The Democrats were furious Monday over eight senators who caved to support a deal to end the government shutdown that does not include the Affordable Care Act subsidies their party had spent weeks fighting for.

The offending lawmakers include Democratic Senators Dick Durbin, Tim Kaine, Jacky Rosen, John Fetterman, Catherine Cortez Masto, Maggie Hassan, Jeanne Shaheen, and independent Senator Angus King, who claimed that they’d ensured a Senate vote on extending the tax credits. Their capitulation comes after House Speaker Mike Johnson insisted for weeks that he wouldn’t promise them a vote on anything, and even if he does follow through with a vote, it’s unlikely such a measure will pass the House.

Democratic lawmakers slammed their colleagues for forfeiting health care coverage for an estimated 5.1 million Americans by 2034 and increasing premiums across the marketplace.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders railed against the deal while speaking before the Senate Sunday. “If this vote succeeds, over 20 million Americans are gonna see at least a doubling in their premiums in the Affordable Care Act,” he said. “For certain groups of people, it will be a tripling and a quadrupling of their premiums. There are people who will now be paying 50 percent of their limited incomes for health care. Does anybody in the world think that makes sense?”

  • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    69
    ·
    2 days ago

    MAGA tried to hold the Dems hostage, demanding our health care as ransom, and if we didn’t comply, the richest in America would LITERALLY starve the poorest in America, to death.

    Instead of caving, the Dems held out, and won a MASSIVE election victory, then, with all their new political capital, they voluntarily flushed it down the toilet, and gave MAGA everything they wanted, and got absolutely nothing in return.

    Schmuck Schumer has to go, and every cowardly Democrat must be primaried. A handful need to be brought back (Bernie, AOC, Frost, Crocket, et al), but the rest can go.

    I’m so sick of these weak, cowardly Democrats. No wonder MAGAs hate them, and bully them. They have no self-respect at all. Truly pathetic.