As government shutdown vote nears, Reps. Baumgartner and DelBene explain opposing sides

Later this evening, the House will vote on whether to approve a funding bill and reopen the government.

The Senate approved the deal Monday and voted to fund the government through January 30, Time Magazine explained. Democrats are demanding Republicans agree to extend the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which provides healthcare subsidies.

Both Republican Rep. Michael Baumgartner and Democratic Rep. Suzan DelBene will be voting Wednesday night on the shutdown. However, Baumgartner is in support of passing the bill, while DelBene is against it.

Republican Rep. Michael Baumgartner says they want to fix ‘broken system’

Baumgartner believes the ACA is flawed and wants to find better alternatives.

“What I’m supportive of is taking measures to bring health care costs down for Americans,” Rep. Michael Baumgartner said at a press conference. “Right now, we have a health care system that is dominated by the faulty structure of Obamacare, and health care premiums have been skyrocketing. And what happened during COVID was the Democrats used the aspects of COVID to try to push through increased taxpayer dollars to cover up the blemishes of Obamacare. So what I want to do is not just prop up a broken system, but look at actually driving costs down. How do we incentivize wellness? How do we look at things like tort reform?”

Republicans are looking to restructure the healthcare system.

“The American health care system is very strange, and health care is not portable. You have health care if you’re with an employer, but if you lose that employer, you could be out of the health care system. We’d have health care that transfers between jobs,” he said.

Baumgartner claimed the government shutdown is a way for Democrats to regain power.

“This was never about healthcare. This was about politics and political advantage and the fact that the Democratic base feels very frustrated with their weak leadership and that they don’t think President Trump is the rightfully elected president of the United States and want their leaders to fight harder, and so they’ve taken that frustration and caused a lot of turmoil for the country, and it’s been very, very unfortunate,” he said.

Democratic Rep. Suzan DelBene emphasizes 80,000 people won’t be able to afford healthcare

Meanwhile, DelBene emphasized the impact of losing the ACA and said Republicans refuse to help.

“Families across the country are seeing skyrocketing costs, and we’ve definitely seen skyrocketing healthcare costs,” DelBene told KIRO Newsradio. “The premiums that people are looking at for next year are skyrocketing across our state, and in fact, our insurance commissioner estimates about 80,000 people aren’t going to be able to afford healthcare next year. As a result, we have bipartisan policy that helps support our communities, keeps the government open, and makes sure that we keep health care affordable for people across the country. These are not things in competition with each other. We can do all of that. Unfortunately, Republicans have refused to come to the table.”

As for what that path forward looks like, DelBene said many Republicans have talked about wanting to extend the ACA tax credits, but have voted for policy that would protect those tax credits.

“They’re in charge of the House, the Senate, the White House, and have refused to work on policy that helps the American people. And the number one issue for folks across the country is rising costs — policy after policy, whether it’s tariffs, raising costs on housing, food, energy costs, and now health care, all because of policies they put in place. It didn’t have to be this way, the way we come up with solutions to help our communities, we have people come to the table, work on bipartisan solutions, because the only way we can get things through the House and the Senate is for folks to come together. But Republicans are more interested in being blindly loyal to Donald Trump than actually fighting for their communities. And unfortunately, that’s where we are today,” she shared.

Voting will take place later this evening in Washington, D.C.

Follow Julia Dallas on X. Read her stories here. Submit news tips here.