For Democrats on Capitol Hill, health care is the key to avoiding a government shutdown.
With a government funding deadline less than two weeks away — Sept. 30 — Democrats insist they won’t support any spending bill that doesn’t address their health care concerns, most notably the looming expiration of certain Affordable Care Act tax credits. Republicans say that position is a nonstarter.
“If Republicans want to continue to gut the health care of the American people, there will not be Democratic support in connection with a partisan Republican spending bill that continues their failed and toxic policies,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said at a news conference Tuesday.
House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar, Calif., who is a member of the Appropriations Committee, told MSNBC on Wednesday night that Republicans are “attacking health care from every side and every angle — Medicaid, Medicare, the Affordable Care Act subsidies.”
It’s up to us to help protect our communities, and that’s why we’re making health care a cornerstone of our push right now,” House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar told MSNBC.
“There is no health care funding stream that Republicans aren’t going after,” he said. “It’s up to us to help protect our communities, and that’s why we’re making health care a cornerstone of our push right now.”
The enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits are set to lapse at the end of the year. If they expire, millions of people would face higher health care premiums.
While Republicans maintain lawmakers could address the tax credits issue later this year — the GOP spending bill goes through only Nov. 21, and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters Tuesday that the fight is a “December policy issue, not a September funding issue” — Democrats say people making health care decisions need certainty now. Open enrollment begins Nov. 1, and Democrats fear many people will elect not to get health coverage if they’re looking at higher prices.
“If millions of Americans see that their health insurance premiums are rising, then a number of them simply will choose not to get health insurance,” Rep. Ted Lieu of California, the vice chair of the House Democratic Caucus, told MSNBC. “That not only is bad; that also raises costs for everybody else, because people who don’t have health insurance will still get treated in the emergency room, which raises costs for everybody.”
Insurers are working on setting new rates, many of which will be published in October. Without the enhanced tax credits, premiums will go up dramatically — by more than 75% on average for enrollees, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. And an analysis from the Congressional Budget Office estimates that a lapse in the tax credits would result in 4 million more uninsured people by 2034.
Democrats argue the situation is all the more dire after Republicans enacted more than $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts in their reconciliation bill — and they say they’re holding the line on any funding measure until Republicans address the expiring tax credits.
The GOP funding bill to avert a government shutdown includes $30 million to increase security for lawmakers following Charlie Kirk’s killing.
When Johnson announced the GOP’s spending proposal Tuesday, he insisted it was a relatively “clean” extension of government funding to give lawmakers more time to hash out a broader spending deal. But the 91-page bill includes dozens of anomalies — many of which the White House requested — in addition to a $30 million increase for members’ security after the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
While Democrats could balk at including some of those anomalies, they’re still most concerned by what’s not in the bill, specifically an extension of the Affordable Care Act tax credits.
“House Republican Leadership has decided they would rather take us to the brink of a shutdown instead of working with Democrats on a bipartisan continuing resolution, or CR, to keep the government funded, protect Congress’ power of the purse, and improve health care,” Sen. Patty Murray of Washington and Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democratic appropriators, said in a joint statement Tuesday.
The stalemate is set to come to a head this week when the House is expected to vote on the funding bill, the first attempt to avert the end-of-the-month shutdown. Johnson told reporters the House would consider the legislation by Friday.
Congress is scheduled to be in session just four more days before the Sept. 30 deadline, with both chambers breaking for recess in observance of Rosh Hashanah.
In the narrowly divided House, Johnson can afford to lose only two GOP votes and still pass the spending bill if all Democrats oppose it, assuming full attendance. A handful of Republicans have expressed some initial apprehension about the funding bill, though President Donald Trump is pushing the party to coalesce around the legislation.
The House Democratic Caucus is scheduled to meet Thursday to discuss the legislation, Jeffries told reporters. Democratic leaders plan to introduce their own competing spending bill that would extend the expiring tax credits.
If the stopgap does squeak through the House, the legislation would still face an uncertain fate in the Senate. Even if all GOP senators elect to support the bill, Democrats could filibuster it and prevent its passage.
At least seven Senate Democrats would have to join all Republicans in voting to advance the spending bill to break the 60-vote filibuster, and at the moment, just one, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, has said he would support the bill.
The scenario is a repeat of sorts from March, when Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., insisted his caucus would oppose a Republican spending bill — only for him and a handful of other Senate Democrats to ultimately support the legislation. Schumer faced a wave of criticism over the ordeal — from Democrats inside and outside the Capitol — prompting questions about his future in the top job.
This time around, however, Democrats appear ready for a fight. Schumer told reporters Tuesday the situation is “much different now” compared with March, pointing to how the reconciliation bill has polled negatively among the public because of its effect on health care costs.
“We have been strong on the same message for a very long time, which is we need to help the American people lower their costs, particularly on health care, and we need a bipartisan negotiation,” he said.
Democrats have also howled about the Trump administration’s moves to claw back billions of dollars in funding approved by Congress, raising concerns about the legislative branch’s power of the purse.
Some Democrats want to see language in the funding bill to ensure that the Trump administration would properly allocate any money appropriated by the legislation.
“I have trouble seeing how I could support a CR without some guarantee the president’s going to spend the money that we appropriate,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told MSNBC.
House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar, Calif., who is a member of the Appropriations Committee, told MSNBC on Wednesday night that Republicans are “attacking health care from every side and every angle — Medicaid, Medicare, the Affordable Care Act subsidies.”
Mychael Schnell is a reporter for MS NOW.