Democratic lawmakers, who have struggled to put together a winning political message against President Trump, are feeling confident they have an upper hand ahead of a looming government shutdown because they think they have an advantage over the GOP on health care.
The confidence is reflected in the fact that Senate Democratic leaders aren’t budging from their position that they won’t vote for a clean seven-week continuing resolution to fund the government past Sept. 30 if it passes the House.
Doing so risks getting blamed for the shutdown, but Democratic leadership feels confident it will win the public debate if Democrats are successful in arguing the shutdown is about protecting the health care of millions of Americans.
Democrats say health insurance rates are going to soar because Republicans are refusing to extend the enhanced health insurance premium subsidies under the Affordable Care Act, which are due to expire at the end of this year.
And they argue that problem is compounded by the $930 billion in cuts to Medicaid made by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that Trump signed into law in July.
Health care providers, Democrats say, will have to compensate for the general decrease in federal health care spending by charging private insurers more money.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), a senior member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said people are deeply concerned about health care with premium rates coming out in the next few weeks.
“In my state, the rates’ increase average is 21 percent, they’ve already said that. People are considering dropping [their insurance],” she said.
Democrats also argue the deep cuts to Medicaid from the legislation Trump signed into law will put dozens of rural hospitals around the country out of business, an issue that was a big concern of Republican lawmakers when they debated the “one big, beautiful bill” over the summer.
“I had hospitals in [to visit] yesterday. They are telling me they’re going to have to lay off [employees], close hospitals,” Murray added. “This is impacting people’s lives, and as we have known throughout the years here, when you impact people’s lives in a detrimental way on something that impacts them this personally, they get out and vote.”
Murray participated in a high-level Senate and House Democratic leadership meeting last week where Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) and their top deputies worked out the strategy for the big end-of-month government funding battle.
Democrats want to turn the debate over funding government into a fight over Trump’s signature legislative achievement, the Big Beautiful Bill, which has only a 32 percent approval rating, according to a Pew Research poll conducted last month.
Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), the ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee, who attended last week’s leadership meeting, said Democrats are demanding that Republicans restore the nearly $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid.
He said “calling attention” to the cuts to Medicaid is “essential.”
“These are very understandable issues. As of two nights ago, the Republican plan was polling at 31 or 32 percent. Even Republicans don’t like it,” he said of Trump’s signature legislation.
So far, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) have refused to negotiate with Democratic leaders on their demands to restore health care funding, but senior Democrats think it’s only a matter of time before GOP leaders come to the table.
Neal confidently predicted “there will be” talks among the four corners of the Republican and Democratic leadership in both chambers.
If Johnson and Thune refuse to make concessions on the expiring Affordable Care Act (ACA) premium subsidies or Medicaid cuts, then Democrats say they will defeat the GOP-crafted stopgap funding measure that needs to pass by Sept. 30 to avoid a government shutdown.
The pending House Republican stopgap would fund the government through Nov. 21 and provide $58 million in security for members of the executive branch and Supreme Court and a $30 million increase in security funding for members of Congress.
House Republicans on Wednesday adopted the rule to advance the stopgap on a party-line vote of 216 to 210.
They are expected to pass the measure Friday, but it awaits an uncertain fate in the Senate, where Republicans control a 53-seat majority but need to muster 60 votes to overcome a filibuster.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), an outspoken fiscal conservative, says he will vote against the stopgap because he says it would prolong Biden-era funding levels. This means Thune needs at least eight Democratic votes to pass the House Republican continuing resolution and avoid a shutdown.
Schumer says the House GOP proposal is dead on arrival in the Senate, and he’s pushing for a Senate Democratic alternative that would permanently extend the expiring ACA subsidies at a cost of $349.8 billion over 10 years and restore nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts.
Senate Republicans met Thursday afternoon to discuss their next steps forward and are mulling a proposal to vote first on the Senate Democratic stopgap funding measure. After that fails, they would move to the House GOP-drafted funding measure.
Johnson is trying to ratchet up pressure on Senate Democrats to vote for the bill by telling rank-and-file House Republicans that he will not bring them back to Washington from the Rosh Hashanah recess until Oct. 1 — after federal funding is due to lapse.
The Speaker’s message to Senate Democrats is to either pass the House bill or shut down the government.
But Democrats say they’re unified and are going to vote down that proposal. They believe a shutdown will only highlight the health care debate they want to have with Republicans heading into 2026 and the midterm elections.
“Even the faintest hearts aren’t going to cave this time,” said one Democratic senator, who requested anonymity to comment on internal caucus discussions.
The lawmaker said that Democratic senators, including Schumer, who voted for the partisan House GOP-crafted continuing resolution in March and felt an angry backlash from the Democratic base, have learned their lesson.
“We’re not going to cave, not after what happened last time,” the lawmaker said, referring to the political fallout that came after Democrats capitulated in the springtime spending fight.
