Leader Schumer Floor Remarks Ahead Of His Unanimous Consent Request To Pass House-Passed ACA Tax Credits Extension

Washington, D.C. - Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) today spoke on the Senate floor asking for unanimous consent to pass a three-year extension of the Affordable Care Act tax credits to provide urgent relief for the millions of Americans who lost their health care when the tax credits expired. Below are Senator Schumer's remarks:

Americans across the country-they could be Democrats, they could be Independents, they could be Republicans, they could live in the north, the south, the east, and the west agree on one thing: the cost of health care is at crisis levels and families are struggling to pay for health care, such a necessity for their families and themselves.

Now on January 1st, ACA premium tax credits that lowered premiums for millions of Americans expired, because Republicans chose to let them die.

Republicans knew this crisis was coming. They knew the consequences. And they deliberately blocked relief from the American people.

Already, because of the callous actions of our Republican colleagues, ACA enrollment has already dropped by nearly a million and a half people.

The average American with an ACA plan has seen their premiums double, and many have seen them much worse than that.

This is outrageous. It's wrong. And Republicans know it.

There's a demand from one end of the country to undo the crisis by very simple-there's a very simple way to do it. All Republicans have to do is join Democrats in voting for legislation that expands the credits by three years. And it will be done. It passed the House.

But mark my words-if Republicans don't do it, America will know, and the political price they pay will be severe.

And so, [we must] rectify this injustice, to rectify the fact that families are deciding whether to even have health care or not, or to cut back on something else very important to pay for the increased costs of health care. Families are deciding that right now, every night: millions of American families are talking about what to do with this new health care bill that has come through, which has doubled or tripled what they have to pay each month, which will cut back in so many instances on the kind of health care they get, make them switch hospitals, switch doctors, not afford the prescription drug that is desperately needed by their child who has cancer.

Every night, Americans are grappling with this horrible problem, because there's nothing more important to a family than the health of its members. Yet Republicans blocked it.

But my fellow Americans, the fight to lower health care costs is not over.

Today I bring to the floor a very simple request: that when this chamber receives bipartisan legislation that passed the House last week providing a simple, three-year reinstatement of the ACA premium tax credits-that it be immediately agreed to in the Senate.

The Republican Leader of the Senate could put this on the floor, and it would pass through this chamber in the blink of an eye. Most Republicans would vote for it because they know how much the public wants to renew these credits.

So, there is no reason under heaven for us to delay.

The House passed this bill last week by 230-196. And seventeen Republicans joined Democrats.

That is not a fluke-that's a blaring signal to Republicans that Americans are demanding relief. Fifty-five percent of Trump voters want the tax credits extended. But the Republican Senate is blind, is in a bubble, is not even understanding the anguish of America about these increased health care costs. And they sit there and come up with one excuse after the other why they shouldn't do this.

The House, fortunately, listened to the American people and acted, and the Senate should now do the same.

Leader Thune knows that people back home are suffering.

He knows that he can fix the problem by just putting the bill on the floor because it will pass.

There's a lot to discuss and debate when it comes to fixing our health care system.

But right now, there's an immediate concern. Premiums are spiking across the country. So, the most immediate thing we can do to lower health care costs for the American people is pass a clean restoration of these credits.

We offered the Republicans the chance during the so-called "Big, Beautiful Bill"- they rejected it three times, unanimously. But they went home over the summer, in the fall, and now into the winter, and they heard their constituents clamoring for relief.

Open your ears. Open your minds, Republicans. Listen to the American people.

There's no doubt, you know it, that the majority of Americans, the overwhelming majority of Americans, even the majority of Republicans and Trump voters, want us to do this.

And frankly, to Americans back home, it's not a Democratic or Republican issue. The only thing they care about is getting those costs lower. And they want to know, who is going to step up and bring premiums down? Who is going to lower costs?

Senate Democrats say in one voice to the American people, we hear you.

We have a plan to bring your premiums down.

We're going to keep at this; this issue isn't going away.

We're going to fight and fight and fight until we achieve this for the American people because it is so important. There are other issues Republicans have out there, some want to block it because they want to extend provisions that hurt women on the issue of abortion. Some want to block it because they want to privatize the system, which would make it only worse. But it doesn't matter.

We can debate all those things down the road.

The opportunity is now, right now, to allow this body toll unanimously pass this much-needed proposal to extend the credits by three years.

I urge my Republican colleagues-let this bill pass. Let's give the American people what they so fiercely and rightly demand.

Most of all, let's give millions of Americans relief from the sky-high price of these premiums now that the [tax credit policy] has expired.

Americans need it. Americans want it. Americans demand it.

It's the only humane and right thing to do.

This is another chance for my colleagues across the aisle to rectify their mistake and help the American people with an issue that is at the top of the list for them.

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