last week\u2019s electoral victories<\/a> gave them a mandate to keep pushing for the extension of health care subsidies as part of a package to fund the government and to not relent in negotiations. If the enhanced premium subsidies expire at the end of the year with no congressional action, those enrolled in plans through the state\u2019s health care exchange, Access Health CT, are expected to see their premiums for 2026 plans increase.<\/p>\nOn the health care front, Democrats weren\u2019t offered anything new. The promise of a vote on the expiring subsidies was offered by Senate GOP leadership weeks earlier as a way out of the shutdown. The deal says Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., will set up a vote by the second week of December. That leaves little time for Congress to address it.<\/p>\n
The vast majority of Senate Democrats are disappointed by the outcome. The fate of the enhanced premium subsidies is still up in the air. Plus, their push to ensure that the Trump administration doesn\u2019t keep rescinding federal funding approved by Congress went nowhere and wasn\u2019t included in the final agreement. Because of that, the Democratic base is likely to be frustrated after the party extracted few concessions.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople know the government shutdown hurts. But people also know that Americans will die when millions cannot afford health insurance next year because of Trump\u2019s massive premium hikes. They wanted us to continue that fight, even knowing that victory was not certain,\u201d Murphy said in a statement. \u201cThey did not want this outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI understand my colleagues\u2019 desire to fund the government. What Trump has put people through these last few weeks is abhorrent. Of course I want to end the shutdown too. But not at any cost,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cThere is no way to sugarcoat this moment. It will have a cost. But it is up to us to keep the fight going.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy position has always been: no affordable health care, no deal. I am unwilling to accept a vague promise for a vote at an indefinite time on an indeterminate bill,\u201d Blumenthal said in a statement. \u201cMillions of Americans and tens of thousands in Connecticut are forced to make impossible choices right now about what health insurance they can afford.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to a vote on ACA subsidies, the Senate deal also included three full-year funding bills plus short-term funding for the rest of the government through Jan. 31. The original date of the short-term bill only funded agencies through Nov. 21. It would also guarantee back pay for furloughed federal workers \u2014 a requirement of a 2019 law, though President Donald Trump had suggested they might not get paid. And the bill would also reverse layoffs during the shutdown, which were on hold by federal court.<\/p>\n
Pressure was building for a resolution, ultimately leading to the negotiations involving a handful of Senate Democrats. Federal nutrition aid is still in limbo after the Trump administration gave mixed messaging on funding November SNAP benefits and states like Connecticut started to fill in the gaps. On top of that, multiple major airports started to cut the number of flights amid ongoing delays and cancellations. And federal workers \u2014 both furloughed and essential \u2014 continue to miss more paychecks.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m looking forward to seeing what solutions might be brought forward [on health care]. Regardless, as I have said for weeks to my Democrat friends, I will schedule a vote on their proposal. And I have committee to having that vote no later than the second weekend in December,\u201d Thune, the Senate GOP leader, said minutes before the vote. \u201cI\u2019m optimistic that after six weeks of this shutdown, we\u2019ll be able to end it.<\/p>\n
The Connecticut senators\u2019 opposition was consistent to what they\u2019ve been saying throughout the 41-day shutdown: they won\u2019t accept loose promises on health care. And both parties looked like they were digging in further after Tuesday\u2019s elections.<\/p>\n
Democrats believed voters were rewarding them for fighting for health care even if that meant the government remained in a shutdown. Trump even said the shutdown was partly to blame for Republicans\u2019 losses.<\/p>\n
But it still didn\u2019t look like Trump wanted to enter negotiations with Democrats. He pushed for Republicans to get rid of the filibuster \u2014 the 60-vote threshold needed to advance bills in the Senate \u2014 but GOP leadership said the votes weren\u2019t there to ax that procedure.<\/p>\n
Because of that, some Democrats started to budge, saying that the length of the shutdown ultimately moved the needle for them. And when asked why they backed down on their key demand after weeks of trying, U.S. Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine who caucuses with Democrats, said \u201cbecause it wasn\u2019t working.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been six weeks. Republicans made it clear they weren\u2019t going to discuss the health care issue \u2026 until the shutdown was over. We tried to keep working that for six weeks. It didn\u2019t happen,\u201d King said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot better chance now than there was this morning because nothing was happening and there was no evidence that another week or another two weeks or Thanksgiving or Christmas\u201d would have changed Republicans mind on the health care subsidies.<\/p>\n
What will happen in the House?<\/p>\n
With final passage in the Senate imminent, all eyes move to the House next: will the vote be bipartisan or will Democrats try to force Republicans to come up with most or all of the votes? They only need a simple majority to pass legislation, but a slim majority for Republicans means there\u2019s little room for error and the need for a united front without help from Democrats.<\/p>\n
Some moderate Democrats appear open to supporting the Senate shutdown deal, but most so far are publicly opposed to supporting it. Since the key vote on Sunday, most of Connecticut\u2019s House delegation has yet to weigh in on the new legislation and where they stand on it. The five Democrats, like their Senate colleagues, have said they wanted the extension of health care subsidies as part of a funding package.<\/p>\n
U.S. Rep. John Larson, D-1st District, was the first member of the delegation on Monday to explicitly say he wouldn\u2019t support the Senate shutdown deal whenever it makes its way over to the House.<\/p>\n
\u201cBallrooms and billion-dollar bailouts to Argentina won\u2019t help working families get by. They need real action to make life more affordable,\u201d Larson said in a statement, referring to the White House renovations to build a new ballroom and the plans for a $20 billion bailout to help Argentina\u2019s economic crisis.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe plan Senate Republicans have put forward does nothing to address these concerns. Donald Trump and his minions in Congress didn\u2019t have my vote when they created this health care crisis, and they don\u2019t have my vote now,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, who serves as the ranking member on the House Appropriations Committee, criticized Republicans for releasing the text of one of the full-year bills on Sunday before getting the support of Democrats in the House.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile the Military Construction bill is better than the full-year CR those programs were funded under for 2025, it is important to place it in the context of the entire legislative package that will be considered,\u201d DeLauro said. \u201cCongress must invest in veterans, address the health care crisis that is raising costs on more than 20 million Americans and prevent President Trump from not spending appropriated dollars in our communities.\u201d<\/p>\n
The timeline for ending the shutdown is still up in the air, though it\u2019s possible the lengthy process can wrap up later this week.<\/p>\n
The Senate still needs to move to final passage of the bill, which only requires a simple majority. It\u2019s possible senators can finish their part of the process by the end of Monday, but that would require agreements to quickly move things forward.<\/p>\n
Then the House would need to come back into session to vote and complete the work of Congress. The lower chamber has been out since late September, but members will get 36 hours\u2019 notice to return to Washington, D.C., when it\u2019s time to vote.<\/p>\n
If the bill passes the House, it will then move to Trump for the final step. And if he signs it, the shutdown will come to an end. The federal workforce would return to work and expect to receive back pay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story has been updated. The longest shutdown in U.S. history is starting to wind down after a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[2139,53215,22425,119997,97,252,253,7934,2443],"class_list":["post-285102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-affordable-care-act","tag-chris-murphy","tag-feature-story","tag-federal-government-shutdown","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-richard-blumenthal","tag-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}