Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress are patting themselves on the back for clawing their way out of a self-imposed government shutdown without giving an inch on working families’ health care. But if the GOP has won this battle, their victory will be pyrrhic. During the longest government shutdown in history, voters learned the truth about what Republicans are doing to jack up their health care costs. They soundly rejected the GOP price hikes in bellwether elections across the nation last Tuesday, and poll after poll shows that unless Republicans dramatically change course in the coming months, they’ll lose on health care in the midterms next November.
“If Republicans think voters next year will care more about how the government shutdown ended than who stood up for their health care, they are whistling past the graveyard,” said Protect Our Care President Brad Woodhouse. “The shutdown fight taught the American people that while Democrats are fighting for working families’ health care, the GOP stands only for lining the pockets of billionaires.”
HEADLINES
The Independent: Why Republicans Not Extending Obamacare Tax Credits Helps Democrats in the Long Run
- “But if Republicans choose to not take up the subsidies [or] even significantly pare them down, they risk a biblical Blue wave. According to a poll from KFF, a health care nonprofit, three quarters of Americans and about the same amount of independents say Congress should extend the subsidies.”
Bloomberg: GOP’s Shutdown Win May Backfire Over Soaring Health-Care Costs
- “Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who is retiring, warned his Republican colleagues that they’re courting political disaster next year if they don’t extend the health care subsidies or moderate Trump’s deep cuts to Medicaid, a program for low-income and disabled Americans.”
CNN: Trump’s Shutdown Win Just Landed Republicans With a Huge Political Headache
- “Trump and Republicans once again own the issue of health care, with millions of citizens — not just those on ACA plans — afflicted by rising premiums and high deductibles against the backdrop of a wider cost-of-living crisis.”
- “If the GOP cannot fix the immediate issue of the subsidies — and convince voters they have a serious solution to this and other affordability questions — their 2026 midterm election hopes could take a dive.”
NPR: When the Dust Settles on the Shutdown Deal, Democrats Will Likely Still Have the Edge
- “What’s more, if Republicans do vote against health care subsidy extensions in December — when a promised vote is to take place as part of this shutdown deal — then the GOP will fully own the increased health care costs that come with it.”
USA Today: Master Stroke or Dumb Luck, Dems May Win Shutdown’s Long Game
- “But almost precisely one year from today, when crucial midterm elections are held, history says the shutdown will be old news while the costs of health care will still be front and center.”
- “[…] congressional Democrats may have won the long game by losing the short one on the shutdown. They have spotlighted the rising cost of health care and forced Republican senators to vote against premium help that Democrats support.”
The New York Times: What if Democrats’ Big Shutdown Loss Turns Out to Be a Win?
- “Democrats […] assert that in hammering away at the extension of health care subsidies that are slated to expire at the end of next month, they managed to thrust Mr. Trump and Republicans onto the defensive, elevating a political issue that has long been a major weakness for them.”
- “Representatives Jen Kiggans of Virginia and Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, two Republicans facing competitive races next year, recently sent a letter to Speaker Mike Johnson telling him that once the government was reopened, Republicans needed to “immediately turn our focus to the growing crisis of health care affordability and the looming expiration of the enhanced Affordable Care Act (A.C.A.) premium tax credits.”
Daily Kos: Why Democrats Won the Government Shutdown
- “Voters now know that Democrats tried to help lower their health care costs, but were blocked from doing so by Republicans—who at the end of the day were never going to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies no matter how long the shutdown dragged on.”
New York Magazine: What If the Shutdown Actually Hurt Republicans, Not Democrats?
- “But just as importantly, by ‘losing’ the Obamacare subsidy–extension fight, Democrats may have dodged a bullet. A deal on that issue would have cushioned or even eliminated an Obamacare premium price hike that will now be a real problem for Trump and the GOP. Republicans appear to have no health-care plan other than the same tired panaceas involving individual savings plans that allow health insurers to discriminate against poorer and sicker Americans — precisely the problem that led to passage of the Affordable Care Act and has made Obamacare popular.”
CBS: Failure to Extend ACA Tax Credits in Government Funding Package Leaves Millions in Limbo
- “Three-quarters of Americans favor renewing the subsidies, according to recent KFF polling. That includes 94% of Democrats and about half of Republicans.”