Democrats battling with GOP to avoid ‘devastating’ health care cuts, Rep. Ivey says

Geoff Bennett:

We're going to get two perspectives now on all of this, first from Democratic Congressman Glenn Ivey.

Welcome to the "News Hour." Thanks for being with us.

Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-MD):

Thanks for having me.

Geoff Bennett:

Your Maryland district has one of the highest concentrations of federal workers in the country. What are you hearing from your constituents who will find themselves furloughed or potentially fired if the OMB director makes good on his threat of mass firings in the event of a shutdown?

Rep. Glenn Ivey:

Well, I have been hearing from my constituents for about eight or nine months now, because the Trump administration has been firing them as fast as they possibly can. The only thing that seems to have slowed it down was court cases and injunctions that had been put in place.

So I think there's a recognition. I think tens of thousands have been fired already. And so I think they recognize that the apparent promise or offer for Trump to slow that down is probably worth the paper it's written on. So they know that they're going to try and continue with the mass terminations, no matter the fact that it's hurting the people here in the United States and across the country.

So they understand that they really can't rely on what the Trump administration is saying to them.

Geoff Bennett:

Democrats are making health care a sticking point in the shutdown debate, calling for a permanent extension of the enhanced ACA subsidies that passed under former President Biden back in 2021. Why is that the line that Democrats are drawing right now?

Rep. Glenn Ivey:

Well, in part because the Republicans dug such a deep hole with respect to health care coverage for the American people.

So, in H.R.1, $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, I think is going to be devastating to not just people across the country who are like the elderly and the disabled, but to many medical institutions and facilities that may have to shut down because they rely on Medicaid to cover their costs.

The other piece too that we're focused on is the refusal by the Republicans to extend the credits that make the ACA, the Obamacare coverage, affordable for millions of Americans. So we want to make sure that we do everything we can to help the American people who are being — going to be targeted and impacted by this.

Some of them are going to face premiums jumping maybe double or triple within the next few months, and that will make it unaffordable for them. So we want to do everything we can to make sure that they can continue to have the health care coverage that they need and deserve.

Geoff Bennett:

Republicans say that Democrats want to give free health care to people who are in the country illegally. Do you?

Rep. Glenn Ivey:

Well, they know that's false. They know that's illegal under current law and has been.

They have been making that argument, I guess, because they can't figure out any other arguments to raise based on the merits. For a while, they were saying there would be no impact from what they'd done in H.R.1 with respect to Medicaid. In fact, some said that there were no cuts.

But we have already got medical institutions shutting down because of those impacts that have taken place. And we know that people are going to get those notices in the mail that their tax credits aren't helping for their coverage anymore, and they're going to see these big jumps in their health care coverage and the cost of their health care coverage.

So they can talk about that. Maybe they will try transgender next. Who knows? But, at the end of the day, what people will see is, they can't get the health coverage they deserve and it costs more than they should have to pay.

Geoff Bennett:

In the meantime, there are Republicans who say, look, this spending bill, it's a clean bill, it's not controversial, Democrats should just vote for it, and any discussion about health care can wait until the regular appropriations process.

What do you say to that?

Rep. Glenn Ivey:

I'm on the Appropriations Committee, and many of the things that we're talking about right now, like extending the credits, we had amendments that we offered during the appropriations markup period that were voted down unanimously by the Republicans during the process.

So it's hard for them to argue with a straight face that they voted against it then, but they're going to consider it now. I'm not sure why we should assume that's going to be true. And they're also asking us just to accept the possibility that Trump is going to make a promise that we should rely on, when he's backed away from promises and refused to keep them over and over again, including the promises to the American people about making their lives more affordable.

Prices are going up for health care. Prices are going up for groceries. Prices are going up for rent and mortgage. Everything is going up right now. He said it was going to be the opposite. He hasn't kept that promise.

Geoff Bennett:

Well, let's talk more about the politics of all this because Democratic leadership, they say that Republicans are to blame in the event of a shutdown since Republicans control all of the levers of power in Washington.

How do Democrats make and win that argument when previous attempts to blame Donald Trump or to warn the electorate about the threat that Democrats believe that he poses, those efforts haven't worked?

Rep. Glenn Ivey:

I think what's going to be interesting about this one is, in the past shutdowns, 2010, 2012, whoever's on the wrong side of the health care debate has lost.

And then the other point here, though, is this isn't going to turn into a spend thing. The last shutdown that we had was Trump wanting a wall to go up, and I forget how many billions of dollars he was wanting to spend on that. But I think most folks thought, I don't necessarily need him to build a wall for my life to be OK.

This is one where it's going to affect millions of Americans across the country, red states, blue states. Health care is going to be unaffordable for them. The hospital that used to be there is going to disappear. The OB-GYN clinic is going to be gone. I don't know how you spend your way out of that.

So, at the end of the day, the American people are — they're smart. They will be able to see for themselves what the impact of this is. And the first thing they want to know is, when they see that premium that's tripled, who's responsible for that and who's going to fix it and how fast can they fix it? That's what we're trying to do now. That's not what the Republicans are trying to do.

Geoff Bennett:

Democratic Congressman Glenn Ivey, thanks again for joining us this evening.

Rep. Glenn Ivey:

Thanks for having me.