Sen. Schumer Issues Floor Statement on Health Insurance Plans

Targeted News Service

WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 -- Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-New York, issued the floor following statement, which was published in the Congressional Record on Oct. 28, on health insurance plans:

Another subject, later this week, Senate Democrats will again use their authority under the Congressional Review Act to force a crucial vote on the future of healthcare protections for Americans with preexisting conditions. The Trump administration has done nearly everything imaginable to undermine these protections over the past 3 years, including by suing to repeal our healthcare law in its entirety. This vote concerns the administration's expansion of junk insurance plans, which offer ways around the requirements to cover Americans when they need healthcare most. This rule gives States the green light to use taxpayer dollars to buy junk insurance plans.

Oftentimes, the plans are so skimpy they hardly cover anything at all. They are barely worth the paper they are written on. Imagine you are the mother or father of a child with cancer and you sign one of these plans, and the insurance company says we don't have to take care of your kid for something as devastating and as life-threatening as cancer. Imagine how you would feel.

Yet our Republican friends and this administration want to give insurance companies the green light to make a ton of money and write this junk--junk insurance--and have hundreds of thousands--millions of Americans not covered for even the most important and vital of coverages.

Well, that is what is at stake this week. The Senate will vote. Republicans will have to go on record to either defend the administration's actions or protect Americans who have preexisting conditions.

I know several of my Republican colleagues publicly declared their support for these protections when they have their campaign ads going. That hasn't been the case here in Congress where Republicans have repeatedly voted against the same protections. Wednesday will be another important test for Senate Republicans.