WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made the following remarks on the Senate floor Tuesday regarding health care:

“Americans woke up yesterday stunned to read that Democrats had voted to end debate on the latest version of this massive bill while they were sleeping.

“They’ll be stunned again when they learn about this second early-morning vote to advance a bill that most of them oppose.

“Americans are right to be stunned — because this bill is a mess.

“And so was the process that was used to get it over the finish line.

“Americans are outraged by the last minute, closed door, sweetheart deals that were made to gain the slimmest margin for passage of a bill that’s about their health care.

“Once the sun came up, Americans could see all the deals that were tucked inside this grab bag, and they don’t like what they’re finding.

“After all, common sense dictates that anytime Congress rushes, Congress stumbles.

“It’s whether senator so and so got a sweet enough deal to sign off on it.

“Well, Senator so and so might have gotten his deal.

“But the American people haven’t signed off.

“Public opinion is clear.

“What have we become as a body if we’re not even listening to the people we serve?

“What have we become if we’re more concerned about a political victory or some hollow call to history than we are about actually solving the problems the American people sent us here to address?

“This bill was supposed to make health care less expensive. It doesn’t. Incredibly, it makes it more expensive.

“Few people could have imagined that this is how this debate would end — with a couple of cheap deals hidden in the folds of this 2,700 pages bill and some rushed early morning votes.

“But that’s where we are.

“Americans are asking themselves: How did this happen?

“How did a great national debate that was supposed to lead to a major bipartisan reform lead to a bag full of cheap legislative tricks inside a $2.3 trillion dollar, 2,733-page bill that makes health care costs go up?

“This legislation will reshape our nation in ways its supporters will come to regret.

“But they can’t say they weren’t warned.

“The verdict of the American people has been clear for months: they don’t want it.”

 

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