WASHINGTON — The U.S. government stumbled toward a partial shutdown on Tuesday as President Donald Trump mocked Democratic leaders for insisting Republicans cut a deal protecting health insurance for millions, and finger-pointing escalated on Capitol Hill.
Democrats staged press conferences on both sides of the Capitol highlighting Congressional Budget Office estimates saying millions will soon lose Medicaid coverage and Affordable Care Act subsidies, and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) responded angrily to an AI-altered video Trump posted depicting him wearing a sombrero and mustache after a White House meeting on Monday.
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“Mr. President, the next time you have something to say about me, don’t cop out through a racist and fake AI video. When I’m back in the Oval Office, say it to my face,” Jeffries said Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the Senate appeared poised to reject a pair of competing spending bills just hours before a midnight deadline to fund the government, virtually guaranteeing a costly shutdown of nonessential government operations as both parties turned to finger-pointing and attacks online.
“Republicans have offered up a clean, nonpartisan funding extension – the same kind of extension Democrats have repeatedly supported in the past – and Democrats are blocking it for their own partisan purposes,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said in a floor speech.
Republicans have proposed a bill keeping the government running at current funding levels until November, giving lawmakers more time to hammer out a broader spending agreement. Democrats did so as well – but they included in their draft an extension of enhanced subsidies for people who get their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, which are due to expire at the end of the year. Neither measure is expected to pass.
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Speaking alongside Jeffries from the House steps on Tuesday, a Pennsylvania college professor and cancer survivor named Tony Gonzales said his monthly premiums will go up from $234 to $450 next year if Congress doesn’t act.
“I hope and pray that these subsidies don’t go away, because if they do, we’ll be forced to compromise paying some bills and run the real risk of medical debt,” Gonzales said.
Republicans argue there is plenty of time to address ACA subsidies before they expire at the end of the year. Democrats note that it will be too late by then since notices about premium hikes begin to go out to enrollees on Oct. 1.
There’s no telling how long this shutdown will last. The 2018-2019 shutdown over border wall funding – the longest in U.S. history – lasted 35 days. The 2013 shutdown over Obamacare lasted 16 days. In both instances, the party making demands didn’t get what they wanted.
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Democrats are under a lot of pressure from their base to stand up to the Trump administration this time around. So far, they’ve held firm in pushing for an extension of the enhanced Obamacare subsidies, without which insurance premiums will skyrocket for over 20 million Americans next year. They also want to prevent Trump’s administration from unilaterally freezing funding that Congress had previously approved.
A deal to keep the government running doesn’t seem to be coming any time soon. A meeting at the White House on Monday between Trump and the four top congressional leaders failed to yield an agreement. Afterwards, Trump posted the racist AI video of Jeffries and a fake video of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) talking about giving free health care to illegal immigrants, a misleading claim Republicans have made about Democratic demands to keep government open.
Schumer said in a speech on the Senate floor that Trump was “busy trolling away on the Internet like a 10-year-old” instead of bringing both parties together to negotiate a compromise.
“We have less than a day to figure this out, and Donald Trump is tweeting deepfakes,” he added.
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Both parties believe the other will be blamed for the shutdown. Democrats are citing several polls that show Americans pointing the finger at the GOP and the president, who control both the White House and Congress. Republicans pointed to a New York Times/Siena College survey that showed a more mixed picture. Meanwhile, Trump told Politico he didn’t worry about shouldering blame, calling Democrats “deranged.”
Republicans are betting that Democrats will blink, given the negative impacts of a shutdown on federal employees and their constituents. The White House Office of Management and Budget has threatened to lay off federal employees during the shutdown, even though federal workers are typically furloughed, not laid off.
The CBO reported Tuesday that somewhere around 750,000 federal workers will likely be furloughed each day during the shutdown, costing around $400 million per day, but the agency couldn’t guess how many workers agencies might fire outright.
This summer, Republicans passed a giant tax cut partly paid for with about $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, which the CBO said would reduce enrollment by 10 million, while another 5 million people would become uninsured after losing health insurance subsidies at the end of the year if Congress doesn’t pass a separate law.
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Democrats feel bullish that the coming health insurance price hikes for millions – including many Americans in red states – will bring Trump back to the table and help end the standoff.
“Tomorrow is when the premium notices from insurers start getting mailed to every American, and people are going to see firsthand spikes. We’re talking about 75% increases in their monthly premiums for health insurance because of what Republicans are doing right now,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) told HuffPost.
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