EPISODE 312

11-term congresswoman and member of House Democratic leadership Debbie Wasserman Schultz takes Trump and the GOP to task for making health coverage unaffordable. “Not having health insurance… kills people,” she says. Wasserman Schultz rails against the Big Ugly Bill’s massive cuts to Medicaid and the Republicans’ refusal to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies.  She was among the lawmakers who pushed back on the administration for trying to make it harder for workers to qualify for Social Security Disability Insurance – leading Trump to reverse course.

TRANSCRIPT:

ANNOUNCER: It’s You Earned This, the Social Security and Medicare podcast, brought to you by the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. And now, your host, Walter Gottlieb. 

WALTER: Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz represents Florida’s 25th congressional district. She has held that office for 11 terms. She’s a member of House leadership, as Co-Chair of the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee. The congresswoman is an undisputed champion… undisputed, for Florida seniors and older people all over the USA. 

And she joins us today from Capitol Hill to talk about the impact of Trump’s Big Ugly Bill, the ongoing fight over Obamacare subsidies, and the administration’s interference in Social Security. 

Good afternoon, Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz. 

REP. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Hi, thank you. Appreciate you for having me here. 

WALTER: And we appreciate your being here. Let’s jump right into it. You voted “No” on the bill to reopen the government. And Florida, as much as any other state in the nation, faces one of the worst impacts if these ACA tax credits at the heart of the shutdown dispute are allowed to expire. And I know you held a town hall this week about that. What did you hear from your constituents? 

REP. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: I have been hearing from my constituents for months because they—through our efforts as Democrats—have become increasingly aware of the looming expiration of the enhanced premium tax credits that Democrats passed during COVID to make sure that people were able to have their health care premiums remain affordable. There is a normal tax credit that is part of Affordable Care Act (ACA). But obviously, costs have gone up. 

The Republican assault on the Affordable Care Act, attempting to kill it through death by the thousand cuts because they’ve been unsuccessful in outright killing it, has resulted in premium increases that for some people are unsustainable. I mean, I have the sixth most signups of any district in the country. So, the Affordable Care Act is a very high and very important priority for Floridians. And it is the way that 4 million people get their access to quality affordable health care and can go to the doctor. 

 And when we have constituents, like so many of mine, who have called and said, especially since November 1st, and they got their premium notices, they are seeing doubling, tripling, and quadrupling of their premium increases. 

I just had a roundtable discussion the other day. Several people who are really looking at whether or not they are going to go bare, and just not carry health insurance coverage anymore because it is just absolutely unaffordable if we don’t make sure we extend those tax credits. 

WALTER: You said this week: “People will end up sicker than they ever should be. And tragically, some people will needlessly die.” 

REP. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Yeah, not having affordable health insurance kills people. There are so many things that unexpectedly happen are treatable if they’re caught early. What happens when someone doesn’t have the ability to afford health care coverage? They go without it. And if they get sick, they wait till they’re so sick that they have to use the emergency room as their primary access point for health care. 

People should keep in mind that you are not immune from the increased cost of health care and the impact of not extending the tax credits, because we all pay. I mean, when someone can’t pay their bill, that cost gets shifted to everyone. 

WALTER: Well, it’s terrible because the whole purpose of Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act, was to solve the uninsured problem in this country, and it was working. And now they’re trying to undo it. 

REP. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: It’s working so well that we have more than 20 million people who have affordable health care now that didn’t before. And the Republicans are continuing to refuse to bring up legislation, negotiate legislation with Democrats, particularly on the House side. On the Senate, you know, Democrats are going to keep pushing. We have a bill that we have put in the hopper as a discharge petition. What that process does is it forces a bill to the floor if we can get 218 signatures. And there are Republicans to support sitting down and addressing this. 

And we have a bill that would extend the enhanced tax credits for the Affordable Care Act for three years. And that way, we can work on that over the next couple of years to try to find the solution. 

WALTER: Let’s pivot to Medicaid for a minute, which I know affects Floridians. The Big, ugly bill cuts nearly a trillion dollars from Medicaid. It doesn’t take effect till 2027, but we’re already seeing hospital and clinic closures around the country. Has Florida also been especially hard hit by this already? 

REP. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Yes. I mean, in Florida, we already are in a situation where we’re one of the handful of states that never expanded Medicaid. On top of that, this was the largest cut to Medicaid in American history, all in the name of a lie that the Republicans said all they were doing was “preventing undocumented immigrants from getting Medicaid.” Undocumented immigrants are not lawfully able to get Medicaid anyway. That’s against federal law. We haven’t changed that. We’re not proposing to change it. 

They (the GOP) targeted people with that trillion-dollar cut that will devastate millions of families and leave them unable to pay for health care, not just for adults, but for children as well. The impact on our economies, particularly in rural communities, where you have hospitals and community health centers that are going to be forced to close ; because the percentage of their patient base that have Medicaid as their health care coverage is very high. According to my CEOs in the hospitals in my very suburban district, 20% of their patient base is on Medicaid or have enhanced premium tax credits. 

If they lose that patient base, they are going to be hanging by a thread, particularly with some of these programs. We had a hospital in southwest Miami-Dade County, Jackson South, that just recently closed their labor and delivery department, meaning women who are pregnant, when they give birth, are going to have to travel much further. Imagine you’re water breaking, and you are going into labor, and you have to drive over an hour to be able to deliver your baby in a hospital. 

WALTER: That’s crazy. 

REP. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: That’s the types of decisions that they’re forcing people into with this Big, Ugly, law. 

WALTER: Let’s talk about Social Security for a minute. You were instrumental in pushing back on Trump’s proposed new rules regarding Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI). The Trump administration just reversed itself, and won’t pursue them anymore. Can you tell us about what they tried to do and the impact it would have had on older workers with disabilities? 

REP. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Thankfully, there was a ton of pushback all over the country, and Trump reversed course on that proposal. 

It would have been one of the largest cuts to Social Security benefits in American history. After promising—but you can’t believe Trump’s promises—after promising over and over that he was never going to touch Social Security benefits,… any Social Security benefits. He would have removed age as a factor in disability determinations. 

Now, I think it is the most basic of pieces of logic that as you get older, you are both physically, and sometimes mentally less capable of doing the same kind of work that you’ve always done. Now, everybody who gets older doesn’t go on Social Security Disability, but when you’re talking about what they proposed, which would have resulted in 100% benefit cut for 400,000 low-income Americans with disabilities, that is a betrayal of the most vulnerable among us in service to a billionaire agenda. 

And ultimately, it’s a betrayal of the very voters who put President Trump back in the White House. 

WALTER: Sure. 

REP. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: These are benefits that help people who face circumstances outside of their control, debilitating injuries, chronic illnesses, cancer. 

WALTER: If folks are concerned about what the Trump administration is doing with the ACA, with SNAP, with Social Security, what can and should everyday folks do? 

REP. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Well, yes. I mean, SNAP is another issue. We have never been through a shutdown where SNAP benefits were turned off. That is one of those things, like military benefits, that Congress always makes sure we use the contingency fund, that’s available for that purpose, and Trump refused. And he refused to do that, because he wanted to increase the pressure, political pressure, and used hunger as a weapon. We cannot allow that to happen again, and we have to make sure that SNAP benefits continue. This is nutrition assistance. The Big, Ugly, Law made the largest cut to nutrition assistance in history. Add to that what happened just after we had this shutdown begin, and we can never allow that to happen again. 

We have to make sure that we not only have to rely on the courts, but we have to tighten the law to ensure that a contingency fund must be used and that nutrition assistance benefits will continue, even if the government is shut down. 

WALTER: And what can everyday folks do who may not be in Congress, but they’re out here, and they’re ticked off with what the Trump administration is doing, and they’re worried… what can they do to make a difference? 

REP. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Well, they can certainly reach out to their own member of Congress, particularly if they’re represented by a Republican, because it’s Republican members of Congress that were standing in the way of all of this… and they still are. 

They should reach out to their own member of Congress to make sure they communicate with them that they want them to sit down with Democrats and negotiate an extension of the enhanced tax credits. They want them to keep their hands off of Social Security. They want them to fund Social Security in terms of the ability for our personnel there to provide services. 

It’s over a three-hour wait for a call to the call center at Social Security, because Trump fired, furloughed, or allowed the early retirement of so many Social Security employees, and shuttered offices that make people drive further away. We’re talking about seniors… you know, if you’re eligible for Social Security, you are starting to get up there in years, and making people drive further away and making the life of a Social Security employee much more stressful. This impacts their ability to provide those benefits in an efficient and timely manner. So, cancel the cuts… make sure that we extend the enhanced premium tax credits to keep health care costs low. Make sure that we can restore the cuts to nutrition assistance and prevent those from being cut off in the future, and fight to make sure that people’s kitchen table costs, like groceries, energy, rent, are less expensive. 

WALTER: All of which are going up anyway, despite Trump saying he would quote-unquote “fix it.”

Congresswoman, we’re out of time, and we want to let you go. But we thank you, because we do really consider you to be one of the premier seniors’ champions in Congress, and a great ally of ours. 

REP. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Thank you so much. I really appreciate the incredible work that you do. It is always an honor to fight by your side. 

WALTER: Thank you so much. To contact your member of Congress, visit their official website or call the U.S. Capitol main number at 202-224-3121 and make your voice heard. 

You can also visit us here at the National Committee at ncpssm.org. That’s ncpssm.org. Follow and review our podcast on your favorite platform, and until next time, I’m Walter Gottlieb reminding you: “You Earned This!”