Much of the federal government is shut down after Republicans and Democrats in the Senate failed to reach an agreement on funding. Senate Democrats are insisting that any deal to keep the government running must include an extension of enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies.
NHPR’s All Things Considered host Julia Furukawa spoke with New Hampshire’s Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen about the latest in negotiations.
Transcript
Partisan fights leading to threats of a government shutdown have mostly been led by Republicans in recent years. This time, Democrats are the ones refusing to back down. Why is your party choosing to adopt this strategy now?
I've been clear from the beginning of this debate that I have two priorities. One is to keep the government open. We ought to be able to work together to get that done. And the other is to ensure that we don't have millions of people who lose their health insurance because we failed to address what's called the ACA premium tax credits, those subsidies that help people afford health insurance. And we know that there's some real urgency about this, because if we don't address it, the expectation is that we're going to see about 24 million people who are going to see their insurance premiums double. And as a result of that, about 4 million people are going to lose their health insurance because they're not going to be able to afford those additional costs. It's also going to have real ramifications for the health care system as a whole, because of the sicker risk pool — more healthy people leaving health insurance, and then when they get sick, they go to the emergency rooms. So there will be real impacts. And we need to address this. We need to do it now. And I think there's a fair amount of interest among our Republican colleagues to get this done. It's in everyone's interest to ensure that we're not kicking millions of people off of their health insurance.
Senator, Democrats are blaming Republicans, and Republicans are blaming Democrats for this shutdown. Do you think there's anything your party could have done differently or better during these negotiations?
I'm blaming everybody. I think it's unfortunate that President Trump said to Republicans in Congress, don't talk to the Democrats, that he refused to meet with the leadership of Congress until Monday of this week. So the day before, two days before the shutdown, that people have refused to sit down and negotiate to get this addressed. That's been past practice. When we're coming up on a looming government shutdown, people have been willing to sit down and negotiate. That's been sorely lacking this time. Now, I am hopeful that people are talking to each other, that there seems to be a real interest in resolving this and that that's going to produce some results.
You voted in favor of a continuing resolution earlier this week that would have extended negotiations by a week or so. That resolution did not receive enough Democratic support to pass. With both parties sticking their heels in, what is the way forward here? What does that look like?
Well, again, I think the way forward is for people to sit down and negotiate, for leadership to come to the table, for members — I've talked to a lot of members on both sides of the aisle who think that these issues are resolvable. We're not that far apart. We need to get this done. It's in the interest of the American people. It's in the interest of those people who may lose their health insurance if we don't act to work together to get this done. That's what I hear from people in New Hampshire. They want us to work together. That's what we should be doing.
And when it comes to the restoration of these health care subsidies, do you see that as absolutely necessary? Are you willing to budge on that at all?
I think there are a number of ways to address concerns that have been raised about the premium tax credits. We know that about 94% of people who are receiving that help to pay for their health insurance earn less than $200,000 a year. One concern has been, can we cap the amount of money that someone can earn to get those subsidies. The average salary for somebody receiving them is $32,000 for an individual and $64,000 for a couple. We heard yesterday from a woman in Maine who has MS, who has significant health care bills. She told us that she and her husband, who is the sole salary earner in the family, he's making $41,000 a year, and they're paying about $11 a month for their health insurance premium because they get those tax credits. If those go away, their premium is going to be over $2,000 for the year. And she said, I don't know how we're going to pay for that with the additional bills we have to address to support her MS. So this is a very real issue for so many people, and we ought to be able to figure out how to get this done.
Senator, you've been through government shutdowns before, including the longest in our history that took place at the end of 2018 into 2019. How does this current situation compare to previous shutdowns?
I think people are talking more, which is a good sign. Now, if we could get people to actually stay here and negotiate and the leadership, we're willing to be part of that. That would be important. And I also think there's an understanding that it's very important for us to get an appropriations process that provides a budget for the country so that people know what they can count on.
The Trump administration has said it will use this shutdown as an opportunity to lay off more federal workers. There are 5,000 or so federal workers in New Hampshire. How do those kinds of threats factor into your party's decision on whether to keep this shutdown going?
Well, I think the person who needs to be blamed for any layoffs of federal workers is the president. He and his DOGE operation are the reason that we've already seen thousands, tens of thousands of federal workers who have been riffed from everywhere, from the Department of Agriculture, to the State Department to the Department of Veterans Affairs. So the president has already taken every opportunity to fire federal employees. And so this should not be a surprise. He's been doing this since the beginning of the year. And I hope that people are connecting the dots. The reality is that Republicans control the white House, the House and the Senate. They're the ones responsible. And we need to now figure out that it's in everybody's interest to work together to talk to each other. They should stop refusing to negotiate and sit down and let's get this done.
