{"id":257199,"date":"2025-11-11T17:53:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T17:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/257199\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T17:53:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T17:53:08","slug":"top-house-democrats-vow-to-oppose-shutdown-bill-over-healthcare-funding-us-federal-government-shutdown-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/257199\/","title":{"rendered":"Top House Democrats vow to oppose shutdown bill over healthcare funding | US federal government shutdown 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

As House Republican leaders move to hold a vote on legislation to reopen the US government, top Democrats<\/a> vowed on Tuesday to oppose the bill for not addressing their demand for more healthcare funding.<\/p>\n

Democrats have for weeks demanded that any measure to fund the government include an extension of tax credits for Affordable Care Act health plans, which were created under Joe Biden and due to expire at the end of the year, sending premiums for enrollees higher.<\/p>\n

With Donald Trump\u2019s encouragement, Congress\u2019s Republican leaders refused, sparking a spending standoff that resulted in the longest government shutdown in US history. But the Democrats\u2019 resolve cracked earlier this week, when a splinter group in the Senate joined with the GOP to craft a compromise bill that reauthorizes government funding through January, without extending the tax credits.<\/p>\n

The Senate passed that legislation on Monday evening, and the House of Representatives<\/a> is expected consider it beginning Wednesday afternoon. The chamber\u2019s top Democrats oppose it, with minority leader Hakeem Jeffries on Monday calling it a \u201cpartisan Republican spending bill that continues to gut the healthcare of the American people.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo matter what comes over to us from the United States Senate to the House of Representatives at some point this week, our position as House Democrats has been crystal clear: we will sit down with any Republicans<\/a>, anytime, anyplace, anywhere, in order to find a bipartisan path forward, but we\u2019re not down with their my way or the highway approach to governance that\u2019s failed the American people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the House\u2019s largest ideological caucus, the centrist New Democrat Coalition, announced their opposition to the measure.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile New Dems always seek common ground, our coalition remains united in opposition to legislation that sacrifices the wellbeing of the constituents we\u2019re sworn to serve,\u201d chair Brad Schneider said.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, the Senate-passed bill fails to address our constituents\u2019 top priorities, doing nothing to protect their access to healthcare, lower their costs, or curb the administration\u2019s extreme agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sentiment appears much the same in the congressional progressive caucus, where chair Greg Casar called the measure \u201ca betrayal of millions of Americans counting on Democrats to fight for them\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Democratic opposition threatens to make for a tight vote for Republican speaker Mike Johnson, who has kept the House out of session for more than 50 days in a bid to pressure Senate Democrats into caving to the GOP\u2019s demands.<\/p>\n

With a 219-member majority with full attendance, he can only afford to lose two votes on the bill, and Kentucky representative Thomas Massie is likely to vote no.<\/p>\n

But Democrats may have their own defectors. Maine\u2019s Jared Golden, who last week announced he would not seek another term representing a district that voted for Trump last year, was the only Democrat in September to vote for a Republican funding bill that did not extend the tax credit. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, whose Washington state district is similarly friendly to the president, also expressed her support for that bill.<\/p>\n

Both lawmakers\u2019 offices did not immediately respond to a request for comment on how they would vote on the Senate\u2019s compromise.<\/p>\n

The compromise bill cleared the Senate on Monday evening by 60 votes, the minimum it needed to clear the chamber\u2019s thresholds for advancement. All Republicans supported the measure\u2019s passage except for Rand Paul of Kentucky, along with eight moderate members of the Democratic caucus, several of whom were recently re-elected, or serving their final terms in office.<\/p>\n

That group was composed of Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Tim Kaine of Virginia, Dick Durbin of Illinois, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Jacky Rosen of Nevada and Angus King of Maine, an independent who caucuses with the party.<\/p>\n

While they did not win an extension of the tax credits, the group claimed credit getting Republican Senate majority leader John Thune to agree on holding a vote by mid-December on extending the subsidies. However, it remains to be seen if enough Republicans will vote for its passage, and Johnson has not agreed to put the issue to a vote in the House.<\/p>\n

Though the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, did not support the bill publicly, Shaheen told Fox News on Monday that the group \u201ckept leadership informed throughout\u201d. Progressive organizations who backed Schumer\u2019s strategy during the shutdown have now turned on him for allowing the compromise to come together.<\/p>\n

Indivisible announced plans to support Democratic candidates in primaries who oppose Schumer remaining as the party\u2019s leader, and MoveOn joined in the calls for him to bow out.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is time for Senator Schumer to step aside as minority leader to make room for those who are willing to fight fire with fire when the basic needs of working people are on the line,\u201d said MoveOn Political Action executive director Katie Bethell said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As House Republican leaders move to hold a vote on legislation to reopen the US government, top Democrats…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-257199","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}