Executive Session
Floor Speech
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Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, we just heard the Democratic leader talking about the issue of healthcare and attacking the President and Republicans for not being supportive of protections for preexisting conditions, and I can tell you that is just not true. I can't think of a single Republican who doesn't believe we ought to provide protection for people with preexisting conditions.
Democrats have not acknowledged that ObamaCare has failed, and I think we can all see the evidence of that. We have seen skyrocketing premiums, copays, out-of-pocket costs, deductibles--all of those things have gone through the roof for a lot of people, particularly in the individual market--as well as a reduction in the number of choices and options. Fewer options and higher costs have been the legacy of ObamaCare, so the Democrats know it has to be replaced. The reason they know it and you can tell it has to be replaced is that they are already out there talking about a proposal--a completely one-size-fits-all, government-run, national approach to taking over people's healthcare in this country called Medicare for All, at a cost of $32 trillion, which I will come back to in just a moment.
The President and his administration have also acknowledged that ObamaCare has failed because of the skyrocketing costs and fewer choices and have chosen to try to get that repealed through the courts. Either way, we are going to be having a discussion about healthcare here and about what is the best system moving forward.
Republicans, of course, as I mentioned, believe we have to protect people with preexisting conditions. Whatever follows in ObamaCare's wake, I think there is agreement on both sides of the aisle--both Republicans and Democrats--that preexisting conditions will be covered.
So let's just take that political argument off the table because that is all it is. It is nothing more, nothing less, nothing else than a political argument made by Democrats when they know full well that Republicans are on the record in support of protecting people with preexisting conditions.
The question is, What will we replace it with? We believe, obviously, that there is a much better approach that gives people more choices, more options, and creates more competition in the marketplace, which would put downward pressure on prices.
The Democrats, as I said, have endorsed and are supporting a $32 trillion government takeover of the healthcare system in this country, which will put enormous costs on the backs of working people in this country. I will come back to that in just a moment. The Economy
Mr. President, last Friday we learned that there were 224,000 jobs that were created in June, the latest piece of good news about our strong economy. Thanks to the historic tax reform we passed in 2017 and our efforts to lift burdensome regulations, our economy has been thriving. Economic growth is up, and wages are growing at the strongest rate in a decade. Personal income is up, and unemployment is near its lowest level in half a century.
The benefits of this progress are being spread far and wide. Wages for the lowest earning workers are rising faster than for the highest earning workers. Hundreds of thousands of new blue-collar jobs have been created. Unemployment rates for minorities have fallen. The unemployment rates for Asian Americans, African Americans, and Hispanic Americans are all at or near record lows.
The Wall Street Journal notes, ``Nearly one million more blacks and 2 million more Hispanics are employed than when Barack Obama left office, and minorities account for more than half of all new jobs created during the Trump Presidency.''
When Republicans took control of the Congress and the White House 2\1/2\ years ago, we had one goal: Make life better for hard-working Americans. We knew that Americans had a tough time during President Obama's administration, and we were determined to put more money in Americans' pockets and to expand opportunities for working families. That is exactly what we did. Our tax reform legislation, combined with other Republican economic policies, has created an economy that has lifted up Americans from across the economic spectrum.
There is still more work, of course, that needs to be done. Farmers and ranchers, for example, in places like my home State of South Dakota, are still struggling thanks to years of commodity and livestock prices below production costs, protracted trade disputes, and natural disasters. But overall, American workers are doing better than they have in a long time.
Now we need to focus on preserving and building on the policies that have made life better for American workers over the past 2 years, but that is not what will happen if Democrats have their way. Democrats are not only interested in eliminating a large portion, if not all, of the tax relief that Republicans passed; they are pushing proposals that would result in massive tax hikes on ordinary Americans.
Take Medicare for All, as I mentioned earlier, which is a Democratic proposal for government-run healthcare. A conservative estimate sets the pricetag for this proposal at $32 trillion over 10 years--more money than the U.S. Government has spent in the past 8 years combined on everything. A more realistic estimate is likely substantially higher, given that the Senator from Vermont's current Medicare for All plan includes coverage for long-term care, which is an enormously expensive benefit.
On top of that, most of the Democratic Presidential candidates have endorsed providing government-funded healthcare to illegal immigrants as well. It is not just a matter of providing healthcare to the millions of undocumented immigrants already here in the United States. More and more Democrats are embracing what is effectively an open- border policy, which means the number of individuals here legally can skyrocket, further driving up the massive costs of the one-size-fits- all, government-run healthcare proposal the Democrats are putting forward. The final pricetag, I am suggesting, could be far more than $32 trillion.
Of course, Democrats' proposals are not limited to putting the government in charge of healthcare. They have lots of other ideas for more government spending, such as having the government pay for millions of students' college education or eliminating student loan debt--although they don't mention any benefits for Americans who have already done a lot of work to help pay off their student loans.
As expensive as paying for these proposals would be, they pale in comparison to the Democrats' most expansive socialist fantasy, the Green New Deal, which has been estimated to cost somewhere between $51 and $93 trillion over 10 years--$93 trillion. That is more money than the economic output of every country in the entire world in 2017 combined.
How are Democrats going to pay for these policies? Well, when they have an answer, it usually involves taxing the rich. That is all very well, until one realizes there is no way to pay for these policies just by taxing the rich. Medicare for All alone would ultimately require massive tax hikes on ordinary Americans and on American businesses.
What will be the consequences of that? Well, a substantially lower standard of living for American families who would see their tax bill soar and their take-home pay shrink, plus massive tax hikes would wreak devastation on the economy. Load a small or larger business with new taxes, and its ability to grow, invest, expand, and hire new workers shrinks dramatically. That would mean lower wages, fewer jobs, and reduced opportunities for American families already burdened with new tax hikes.
Lowering taxes for American families and American businesses has grown Americans' paychecks and provided them with access to new and better jobs and opportunities. Raising their taxes would have the opposite effect. Yet raising Americans' taxes is exactly what would happen under the Democrats' plans.
Let's hope that Democrats think better of their proposals before the American people are forced to foot the bill.
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Mr. THUNE. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Young).
Further, if present and voting, the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Young) would have voted ``yea.''
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