Senate Republicans tried and failed for the ninth time to reopen the government and are starting to believe that Senate Democrats won't budge until next week.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate Democrats again blocked the House-passed continuing resolution (CR) in their push for an extension of expiring Obamacare subsidies.
They argue that unless congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump come to the table and negotiate an extension to the expiring tax credits, they won't provide Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., the necessary votes to reopen the government.
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Democrats also contend that unless Congress acts before Nov. 1, the start of open enrollment for Obamacare, also known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Americans who rely on the subsidies will see their healthcare premiums skyrocket. Still, their refusal to vote with Republicans to reopen the government has thrust the shutdown into its third week and is closing the window to negotiate an extension to the subsidies before the open enrollment deadline begins.
"With open enrollment around the corner, Republicans cannot continue to kick this can down the road," Schumer said. "It's happening now. The healthcare crisis is now."
But Republicans have messaged that Senate Democrats are waiting for an upcoming "No Kings" protest in Washington, D.C., on Saturday before finding an off-ramp for the shutdown.
Thune acknowledged that there are still ongoing conversations about finding a way out of the shutdown, but he believed that Senate Democrats weren't going to make a move until after Saturday, two weeks before open enrollment begins.
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"It's just right now, I think the Dems, in particular, are dug in," he said. "I think you got to get past this Saturday. That's a threshold issue for them. But I'm hoping that in some of their conversations, they'll get sort of more realistic. But, yeah, this needs to end."
Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., who has engaged in talks with Republicans and Democrats on the Obamacare issue, said that the other side of the aisle likely wouldn't engage this week, "because they've got the big protest going on this coming Saturday."
"Once we get past that, hopefully they will come around, and they'll start actually considering the impact of keeping the government shut down," he said.
He noted that there were already talks among lawmakers on what to do with the expiring subsidies "before the shutdown."
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"And it really surprised a lot of us when our Democrat colleagues decided they were going to shut down the government anyway," Rounds said.
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In the midst of the healthcare squabble, Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., noted that the shutdown had much deeper ramifications, particularly on air travel as air traffic controllers could go without pay should the shutdown continue.
He argued that Senate Democrats and Schumer had become beholden to the "radical left" of the Democratic Party.
"And they're coming to Washington this weekend," Barrasso said. "And they've told us how dangerous they are by admitting that their shutdown strategy will not change until planes are falling out of the sky. Innocent people are collateral damage in this dangerous political game that the Democrats are playing."
