{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.gallego.senate.gov/news/press-releases/gallego-hosts-town-hall-in-in-tucson-calls-on-congressional-republicans-to-show-courage/", "Gallego Hosts Town Hall in in Tucson, Calls on Congressional Republicans to Show Courage", "2025-11-15", "2025", "2025-11", "Democrat", "Senate", "AZ", "Ruben Gallego", "G000574", "www.gallego.senate.gov", "gallego", "https://www.gallego.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/", "scraper", "WASHINGTON \u2013 Yesterday, Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) hosted a health care town hall in Congressional District 6 to hear directly from Arizonans struggling with skyrocketing health care premiums following Republicans\u2019 failure to extend Affordable Care Act tax credits. Senator Gallego challenged Representative Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ-06) to come to the town hall and explain these skyrocketing costs to his constituents. Ciscomani did not show.\n\nSenator Gallego has made protecting affordable health care a top priority, voting noon the Republicans continuing resolution, calling on Arizona insurers to be transparent about premium hikes, urging House Republicans to return to Washington to prevent health care spikes and demanding the Trump administration stop hiding premium hikes.\n\nSenator Gallego was joined at the town hall by Tucson Mayor Regina Romero.\n\nWatch the town hall HERE and read excerpts from his opening remarks below:\n\nSenator Gallego opened the town hall by remembering the late Senator John McCain\u2019s decisive vote to protect the ACA in 2017. He urged Republicans in Congress to show that same courage as 24 million Americans face the possibility of their premiums doubling:\n\n\u201cOne of the greatest things I saw [\u2026] was another senator from Arizona that really did save the ACA, and more importantly, hundreds of thousands of lives of Americans across the country. It was John McCain. [\u2026] At that point I was in the House, in my House office, and I turned on the TV and I saw it was the last vote for the ACA on the Senate floor. And I thought, I need to go see this, and I want to go see this in person. [\u2026] I was there when I saw this courageous act of Senator McCain, when he realized that there was no solution that was going to end up making this country healthier, safer, and that the hundreds of millions of Americans weren\u2019t going to be affected in a negative way. That\u2019s when we saw his thumb down. Right now, what we\u2019re asking for is, again, political courage. And actually, I don\u2019t even think it takes that much courage to say \u2018I want to protect 24 million Americans from having their insurance premiums doubled.\u2019 I think that actually is probably a pretty easy home run no matter if you\u2019re a Democrat or Republican. Now, you\u2019d argue that maybe we could do some fixes here and there, maybe we do it for a year or two. But it doesn\u2019t require that much courage for Juan Ciscomani or other Republicans to say, I don\u2019t want this band-aid to get ripped off. I don\u2019t want hundreds of thousands of Arizonans overnight seeing insurance premiums doubled.\u201d\n\nSenator Gallego also highlighted the stories he\u2019s heard from families across Arizona who are already being hit with skyrocketing insurance costs and the real-world sacrifices these families will have to make as a result:\n\n\u201cThere\u2019s one family up in Gilbert, Arizona that I met, Mr. Gomez, and a family of four. He has his own contracting job, he is paying his taxes, he\u2019s buying the ACA. He just got his estimate back, and his increase is gonna be more than $3,000 a month. No one can withstand that. No one can withstand that. And why is this happening? This is an option. This is an option that my colleagues on the right are taking because they dislike the ACA. They hate the Affordable Care Act, and this is step one to start destroying that. But the problem with that is this isn\u2019t a policy thing. This isn\u2019t something you just get to talk to in a theoretical world. You are affecting people\u2019s lives.\u201d\n\n\u201cFor many of us that grew up working class and poor, we know the budget. [\u2026] What happens when they just added an extra $500 a month your insurance? Something has to give. And something\u2019s gonna have to give. You\u2019re going to miss a utility payment, you\u2019re going to miss paying for something, or you\u2019re not going to have health insurance. That\u2019s the problem that we\u2019re putting Americans in right now.\u201d\n\nBefore opening the room to questions, Senator Gallego called on Republicans like Ciscomani to act to save the ACA tax credits and Arizonans\u2019 lives:\n\n\u201c[Congressional Republicans] need to understand this isn\u2019t about partnership. This is about health care. This is my family\u2019s health care. Is my neighbor\u2019s health care. What you\u2019re going to do is put them in danger. You\u2019re gonna put their health in danger just to save money for the very rich who do not need extra tax cuts.\u201d\n\n11/15/25", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:52:45Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.gallego.senate.gov/news/press-releases/gallego-hosts-town-hall-in-in-tucson-calls-on-congressional-republicans-to-show-courage/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.813740935176611, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}