Democrats coalesce around insurance subsidies as shutdown demand, Neal says

“If they try to jam something down our throats without any compromise — without any bipartisan, real, bipartisan discussion — they ain’t going to get the votes, plain and simple,” Schumer said.

Neal argued that Congress can’t wait much longer to avert the expiration of enhanced tax subsidies that help about 20 million of Americans afford health care plans offered on exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act. People who receive that assistance are already being notified that the tax subsidies will end later this year, he said, with open enrollment for health insurance beginning in November.

“So you can have this huge spike in health care costs coupled with the subtraction of health care for millions of Americans,” Neal said, referring to Medicaid cuts in the GOP domestic policy bill passed in July. “And we have broad agreement that the health of the American people should be paramount in this debate.”