Schumer, Jeffries demand major health care concessions to keep government funded

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) and other high-ranking Democrats say any government funding package to keep federal departments operating past Sept. 30 must include major concessions from Republicans to repair what they say is fast becoming a national health care crisis.  

“House and Senate, Hakeem and I are in total agreement, what the Republicans are proposing is not good enough for the American people and not good enough to get our votes. The American people are hurting, health care is being decimated on all different fronts, people are going to die, people are losing jobs, people are losing health care,” Schumer said Thursday.

“On this issue, we’re totally united. The Republicans have to come to meet with us in a true bipartisan negotiation to satisfy the American people’s needs on health care or they won’t get our votes, plain and simple,” Schumer warned at a press conference on the House side of the Capitol.

Jeffries delivered the same blunt message to colleagues.

“We are together in defense of the health care of the American people,” he said. “We’re together as it relates to the unprecedented attack on the health care of the American people.”

“We will not support a partisan spending agreement that continues to rip away health care from the American people. Period. Full stop,” he said.

The hard-line Democratic leaders are taking is raising the likelihood of a government shutdown in a few weeks, given that Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) on Tuesday closed the door on the possibility of adding language to extend the enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) health insurance subsidies to the funding stop gap.

Schumer and Jeffries met with Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.), House Appropriations ranking member Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and the Democratic leaders of the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees for an hour Thursday morning to shape their demands heading into the Sept. 30 government funding deadline.

Democrats are looking for major concessions on two big issues: the enhanced Affordable Care Act insurance subsidies that are due to expire at the end of the year, and the deep cuts to Medicaid spending included in Republicans’ tax and spending bill, which threaten to put small hospitals around the country out of business.

“People are just seeing their costs going through the roof, they hate it and probably the number one or number two reason for that is health care,” Schumer said, citing nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid spending cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which President Trump signed into law in July.

The enhanced ACA subsidies are due to expire at the end of the year, and Democrats are seeking an extension of them soon because open enrollment for the ACA marketplace begins on Nov. 1.

KFF, a health care policy research group, estimates that 22 million Americans could see their health insurance premiums increase significantly next year if the higher subsidies aren’t renewed.

Schumer and Jeffries also pointed to the Medicaid cuts included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act as something that must be addressed in the stop-gap legislation.

“We are saying that we need — the American people are hurting because of how they have decimated health care — we need bipartisan negotiation to undo that damage. If they try to jam something down our throats without any compromise, without any compromise, without any real bipartisan discussion, they ain’t going to get the votes, plain and simple,” Schumer told reporters.