said that those States that had a history of suppressing the votes of minorities had to preclear any new voting law with the Justice Department. These were States that had a history of suppressing the votes of racial minorities. Well, that gets overturned. Boom. States like North Carolina, Texas, start passing new laws--voter ID laws. The second section of the Voting Rights Act still stayed, so you could appeal to a Federal court. But it takes a while to work its way through. So finally, in early 2016, a circuit court, the Fourth Circuit I believe, ruled that North Carolina had targeted African Americans with almost surgical precision to suppress their votes. That is why you have preclearance. That is why you want preclearance. But in a 5-to-4 vote, preclearance was struck down. That is one 5-to-4 case. Concepcion, a 5- to-4 decision, allows corporations to force consumers into mandatory arbitration. There are a whole host of 5-to-4 decisions that make it impossible for people to get into the courts. But the most egregious of all 5-to-4 decisions was Citizens United-- another 5-to-4 decision that paved the way for individuals and outside groups to spend unlimited sums of money in our elections. In each one of those 5-to-4 decisions Justice Scalia sided with the majority. So now this body considers replacing him with Judge Gorsuch. I think it is important to understand the extent to which he shares Justice Scalia's views. Judge Gorsuch's record demonstrates that he is, in President Trump's words, a judge very much in the mold of Justice Scalia. During his time on the Tenth Circuit, Judge Gorsuch has consistently ruled in favor of powerful interests. He has sided with corporations over workers, corporations over consumers, and corporations over women's health. A study published in the Minnesota Law Review found that the Roberts Court is the most pro-corporate Supreme Court since World War II. If the Senate confirms him, Judge Gorsuch guarantees more of the same from the Roberts Court, and I do not believe that is a Court that our country can continue to afford. So I oppose Judge Gorsuch's nomination. I urge my colleagues to take a close look at his record of siding with powerful corporate interests over average Americans, to consider carefully how he stands to impact the Court, and to reject his nomination. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. FRANKEN

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