Congressman Castro Slams Republicans on House Floor: “This Is a Choice Between Your Career and Saving People’s Lives”
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Yesterday, ahead of the final vote on Trump’s Big Ugly Bill, Congressman Joaquin Castro (TX-20) delivered a speech on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives to stand up for the dignity of the American people and call on House Republicans to vote against the bill.
Congressman Castro speaks on the House floor.
Congressman Castro’s remarks, as delivered, are below:
Three years ago today, I was diagnosed with neuroendocrine cancer. That day, my youngest child, my daughter, turned 2 months old. There's a drug I have to take every month, every 28 days. The first time I saw the bill for that, the list price on that drug was $24,000 per injection. For people that don't have insurance or Medicaid or aren't covered, they're not getting that shot. They're not going to survive, some of them.
This is a choice, for some of you, between your career and saving people's lives. There are so many folks who have reached out over the last several months panicking about their disabled children, about their senior citizen parents who are in nursing homes, people struggling with cancer or Alzheimer's, dementia, sickle cell, diabetes, all these illnesses.
You have the power today to make sure that they can live with dignity and stay alive or you can choose your career. That is your choice. We choose to keep people alive. We choose to have healthcare in this country. We refuse to cut healthcare for 17 million people and 1.6 million people in Texas because it's wrong and it's immoral and we can take a different course.