Elizabeth Warren on the Republican
Derogation of Duty
Congress
passed the Affordable Care Act to solve a real, honest-to-God problem.
Our
health care system was broken. 48 million people in this country had no health
insurance. Women couldn't get access to cancer screenings. People with diabetes
were denied health insurance because of pre-existing conditions. People with
cancer hit the caps on their health insurance spending. And health spending in
this country was growing far too fast.
So we
worked hard, we compromised, and we came up with a solution. A solution that
will substantially improve the lives of millions of Americans – because that's the way a democracy
works.
It's
time to end the debate about whether the Affordable Care Act should exist and
whether it should be funded.
Congress
voted for this law. President Obama signed this law. The Supreme Court upheld
this law. The President ran for reelection on this law. His opponent said he
would repeal it – and his opponent lost
by five million votes.
Right
now, Republicans are taking the government and the economy hostage, threatening
serious damage to both unless the President agrees to gut the Affordable Care
Act. For days, they even tried to change the law so that employers can deny
women access to birth control coverage.
I am
the mother of a daughter and the grandmother of granddaughters. I will never
vote to let a group of backward-looking ideologues cut women's access to birth
control. We have lived in that world, and we are not going back. Not ever.
I see
things like this and I wonder what alternate reality some of my colleagues are
living in.
So
let me be very clear about what is happening in the real world: The Affordable
Care Act is the law of the land. Millions of people are counting on it – people who need health care coverage, people
who need insurance policies that don't disappear just when they are sickest.
The
law is here to stay, and it will stay.
Now
the government is shut down. We haven't fixed the sequester because of all the
obstruction. We haven't finished a budget because of all the obstruction. We
haven't even passed a single appropriations bill because of all the
obstruction.
The
least we can do – the bare minimum we
can do – would be to pass a
"continuing resolution" to open the doors back up and turn the lights
back on. We could ensure that over a million federal workers aren't staying
home for no reason. We could end the government shutdown.
But
the Republicans have refused to do even that. They have shuttered the
government unless the President agreed to de-fund the Affordable Care Act.
The
threats may continue, but they are not working and they never will. In a
democracy, hostage tactics are the last resort for those who can't win their
fights through elections, can't win their fights in Congress, can't win their
fights for the Presidency, and can't win their fights in Courts.
For
this right-wing minority, hostage-taking is all they have left – a last gasp of those who cannot cope with
the realities of our democracy.
The
time has come for those legislators who cannot cope with the reality of our
democracy to get out of the way – so
that those of us in BOTH parties can get back to working on solving the real
problems faced by the American people.
We
have real work to do.
Elizabeth
