'Hell No To The Big Ugly Betrayal': Jeff Merkley Clobbers GOP Over Big Beautiful Bill Medicaid Cuts

Forbes Breaking News

During a press briefing on Wednesday, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) spoke about the Big Beautiful Bill.

Transcript

00:00Jeff Merkley

00:07Back when I came to the Senate in

00:092009 we had a president President Obama and a Senate that said hey

00:14Let's really work towards the vision of everyone in America having the opportunity to have affordable quality health care and

00:24In April of 2009 Frank Luntz put out a memo and he was a

00:30Strategist he says whatever Democrats are doing let's call it a government takeover whatever they do

00:35We'll call it a government takeover because we've done focus groups and that scares people

00:38Well, I quickly saw how scared people were as I started doing the town halls following Senator Wyden's example of a town hall in every county in

00:46Oregon every year and people were terrified they were showing up in extraordinary numbers and so angry

00:53Why would you?

00:54Take over our health care and

00:57And I'd say you know why and they'd say why don't you listen to us? I say okay. Well, listen to everybody in the room and

01:03I'd say I'll recite some of the provisions of

01:07Obamacare and you can tell me step forward step backwards cover pre-existing condition 80% of the room rural Oregon angry people

01:15Oh, no that piece we like and

01:18Your children being on your policy to age 26. Oh 80% of the room. Oh, yeah

01:22We like that and I went through different provisions, but two of the provisions that were

01:28Engaged here was one tax credits to help middle-class families buy health care. Oh

01:34Yeah

01:35universally we we really like that and

01:39Expanding

01:40Medicaid in order to cover the gap between our less affluent families that currently have Medicaid and

01:46Middle-class families who will be able to buy health care and exchange no that's great and a side benefit a lot more revenue flowing into our

01:54Rural clinics in our real hospitals so 2009 a

01:59Blue trifecta says let's fill in the gaps and make sure that everyone in America has

02:06Opportunity to have health insurance so that when they need medical care, they'll be able to get it

02:12Now let's turn the clock from 2009 to 2025 and we have a red trifecta and what is their message?

02:21Let's tear down health care

02:25So millions of American families will suffer

02:302009 blue message let's fill in the gap so everyone has health care when they need it

02:362025 Republican message, let's tear it down and let families suffer

02:40That's the extraordinary distinction and that's why we are here at this moment

02:46To say we need to reverse

02:49What my colleague just called Trump care?

02:51What was done in the big ugly betrayal of a bill where it tore down?

02:58The ability to provide those premium tax credits under Obamacare

03:03When it proceeded to put in danger

03:06Medicaid across the country by changing how states could provide matching funds to keep Medicaid going

03:13What does this mean when a family loses health care? It means well

03:18They often have to choose between

03:20Paying their rent or buying their groceries or paying their health insurance

03:24Going broke

03:26They have a medical condition and they don't have health insurance now. They're in big big trouble

03:31You know, we're the only developed country in the world in which people routinely declare bankruptcy because of medical conditions

03:38Even with what we have succeeded in doing since 2009

03:41But this big ugly betrayal of a bill took us the opposite direction

03:45What else happens? Rural health care suffers

03:49We saw last year in Baker City, oregon a maternity care ward shut down

03:54People are gonna have to drive 70 miles and in winter that highway is often shut down in order to deliver a baby

04:00How scary is that?

04:02Pretty damn scary and that was with expanded Medicaid

04:06What happens if that's not there? What happens when you lose Medicaid coverage for 15 million Americans?

04:12I can tell you what the experts are saying

04:15They're saying

04:17300 rural hospitals and clinics will be at risk of either shutting down or greatly curtailing their resources

04:26That's the authority authority

04:29The chef's report a real authority on rural health care

04:34So this is wrong. It does so much damage to the quality of life of so many people

04:39I hate the fact that we will hear stories about people who didn't go when they had a condition and

04:45And six months later that small lump turned into

04:50ravaging breast cancer or so many other possibilities when you don't get care early and effectively

04:57So that's why we're here to say hell no

05:00Hell no to the big ugly betrayal of

05:04Americans. Let's restore the cuts that were torn down that were established in the savaging American health care in that bill and

05:12and let's

05:14Apply those enhanced premiums to keep health care affordable for middle-class

05:20Americans the numbers for Oregon for people buying fund health care on the exchange

05:25It will be a 68 percent increase in their premium

05:30About thirteen hundred dollars a year on average. That's a deal breaker for many families

05:35Let's not that didn't make let that deal breaker happen. Thank you

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