Source: United States House of Representatives – Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi Representing the 12th District of California
San Francisco – Today, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi and the San Francisco Community Clinic Consortium (SFCCC) hosted a virtual press conference on the devastating impacts of the Republicans’ Big, Ugly Bill on community health centers in San Francisco and the patients they serve.
Pelosi was joined by SFCCC President and CEO Dr. Johanna Liu, SF Community Health Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Dan O’Neill, and Native American Health Center Community Health Care Coordinator Ellen McInnes who outlined how the legislation’s sweeping cuts to Medicaid, Medicare and the Affordable Care Act will jeopardize access to essential care for tens of thousands of San Franciscans—particularly low-income families, seniors and underserved communities.
Pelosi underscored that Democrats will keep fighting to reverse the bill’s damage in the Congress, in the courts and in the community with legislation, litigation and mobilization.
Watch the Speaker Emerita’s full remarks here.
Read the transcript of Speaker Emerita Pelosi’s remarks below:
Speaker Emerita Pelosi. Thank you very much, Johanna, for your leadership, for your kind words, for your understanding of what is at stake and what has happened here. I’m honored to join you and Dan O’Neill and Ellen McInnes—so proud of our Native American population in San Francisco.
Now, here’s the thing. I appreciate what you said about the Affordable Care Act.
I want to thank the San Francisco Clinic Consortium, because over the years, I’ve learned so much from you, and the legislation that is reflected in the Affordable Care Act is a reflection of what you have been doing over the years. I’ve worked with so many of your predecessors in this regard.
People say to me: ‘If you had a new country and you had no health care at all, what would you have?’
I said, ‘I would blanket the country with community health centers. I would do that and have a few hospitals as necessary.’
But by and large, just blanket the country with the community health centers, because you are close to people—culturally, linguistically, in every way—it’s the best draw for them to even come in for care because they know they will be understood. So I thank you for that, and we want it to reflect that in the Affordable Care Act.
Now, this monstrosity of a bill—how dare they call it beautiful. They’re always projecting. They know it’s not beautiful.
So it’s not only ugly, it’s grotesque. But let’s just say for a moment, because I know we’re going to hear more, as you have, and from our guests on the panel. I’ll just say what we’re trying to do about it.
It’s not only wrong, it is stupid—and whatever is worse than that. It’s not only not compassionate, it is sinful. It is sinful for what they are doing. And they’ve all just bought into it like, you know, some Kool Aid thing. Now, here’s the thing.
I listened this morning to the policy briefing from the San Francisco Community Clinic Consortium that was presented, and I took very extensive notes, which I can show you there, but all confirmed what we knew we were fighting against.
But I’m not even sure the Republicans understood what they were voting for. But consistent with what I heard there, what we are doing is in three channels.
One is litigation, and we’re winning many of those cases—litigation for a lot of things that what’s-his-name is doing. But in this case, to continue, intensify the litigation on this, A.
B: Legislation. To keep putting up legislation that corrects all of this, to just push these people into a corner, to say you’re either for this or not. Don’t say you don’t know what was in the bill. This is an attempt to correct it. So you can’t get away with saying that anymore.
The third is mobilization, which is part of communication. People say, ‘Oh, I didn’t realize.’
Well, we want to make sure you know. President Lincoln said, ‘Public sentiment is everything.’
Johanna, have you heard me say this a million times? ‘Public sentiment is everything. With it, you can accomplish almost anything. Without it, practically nothing.’
But for public sentiment to prevail, people have to know. So we want to remove all doubt in anybody’s mind about how affected they are by all of this.
This is a horrible thing that they’ve done to our country. And in your fight against it, thank you for that—for every individual person who would benefit, but also the fight for the culture and the character of what America is. This isn’t who we are.
America is great because America is good, they say. Not with this bill. Stupid, mean-spirited, sinful. They go to church on Sunday and pray and then they prey on people the rest of the week by taking away their food, by taking away their health care. It’s awful.
And just back to your point, the money standpoint, as you said so eloquently, Johanna.
It costs a lot of money and opportunity cost to prove that eight percent or ten percent perhaps of the people who are receiving this benefit should be working harder or more, whatever it is.
So one hundred percent of the people have to comply with whatever that is. And that applies to everything. I mean, I say that about free lunch for children in school. Any subject you can name, they increase the administrative cost at the expense of doing the right thing for people and not stigmatizing whatever their status might be.
So I thank you for that. But litigation—and I know you’re all engaged in litigation—legislation, mobilization/communication to make sure.
Now, I don’t want to talk politics, but in the next three months, we have to own August to make sure the public knows how they are affected because this is a brutal thing.
While some of his supporters may think this is okay, they don’t believe in government. Our people are paying the price for their stupidity—stupidity and unkindness.
I’ll just close by saying how we all started this. When we started the Affordable Care Act, it all began with Dr. King.
Dr. King said, ‘Of all forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhuman,’ he said. ‘Because it often results in physical death.’
So every initiative, whatever we initiate, we begin after the election and ready and prepared for his birthday to go forward. John Lewis—his birthday is coming up in July, another week or so. And we carry forth that initiative with John to make sure that we make some good trouble just turning this thing around.
Some of it doesn’t go into effect, as you know, until January 2027. But we want to make sure that when we win this next election—I’m talking civics here, not politics—when we win this next election, that they know that we’re ready to purge ourselves of this sinful, filthy, dirty, rotten, hateful, lousy, ugly legislation.
In that spirit, I yield back my time.Read the transcript of Speaker Emerita Pelosi’s remarks below:
Speaker Emerita Pelosi. Thank you very much, Johanna, for your leadership, for your kind words, for your understanding of what is at stake and what has happened here. I’m honored to join you and Dan O’Neill and Ellen McInnes—so proud of our Native American population in San Francisco.
Now, here’s the thing. I appreciate what you said about the Affordable Care Act.
I want to thank the San Francisco Clinic Consortium, because over the years, I’ve learned so much from you, and the legislation that is reflected in the Affordable Care Act is a reflection of what you have been doing over the years. I’ve worked with so many of your predecessors in this regard.
People say to me: ‘If you had a new country and you had no health care at all, what would you have?’
I said, ‘I would blanket the country with community health centers. I would do that and have a few hospitals as necessary.’
But by and large, just blanket the country with the community health centers, because you are close to people—culturally, linguistically, in every way—it’s the best draw for them to even come in for care because they know they will be understood. So I thank you for that, and we want it to reflect that in the Affordable Care Act.
Now, this monstrosity of a bill—how dare they call it beautiful. They’re always projecting. They know it’s not beautiful.
So it’s not only ugly, it’s grotesque. But let’s just say for a moment, because I know we’re going to hear more, as you have, and from our guests on the panel. I’ll just say what we’re trying to do about it.
It’s not only wrong, it is stupid—and whatever is worse than that. It’s not only not compassionate, it is sinful. It is sinful for what they are doing. And they’ve all just bought into it like, you know, some Kool Aid thing. Now, here’s the thing.
I listened this morning to the policy briefing from the San Francisco Community Clinic Consortium that was presented, and I took very extensive notes, which I can show you there, but all confirmed what we knew we were fighting against.
But I’m not even sure the Republicans understood what they were voting for. But consistent with what I heard there, what we are doing is in three channels.
One is litigation, and we’re winning many of those cases—litigation for a lot of things that what’s-his-name is doing. But in this case, to continue, intensify the litigation on this, A.
B: Legislation. To keep putting up legislation that corrects all of this, to just push these people into a corner, to say you’re either for this or not. Don’t say you don’t know what was in the bill. This is an attempt to correct it. So you can’t get away with saying that anymore.
The third is mobilization, which is part of communication. People say, ‘Oh, I didn’t realize.’
Well, we want to make sure you know. President Lincoln said, ‘Public sentiment is everything.’
Johanna, have you heard me say this a million times? ‘Public sentiment is everything. With it, you can accomplish almost anything. Without it, practically nothing.’
But for public sentiment to prevail, people have to know. So we want to remove all doubt in anybody’s mind about how affected they are by all of this.
This is a horrible thing that they’ve done to our country. And in your fight against it, thank you for that—for every individual person who would benefit, but also the fight for the culture and the character of what America is. This isn’t who we are.
America is great because America is good, they say. Not with this bill. Stupid, mean-spirited, sinful. They go to church on Sunday and pray and then they prey on people the rest of the week by taking away their food, by taking away their health care. It’s awful.
And just back to your point, the money standpoint, as you said so eloquently, Johanna.
It costs a lot of money and opportunity cost to prove that eight percent or ten percent perhaps of the people who are receiving this benefit should be working harder or more, whatever it is.
So one hundred percent of the people have to comply with whatever that is. And that applies to everything. I mean, I say that about free lunch for children in school. Any subject you can name, they increase the administrative cost at the expense of doing the right thing for people and not stigmatizing whatever their status might be.
So I thank you for that. But litigation—and I know you’re all engaged in litigation—legislation, mobilization/communication to make sure.
Now, I don’t want to talk politics, but in the next three months, we have to own August to make sure the public knows how they are affected because this is a brutal thing.
While some of his supporters may think this is okay, they don’t believe in government. Our people are paying the price for their stupidity—stupidity and unkindness.
I’ll just close by saying how we all started this. When we started the Affordable Care Act, it all began with Dr. King.
Dr. King said, ‘Of all forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhuman,’ he said. ‘Because it often results in physical death.’
So every initiative, whatever we initiate, we begin after the election and ready and prepared for his birthday to go forward. John Lewis—his birthday is coming up in July, another week or so. And we carry forth that initiative with John to make sure that we make some good trouble just turning this thing around.
Some of it doesn’t go into effect, as you know, until January 2027. But we want to make sure that when we win this next election—I’m talking civics here, not politics—when we win this next election, that they know that we’re ready to purge ourselves of this sinful, filthy, dirty, rotten, hateful, lousy, ugly legislation.
In that spirit, I yield back my time.
MIL OSI USA News –