Sen. Coons: ‘What We Shouldn’t Be Doing Here Is Playing Russian Roulette With American Health Care System’

WASHINGTON, Sept. 20 -- The office of Sen. Christopher Coons, D-Del., issued the following news release:

U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) joined Meet The Press Daily yesterday to discuss Senate Republicans' latest effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act and President Trump's address to the United Nations.

"Graham-Cassidy will end Medicaid as we know it, eliminate all the consumer protections in the ACA by giving states the opportunity to repeal them. It will lead to a less healthy America. That's what I think we ought to be focusing on. I think pointing at the Sanders bill is another attempt at distracting us from the very high stakes right before us in a vote that will be taken next week."

Full video and transcript available here.

Excerpts from interview:

Senator Coons on health care: What I wish we were focusing on is the strong bipartisan work that's been going on here between Republican Senator Alexander and Democratic Senator Murray. They are the chair and ranking member of the Health Committee. After the failure by the Republican majority in August to repeal the Affordable Care Act, they began working diligently together as we should have been for the last seven months bringing in governors of both Republican and Democratic states, bringing in insurance commissioners from around the country, bringing in leaders in health care and working on a balanced bipartisan package. Your question about Senator Sanders' bill is a reminder that there are several Democratic senators who have introduced aspirational or hopeful bills that would further expand access to health care. What is most trouble being this latest Trumpcare effort, this Graham-Cassidy bill is that it is an effort that will lead to a reduction in how many Americans have access to health care. When the CBO finally gets to review it I think they will estimate something like 10 million Americans will initially be thrown off of health care by this latest attempt of appealing the ACA. I think appealing to Sanders is a red herring, a distraction to what really going on here, a bipartisan evident and a partisan effort.

Senator Coons on a single payer system: We are in a Republican Congress, Republicans control the Senate and the House and the White House. Yes, I don't think in this Congress there is any chance that a Single Payer Act.

More on a single payer system: What we ought to be focusing on is what is going to expand health care for Americans and what's going to restrict. Graham-Cassidy will end Medicaid as we know it, eliminate all the consumer protections in the ACA by giving states the opportunity to repeal them. It will lead to a less healthy America. That's what I think we ought to be focusing on. I think pointing at the Sanders bill is another attempt at distracting us from the very high stakes right before us in a vote that will be taken next week.

Senator Coons on whether Senator Sanders should have waited: I do think it's important for us to focus on the very strong bipartisan efforts being made by Patty Murray and Lamar Alexander, and many others. As you well know, Senator Sanders has been talking about universal health care access I think virtually his whole career in the Senate. The timing of his bill introduction, yes, I wish it had been put off by a couple of weeks. But I also didn't anticipate, and he probably didn't either, that Graham-Cassidy would pick up this much steam and that Republicans would try one more time to pass Trumpcare and repeal the Affordable Care Act.

More on the Graham-Cassidy bill: I think it's unlike the Senate where we represent entire states. In states like New York you are got a lot of Republicans in upstate New York who probably wouldn't support this bill but we don't know. What we shouldn't be doing here is playing Russian roulette with the American health care system. Already the American Medical Association and the American Hospital Association have come out saying they oppose this further destabilizing of America's health care system. The Graham-Cassidy bill would indicate chaos in the individual markets right as insurance companies are supposed to be making decisions next week about whether they will continue to provide health insurance. Think about how much this would destabilize both health insurance and health care across the country.

Senator Coons on President Trump's address to the UN: Well, there were some strong parts of the speech and there were some very concerning parts of the speech. He is right to stand up in the world forum like the U.N. and call Iran on its violations of human rights and its ballistic missile program and to say that North Korea should be resisted by the world community when it threatens South Korea, Japan, and the United States. So I will applaud President Trump for his continued forceful leadership as we try to assemble a world coalition against North Korea. But there were also aspects of his speech that were unhelpful at best calling Kim Jong-un by a nickname, rocket man, which is really more suited for Twitter or frankly for a school yard spat than for the U.N. and threatening to walk away from the Iran deal, which is exceptionally unhelpful if his real goal is to pull together our allies and potential partners from around the world in applying more pressure on North Korea.