Bonnie Watson Coleman: “I am here this evening representing the Congressional Progressive Caucus in this Special Order hour, and I will be…”

“I am here this evening representing the Congressional Progressive Caucus in this Special Order hour, and I will be joined by colleagues as we will examine what our future appears to look like as we plan for the transition which is taking place. We are 8 days away from a new President and administration that continues to refuse to put Americans first and complicit with Republican- controlled Congress that will help them execute that mission. At 1 a.m. this morning, 51 Republican Senators voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act with no replacement. After 6 years of hollow grandstanding, Republicans now know that their plan to repeal the ACA would dump massive costs on families, businesses, and the Federal budget. The facts are clear, Mr. Speaker. Republicans' repeal of the ACA would result in the loss of 2.6 million jobs and more than 250 billion--that is billion, B--of gross State products in 2019 alone. Family budgets and State budgets alike would be rocked by the reverberations of the repeal. And we cannot forget about our healthcare providers. The repeal of the ACA will crumble our critical healthcare infrastructure, decimating hospitals' and healthcare systems' ability to provide services, weaken local economies that hospitals help sustain and grow, and result in massive job losses of healthcare professionals.…”