Patty Murray

This epidemic does not discriminate, it can reach anyone, and it can reach anywhere.

I hope we can all agree that the opioid crisis is an issue that, no matter what else is going on, cannot afford further inaction.

I am very concerned about and I am going to be watching very closely to make sure that really vital program is implemented.

I do have some additional questions.

Do you share the goal of making sure as many people as possible, who may be sicker, who may be harder to reach, more rural, or communities that have not been reached before should be part of what we are working on?

They have a very different goal here. They are not looking for the tougher, sicker, harder to reach, more rural folks to sign up.

The intent of the longer enrollment, which this Administration has cut in half and made it more difficult.

The goal is to have as many people as possible insured, have access, get their preventive care, and do not show up in emergency rooms costing everybody else.

The reason that we very adamantly support that is because many people are now getting access to care through insurance that did not get it before.

I think women's access to healthcare their doctor requires for them should take precedence, but we disagree on that.

Do you believe that all women should have access to the healthcare their doctor recommends for them? Yes or no.

I think the cost of drugs, the high cost, is something I hear about more than anything else.

We will continue to focus on that.

We are deeply concerned on this side.

If you don't have access to insurance because the insurance market has collapsed, that's no healthcare coverage for a lot of people.

My point is that if we are telling employers that they can decide how a woman's healthcare can be covered, that seems really at odds with me.

Many of us agreed in the wake of the partisan repeal efforts earlier this year that jamming partisan policy through before anyone has a chance to see it is absolutely not the right way to get things done.

If we are telling employers that they can decide how a woman's healthcare can be covered, that seems really at odds with me.

Do you believe that's an appropriate way for employers to influence healthcare decisions of their employees?

Rather than promoting the health of their workers, that would actually allow employers to prevent female employees from having coverage.

What Senate Republicans are proposing now is the exact opposite and the wrong direction for families' health and financial security.

The way this was done, by sneaking devastating healthcare changes into a partisan bill at the last minute, is completely counter to the bipartisan spirit in which we worked on this stabilization bill.

Tacking Alexander-Murray onto the partisan Republican tax reform effort is like trying to put out a fire with penicillin.

Before we begin today's conversation, I do want to comment on the decision by Senate Republicans to once again attempt to raise families' costs and take away their healthcare, this time to fund tax cuts for massive corporations and the…

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