Thank you, mr. President. I yield the floor. Mr. Prince president , the majority leader says he will move forward this week with about on a straight repeal of the Affordable Care act in its entirety. I dont believe that a majority of senators are willing to support a reckless leap in the dark but that both would mean. Its a vote that would end protections for people with preexisting conditions and would take Health Coverage away from tens of millions of americans, tens of thousands in New Hampshire. It would terminate the Medicaid Expansion that has been critical to siding the Opioid Epidemic in my state in so many states across the country. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, a straight repeal of the Affordable Care act would result in more than 32 Million People losing their Insurance Coverage by 2026. Premiums would roughly double in the individual marketplaces. I urge my republican friends not to go forward with this misguided approach. The idea that they can repeall the healthcare bill now and give us a new bill in two years or whatever period of time is in the bill just doesnt pass the smell test. If we have to havent seen an attorney to the Affordable Care act in the last seven years there is no reason to believe that our republican colleagues will be able to produce a bill in two years when there is chaos in the marketplaces. There is a better way forward for the senate in our country. During the fourth of july recess, majority leader mcconnell said that if he cant secure the vote to repeal the Affordable Care act, hes prepared to work in a bipartisan way with democrats on legislation to repair and strengthen the law. I believe that bipartisanship is the best way to get somethingnd done. Thats what i try to do when i was governor of New Hampshire and i worked closely with our republican legislator and we got things done. W it should not be a last resort for what we are doing. It should be the first resort. It should be what we do to build the foundation for policy in this country. I am hopeful that following the Floor Consideration of whatever the majority leader decides to do on healthcare and hopefully it will get defeated that we will move forward with the majority leaders fallback plan which i believe should be the starting position. We need to start fresh with regular order to craft Bipartisan Legislation that builds on the strength of the Affordable Care act, that builds on what is working and fixes what is not working. We have been hearing at town halls and countless messages from our constituents this isep exactly what the American People want us to do. There is remarkable consensus in this country that the Republican Leaders bill is the wrong approach and abc Washington Post poll on sunday found that moreic than twoone margins american for the Affordable Care act to the Republican Leaders bill. Their bill is strongly opposed by hospital associations, by Healthcare Providers and by thei nearly every page and Advocacy Group and there is no reason to think that just repealing the Affordable Care act will make it any better. On saturday the New Hampshire hospital association, to New Hampshire medical society, our physicians and the New Hampshire aarp joined together in opposition to the bill. They noted that more than 118,000 nearly one in ten people in New Hampshire would lose nume Health Coverage under the republican bill and that number is greater if we just repeal the Affordable Care act. Their joint statement urging summers to start over, to create a new version of legislation that protects coverage for those who have it and provide coverage who need it. We ask unanimous consent for a joint statement by these groups included in the record. Without objection protecting you. I strongly agree with these New Hampshire groups. After spending six months trying to pass a deeply unpopular deeply flawed bill, shouldnt we welcome a bipartisan effort to improve the lot. I believe the answer is yes and that the place to begin is by taking urgent action on a matter where most of us agree and that is providing the certainty to Health Insurance markets in order to hold down premium increases. In their 2018 filings, insurers the say that large increases are necessary because of the uncertainties surrounding the repeal of the Affordable Care act. Because the Trump Administration refuses to commit to making costsharing reduction payments. Those payments say no to Insurance Company so they can help their consumers with the cost of Health Insurance and make sure that more people can get Health Insurance. We now have the opportunity to end the certainty by putting a repeal effort behind us and passing a simple bill to authorize regular appropriations for the costsharing reduction payments. The current instability in the ach marketplace is a manufactured crisis and congress can to stop to it very quickly. Thats why ive introduce the marketplace certainty act which is a bill to permanently appropriate funds to expand the costsharing reduction payments so it does two things, guarantees that these payments are coming and it will cover more people to get help. Im pleased to be joined by 26 senators already cosponsoredte this bill. We can end this artificial crisis and we can immediately restore certainty and stability to the Health Insurance market. In turn, we can get the time we need in order to come together in a bipartisan way to improve this law, to build on what is working, to fix what is not. We have a number of these commonsense measures and this is one that has been embraced not just by democrats but by key Republican Leaders. Chairman lamar alexander, kevin brady, they have urged that these payments be continued. As chairman brady put it, the payments are needed quote unquote quote to stabilize the m Health Insurance markets and help lower premiums for americans. He added and i quote insurers have made clear the lack of certainty is causing 2018 proposed premiums to rise weve significantly. Now, we heard from our constituents at home we heard from factors, nurses, hospitals, particularly rural hospitals and Nursing Homes, patient advocates, insurers and those constituents who are in the letter that i asked just like the statement i asked to be included in the record. They are pleading with us to set aside our partisan differences and Work Together to prepare these Affordable Care act. Ot again, we know what we can do. It is not just the market place bills that have been introduced that can fix the uncertainty in the market and allow us to address other issues with the la law. Bipartisanship should be the senates first resort, not the last resort, an excellent place to start is by coming together right now to permanently appropriate funds for the costsharing reduction payments that keep Health Coverage be affordable and to look at some of the other measures that willl be talked about by my colleagues, like senator who will be coming to the floor. She has legislation that helps us deal with the high cost of Prescription Drugs which is one of the things that is driving the increase of healthcare. M we need to pass these commonsense measures and we need to do it now. Thank you, mr. President. I yielded four. Mr. President , i want to thank senator shaheen for her leadership and im proud to be one of the cosponsors of her bill and her commonsense approach which i believe is the one that will Work Together to change for the Affordable Care act for the American People. I joined my colleagues on the floor in sharing the concerns that ive heard from so many people in my state and acrosst the country about the bill that is been introduced by her colleagues and the other issue that ive heard from them is their desire to Work Together to bring down the cost of healthcare and to make fixes to the board is correct. Healthcare leaders in my state has come out strongly released last week and it would be devastating to those in our rural areas especially for people and so many of our seniors who arrive on medicaid funding for Nursing Homes and assisted living. Last night we heard that we will not be proceeding to that bill and the majority leader will bring up a repeal parts of theus Affordable Care act without a replacement. I want to remind my colleagues that the Congressional Budget Office has looked at that it is just as bad. Instead of 22 Million People losing interest by 26, the cbo estimated that 32 million would lose under the repeal approach and premiums for double. Di this repeal effort doesnt help the minnesotans who according to the association would be harmed by what they call it draconian medicaid cuts. It doesnt help our childrens hospitals. I met with several last week and they were very concerned that medicaid cuts would hurt their ability to provide healthcare to our kids, something that i heard repeatedly on the fourth of july in the praise when people would come up, out of the blue, out of the sides of the streets mixed in with the hot dog and american flags, you would see families predominately kids with disabilities and they would bring children over to me to meet and would say how important this medicaid funding is for their entire family. The i remember once when he mom brought over a child with down syndrome, all the people on the parade route in that block cheered for that family and thats because we know we are all in this together and we know that what happens to one family could next year happen to another family. You can have a child with disabilities and you can suddenly have a disease that could be debilitating to your familys finances and that basically we never know what will happen to the health of ourselves and thats why we have Health Insurance and we have Health Insurance that is affordable. In addition to that, our Health Care System has stood up and said that these approaches would lead to major job losses in our state and as i said for seniors aarp it is said that nearly half of all adults in my state receive tax credits under the Affordable Care act of 5060 yearolds and the subsidies would be eliminated under the repeal bill. This could make health care unaffordable especially for the more 350,000 in my state aged 50 to 64 have a preexisting condition. It doesnt have to be this way, as senator shaheen has so le articulately pointed out. I know several of my republican colleagues said they cant support legislation that would take away insurance for tens ofi millions of americans and i agree. Instead of making these kinds of recording cuts and moving backwards, i think we have to move forwards to actually help make health care in america better and more affordable. We can and we should make changes to the Affordable Careeg act. Inning year is not an end but the beginning. You can have legislation like that and go for years without any significant changes. Thats not how it works with major legislation in the past. Every time we have tried to make changes we have heard back that we have to repeal it. Maybe the result of all of this chaos in the last month has been the people have finally come together to realize what the American People want as senator shaheen is pointed out as well as what is the best policy and that is to make changes. I support the marketplace certainty act because it would stabilize the individual markets in contact and expand out of Health Care Costs for consumers. I also support senator mccain with your with us today, senato kane in virginia and the individual Health Insurance bill improvement act to reestablishns federal insurance program. By the way, this idea is something the republican legislator in minnesota just passed on a state basis and are supportive of. I see this as not just a pie in the sky idea but i see these ideas of things we can work ony across the aisle. I want to end by talking about some of my ideas, many of which have bipartisan support, again, i throw them in a package ofne things we could be working on, a bill that would harness and negotiating power of 41 million seniors on medicare to bring drug prices down. Right now, by law, medicare is advanced from negotiating prices with all of the seniors. Think of the Better Bargain that the seniors could get if their a Marketing Power was unleashed. Senator mccain, the colleague of the presiding officer and i have a bill to allow americans to bring in less expensive drugs from canada which is, by the way, similar to the American Market as i have often noted we can see canada from our porch in minnesota so we would be right across the border and that kind of prices that they are able to get and we think we should, senator mccain and i and several republican voted, for similar measures should be allowed to bring in kind of less expensive drugs in other countries too. If there is no competition, prices have ballooned for these top ten drugs in this country. Senator lee and i have a bill that would allow importation of safe drugs from other countries when there is an healthy competition. Senator grassley and i have a bill to stop something called pay for delay where Big Pharmaceutical Companies are paying generics to keep the products off the mark to market. 3000 in savings for the Us Government by passing that. I would challenge my colleagues to vote against something asio simple as that. Last, senator grassley, feinstein, lee and i have this back we make sure that we get the samples of generics on the market and create more competition and bring prices down. I will end with this. This debate is about the patience of a Nurse Practitioner who provides Psychiatric Care in my state. She wrote to me to say please, please, do all you can to prevent these people from losing the health Insurance Coverage for medical and Mental Health care that is so vital to their lives. In minnesota, 32 of the funding for our Mental Health comes from medicaid and across the country Medicaid Expansion has helped 1. 3 Million People receive treatment for Mental Health and Substance Abuse issues. This debate is about the mom and minnesota private insurance has colon cancer. She is working fulltime, raising two schoolaged boys and going through chemo every single week. She said she fears she will be able to afford the care she needs to stay alive. This debate is about the world i constituentworld constituents wp to me during the fourth of july nearly every other block telling me their stories and how they are concerned about their house with disabilities in the rural hospitals. We have things we can do to make this better and now is the time where we must get them done. Lets come up and we have bipartisan support for the Affordable Care act just like lets Work Together on them across the aisle and lets remember that this is about one team, one country and we can get this done. Thank you, mr. President. I you before. Mr. President , thank you. I also take the floor to talk about healthcare and i see my colleagues were here to earnestly plead with all of our colleagues to be about a procesr where democrats and begins and the Committee Process that we have in the senate does the work we are supposed to by listening to the american public. Let me tell you about my first meeting of the day. It was an amazing one. I had a mom and a five yearold daughter, charlie, in my office and they had asked for the opportunity to meet with you and talk about healthcare. Bout charlie is just about five and she starts kindergarten in september and she was born at 2