Eleanor Holmes Norton: “I thank my good friend for the excellent job she is doing in leading this Special Order. I don't know about you, but the…”

“I thank my good friend for the excellent job she is doing in leading this Special Order. I don't know about you, but the uninsured in my district are down to 3.8 percent. If you think I am going to let the Republicans take away near universal health care from my district, the District of Columbia, without a fight, just watch me, and watch my colleagues. We had a healthcare townhall. Unlike some of the townhalls of my colleagues, there were not people jumping up saying: Why are you taking away my health care? Instead, they were people like Debbie. Debbie is a lifetime sufferer of asthma. She also has diabetes. She reached her cap. That meant that the medicine she was on, which cost $10,000 a month, would have to be paid by her. She worked every day. How many of you--how many of us--could pay $10,000 a month, no matter what job we have? That, along with her diabetes, makes her a paradigm of the kind of person whose life and death depends on this bill. I want to just say a few words not about all of the important information you have had, but about what I call the worst of the worst. First, let me congratulate my Republican colleagues on doubling down on the number without health care because you double the number without health care. As we are rising with the number who have health care, you now turn downward. We can't possibly live with that, and I don't think the American people will allow you to get away with it.…”