As the longest government shutdown in American history extends this Saturday to 39 days, President Donald Trump is urging Republicans in the Senate to negotiate on health care issues. These are at the center of the dispute in Congress to have a budget agreement with which they can reopen federal operations.
Democratic congressmen have been demanding that a new budget include enough funding for the Medicaid system, to which the Trump Administration made cuts in the summer, and that subsidies for purchasing health insurance through the private market of the Affordable Care Act (nicknamed Obamacare) also be maintained.
Republicans have maintained that discussions on that funding can occur until after there is already a temporary overall budget agreement with which to reopen, and have rejected Democratic proposals to extend the subsidies for at least a year.
But this Saturday Trump sent another signal to his party: through his platform, Truth Social, he said that Republicans in the Senate should indeed discuss subsidies. However, the president indicated that these funds should not be renewed to be distributed to insurers — as is currently the case in exchange for them offering lower premiums — but that the money should be given directly to the people. He did not explain how this potential direct distribution could happen.
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“I am recommending to Republican senators that the hundreds of millions of dollars currently being sent to money-grubbing insurers to bail out the bad health insurance provided by Obamacare instead be given directly to people so they can buy their own better insurance,” the president said.
The Obamacare market is designed so that people can directly purchase their own policy.
Trump did not explain how the subsidies could be distributed so that the money really remains directly in the hands of the people.
Senate extends sessions
Trump’s “recommendation” was made on social networks when the Senate is just meeting in Washington DC in an extended session to discuss possible agreements to reopen the Government.
A group of moderate Democrats and some Republicans have been trying to negotiate a temporary budget plan with which parts of the Government, such as food programs or services for veterans, can continue to be funded at least until December. The idea would be to have those funds for now and by January to discuss a more comprehensive plan that does include the health issue and potentially maintains the subsidies, but without this being guaranteed.
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Another temporary budget plan that did include subsidies, proposed this week by the Democratic caucus, was rejected by Republican congressmen.
Trump has also in recent days asked Republicans to use a mechanism called filibuster so that it is not necessary to obtain a majority of 60 votes with which to advance a budget plan, but senators such as John Thune, Republican of South Dakota who is the leader of the majority caucus, has said that it would be better to achieve a bipartisan plan.
Little clarity on Trump’s proposal
About 24 million people in the United States depend on Obamacare’s marketplace, healthcare.gov, to buy health insurance.
Without subsidies, premiums for such insurance are expected to increase, on average, at least 30% next year.
Trump’s proposal that subsidies stop being managed through Obamacare could only be fulfilled with a new law in Congress, something that seems difficult given the party divisions in the legislative branch.
The same leader of the majority caucus in the Senate, Thune, acknowledged this Saturday that Trump’s suggestion would not be part of a solution to reopen immediately but is part of a “discussion that the president and all of us want to have” at some point in the future, as he told .
For this reason, senators on the Democratic side reacted skeptically to the proposal made by Trump in Truth Social.
“In other words, do you want people, instead of purchasing insurance through an already established system, to receive a few dollars in hand and then see how they manage to get their health care policy using that money?” criticized Chris Murphy, Democratic senator from Connecticut, on social networks. “How little seriousness,” he added.
Even so, other members of the Upper House celebrated the president’s suggestion, such as Rick Scott, Republican senator from Florida.
Scott said on social network health savings, which normally only people with eligible health insurance plans, such as preventive care plans, can pay.
