‘Worth the fight’: Delaware congressional Democrats vow to stand firm on health care funding to reopen government

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Delaware’s congressional delegation said Monday they’re determined to keep the government closed until Republicans agree to restore health care funding in the short-term budget bill. Republicans control both chambers of Congress and the White House.

The House passed the Republican spending bill along party lines, but Senate Republicans need Democratic votes to approve the measure. Democrats voted Friday to defeat a GOP House bill that would have funded the government through Nov. 21.

Democrats and Republicans have pushed bills that have failed to garner the needed number of votes in the Senate to fund the government. Sens. Chris Coons and Lisa Blunt Rochester will be in Washington, D.C., on Monday as that chamber takes another vote on a temporary funding resolution.

The sticking point for Democrats is expiring Affordable Care Act plan subsidies, which help people afford to buy health care insurance on the Healthcare.gov marketplace. They also want previous cuts to Medicaid restored.

“This is about whether people can see a doctor, whether they can afford prescriptions, whether they can count on the services that they need,” Delaware Congresswoman Sarah McBride said. “Democrats continue to be ready to keep the government open, to extend the ACA tax credits, to protect life-saving research at the [National Institutes of Health].”

Carriers on the Delaware Health Insurance Marketplace have filed higher rates for the coming year, according to the Delaware Department of Insurance. The premium hikes approved for the three marketplace insurers range from 25% to 35%. Open enrollment begins Nov. 1.

The Republicans’ bill would continue current levels of funding. House Speaker Mike Johnson and other Republicans argue that Democrats are trying to reverse provisions passed this summer that prevented people in the country without legal status from being eligible for government health insurance.

“We got to make sure that illegal aliens are not on Medicaid,” Johnson told reporters Monday. “Medicaid is intended for us, citizens only, not illegals who break our law and come over the border.”

KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research group, said it is longstanding federal policy that undocumented immigrants are not eligible to enroll in federally funded health insurance coverage, including Medicaid, Medicare, ACA plans and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

The July Republican tax bill restricts eligibility to those programs for many lawfully present immigrants, including refugees and asylees. More than 1 million people here legally are expected to lose coverage in the coming months.

Blunt Rochester said nothing in the Democrats’ proposal changes those restrictions.

“Even when they are now being challenged with the lie that it is, they really don’t have a good, good response,” she said.

Senate Republicans need at least eight Democrats to break ranks and vote with them. In March, Democrats voted with Republicans to keep the government open, sparking backlash from some of their base.

So far, two Democrats and one independent have voted yes on the Republican bill. President Donald Trump’s administration pulled $7.56 billion in U.S. Department of Energy funding to hundreds of renewable energy projects in mostly blue states, including New Jersey and Delaware in apparent retaliation for the shutdown. White House officials have also threatened mass layoffs if Democrats continue to withhold their votes.

Coons said there is nothing to suggest that the administration will stop cutting funding or laying off federal workers if Democrats cave.

“I have heard from federal employees who’ve said to me missing a paycheck is bad, but the impact on the country of these massive cuts to health care – from canceling pediatric cancer research to laying off 1000s of researchers to the ACA increases – that impacts everyone,” he said. “This is worth the fight.”

Among the first to feel the impact of the government shutdown could be low-income women and children. McBride said she believed the funding was safe through October.

Questions to the Delaware Department of Health and Social Services and the Department of Public Health on the amount of available funding in the state for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the Women, Infants and Children food program received no response.

This story was supported by a statehouse coverage grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.