Thursday. Watch live coverage of the debate on cspan starting at 9 00 a. M. Eastern. West virginia senator joe manchin held a town hall meeting. Topics included the Affordable Care act, nomination of gorsuch the Supreme Court, the coal Mining Industry and the epa. This was held in morgantown, West Virginia. [applause] thank you. Thank you very much. I want to thank elizabeth for doing a great job. Elizabeth is a product of farmington, West Virginia. [applause] her dad in law family to go with me and we all cried together so i know them very well. Im very proud of what shes doing and being the ball the way she is. To all the organizers, i think then that this is unbelievable god bless you all. I asked how many to expect and she said about 300. We have 600 i think then thats unbelievable. Thank you all. To make a machine, i think then. Two other speakers, i appreciate so much and it makes a difference. I appreciate you all being here. I want to thank the public officials. My good friend, judge trudeau is here and i dont know if theres any others, but i thank them for being here. Sometimes it is a tough one. Anyway, i want to introduce myself to him. My staff will be here and we do case work on anything you need help with comment we are facilitators. We will make sure we can get that help you need for any agency and State Government or federal government. By state directories right here. Kim berry. Where is ken . Raise your hand. Right back there. She is one of our top caseworkers. Maria stone street. Maria is on this site back here. Theyll be around. And then where is brian . T. J. Is from a d. C. Office. I want to thank all of them. Let me just say a couple things here that will open in a do anything you want to talk about his grave. Im sure you have a lot of concerns on other issues, too. Everything is on the table. The Affordable Care act is the biggest challenge we face right now in america. Its one of the largest social agendas that we have. Social policy changes are that there had been ready for this next year had the care and social security, its right up there. Social security didnt get it right in 1935. Took a while and medicare didnt get it right either and it will take a while to get this right. Theres not a person in the room here that doesnt believe we can fix it. We need to fix it, but you dont throw the baby out with the bathwater. You dont repeal it. The politics can you all hear me . Im starting to lose weight so ill do the best i can. The politics are so bad. I met with President Trump four weeks ago. I sent mr. President , let me tell you whats happening. My republican colleague, your colleague on the republican side are taking it down if primrose path. They made a political promise for the last six, seven years. I came to the senate after senator byrd, when senator byrd passed away june 2010. I miss him more than you miss him. He was something. Anyway, 60 times they voted to repeal them. Not one time did i see someone may hear some in a little bit better. Joe, heres something that would fix it. Not one time. Im the person they usually go to. They will find someone to work with and say okay, that makes sense. Lets try to make it better. Im thinking okay, now all of a sudden thats been their mantra. Think about this. Theyve had success. In 2010 would just about got wiped out. We started losing all of our house and senate seats by 2014. We lost both the house and the senate so they think its a roll now. They think they are on a roll and i think the people must want this for us to repeal this because weve been working on it. Im saying wait a minute. Now theyve got to put up or shut up. Mr. President , they are telling you that we are going to basically repeal it immediately, but not change anything for two years. I think you understand theyre trying to get through 2018 political election . Thats all theyre trying to do. They know how devastating this will be. They think they can push out all the losses people are going to happen the way health care will be taken away in 2018 after the election. I said they are going to repeal day one every single tax that pays for this thing. You are going to be 475 billion upside down in two years. You are going to bust your budget cap 475 billion they havent even explain that to you yet. Thats just not right. Please dont go down it. I think we mightve sewed him up a little bit because then he came right back and says we are going to repeal and replace the same day. Maybe theres a miracle i dont know about, but it does initially were that way. If youre going to do it, do it now. Not to put it off. Police were called and not im not. The only thing im saying, i would ask all of you, there is no reason on earth that we cant get down, democrats and republicans look at the repair needed in the private market. We can fix that. [applause] if we all agree, if we all agree, democrats and republicans agree that preexisting condition is inhumane not to allow a person to buy insurance thats affordable, even though theyve had in horrific Health Care Problem that republicans tell me they agree with that. They agree that basically we shouldnt have a cap in a cap basically says im sorry, you just use all the money that we could ever afford to spend i need to keep you alive or keep you healthy. We all agree that is inhumane. If we agree on that, we agreed a yearold should stay on. We agree that senior citizenship though our Medicare Part d hold. We all agree on that. If we agree on that, why do you want to throw it out . Why do you want to repeal it and start over . So i said and here is where the problem is. If you make about 75,000 or greater of your salary and youre in the air, private market, you pay higher premiums. You pay higher deductibles and you say wait a minute, im almost not getting money and insurance. Im a novice when it got to pay thousands more until i get to start using my insurance. Thats the privatesector market that we can fix. You have to get the product in the market match that. No ones ever worked on that. I have a funny 26 show the speed 4600 for the product we have of the market now as soon as they leave their parents. They will pay the fine but not the 4600 because its too costly for them. Those are things to work on. Weve gotten to my friends, the United Mine Workers have been getting screwed royally. Let me tell you. [applause] and i want to tell you what has happened so you know the whole story because youre probably only hearing parof it. We are fighting right now for Health Care Benefits and retirees and our penchant good right now we are on a fourmonth extension. This started in 1946. Don luis basically was going to pull the umw out because my grand parents, they got nothing. They had no retirement, no health care, nothing. He said we built this country. We thought and 12 wars. Its so important for us to have the energy that we had that basically they said okay, the group enact basically said from that day forward there would be a certain amount of money taken out of every hole that was mined that would go towards the pension and retirement. It wasnt taxpayer dollars. As part of the work they perform. That goes on. Everything is final. In the 1980s, the bankruptcy laws come into play and allow companies to walk away from obligation and stick us for what they should pay. That happened. 207, two away, we had the crash and we really go upside down. We said fine, weve got to pay for the abandoned mine land money which comes from america. We are not using any of the money thats basically used for reclamation. We pay for the miners, pension and retirement fund. We have a great though weve been working on for three years and Mitch Mcconnell has killed us every time. We cannot get that bill on the floor. Reduced everything we can to hold it up and i said right now ive got a trade agent that they want real bad. He asked to have 60 votes on hold right now. Hes going to stay on hold until we get this protection bill. [applause] we are going to get that done. We are going to get the health care done it without a fight pension. You have been so kind to me over the years. Ive been around a long time in many different positions. Made a lot of mistakes. Ive never made a mistake trying to hurt my state or hurt anybody in my state. Ive always learned from every mistake ive made. I was trying to do something and sometimes when you do something it doesnt work out. Youve got to fix it. So for the first time in my lifetime 80 of the adults that are working age in West Virginia. It tears me apart. We have the best workers in the world and never insist you get West Virginia, youve got a great worker. Look at her Good Days Work for a good day today. Theres too few of them in three things keep you out of the work force feedback is still set, et cetera youre convicted. If any conviction on you or youve got a lack of skills that are the one thats killing us. This addiction, and theres no one of us in the room right now for your honest with ourselves that doesnt know somebody in our immediate family, extended family or close friend that hasnt been this addicted to a fella said drugs. If we dont step forward to fight this, god help us all. I go to schools and tell your children, theres not another country that can take us on. There is not another country that can match up with their military. Nowhere in the world. They know it. Theres not another economy that comes close to our economy. We are 20 trillion gdp. Chen is around 10, 10. 5 and drops off the hill after that. They know they cant, but guess what. They are not going to. They will fall from within. They dont think well have a sober enough workforce to remain a superpower into the 2050s. They just figure you cant do it. They can keep that the superpower of the world. So heres the problem with god. Addiction. Ive got a bill called lifeboat, if you dont do anything, help me on this bill. This bill makes every pharmaceutical manufacturer pay 1 penny per belgrade per milligram of opiates they produce. One penny. Let me tell you what bad guys. The 1 penny goes to Treatment Centers around the country. West virginia will have one in every community. The 1 penny will produce . 522 billion a year. I cant get one of my republican friends to sign off. I said this is a lifesaving thing. This doesnt have any home. Opiate addiction and overdose for Prescription Drug is killing democrats, liberals, conservatives. It really doesnt care that the lent killer. We try to fix it ourselves. At we are saying this will give me the money to fund it. The Affordable Care act right now for the first time for people with mental disorders, Mental Health, people that are addicted are getting help now and we are paying for it. Well take that away immediately. We are back to square one. I get a person with addiction. I go talk to people that have been addicted. Their lives have been ruined. They are thankful they are still apply because theyve overdose many times. So map as recovery house out in huntington. Huntington, West Virginia is ground zero. They are fighting it. They are doing it. They have an excellent really a group of excellent thought to in their communities and their their university has gone together two of the school of excellence, basically treating from conception to birth in a child all the way through. We catch them at the tail end after theyve been addicted. We get a baby from an addicted mother. They go home to an addictive lifestyle. They end up repeating the same thing. So its an allinclusive thing. The other one is they wont stay in treatnt because they cant get rid of their conviction. Theyve got a felony on their hand. We have a bill called last chance it will open everything up. This one bill i need help on this one, too. If its not a Violent Crime or crime that you committed, if it is mostly large, youll have a for grand larceny. If you go through a oneyear recovery, one year as a mentor, you mentor other people. After two years, your sponsors can go to the sentencing judge and basically the arresting officers to go to court, to ask for forgiveness and his punishment so you can get back in the workforce. Those are the things that can be done. With that being said, will talk about anything and everything. This is my fourth one in two days and i guarantee you anything and everything does come up and i am happy about that. There is a huge line over on this wall. If you have any question, please go and stand next to the wall. 90 seconds you get to ll your story or ask a question. The senator will have a little bit longer, not much longer to answer questions as much as he can. What time does the foreign and . And if you guys need anything, we are here. Hi, senator. Hello. Can you guys hear me . Thank you for coming today. I am from burke county here in West Virginia and i am standing here today i am standing here today on behalf of my best friend alex who committed suicide last weekend. I would appreciate if you could let me finish my entire question. Thank you. Senator manchin, why the curse on your position by keeping the aca in fact, i have not heard you speak about the silent killer of West Virginians. Every 12 minutes, someone in our country commits suicide and never 30 seconds, someone attempts to take their own life. This is a Public Health crisis that is affecting your constituents, our neighbors, especially the poorest among us. Macau county, reports county has a history of rate of suicide in West Virginia and West Virginias population has a 50 higher rate of suicide that could tear to her countrys average. That is not a coincidence. Poverty is a death sentence. What i heard you say on thursdays town hall in arston is even though your second top donor is your daughters pharmaceutical company, we are to believe that you are not beholden to and do not work in her favor. You even admitted that while West Virginians are dying daily from suicide and drug overdose, your daughter is one of those is grossly overpaid in the industry. If you truly dont work in the favor of your donors, why are you pushing so many opiate related bills. I urge you with medical marijuana in charleston say never wants to smoke marijuana for peace, love and whatever. For countless veterans, Cancer Patients and People Living with chronic pain, being denied a safe, natural alternative to the pharmaceuticals that have poisoned every inch is not a laughing matter. With the impending repeal of the aca, thousands of West Virginians losing access to Mental Health care and lacking access to medicinal therapies that do have Mental Health illnesses. So how do you project the numbers may change for your constituents who suffer from Mental Health issues and who considers suicide their only option and what have you done since your town hall in charleston to educate herself about the benefits of medical marijuana. [applause] first of all, my daughter as you know, she knows all people at that level and not that Health Care Level all over. We talk about that. I dont have control of that. It is so crazy. I dont even understand it. But that being said, im proud of what theyve done for morgantown. I know a lot of people that do and i hope they understand that because that could have been wiped out and it wasnt. Were you referring to opiates. If thats their product in early products product in early products come you better find another consultants are out of business. I was stopped opiates completely. People do need them. I understand that. So theres a balance. As far as marijuana, heres what we said. Theres Recreational Marijuana and anything i can tell you about these different trement centers in Addiction Centers where people have been a big day. Usually nine out of 10 will tell me how they got started under addiction. [booing] let me just say this. This is exactly the other three people the think thats true. Im trying to learn about it. Im telling you what i find out when i travel. They said they start with Recreational Marijuana. They said it turned into harder stuff. I know, i know. Im trying to learn. Ive learned since thursday of medical marijuana, theres a lot of good assets and attributes that it can help you if thats the case, were looking at that. Im talking to doctors and going back to washington, doing research in how they feel about the side effects. What can it do . Can you get off of it or is the same is basically going to Treatment Centers later . I dont know. We are going to find out. We are trying everything we can. What i know about Recreational Marijuana, i would not be in favor or support of legalizing Recreational Marijuana. That is just me. Its the same in all three other town halls. People feel the same about that. But that, i know they say colorado made a lot of money and this and that in prohibition didnt work, so ive heard the last three days ive heard a little bit of everything. Well take all that into consideration. Thats what this is all about to understand your concerns and learn more about it. I can only tell you what i know and it might not be enough to have the conversation you want, but im willing to learn. I am not an acceptable to the Recreational Marijuana, legalizing marijuana. Im more receptive to finding out medical marijuana, what role it can play and how it can help peopleh care. [applause] in the interest of time, one comment about asking questions. As we go through this process you have your question answered, if you could please take your seats. Please take your