GOP TAX SCAM HURTS EVERYONE

On 2025-05-20, Representative Kim Schrier (D-WA-8) delivered a floor speech titled "GOP TAX SCAM HURTS EVERYONE" in the House.

GOP TAX SCAM HURTS EVERYONE

Congressional Record, Volume 171 Issue 85 (Tuesday, May 20, 2025) [Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 85 (Tuesday, May 20, 2025)] [House] [Pages H2191-H2197] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] GOP TAX SCAM HURTS EVERYONE (Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2025, Ms. Schrier of Washington was recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.) General Leave Ms. SCHRIER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material into the Record. The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hurd of Colorado). Is there objection to the request of the gentlewoman from Washington? There was no objection. Ms. SCHRIER. Mr. Speaker, I am here as one of the co-chairs of the Congressional Doctors Caucus in the House of Representatives. I am here to talk straight with you and with the American people and my constituents about this tax plan that is being worked on by my Republican colleagues. It will explode the deficit. It will also hurt every single person in this country by making the biggest cuts to Medicaid and to food benefits ever. I want to make clear, as I talk about this, how reckless it is and that even people who do not rely on Medicaid themselves will be impacted by this. I am outraged. We are talking about a cut of $715 billion to Medicaid. That is the largest cut ever. It will kick 13.7 million Americans off of their health insurance. Let's just be really clear about why they are doing this. This isn't to balance the budget. It is not to deal with the deficit. In fact, this bill is exploding the deficit. This is to pay for a gigantic tax break for the wealthiest people in this country a la Elon Musk. It is morally bankrupt to think about that, that transfer, about taking healthcare away from the people in my district and across this country and transferring it to the wealthiest Americans. It is also fiscally reckless. Doing this will essentially collapse our healthcare system in the United States of America. That is why just last week, we spent 26\1/2\ hours in the Energy and Commerce Committee discussing this very thing, telling the stories of our constituents, painting a picture of what it would mean to cut 13.7 million Americans off of their insurance. It is interesting that this whole discussion didn't start until 2 o'clock in the morning because my Republican colleagues didn't want to have this discussion during the day when people would actually hear it. They waited until the dead of night to bring up this topic of taking healthcare away from our constituents. Mr. Speaker, in the State of Washington, one in three people rely on Medicaid. I am going to tell you that most people who do don't even know it because in Washington State it is called Apple Health. If people are asked if they are on Medicaid, they will say no. If they are asked if they are on Apple Health, they will say yes. This represents the most vulnerable people. These are kids, pregnant women, people with disabilities, and the elderly in nursing homes. These are the people who need our help the most. I think about my patients. I am a pediatrician. I think about the ones who have Apple Health. If they didn't have it, if they didn't have access to come see me, their primary care pediatrician, and get diagnosed early with a mild pneumonia or an ear infection or whatever the case may be, they would be forced to go to the emergency department for that care. It is not like they are not going to get sick. They are going to get sicker, and they are going to go later when things are more expensive and more complicated. Mr. Speaker, do you know what else? Even if you are not on Medicaid, as I think about my patients with private insurance, they are going to be waiting in that emergency department line, too. They will have broken an arm or have some other emergency. They are going to be waiting in a longer line. We all know that the lines are already long to be seen in the emergency department. The care there is the most expensive a person can get. The lines are the longest lines. Somebody is going to pay for that care. Otherwise, hospitals go underwater, and they go out of business. Who is that? That is the people who are not on Medicaid but who are paying private insurance premiums. Those premiums are going to go up. It will hurt individuals who buy their own insurance. It will hurt the businesses and the companies who employ those people. This hurts everybody. I want to tell you the story about Ayla. This is Ayla. She is 4 years old. She was born in 2021 in a rural part of my district after an uneventful pregnancy. Right after she was delivered, something went very, very wrong. She was in dire straits. She was clearly sick. She needed emergency care. Thank goodness, this rural hospital has a labor and delivery unit. They were well-equipped to resuscitate a baby, to stabilize her, and then to Life Flight her to a hospital that could provide the specialty care that she needed. Let's think about it for a moment. If Medicaid gets cut and these rural hospitals see a disproportionate share of patients on Medicaid, either those hospitals are going to close or they are going to start cutting back services. Mr. Speaker, I will tell you the first service to go will be labor and delivery. What if that had happened after these Medicaid cuts? What if Kittitas Valley Healthcare didn't have labor and delivery? What if Ayla had been born then? What if she had not had the specialists there and had not had the ability to be resuscitated there in the delivery room? She would not have made it. That is what we are going to see when they start cutting away at Medicaid. It will mean the closure of rural hospitals and fewer labor and delivery units. More people will get sicker. They will get poorer. Children like Ayla will not make it. That is what I mean when I say it collapses our whole healthcare system. Our healthcare system is like a three-legged stool. One of those legs is Medicaid. If we start taking that away, the whole system collapses. That is what we are talking about: Hospital closures, taking away services, long waits in emergency departments, and a population that is sicker and that needs more care. That care becomes more expensive. It hurts us all. That is why I am so outraged that this is the mechanism that my Republican colleagues want to use to pay for a tax plan that will give gigantic cuts to the wealthiest taxpayers in this country such as Elon Musk. That is unconscionable. I wanted to start with that. I am really honored to yield to our Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi from the great State of California. [[Page H2192]] Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to receive time from the distinguished Congresswoman from Washington State (Ms. Schrier). She is a pediatrician. We have all learned a lot about how public policy has a direct impact on the health and well-being of the American people. When I hear them talk about cutting over $700 billion in Medicaid and that it is just waste, fraud, and abuse, this beautiful child is not waste, fraud, and abuse. I will talk about a little child in my remarks who is not waste, fraud, and abuse. This Special Order comes together to shine a bright light on the Republican plan to fund tax breaks for billionaires by making huge cuts to Medicaid. That is what it looks like. The fact is they will still with their tax bill add nearly $4 trillion to the national debt to cover their tax break for the wealthiest people in our country. {time} 1940 This is fiscal engineering to reduce the role of government in the lives of the American people where it is most needed. This is Robin Hood in reverse, taking resources from where it is most needed, from people who need it most, and giving it to those who need it less, the billionaires in America. This is shameful. It is a fraud, and it is a shame. When President Johnson signed Medicare and Medicaid into law, he traveled to Independence, Missouri, to be in the presence of former President Truman who had worked on this when he was President, but it came to fruition under President Johnson. President Johnson went there, and he signed the bill in the presence of Harry Truman. He reminded the American people of a shared tradition: ``Never to be indifferent toward despair. . . . never to turn away from helplessness. . . . never to ignore or spurn those who suffer untended in a land that is bursting with abundance.'' Indeed, Medicaid saves lives and is a pillar of health, security, and justice for tens of millions of Americans. People often think of Medicaid as healthcare for poor children, and that would be justification enough, healthcare for poor children. However, it also is a middle-income benefit for nursing home residents and people needing it for long-term care services. They get that largely through Medicaid. It is also a benefit for people with disabilities. The Republicans' devastating budget plan would push about 14 million Medicaid recipients off lifesaving healthcare and leave countless vulnerable families exposed to catastrophic medical bills. This is terrible. This is about health and financial health that is being devastated. Working families and children from low-income households would face ruinous consequences as would rural hospitals--as the distinguished Congresswoman has mentioned--families seeking opioid addiction treatment for their loved ones, and middle-class Americans with long- term care needs. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert a statement from the California Medical Association into the Record. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentlewoman from California? There was no objection. California Medical Association, May 12, 2025. CMA statement on House Republicans' proposed cuts to Medicaid California Medical Association President Shannon Udovic-