Frank Pallone: “One of my colleagues on the Republican side asked earlier what Democrats are fighting for. Mr. Speaker, I am a proud…”

“One of my colleagues on the Republican side asked earlier what Democrats are fighting for. Mr. Speaker, I am a proud Democrat fighting for America's healthcare, and I stress that this partisan Republican bill cuts American healthcare. This bill slashes funding for our community health centers, which provide care for millions of people, as well as our Nation's teaching hospitals, which train the next generation of doctors. It fails to reverse the Medicare physician pay cut, which endangers access for seniors, especially for those in rural and underserved communities. It also does nothing to stop Republicans' planned catastrophic cuts to Medicaid. Rather than voting on this partisan bill, we should be working together to lower costs and expand access to healthcare like the bipartisan agreement we had in December. That bill provided long-term certainty and funding increases for our community health centers and our teaching health centers. It lowered drug costs by taking on unfair PBM practices and addressed the Medicare cuts to physicians. Unfortunately, Republicans walked away from this agreement because Elon Musk opposed it.”