Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/AP
After Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) unveiled his eight-page “skinny repeal” health care bill late Thursday night —a last-ditch effort to gut parts of the Affordable Care Act—Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) took to the Senate floor to lambast the effort as “arson.”
“This bill is lighting the American healthcare system on fire with intentionality,” Murphy said of the legislation, now known as the “Health Care Freedom Act.” It would eliminate Obamacare’s individual mandate and employer requirements to offer workers health insurance, and block funding for abortion providers like Planned Parenthood for one year.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated on Thursday night that 15 million more people would lose health insurance under the law next year, compared to the current law, and premiums would spike 20 percent.
“To use freedom at its center—there’s freedom in this bill. There’s the freedom to go bankrupt,” Murphy added. “There’s the freedom to get sick and not be able to find a doctor. There’s freedom in this bill to die early. That’s not hyperbole, guys. That’s what happens when over night 16 million people lose insurance.”
Watch the rest of Murphy’s speech on the Senate floor below:
