Government shutdown drags on as health care compromise remains elusive
With his personal Bible on the lectern, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., holds a news conference to mark the seventh day of the government shutdown, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
WASHINGTON (AP) — To hear party leaders talk, the seventh day of the government shutdown sounded a lot like the first. Democrats are seeking negotiations on expiring health care subsidies while Republicans say they won't discuss it, or any other policy, until the government reopens.
The two sides are also offering starkly different visions of the Affordable Care Act and how to deal with the expanded premium assistance that will soon expire for millions of people — Democrats want the aid extended, while Republicans insist the subsidized health care system is broken and must be cut back.
“Democrats’ position has not changed,” said Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer. “We want the same thing that a majority, an overwhelming majority, of Americans want, which is to end this shutdown and halt the health care crisis that will send premiums spiking for tens of millions of people.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., met with Senate Republicans on Tuesday and said the party is “100% united,” which he said is “a good place to be in.”
It's unclear how the impasse will end, even as hundreds of thousands of federal workers are going unpaid and many government services are slowed or suspended. Democrats believe the public is on their side as they fight to keep the COVID-era subsidies, but health care is also one of the most intractable issues in Congress — and a real compromise is unlikely to be easy, or quick.
There are some Republicans in Congress who want to extend the aid as millions of people who receive their insurance through the ACA marketplaces are set to receive notices that their premiums will increase at the beginning of the year. But many GOP lawmakers are strongly opposed to any extension — and see the debate as a new opportunity to try to reform the program.
“If Republicans govern by poll and fail to grab this moment, they will own it,” wrote Texas Rep. Chip Roy, a Republican, in a letter published in The Wall Street Journal over the weekend. He encouraged senators not to go “wobbly” on the issue.
“The jig is up, the pandemic is over and my colleagues shouldn’t blink in any other direction,” Roy wrote.