During a press briefing on Tuesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) was asked about what Senate Democrats can do to push back on Republicans' cuts to Medicaid in the House budget.
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00:00Any other questions on topic?
00:04For the Senators, we've heard a lot about the states of if this bill does pass.
00:09Can you talk a little bit about what, if anything, Senate Democrats can use or prevent it from passing?
00:14What are you guys going to do?
00:16So, Eddie, so right now it has passed the House in its current version.
00:23It's going to the Senate.
00:26And there's a lot of pushback in the Senate.
00:30There are a lot of folks who understand, even on the Republican side, that this is a real problem to make these kinds of cuts.
00:38So our job at this moment is to raise the stakes here so everyone across this country can see exactly who's going to be hurt and exactly who's going to be helped by the Republican budget.
00:54We really want to underscore this is about taking away health care from newborns.
01:00So that Jeff Bezos can buy a third yacht.
01:04And that's something that I think most Americans, whether you live in a red state or blue state, are not in favor of.
01:11And that's what we want to underscore right now at this minute so that while the Republicans are at home with their constituents not having town halls, we want them at least to hear nationally about what this bill is all about.
01:29And the only way we can do that is to raise it.
01:31We will talk about it on the floor of the Senate.
01:33We've already had hearings.
01:35Senator Markey has been part of this.
01:36I've been part of this.
01:38But this is the moment to talk about it.
01:40And then I just want to make sure you know where it goes from here.
01:43If the Republicans change the bill but pass it, it will have to go back to the House again.
01:49So we will then keep the focus as well on all of the House Republicans.
01:55Remember two things.
01:57When this bill passed the House, it passed by a single vote.
02:00A single vote.
02:02We get just one Republican in the House to go the other way, and this bill does not make it through.
02:08But also remember 2017.
02:11I know how frustrating it feels.
02:14Republicans are in control of the White House, in control of the Senate, in control of the House.
02:19But that was true in 2017 when they went after Medicare and Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act.
02:26And you may remember it passed the House.
02:29They all went over and celebrated with Donald Trump, popped the brewskis.
02:32I mean, what's not to celebrate about taking away health care from millions and millions of people?
02:37It came to the Senate, the Republicans had a majority, and at the last minute, we won it by a single vote.
02:47Not because we had somehow more Democrats than we'd had before, but because we got the word out.
02:53And we got the word out all across Massachusetts, but all across the rest of the country.
02:58And that's what we're here to fight for right now.
03:01Ed, what else can I add?
03:02All issues go through three phases, political education, political activation, political implementation.
03:10Until last Thursday night, Friday morning, no one was quite sure what was going to be in this bill.
03:17Will the moderates win?
03:19Will the reasonable Republicans win?
03:21Or will they have to capitulate?
03:23Well, now the story is clear.
03:27The cuts to Medicaid are draconian.
03:30The cuts to SNAP are draconian.
03:34The tax breaks to billionaires are the highest in American history.
03:41So the storyline gets very simple as we move to the political education phase over the next couple of weeks,
03:47and then to the political activation phase, because all across our country, in facilities like this,
03:53in purple states, in red states, there are going to be meetings.
03:57And the hospital CEOs, the community health leaders, the behavioral health leaders,
04:02the community leaders will be talking to the senators about the implications for their medical facilities.
04:10So it's no longer just theoretical.
04:12It's no longer just a political debate in the salons of Washington.
04:15Now it's very real.
04:16We saw this in Massachusetts with the Stuart Health crisis.
04:20We saw them loot the hospital system in our state.
04:24We saw Neshoba Valley go under.
04:26We saw the hospital in Dorchester, Kearney, go under because of millionaires and billionaires
04:34who wanted to loot the system.
04:36Well, this is the Stuart Health system on steroids across the whole country.
04:40It's a looting of the health care system for the wealthiest people in our country.
04:44And I think as each day goes by in these red and purple states, they're going to see what the political consequences are.
04:52And this time, we have evidence to prove that when the Medicare cuts happened in 1997,
04:58by the scores, by the hundreds all across the country, hospitals went under.
05:04I just named three.
05:05And by the way, who goes under?
05:07It's those that have the most elderly patients in them because of Medicare
05:10and those who have the working class who use that facility as well.
05:15Those are the facilities which go under, and we're going to have a battle on the floor of the Senate.
05:22And Senator Warren, when she gets to the microphone, people back up on the Republican side
05:27because we're coming loaded for this fight.
05:30We're not going to back down, and I think ultimately Republicans are going to see
05:33that they're going to proceed at their own political peril.
05:37And Massachusetts is a perfect example with Stuart of what has happened.