Trump, GOP Congress reject Democratic plan to avert shutdown and 20% health premium hikes
Because Congress missed its budget deadlines, the federal government partially shut down on Oct. 1.
The federal government partially shut down on Oct. 1 after the GOP-led Congress and President Donald Trump failed to adopt any of the 12 annual appropriations bills or pass a stopgap bill by the deadline.
Without spending laws in place, the federal government is unable to operate vital programs beyond its most essential functions, and federal workers receive no pay.
At the same time, subsidies that lowered by hundreds of dollars a month the cost of health insurance plans purchased through the Affordable Care Act marketplace by millions of Americans are set to expire at the end of 2025. Renewal notices are set to go out this month to millions of Americans, with many showing premium increases of 20% or more.
Congressional Democrats proposed a monthlong continuing resolution that would keep the government open through Oct. 31, extend the health insurance premium subsidies, boost funding for security for public officials, and reverse the roughly $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and other federal health programs enacted in Trump’s July budget law.
Trump and the Republican majorities in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate have refused to negotiate an extension, insisting on a seven-week stopgap law that would not address the health insurance price spikes.
A stopgap bill requires a simple majority of votes to pass in the House, but a three-fifths supermajority in the Senate. Accordingly, Republicans would need the votes of at least seven Senate Democrats to pass any bill.
On Sept. 30, House Republicans adjourned the chamber after just a two-minute session, blocking Democratic efforts to consider legislation to keep the government open and avert the health insurance price increases. Senate Republicans rejected the proposal on a 53-47 party-line vote. Trump has refused to negotiate with Democrats. According to Politico, he told Fox News on Sept. 12: “The Democrats are sick. There’s something wrong with them. Don’t even bother dealing with them. We will get it through because the Republicans are sticking together for the first time in a long time.”
Trump has falsely claimed that the Democratic proposal would provide free health care to undocumented immigrants, writing in a Sept. 24 social media post, “The Democrats want Illegal Aliens, many of them VIOLENT CRIMINALS, to receive FREE Healthcare.”
The Trump administration has threatened to use the shutdown as a pretext to permanently lay off even more federal workers than it already has. Since his return to the White House in January, Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency has orchestrated tens of thousands of layoffs of public servants, and an administration official told the New York Times in August that it aims to reduce the federal workforce by 300,000 people in 2025.
