Chairman Aguilar: Only Democrats want to make health care more accessible and more affordable
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar and Vice Chair Ted Lieu were joined by Representatives Kim Schrier, M.D. and Shontel Brown for a press conference about the Republican Budget, which kicks millions of Americans off their health insurance and prevents families from meeting their basic needs.
CHAIRMAN AGUILAR: I'm grateful to be joined by Vice Chair Lieu and Dr. Schrier and Representative Brown for joining us here today to talk about the importance of protecting health care and nutrition across this country.
I want to begin by offering our condolences to the victims of deadly storms in Missouri and Kentucky. We also want to send President Biden and his family our support as they grapple with the former President's cancer diagnosis. We know that Joe Biden will approach this fight with the same grace that he's shown throughout his life. We also know that Joe Biden would be the first to say that every American deserves the same level of health care that he is being provided.
That's why House Democrats are fighting to protect health care that Donald Trump and House Republicans are attacking. In the dead of night, House Republicans are working to ram through their agenda to kick millions of Americans off of health insurance and to take food assistance from families who need it most. As grocery prices rise, they're going to take food out of the mouths of mothers, children and veterans, while making health care even more expensive—just for the single purpose of providing more tax cuts for billionaires and corporations who continue to make record profits. Remember: the Republican Budget doesn't make Medicaid or SNAP more efficient or more fair. All this bill does is ensure that billionaires—who have never had to worry about a hospital bill or putting food on the table—can continue to pay less in taxes than teachers, firefighters and nurses.
Only Democrats want to make health care more accessible and more affordable for everyone. Republicans are hellbent on driving up costs for health insurance and ending basic needs programs. They are willing to inflict pain on millions of Americans just to make their campaign donors happy. That. Is. Wrong. And we will continue to fight back at every step for the American people so they can have the peace of mind of a good-paying job with good benefits.
Next, I’ll turn it over to Vice Chair Ted Lieu.
VICE CHAIR LIEU: Thank you, Chairman Aguilar, and honored to be joined today by Congressmembers Kim Schrier and Shontel Brown. First, I'd like to talk about the charges against Congresswoman LaMonica McIver. Those charges are baseless and politically motivated. Three reasons why: First, Congresswoman McIver had a statutory authority to be at that detention center; she was conducting her oversight duties. Second, if what she did was purportedly so awful that it results in criminal charges, how is it possible they literally gave her a tour of the facility? Afterwards, they escorted her around and gave her a tour of that facility while she was conducting oversight. And third, she was trying to prevent the unlawful arrest of the Mayor of Newark. And guess what? She was right. Because the Trump Justice Department dropped all charges against the Mayor of Newark. So, we asked them to also drop charges against LaMonica. This is a baseless, politically motivated distraction.
And what are they distracting us from? This big, ugly bill that they're going to have a meeting on at 1 a.m. in the morning. I mean, who does that, right? You do that because you don't want the American public to know what's in your big, ugly bill. But we know what's in it. It has the largest cut to health care in U.S. history, about a trillion dollars. And then also, it's going to kick off approximately 14 million people off health care. And why are they doing this? To impose the largest tax cut for billionaires in U.S. history. So that's basically what this big, ugly bill does. And they’re trying to move it through in the dead of night at 1 a.m. We asked the Republicans to listen to the American people and work on what Democrats are trying to work on, which is lowering the cost of rent and groceries and consumer products. That's what we should be focused on. And it's now my honor to introduce the great Representative from the State of Washington, Dr. Kim Schrier.
REP. SCHRIER: Well, thank you, Vice Chair Lieu. It's really an honor to be here, but the reason is outrageous, and I want to express that outrage on behalf of my constituents. That the Republicans at this moment are attempting to make the largest cut ever in Medicaid, and the largest cut ever in SNAP, that would be $715 billion out of Medicaid, which would kick 13.7 million Americans off of their health insurance. And let me just reiterate, why are they doing this? They are doing this to pay for a tax cut for the wealthiest Americans, like Elon Musk. It is morally bankrupt and it is fiscally, incredibly irresponsible. We just spent 26 and a half hours in the Energy and Commerce Committee last week, spending the vast majority of that time—and by the way, starting at about two o'clock in the morning—talking about these cuts to Medicaid and how they would devastate our constituents and also the broader health care system.
I want to be clear, one out of three Washingtonians depend on Medicaid. Most of them don't even know they're on Medicaid, because we call it Apple Health, and I'm trying to make that point so that people understand how this impacts them personally. So I think about, as a pediatrician, I think about my patients on Medicaid or on Apple Health who will no longer be able to come to their pediatrician's office for screenings, for a simple cold, for a cough and get treated in a half hour. Now they're going to go to the emergency room, the most expensive place to get care. They're going to drive up costs: that cost will be provided for free, and then everybody pays. And I think then about my patients who are not on Medicaid, because they're going to be waiting longer in the emergency room, they're going to be paying more. Premiums are going to go up if we want to keep these hospitals and emergency rooms open. And that brings us to other parts of my district, the rural areas, where hospitals may close because they depend so heavily on Medicaid and Medicare.
I want to tell you a quick story of a little four-year-old girl named Ila in my district. She is the outcome of a normal, uneventful pregnancy. She was lucky enough to go to our rural hospital called Kittitas Valley Healthcare, and they have a labor and delivery department. She was delivered. There were major complications. She almost died, but they had the staff and the expertise to rescue her, to stabilize her and to Life Flight her to Seattle Children's. And then I have been reflecting, as have her parents, who are insured, about what would have happened had Medicaid been cut, had labor and delivery there been cut, had she not had that opportunity for rescue and for transport to save her life, and we all know what the answer would have been. I've been in hundreds of deliveries. Some go well, some don't, and you don't always know until that moment. So I want to emphasize, Medicaid is part of the three-legged stool that is our health care system. If Medicaid is cut in this dramatic way, that stool will fall. It'll mean hospital closures, higher rates for all of us, emergency room long waits, a sicker community and a poorer community and it is reckless and morally reprehensible. So at this point, I'm going to turn this over to Representative Shontel Brown from Ohio to talk about the terrible cuts that they are doing to food benefits, also for our most vulnerable populations. Thank you.
REP. BROWN: Thank you, doctor. Good morning, everyone. I'm Congresswoman Shontel Brown, Vice Ranking Member of the House Agriculture Committee and representing Ohio's 11th Congressional District. I'm honored to be here along with Chair Aguilar, Vice Chair Lieu and Congresswoman Schrier. Last week, we saw this legislation up close in the Agriculture Committee, and Ranking Member Craig and my Democratic colleagues on Agriculture fought this legislation for two days. I didn't just read the bill, I felt it. I felt the cruelty. I felt the callousness. And let me tell you, I was angry. I am still angry. $300 billion in cuts. Let me repeat that: $300 billion in cruel, calculated cuts to nutrition programs. And on top of that, onerous new restrictions and requirements that are designed to deny people the help they need. If this bill passes, millions—yes, millions—of Americans are going to lose nutrition benefits they desperately need. And for what? The biggest cut to food assistance in history, just to hand millionaires a $68,000 tax break, and the top .1 percent a staggering $300,000?
Let me tell you what this means for my community. One in five. One in five households in my district in Northeast Ohio rely on SNAP. That’s not some statistic from somewhere. That's my neighbors, that's my family. Those are my church members. It is me. Because growing up, I was one of those households. And the issue of work requirements really hits home for me, literally. I had epilepsy growing up. I had petit mal seizures and my mother—my strong, brave, exhausted mother—couldn't work, not because she didn't want to, but because she couldn't leave her child who might collapse at any moment. My mom didn't want to be on food stamps. No parent wants that, but we needed it. And this bill, this bill, would have denied us that lifeline. We're taking assistance away from people that need it to give those resources to people that don't.
Make no mistake, this is not fiscal responsibility. This is not belt-tightening. This is a giveaway. People who rely on SNAP, they're not leading easy lives. They're caregivers. They have people at home with disabilities and serious illnesses, children. And these folks are not hard to find. I had one woman contact me, Cheryl from Cleveland Heights. She's retired. Her husband is disabled. Her father is 92 years old and he's disabled. She worked in advertising for 25 years. Now, she's got a house full of people to take care of, and they rely on SNAP. This bill punishes Cheryl and people like her. It takes away the basic benefits they need to survive, all to pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest among us. And make no mistake, this bill will make us sicker. This bill will make us poorer. This bill will make us weaker. So it is my privilege to stand here with my colleagues and fight this bill. We cannot let this pass.
Video of the full press conference and Q&A can be viewed here.
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