General Discussion

But at the heart of the impasse is a debate about health care, specifically expiring subsidies for health insurance premiums purchased on the Affordable Care Act marketplace.

Democrats have gone all-in on their fight to preserve the subsidies, withholding votes 14 times for a Republican-backed short-term spending measure even as shutdown pain ratchets up with flight cancellations, delayed SNAP benefits and missed paychecks for federal workers.

Though Republicans have insisted they will not negotiate on the subsidies until the government reopens, some members are calling for them to be preserved.

The stalemate has underscored the Affordable Care Act debate's lasting imprint on Washington, more than 15 years after it was signed into law. Clashes over health care have continued to animate pivotal moments in American politics, from consequential elections to paper-thin votes in Congress and even a past government shutdown in 2013.

Now the debate has stoked a record-long shutdown, just ahead of midterm elections in 2026, when health care could once again shape the results.

Why some Obamacare critics want to extend its subsidies

For more than a month, Democrats have refused to back a government funding measure without an agreement to extend subsidies for ACA marketplace plans, which expire at the end of the year.

That has left Republicans in a tricky position. While the party broadly dislikes the law, some in Congress have begun to acknowledge they may be stuck with it.

"This is a big deal in my district," said Rep. Jeff Hurd, R-Colo. "I've heard from a number of people who are facing dramatic increases."

Hurd says without the subsidies, constituents in his heavily rural district could lose health coverage.

Like most in his party, Hurd says reopening the government has to come first. He is also one of more than a dozen House Republicans who signed onto a letter calling for them to be preserved. And along with a pair of Democrats, Hurd and Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., outlined a bipartisan framework this week to temporarily extend the subsidies.

Even the conservative firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., has called for keeping them, despite her sharp criticism of Obamacare, saying the cost of health care is a top issue in her deep red district.

"The toothpaste is out of the tube," Greene wrote on X this month.

When the Affordable Care Act passed with zero Republican votes, this kind of acceptance would have been hard to imagine.

Fights over the ACA helped fuel a 2013 shutdown. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) held the Senate floor for more than 21 hours, railing against Obamacare and memorably reading from Dr. Seuss' Green Eggs and Ham.