'I Don't See Anything Beautiful': DeGette Eviscerates Trump's Big Beautiful Bill Medicaid Cuts

Forbes Breaking News

During a House Energy Committee hearing in July, Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO) spoke about medicaid cuts to the Big Beautiful Bill.

Transcript

00:00And I now recognize Ms. DeGette for her five-minute opening.

00:03Thank you so much, and I want to congratulate you, Chairman Griffith, on your new role as chair of this subcommittee.

00:11We've worked together on the oversight subcommittee with Mr. Griffith as chair, with me as chair,

00:17and most days we got along, we at least agreed on parliamentary procedure, and there's that.

00:22Absolutely.

00:23So we've worked a lot together over the years.

00:26We do have our ideological differences, which we discussed, because we represent very different constituencies.

00:33But as you heard, we do share a belief in this committee and this institution,

00:37and we believe that we must achieve good things for the American people when it works effectively.

00:44And we want our constituents to live longer and healthier lives.

00:48That's what this is about.

00:49So today, we're considering important legislation to reauthorize FDA's over-the-counter medicines program,

00:56critical health workforce development programs, and more.

01:00I'm particularly proud of our past work on over-the-counter medicines, and the chairman mentioned this briefly.

01:08Five years in, we've seen early successes.

01:11I want to thank my colleague from Ohio, Mr. Latta, I don't see him here, for introducing the legislation with me

01:18for this first reauthorization of the over-the-counter medicines program.

01:22And I look forward to seeing continued success of the program in the next five years.

01:27We were supposed to do this last week, but the Republicans postponed it because, I guess,

01:35they were celebrating the passage of, frankly, the worst piece of legislation, both in process and substance,

01:42that I have seen in my time in Congress.

01:45The Republicans jammed through the big, bad bill and its handouts to the wealthiest Americans,

01:50literally under the cover of night, including in our committee,

01:54while real legislating to help our constituents was non-existent.

01:58Between cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act,

02:01and the choice not to extend tax credits for health care coverage,

02:0517 million people will now be without health insurance.

02:09I don't see anything beautiful in that.

02:11I don't see anything that's going to help the health of Americans.

02:15I think the law rolls back much of the progress that we've made in getting people enrolled early in health care

02:21when we passed the Affordable Care Act in the first place.

02:25Medicaid expansion was a lifeline to hospitals struggling to keep their doors open,

02:31not just for poor people, but for everybody in their community.

02:35And now, faced with a financial cliff, many of those hospitals might close.

02:40So, just last week, during our unplanned recess,

02:44I visited a Planned Parenthood clinic in my district

02:47that can no longer serve individuals covered by Medicaid for routine,

02:53not abortions, but for routine medical exams like pap smears, breast exams.

02:59They have already had to cancel hundreds of appointments for people coming into these things,

03:05and these are people who are not going to be able to find doctors anywhere else.

03:10Frankly, these cuts are just mean.

03:13They don't save money, and my colleagues across the aisle have preached for decades

03:17about fiscal responsibility, but I guess that giving billionaires more tax cuts

03:23and kicking millions of Americans off their health care is more important.

03:28The big bad bill makes our mounting national debt even worse,

03:32increasing it by trillions of dollars to finance these tax cuts,

03:37and now much of it is law.

03:38Much of it won't go into effect for years,

03:41so I hope that we could work together in a bipartisan way

03:45to clean up this mess of a law before it hurts more people.

03:49And apparently, so does Senator Hawley,

03:52who after voting for the law just two weeks ago,

03:55introduced a bill that would reverse many of the cuts in Medicaid that he just voted for.

04:00So, you know, I pride myself in working in a bipartisan way on bills that will improve the health of our constituents

04:10and of all Americans, but I feel, and all of my colleagues on this subcommittee feel,

04:15that we've been frozen out of the work of this subcommittee from the beginning of the year,

04:20from issues that should be non-controversial to the big bad bill that we just passed a couple of weeks ago.

04:27And so let's turn a new page, Mr. Chairman.

04:31Let's have a new era in our committee and go back to what we used to do,

04:36working together in a bipartisan way.

04:39I yield back.

04:40I yield back.

04:40General Lee.

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