Okay. Well, we met with the president for the first time, uh, since all of these issues started, even though we have requested repeated meetings, with, um, Leader, Leader Thune, Speaker Johnson, and the president. We have very large differences on healthcare and on their ability to undo whatever budget we agreed to through decision and through, uh, impoundment as well as pocket decisions.
And we, I think for the first time the president heard our objections, and heard why we needed a bipartisan bill. Their bill has not one iota of Democratic input. That is never how we've done this before. When I was leader, we negotiated four times with Republicans and we never had a shutdown. And so it's up to the Republicans, whether they want a shut down or not.
We've made to the president some proposals. Our, uh, Republican leaders will have to talk to them about them. But ultimately he's the decision maker. And if he will accept some of the things we asked, which we think the American people are for on healthcare and on recisions, he can avoid a shutdown. But there are still large differences between us.
There was a frank and direct discussion that the President of the United States and Republican leaders, but significant and meaningful differences remain. Democrats are fighting to protect the healthcare of the American people. And we are not going to support a partisan Republican spending bill that continues to gut the healthcare of everyday Americans.
Period. Full stop. It's a Republican-caused healthcare crisis that is causing hospitals and nursing homes and community-based health clinics all across the country in rural America, urban America, small town America, the heartland of America, and Black and Brown communities throughout this country. And that crisis is happening right now.
And that's why we believe there is urgency to both keeping the government open, reaching a bipartisan spending agreement, that actually meets the needs of the American people in terms of their health, their safety, their economic wellbeing, and quality of life, while also addressing the dangerous Republican healthcare crisis.
We laid out to the current President some of the consequences of what's happening in healthcare. And by his face and by the way he looked, I think he heard about them for the first time. Closing of rural hospitals. The fact that so many clinics have closed, and I don't know if he knew this before, but the fact that people will pay $4,000 more a year, $400 more a a month, close to $5,000 more a year on their health care premiums if we don't do anything, and people don't know what to do. The average working family can't afford that.
I told him how I met a mother who was crying to me because our daughter had cancer. And what has happened with healthcare, with what they have done, she's gonna watch her daughter suffer and maybe die. And so he seemed to un, uh, for the first time understand the magnitude of this crisis. And we hope he'll talk to the Republican leaders and tell them we need bipartisan input on healthcare, on decisions into their bill.
Their bill does not have a, they never talked to us. Suing didn't negotiate with me. Uh, uh, Johnson didn't negotiate with Hakeem. And on the key issues, the Appropriations Committee, which has talked about three of the smaller bills, there were bills. They said the Republicans put an agreement said kick it off to the four leaders, they still have the floor.
And let me say, we're deadly serious about addressing the Republican-caused healthcare crisis because it's a deadly, serious issue for the American people. Largest cuts of Medicaid in American history, hospitals, nursing homes, and community-based health funding, closing right now. The fact that more than 20 million Americans are on the brink of experiencing dramatically increased premiums, co-pays and deductibles because of the Republican refusal to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits which benefit working-class Americans.
And we pointed that out. I pointed that out. Working-class Americans, their healthcare, that's what we're fighting to preserve, to defend, and to strengthen.
Okay, thank you, everyone.
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