Chairman Aguilar on Meet the Press NOW: The Republican Party has never put forward a health care plan for our country. Democrats have a plan.

Chairman Aguilar on Meet the Press NOW: The Republican Party has never put forward a health care plan for our country. Democrats have a plan.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar joined NBC's Meet the Press NOW with host Gabe Gutierrez to discuss the Republican affordability and health care crises. You can watch the full interview here and read the transcript of the Chairman's interview below.

GABE GUTIERREZ: Welcome back. Joining me now is California Democratic Congressman Pete Aguilar. He's also the Democratic Caucus Chairman. Thank you so much for joining us here on Meet the Press NOW. I want to start on health care. We heard some swing-state Republicans earlier today say they're not ruling out joining Leader Jeffries' discharge petition on the three-year extension of the Affordable Care Act subsidies. Have you spoken to some of those Members?

CHAIR AGUILAR: I haven't spoken to some of those Members, but that wouldn't surprise me. Their own leadership won't engage on their bill. Democrats have made a priority of this. We have said loud and clear, we want to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits. We want to ensure that 20 million people don't lose their health care coverage. That's exactly what Speaker Johnson has teed up, and he has pushed back time and time again on Members of his own party who want to work with Democrats to solve this issue. These premium tax increases will raise the cost of health care for millions of people. It's untenable. Democrats have stood opposed to this all year, while Republicans went forward and gave more tax breaks to billionaires.

GABE GUTIERREZ: And Congressman, Leader Jeffries signaled that he would review the bipartisan bills on health care put on the table earlier this month. Have you reviewed them and are you willing to vote for either?

CHAIR AGUILAR: I've reviewed them. I've talked to the Democratic leads on each of those bills. What Leader Jeffries has said is that we will engage and have conversations with Republicans who are well-meaning and put their constituents first. Now, we want to see if they're willing to push back against their own leadership, who time and time again, have given them the stiff arm. This is an incredibly unfortunate place to be, but Democrats continue to prioritize helping people and ensuring that these premiums don't increase-that is our focus. We come here to Congress to try to help people, and we're willing to work with reasonable Republicans if they're willing to engage with us, but they need to prove that they are willing to stand up to their own leadership, and so we're waiting to see if that happens.

GABE GUTIERREZ: Is a short extension better than no extension? Do you risk letting the perfect be the enemy of the good here?

CHAIR AGUILAR: We don't want that to happen, Gabe, and honestly, we want to ensure that people don't have these premium tax increases. We heard time and time again that Republicans were going to deal with this next month, next month, in November, they said we're going to deal with this in December. Now they're saying we're going to talk about this next year. Democrats are fed up with this. We're fed up with the Speaker continuing to allow the people to have pain and have their premiums increased by $1,000, 100%, 200%, increases that people are facing, and this is happening in real time, and the Speaker of the House has allowed this. What he should allow is a vote on this three-year clean extension so we can have more conversations about this. But unfortunately, the Speaker has set this up where we don't have that opportunity right now, so we're asking for Republicans to work with us.

GABE GUTIERREZ: Isn't the three-year extension just dead on arrival in the Senate?

CHAIR AGUILAR: It had bipartisan support. It had four Republicans supporting it. So, I wouldn't call that dead on arrival. It had the most votes of the measures voted on in the Senate, over 50 votes. I know the threshold there is 60, but let's pass it here, and then let's let the Senate work its will and see what we can do.

GABE GUTIERREZ: Congressman, earlier today, Speaker Johnson said Democrats do not want a solution on health care. He says that they want an issue in the midterms. What's your response to the Speaker on that point?

CHAIR AGUILAR: Yeah, it's false and it's laughable. But that's exactly what he has to say right now because he has let this slip through, and he doesn't want to solve this health care crisis that he created. Keep in mind, Gabe, Republicans have known this the entire year. They went forward with their Big Ugly Law that they got signed by the President in July. Leading up to that, they knew that these tax credits were expiring in December, and they chose not to address it. They chose to prioritize giving tax cuts for billionaires while we have this affordability crisis, and people are asking, what about my costs? What about my health care? That's what we heard all throughout the fall, and Speaker Johnson chose to do nothing. So, of course, he's going to say Democrats are playing politics because he has no solution. The Republican Party has never put forward a health care plan for our country. Democrats have a plan. It's called strengthening Medicare, strengthening Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, tax premiums. That's our plan.

You can watch Chairman Aguilar's full interview on NBC's Meet the Press NOW here.

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