congressional_record: CREC-2025-06-24-pt1-PgH2892-3
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| granule_id | date | congress | session | volume | issue | title | chamber | granule_class | sub_granule_class | page_start | page_end | speakers | bills | citation | full_text |
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| CREC-2025-06-24-pt1-PgH2892-3 | 2025-06-24 | 119 | 1 | STOP THIS INSANE ATTACK ON HEALTHCARE THAT AFFECTS EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN | HOUSE | HOUSE | ALLOTHER | H2892 | H2893 | [{"name": "Joe Courtney", "role": "speaking"}] | [{"congress": "119", "type": "HR", "number": "1"}] | 171 Cong. Rec. H2892 | Congressional Record, Volume 171 Issue 108 (Tuesday, June 24, 2025) [Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 108 (Tuesday, June 24, 2025)] [House] [Pages H2892-H2893] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] {time} 1015 STOP THIS INSANE ATTACK ON HEALTHCARE THAT AFFECTS EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN (Mr. Courtney of Connecticut was recognized to address the House for 5 minutes.) Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, today is June 24, and it is almost exactly a month ago that in this House, the misnamed One Big Beautiful Bill Act was passed in the dead of night after hours and hours of debate while the American people were asleep at home. With the rush of events that take place every single day, it sometimes gets hard to remember exactly where that stands and what is going on. [[Page H2893]] The bill is moving in the Senate, literally as I stand here in the well of the House. In the light of day over the last month or so, a lot of the rocks have been kicked over in H.R. 1 to sort of see what is in there. A lot of pretty ugly things have slithered out, including a provision to auction off some of our precious public lands out West, basically robbing those treasured assets from future generations. There are deregulated gun silencers, which have been on the National Firearms Act since the 1930s. Who benefits from that? I am sure there are a lot of criminals that are rooting for them to be able to go out and buy tax-free gun silencers. It increases the national debt by $5 trillion, with about $3.5 trillion in new debt with another $1.5 trillion in interest payments. It cuts taxes for American families with a yearly income above $500,000 to the tune of over a trillion dollars with a pittance for middle-class and working families. It raises the debt ceiling by $5 trillion so the government can sell bonds to finance debt. Again, it is a bill that basically benefits the Elon Musks and Jeff Bezos of the world. What is really at the heart of H.R. 1 that should concern every single American is a provision that includes the largest cut in healthcare spending in American history with over a trillion dollars of cuts in the bill as it left this floor on May 22. I have here a poster next to me that talks about what the real-life impact is going to be on hospitals all across the country. It is not coming from me as a member of the minority caucus. This comes from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which has been around for 50 years and is a completely nonpartisan analyst in terms of healthcare spending and healthcare financing throughout the country. What it did was break down State by State what the impact of this bill will be. For the State of Connecticut, where I am from, it is actually about a $9 billion cut over the next 10 years in terms of the Medicaid program, as well as eliminating the premium tax subsidies for people who get their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. That is about 15 million Americans. The hospitals, in particular, are going to take the biggest hit. As this headline says in the Connecticut press, it is about $4 billion over the next 10 years. All of my colleagues that are here today, I encourage them to look at this analysis which shows State by State, sector by sector within healthcare spending, hospitals, physicians, and prescription drugs, in terms of the impact that this bill will have. There was a lot of hope that maybe in the Senate this bill might be fixed and addressed, particularly because it hits rural hospitals so hard. There are so many Republicans in the majority caucus in the Senate that obviously are going to feel the pain if this provision goes through. Unfortunately, what we saw come out of the Senate Finance Committee is even worse in terms of what came through from the House. Don't take my word for it. Listen to the Catholic Hospital Association, who issued a statement just a few days ago after this provision came out. They had warned them before of the devastating impact it would have, particularly on safety net hospitals which Catholics are definitely a part of all across the country. It fell on deaf ears. Children's hospitals rely on Medicaid to a greater proportion than other hospitals because they don't have elderly patients, obviously. They are children's hospitals, and Medicare pays for a lot of those patients. Children's hospitals have no place to cost-shift, so they have uncompensated care with this devastating Medicaid cut that is going to hit every State in terms of its Federal matching funds. This is going to land on the most vulnerable in our society and the people who are delivering the care. They are not partisans. They are not approaching Congress as Democrats or Republicans. They are there as people who are doing their job day in and day out. I visited one of those hospitals last week, Lawrence Memorial Hospital in New London, Connecticut. Over 40 percent of their patient census is on Medicaid. It is in the heart of New London, a wonderful, historic community, but it has a high Medicaid population. Mr. Speaker, we have to stop this insane attack on healthcare that affects every single American. We have got to block H.R. 1. We got to go back and do a better job for the American people. ____________________ |