Top Senate Republican says he can ‘guarantee’ a vote on key healthcare provision amid shutdown standoff – live

Senate majority leader there will be a vote on Obamacare subsidies, as Democrats have demanded, but ‘can’t guarantee it’s going to pass’

Mike Johnson said that Bernie Sanders, the independent senator from Vermont, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democratic congresswoman from New York, said the “quiet part out loud” during a televised CNN town hall on Wednesday.

“They don’t know what they want to end the shutdown. They couldn’...

The government shutdown is holding health care hostage 

Health insurance is supposed to help families, not bully them. Yet when big insurers, or their lobby in Washington, don’t get the policy outcome they want, they reach for the same lever: higher premiums.  

That isn’t care. That’s pressure — and patients feel it first. 

We have seen this before. In October 2017, the administration cut off cost-sharing reduction payments. Carriers answered by “silver-loading” the next year, piling the missing dollars onto sil...

GOP seeks to wrest back momentum from Democrats in shutdown fight

Republicans are trying to win back political momentum in the government shutdown fight from Democrats, putting their rivals on the defensive and taking solace from polls showing Americans are starting to shift more blame to Democrats for the funding stalemate.

After struggling through a bad last week that highlighted their divisions on health care, Republicans have showed signs of regrouping.

They’ve forced Democrats to vote twice on a House-passed government fund...

Who might be hardest hit by expiring Obamacare tax credits 

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Watch live: Jeffries speaks to press on Day 15 of shutdown

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) is holding his second press conference of the day as the government shutdown stretches into Day 15.

Jeffries, who headlined a press conference with his caucus Wednesday morning focused on health care, will return to the podium with fellow Democratic leaders this afternoon.

Jeffries has said Democrats will not vote to reopen the government until Republicans engage in good-faith negotiations over restoring Medicaid fund...

Speaker Johnson suggests House would return to fund DOD — but only if the government is reopened

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) suggested Wednesday that the House will not return to the Capitol to vote on an $852 billion Pentagon bill the Senate is set to consider Thursday — unless Senate Democrats first agree to reopen the government. 

The Speaker also said he did not expect Senate Democrats to provide the votes to approve the defense measure Thursday. It will be considered amid a government shutdown that is in its third week.

“My suspicion is the Democr...

Shutdown may start costing economy $15B a day: Bessent

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday that the ongoing government shutdown may start costing the economy as much as $15 billion per day.

“We call on the moderate Democrats in the Senate to be heroes. Be heroes, break away from the hive of radicalism and do something for the American people, because we are starting to cut into muscle here,” Bessent said during a press conference.

“We believe that the shutdown may start costing the U.S. economy up to $15 b...