Democrats’ Shutdown Has Gone On Long Enough
By Sen. John Thune
Senate Democrats have kept the government shut down for over a month now. Republicans have given them more than a dozen opportunities to reopen the government with a clean funding extension, but, every time, Democrats have blocked it and forced hardworking Americans to continue suffering.
How much longer are Democrats going to keep the government shut down? The victims of Democrats’ shutdown are piling up, but Democrats don’t seem likely to spare anyone anytime soon. Air traffic controllers and other federal employees are working without pay. Military families are turning to food banks. Millions of American families will be without nutrition assistance thanks to Democrats prolonging this shutdown. And amid all of this, we hear Democrats talk about using the shutdown as an opportunity for “leverage.”
While Democrats search for leverage, Republicans are trying to reopen the government. Again, more than a dozen times we’ve offered a clean funding extension. We’re not asking Democrats to support Republican policies. We’re just asking them to reopen the government and end all of this pain and uncertainty. A few Democrats have voted for it, and even labor unions that often align with Democrats have endorsed the clean bill. But the vast majority of Democrats remain dug in.
Democrats claim they want to negotiate with Republicans about the Obamacare issue that they created, and we are happy to have a discussion about Obamacare’s failures just as soon as Democrats stop holding the government hostage. Republicans are ready to have discussions about health care because we know that Democrats’ signature health care law, Obamacare, has done nothing to address the problem of rising health care costs. Democrats, of course, promised it would. But every time we hear them talk about Americans facing a health care crisis, they’re admitting that Obamacare failed.
Now they want to put a band-aid on Obamacare by extending the Biden COVID bonuses at the cost of $350 billion to taxpayers, which will do nothing to stop Obamacare premiums from going up by double digits. Republicans are ready to have a discussion about actually lowering health care costs for hardworking Americans and increasing health care accessibility, but we won’t do it while Democrats hold the federal government hostage to their partisan demands.
Over the last month, Democrats have done everything they can to spin their shutdown as somehow Republicans’ fault. But let’s be clear. Democrats passed Obamacare without a single Republican vote. They created the Biden bonuses without a Republican vote. They set the expiration date for those subsidies by themselves. They chose to shut down the government despite Republicans putting up a nonpartisan funding extension and promising to discuss the problem Democrats created. And now they have kept that shutdown going for a month and wreaked havoc on countless Americans’ lives.
It’s time for Democrats to end their political games. It’s time they stopped thinking about their political leverage and considered the consequences of their shutdown. Supporting a clean funding extension shouldn’t be hard. We just need a handful of Democrats to be courageous enough to stop bowing to demands from the far left and do the right thing.
###
Thune writes: “Now they want to put a band-aid on Obamacare by extending the Biden COVID bonuses at the cost of $350 billion to taxpayers…”
$350 billion! Wow. That is a whole lot of money.
But that is the size of the tax cut Senator Thune could give ONE ESTATE by eliminating the estate tax for billionaires. Elon Musk is demanding 1 trillion dollars in shares from Tesla which could then be passed on to his heirs, without taxation, if Thune has his way. One family.
Hmm.
Senator, you stand against all government funded health care except that which you receive as a member of Congress. It’s exceptionally rich that you say if the Dems vote with you to reopen the government, you will then discuss their concerns knowing full well you and your ilk will never vote to keep in place the ACA subsidies and the earlier cuts made to Medicaid. Sad!
One of my most conservative friends just saw what her premium will be next year. Ouch! She is very upset. I’m not sure that the senator’s stance on this will age well.
Obamacare has failed to bring down the cost of premiums as it promised and thus the subsidies are needed. it appears that Obamacare is not working and subsidies will be needed forever. That is government money supporting insurance premiums and as close as you can get to single payer health insurance without going all the way. That will be the next step as was designed from the beginning.
Get rid of the filibuster. Trump is all knowing, all powerful, isn’t he? GET RID OF THE FILIBUSTER and this ends now. Everyone knows this. Do it.
TO BE CLEAR – you decry Democrats doing this to you, but you retain the right to simply do this to them later yourself. Boy if I ever needed a practical example of “hypocrisy” this would totally be IT. End the filibuster now, or let this tacit admission of empty hypocrisy stand for itself.
Obamacare is the problem. Anybody who read the Medical Loss Ratio Rebate provision and has half a brain could see where it was going.
The only way insurance companies can increase their bottom line is by charging higher premiums. They can’t do it through rescissions and denials anymore.
If they charge a group plan one million dollars they can keep about $150,000, pay $850,000 in benefits and rebates. But if they charge two million dollars they can keep about $300,000, and pay out $1,700,000 in benefits and rebates. The benefits go to the medical providers, the rebate checks go to the employers who can do whatever they want with the money. The notion that the employers would share the rebates with the healthy employees was absurd from the get-go. The employers can tell by the absenteeism which of their employees are costing the most money and get rid of them. They don’t need to see the employees’ private medical records to figure it out.
What your employer pays toward your health insurance premium is part of what he has budgeted for your compensation package. It’s your money, even if you don’t see it being deducted from your paycheck. And if you don’t get sick, he gets a rebate and it’s his money again. If you think your employer is “giving” you health insurance you’re a fool.