On the recordJune 19, 2017
over the last several months, there has been an important debate about healthcare--a debate between those who believe we can strengthen the American healthcare system by improving the Affordable Care Act and those who believe the law must be repealed and replaced. If you listen closely, however, the question at the heart of both sides of this debate sound oddly the same--how do we make sure Americans have access to quality healthcare they can afford? It is this shared concern about the affordability of quality healthcare and the recent actions of the Trump administration that I would like to discuss today. For a moment, let's set aside the healthcare reform debate because whether we agree to work together in a bipartisan way to improve our healthcare system, as I strongly believe we should, or whether Republicans push through a partisan proposal to significantly change the way in which Americans receive healthcare, we should all be able to agree that we want to protect the stability of the insurance markets and access to quality, affordable healthcare. Yet, despite this shared objective, protecting the stability of our healthcare system has not been the approach of this administration. Instead, it has done the opposite. It has tried to drive change by creating instability and chaos. On his first day in office, the President did not ask how he could fix the Affordable Care Act or improve the healthcare system.…
Source
govinfo.gov




