House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Weekly Press Conference Transcript March 19

Speaker Pelosi: (00:00)
Are we good? Good morning, everyone. As we deliver the benefits of the American Rescue Plan, we’re hard at work to lower healthcare costs and expand access to care, which we have seen a great need for during the spread of this pandemic. On Tuesday, we will observe the 11th anniversary of the passage of the Affordable Care Act. At that time and since I’ve said that that was a great pillar of economic and health security for the American people on a par with social security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act. In this Rescue Plan, we have some initiatives to expand the Affordable Care Act, and that’s why I’m so pleased to be joined by three of our colleagues. Representative Underwood will talk about provisions in the bill. Well, she will talk about them and I want to salute her for her success in getting provisions in the bill that expand the Affordable Care Act.

Representative Craig has been at work on initiatives to improve the Affordable Care Act, but we’ll have her own words to say about rescue and where we are. And Representative Leger Fernandez, she is a freshman member and she will have her presentation on this subject. She has been such a leader in New Mexico on everything to make the future better for America’s working families. You’ll hear from them momentarily. Before that though, I just want to say how exciting it is for us that 11 years have gone by and there has been a broad acceptance of the Affordable Care Act. It was a transformational law that expanded coverage, lowered costs, secured lifesaving protections for every American, no matter how they get their healthcare coverage. Of course, our goal is to have universal coverage, universal access to quality affordable healthcare. And with a giant step forward with that was the Affordable Care Act, providing life saving protections for more than 130 million Americans with a preexisting medical condition.

And actually they said being a woman was a preexisting medical condition. So the Affordable Care Act took care of that. As a mother five, I was told that that was an obstacle to my getting insurance, because I had five children. And I said, “I thought that was a sign of my strength.” Banning insurers from putting limits on healthcare, guaranteeing essential health benefits, and free preventative services, ensuring that young people can stay on their family’s policy until 26, extending healthcare coverage to 20 million Americans. People make a big fuss, as do I, about the fact that 20 million more people in our country had access to healthcare. 20 million people. But the fact also is that over 150 million families had access to better healthcare at lower cost, and again, with benefits like no preexisting condition barrier to access to healthcare, but that was just one of the further benefits.

And we’re proud to celebrate this anniversary and I look forward to making it even stronger. The American Rescue Plan takes bold steps forward, and making healthcare more affordable and accessible, and including for those who have lost coverage through no fault of their own. Again, when we had our campaign in 2018 and 2020, for the people, [inaudible 00:04:05], for the people we would lower healthcare costs by lowering the cost of prescription drugs and preserving preexisting conditions among others. And the Democrats will take further action to make this more affordable. Remember, we chose that name very carefully, Affordable Care Act. Well, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. A person who has been a leader from the start in the Congress to make the Affordable Care Act more affordable, a person who has served in the Obama administration as well as being a healthcare provider herself, making a big difference here right from the start, Congresswoman Underwood of Illinois. Congresswoman.

Congresswoman Underwood: (04:52)
Thank you. Thank you, Speaker Pelosi. I am thrilled to be here today to celebrate the historic expansion of the Affordable Care Act that is now law thanks to the American Rescue Plan. I represent the 14th district of Illinois, and I spend a lot of time listening to my community. What I found over and over and over again since I took office, over two years ago now, is whether I’m at a farm, or a restaurant, or at a town hall, people are being crushed by their healthcare costs. Throw in a pandemic, and it’s just been devastating for families. While Republicans have worked breathlessly for two years, well, since I’ve been here for two years, but for years before that, to take away healthcare, House Democrats, Senate Democrats, and the Biden-Harris administration have all been loud and clear: no family should be without affordable care, especially in a once in a century health crisis.

And I’m here to tell you today we’ve delivered for the American people. The American Rescue Plan included my legislation, the Health Care Affordability Act, which lowers out-of-pocket insurance costs and caps premiums for everyone. It requires that Americans pay no more than 8.5% of their income on healthcare premium and provides a larger tax credit to nine million people who receive financial assistance, helping them afford coverage through the marketplace. Those whose earnings are 400% of the federal poverty level, which is slightly more than $51,500 per year for an individual, will be able to receive aid to purchase affordable healthcare coverage. The cost of healthcare has been keeping millions of families from thriving, but that’s about to change. With the American Rescue Plan, help is on the way. The Biden-Harris administration estimates that four out of five enrollees will be able to find a plan for $10 a month.

People with the lowest incomes and people who receive unemployment compensation this year may not have to pay a monthly premium. Couples earning more than $70,000 could save $1,000 per month on their monthly premiums. A family of four making $90,000 will see premiums decreased by $200 per month. And an individual making $19,000 will not have to pay a monthly premium. That’s real significant savings for hardworking families. So, thank you Madam Speaker, for including my legislation and this historic package and helping me put money back in the pockets for my constituents. Everyone’s had an incredibly hard year and I am so glad that with your leadership, we were able to build on the Affordable Care Act and deliver on our promise to lower healthcare costs for the American people. Thank you. Now I’d like to invite Congresswoman Angie Craig.

Congresswoman Angie Craig: (07:55)
Thank you so much, Representative Underwood and Madam Speaker, as always. Thank you for having me here. Especially during these challenging times, we’re reminded every single day that Americans deserve access to high quality affordable healthcare. This is especially personal to me as I grew up for a portion of my own childhood without that reality of having access to health insurance. And I still remember that box of bills that piled up for my mom, who was raising three kids mostly on her own, on the kitchen table after my little sister went to the hospital. So I know firsthand if healthcare is not affordable, it is not accessible. For years in this country, families in Minnesota and across the nation have struggled with the rising costs of healthcare. I ran for Congress in 2016, I lost. And then in 2018, I came back and I ran in a cycle and served in a session where we were here to find real common sense solutions to this nation’s healthcare issues. In 2018, the election cycle that first brought me to Congress, Democratic candidates all over the country were sent to Washington after making that simple pledge.

If elected, we would work tirelessly to stabilize and enhance the Affordable Care Act, lower the cost of prescription drugs in this nation, and the out-of-pocket healthcare costs for families. Last year, I helped pass H.R. 1425. That was my bill, the re-insurance bill that became the base of our broader Patient Protection and Affordable Care Enhancement Act. Legislation that included provisions to significantly increase subsidies for middle and low income families, making healthcare more affordable and accessible for millions of Americans. Congratulations, Congresswoman Underwood, for that aspect in the American Rescue Plan. Finally allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices and extend many of those cost savings

To negotiate drug prices and extend many of those cost savings through H.R. 3 to private plans as well, expand coverage to millions of Americans by encouraging holdout states to take advantage of the federal government’s Medicaid expansion, and crack down on junk plans that endanger Americans’ access to high quality care while strengthening protections for pre-existing conditions.

Last year we came together to pass that legislation, responding to our constituents’ request to protect and strengthen their healthcare. My constituents are fed up with the years of sabotage of the ACA and the politics of division. They just want us to strengthen and make healthcare more affordable and today, with the anniversary of the ACA next week, we have the opportunity to continue these efforts with the Biden-Harris administration. With that, I’ll hand things off to Representative Fernandez.

Representative Fernandez: (11:03)
Good morning. Thank you so much Congresswoman and thank you so much Madam Speaker for inviting me here today. So we know that this pandemic’s tentacles have infiltrated every single aspect of our community’s lives. It put a spotlight on the work that we still need to do to make healthcare affordable and accessible for everyone, everywhere, and every community, urban and rural. In New Mexico one of the things that I did was help build rural health clinics, help build clinics in Indian country and in fact the second gentleman visited one of those health clinics on Wednesday to look at their marvelous vaccination plan in New Mexico, the Kewa Health Clinic so a big shout-out to that. Because of my work helping build health clinics, this issue came up over and over again by New Mexicans. They wanted Congress to address the cost of healthcare to make sure it came down and to make sure that it was accessible. The brilliance of the American Rescue Plan is that it not only provides us with the resources to beat the pandemic, it has allowed us to expand access to health insurance, lower the costs, and gets us a step closer to insuring that healthcare is a right, not a privilege, for all Americans.

We called this plan a lifeline. That’s exactly what it is, and we want everyone to know that they can take advantage of the special enrollment period that is running now through May 15. There are more than 14.9 million Americans who still don’t have health insurance and now can get it. Many current enrollees can receive additional financial support to get coverage at a price they can afford. Thank you for getting that done. All of the Democrats, we need to thank them. I need to tell you, as a freshman, it is marvelous to be able to come to Congress and get stuff done with the Democrats.

So I want to urge all Americans who are currently insured or underinsured to please visit healthcare.gov and take advantage of potentially lower premiums and lower out of pocket costs. In New Mexico, our hearts broke over the devastating and deadly impact that this pandemic had on our Native American communities. Many of the tribal leaders and elders we have lost and the impact on the Latino communities. Having access to healthcare should not depend on your zip code. It shouldn’t depend on your employment. It shouldn’t depend on your income and it shouldn’t depend on your race. The American Rescue Plan takes us one step closer to making healthcare as a right available for every American. Thank you Madam Speaker.

As we observe the 11th anniversary which will be Tuesday, you can just see the pride we had not only in that legislation but in the newer members of Congress who have taken up the cause and made their mark on this. Because they listened to their constituents and prioritized this health issue, which is a health issue and an economic issue for families because of affordability. So thank you so much to Congresswoman Underwood for this specific language in this legislation. You talked about it when you ran as your motivation for running and we’re all moved by that and then you acted upon it at every step of the way so thank you for your effectiveness [inaudible 00:15:14] effective from the start as is Congresswoman Angie Craig, with her very important legislation that’s part of what we did last year which we hope will be part of what … Soon, it will be part of it, but we hope that that will be soon. Thank you. You didn’t even talk about your four sons.

Angie Craig: (15:35)
They’re all under 26 too.

There you are.

Angie Craig: (15:38)
[inaudible 00:15:38].

Thank you, and again to Congresswoman Fernandez talking about our Indian country. I want to join in in acknowledging the Biden-Harris administration because one of the sticking points that we had previous to their taking office was addressing the inequality of access to healthcare, inequality to testing, tracing, treating, vaccine, et cetera. President Biden has made this a very high priority as has the vice president hence the second gentleman visiting the location.

Now in our bill, it has $20 billion for tribal governments as well as another $6 billion for health benefits others in there so thank you for making sure that those priorities were addressed in the substantial way that they were. So you can see why we think that the celebration of the Affordable Care Act is greatly enhanced by the passage of the rescue package as it takes us forward.

On this subject, are there any questions? On healthcare and how we go forward? Well again, I wanted to thank the president and the vice president as well as all of our colleagues, for those who were here for the Affordable Care Act, those who have fought for it then and since even if they weren’t here at the time, and those who are enhancing it and making it stronger. Again, a pillar of our America’s family security, Social Security, Medicare, the Affordable Care Act.

Martin Luther King said, “Of all of the inequalities that exist the one inequality of access to healthcare is the most inhuman.” He used that word inhuman because people could die and that inequality is something that has been of the highest priority for us. I thank our colleagues for their leadership. You are welcome to stay. I know they would join me in acknowledging the sadness that our country has experienced with the assault on the AAPI community. When we leave here we will go to the floor for a moment of silence, the flags are at half-staff, as an acknowledgment and a comfort but it is not a comfort unless we can end the sear and the injustice of it all. I’m so proud that the president and the vice president are visiting Georgia, perhaps they’re on their way as we speak, maybe they’re there now, to console but also I want to recognize that the president early on when he made his speech to the nation about COVID, he talked about anti-AAPI violence in our country and how it had to stop and he called upon the attorney general, the Department of Justice, to address this issue.

So long before Atlanta, we have known that this has been a challenge really exacerbated by some of the language of a previous administration and unfortunately last year the total … It was over something like 3,700 acts of violence against the AAPI community. That would be more than 10 a day. As a representative of San Francisco, I take great pride in representing the AAPI community. It’s a blessing to us all and again we see firsthand the risk that is there and something that we are all very proud of, our AAPI community.

We’re very pleased this week that we were able to pass legislation, much of it coming from the Judiciary Committee. Mr. Nadler deserves some credit, a big deal of credit for that, but a lot of the women as you see the women are leading the way on these issues. First we had the ERA, the passage of the ERA, removing the barrier under the leadership of Jackie Speier and we’re proud of that.

…under leadership of Jackie Speier, and we’re proud of that. The barrier is not in the Constitution. It was put in by the Congress. Congress can take it out. Next, we had the Violence Against Women Act, this reauthorization in a way that is stronger, in fact, listening to some of our friends in Indian Country who have suffered so much from the injustice of violence against women on the reservations and no recourse. That was the other day, yesterday, we had the two bills that I’m so excited about, the Dreamers Act. You may recall that in the last Congress I spoke for eight hours and six minutes in support of the Dream Act. I won’t do that now. I didn’t do that yesterday, but I did use my time to take pride in the Dreamers and what they mean to our country. That was under the leadership of Lucille Roybal-Allard. The promise part of it under leadership of Nydia Velazquez, and also Yvette Clark of New York. We’re very excited about that legislation.

Right now, on the floor, we’re taking up the Medicare bill that was necessary because of the rescue package. Similarly, as was necessary after the passage of the Republican tax scam, we’ll see if they’ll vote for it to protect Medicare as we voted for it, even though we disagreed with the tax scam, didn’t vote for the bill, but voted for the protection. When we come back, we’re having committee meetings next week to prepare for our agenda for when we come back, and we’ll be taking up apropos of the conversation today, the no ban, the repeal of the Muslim ban legislation. We have legislation for access to counsel, the no ban, I think Judy Chu’s legislation, the access to capital, Councilwoman Jayapal. The women are just ruling the roost here. It’s just wonderful. And then we will have other legislation as well. So if you have any questions about that. Yes, sir.

Speaker 1: (22:22)
Madame Speaker?

The gentleman over there.

Speaker 2: (22:22)
Oh, about this specific…

You.

Speaker 2: (22:25)
I have an unrelated question.

I’m sorry?

Speaker 2: (22:27)
I have an unrelated question.

Unrelated to healthcare?

Speaker 2: (22:30)
Yes.

Anything for healthcare? No? All right. You’re welcome to stay, but we do have votes on the floor, so I don’t know how long I can stay. Yes, sir.

Speaker 2: (22:42)
Roughly a third of your caucus is co-sponsoring a resolution introduced today by Congressman Jimmy Gomez to expel Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green from the House. I’m wondering where does House democratic leadership stand on that resolution? And do you think that Congresswoman Green should be punished further in any way for her past comments?

I’m not going to get into that. Members are very unhappy about what happened here and they can express themselves the way they do. What Mr. Gomez did is his own view, and that is not a leadership position. Yes, sir.

Speaker 3: (23:20)
I’m wondering how you think the problem on the border, if you have any updated views on that, and what the Administration should or should not be doing on that front?

I think that the Administration is pulling this thing under control. And I think it’s important to know that. The difference between the attitude toward the people and the children is so different in just these two months versus what happened in the past four years. In the spring, as my colleague Congresswoman Escobar has said, who represents El Paso, in the spring more people do come. So there will be more as there are now, but they have to know, as the President has said, don’t come, and how can we address the challenges in their country so that they stay home. But since they are coming, they fall in different categories. And the Administration has plans in place to take care of the children in a much more humane way than before. And that means that we have to have more facilities, more beds, and the rest until we transition these children to… Nearly half, say 40-some percent of them have a parent in the country, our country, that we can transition to closer to three quarters of them have a family member if not necessarily a parent in the country that we can transition them to.

But they go from the Border Patrol and then they go to what’s called ORR, the organization, the refugee release, and then a transition out. So that is being with FEMA at the border and the rest, the Administration is addressing the immediate concerns. There has to be, though, the recognition that COVID is playing a role in how people need to be separated and so this adds to the challenge when more people come. We had 13,000 beds as Congresswoman Delauro under whose Labor HHS Committee ORR falls, there are 13,000 beds, but when you need to space, you need more space, so we need more locations. I always like to quote the Evangelicals. They have been so excellent on immigration for such a long time. We are not in 100% agreement on all aspects of it, but by and large, they had been a very positive force for good.

And when we were, four years ago, having a rump hearing, because we weren’t in the majority, rump hearing on overturning the ban that the President had put, the Muslim ban, whether we had the military coming in and saying, “This is bad for national security,” whether we had the diplomats, a thousand of them signing a letter saying, “This is bad for national security,” whether we had the business community saying this is a harmful message to the world, whatever it was. But the message I want to focus on is many Evangelicals testified. Their representatives said that the United States Refugee Resettlement Program is the crown jewel of American humanitarianism. Part of what is at the border are refugees applying for asylum in our country. We had hoped, and we can re-institute some things that were taken down by the Trump Administration, to have some of that adjudication happen in country so that the case can be resolved there.

But there is no question, and I’ve taken delegations to Central America, that corruption, violence, crime, and even climate, we saw the climate causing the drought, causing the farmers to have no way to farm the land, contributed to some people coming north. So to the extent that we can help solve some of the problems at home and instead of canceling that investment, which the Trump administration canceled the investment, that we had to do just that. I wish you could see the impact of what USAID can do to help children in those countries. So that is to back up again and say that the Biden Administration has this under control. It is change, and it’ll take some time, but it is values-based humanitarian in its aspects, pragmatic in how… With a plan to get things done and not just a diversionary tactic on the part of the Republicans because they are bankrupt of ideas on how to improve the lives of the American people.

Speaker 4: (28:31)
[crosstalk 00:23:21] Can I follow up on that?

They run to the border.

Speaker 4: (28:33)
Can I follow up on that? Do you anticipate in any role for Congress in addressing that situation specifically, whether it be more money for those Northern Triangle countries…

Yes.

Speaker 4: (28:41)
…Or more assistance for HHS? Do you see a specific role for Congress?

We had $250 million for the Northern Triangle. Northern Triangle is El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. And that’s when we went there on a previous CoDel led by the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Elliot Engle. When he was there they canceled that money, but that was problematic. So in order to keep people home, we have to address the root causes of the migration. And that’s not a big price to pay, to have the impact that it will have. And I wish, as I said earlier, you could see the impact of USAID and our organizations. Not that they were fully funding, but they were helping. They gave an imprimatur to attract other support. And other institutions are devoted to justice, the justice system, in those countries. So yes, it will take some resources, a small price to pay for people to stay home. There are cases of well-founded fear of persecution in terms of the personal security of people and this is an issue that I’ve worked on for my whole time in Congress. And that’s hard.

My whole time in Congress, and that’s harder. There have families that… Well, it’s so sad to just describe the situations that families found themselves in. Hence, moms taking their daughters north. How we can deal with that? In some cases, these children were in places that were safe havens for them that we helped fund, not completely funded, but help fund. So, yes, there’s a role for that. And as I said, ORR falls under the jurisdiction of Rosa DeLauro … Madam chair of the Appropriations Committee, but ORR is in labor HHS, and they are paying very [inaudible 00:30:45], and the chair of the Homeland Security subcommittee, Lucille [inaudible 00:30:49], the author of the DREAM act, she has been working on this issue for decades in Congress. And again, shares the values, understands tax … the fiscal soundness that we have to execute, but also strikes a balance in all of it. So I think we’re in … to the extent that Congress will be involved, we have experienced hands added. Yeah. Yes [inaudible 00:31:16].

Speaker 5: (31:18)
About 10 months ago, we started to implement remote voting, proxy voting here at the House because of the pandemic. I know there were concerns about doing that. What do you see going forward about a, when congressional operations start to return to normal, and b, is things like remote voting and hybrid hearings will continue once the pandemics is done.

Well, one of the most substantial steps that can be taken is that everybody should be vaccinated. Right now, according to what I saw the Republican leader say, and was quoted in the press, that 75% of the members are vaccinated. We need 100% of the members vaccinated, because it just takes one to endanger others. Much of what is happening here. Some of it relates to January 6th, that’s for sure in terms of security, but most of the isolation and separation that we have, most of the reason that we cannot have official visits. Most of the reasons why we cannot open up as much as we would like to for visits, for tourism, etc., and we hope that will be soon, is because of COVID, not because of January 6th. I mean, we have our plans. We are preparing our supplemental. The General [Andre 00:32:40] has made suggestions, etc. As you know, today, the outer fence is going to start to come down. So that part of it is being addressed, but COVID is the villain. COVID is a villain into our economy. Unless we crushed the virus, we’re never going to get our economy back. COVID is the villain here, unless everyone is vaccinated, mask wears, honor separation the rest, we’ll still be at the mercy of that.

Speaker 5: (33:12)
[inaudible 00:33:12] hybrid hearings, some of that lasting past…

We do have hybrid hearings. We do.

Speaker 5: (33:18)
But you see that last week after the pandemic ends.

Well it’s not going to end until … take it one step at a time. Now today, maybe it started last night, I don’t know, but by today was hoping that many, many more staff will be vaccinated. It’s still not enough. We still haven’t gotten enough vaccine, but enough for people to choose to come in. If they don’t still… If they can be vaccinated and still want to work from home, we’re not insisting if you’re vaccinated you have to come in, but they don’t want to come in unless they are vaccinated, and unless others are vaccinated. So don’t underestimate the power of that. So it’s no use talking about when, unless people are willing to get vaccinated in my view, the sooner the better. Yes sir?

Speaker 6: (34:07)
Madam speaker … question on the vaccines. Specifically, are you giving your members instructions to get vaccinated? Do you think that McCarthy needs to do the same on the Republican side?

Well you can’t tell anybody to do anything, least of all around here, but the fact is is that there’s no requirement. It is a suggestion by the CDC to get vaccinated, and… So we’re suggesting that if you want shorter time… Some of the Republicans say to me, “Why can’t we have reduced time on the votes?” I said, “We can. The more people who get vaccinated, the shorter … time we have to stay … separated on the floor.” So it’s not something that we can require. It’s something only that we can suggest, and make a readily available, which it is. So thank you for your question.

Speaker 7: (35:03)
[inaudible 00:35:03]. We’ve been following the progress of that, and we’re wondering whether there’s any loss to the States about controlling their own voting regulations that they can tailor if we impose a federal voting system.

In Congress, federal elections … this voting rights act, that’s part of HR1. It’s an offspring of it, but part of that. Yes, requiring commission voting. We’re very proud of HR1. We think it is the constitution of the United States. We think it represents the democracy of our country, by reducing, which is our responsibility, the role of big dark, special interest money in politics, by removing obstacles of participation, to… The first 300 pages of HR1 are written by John Lewis. The first 300 pages, to remove voter suppression. And you see how necessary it is when you see that what over 40 States have over 250 laws now that they’re striving to pass to lower voter participation. I used to be chair of the party, and our … glory of it all was to engage people to vote. Whether they were Democrats, Republicans, independents, we could not… It was not our charge to ask.

It was only our responsibility to register people to vote, and to see the opposite of that where a Republican party, which cannot prevail on the strength of its issues, anti-this, anti-that, anti-that, but only can win by suppressing the vote, and they know that, and that’s why they’re doing it. So, no, I have no concern respectful of where those responsibilities lie. I have great confidence in HR1. I thank John Sarbanes, and the author of it for over a period of time, Zoe Lofgren in the chair of the house administration committee for her leadership. So proud of all of our members. The American people know this is a way restore integrity by reducing the role of big dark money, which suffocates the airways with misinformation, rather than having a respectful execution of our process. Thank you all. Bye-bye.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Weekly Press Conference Transcript March 19

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