WASHINGTON — Democratic senators who bucked their party and voted to end the longest government shutdown in history last month are at peace with their decision even as the Senate stares at a pair of failed votes to extend Obamacare health insurance subsidies.
They insist Republicans would never have folded amid the shutdown and agreed to Democrats’ demands to extend the subsidies, which expire at the end of the year. And they argue it was imperative to pay federal workers and millions of Americans who were going without food assistance due to the Trump administration’s unprecedented moves to withhold funding to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
“We got a vote that’s going to put them on the record, but more importantly, give them the opportunity to save people that they say they want to save,” Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), one of eight Democrats who voted to fund the government last month, said in an interview with HuffPost.
“I was proud of that,” Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) said of his vote. “Forty-two million Americans had food insecurity, and all these people weren’t getting paid around here, too.”
At the time of the vote to end the shutdown, the senators insisted the conditions were ripe for a bipartisan deal to extend the subsidies.
“There was zero chance of dealing with the ACA issue as long as the shutdown continued… but there’s a lot better chance now,” Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) said at the time. “I would take a reasonable chance against no chance every day.”
The vote Democrats were promised on health care as part of the deal is set to arrive on Thursday. But it’s safe to say the “reasonable chance” of dealing with expiring subsidies will ultimately result in nothing, meaning health insurance premiums will rise by hundreds of dollars per month for an average family.
Democrats are set to offer a three-year extension of the subsidies. The bill will fail due to widespread GOP opposition to anything having to do with Obamacare. Republicans have also insisted on making reforms to the subsidy program, which was originally passed by Democrats amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Republican senators, under pressure on health care, decided earlier this week to offer a competing GOP bill on the Senate floor that would replace the enhanced Obamacare subsidies with a taxpayer-funded Health Savings Account. But that plan will also fail to garner the necessary 60 votes to advance in the Senate because of opposition from Democrats, who maintain it would offer “junk insurance” that wouldn’t cover serious illnesses.
The failure of a vote on extending the subsidies this month would come as no surprise. Many Democrats warned during the shutdown that Republicans had no intention of following through on health care if the government reopened. But the moderates in the Democratic caucus, who had misgivings about their party’s strategy from the beginning, ultimately relented after 43 days of partisan gridlock that led to long lines at food banks around the country and widespread delays and groundstops at the nation’s busiest airports.
King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, maintains that voting to fund the government was ultimately the right thing to do, even as he acknowledges there’s unlikely to be a solution.
“They’re going to have an opportunity to extend the tax credits, and now they’re scrambling to put together some other proposal, which doesn’t appear to me to be very persuasive,” King told HuffPost. “Either we’re going to extend the tax credits, or my Republican colleagues are going to own the massive increases that are about to take place, and frankly, I don’t understand why they don’t want to come to the table.”
During the shutdown, Republicans said over and over again that they’d be willing to sit down and discuss health care after Democrats voted to fund the government. President Donald Trump even vowed to invite top Democratic congressional leaders to discuss the issue at the White House. That didn’t happen, and after an aborted attempt to unveil his own plan, Trump instead endorsed the alternative GOP plan authored by Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) that would convert the Obamacare subsidies into a direct payment to Americans.
“Under the Democrats’ plan, the insurer decides your care,” Cassidy said Tuesday. “Under ours, the patient has the power to shop, compare prices, and lower health care costs.”
Health experts, however, said the GOP plan wouldn’t prevent skyrocketing health insurance premiums for people enrolled in Obamacare health insurance exchanges and for people on private insurance next year. They also noted that healthy people could be better off under that plan than people who are sick.
Several other Republicans have introduced proposals that would extend the subsidies for one or two years, but they include more stringent limits on eligibility and restrictions on state funding for abortions.
Democrats who urged their party to hold the line on government funding last month said that GOP opposition to extending the subsidies was all too predictable. And even if a bipartisan deal somehow comes together in the coming weeks, there’s no guarantee that it would be taken up by the GOP-controlled House.
“Republicans weren’t telling the truth when they said they’ll negotiate in good faith once the government opens,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). “We’re looking at partisan proposals because the majority leader is not interested, and has never been interested, in getting to a bipartisan solution to the health care crisis that’s about to descend across our country. I wish that weren’t the case, but it’s always been the case.”
If there’s one silver lining Democrats can take away from the health care fight, however, it’s that they’re putting Republicans on defense ahead of next year’s midterm elections. Polls show that lowering costs is a top priority for most Americans, and Republicans in both the House and Senate have struggled to coalesce around a single idea to address health care affordability. Trump, meanwhile, has repeatedly dismissed “affordability” in general as a con job and a Democratic hoax.
“I just think it’s too complicated and too difficult to get done in the limited amount of time we have left,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told reporters on Wednesday of the various GOP plans on health care.
Tillis, who is retiring next year, has repeatedly warned that Democrats will hammer the GOP over the issue if they don’t act.
“If you created an extension [of Obamacare subsidies] of some sort, you can create that forcing mechanism that maybe gives us the opportunity to work on that next year. But I’m telling you, if we don’t get something done in December, Democrats are not going to play ball next year.”
Jennifer Bendery contributed reporting.
About the Author
