Yesterday, Democratic members of Colorado’s congressional delegation held a press conference where they discussed the government shutdown and what they describe as Republicans’ failure to pass a government funding bill that lowers health care costs.
Republican leadership has tried to paint Democratic efforts to extend tax credits from the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as “free health care for illegal immigrants,” although this characterization has no basis in reality.
Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO), along with Colorado Representatives Diana DeGette, Joe Neguse, Jason Crow, and Brittany Pettersen, lambasted the Republican proposal that would let tax credits from the ACA expire. Sen. Michael Bennet, also a Democrat, was initially slated to attend but dropped out at the last minute.
“I think I speak for all of us when I say nobody wants a shutdown. … We’re all here for one reason. Republicans refuse to step up and compromise — to negotiate with us — even to get the tax credits for the Affordable Care Act exchange extended so that we don’t see premiums going up thousands of dollars for more than 24 million Americans,” Hickenlooper said. “Health care has to be the basic block. Doubling health care premiums for millions of Americans is just crazy.”
“We’ve heard from one small business owner in Pueblo. She’s had her business for 15 years,” said Hickenlooper. “She’s got a preexisting condition. She speaks for thousands of people with their preexisting conditions. They’re not only going to lose coverage, but lose access to reliable health care. They’re going to lose their home in many cases. This individual told us that if Republicans don’t extend the ACA tax credits, she could spend up to 30% of her income on health care. That’s insane!”
Hickenlooper called her one of many people whom he’s spoken to whose insurance would skyrocket without these tax credits.
Next up, Diana DeGette, who represents Denver, criticized Republicans for continuing to blame their Democratic counterparts for the shutdown.
“I just want to point out to everybody, Republicans control the White House, they control the House of Representatives, and they control the Senate,” Degette said. “House Republicans have been out of town — this is the third week they’ve been out of town. They were even out of town when the government shut down. Because of the Republican and Trump shutdown, we’re already seeing problems across the country. At the Denver International Airport, our existing TSA staffing shortages have become even worse, and they’re about to be in crisis mode there and all over the country.”
DeGette went on to add that while she and others in her caucus are willing to negotiate on a bipartisan proposal to keep government open, Congress needs to address the impact on health insurance costs caused by the tax credits expiring.
“We can have a bipartisan agreement to pass a continuing resolution to keep our government open while we negotiate the appropriations bills to restore health care for Americans. The reason this is so urgent to do now is because premium notices are going to start going out the door, and for a family of four in Colorado earning $64,000 a year, their annual premiums are going to go up over $2,500, which is an increase of 184%. It’s estimated that [my constituents’] insurance will go up in our district by around 28%, but on the Western slope, it will be even more at 38%. So while we support the government funding legislation, we’ve got to cancel the medicaid cuts.”
The Colorado Division of Insurance recently released data that estimates an average increase of insurance premium costs by 28% by 2026 as a result of Congress’s failure to extend an ACA tax credit. In rural areas like the Western Slope, the increase is expected to be as high as 38%.
An estimated 25 million people are expected to either lose their health insurance or have their plans restricted because of the cuts made to the ACA.
Neguse said that he understands the impact of the shutdown on those who work for the federal government.
“I spent most of this morning visiting with federal workers in my district, the second district, with folks who are employed by the Forest Service in Fort Collins and individuals who are employed via federal labs in Boulder County,” Neguse said. “These are hard-working civil servants who each and every day contribute to our community, to our state, and to our country, and they are being unfairly impacted by the shutdown that House Republicans, Senate Republicans, and the Trump administration have engineered.”
Neguse accused Republican leadership of refusing to negotiate in good faith on a bipartisan agreement. The president has, so far, refused to even meet with Democrats in the Senate to discuss a way forward.
Crow from Colorado’s 6th Congressional District, anchored in Aurora, described the shutdown as being “manufactured” by the Republican majority.
“We did not have to be here. They created this crisis in early July when they passed Trump’s mega bill that will devastate health care for millions of Americans, hundreds of thousands of Coloradans, and we’re simply not going to go for it,” Crow said. “Every single year I’ve been in Congress where we have passed a budget, we have passed it on a bipartisan basis. We haven’t always got everything we wanted, both sides, because it was a compromise, but we’ve never faced anything like this before, where they are trying to slash health care entirely for millions of Americans, and then radically increase the premiums for tens of millions more. And to do it just to give massive windfall tax breaks to billionaire donors in the top 1%, which would be the largest shift in wealth in American history, we simply will not support it.”
Crow emphasized that the administration’s recent use of the military in U.S. cities contributed to reticence to pass a budget.
“What this administration wants us to do is, it wants us to pass a budget and give them essentially a blank check so that they can send troops into American cities like this president has said he wants to do,” Crow said. “They’re going to continue abuses by federal officers on our immigrant and refugee communities like we are seeing across this country. They want to ignore budgets we’ve passed in the past and destroy fundamental government services, despite the fact that congressional authority and the law doesn’t allow them to do it and continue their lawlessness.”
Crow also criticized GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson for refusing to hold a vote to pay active duty troops during the shutdown. There was a bipartisan proposal brought by Virginia Rep. Jen Kiggans (R) and 122 co-sponsors that would have provided active duty troops with pay during the shutdown, but Johnson said yesterday he did not plan on calling his members back during the shutdown, calling a vote on the bill a “show vote”.
“These people don’t know a damn thing about service, about sacrifice, about what it takes to keep this country safe and secure, and I’m not going to put up with it,” Crow said.
For their part, Republicans in Congress have repeatedly claimed that Democrats shut down the government to provide “free health care” to undocumented immigrants.
“House Republicans did our job, voting to keep the government open, to ensure our nation’s troops and federal employees get the pay they deserve — while protecting our seniors and veterans’ access to the necessary support and benefits they’ve earned,” said Rep. Gabe Evans (R-CO) in an October 1 statement. “Meanwhile, Democrats abandoned the American people, played political games, and forced a shutdown over a $1.5 trillion spending spree and free health care for illegal immigrants.”
Evans’ statement has been echoed by fellow Colorado Representatives Lauren Boebert and Jeff Crank, both Republicans,.
There is no basis for Evans’ claim that Democrats want to provide “free health care for illegal immigrants,” there is no realistic basis for that line of attack. Federal law already prohibits undocumented immigrants from receiving any form of federally funded health care, and Democrats are not pushing any changes to that law; rather, their proposal would restore health care programs to certain immigrants who are legally present in the United States.
Pettersen, the Lakewood Democrat, called out this lie that was being spread by Republican leadership.
“It’s shameful. They know that these are lies, and they are willing to say it over and over again,” Pettersen said. “In order to qualify for these tax credits, you have to be a taxpayer. That’s how tax credits work, and you have to be a lawful citizen or resident. It is just more lies, and it is deeply disappointing that they continue to target the immigrant community and make this into something that it absolutely is not. They know that this is about helping working families who are struggling to make ends meet. They’re backed in a corner, and they’re trying to make it about something different.”
