Senate centrists in both parties are trying to put together a deal to reopen the federal government.
A group of them huddled on the Senate floor Wednesday afternoon, after Democrats voted for the second time in two days to block a House-passed stopgap funding measure.
Three members of the Democratic caucus voted for the House-passed continuing resolution, but five more Democrats would need to support it to reopen the federal government.
Senate Republicans control 53 seats and need 60 votes to pass a government funding measure. They need eight Democratic votes because Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) doesn’t want to continue the current funding levels.
Additional Democratic centrists may support the resolution if they are given strong assurances from Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) that he will move a bill later this year to extend enhanced health insurance premium subsidies that expire at the end of the year.
“I trust that if the Republican leadership commits to do something and lets everybody know that, that they will do that,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), who has reached out to Republican colleagues about putting together a compromise on extending the enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies.
Shaheen is a leading Democratic co-sponsor of the Health Care Affordability Act, which would make the enhanced premium tax credits permanent at an estimated cost of $350 billion over 10 years.
Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), who huddled with a group of Democratic colleagues on the Senate floor, is floating a one-year extension of the enhanced health premium subsidies, an idea that Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) has also endorsed.
But Democrats are divided over whether a promise from Thune to advance legislation to address expiring subsidies — or to negotiate on the issue in good faith — would be a strong enough justification to vote to reopen government.
“We want to resolve this. Democrats are really concerned about health care and some of our Republican colleagues appreciate that because what is going to happen to folks on the ACA is going to affect folks in every state. It’s not a red state, blue state situation,” Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) said.
But Welch said he wants more than just a promise from the GOP leadership to address rising health care premiums.
“There has to be something that’s enforceable, obviously,” he said. “Whatever it is has to be something that is enforceable.”
“The bottom line here is that I sensed real concern among my Republican about what happens to the people they represent if we go off the cliff on the Affordable Care Act. The same thing that happens to Vermonters, which is devastating, will happen to folks they represent,” he said.
Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) said Republicans are working on an extension of the health premium subsidies.
“We’ve already said we’re working on that issue, but it doesn’t come due until the end of the calendar year. That’s not a reason to shut the government down now. In order to keep working on it, we need to pass the [continuing resolution],” Hoeven said.
Hoeven was involved with floor discussions with GOP and Democratic colleagues.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) told reporters Wednesday that he feels encouraged by the bipartisan talks taking place among rank-and-file senators.
“It’s a good thing that Democrats and Republicans are talking,” he said. “We’ve always believed that Democrats and Republicans should sit down and negotiate.”
Schumer said he’s spoken to Thune since the government shut down at midnight Wednesday.
Thune told reporters Tuesday evening that he’s open to negotiate an extension of the enhanced subsidies but he said that in-depth policy negotiations should happen when the government is open.
He also says that an extension of the subsidies needs to be discussed as part of a broader effort to reform the program to weed out waste, fraud and abuse.
“If there are Democrats out there who will recognized it needs to be reformed and are willing to work with us … we are willing to have that conversation,” he said.
“Anything that’s going to be done is going to have to be done with significant reforms,” he cautioned.
But many Republican senators don’t support extending the enhanced subsidies, viewing them as a relic from the COVID-19 pandemic that should have been allowed to expire months ago.
A senior Senate Republican aide said only a “handful” of GOP senators support extending the enhanced subsidies while the majority of the caucus is strongly opposed to doing so.
Asked whether he shares Thune’s willingness to negotiate an extension of the ACA subsidies, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Wednesday morning dismissed the issue as “extraneous.”
“This is an extraneous matter right now. What the Democrats are doing is trying to grab a red herring. They’re trying to bring in a December policy decision, which by the way is expiring because they themselves, the Democrats put that into law,” he said.
“That is not a decision that has to be made until the end of the year, Dec. 31,” he added.
Johnson said he’s talked to “one” of his Democratic colleagues on the phone recently and dismissed the idea that House Republicans would be willing to rewrite the seven-week continuing resolution they passed last month.
“We have open dialogue all the time. But here’s the simple fact: there isn’t anything we can do to make this bill any better for them. We literally did not put one single partisan provision in the bill. There are no policy riders, there are no gimmicks and no tricks,” he said.
