WATCH: Rep. Mike Levin Slams Senate Vote on Bad Funding Deal and Warns of Skyrocketing Health Insurance Costs on CNN
“I don't know where these Republicans have been for the last 54 days. I don't know if they've been hanging out at Mar-a-Lago at the Great Gatsby party. I don't know where they've been. They sure haven't been in Washington, D.C.”
Washington, D.C.—Yesterday, Rep. Mike Levin (CA-49) joined CNN’s Laura Coates Live to slam the Senate passage of bad funding deal that fails to address the rising health care premiums costs for millions of Americans, warn of the skyrocketing health care premium prices if Republicans failed to act on expiring health care premiums, and call out House Republicans for taking a seven-week vacation instead of negotiating a bipartisan deal to reopen the government.
Levin has vehemently opposed any deal to reopen the government that does not extend the Affordable Care Act premium tax credits. If the tax credits expire, over 600,000 Californians and millions of Americans will be priced out of health care.
Key Excerpts:
On Republicans’ concerns about the expiring ACA tax credits:
The ACA actually has a higher per capita number of people in Florida and Texas than it does in my home state of California, but these stories are real, and if I'm hearing them, presumably any Member of Congress worth anything is hearing them too. That, of course, presumes that they're actually listening to their constituents, Laura. And I don't know where these Republicans have been for the last 54 days. I don't know if they've been hanging out at Mar-a-Lago at the Great Gatsby party. I don't know where they've been. They sure haven't been in Washington D.C., because just about every week, I've tried to come back to D.C. and have conversations with my colleagues across the aisle. I'm on the Appropriations Committee, so there's a big appropriations element to this bill as well. We've had no meetings, no discussions, not even exchanges electronically with a lot of these folks. They have been told by Mike Johnson not to work with us, not to speak with us. And they are completely subservient to Trump. I would say Mike Johnson, as you look at the history of the House of Representatives, will go down as historically the weakest speaker in the history of the House. When you contrast that with Nancy Pelosi, who will go down as one of the all-time greats.
On his opposition of the Senate deal that fails to address health care costs:
I have spoken with literally dozens of my constituents whose health care premiums are doubling or tripling or worse. I spoke to a 62-year-old retired teacher who is going to have to take Social Security early to make up for the $700 a month he's going to have to pay in extra health insurance premiums. I spoke to a working mom with a husband and two kids who's going to have to pay $55,000 a year for health insurance and is worried about bankruptcy because of medical debt. The stories go on and on, Laura, and the Republicans have done absolutely nothing to address any of this in this awful bill that they're sending us tomorrow. And so I'll be a firm no. I hope that the overwhelming number of my colleagues in the House—the Democrats—will stick together, because this really doesn't solve anything. And they are totally in denial about this health care crisis that they have created.
On the Senate vote on bad funding deal and Schumer’s failure to lead:
First, let me say Leader Jeffries did a tremendous job in keeping us all united during this difficult time. And for whatever reason, either because Leader Schumer wouldn't keep his Senate Democrats united or couldn't keep them united. In any event, what happened was unacceptable. And what happened is we all in the House, we hung together for seven weeks and all we were asking is for Senate Democrats to stay in that fight with us day in and day out, for the American people, for health care, for millions and millions of people who are at risk of losing their health insurance. And unfortunately, eight Senate Democrats decided not to do that. You'd have to ask them the reasons for that. I can tell you only if I were in the Senate, I would say it's time for new leadership. That will be up to the Senators to ultimately decide which direction they go.
###