“Because of the Affordable Care Act, millions of Americans can no longer be denied health insurance because of preexisting conditions. What are some of the preexisting conditions that caused so much trouble in the past? Diabetes. How about this one: You are a woman. Many insurance companies considered women having a preexisting disability because they were women. Millions of young adults are now able to stay on their parents’ policies until age 26. That is more than 3 million. Millions of seniors are saving huge amounts of money on prescription drugs because we are in the process of filling the doughnut hole. This year alone millions of Americans will receive maternity coverage. Repealing the Affordable Care Act would be repealing many of these and many more. I could spend a long time talking about what would be repealed”, said Senator Reid.
On April 3, 2014 Senator Harry Reid of Nevada asked fro and was granted permission to address the United States Senate regarding the Affordable Care Act:
“Mr. President, no one can dispute that Winston Churchill was a statesman and the most famous in the history of our world. This is what he said:
Of this I am quite sure, that if we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future.
Why do I say that? Even though those remarks were made more than 70 years ago, I believe there are many in Congress who should focus on what Winston Churchill said because it is true. For far too long Republicans have obsessed over the Affordable Care Act–ObamaCare. The Affordable Care Act is the law of the land. It has been for more than 4 years.
From the very day this law was signed, Republicans have zealously worked to undermine it in so many different ways. Day in and day out they have clamored for repeal of this bill. House Republicans have voted more than 50 times trying desperately to cripple ObamaCare. They shut down the government trying to defund health care reform. And how has that worked? While they have obsessed over the past, the country has moved forward.
Now Republicans have to face the fact that millions of their own constituents, millions of Republicans are benefiting from health care reform in record numbers. But my Republican friends still insist on nothing short of repeal. So I ask my Republican colleagues, what would they like to repeal? What would repeal look like?
Because of the Affordable Care Act, millions of Americans can no longer be denied health insurance because of preexisting conditions. What are some of the preexisting conditions that caused so much trouble in the past? Diabetes. How about this one: You are a woman. Many insurance companies considered women having a preexisting disability because they were women. Millions of young adults are now able to stay on their parents’ policies until age 26. That is more than 3 million. Millions of seniors are saving huge amounts of money on prescription drugs because we are in the process of filling the doughnut hole. This year alone millions of Americans will receive maternity coverage. Repealing the Affordable Care Act would be repealing many of these and many more. I could spend a long time talking about what would be repealed.
My counterpart, the Senator from Kentucky, will probably address the Senate after I finish. In his home State of Kentucky, 360,000 people have signed up for coverage under the Affordable Care Act. Kentucky is not New York; it is not Texas; it is not California. It is a sparsely populated State, somewhat like Nevada. Yet 360,000 people have signed up for coverage. Of those, 75 percent were previously uninsured. That is approaching 300,000 people. Over a quarter million Kentuckians who did not have insurance now have health coverage under the Affordable Care Act. In other words, ObamaCare has reduced the uninsured population of Kentucky by 40 percent.
I wonder when my friend from Kentucky will explain to the 270,000 Kentuckians how he plans to repeal the law without stripping the new health benefits. How exactly will he and his Republican colleagues guarantee that their newly insured constituents have no lapses in coverage? Remember, they want to do away with 270,000 people who didn’t have insurance. They want to do away with 360,000 people in Kentucky who are signed up for insurance. So I await their answer.
In the meantime, Democrats will keep looking to the future, and the future of the Affordable Care Act is bright. Every day more and more Americans are getting health coverage under the law. On Monday we learned that 7,045,000 people had already signed up and about 1 million people on the State exchanges–370,000 in Kentucky, for example. We know there are more than 3 million young people on their parents’ insurance because of that. We know there are millions of people who are now covered because of their ability to become part of Medicaid. So we are talking about a lot of people.
Health reform is working, and the law is here to stay. The more Americans see the law is working, the more they want it to stay. The time of fighting over the past is over. Remember what Winston Churchill said:
Of this I am quite sure, that if we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future.
I say this very seriously: I invite my Republican friends to look to the future. Put this obstruction behind them. Work with us to make the Affordable Care Act even better for their constituents and our constituents and Americans generally. Together, we can help millions more Americans get the health coverage they deserve”, said Senator Harry Reid (source: Congressional Record http://thomas.loc.gov/).
Senator Harry Reid is the Majority Leader in the U.S. Senate – arguably one of the most powerful members in Congress.