Sen. Murphy Lays Out Facts of Just-Released Republican Health Care Bill

WASHINGTON, July 28 -- The office of Sen. Christopher Murphy, D-Conn., issued the following news release:

Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, laid out the facts Thursday night of the newly-released Republican health care bill that will intentionally destroy the American health care system. Republicans are forcing the Senate to vote on the bill - which would strip health care from 16 million people by next year, increases premiums by 20% just next year, compounding each year after that, and eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood - just two hours after they unveiled their secret plan.

"This process is an embarrassment. We are about to reorder one-fifth of the American health care system, and we are going to have two hours to review a bill which at first blush stands essentially as health care system arson. This bill is lighting the American health care system on fire with intentionality, and to use the word 'freedom' at its center? There's freedom in this bill. There's the freedom to go bankrupt. There's the freedom to get sick and not be able to find a doctor. There's freedom in this bill to die early," said Murphy.

"This isn't a game," continued Murphy. "This is real life, and if this bill becomes law, real people will be hurt."

The full text of Murphy's remarks is below:

Thank you, Mr. President.

This process is an embarrassment. This is nuclear-grade bonkers what is happening here tonight. We are about to reorder one-fifth of the American health care system and we are going to have two hours to review a bill which at first blush stands essentially as health care system arson. This bill is lighting the American health care system on fire with intentionality, and to use the word "freedom" at its center? There's freedom in this bill. There's the freedom to go bankrupt. There's the freedom to get sick and not be able to find a doctor. There's freedom in this bill to die early.

That's not hyperbole, guys. That's what happens when, overnight, 16 million people lose insurance. And don't tell us that's because people all of a sudden won't be mandated to buy it. This is a vicious cycle that happens. When you get rid of the mandate, every single insurance company will tell you that rates skyrocket because you're not getting rid of the provision that requires insurance companies to price sick people the same as healthy people. CBO says that rates go up immediately by 20%, then 20% after that, then 20% after that. And so all of a sudden you can't have the individual mandate because nobody can afford to buy the product.

There's a lot of freedom in this bill. It's just not the kind of freedom that we all thought was at the heart of this reform measure. And this is real life. It is not a game. I know lots of members on the Republican side are voting for this because they've got some promise that even though this bill is terrible and everybody admits it doesn't solve any problems, it'll get to a forum in which the problems can be truly solved. That's gamesmanship. That's not senatorial. That's not what this place was supposed to be.

This was supposed to be the great deliberative body where we solved big problems, and this bill surrenders to the House of Representatives. And let's just be honest about what's going to happen when this bill gets to the House. Maybe there will be a conference committee. But it won't resolve any of the problems that have been inherent in the Republican conference here in the Senate. In fact, those problems will get worse because you will inject the freedom caucus into a Republican conference here that alone wasn't able to come to a conclusion. They'll argue for a couple weeks, maybe a month, and then the House will decide to proceed with a vote on this bill.

There's nothing in the rules that locks this bill into the conference committee once it is there. The House can pick it up out of that conference committee and move it to a vote, and they will do that because none of the problems that were solved here will be solved there. Because we've seen this happen before. Remember the budget stalemate in which this hammer of sequestration was created and the super-committee was supposed to solve all the problems that the House and the Senate couldn't? Well, they didn't and now we're stuck with sequestration, something nobody thought would happen.

This is the same thing. This won't be a hammer sufficient enough to solve the dysfunction that has always been present in this process. Thus, the Congress will be doomed and this bill will become law. Raising rates for everyone, locking millions of people out of the system of insurance, with no answer for the parents of those disabled kids who have been begging to get into senators' offices. This isn't a game. This is real life, and if this bill becomes law, real people will be hurt.

We are begging our colleagues to vote for the motion to recommit. Take us at our word. We want to work with you. We acknowledge that there are still problems that need to be solved, though we maintain that there are parts of the Affordable Care Act that are working. What if we owned the problem and the solution together? What if this wasn't a perpetual political football? There is still time for us to work this out together, if you support us and vote for the motion to recommit.

This process is an embarrassment to the United States Senate. This isn't why we all came here. And don't delude yourself into thinking that this bill that you are voting on won't become law. There is a very good chance that it will. And the end result will be absolute devastation, a humanitarian catastrophe visited upon this country.

Mr. President, it doesn't have to be this way. I yield the floor.