You
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 Cara.
Cara is a mom and a nonprofit child care director in Milwaukee.
Not only does Cara get her health care 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 topic 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. Senator.
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 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 Kara, a mom and a nonprofit childcare 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 received 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 health care 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 health care, they chose tax cuts from massive corporations and billionaires.
Working Americans do not want handouts, they just want a system that isn't rigged for and buy those at the very top.
They want health care, they can afford when they need it.
So that brings us to today.
Day seven of the Republicans federal government shutdown.
And let me be crystal clear, we need to reopen the government and address the health care crises 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, D.C., 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 health care, 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 Cara to share her story.
Thank you, Senator.
Baldwin for that exact 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 we show up every day just at the core foundation.
And right now the rising cost of health care or the potential rising cost of health care.
And I'm going to tell you 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, and I think about the people who can't work from home. And I think about what it would mean if,
if these premiums go up, what, 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 share fair share we're 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 doing the fight with the,
the Democrats who are showing up and I actually hate partisan issues.
It's, it's, 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 chatting the bank accounts of their sponsors.
And I don't even know how, how, 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.
Like this goes up, you know, $300 a month. I can't afford my rent.
I can't afford my, you know, food, food that I, the type of food that they want to eat their children. I can't afford to show up the way that I want to as a parent.
So I may no longer be able to work as an, as an early childhood educator.
And I hear it from the childcare providers across Wisconsin, which I'm sure you do too, Senator, like, you know, we, you cannot have a healthy community without healthy childcare and my goal today is to just promote that access to equitable healthcare.
And also, as a childcare 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 health care. It's the cost of peace of mind.
It's the cost 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, and ostensibly that's what all community members are.
We just want to know that when our children are sick, when we are sick, we won't be abandoned by the Republicans or by by anyone in government and community. So I really appreciate the ability to share my voice.
We're not asking for charity. We're just asking for equity and to label it as that it's about Democrats wanting illegal aliens to have medical insurance. They've never shown one document to me that I can show to anybody to back that.
And I put their money where their mouth is, show us the documentation that that's what any of you are representatives are asking for. It isn't true. It is lies. It's vitriolic. 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. I, you know, my hope is that we can just rely on the already pretty high price that I pay for private healthcare.
But going higher is extremely detrimental to myself, my children and my community.
Thank you. Cara so much for being here and sharing that with us today. Just a reminder to folks on the call that question should be submitted to the chat.
We'll get to as many on topic questions as we can with Senator Baldwin and Cara. If you have any follow up questions, please direct them to our office via email afterwards.
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 5th time to keep our government open and keep healthcare costs down for Wisconsin families.
And my Republican colleagues refuse to do this.
Republicans are on a path to make healthcare insurance premiums for 22 million people skyrocket and force 4 million Americans off their healthcare 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 healthcare 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.
Great question. You know, 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 portrays the initial narrative.
And so across Wisconsin, which look, this state has some deeply concerning Republican representatives. And I did send her a Baldwin and are just on 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. I think that as we look across the state, people here, they're, they're just hard workers and they just want to be protected by the people that they're committed to.
And so as the Republican representatives. And I do. I do just like that it's partisan. You know, I look, I look back at my childhood in the 80s and 90s of when it was Reagan and Bush and, and, and, you know, and, and then, you know, Clinton, and, and it was, it was so, it was the good old days was so much
simple. And it was really about actual change, actual products that help people.
And what's being debated right now, this, like, legal aliens in our rooms, that was Reagan, you know, and, and we look back at that.
And it was just people who wouldn't abandon us. And what I feel across Wisconsin 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.
One of the things I love about this state that we love to work hard.
And we can't do that. If they're, if they're going to let us down.
If they're going to put their interest into money over people, then then they betray us, and we become, 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 this 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, a glimmer.
And we just have to make sure that my Republican colleagues hear from the voters of their states and
that we must address the crisis in health care 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 health care. 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.
Thank you for sending around a recording of this meeting to all participants in the next 30 minutes or so. Please feel to reach out to me with any follow up questions again. Thank you so much everyone.