Chairman Aguilar: Donald Trump and House Republicans have created a full-blown health care crisis in this country

Chairman Aguilar: Donald Trump and House Republicans have created a full-blown health care crisis in this country

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar and Vice Chair Ted Lieu were joined by Representatives Ami Bera, M.D. and Maxine Dexter, M.D. for a press conference about the health care crisis Donald Trump and Republicans have created in this country. You can watch the full press conference here and read the transcript below.

CHAIRMAN AGUILAR: Good morning. Grateful to be joined by Congressman Ami Bera and Congresswoman Maxine Dexter, both distinguished doctors joining me and Vice Chair Lieu up here today.

We're here today because Donald Trump and House Republicans have created a full-blown health care crisis in this country. Since Republicans passed their Big, Ugly Law, we've been hearing from our constituents nonstop. They are scared that they'll lose their health care and that their local hospitals will close, and that they'll see their insurance premiums continue to rise. All of this comes at a time when Americans are already struggling to afford the basic needs-gas, groceries, health care, housing.

On Friday, we saw just how harmful Donald Trump and his policies are for the American people. The latest jobs report showed a significant slowdown, with just 22,000 jobs added, and unemployment reaching 4.3 percent-the highest rate since the pandemic in 2021. The amount of damage that this Administration has done to our nation in nine months is staggering. There is no doubt that because of his cruel and chaotic Administration, the costs of the American people are rising and American families are worse off.

Meanwhile, House Democrats are doing everything we can to protect Americans' access to affordable, quality health care. We implore Republicans to abandon their partisan go it alone approach and work with us on legislation that improves health care for our constituents in red, blue and purple districts. It's time for Republicans to get serious about supporting the hard working individuals they represent, rather than the ultra-wealthy and well-connected elites that they continue to defend. Next, Vice Chair Ted Lieu.

VICE CHAIR LIEU: Thank you, Chairman Aguilar. Trump's economy sucks. Last month, the jobs report was so bad that Donald Trump felt compelled to fire the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics to distract from how bad the report was. This month, the report was equally horrible, because it turns out, when you fire the head of BLS, that doesn't actually change the rules of math. And as Chairman Aguilar said, unemployment increased and jobs wildly missed expectations in terms of job growth. You then have inflation continuing to rise, and you had core CPI last month being quite high. And then certain categories within the economy even exceeding inflation, such as electricity prices, and then you added that to what we learned this week that the New York Fed survey of worker confidence and getting a new job was the lowest ever in the history of its survey. Now is exactly the wrong time to increase health care costs, and that's what Trump and Republicans are doing. Their Big,Ugly Bill not only slashes Medicaid-it's going to throw off 15 million people off health care. It also-the way it's written-is going to cost half a trillion dollars in Medicare cuts. And then, in addition, ACA premiums are going to rise, and then everyone's employer-based premiums are also going to rise because of the massive cuts to health care across the board. So we're urging Trump and Republicans to reverse course, to focus on reducing prices and to reverse the devastating health care cuts that they put in.

I now want to talk about Epstein files. We got a discharge petition on the House floor. We urge Republicans to sign it. If we can get a handful of Republicans to sign it, we can get this into a bill and compel it off the House Floor to get the Epstein files. And if Republicans don't want to engage in a cover up of pedophilia and this pedophilia ring, they should go sign this discharge petition. A handful of Republicans is all we need. Democrats are all on board.

Now it's my honor to introduce Congressman Ami Bera. I'm not a doctor, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. But I'm very honored to introduce a real doctor. Ami is a tremendous Representative as well from the Sacramento region. And look forward to hearing from Ami Bera.

REP. AMI BERA: Thanks, Vice Chair. So a lot of people ask me, why'd you run for Congress? And when I think back to when I was practicing, there was a day where folks would come in and you might diagnose them with diabetes. You might identify a lump and say, hey, this might be cancer, we've got to send you over there. They may have chest pain. But far too often, in America, in that America over a decade ago, they'd say, you know, doc, I can't afford the medications, or I don't have health insurance. That's why I ran for Congress, because in a country like ours, no patient should ever worry about being able to go see a doctor, and no American should ever worry about going bankrupt. In the 13 years I've been in Congress, we as Democrats, our core value, have worked to expand health care, first through the ACA, then expanding Medicaid access, then addressing prescription drug prices under the last Administration, addressing the cost of insulin. That is who we are. That's the values that we reflect as American medicine, but also as Americans, we should look after one another.

Now think about the first six months of the Trump Administration. Think about the complicity of House Republicans. What they've done, they've unwound all of those gains in six months. These are folks that know better. When I think about my California colleague like David Valadao, over half of his constituents are on Medicaid. He's going to take health care away from them. Are you kidding? That is not who we are as the United States of America. That is not who we are as House Democrats, nor should that be the values that the American people stand for. So we are going to get out there. We're going to fight every day. We're going to fight against the Republicans. We're going to fight against the Trump Administration, because our core values are to care for one another as the United States of America. That's the oath I took when I entered the profession of medicine, to do good, to do no harm and to work with patients so that they have the choice and the type of healthcare decisions that they want. That is exactly what Donald Trump and House Republicans want to take away from the American people, and we're not going to stand for it, and that's why I am so happy that we now have the Democratic Doctors Caucus. We've got six Democratic doctors in Congress, and one of our outstanding freshman members from Portland, Oregon, Dr. Maxine Dexter, is going to take it from here.

REP. MAXINE DEXTER: Morning. I am Congresswoman Maxine Dexter, very proud and honored to serve Oregon's Third. I'm also a mother and a pulmonary and critical care physician. Before coming to Congress, I spent nearly two decades caring for the sickest in our community as a critical care doctor. You know what I saw over that time? More and more patients ending up in my Intensive Care Unit due to delaying care or deferring care because they couldn't afford it. Working families everywhere know this-health care just keeps getting more expensive while their paychecks don't change. Families are less able to afford their basic needs right now, let alone their prescriptions or co-pays that are ever increasing in price. And how can Americans spend more money per person on health care than any other nation in the world afford this? It's because money isn't going to keep people healthy. It's going into the corporate and billionaire pockets. Let's be clear-fraud and waste isn't coming from people getting sick and seeking care. It's coming from our system being rigged to benefit the special interests on the backs of the American people. And as someone who took care of patients on life support fighting to live, I can tell you very clearly, people won't stop getting sick when Republicans take away their health care. They will just delay getting care, showing up much sicker, needing more expensive care and having no insurance to pay for it. But you know who will pay for it? The American people. Democrats are committed to a better way. We are united in our opposition to the Republican assault on health care, and we are committed to fighting for policies that center working people, not Trump's billionaires. Now I'm proud to hand it back to Chairman Aguilar to close us out.

###