On Thursday, a Republican bill to end the government shutdown failed for the 10th time in the Senate, leaving lawmakers deadlocked as a federal funding shortfall enters its third week.
The resolution failed on a 51-45 vote, mostly along party lines. Sixty senators are needed to approve the stopgap bill. Republicans hold a narrow majority in the Senate with 53 seats.
Early Thursday morning, Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly called on President Donald Trump to engage in negotiations between Republican and Democratic senators to break the impasse.
“I think we need a president to make that happen. I think we need to work with Mike Johnson and John Thune,” Kelly said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” referring to Republicans who are the House speaker and Senate majority leader, respectively.
“They seem to be following his instructions in everything. This is how this is going to end,” the Arizona senator said.
A hurdle to passing a funding deal is that Democrats insist that any such bill extend enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire at the end of 2025.
The Democratic bill, which preserves the supplemental subsidies that about 22 million Americans rely on to reduce the cost of their Obamacare health plans, is expected to cost nearly $1.5 trillion over 10 years.
“The president is talking about how he wants this problem resolved. He wants these subsidies addressed,” Kelly said.
“So he agrees that we should open up the government and fix the subsidy issue under the Affordable Care Act, and that’s all we want,” Kelly said. “So I don’t know what the problem is.”
Thune and other Republicans said they are open to discussing whether to extend the ACA tax credit expansion after the short-term funding extension is approved.
In an interview with MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Thursday, Thune said, “I’m happy to sit down and talk about solutions around the ACA and tax credits, but that needs to be done in a different context than opening up government.”
“This is not a fight over health care. This is a very simple funding fight. It’s always been that way,” Johnson said in an interview Thursday on “Squawk Box.”
“They’ve created a dangerous red herring. The subsidy doesn’t expire until the end of the year,” Johnson said.
“The plan was always to have a thoughtful discussion and deliberation on this issue in October and November, before the subsidy ran out. They know that. They took it from the end of the year and dragged it back to September to try to make it look like it was an issue. It never was,” Johnson said.
He also said that ACA subsidies “need significant reform” “if they are indeed to be extended.”
Punchbowl News reported Thursday that “a bipartisan group of senators is discussing several different potential relief measures” for the shutdown impasse, “including strengthening Obamacare subsidies.”
“The group, led in part by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D.N.H.), is discussing the possibility of holding two parallel votes aimed at ending the government shutdown,” Punchbowl reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
“The first vote will be on reopening the government, and the second vote will be on a one-year extension of the Obamacare enhanced premium tax credit, as well as a commitment to pass a long-term solution by a certain date.”
