Congressional Democrats on Tuesday said closing down the government to fight for pandemic-era Obamacare subsidies is worth it because the COVID-19 crisis isn’t completely over.
Even if the pandemic had ended, Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut said, Americans still need protection from disease.
“People are still getting COVID. It’s not what it was several years ago, but it’s a fact of life,” she said. “So we have to continue to make sure that people have the coverage that they need in order to get the vaccine.”
Ms. DeLauro added that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vaccine mindset only adds to the health care crisis.
“He would really make it more difficult for people to be able to fight back on these diseases, whatever the nature of the next pandemic will be,” she said.
The subsidies were enhanced under President Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act and the Inflation Reduction Act to cover everyone regardless of income and to cover a higher share of premiums.
Keeping the extra Obamacare subsidies, which are set to expire this year, is the chief demand in the congressional Democrats’ shutdown showdown with Republicans.
Republicans counter that extending Obamacare subsidies will not fix health care costs, and a larger debate over health care should be separated from the roughly two-month funding patch Republicans wanted to stop the government shutdown.
House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark of Massachusetts said there’s a new health care crisis that justifies an extension of bigger Obamacare subsidies.
“We are seeing premiums about to double,” she said. “We’re saying, ‘No. Let’s come to the table.’”
