Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Monday the government shutdown is on its way to being one of the longest in history unless Democrats accept the House-passed, GOP-crafted stopgap bill to reopen the government.
“We’re barreling toward one of the longest shutdowns in American history, unless Democrats dropped their partisan demands and passed a clean, no-strings-attached budget to reopen the government and pay our federal workers,” Johnson said in a press conference on the 13th day of the government shutdown.
Congressional leaders have been locked in a standoff over government funding as Democrats demand that Republicans make concessions on health care, notably Affordable Care Act tax credits that are expiring at the end of the year. Republican leaders have refused to negotiate on health care during a shutdown, arguing that that Democrats must accept the “clean” funding stopgap the House passed in September — and which has failed to advance in the Senate seven times.
That’s not an option for many people, and that’s what’s scary as hell. For some it’ll be impossible to ever price them out of insurance, because they need the care regardless of the debt they rack up. If insurance offsets even 10% that’s a win.
Meanwhile in the healthy population, many will balk at the premiums, decide to drop the insurance and the whole house of cards falls down. GOP already got rid of the insurance mandate and that was a very popular move with their base. Slim chance mandatory coverage could be re-instated again.
Now the party is stuck and likely to let the entire system collapse. Maybe they’ll bail out the hospitals and insurance companies along the way, at a much higher cost than getting people the care they needed, but it seems inevitable.