As Health Care Costs Soar And Millions Lose Coverage, Leader Schumer Delivers Speech At American Hospital Association Annual Membership Meeting On How Republicans Are[...]

Washington, D.C. - Today, Senate Democratic Leader Schumer (D-NY) spoke at the American Hospital Association annual membership meeting on the Republican health care crisis.

Today, Senate Democratic Leader Schumer (D-NY) spoke at the American Hospital Association (AHA) annual membership meeting on the crisis in health care thanks to President Trump's and Republicans' disastrous policies. Last year, Republicans passed the "Big, Ugly Bill" through the reconciliation process - opting to cut nearly one trillion dollars from our health care system to pay for tax cuts for billionaires and special interests. The American people are already facing higher health care costs, clinic and hospital closures, and skyrocketing premiums and deductibles.

Republicans are again using the reconciliation process, but rather than doing anything to lower costs or address Americans' health care affordability crisis, they are singularly focused on giving even more money to ICE and CBP.

In his speech, Leader Schumer previewed a forthcoming report on the true damage that Republicans and President Trump have unleashed on our health care system and their broken promises to lower health care costs. The report is part of Senate Democrats' year-long initiative to address the crisis of higher costs, which has focused on the rising cost of housing, historic food and grocery prices, and skyrocketing energy costs.

Below is a transcript of Leader Schumer's remarks:

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I want to say thank you to everyone in this room. I love our hospitals. I care about our hospitals. I know that your leadership, your perseverance, your dedication to country and the American people is so great. I love always meeting America's hospital leaders. The work you do is truly one of one.

And I'll tell you a little story. The New Yorkers have heard it, but for the rest of you, it's been my passion ever since I got to the Senate. Senator Moynihan was my mentor, and he helped me win election. I beat Senator D'Amato, the Republican powerhouse. And two days after Moynihan won, he called me to his office, and he said, now that you've won, and he traveled, he had a World War II injury in his back, he got on a bus from Buffalo all the way to Albany and down to New York City the last week of our campaign, he probably was in some pain. He was so great to me.

Anyway, he said, now that you've won, I can tell you first that I'm going to be the second person to know after my wife Liz that I'm not going to run again in two years. The reason I can do that is because you will carry, I am convinced, with you here now in the Senate, you will carry on my legacy. I give you two missions. One, protect our transportation system. It's one of the most important things that we have in America. Second, you must protect our hospitals. They are the gems of health care throughout the country and throughout the world.

He gave me that mission, and it's been my mission ever since. In fact, there's no cause nearer and dearer to my heart than fighting for our hospitals, our doctors, our nurses, our health care workers, our patients, our families. And if you want to know whether a community is thriving, if you want to know whether its people are being cared for, just look at its local hospitals. They're amazing. They provide such great health care. In our hospitals, you can be a wealthy person in one room and a poor person in the room next to them and get the same health care. That's an amazing thing.

And our hospitals also are the ladder up. Whenever I go to a hospital, anywhere, there are so many people there who have good jobs. They can be nurses, they can be techs, they can be, I have to say the word for phlebotomist, don't know whether it takes your blood. And for many of them, it's the first good-paying skilled job they have in their families, and by working in a hospital, their family is put on good footing for generations to come. Hospitals are so much, and they're so much to every citizen. They're there for people during life's defining moments. When we start families, when we say goodbye to loved ones, or recover from life-changing sickness or injury.

And one of the best things about good hospitals, and we have such great ones in this country, is that its doors are open to everyone, as I mentioned, no matter what. And, you know, we take it for granted how great work our hospitals and our health care system has done for people. There's a lot of complaints. We all know that. You know it. I know it. But here's something I remind people of. I tell them this story.

When I was a little boy, I had a great-grandma. She was 82. And every Wednesday afternoon, my grandma would drive her over to our house. She was an old, decent lady. She sat in a little chair, right in front of the kitchen window. And all the kids in the neighborhood would ride their bicycles to my house, park the bicycles in front, go to the back of the house and push their face against the kitchen window to see my great-grandmother. The rumor was, come to Schumer's house and see the oldest lady in the world. No, she was 82. No one was 82.

When Willard Scott, remember, he used to call out birthdays? When he started he called out 80 year olds because there weren't very many and now of course we live much longer and much healthier than that and that wasn't by accident. It's in large part because of the good work you and the people who work in the health care system have done. People forget that. Life is God's most precious gift to us is something that you make longer and better. Of course you're the engines to our local economies and so many communities big and small. Hospitals are the largest employers and as I said with good paying health care jobs and this is possible thanks to all of you so thank you for the good work you do. And that's why I've always fought for American hospitals- just a few instances that you may recall. When COVID struck our hospitals were on the brink, overwhelmed by the pandemic, you couldn't function you couldn't survive economically because COVID had so overwhelmed most of our hospitals that they couldn't do the daily kinds of operations and things that they did that brought in income. And people in hospitals were at risk of falling apart.

It was a mission of mine to make sure hospitals were not undone by COVID. And we were in the minority then, but I worked both with Republicans and Democrats during COVID, and we passed the largest infusion of relief funding to hospitals in American history. We passed hundreds of billions of dollars to care for the sick, secure urgently needed medical equipment, support staff, essential workers, and keep people safe. But it was clear that that wasn't enough.

When Democrats won the majority, COVID was still afflicting us. Hospitals needed more help from the federal government, and that's why my very first act in January as Majority Leader was to pass another round of hospital relief in the American Rescue Plan, even when we didn't have a single Republican join us, provided previously some had. The support flowed through the provider we funded through FEMA. That funding continues. To this day, people are still getting payments. The good work you did, helping cure people, serve people with COVID.

That's not all. We fought for so many other things. One of the things I'm proudest of, I led the bill on graduate medical education, which included a historic increase in GME slots. The first increase in over 20 years, and we need more of them when we get back in the majority. And I also stood long against the kind of reckless psych-neutral cuts that would jeopardize access to care and undermine the financial stability of so many hospitals. Psych-neutral is often just another way of saying, cut the daylights out of our hospitals.

So let me make this clear. So long as I have the honor to serve in the Senate, I will always fight. And my Democratic caucus will always fight on the side of our health care system and on the side of our hospitals. When I was Majority Leader, we lowered health care premiums for tens of millions of Americans with the most generous ACA tax credits ever. We finally gave Medicare the power to negotiate prescription drug prices. We capped out of pocket prescription drug costs for seniors on Medicare.

Now in all of these, and I'm sorry to be partisan, but the truth is the truth. I don't mean to be partisan, I just want to help. Not a single Republican joined us on any of these. It would be great if Republicans paused and realized the immense harm they're causing families by refusing to work with Democrats in a bipartisan way to strengthen our health care system. We will never stop working to make health care more affordable. Because it's the most, it's the number one issue. The number one issue affecting this election, the number one issue for families back home.

But this should never be a one-partisan issue. But unfortunately, when Republicans got the majority in the House, Senate, and White House, they did not strengthen their health care. They actually slashed their supplement. This, as I said, is not being partisan. It's just simply stating the facts that have to be stated. They passed the biggest cuts to health care in American history. Fifteen million more Americans will lose their insurance in the coming years. They let the enhanced premium tax credit expire without lifting a finger to protect Americans from the financial blows. And the list goes on.

The consequences of these choices are coming into view. ACA premiums have surged by 25% on average. Over 750 hospitals, clinics, and nursing homes have either closed, cut services, or risk closure. And so many of those closures are with rural areas.

Imagine being in a rural area, totally a local hospital. The only place you could get health care, or be referred to a job, oh, there's an emergency, it's closed, and now you have to go a hundred miles away. There's a truism in health care policy that there are now two kinds of Americans: those who live within 12 minutes of a hospital and those who live 72 minutes away. Unfortunately, because a partisan shift the second group of Americans is growing. So I would say to you this: never before has the contrast between where Democrats stand on health care and Republicans stand on health care been as sharp and clear and obvious to the American people as it is right now.

When we first began debating health care years ago, the divide between Democrats and Republicans was not stark at all. Many of the health care bills I worked on were always bipartisan. That's how it should be. That's how I like it. Back then, there was far more overlap, more willingness among members of both parties to work together to strengthen health care. Sadly, today that's no longer the case. The public knows it and has seen it. They've seen it when their premiums go through the roof.

And this doesn't even begin to mention the awful harms caused by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the man who says that no vaccine is safe and effective, the man who thinks Tylenol causes autism. This week Kennedy will continue testifying here on the Hill and he does so at the same time the administration is pushing for another $16 billion in cuts to HHS's budget, a 12% reduction from last year. It wasn't bad enough last year that they tried to cut -. Never before have we had an HHS Secretary whose actions have been so contrary to the mission of the position he holds. Thousands of health care government workers have been fired. Measles have spread among children, the worst outbreak in decades. I'm sure you've all read recently about the young girl who died from measles in Texas recently who wasn't vaccinated. Her father said even now that he still would not have vaccinated her. It's just - the propaganda is just overwhelming. It's so unscientific. No child or no parent should ever be in this situation. But it shows the immense harm that comes from the kind of anti-science belief that people like RFK Jr. and a few others in this administration are spreading. Who pays the price? Who pays the price? Not just the American people, they certainly do, above all, but all of you, the leaders, administrators, experts, who carry the burden of caring for the public, amidst shrinking resources and dwindling trust. But let me be very clear: we have a vision to fix health care. I do and my caucus does, so does the House Democratic caucus. Let me be clear, we stand in your corner. Democrats stand in your corner. I stand in your corner. And when we reclaim the majority, you read in the newspapers today those chances are getting better and better in part because of the cut to health care. We're going to make things right for the American people once again.

This week, Senate Democrats will release the most in-depth study we've made to date, breaking down all the ways that President Trump, Republicans have damaged our health care system, from letting costs go up, to letting rural hospitals close down, to abandoning tens of millions by taking away their coverage. But then we're going to look forward. That's our real mission. That's what we must do. We're going to unroll another report next week that outlines our vision for remaking our health care system, making it affordable, easier, more accessible.

We're going to strengthen the ACA. We're going to strengthen Medicare and Medicaid, not cut them. We will reverse the horrific, destructive, and utterly heartless health care budget cuts, which the Republican majority rammed through Congress. We'll work to reinstate the ACA premium tax cuts that help millions afford health care. We're going to build on the good work we accomplished when we had the majority, lower prescription drug prices further, to allow Medicare to negotiate for lower prices, to invest in federal research dollars, necessary to come up with new treatments and innovations. The cuts to research are just absurd. That always used to be bipartisan. The great research we have done to keep people alive, cutting it for no reason, it's got to stop. Under a Democratic majority, hospitals will not be forgotten.

We will certainly ensure that you not only have the resources you need to take care of your communities, but have a seat at the table here in Washington. I've always consulted Rick and AHA, and the health care industry before we made any changes because you know the best of all. You give us the best advice. And you know what else we're going to start doing when we get in control in Washington? Finally start trusting scientists again here in Washington. How can we not trust science? Which has been a hallmark of American advancement in every corner of our country.

The Democratic majority is one that puts evidence, reason, and science in the driver's seat, the driver's seat in general, and the driver's seat of health care policy. We're not going to listen to conspiracy theories or the kind of grift we see from the present HHS Secretary. Republicans have made it clear they've spent their majority cutting health care, but we are not cutting health care, we're investing it. Because if we have a healthier America, there's no better investment. Because people are so much more productive.

We want to make sure that no family has to struggle to see a doctor, no senior has to choose between groceries and medication, and no one in this room, or anyone who works in a hospital, has to wonder whether they'll have resources to care for the American people. And we're going to fight for you every single day. Because Americans, American hospitals, deserve no less. In closing, we need your help too. Hospitals must be part of the solution. The American people still look to you. They depend on you. They believe in you. There's no warmer relationship than the health care worker and the patient he or she serves.

So they need to hear your stories about what's being done here. Please, don't be shy. Too much is at risk. Share what's happening with lawmakers, the families you serve, how your facilities are innovating, what you're doing to make the numbers work. Tell your legislators. I don't care what party they are, what ideology they are. It's your story to tell, and those stories are so powerful. I've heard over and over again, you know them better than anybody because you're right there on the front lines.

Now is not the time to assume your delegation understands the challenges you're facing. Because if they would, we wouldn't have had the kind of slashing we've seen. Hospitals are unique in the health care system. You serve everyone who walks through the doors in all kinds of communities, rural, suburban, urban in this country. Our legislators need to understand what you're facing. They need to understand the indispensable role you play in the life of every community you serve. You need to talk about people who are living good lives because of what you're been able to do.

So I say to you, you're the backbone of your communities, we all know that. The road ahead, we also know it will not be that easy in these partisan times. There are still obstacles in front of us. And it doesn't seem that the present majority or the present president understands how badly these cuts are hurting the American people. But we cannot, we must not lose our resolve. We cannot lose sight of our mission. Families back home depend on me, depend on you. We're at a pivotal moment of health care right now.

Affordability, health care affordability, is at the top of mind, is the number one issue to huge numbers of Americans, and we're charting the course to what a better health care system can look like. So if there's one thing I hope you take away from my remarks it's this: I will be there for you. I will fight for you every single day. Thank you for all you do, thank you for your great importance to the health, broadly speaking, of America. Let's win this fight.

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