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Democrats have now confirmed what was an open secret last week: They’re going to use their leverage in the upcoming government funding showdown, where their votes are needed to pass anything in the Senate, to ask for health care changes, in particular an extension of enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that expire at the end of the year. Both House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), along with other legislative leaders, pronounced themselves united on this, insisting that Democrats will put their imprint on the budget deal and reject any “clean” stopgap funding that is negotiated without them.
“We have broad agreement that the health of the American people should be paramount in this debate,” Rep. Richie Neal (D-MA), the Democrats’ top member of the House Ways and Means Committee, told Politico.
I’ve made my thoughts known on this. I understand the logic of presenting a straightforward message on an issue where the public trusts Democrats, and deliver something that I agree is desperately needed to prevent a huge shock to the system and millions of Americans’ sudden loss of insurance. Making the ask tangible and real, the theory goes, can galvanize support at a time when more people will be tuning in as the shutdown countdown nears. And if that’s what can unite House and Senate Democrats, and get Schumer to reject a Republican-only deal, so be it.
But to me, this exchanges something Republicans need (preventing a health insurance apocalypse that they created) with something they want (passing government funding on their terms). More important, it diminishes the urgency of the moment. The usual back-and-forth of bipartisan politics dictates that you ask for A as a condition for supporting B, and everyone gets something out of it. This is a quaint but dramatically wrong way to look at the stakes in America right now.
Today, Congress is on the verge of being totally sidelined, as President Trump misappropriates emergency powers, violating the law and usurping congressional spending powers in a bid to reinvent American government as a personalist autocracy. Presenting the upcoming battle as an event where Democrats fight for a health care provision is a woefully inadequate way to send a big flashing signal to the public about our shared reality. It normalizes something deeply abnormal. |
