Statement AI Analysis

Statement AI Summary:

Sen. Hickenlooper criticizes MAGA Republicans and the administration for causing a government shutdown and for policy moves that he says cut Medicaid and Affordable Care Act funding, threaten ACA tax credits (raising premiums), undermine vaccine and public-health science, reduce cancer research, and jeopardize reproductive care and nursing-home residents; he urges negotiation to restore healthcare protections.

Statement AI Bias Category on Abortion and Reproductive Rights:

Left-Leaning

Bias of All Statements by John Hickenlooper on Abortion and Reproductive Rights:

Statement AI Categories:

Economy and Jobs, Healthcare, Taxation, Social Security and Welfare, Abortion and Reproductive Rights, Science and Research Policy, Congressional Procedure

Date:

10-07-2025

Pages In PDF Link That Have Statement:

S6967-S6978

Actual Statement Made In Congress:

If the member made multiple statements on that day, they were analyzed and accumulated together.

Mr. HICKENLOOPER. Mr. President, this really is a turning point for our country and a turning point in our fight to make healthcare more accessible for all Americans. For the first time in 6 years, the government is shut down. Certainly, nobody wanted to get to this point, including me. But we are here for one reason: because MAGA Republicans shut down the government because they refuse to address the healthcare crisis they have created. Earlier this summer, the Trump administration passed their--what we call--``Big Bad Betrayal Act,'' as we call it. At a time when Americans are begging for financial relief, they were stripped of their healthcare and are faced with the loss of healthcare for 15 million people. That is right. MAGA Republicans have gutted more than a trillion dollars over the next 10 years from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, healthcare that literally millions of Americans rely on. And we are not just talking years in the future. It starts this month. At the end of this year, the Affordable Care Act's tax credits will expire, unless Republicans act now to extend them. If they don't--and they are clearly divided on this issue--premiums across the country, on average, are going to double starting next year. As a little perspective, that means many Coloradans will pay over a thousand dollars more for healthcare in 2026 than they did in 2025. Now, insurance companies are just starting to notify Americans about these massive cost increases. You talk about a kick in the gut. When I was Governor, we expanded healthcare to 400,000 Coloradans with help from the ACA tax credits. We got to 96 percent coverage for Coloradans to have healthcare. MAGA Republicans want to undo that progress, and we shouldn't let that happen. It doesn't end there. The budget bill is a centerpiece of a much broader campaign to strip healthcare coverage away from millions and millions of Americans. The moment the President took office, MAGA Republicans essentially handed him and Secretary Kennedy a free pass to attempt to dismantle our public healthcare system and to destroy much of the science-backed public health policy. Now, what exactly did they do? Well, the President and R.F.K., Jr., fired every single member of the CDC's independent panel on vaccines and replaced them with vaccine skeptics, people who really didn't believe too much in the value of vaccines. Then, when the President's own CDC Director voiced her opposition, they fired her too. Now, that puppet panel completely changed the COVID vaccine recommendations for Americans. Now, folks across the country are struggling to figure out whether they can get a vaccine at the pharmacy and what it is going to cost. The President's first administration oversaw Operation Warp Speed, which developed the first COVID vaccines in what was almost a miraculously rapid timeframe. But now he is actively undermining that same science. It is astounding. Reproductive healthcare? They are gutting that too. Again, back when I was Governor of Colorado, we made free and low-cost birth control accessible to every Coloradan. We reduced unwanted pregnancies by almost 60 percent. Now, this administration is doing everything it can to eliminate the last remaining abortion protections. They are threatening access to mifepristone, a medication that has been proven safe and effective for nearly 30 years. On top of that, they have completely given up on things like fighting cancer, slashing hundreds of millions of dollars in cancer-related research grants. That is right. You heard me clearly--cancer. Now, we can't even agree that cancer is worth beating. If that wasn't enough, the White House actually reached out and publicized--the President talked to pregnant women and told pregnant women not to trust their doctors, but that they can feel assured that taking Tylenol while you are pregnant would cause autism. They did this without any scientific proof. It is hard to believe that they were telling pregnant women that Tylenol was going to cause autism. It is in many ways one large diabolical fear tactic, and it puts the health of so many Americans at risk. And we can't let it continue, which really brings us to this showdown. We are asking for this administration to negotiate and to take basic action to restore healthcare to Americans. MAGA Republicans, I think they should be thanking us for giving them an off-ramp to undo the horrendous cuts that are going to ruin people's lives--real lives. It will cost people their lives. So far, no one seems to be listening, but here is what is at stake if we don't hold our ground. I, recently, a couple of weeks ago, visited a nursing home in Lakewood, CO. Now, many Americans don't know this, but Medicaid covers the cost of roughly 60 percent of residents in nursing homes across the country. At the facility I visited in Lakewood, over 90 percent of the residents are there because of Medicaid. I sat in a circle surrounded by residents, some with disabilities, and their caregivers, all trying to understand what these cuts meant for their health, for their lives. One resident told me pointblank that Medicaid saved his life. He said he would still be living on the streets without it because the cost of his epilepsy medication was far too high. His healthcare, his medication, and the roof over his head are now under threat with these cuts coming to Medicaid. This is a very sobering truth. If you are a single adult in Colorado, you don't even qualify for Medicaid--you will be making too much to qualify for Medicaid--if you earn more than $1,735 a month. That is $10 an hour. If you make more than $10 an hour, you don't qualify for Medicaid. So you have to be working, and you have to make less than $10 an hour. It is pretty easy to verify. And creating the redtape of bureaucracy to get at these mythical cases of abuse--it defies rational thought. The President's ``Big Ugly Bill'' doesn't just put a $1 trillion hole in healthcare, but it creates mountains of paperwork and endless reams of redtape. It creates challenges that people with disabilities and people making $10 an hour are going to have a really hard time navigating. And if they fill out a form incorrectly or they don't turn it in on time or they get something wrong, they will get kicked right off of healthcare. It is immoral. It is inhumane. This is what Medicaid is for, to make sure Americans get the care they need to stay alive, to keep shelter over their heads when they need around-the-clock care. All of it is under threat. Take one look on social media, and you will see why the White House and MAGA are trying to make this into one big joke. It is a carnival of jokes, but they can't avoid the suffering and the fear that their actions are causing. Americans elected the President because he promised to fight for the people who slipped through the cracks. But he is turning the very ground they stand on into quicksand. MAGA Republicans have passed a bill to take healthcare from 15 million Americans--Americans with cancer, sick kids, people living in nursing homes. With the money they saved, they gave trillion-dollar tax breaks, in many cases, to the wealthiest of Americans and to the largest of corporations. Now, hundreds of rural hospitals and clinics are at risk of closure. Millions of Americans are going to be uninsured. Many of them have preexisting conditions, which will make them getting insurance again nearly impossible. And they are going to be faced with healthcare premiums that will be doubling, and that is for literally millions of Americans. And we are not talking decades in the future. We are talking about next month, when these premiums go up. By November 1, Coloradans on the marketplace plans that they get from the healthcare exchange, they will be getting the terrifying news--the alert from the insurance companies--that their premiums are about to increase. What we are being told is some Colorado families are going to see pricetags a thousand dollars a month higher than what their normal payments were. Democrats are fighting for one thing: to protect the essential care that millions of Americans rely on every single day. It is about making sure that moms and dads, little kids, grandparents, and newborn babies don't fall through the trillion-dollar hole that MAGA has created in our healthcare system. Let's work together. Let's reopen the government and protect the healthcare for the people of this country. We will be waiting and ready at the negotiating table. I yield the floor.

Source:

Library of Congress

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