The Waiting Room After the Shutdown: Will Congress Take Any Action on Health Care?
Charles Gaba
Greetings, Lincoln Square readers!
When we left off two weeks ago, the federal government was in its fifth or sixth week of being shut down due to a standoff between Republicans and Democrats over several critical issues … most prominently, the enhanced ACA tax credits which are still, as of this writing, scheduled to expire at the end of December … less than six weeks from today.
As you likely know by now, while the latter is still (sadly) the case, the former no longer is: A few days later, 8 Senate Democrats joined 52 Senate Republicans in voting to go ahead and re-open the government without an extension of the upgraded subsidies. The House followed in kind a few days later, and after ~40 days or so, voila, the United States Government is back open for business, for good or for bad.
If you’re interested in my thoughts about how that all ended up playing out you can read it here.
Now, Democrats were able to, at the very least, get Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) to agree to a vote on extending the enhanced tax credits sometime in December (House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has agreed to no such thing in his chamber, however)…and while this may sound like pretty weak tea, one important consequence is that the whole ordeal has casued both Senate and House Republicans to start scrambling to come up with some sort of alternative — any alternative — to doing the one thing they despise most of all: Agreeing to keep the Affordable Care Act strong and successful.
https://www.lincolnsquare.media/p/the-waiting-room-after-the-shutdown
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