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AOC: "This is not a fight over tax credits."
Rep. AOC and Chris Hayes Discuss Republican Shutdownwatch:
(excerpt)
This is not a fight over tax credits. This is a fight over your ability to go to a pharmacy and afford your insulin.
Tomorrow, health care companies and today healthcare companies are finalizing the premiums that everyday Americans are going to be paying. And we are talking about a doubling of monthly health care premiums, not even including your deductible in terms of what people are going to be paying next year because of a trillion dollar in Medicaid cuts that were put together earlier this year.
And I don't know about anybody else, but I do not think that this is just about a tax break or a small tax extender.
This is about fighting not just on tax breaks, community health centers, and ensuring that we have a stability of the American health care system. And when Republicans use a legislative mechanism to gut the American health care system, we have to use a legislative mechanism in order to restore it and to fight for it.
Because at the end of the day, you know, people may talk about tax credits this and tax credits that. What they do understand is when you have insulin and you can't afford it. What they do understand is when your kid has chemotherapy or your spouse gets diagnosed with cancer and you go into a hospital and it doesn't get covered and you have to choose life and death what this is about.
Now that does not mean that we ignore the abhorrent violation of law and norms and what is happening with our US cities. But we have a broad spectrum of ways and places that we can fight including our governors, our attorney generals, and our state and municipal leaders as you as you just saw.
... the mechanism by which (a) deal is locked is not just about agreeing in concept on tax credits. We need to do it with no tricks, no games, and no back doors, which includes recisions.
And when we talk about recisions, that is the mechanism that the federal government is using to gut and destroy rule of law across the board.
So we are fighting to ensure that health care is protected for every American. But the way that we do that also means that the only way that you guarantee that is by forcing them to adhere to the rule of law, which means eliminating the recession loopholes that they put in in the CR earlier this year, which the Senate unfortunately had caved on then, and we're ensuring that doesn't happen now.
...you know, we don't even have to get into the technicalities of this, but what is important to understand is that the way that you honor an agreement and the way that we honor our fight for health care and to define and to also protect everyday Americans ability to afford their health care, to cover their kids, to defend Medicaid... those are the same mechanisms that we use to defend
our rule of of law, to defend the federal workers that we are trying to protect in this shutdown.
You know, Donald Trump is trying to play this bluffing game of well, maybe what we're going to do is hold the entire all the federal workforce hostage and fire everybody.
Donald Trump has been firing everybody. We saw this with Doge. We've seen this at the State Department. We've seen this at the Department of Justice. They are firing everybody. They are completely eliminating the federal workforce. And in order for us to stop this madness, we have to put a stop to it.
And we have to stop enabling their abuse of power, including their use of recisions. And when we're fighting on their health care cuts, it forces them to act in ways in accordance with the law in other ways, too.
Tomorrow, health care companies and today healthcare companies are finalizing the premiums that everyday Americans are going to be paying. And we are talking about a doubling of monthly health care premiums, not even including your deductible in terms of what people are going to be paying next year because of a trillion dollar in Medicaid cuts that were put together earlier this year.
And I don't know about anybody else, but I do not think that this is just about a tax break or a small tax extender.
This is about fighting not just on tax breaks, community health centers, and ensuring that we have a stability of the American health care system. And when Republicans use a legislative mechanism to gut the American health care system, we have to use a legislative mechanism in order to restore it and to fight for it.
Because at the end of the day, you know, people may talk about tax credits this and tax credits that. What they do understand is when you have insulin and you can't afford it. What they do understand is when your kid has chemotherapy or your spouse gets diagnosed with cancer and you go into a hospital and it doesn't get covered and you have to choose life and death what this is about.
Now that does not mean that we ignore the abhorrent violation of law and norms and what is happening with our US cities. But we have a broad spectrum of ways and places that we can fight including our governors, our attorney generals, and our state and municipal leaders as you as you just saw.
... the mechanism by which (a) deal is locked is not just about agreeing in concept on tax credits. We need to do it with no tricks, no games, and no back doors, which includes recisions.
And when we talk about recisions, that is the mechanism that the federal government is using to gut and destroy rule of law across the board.
So we are fighting to ensure that health care is protected for every American. But the way that we do that also means that the only way that you guarantee that is by forcing them to adhere to the rule of law, which means eliminating the recession loopholes that they put in in the CR earlier this year, which the Senate unfortunately had caved on then, and we're ensuring that doesn't happen now.
...you know, we don't even have to get into the technicalities of this, but what is important to understand is that the way that you honor an agreement and the way that we honor our fight for health care and to define and to also protect everyday Americans ability to afford their health care, to cover their kids, to defend Medicaid... those are the same mechanisms that we use to defend
our rule of of law, to defend the federal workers that we are trying to protect in this shutdown.
You know, Donald Trump is trying to play this bluffing game of well, maybe what we're going to do is hold the entire all the federal workforce hostage and fire everybody.
Donald Trump has been firing everybody. We saw this with Doge. We've seen this at the State Department. We've seen this at the Department of Justice. They are firing everybody. They are completely eliminating the federal workforce. And in order for us to stop this madness, we have to put a stop to it.
And we have to stop enabling their abuse of power, including their use of recisions. And when we're fighting on their health care cuts, it forces them to act in ways in accordance with the law in other ways, too.
...summary of Dem demands: (basically what AOC outlined above)
Democrats are using their leverage to push for continuing and expanding healthcare subsidies for people who buy insurance through the Affordable Care Act. So far, they have refused to back a government spending bill that does not address the issue.
Their proposal would make permanent enhanced tax breaks that are otherwise due to expire at the end of the year, and make them available to more middle-income households.
Democrats also want guardrails that would prohibit Trump from unilaterally ignoring their ACA provisions or temporarily withholding funds (through recissions).
https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2025-09-29/explainer-what-are-democrats-and-republicans-positions-in-us-government-shutdown-fight
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