Al Franken: “I rise to talk about a path forward on healthcare. Last week, Republicans in the House failed to pass the American…”

“I rise to talk about a path forward on healthcare. Last week, Republicans in the House failed to pass the American Health Care Act--a deeply flawed policy that amounted to little more than a massive tax break for the wealthy at the expense of working people. The failure of that bill means that, as Speaker Ryan put it, the ACA is the law of the land for the foreseeable future. So today I would like to invite my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to leave repeal efforts behind and instead roll up their sleeves and work with me and other Democrats to improve the system we already have, which is the law of the land for the foreseeable future. It is time to pass commonsense reforms that build on the successes of the ACA and lower healthcare costs. In a recent HELP Committee hearing, Chairman Alexander said that he wanted to work on a bipartisan basis to stabilize the individual market. Great. Let's do that. We should reinstate and strengthen programs that help insurance companies stay in the marketplace and continue to serve even the sickest patients. We should pass a public option to make sure there is competition in every market. We should provide more tax credits to more people. While we work on those things, there is something else we should do, something that, together with a group of my colleagues, I introduced a bill about yesterday. It is time to bring down healthcare costs for everyone by reducing the price of prescription drugs.…”