Government shutdown now unlikely
WASHINGTON — The White House and congressional Democrats on Wednesday defused a tense standoff over payments for the working poor under the Affordable Care Act, keeping a massive government spending bill on track just days ahead of a shutdown deadline.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday backed away from a threat to immediately withhold payments that help people with modest incomes afford outof-pocket medical expenses under Obamacare.
The dispute with Democrats, especially House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, threatened to hold up the $1 trillion-plus spending bill. A temporary funding bill expires Friday at midnight, and GOP leaders readied plans to pass another short-term spending bill to prevent a government shutdown this weekend — Trump’s 100th day in office.
At issue is the $175 billion the government is paying to reimburse health insurers over a decade to reduce deductibles and co-payments for lower-income people.
The weeks-long sniping over the health-care issue had snagged the talks, which have progressed steadily for weeks and gained momentum earlier this week after Trump dropped demands for immediate money for building his long-promised border wall.
“Our major concerns in these negotiations have been about funding for the wall and uncertainty about the ... payments crucial to the stability of the marketplaces under the Affordable Care Act,” Pelosi said in a statement. “We’ve now made progress on both of these fronts.”
Partisan disagreements over the environment, abortion and GOP efforts to reverse Obama-era financial regulations continue to dog the negotiations, but both the administration and many congressional Democrats were hopeful of sealing an agreement relatively soon.
The massive spending measure, which would wrap together 11 unfinished spending bills into a single omnibus bill, represents the first real bipartisan legislation of Trump’s presidency.
The outlines of a potential agreement remained fuzzy, but congressional aides familiar with the talks said Trump would emerge with border security funding that’s unrelated to the wall and a $15 billion down payment for the military on top of $578 billion in already negotiated Pentagon funding. Democrats won funding for medical research, Pell Grants and foreign aid.
The spending measure also appeared likely to extend health benefits for more than 22,000 retired miners and widows whose medical coverage is set to expire Sunday.