Copyright New York Post
WASHINGTON — Democrats on Capitol Hill are openly admitting that they plan to drag the government shutdown into next month — possibly breaking the all-time record of 35 days in the process — to try and score political points as Americans begin applying for health insurance coverage. “Shutdowns are terrible and, of course, there will be families that are going to suffer. We take that responsibility very seriously,” House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) told Fox News senior congressional correspondent Chad Pergram in a recent interview. “But it is one of the few leverage times we have.” Clark’s admission, which was blasted to millions of Americans by the Trump White House, Republican National Committee, and other GOP-aligned X accounts, came as the government shutdown — the second-longest in US history — entered its fourth week. Open enrollment in ObamaCare exchanges is set to begin Nov. 1 and last through mid-December, with millions of Americans expected to start getting notices from their insurance companies that premiums will be rising around the same time. Worsening the situation is that funding for food stamps as well as the Women, Infants and Children nutrition programs could soon run out — making the shutdown even more painful for young and poverty-stricken families. Meanwhile, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy revealed in a Post op-ed Tuesday that America’s overworked air traffic controllers are set to miss their first full paycheck if the shutdown extends past Oct. 28. If the government’s lights are still dark on Nov. 6, Congress will have beaten the 35-day shutdown record set during President Trump’s first term in January 2019. But for the past three weeks, Senate Democrats have repeatedly blocked a GOP-backed stopgap measure to reopen the government until Nov. 21 — while demanding Republicans reverse Medicaid reforms enacted over the summer and extend Obamacare tax subsidies set to expire at the end of the year. “The longer this shutdown goes on, the more apparent it is that Democrats never wanted to solve a problem — they wanted to exploit one and drag it out for political cover,” a senior Republican aide vented to The Post. “There’s been no meaningful outreach to committees or leadership staff, as far as anyone can tell. If they were serious about lowering costs, wouldn’t there have been staff-level conversations at some point this year?” Though public polling indicates most Americans blame both parties for the chaos, Democrats believe the public will swing behind them after the 24 million on Affordable Care Act Marketplace health plans are alerted that higher premiums are coming. “It’s still not possible to stop the full impact of the rate increases after Nov. 1,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told Punchbowl News last week. “If we don’t deal with this before Nov. 1, it becomes trickier to solve legislatively, but the heat gets turned way up by the public to do something,” he added. Mike Tuffin, the president and CEO of AHIP, the largest health insurance industry trade association, said he believes there are “challenges associated with implementing a late extension of the health care tax credits, but these challenges are not insurmountable.” “If the tax credits are extended, health insurers will work quickly with regulators and do everything they can to help consumers understand their updated coverage choices for 2026,” Tuffin added. Other Democrats believe the Nov. 1 date could be an off-ramp after “making Republicans own” the higher premium costs Americans may face, Punchbowl News reported. “The American people are facing one of the most devastating crises they have faced in terms of cost, and we still have not heard crickets out of any negotiation,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said last week. “The Republicans are on the defensive. They keep changing their stories and changing their arguments, but we are on the side of the American people.” Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) vented to reporters Wednesday that Schumer and the Democrats “can’t even articulate what they want.” “This was never about a solution on healthcare or anything else; this was about a spectacle, about a political distraction so that they could show a fight to the Marxist left of the Democratic Party,” Johnson said. It’s unclear also whether moderate Democrats like Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman will be able to convince enough of their colleagues to vote for the so-called “clean” funding bill — with or without Schumer’s blessing. Clark, in an appearance on CNN Wednesday, said she “certainly disagree[d] with” Fetterman’s support for reopening the government. “We have opposed this budget at every single point,” she said, inaccurately characterizing the stopgap measure as full of Trump-picked poison pills. A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday found that 45% of registered voters view Republicans as “more responsible for the government shutdown,” while 39% said Democrats were more to blame. At the same time, the survey revealed that 35% of those voters approve of congressional Republicans, compared with just 26% who have a positive opinion of congressional Democrats. Both parties’ approval ratings in running Congress are underwater by double digits. Reps for Clark did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
