LEADER JEFFRIES: "HEALTHCARE PREMIUMS, COPAYS AND DEDUCTIBLES ARE ABOUT TO SKYROCKET"
Today, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries held a press availability where he emphasized that Democrats remain ready to negotiate a bipartisan spending agreement that meets the needs of the American people and fixes the Republican healthcare crisis, but Republicans remain out of town.
LEADER JEFFRIES: This is day 17 of the Trump Republican shutdown, and the House and Senate Democratic position remains the same.We look forward to sitting down with anyone, anytime, anyplace, either here at the Capitol or back at the White House, to reopen the government, to enact a spending agreement that actually makes life better for the American people, while also addressing decisively the Republican healthcare crisis that continues to hurt everyday Americans all across the country. Every day that goes by, there are people throughout America receiving notices that their healthcare premiums, copays and deductibles are about to skyrocket. In the district in upstate New York, the North Country, currently represented by Elise Stefanik, there are couples who currently pay about $2,000 per year for their health insurance premiums because they benefit from Affordable Care Act tax credits. When those credits go away, that same couple will now pay more than $20,000 a year. They cannot afford that. These are working-class Americans, living paycheck to paycheck, struggling to get by, can barely survive, let alone thrive in this country. And this is the wealthiest country in the history of the world.
So House and Senate Democrats will continue to hold firm as it relates to a basic common-sense position that when we enact spending bills, we should be helping the American people, not hurting them. And so we will not support a partisan Republican spending bill that continues to gut the healthcare of the American people. But we will continue to extend that offer to our Republican colleagues and to President Trump and members of his administration. Let's sit down in good faith to reopen the government, to stand by our hardworking federal employees, to enact a spending bill that actually improves the quality of life of the American people and to address the healthcare crisis that Republicans have created, devastating people all across the country, including in rural America, in Black and brown communities all throughout America, in urban America, in the heartland of America and in small-town America.
Full press availability can be watched here.