On the recordSeptember 20, 2013
This bill defunds still more than the Affordable Care Act. It undermines Medicare. It would end improvements in new prescription drug benefits, increases costs for those with Medicare Advantage, and hurts children covered by CHIP as well as the disabled. But this measure has still more peril for our country. We in the House are like two ships passing in the night. House Republicans will pass this bill. It will sail off to the Senate, surely to return after the Senate has stripped off the effort to defund the Affordable Care Act. So then it will be squarely up to the Speaker of this House. Will he act as the captain of the entire House of Representatives or remain a captive of his right-wing Republican mates? Will he, as he acts, worry mainly about the risk to his Speakership or the risk to our entire Nation? House Republicans, taking the ship over the cliff, will take the Nation's economic well-being with it. This is the inevitable danger of the course being chosen today by House Republicans. Only those blinded by rigid ideology can fail to see it.
