KIRO NEWSRADIO OPINION

John Curley: Government shutdown shows U.S. healthcare fails taxpayers

Oct 3, 2025, 5:00 AM

The federal government officially shut down at midnight Tuesday, after Congress failed to agree on funding for various federal departments.

KIRO host John Curley placed blame on the U.S. healthcare system and summarized its handling over the past years, leading up to the current government shutdown.

“Under the Biden Administration, or whoever’s running the auto pen, they took the number of people that were eligible for Obamacare, for government health insurance, and they extended it out because we were in an emergency and people weren’t working,” Curley said on “The John Curley Show” on KIRO Newsradio. “They got rid of the income caps and just showered money down, extending the health care benefits.”

Curley jumped forward to the Trump administration’s prioritization of federal funding and drew attention to an underperforming Affordable Care Act, informally known as Obamacare.

“Now the Republicans want to bring the number back to where it was before. Instead of 24 million people who were getting this benefit, they want to put some sort of requirements in place, which was part of the ‘big, beautiful bill,'” Curley said. “You’re talking about spending our tax dollars to provide healthcare for people, which was supposed to bring down the cost of healthcare, but it hasn’t.”

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to John Curley weekday afternoons from 3 – 7 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.

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John Curley: Government shutdown shows U.S. healthcare fails taxpayers