Pelosi Remarks at Press Conference After Speaker Ryan Pulls Vote for TrumpCare Legislation
"Good afternoon. I'm very proud to be here with the House Democratic Leadership. The unity of our House Democratic Members was a very important message to the country, that we are very proud of the Affordable Care Act. Yesterday, as you know, was the 7-year Anniversary of the President signing the bill. And the American people expressed their support for it. That message became very clear to our colleagues on the Republican side of the aisle.
"Today is a great day for our country. It's a victory. What happened on the Floor is a victory for the American people – for our seniors, for people with disabilities, for our children, for our veterans. Also, it's not just about the 24 million people who now won't be off of health insurance, it's about the 155 million people who received their health benefits in the workplace, who will not be assaulted by some of the provisions that the Republicans put in the bill, especially last night when they removed the essential benefits package.
"So again, this is pretty – it's pretty exciting for us. Yesterday, our anniversary, today, a victory for the Affordable Care Act, more importantly, for the American people.
"Tomorrow is the 51st Anniversary of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. saying in a speech that Mr. Clyburn quotes often to us, that ‘Of all of the forms of inequality, inequality in health care is probably the most inhumane and can sometimes lead to death.' That was the spirit in which we came into this debate, honoring the vows of our founders of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. A healthy life, the liberty to pursue our happiness.
"So, it's about our country and the vision of our founders, it's about our faith and it's about the unity of the Democrats, united by our values. And with that, I'm pleased to yield to our distinguished Majority – sorry, not sorry – Democratic Whip."
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Q: In the real world, what would you say to families who say, "Washington is gridlocked, we've never seen Nancy Pelosi and Donald Trump work together, how is that going to happen?"
Leader Pelosi. I worked very closely with President George W. Bush, in the minority and as Speaker of the House. We passed the biggest energy bill in the history of our country, we passed PEPFAR, a great humanitarian effort of which the President [Bush] is also very proud, we passed the infamous TARP, which I think is why we lost the 2010 election. We passed bill that was the most progressive on tax refundability to low income, working people, the list goes on and on.
It is not a question of what the American people have seen me do with Donald Trump; it's what we did as a matter of record over a long period of time. Even though we had our disagreements, in my case, the War in Iraq and what could be worse than that? We have a responsibility to find common ground.
It depends on the motivation. If the motivation is spite, that they were going to pass this bill because it was the seventh anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, instead of taking the time to develop legislation to perhaps hear from experts by having hearings, hear from families by having hearings, and develop something within the caucus and perhaps in a bipartisan way, hopefully they would have had a bill that would be successful. As I said before this room, pick a day, and decide they would have the votes on the floor. The Speaker said it came close. We will never know. We had a big long list of no's we were seeing, so I don't know how close it would be. Let's not lose any more face for them, they've lost enough today.
The fact is that we have a responsibility to always work together. Right now, quite frankly, the reason they lost is because of actions they took or did not take, but also because the American people weighed in. Our phone lines were all deluged. I want to thank all the people who expressed themselves to Members of Congress and say thank you for supporting the Affordable Care Act, or kill the bill, [depending on] whomever they were calling. Let's read the site of relief that the Affordable Care Act was not repealed, which was their goal, on the seventh anniversary.
Q: Can you comment on the issue of whether or not Republicans would ever work with you on your Committee? Can you comment on it generally?
Rep. Bobby Scott. We have worked, together with Republicans, George W. Bush, No Child Left Behind. Last Congress, we fixed the problems with that with the Every Student Succeeds Act. We are able to work very effectively together. The problem with this legislation, is it tried a debating technique that goes, there is a problem, I have a bill, if you don't like way things are, you must be with my bill, without ever saying how your bill would improve things. I think people saw through that and noticed that the legislation before us by any objective standard made things worse. The Republicans did not want to vote for it and obviously Democrats do not want to vote for it. If you are going to improve, we are all for working together.
Q: On November 9, when you look at the path ahead, did you expect that within 100 days of the Trump Administration, they would be done from moving on from health care unsuccessfully?
Leader Pelosi. Quite frankly, I thought they might have accomplished something in the first couple of months. I remind you when President Obama took the oath on January 20th, he called for swift, bold action now on jobs and education and the rest. One week and one day later, the House passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. One week later, the Senate passed it. Four weeks later, he had signed legislation to create or save four million jobs. He had already signed the Lilly Ledbetter Act, the SCHIP [State Children Health Insurance Program] Act and other things. They have no absolutely no record of accomplishment except maybe to take away clean air protections, save drinking water protections, and the rest.
I would have expected that they would have done more, but I think the mistake really was they were so focused on embarrassing the Affordable Care Act rather than trying to improve it.
Congressman Hoyer. If I could make one comment to your question. The President of the United States looked all of America in the eye, and he did it through the lens of of course the TV camera, just a couple of weeks ago in what was his State of the Union. He said, I'm going to give you a health insurance program that covers every American at lower cost and better quality. I hope he meant it. We cannot abandon that effort to make sure that every American has health care security at lower cost and better quality. That was our intent in the Affordable Care Act. We think we have come a long way in accomplishing that objective. But we can do more, and we ought to.
Q: It was expressed yesterday that the death of this bill may renew discussions of Medicare for all, or single-payer, moves in that direction. Do you feel like the party may be ready to move in that direction now?
Leader Pelosi. Well when we did the Affordable Care Act, I wanted the public option as I think everybody knows. We didn't get that, but we mitigated for not having it by having provisions in the bill that enabled people to receive benefits. The single payer or public option would have saved more money, it'd be cheaper because not so many administrative costs. But right now, we couldn't get that when he had a Democratic President and the Democratic Congress.
So what I've said my friends, and many of them are my constituents is, there are a couple of things that we can do for the Affordable Care Act that are very important. One of them is to continue the reinsurance that we had in the program to begin with to see if the Republicans would be willing, instead of being an obstacle to its enforcement, by stopping the release of funds that would help in the high risk corridors. Because that money was there and that would have helped with the insurance companies in the high risk corridors. Some of those things. And, one thing that the President talked about in the campaign that would help continue to lower cost, although they're raising of the lowest rate of increase in the 50 year history that's being measured is to work with us and to make sure that the Secretary of HHS is able to negotiate for lower prices with the pharmaceutical industry. Prescription drugs are the biggest reason for the increase in medical cost.
Q: Leader Pelosi, President Trump has spoken about what happened today, he acknowledged they came up short, also saying that now you and Chuck Schumer own Obamacare, and whatever…
Leader Pelosi. We did. We proudly did. Did he blame us for the defeat of his bill?
Q: He blamed you for not flexing your own support and said he wants to work with you…
Leader Pelosi. We will take credit for it.
Q: He says if there is a way to repair some of the things that many of you would acknowledge need some tweaking, that he wants to work with you. What is your reaction?
Leader Pelosi. That's good news. But I have news for him, perhaps he was not aware of this, we did take great pride in the work that we have done, and I accept Mr. Hoyer's statement earlier about my role, but I accept it on behalf of all of the Congressional Democrats who had the courage to make the vote because we are very, very proud of it. Again, honoring the vision of our founders, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. Honoring our faith-based initiatives to minister to the needs of God's creation as an act of worship.
Congressman Hoyer. I cannot resist. I cannot resist, probably I ought to, maybe, I can't resist responding to the President. He thought we owned it yesterday and the day before. [laughter] And in November. And I want to remind him, notwithstanding his alternative facts, more people voted for the candidate who was for the Affordable Care Act than people voted for the candidate against the Affordable Care Act. That is called democracy. The Electoral College didn't have that result. I get it. But more people in America voting for president voted for the candidate who wanted to keep the Affordable Care Act.
Q: Leader Pelosi, how would you assess…
Congressman Swalwell. I will just say to that, unified Democrats did defeat this bill and we did it for the American people. We did it because we heard them, we fought for them, and today, we won for them. I'll just say our Future Forum members, 26 of the youngest members, we've gone to 37 cities now, and what we have heard across the country is that young people were going to suffer tremendously under this, with a surcharge in having a lapse in coverage. And this economy is so unstable for young people today that to have 30% surcharge hanging over their head would create so much financial distress for them that they could not have this bill. So they were Snapping us, Facebooking us, Tweeting at us, and old-fashioned phone calls were coming into our office. We fought for them and we are going to keep fighting.
Q: On the politics of this I do have to ask, if this outcome helps your pact to take back the majority more than had they had the vote? And also I'd like to hear from Chairman Lujan on this as well.
Leader Pelosi. Well, why don't we start with Chairman Lujan. On that regard I think, if I just may be allowed a personal view, politically in this room, I think they pulled the bill because they were going to have a lot of no votes and the ones that would be voting yes would have great exposure, because as Mr. Hoyer and others have said, 56 to 17 was the poll on this. And by the way, in the poll, 12% thought the bill would be good for them. This is not a very good bill. As I've been saying, it was a tax bill disguised as a health care bill. The biggest transfer of wealth in the history of our country, of several hundred, $600 billion or more, $600 billion dollars or more going from working-class families to the richest people in America. By the way, having 24 million people not having access to health insurance, and at the same time, undermining Medicare and jeopardizing pre-existing condition benefits that we had in our bill as they repealed the essential benefits.
One of the most interesting speeches to me on the floor was when one of our colleagues, who I love and respect – by the way, I grant everyone – grant everyone their position, we have a debate on it, but at least admit you have a bad bill – any one of my colleagues got up and said, I was not for the bill, but they really made it better last night when they repealed the essential benefits in the bill.
I thought, ok.
Congressman Lujan. Make no mistake, today is about the American people. The reason this bill went down is because thousands of thousands, if not millions of people have been gathering around America demanding answers as to why Republicans were doing what they were doing, putting an age tax on people over 50 years of age. This was devastating. This would ration care and throw people off the health rolls. That is what today is about. Don't forget there were also 15 Republicans that are in some of the most competitive districts in America that voted yes on this bill. The Rules Committee, the Ways and Means Committee, the Energy and Commerce Committee, and the Budget Committee. Their constituents deserve answers as to why they were voting yes on this bill which was horrible then and was horrible today. We will continue to take this fight to the American people. I want to thank the constituents across America who made today possible. This is your victory. We will continue to reach out to them and maintain the trust all through November 2018.