senators came to the floor to talk about the republican health care replacement proposal offered by senators graham of south carolina and cassidy of louisiana. next, a portion of the debate starting with senate minority leader charles schumer. need. now, mr. president, on health care, last night we began to see reports of a new version of the graham cassidy bill. faced with stern resistance from several members of their own caucus, it appears that the authors of the legislation have tweaked the bill in an attempt to gain the support of the holdouts. despite sending more money to the states of those members, this new bill, if anything, is worse in many ways than before. and in the long run will still result in a net cut for every single state in the country. it still contains massive cut to medicaid.

it still defunds planned parenthood. and it actually further weakens consumer protections and almost completely does away with protections for those with preexisting conditions. even worse than in the first version. the s&p has come out with a study that estimates that graham-cassidy would result in 580,000 lost jobs and $240 billion in lost economic activity by 2027. now that's not a democratic machine, propaganda machine. that's standard & poor's down the middle, 580,000 jobs lost, $240 billion in lost economic activity. under the latest version states would be able to cap out of

pocket meaning insurance companies would be able to offer bare bone policies with sky-high deductibles and co-pays. under the latest version states could do away with lifetime limits meaning insurance companies could cap the amount of coverage you receive for a given illness. imagine a child, a parent with a child suffering with cancer being told, the policy only covers four months of treatment. you're on your own after that. devastating to too many families in this country. under the latest version, states could remove the benefit of getting preventive services at no cost. such as birth control, cancer screening, immunizations. under the latest version, states could opt out of the preexisting condition without even applying for a waiver, so even more so than in

the old bill, the existing conditions are not protected. states just have to submit a plan that allows for adequate and affordable insurance. in other words, the new graham-cassidy makes it even easier, even more likely states will allow insurance companies to discriminate against americans with preexisting conditions. again, that parent with a child aching with cancer is in real jeopardy. maybe they can't even get insurance at all. in short, the new graham-cassidy tells every american with potentially high medical costs you're on your own. if you have diabetes, cancer, congenital illness, asthma, graham-cassidy says you're on your own. it eviscerates, eviscerates the protections that make health

care affordable to those who need it most. it's no wonder it's so unpopular with americans. recently, even though the bill has just been introduced, a majority of americans say they don't like it. the more they concerned, just like with the old trumpcare, the less they like it. americans want good health care, lower premiums, more coverage. this bill does the opposite -- higher premiums, fewer people covered, harder to get good insurance. and guess what, mr. president? we're expected to vote on this bill in just two days or three days. there will have been only a single hearing which republicans scheduled almost as an afterthought, just to say they had one. certainly there won't be any amendments to the bill. it's not going to go through the

committee process. it will not be -- there will not be a shred of input from the minority, despite all the complaints that obamacare, which did have input from the minority, passed by one party's vote. the senate's former historian said he could not think of, quote, anything comparable, unquote, to the process republicans are employing in the entire history of the senate. the senate historian, a scholar. nothing comparable to the process being employed now. one-sixth of the economy. no amendments, one hearing, no changes. and add to that fact that c.b.o. won't have enough time to properly analyze this legislation. we won't know how it actually

impacts our health care system. at most, we'll get a bare bones analysis sometime today that may not tell us a thing about how graham-cassidy would impact coverage, the cost of care, the quality of care, the stability of marketplaces. that is shocking, shockingly incomplete to not have our c.b.o. tell the american people, tell us, tell the representatives of each state how it affects their state. and rush it through. even after the minimal c.b.o. report today, republicans will still be voting on a health care bill with thick blindfolds on their eyes. they won't be able to see it. i guess, mr. president, they don't want to see it. when the american people learn what is in this bill, they're going to dislike it intensely,

intensely. so new trumpcare is bad policy. it is being jammed through this body at an alarming, ludicrous pace. to say it's hastily constructed and considered barely scratches the surface. new versions are coming out every few hours. the websites of the senators from louisiana and south carolina keep saying oh, we're changing this, we're changing that. it's monday. we're voting this week. the republicans are basically scrawling a health care law for 300 million people on the back of a bar napkin. the bill should go down. i believe my republican colleagues who are skeptical about this policy and this process are too principled to be swayed by last-minute formula

tweaks. governor walker of alaska, an independent, has said he won't support a health care bill that's bad for the country, even if it might be good for his state, which the bill isn't, he says. that's principled leadership. i believe the same kind of principled leadership exists in this body as well. i know it does. so i'd say to all of my republican colleagues directly, vote down this bill. if it goes down, we democrats are pledged to work in a bipartisan way to improve our health care system. we're pledged to work through committee to support the efforts of chairman alexander, ranking member murray, to find a bipartisan consensus on a health care package. we welcome bipartisan change. we know there's always give and take when that happens. but usually the product is better.

a bipartisan process led by alexander and murray make the present system better will be a whole lot better for both the process in this body and for the healthy of the american people than this rushed-through, half-baked proposal. we disagree here in the senate a lot. very rare are the times when there is a clear right and wrong. but this bill, the process it's going through, are clearly wrong. the bill would hurt so many people in our great country. the process has damaged this institution. it would do much greater damage if it were to pass. we have a chance, a chance to legislate the right way through regular order, by resuming bipartisan work already started by the help committee, which has had hearings, intends to, at least as i understand it, go through a process