{"id":218119,"date":"2025-10-16T20:17:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T20:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/218119\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T20:17:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T20:17:08","slug":"senate-democrats-reject-government-funding-bill-over-health-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/218119\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate Democrats reject government funding bill over health care"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Senate Democrats rejected for the 10th time Thursday a stopgap spending bill that would reopen the government, insisting they won\u2019t back away from demands that Congress take up health care benefits<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The vote failed Thursday morning on a 51-45 vote, well short of the 60 needed to advance with the Senate\u2019s filibuster rules.<\/p>\n

The repetition of votes on the funding bill has become a daily drumbeat in Congress, underscoring how intractable the situation has become. It has been at times the only item on the agenda for the Senate floor, while House Republicans have left Washington altogether<\/a>. The standoff has lasted over two weeks, leaving hundreds of thousands of federal workers<\/a> furloughed, even more without a guaranteed payday and Congress essentially paralyzed.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we are positioning as two sides that are seemingly dug in on this 16th day of a shutdown, real people are wondering is their government going to be there for them?\u201d said GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.<\/p>\n

Senate Majority Leader John Thune<\/a> again and again has tried to pressure Democrats to break from their strategy of voting against the stopgap funding bill. It hasn\u2019t worked. And while some bipartisan talks have been ongoing about potential compromises on health care, they haven\u2019t produced any meaningful progress toward reopening the government.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Democratic Party is the party that will not take yes for an answer,\u201d Thune, a South Dakota Republican, said in an angry speech on the Senate floor.<\/p>\n

He had also offered to hold a later vote on extending subsidies for health plans offered<\/a> under Affordable Care Act marketplaces, but said he would not \u201cguarantee a result or an outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats say they won\u2019t budge until they get a guarantee on extending the tax credits for the health plans. They warn that millions of Americans who buy their own health insurance \u2014 such as small business owners, farmers and contractors \u2014 will see large increases when premium prices go out in the coming weeks. Looking ahead to a Nov. 1 deadline in most states, they think voters will demand<\/a> that Republicans enter into serious negotiations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ACA crisis is looming over everyone\u2019s head, and yet Republicans seem ready to let people\u2019s premiums spike,\u201d said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer<\/a> in a floor speech.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Thune tried a different tack Thursday with a vote to proceed to appropriations bills \u2014 daring Democrats to vote against funding legislation for the Department of Defense. They also voted that down.<\/p>\n

A deadline for subsidies on health plans<\/p>\n

Democrats have rallied around their priorities on health care as they hold out against voting for a Republican bill that would reopen the government. Yet they also warn that the time to strike a deal to prevent large increases for many health plans<\/a> is drawing short.<\/p>\n

When they controlled Congress during the pandemic, Democrats boosted subsidies for Affordable Care Act health plans. It pushed enrollment under President Barack Obama\u2019s signature health care law to new levels and drove the rate of uninsured people to a historic low<\/a>. Nearly 24 million people currently get their health insurance from subsidized marketplaces, according to health care research nonprofit KFF.<\/p>\n

Democrats \u2014 and some Republicans \u2014 are worried that many of those people will forgo insurance if the price rises dramatically. While the tax credits don\u2019t expire until next year, health insurers will soon send out notices of the price increases. In most states, they go out Nov. 1.<\/p>\n

Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said she has heard from \u201cfamilies who are absolutely panicking about their premiums that are doubling.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThey are small business owners who are having to think about abandoning the job they love to get employer-sponsored health care elsewhere or just forgoing coverage altogether,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Murray also said that if many people decide to leave their health plan, it could have an effect across medical insurance because the pool of people under health plans will shrink. That could result in higher prices across the board, she said.<\/p>\n

Some Republicans have acknowledged that the expiration of the tax credits could be a problem and floated potential compromises to address it, but there is hardly a consensus among the GOP.<\/p>\n

House Speaker Mike Johnson<\/a>, R-La., this week called the COVID-era subsidies a \u201cboondoggle,\u201d adding that \u201cwhen you subsidize the health care system and you pay insurance companies more, the prices increase.\u201d<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump<\/a> has said he would \u201clike to see a deal done for great health care,\u201d but has not meaningfully weighed into the debate. And Thune has insisted that Democrats first vote to reopen the government before entering any negotiations on health care.<\/p>\n

If Congress were to engage in negotiations on significant changes to health care, it would likely take weeks, if not longer, to work out a compromise.<\/p>\n

Appropriations bills vote<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Senate Republicans held a vote to proceed to a bill to fund the Defense Department and possibly several other areas of government. This would have turned the Senate to Thune\u2019s priority of working through spending bills and potentially paved the way to paying salaries for troops, though the House would have eventually needed to come back to Washington to vote for a final bill negotiated between the two chambers.<\/p>\n

It would have potentially put a crack in Democrats\u2019 resolve, but the vote on the procedure failed 50-44 with Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto, John Fetterman and Jeanne Shaheen the only Democrats voting in favor.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is politics. If anything was needed to demonstrate just how fundamentally uninterested Democrats are in supporting our troops and defending our country, just take a look at this vote,\u201d Thune yelled on the Senate floor following the vote.<\/p>\n

Democrats charged that Republicans had abandoned bipartisanship in the appropriations process, potentially leaving out funding for other areas of government that are priorities for them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe that we need a strong defense, but we believe we need strong health care, we need strong safety for the American people, we need strong programs that help them with so many other issues, mental health and education,\u201d Schumer said Thursday.<\/p>\n

Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democratic member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said that he wouldn\u2019t vote to \u201cmove forward on appropriations bills until they\u2019re serious about stopping health care premiums from going up.\u201d<\/p>\n

The episode made it clear that the Senate leaders are not talking with each other and left Capitol Hill with a growing sense that an end to the stasis is nowhere in sight.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo many of you have asked all of us, how will it end?\u201d Johnson said, \u201cWe have no idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

__<\/p>\n

Associated Press writer Kevin Freking contributed reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Senate Democrats rejected for the 10th time Thursday a stopgap spending bill that would reopen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[2843,1780,49,48,105272,45591,36107,8930,1376,2841,24744,90811,84,1235,392,105271,105273,77801,16370,24737,105270,714,8933,76205,2845,43643,8615],"class_list":["post-218119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-ap-top-news","tag-barack-obama","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-catherine-cortez-masto","tag-charles-schumer","tag-chris-murphy","tag-district-of-columbia","tag-donald-trump","tag-general-news","tag-government-and-politics","tag-government-shutdown","tag-health","tag-health-care-industry","tag-healthcare","tag-jeanne-shaheen","tag-john-fetterman","tag-john-thune","tag-legislation","tag-mike-johnson","tag-patty-murray","tag-politics","tag-u-s-democratic-party","tag-u-s-government-shutdown","tag-u-s-news","tag-u-s-republican-party","tag-washington-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}