Recording in progress office a
few notes of housekeeping before we
get started the senator will
kick us off with some brief remarks
in a moment and then we'll hear from
Kara. Kara is a mom and
a non-profit child care director in
Milwaukee.
Not only does Kara get her health
through the Affordable Care Act's
open marketplace, but so do many
of her employees.
After they speak, we'll have time
for a few on-topic questions.
Please submit any questions you have
to the Zoom chat Q&A function, and
I will relay them to the Senator.
For any questions we do not get to
or off-topics questions, please
follow up with me or our press team
and we will work to get you
responses.
Please note that because we are
doing this webinar style, you will
not be able to record the meeting
within the Zoom app.
However, you are welcome to use a
third-party platform to record.
Otherwise, our office will send a
recording via email afterwards to
all participants.
Now, I'll hand it over to Senator
Baldwin to make some remarks.
Thank you so much.
Good morning, everybody.
Thank you for joining us
today.
Last week, around the same time,
I hosted a different virtual
press conference with two
Wisconsinites, Gigi,
a small business owner in Stoughton,
and Kate, a local artist in
La Crosse.
Both Gigi and Kate
get their health insurance through
the Affordable Care Act Marketplace.
And right now they can do that
because it is affordable to
them.
While they may live in different
parts of the state and have
different health needs uh
and different daily lives, they both
face the same reality and that
is that their health care premiums
are set to quadruple
next year.
And today I'm here alongside
Cara, a mom and
a non-profit child care director in
Milwaukee.
Not only is Kara grappling with
the fact that her own health care
costs will skyrocket if
Republicans refuse to act,
but the fear of what it might mean
for her employees keeps
her up at night.
Unfortunately, Kara, Gigi,
and Kate are certainly not alone
in their fears.
24 million Americans
who get their health care through
the Affordable Care Act are waiting
for that dreaded letter, letting
them know that their premium costs
will skyrocket.
For 22 million who
receive the enhanced
premium tax credits,
their premiums will likely double.
An estimated 4 million Americans
are going to get that letter and
realize that they simply cannot
afford healthcare at
all anymore.
Small business owners might see
staff flee for big corporations
that can afford a big
group insurance policy.
Farmers who are already facing
incredible headwinds will be
dealt another blow.
The pain that not extending these
tax credits will cause
is very clear.
And that's why nearly 80%
of Americans, and I'm talking
majorities of Republicans, Democrats
and independents.
Support extending these tax
breaks.
However, Republicans refuse
to see what is right in front
of them, which leads us to
today, the seventh day
of a government shutdown.
My Republican colleagues have
had the chance, they've
had chance after chance to
lower costs for families and join
Democrats in voting to stop
these premium tax breaks
from being stripped away.
And they have shot it down every
time.
Earlier this year, they drafted a
massive tax bill.
And instead of including a
tax break for hardworking Americans
to be able to afford their
healthcare, they chose tax
cuts for massive corporations
and billionaires.
Working Americans do not want
handouts. They just want a system
that isn't rigged for
and by those at the
very top.
They want healthcare they can afford
when they need it.
So that brings us to today,
day seven of the Republican's
federal government shutdown.
And let me be crystal clear,
we need to reopen the government
and address the healthcare
crisis that families are
staring down.
This shutdown is about one thing
and one thing only, the cost of
health care.
So I'm here in Washington DC
working hard to
end this chaos.
I've been here for the past week
working to reopen the government and
lower costs for families,
including voting five times
for a bill that would reopen the
Government and reverse the
Republicans' harmful cuts to
health care The
House Republicans have been
basically on vacation for
the last 19 days.
And they have no plan to
come back to Washington
until potentially next
week.
They've just abandoned
their responsibilities.
The people I work for.
Have been crystal clear about what
they expect of Congress.
Work to lower costs and
give them the opportunity for
their hard work to let them
save and get ahead.
We need to lower the cost of
healthcare, not take it away
from millions of families.
I've always said I'll work with
anyone to do what's right for
Wisconsinites.
And that remains true today.
I'm here.
I'm calling on my Republican
colleagues to work with me.
So we reopen the government and
deliver for families across this
country.
And now I will hand it over to Kara
to share her story.
Thank you, Senator.
And for that exactly
on target introduction of what's
happening.
My story is very common to
so many people who
are living in America right now.
I am a single mom,
I do run a small business
and the business that I happen to
run is childcare.
Which means that we support
each and every single one of you,
at your staffers, we
show up every day just
as the core foundation.
And right now,
the rising cost of health care or
the potential rising cost health
care puts us in a position
that is almost
unthinkable.
And I'm home today with my 17
year old daughter, who is struggling
with some, she's having some
health issues.
And I think about the people who
can't work from home.
And I about what
it would mean if these
premiums go up,
what we can't provide for her and
the continued suffering.
Of her and of
my productivity and of our ability
to serve the
community every day.
And just last week,
Main Street Alliance and Fair
Share were kind enough to invite me
to DC and it was great to
get out where you are and
to be a part of the community that
is the fight with the
with the Democrats who are showing
up and I actually hate
partisan issues.
It's not my preferred
method of communication.
But the reality is,
we're being lied to every day by the
Republicans.
And Mike Johnson and
who he hands off his gavel to
are failing us every
day with this narrative that is
about anything other than
padding the bank accounts of
their sponsors.
And I don't even know how deep
it goes, but I do know that
when I go to work and
I hear people say to me,
you know, I don t know how much
longer I can hang in there, If this
goes up, you know, $300
a month, I can't afford my
rent.
I can't afford my
food,
the type of food that they want
to feed their children.
I can afford to show up
the way that I want to as a parent.
So I may no longer be able to work
as an early childhood educator.
And I hear it from the child
care providers across Wisconsin,
which I'm sure you do, too, Senator,
like, you know, we you cannot
have a healthy community without
healthy child care.
And...
My goal today is to just promote
that access to equitable
health care.
And also, to add that
as a child care provider, I can't
divorce myself from the fact that
we are being left behind.
And Johnson, Representative Johnson,
is not showing up with
integrity. And it's
exhausting.
It's very concerning.
And It's not just the
cost of.
Healthcare, it's the cost of peace
of mind.
It's the costs of
our ability.
All we do is make more money for
America. That's what we do in
our industries.
And good business invest
in their employees.
And essentially that's what all
community members are.
And we just wanna know
that when our children are sick,
when we are sick we won't
be abandoned.
By the Republicans or
by anyone
in government and communities.
So, I really
appreciate the ability to
share my voice.
We're not asking for charity.
We are just asking for equity.
And to label it as that it's about
Democrats wanting illegal aliens to
have medical insurance, they have
never shown one document to me that
I can show to anybody to
back that. End.
I put their money where their mouth
is, show us the
documentation, that that's what any
of you, our representatives,
are asking for.
It isn't true.
It is lies.
It's detrimental.
It's abusive.
It's manipulative.
And it's extremely
concerning to the fabric
of the community that we've built.
So thank you for having me.
My hope is that we can
just rely on
the already pretty high
price that I pay for private health
care.
But going higher is
extremely detrimental to
myself, my children and my
community.
Thank you, Kara, so much for
being here and sharing that with us
today.
Just a reminder to folks on the call
that questions should be submitted
to the chat Q&A function.
We'll get to as many on topic
questions as we can with Senator
Baldwin and Kara.
If you have any follow up questions,
please direct them to our office via
email afterwards.
We'll take a brief pause here
for a moment.
Great, and we'll start with this
one.
Senator, the shutdown is about to
enter its second week.
Is Congress any closer to a deal?
What's the latest that you're
hearing?
Well, first, let me be very clear.
I do not want our government
to be shut down.
And I voted again last night
for the fifth time
to keep our government open
and keep health
care costs down for
Wisconsin families.
And my Republican colleagues
refused to do this.
Republicans are on a path
to make health care insurance
premiums for 22 million
people skyrocket.
And force four million
Americans off their health care
insurance entirely because they
simply won't be able
to pay the
premiums.
And in some
states we are seeing monthly
premium payments for families
quadruple.
Can you imagine?
And I'm hearing Wisconsinites are
preparing for exactly the same
thing.
If that's not a crisis, I
don't know what is.
So for me
and the people I work for,
I can't just let this happen and go
along to get along.
We have got to
get a
bipartisan agreement.
The only way out of this
mess is when Democrats and
Republicans start working together.
And I've been at the table.
And I will stay right here until
we reopen the government and stop
health care costs from going
through the roof.
But my Republican colleagues are
really nowhere to be found right
now. And that's extremely
frustrating.
Thanks, Senator.
The next question we have is for
Kara. You said you hate partisan
issues, but what would your message
to Republicans in Wisconsin be?
And I think I just need you to
unmute.
That's a great question.
I think that when we
say that we're for the people of
the people and by the people, and
then we show up with policies that
actively hurt us, it betrays
the initial
narrative.
And so across Wisconsin,
which, look, the state has some
deeply concerning
Republican representatives.
And I give Senator Baldwin
and a
nonpartisan issue, anyone who's
willing to stand up and say,
we support Wisconsin.
I am not from here.
This is my chosen adopted state.
I think this is an amazing state.
As we look
across the state, people here,
they're just hard workers and they
just want to be protected
by the people that they're committed
to. So, as the
Republican representatives,
and I do, I do dislike that
it's partisan.
I look back at my childhood
in the 80s and 90s of when
it was Reagan and Bush
and
then Clinton,
and it was so, it was
the good old days. It was so much
more civil. And it was really about
actual products
that helped people.
What's being debated right now,
this like illegal aliens
in ER rooms, that was
Reagan, you know?
And we look back at that,
and it was just people
who wouldn't abandon us.
And what I feel across this
continent is that the Republicans
just are in it for business,
and they have abandoned us.
And Wisconsin is a gorgeous state
with lots of farmers,
lots of...
Hard, hard-working people who
love to work hard.
I mean, that's one of the things I
love about this state, that we love
to do work hard, and
we can't do that.
If they're going to
let us down, if they're
gonna put their interest
into money over people,
then they betray us and we
become less good.
Thank you, Kara.
And we'll have time for one more
question, so we'll end on this one.
Senator Baldwin, do the Democrats
have any plans if the shutdown does
not force the hand of Republicans?
Look, it's such a
clear path.
We need to negotiate the
only path forward
in the Senate is
a bipartisan solution.
And we're beginning to
see, let's
say, cracks in the dam right now.
Yesterday,
the president said he
was
willing to negotiate.
Now, they walked that back,
but that was a
glimmer.
And we just have
to make sure that my Republican
colleagues hear
from
the voters of
their states and...
We must address the
crisis in healthcare
that Trump has created with
the Republicans' help
earlier this year with that big ugly
bill.
Which by the way, I just want to
reiterate this, that was a tax
measure, predominantly.
And while they were handing out
big tax benefits to big corporations
and billionaires, The very
least they could have done is extend
this tax break for working families
that helps them afford their
healthcare.
We're demanding they do that now.
Great. Thank you, Senator.
And that's all we'll have time for
today. Thank you again to Kara
for taking the time to join us.
I'll be sending around a recording
of this meeting to all participants
in the next 30 minutes or so.
Please feel free to reach out to me
with any follow-up questions.
Again, thank you so much, everyone.