Video: Blumenthal Speaks on Senate Floor in Support of Senate Democrats' Proposal to End the Republican Shutdown & Address Healthcare Affordability

[WASHINGTON, DC] - U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) spoke on the Senate Floor today after Senate Democrats offered a proposal to reopen the government, which would end the longest shutdown in American history and address the growing problem of skyrocketing healthcare costs.

Connecticut residents are facing extreme and unaffordable health insurance premium increases without the extension of the Affordable Care Act tax credits. One Old Lyme resident shared that her premiums were set to go up $400 a month without the Affordable Act tax credits. Another couple in Glastonbury was quoted over $40,000 for a year of health insurance without the tax credits.

"Nobody in America needed Tuesday's election to tell them that the costs of rent and electricity and food and all of other necessities in life are spiraling out of control - and, yes, health care costs are spiraling out of control. And they are at the kitchen table right now across America looking at the exchanges and concluding they simply can't afford those spiking premiums - multiples of three and four times, and at least twice what they were paying. And many of them are taking the risk that they will go without insurance," said Blumenthal on the Senate Floor.

"This measure guarantees an outcome. The Majority Leader, Senator Thune, has said he can't guarantee an outcome. All he can promise is a process. And I am unwilling to accept a promise of some vote at an indefinite point on an undefined bill sometime in the future because the urgency of now for American families means they are making choices about whether they can afford insurance this moment for next year."

The video of Blumenthal's remarks is available here. The full transcript is copied below.

Mr. President, I thank my colleagues for this unified support for a measure that is eminently reasonable. I thank the leader of our side, Senator Schumer, for advancing this proposal. It is a compromise. It's simple and plain, and I'll be very blunt - it's not everything I would have wanted.

Like the Senator from Wisconsin, my friend, Senator Baldwin, I would have wanted the health care tax credits to be permanently guaranteed. I would have wanted a guarantee as well that there be no rescissions or impoundments of funds, as this President has done repeatedly. I would have wanted a reversal of the firings, the so-called RIFs, reductions in forces that have been eminently unfair, and a guarantee of back pay to everybody who has been furloughed. There are other provisions that, for me, were profoundly important.

It is a compromise, and compromise is not a four-letter word. It is the way we get things done. And this picture of unity is worth a thousand of my words, but it is also a clear response to a crisis that we face. And we face it today. It is a crisis in health care. It is a crisis in hunger. It is a crisis in air transportation and for millions of Americans, it's a crisis of affordability.

Nobody in America needed Tuesday's election to tell them that the costs of rent and electricity and food and all of other necessities in life are spiraling out of control - and, yes, health care costs are spiraling out of control. And they are at the kitchen table right now across America looking at the exchanges and concluding they simply can't afford those spiking premiums - multiples of three and four times, and at least twice what they were paying. And many of them are taking the risk that they will go without insurance.

This measure guarantees an outcome. The Majority Leader, Senator Thune, has said he can't guarantee an outcome. All he can promise is a process. And I am unwilling to accept a promise of some vote at an indefinite point on an undefined bill sometime in the future because the urgency of now for American families means they are making choices about whether they can afford insurance this moment for next year.

And, in fairness to the Majority Leader, he can't promise anything for either the Speaker of the House or the President. And they have been absent without leave. They have been AWOL. They have refused to talk. And we are presenting them now with a reasonable compromise that the Majority Leader can accept and our colleagues on the other side of the aisle should embrace.

And the problem here is one of trust. What we've seen from the Administration is a strategy of maximum pain to magnify political pressure. In just minutes from now in the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, this Administration will argue that SNAP benefits should be ended, after the President himself promised that they would be paid in full in compliance with the District Court orders in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. There's no way to trust that SNAP benefits will be provided without a guarantee from the courts.

The urgency that we face is also in air transportation. We all want people to be able to reach their destinations safely - it has to come first. And we need to make sure that the TSA and air controllers are paid. They are heroes for having worked for so long without pay.

We need to stop the madness of this trend line. It's a through line in the Administration's tactics here. It's a through line of cruelty and stupidity that has magnified the costs for the American people, not just in "blue states" but all across the country.

And we should seek reform and improvement in the ACA, eliminating any kind of fraud and stopping the spiraling increase in health care costs. But I should warn my colleagues, we will not sacrifice the ACA. Very revealing yesterday in a hearing of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigation was the commentary from a number of my Republican colleagues, in effect, saying that we should kill the ACA - an effort that has been part of their relentless campaign over the last 15 years to decimate this resounding and important law that now is embraced by the vast majority of the American people.

And we put in the record stories of individuals from Michigan and Pennsylvania and Iowa. Aaron Lehman, a fifth-generation farmer who told us, "I grow corn, soybeans, oats, and hay with my family. The Affordable Care Act has been one of the best investments in rural health care in decades." We cannot afford as a nation to go back to the days when preexisting conditions were a pretext for denying health care if someone had a history of cancer, diabetes, heart disease, HIV, asthma, depression, pregnancy-the list goes on. Insurers could force patients to pay more or refuse to offer them coverage at all.

Standing strong for the ACA very simply means providing health care to Americans. Extending the health care tax credits for one year is a compromise that makes sense. It will put the government back to work fully and capably and fairly. And I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this reasonable compromise. I yield the Floor.

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