Sen. Murphy: GOP Repeal Plan ‘Is Scaring the Life Out of People in My State’

WASHINGTON, July 26 -- The office of Sen. Christopher Murphy, D-Conn., issued the following news release:

U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, criticized Senate Republicans' reckless efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and strip health insurance from millions. Murphy urged Congressional Republicans to work with Democrats to craft a bill that improves care and lower costs.

"This isn't a game. People's lives are at stake. And yet because this debate now is devoid of policy and substance and seemingly just about delivering a political victory to Republicans, we wait and we wait and we wait," said Murphy. "The House bill that we are debating right now--it guts Medicaid to the point where 15 million people, the most vulnerable Americans, would lose access to health care."

"The casualness with which [Republicans] are approaching this debate is scaring the life out of people in my state, out of parents of kids with disabilities, out of folks that are dealing with sickness and illness all across this country," Murphy continued. "It is time to abandon this Republican-only approach--come work with Democrats. Let's jointly own the problems that still exist in the health care system, jointly own the solution."

The full text of Murphy's remarks is below:

Thank you, Mr. President.

No one should normalize what's happening on the Senate floor right now. We are all awaiting for the white smoke to come out of Republican leadership offices so that the millions and millions of very scared people in my state will be able to see what is about to happen to their lives. This isn't a game. People's lives are at stake. People's health is at stake. And yet because this debate now is devoid of policy and substance and seemingly just about delivering a political victory to Republicans, we wait and we wait and we wait. And people are scared.

All over the Capitol today there are parents of children with disabilities, many of whom rely on Medicaid in order to keep their children alive. I've spent a lot of time with them over the course of the last six months because to them, the measure of a civilization is how it treats the most vulnerable. And their kids with these deep disabilities are amongst the most vulnerable. And for most of the last six months, I've seen anger in their eyes, anger that Congress would choose to hurt their kids or to force their family to go bankrupt.

Yesterday I saw something new in their eyes. I saw fear. I saw deep debilitating fear because they sense that we were on the precipice of doing something that they didn't think was possible. A piece of legislation passing the Senate and the House that would deliberately and intentionally hurt their children. There's no way around it. It's not hyperbole. The House bill that we are debating right now, it guts Medicaid to the point where 15 million people, the most vulnerable Americans, would lose access to health care.

I know it's very hard for people in this chamber to understand because we all have really good health care, but when you have an expensive disease or your child has an expensive disease and you lose insurance, you can't pay for it. You can sell your house. You can sell your car. You can exhaust your savings. And for some families that will cover six months' worth of expenses for their sick child. At some point, the patient dies if they don't have access to health care.

And so people are scared. They are really scared. And they're scared not just at the consequences of the House bill eventually passing, but they're also scared at the casualness with which this debate seems to treat their plight. There are rumors now that at the end of this process, we are going to vote on what has been described as a stripped-down, gutted version of the original Republican health care bill. It might have one or two provisions in it - maybe the elimination of the individual mandate, maybe the elimination of a few taxes - and the intent would be to essentially punt the more comprehensive debate about what our health care system is going to look like to a conference committee.

I want to talk about that for a few moments and what the consequences of that are. First, I want to talk about what the consequences are if that end result is achieved for the United States Senate. Why do my colleagues choose to run for the United States Senate if they are prepared to surrender the biggest policy decision that they will likely face to the House of Representatives? Why go through all the trouble of running, of raising all the money, of getting all the votes to become a U.S. senator if you aren't prepared to actually render an opinion and pass a bill on the biggest priority issue facing this country right now - the future of the American health care system?

Republicans have been unable to come up with a bill that can get 50 votes. Why? Because you refuse to engage with Democrats. And so now the solution is to punt by passing a stripped down version of the bill, handing all power to the House of Representatives, surrendering to the House of Representatives. What's the point of being a U.S. Senator if you're actually not going to make policy? If you're going to hand over the keys of policy making to the Representatives? This is the United States Senate.

And I disagreed with Senator McCain's vote yesterday, but I heard the speech that he gave to us - that this should be the place in which we should make the big, tough decisions about the future of the American economy. And the Senate will put an out-of-business sign on the outside of this chamber if we pass a scaled-down version of this bill that admits we can't come to a conclusion. What's the point of being a United States senator if you just hand this debate over to the House of Representatives?

And by the way, that is what will happen. If the Senate goes to conference with the House of Representatives - and there is only one bill in that conference, and that's what will happen - if a stripped down version of this bill goes into conference and the House has a comprehensive reform bill, the House bill will be the only one in the conference committee. The House bill will become law. The House bill will survive. It may have some small cosmetic amendments to it, but all of the power will be given to the House of Representatives in those negotiations because there's only one idea that will be present.

And so let's go back for a moment and remember what was in that House bill that so many of my Republican colleagues told me was deeply objectionable to them and would never get a vote on the Senate floor. 23 million people lose insurance, rates go up by 15% to 20%, people with preexisting conditions in most states likely will lose all protections available to them. Insurance plans won't have to cover maternity care, mental illness, or addiction any longer. Medicaid, gone as we know it, to my small state with an $8 million Medicaid program - a $3 million cut. Children losing their ability to stay alive because they lose their health care insurance, seniors in nursing homes being put out on the street. That is not hyperbole, that is will what will happen if you kick people off of insurance.

That bill would go to conference because the Senate let it happen. The short-term consequence is that - this scaled-down bill will reportedly include an elimination of the individual mandate - insurance markets will fall apart. Everybody here knows, whether you're a Republican or Democrat, that the only way you guarantee that people get priced the same, if they are sick or not sick, is to require people to buy insurance when they are not sick. In fact, Republicans know that because in their bill that they wrote behind closed doors, they included an individual mandate. They did. It was designed in a different way. They said if you don't buy insurance, you will be penalized by being locked out for six months. They had a penalty if you don't buy insurance.

Both Republicans and Democrats understand that in order for the insurance markets to work as they are regulated today, you need to encourage people to buy insurance when they are healthy and penalize them if they don't. The Republican bill does that just like the Affordable Care Act does that. So if you pass a bill that removes that mandate, then every insurance adjustor, every actuary who works for a major health care insurance company, will tell you that the markets will crater because individuals won't buy insurance until they're sick knowing that they can't be charged anymore. Healthy people won't buy insurance, rates will go up, insurers will flee the markets, the entire thing collapses. That's the short-term consequence of telegraphing to the insurance companies that you are getting rid of the individual mandate. Even if that's not the final result, that telegraph signal - at a point where insurers are rethinking the markets because of the sabotaged campaign that President Trump has undertaken - would be catastrophic.

This is not a game. These stakes are big and the casualness with which the people are approaching this debate is scaring the life out of people in my state, out of parents of kids with disabilities, out of folks that are dealing with sickness and illness all across this country. It is not too late. We don't have a communicable disease, we are not going to physically harm Republicans if they come talk to us.

It is time to abandon this Republican-only approach--come work with Democrats. Let's jointly own the problems that still exist in the health care system, jointly own the solution. People are scared of what is happening in the United States Senate today and there is a different way.

I yield the floor.