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Pelosi Floor Speech in Support of Bipartisan Omnibus Bill

May 3, 2017

Contact: Ashley Etienne/Caroline Behringer, 202-226-7616

Washington, D.C. – House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi delivered remarks today on the Floor of the House in support of the bipartisan omnibus spending bill. The bill passed the House 309-118. Below are the Leader's remarks:

"Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank our distinguished Ranking Member for her recognition, her leadership on this legislation that we have the opportunity to vote on the Floor. So I thank you, Ranking Member Nita Lowey, I thank the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey Chairman Frelinghuysen for his leadership as well, commend his staff, Nancy Fox and others for their hard work on this, to you Ranking Member Lowey, to you Shalanda Young and Chris Bigelow, my own staff, Richard Meltzer, House and Senate staff members for getting us to this very important place. The omnibus reflects significant progress defeating some dangerous riders – which I thought were dangerous – and securing key victories.

"Here's the thing: I spent many years in the Appropriations Committee, and I know left to your own devices, the Appropriations Committee can find your common ground. You appreciate each other. You grant each other your positions on issues, and you understand the art of negotiating in a successful way.

"There were some items that were suggested from other than the committee, from the White House, for example, a border wall, deportation force, things like that: 160 poison pills, which were ranging from undermining a woman's right to choose to dismantling Dodd-Frank, etc. But you all worked together to balance the equities and come up with a bill that will have, I believe, broad support in the Congress – certainly bipartisan support in the Congress.

"But just not to speak about what we didn't like about the bill, there are some very positive aspects of it that I want to recognize, some non-defense increases in spending which will save lives and create jobs. Coal miners' health – we were so proud to secure more than $1 billion to deliver permanent health benefits to thousands of coal miners and their families who stood to lose their health benefits this month. God bless them for their advocacy. It was so important to our discussion. Opioid epidemic – additional $600 million for fighting the opioid epidemic; protecting EPA – there was going to be a huge cut and now just a one percent cut in the EPA. We see that as a success. Year-round Pell grants, so important; science funding – the omnibus increases funding for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the Department of Energy Office of Science and ARPA-E – all initiatives that some wanted to cut but survived that interest in cutting.

"Congresswoman Velazquez has led us on the Puerto Rico issue. The omnibus includes vital funds to stabilize Puerto Rico's underfunded Medicaid program and was a threat to so many of our fellow Americans in Puerto Rico.

"Democrats are very happy and give credit to in a bipartisan way, but the lead from Congresswoman Barbara Lee – securing nearly a billion dollars in humanitarian assistance to alleviate famine resulting from war, drought and displacement in Africa and the Middle East, saving countless lives around the world, left without assistance. Maybe 1.5 million children will die of malnutrition in the next six months in Africa.

"And then it takes us to the biomedical research. I served with Mrs. Lowey and others on the Labor-HHS Subcommittee of Appropriations for many years and the National Institutes of Health is this place that has the Biblical power to cure. It has opportunity, scientific opportunity, and where there is scientific opportunity we want to place additional resources. Lives depend on it. And so in stark contrast to the skinny budget that came out earlier, this legislation increases funding for the National Institutes of Health by two billion dollars.

"And I want to say on that, as we relish that two billion dollars and what it could mean in the good health of the American people, we have to protect their investments. As we invest in new treatments and cures, we must also ensure that all Americans have access to them. That is why it is curious to me that on the same day that we vote on this omnibus bill, increase funding for the National Institutes of Health, increase funding for our veterans and all the rest of that, that Republicans are working furiously to advance Trumpcare's devastating impact on America's health care. No matter what anybody says to you about activities they are having today to tweak one piece of the bill, it will still be a bill that has higher costs, forcing families to pay higher premiums and deductibles and out of pocket costs. This will block some people from access to the life-saving cures that we are investing in the National Institutes of Health to create. Less coverage, it will take coverage from 24 million hard-working Americans, higher cost, fewer people covered; a veterans' tax – Trumpcare will take away health care – will deny tax credits for healthcare to seven military veterans.

"Keep Trumpcare destroys protection for pre-existing conditions. So many of the investments at the National Institutes of Health that we are talking about are to find cures and to find preventions. We're trying to find cures, that means the people that we're trying to cure have a pre-existing medical condition. And this would destroy the guarantee of pre-existing medical, protections for pre- existing medical conditions and gut the benefits in the Affordable Care Act. There is a crushing age tax, if you're 55, if you're 50-64 you pay five times higher than others pay for healthcare and it undermines our investments in Medicare.

"So I mention this because I've always thought when I sat on that committee year in and year out, day in and day out, hour on hour, listening to the challenges facing America's families for illnesses that they were suffering, diagnoses that they were frightened by, that what they wanted us to do was to invest in a cure, but that meant access to that cure. So, you know they are trying to say, well we are going to help with high risk pools and that's going to neutralize everything I've said about high costs, lower coverage, et cetera. But one of the conservative centers, Mercatus Center said that the amendment at hand forces, focuses on high-risk pools but the $8 billion is a pittance. Instead he said spread over five years it is ‘a fifth of a pittance.' This is Robert Graboyes, a health care expert at the conservative Mercatus Center. Aaron Polites, a healthcare expert at the Kaiser Family Foundation, said that the additional eight billion dollars would not likely be enough to make the high risk pool workable. She said there would be enough money to cover costs for only one percent, one percent of the individual market.

"So, you know, again, let us protect the investment we are making. Let us elevate it with pride and say two billion dollars at the National Institutes of Health. But what does that mean to you, the average American, if you can't have access to that in a way that is affordable. And again, 51 years ago Dr. King said, and I say again because I say this all the time, ‘Of all the forms of inequality injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhuman because it often results in physical death.'

"So again, this appropriation bill is a way for us to help meet the needs of the American people. This Appropriations Committee did an excellent job in resolving differences and putting forth the balance of equities as we go forward. But let us not give with one hand and take away with the other as we in the same 24-hour period say, aren't we wonderful, two billion dollars based by biomedical research. Under the Republican health care plan it would benefit the privileged few at the expense of America's working families. That's not what we are supposed to be doing here. That's not what we are taking pride in. What we're taking pride in is the great possibilities, but let's make those possibilities available.

"And I say that as one who served for many years on the Appropriations Committee, one whose goal in life was to sit on the Labor-HHS Committee and to increase the funding of the National Institutes of Health, but to do it for the purpose of all Americans having access. Having said that, getting back to this omnibus bill, again I thank our, I'm very proud of the work of Nita Lowey and the Ranking Members of the Subcommittees, of the staff that worked so hard. I'm especially proud of the work also of our distinguished Chairman, Mr. Frelinghuysen and I join him in recognizing the work of his Subcommittee Chairs on all of this. It's a product to be proud of. Thank you, Mr. Frelinghuysen. Thank you, Ms. Lowey. I urge a ‘yes' vote."

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Issues:Health Care