Yes, We Did! Our Historic Victory to Protect Our Healthcare and What Comes Next.
Words in the English language do not exist to describe the profound wellspring of relief and joy that I shared with millions of Americans in the wee hours of Friday morning, once I learned that three courageous Republicans put people over party and voted to protect all Americans’ healthcare. Their integrity and willingness to stand up on the right side of history, to refuse to sacrifice the health and lives of millions of Americans to partisan cruelty, is a beacon of light amidst the darkness of this administration. All three are heroes deserving of our profound and undying gratitude. Senator John McCain lived up to his maverick status in casting the decisive vote, and for that I thank him deeply, as should we all. He is an American hero for voting on the side of law and justice, an increasing rarity in this political epoch. His vote saved American lives.
Yet we cannot forget the two women who broke ground and held firm in their commitment to shield Americans’ healthcare from Republican inhumanity. Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski were our Republican champions. They voted against the motion to proceed. They voted against the first Senate Trumpcare bill (BCRA). They voted against straight repeal (ORRA). And they voted against the Trojan Horse falsely dubbed “skinny” plan that Republican leadership crafted secretly over lunch mere hours before holding a vote on it. Collins and Murkowski held firm against unprecedented and disgraceful bullying and intimidation — verbal taunts, physical threats, electoral challenges , even warnings of retribution against her own state in Murkowski’s case— from their own colleagues, all the way up to the Oval Office. That took grit. That took determination. That took perseverence. That took honor and integrity. Abigail Adams reminded her husband back in 1776 to “remember the ladies.” We would do well to heed her words today.
Chuck Schumer too deserves our endless thanks for holding Democrats united and staunchly opposed to Republican cruelty. For all the talk of dissension within the Democratic party, when it mattered most, Democrats came together and proved that they are the party of empathy and equity for all Americans. No infighting prevented Democrats from standing strong against Republicans’ sustained attack on our healthcare. No divergent ideologies led any Democrats to sabotage efforts to protect our healthcare. They did not break down under pressure, but quite the contrary, became stronger. Watch Cory Booker’s impassioned speech to remind you of who Democrats are and what they fight for. He tells us who we are as a country and what America is capable of being.
There’s another woman the media and the American public overlooked: Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono. She too stared cancer down to deliver a heartwrenching speech calling for compassion and equity, voting no on everything from the motion to proceed to last night’s determining Trojan Horse vote. Her plea that we care for one another and draw from our adversity to strengthen our empathy should enter the heart of every American. She stood up and gave a speech for the ages, notwithstanding her stage four kidney cancer and recuperation from her second surgery. Senator Hirono too is an American hero who deserves a standing ovation.
Sincere thanks go out to all the activists who led us in our fight. Andy Slavitt, Topher Spiro, and Ben Wikler were our knights in shining armor. ADAPT put their bodies on the line on behalf of all Americans’ healthcare. Their tireless efforts were a herculean feat of generosity, empathy, and conviction. Without them, the Resistance would be sorely lacking indeed, and likely couldn’t have accomplished the historic victory that we’re all celebrating today.
But even as we celebrate, we cannot afford to let our guard down. Our healthcare isn’t safe until we take back at least one branch of government. The 2018 and 2020 elections must be a referendum on Republicans’ atrocious campaign to strip millions upon millions of Americans of healthcare. They will be back. Mark Meadows already came out and said that Republicans will try again — tellingly, not with a measure that would elicit a bipartisan 60 votes, but a reconciliation-based 51. We won a truly historic victory of which we should all be incommensurably proud, but the war isn’t over.
The legislative front is far from the only danger with which we have to contend. The White House began wreaking havoc on the ACA on day one, when Trump’s first executive order was to weaken the individual mandate. Since then he’s continued to play Russian roulette with cost-sharing reductions (CSRs), which enable low-income people to afford their healthcare and keep premiums down for everyone. Remain laser-focused on the assaults on our healthcare emanating from the executive branch and Tom Price’s department of Health and Human Services. Don’t forget, Price authored and sponsored the 2015 ACA repeal bill that made it all the way to President Obama’s desk for a veto. As long as these two men possess power over our healthcare, it is not safe.
Trump has menaced us repeatedly with letting the ACA “implode,” and he has the power to make that happen. He could withhold CSRs or refuse to pay them entirely, generating an insurmountable level of instability in the insurance market that has already caused insurers to pull out for 2018 and premiums to spike by an average of 20%. He could incapacitate the individual mandate, ripping away one of the three pillars upon which the ACA depends. He could fail to encourage insurers to offer plans as did the Obama administration, risking that some counties or even states will be bereft of any coverage options. He could stop advertising healthcare enrollment — which he’s not only already done, but over and above this has in fact used ACA money to run a campaign against it. He could keep undermining the ACA verbally through twitter and the power invested in his office.
Price could engage in the same tactics to menace our healthcare. He consistently publicizes problems with the marketplaces to lessen public confidence, while doing nothing to rectify the challenges that naturally arise in a system as complex as healthcare administration and delivery. Rather than pointing to the fact that the individual market is stabilizing and insurers are moving towards profits, he falsely claims that it is collapsing (which isn’t true). It’s imperative that we remain vigilant regarding both his and Trump’s actions and rhetoric regarding our healthcare. Congressional Republicans have an ally in the Trump administration, and we lose sight of this at our peril.
We need to call for a return to regular order on healthcare. The American people deserve open hearings, bipartisan efforts, expert testimony, public comments, and the committee process.
It’s time, even as we continue to resist to protect our healthcare on two fronts, to look ahead and consider how we can strengthen and expand it to realize universal healthcare coverage. Firstly, any such effort must be bipartisan to have a shot at enduring. We need Democrats and Republicans to work together to do what they were elected to do: protect the welfare and well-being of their constituents and all Americans. Fortunately, we have a bipartisan group in Congress emerging to do precisely that. We need to keep reminding everyone that the individual market is doing incredibly well, particularly under our current political circumstances, a testament to President Obama’s and the Democrats’ foresightedness.
The Center for American Progress proposed a legislative solution to stabilize the marketplaces. Its experts recommend guaranteed payment of the cost-sharing reductions that allow low-income Americans to afford healthcare and thus keep costs down for everyone; providing reinsurance to help insurers cover people with high medical costs and saving the federal government money as a result; and ensuring that no counties anywhere in the country are left with only a single insurer or none at all, proffering a myriad of benefits on the local and federal level. Senators from both sides of the aisle — Claire McCaskill, Bob Corker, and Lamar Alexander — set forth plans on this last point, which should be an issue of bipartisan concern. Health and illness neither know nor care about political affiliation. Ascertaining that everyone has the healthcare they need must and should transcend party boundaries as well.
But we can do more. Universal coverage is attainable if we work together and elect representatives who are willing to do so as well. And what’s more, we already have the patchwork of systems and programs in place to expand quality, comprehensive, and equitable coverage to every person in the United States. We can lower the Medicare age to 55 or even 50. We can create a public option by providing people with subsidies to buy into Medicaid. We can press for Medicaid expansion to all 50 states. We can push to repeal the the Hyde Amendment, a draconian policy forbidding people on Medicaid and other government-sponsored health insurance from seeking safe and legal abortions, since until women, trans people, and gender nonconforming people possess reproductive rights and justice, inequity and inequality reign and we cannot advance as a society for the common good. And we can continue to strengthen and improve the ACA by shielding it from sabotage, by lobbying for the more generous subsidies that President Obama originally intended and Republicans stymied, by keeping a close watch on the payment of cost-sharing reductions, by recognizing that the individual mandate empowers us to certify that all Americans have substantive healthcare and that the federal government must as such enforce it.
We united on the right side of history, rising up as one voice and one people to speak up and fight back, protecting the healthcare of millions of Americans of all genders, races, ethnicities, religions, health statuses, abilities, national origins, socioeconomic backgrounds, and more. We must now stay focused and forge onwards. Our victory proved that we are stronger when we build coalitions, when we hold fast to the courage of our convictions, when we open ourselves up to listen to each other and set aside our differences to fight for the well-being of all Americans. Let’s keep marching together on the path we began to tread, the path that permitted countless Americans across the country to weep tears of joy and celebration today. As our brave protesters chanted at the Capitol early Friday morning, let’s take our yes we can and make it a yes, we did — together.
