On the recordJune 21, 2017
When someone keeps something secret, it is often because it is embarrassing or negative or damaging or unsupportable. Mr. Speaker, over in the Senate, Leader McConnell and some of these Republican Senators are doing just that: crafting a healthcare repeal bill in secret because they know what it contains would deeply embarrass anyone who supports it openly. They know it is going to be a hard sell to convince even their own Republican colleagues, Mr. Speaker, to get behind a bill that even President Trump called mean. That was the House American Health Care Act to which he was referring. He called it mean for the harm it does to Americans. They know it is going to be difficult in the Senate to convince Senators to support a bill that raises healthcare costs for working families and kicks millions of Americans off their coverage, including those who are covered by their employers; a bill that makes millions of individuals with preexisting conditions uninsurable and reinstitutes annual and lifetime limits; a bill that imposes an age tax on those between ages 50 and 64, increasing premium costs by as much as 800 percent; a bill that forces States to cut benefits and kick millions of people off Medicaid, whether it is next year, in 3 years, or in 7 years, those times that are to try to get by elections so that perhaps people will not be held accountable for voting for such draconian legislation. Mr.…