WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats rejected for the 10th time Thursday a stopgap spending bill that would reopen the government, insisting they won’t back away from demands that Congress take up health care benefits.
The vote failed on a 51-45 tally, well short of the 60 needed to advance with the Senate's filibuster rules.
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. The standoff has lasted over two weeks, leaving hundreds of thousands of federal workers furloughed, even more without a guaranteed payday and Congress essentially paralyzed.
“As 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?” said GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
The shutdown is on track to surpass the 16-day closure in 2013, which was also a debate over the Affordable Care Act. The longest shutdown ended in 2019, after 35 days.
While the military was paid this week, it's unclear how long that will last. The White House budget office told Congress that it cost $6.5 billion to cover this one pay period. The next one is two weeks.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune again and again has tried to pressure Democrats to break from their strategy of voting against the stopgap funding bill. It hasn't worked. And while some bipartisan talks have been ongoing about potential compromises on health care, they haven't produced any meaningful progress toward reopening the government.
“The Democratic Party is the party that will not take yes for an answer,” Thune, a South Dakota Republican, said in an angry speech on the Senate floor.
He had also offered to hold a later vote on extending subsidies for health plans offered under Affordable Care Act marketplaces, but said he would not “guarantee a result or an outcome.”
Democrats say they won't 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 — such as small business owners, farmers and contractors — 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 that Republicans enter into serious negotiations.
"The ACA crisis is looming over everyone’s head, and yet Republicans seem ready to let people’s premiums spike,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer in a floor speech.
Meanwhile, Thune tried a different tack Thursday with a vote to proceed to appropriations bills — daring Democrats to vote against funding legislation for the Department of Defense. They also voted that down.
A deadline for subsidies on health plans
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 is drawing short.
When they controlled Congress during the pandemic, Democrats boosted subsidies for Affordable Care Act health plans. It pushed enrollment under President Barack Obama's signature health care law to new levels and drove the rate of uninsured people to a historic low. Nearly 24 million people currently get their health insurance from subsidized marketplaces, according to health care research nonprofit KFF.
Democrats — and some Republicans — are worried that many of those people will forgo insurance if the price rises dramatically. While the tax credits don't expire until next year, health insurers will soon send out notices of the price increases. In most states, they go out Nov. 1.
Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said she has heard from “families who are absolutely panicking about their premiums that are doubling."
“They 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,” she added.
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.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., this week called the COVID-era subsidies a "boondoggle.”
President Donald Trump has said he would “like to see a deal done for great health care,” 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.
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.
Appropriations bills vote
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's 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.
It would have potentially put a crack in Democrats' 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.
“This 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,” Thune yelled on the Senate floor following the vote.
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.
“We 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,” Schumer said Thursday.
Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democratic member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said that he wouldn't vote to “move forward on appropriations bills until they’re serious about stopping health care premiums from going up.”
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.
“So many of you have asked all of us, how will it end?" Johnson said, “We have no idea.”
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Associated Press writer Kevin Freking contributed to this report.