Thune Joins Ali Vitali on MSNBC
“At some point, reasonable Democrats are going to have to come to the conclusion that [a government shutdown] doesn’t benefit anybody.”
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WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) joined Ali Vitali on MSNBC’s Way Too Early.
On Democrats’ health care crisis:
“I don’t think you can do … a straight-up extension of the ACA tax credits, premium tax credits, they are enhanced subsidies, so they are over and above the base Obamacare program, which was available to people up to 400 percent of poverty.
“What the Democrats did a couple years ago was they took the income cap off, so now you’ve got people [that] make five or $600,000 a year that are eligible for … subsidies under this program. You’ve also got insurance companies that are benefiting enormously because … they’re incentivized to sign people up, because the federal government is making direct payments to the insurance companies.
“[Insurance companies] go out and auto-enroll people. There are tons of people out there who have these [subsidies] who don’t even know they’re covered. So this is a program that's desperately in need of reform.”
[…]
“Democrats created the expiration date when they did this. They could have done this permanently and they didn’t.”
“I don’t want to see anybody’s premiums go up … And that’s not going to be attributable exclusively to these enhanced credits. The insurance companies are raising rates everywhere every year anyway. Part of the reason for that is the basic program is flawed.
“People ought to be able to buy the insurance that they want. And you know, they are in the exchanges and every year these premiums [are] going up … That’s not the way this ought to work.”
[…]
“At some point, Democrats have to take yes for an answer … [Republicans] are all about getting health insurance down, making it affordable for more people. Premiums shouldn’t be going up … and one of the reasons they are is because there is waste, fraud, and abuse of this program. The incentive structure is skewed to the insurance companies, so insurance auto-enroll people, and they’re making bank doing it.”
[…]
“These were covid subsidies … this was in response to covid. Covid is no longer with us … the people who were designed to take advantage of this program are people with 400 percent of poverty and under. Now you’ve got people making half a million, 600,000 a year, that are benefiting from the subsidy …
“It’s a program that needs to be reformed … get the government open again and let's have a conversation about how to fix it.”
On Democrats’ shutdown hypocrisy:
“There is a bill sitting at the desk right now that opens up the government, and you all know that. The president would sign it today. It’s simply a function of five Democrats joining the three Democrats who are already voting to open up the government. And I think that’s the quickest way to end this …
“At some point, reasonable Democrats are going to have to come to the conclusion that this doesn’t benefit anybody. I don’t believe government shutdowns benefit anybody, and that used to be a position that was held by the Democrat leadership. I think right now they’re very beholden to, and there’s this big rally this weekend with all these left-wingers that are in town, and I think it’s gonna be very hard for them to agree to something prior to that rally happening …
“I’m hoping that once that’s … in the rear-view mirror, that we’ll be able to sit down … I’ve had this conversation with … Democrats in the Senate, that the solution isn’t going to come through the [Democrat] leadership, it’s going to come through the rank-and-file [senators]. I think it’s going to be a number of Democrats who are willing to … figure out a way to be comfortable with what the path forward is on some of these issues, to be able to vote to open up the government.”
On restoring the appropriations process:
“If we get back to doing the appropriations process, which we can do once we open the government up, and in the traditional way, which is having a transparent, open process where the committees function, Democrats and Republicans weigh in, and then we put it on the floor, we have an open amendment process [and] fund the government the old-fashioned way …”
[…]
“I want a normal appropriations process. I’ve made that very clear to my colleagues on both sides the aisle. I think they both want that, and I think we can accomplish that. And I promised it.
“And that is something, frankly, that we didn’t do last year when the Democrats had the majority. We didn’t put a single appropriations bill on the floor. We passed three [this year]. There’s a bunch more I want to do.”
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