Click here to view video of Murphy’s remarks.

WASHINGTON – Just hours before Senate Republicans are set to force a vote on their disastrous and cruel health care repeal plan, U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, laid out the devastating consequences that Trumpcare will have on the American public. Murphy emphasized that the bill will drive up costs, worsen care, and put millions of Americans at risk of going bankrupt.

“The scope of the pain that we're talking about if any of the three versions of that [GOP] bill get a vote really is hard to fathom. It doesn't improve people's health care experiences. It doesn't increase the number of people who have health care insurance. Republicans concede that millions and millions of people will lose insurance. They concede that rates will go up for most Americans,” said Murphy. “Who gets hurt under the GOP health plan? Everybody. Republicans are about to vote on a bill that will inflict really unthinkable amounts of pain on this country.”

The full text of Murphy’s remarks is below:

Thank you, Mr. President. I'm really glad that I was able to be here on the floor to hear the remarks of my great friend, Senator Kaine. It is gut check time in the United States Senate. The legislation that we're going to consider tomorrow, it would hurt a lot of people in ways I think that are very hard to fathom. One of our colleagues said, I didn't come here to hurt people. Everybody came here with designs on how to make their community, their state, their nation a better place. And we are on the verge of taking a vote on a bill that objectively will rain a level of devastation down on this country that's really hard to fathom. 

I can't match Senator Kaine's eloquence talking about the personal stakes here. We take for granted the fact that, as employees of the United States Senate, we get a health benefit that makes sure that if we do fall ill or if our children fall ill, we won't have to think about whether or not we have the money to be able to afford treatment. But that's not how it is for all of those families that lined up in Virginia to receive care. That's not how it is for those that come to a similar event in Connecticut that's targeted just for dental services, but has a line that begins the night before and is oversubscribed before the event begins the next morning. And that's not how it was for the millions of American families that used to go bankrupt because when faced with a choice of personal financial ruin and the death of a child or a loved one, they chose financial ruin. And until you have been faced with that choice, I don't think there is any way to understand it. It's certainly a choice that no one in this chamber will ever have to make.

But in Connecticut the Berger family made that choice. Before the Affordable Care Act was passed, in the two-week period of time where Mr. Berger didn't have health insurance, their son was diagnosed with cancer, and when he got on his new plan, it was a preexisting condition, so it wasn't covered, and the Berger family lost everything. They went through their savings account. They lost their house. But they went bankrupt, and they were one of thousands and thousands of families who made that choice. That rarely happens any longer. The number of personal bankruptcies in this country have been cut in half because of the Affordable Care Act. The Affordable Care Act hasn't made health care magically affordable for everyone, but it has meant that people don't have to make that choice any longer.

The scope of the pain that we're talking about if any of the three versions of that bill get a vote really is hard to fathom. Under the original version of the bill, 23 million people would lose insurance. Now, I amended this chart when a series of changes were made at the last minute that CBO scored as reducing that number to 22 million. But this is the entire population of Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, and West Virginia – all losing health care at the same time. And the majority of that happens in the first year.

So of the 22 million, 14 million or 15 million of those people lose insurance next year. The scope of that devastation – 12 months from now – 15 million less people have insurance, 15 million more people showing up to emergency rooms to get care, is something that I don't think any of my colleagues really can get their head wrapped around.

And for all the times that President Trump says that the Affordable Care Act is dead, that Obamacare is in a death spiral, that's just not true. It is a lie. It's a lie. Because the Congressional Budget Office says that the death spiral only occurs if you pass any of the versions of the legislation that we're considering. That if the Affordable Care Act stays in place, 28 million people won't have insurance, which is far too many, but if one of these bills goes into effect, at the end of ten years, you'll have 50 million people without insurance. 

A new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that the ACA markets are not collapsing – despite what the White House says, despite the lies that they perpetuate. Quote, “Early results from 2017 suggest the individual market is stabilizing and insurers in this market are regaining profitability.” Quote, “Insurer financial results show no sign of a market collapse.” That's the Kaiser Family Foundation's finding, which mirrors the findings of CBO. The collapse in our insurance markets only happens if one of these bills pass.

And it's not just the number of people who lose health care. The folks that we should care most about – people that are making just enough money so they don't qualify for federal programs but not enough money that they can save for retirement, and pay for their kids' college bills, and do all the things you need to do in order to lead a respectable life – those people are going to be hurt the worst by this bill. If you're a 64-year-old getting ready for Medicare coverage, you're making $56,000 a year, you're going to pay 170% more under this bill just in your premiums. Never mind the extra money you're going to pay in co-pays and deductibles. CBO says that if these bills are passed, a single policyholder purchasing a plan at a 58% actuarial value in 2006 would have a deductible of roughly $13,000 for drugs and medical expenses combined, which is absolutely unaffordable.

And so by every metric, whether it be the amount of money you pay or the number of people that don't have health care, CBO answers this question – who gets hurt under the GOP health care plan – pretty clearly. Everybody, unless you’re an insurance company, drug company, or the rich. If you're affluent and can afford your own health care, you'll be fine. If you're an insurance company or drug company, you'll get a big tax break out of this but everyone else gets hurt and gets hurt really bad.

I've watched my Republican friends process this information. I've watched them largely stay silent. Democrats are the only people on the floor of the Senate these days talking about health care. Most of my Republican friends are not willing to come down and defend any of these products. But those that have been have shifted their rationale, Republicans who have been willing to come down and defend their plan, they concede that millions and millions of people will lose insurance. They concede that rates will go up for most Americans. And so they cling to one last value that underpins the Republican health care plan. In their words, that value is freedom, the freedom not to be insured.

And so Republicans suggest that you shouldn't really worry about 32 million people losing insurance because those people really didn't want insurance. And now they'll be free not to have it. That's just not what CBO says. CBO says that millions and millions of these people who will lose insurance, they desperately want it. They're just not going to be able to afford it. And it's also not true that the bill grants that kind of freedom. Insurance is compulsory under the Republican health care plan, just like it is under the Democratic plan. It's just compulsory in a different way. The Republican plan says that as a penalty for not having insurance, you will be banned from purchasing insurance for six months. The Affordable Care Act says if you don't purchase insurance you will get a penalty on your tax form. Either way, it's a penalty. 

But a new wrinkle has been thrown into this debate because last week it was ruled that under reconciliation, the Republicans can't include this provision – this penalty provision. And without it, the entire bill falls apart. Markets would collapse. For all of Republicans' talk about the freedom not to purchase insurance, they included a requirement that people buy insurance in their bill. And they know that they had to. Because they know that without it, the entire insurance market would collapse. Why is that? Well, if you require insurance companies to charge the same thing for sick people as for non-sick people, then you have to encourage people who aren't sick to buy insurance. Because if you don't, folks will wait until they're sick to buy insurance and the only people who will have insurance are people who have acute conditions. That will make insurance itself unaffordable, and insurers will stop offering products or jack up the rate to the price it is totally unaffordable for everyone.

In the Affordable Care Act, that is what led to the individual mandate. In the Republican health care bill, that is what led to this provision that locks you out of insurance for six months. But that has been ruled veritable. That is has been ruled essentially out of order under reconciliation. And so Republicans are going to be faced with a choice if they are able to get on to this bill. They will either remove that provision and guarantee the collapse of the entire insurance market in this country, or they will have to strengthen that penalty in order for it to be allowed under reconciliation. But that essentially robs the last rhetorical argument that Republicans had in favor of this bill.

They can't argue that it provides more people with insurance. They cannot argue that it helps with costs. They cannot claim that it increases quality. They know that. The only thing left that they could argue is that it allows some people to go without insurance if they don't want it. But in truth, their bill didn't do that. And the rules of the Senate are going to require that they increase that penalty even more if they want any plausible, workable version of this bill to survive. And so it leaves us in a place where there is no argument to do this. It doesn't advance values that Republicans hold dear like personal freedom. It doesn't improve people's health care experiences. It doesn't increase the number of people who have health care insurance. And it really does beg the question, why are we doing this?

Did anybody come to the Senate with the desire to hurt this many people? If I had told my Republican colleagues four years ago that your ACA replacement plan was going to drive up the number of people without insurance by 32 million and increase rates by 20% in year one, would you have believed it? No. I took, for six years, my Republican colleagues at their word. I didn't agree with them that we should repeal the Affordable Care Act, but I at least thought they had the same goals in mind as we did: more people having access to the health care system, costs being controlled for as many people as possible. It's now clear that we don't.

Republicans are about to vote on a bill that will inflict really unthinkable amounts of pain on this country. Who gets hurt under the GOP health plan? Everybody. And I said this on the floor last week, and I’ll just say it again to close, it doesn't have to be this way. We've accepted for so long that health care is a political ping-pong ball that gets tossed from one side to the other every five or ten years.

Why is it so inconceivable that Democrats and Republicans could sit down together and try to work out keeping the parts of the Affordable Care Act that are working and improving the parts that aren't? Why couldn't Democrats understand that Republicans want the flexibility of benefit design and give Republicans something on that? If you understood that we want some certainty in these marketplaces, we don't want President Trump to be able to sabotage and undermine these markets, why can't there be a compromise and a deal there? 

There's still time. If this vote fails tomorrow, there's still the ability for us to come together. In the end of that story that Senator Kaine tells about rural Virginia, everybody here knows that story. Everybody here knows that there is still enormous work still to be done. And nobody out there is believing the lies about this bill, this wonderful health care plan that President Trump is promising.

Everybody in this country hates this bill. It's got a 15% approval rating. These folks know there is virtually no one who is helped by this bill other than insurance companies, drug companies and people who are very affluent and fortunate enough to be healthy. We don't have a communicable disease on our side of the aisle. We're not going to physically hurt you if you get in a room with us. We actually do deeply desire to improve the health care system. You just got to give us a chance. 

I yield the floor. 

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