This is an interesting development. Maine Governor Janet Mills, a Democrat who is poised to run against Republican incumbent Senator Susan Collins, is not buying into the shutdown solution spearheaded by Independent Angus King. “Tens of thousands of Maine people are facing skyrocketing health care costs because of Donald Trump and Susan Collins,” Mills, who is the establishment pick to challenge GOP Sen. Susan Collins, wrote on social media. “Maine people deserve affordable health care — not just the promise of a vote that won’t go anywhere. Fight back.”
The problem we face in these early hours of Monday morning, after a surprise vote Sunday night to push the shutdown issue to the floor today, is what exactly is going to happen with the ACA subsidies? All parties are agreed that the sooner the shutdown ends the better, so that the TSA, military and others can get paid again. But where things stand now, the ACA subsidies are the sacrificial lamb and in 42 days they expire. That means skyrocketing health costs. At least Janet Mills isn’t buying it. Huffington Post:
Graham Platner, the progressive oysterman who is Mills’ main competition for the nomination, was also adamantly opposed to the deal.
“Senate Democrats need to hold the line. No healthcare, no deal,” Platner wrote on social media. “Mainers want a Democratic Party that fights for them, not one that rolls over. When we fight, we win.”
Progressives and moderates were also allied in the House, where House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is expected to try to unite his caucus against the deal. (One House Democrat, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, will almost certainly vote with the GOP.)
“A deal that doesn’t reduce health care costs is a betrayal of millions of Americans counting on Democrats to fight for them,” said Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “Republicans want health care cuts. Accepting nothing but a pinky promise from Republicans isn’t a compromise — it’s capitulation. Millions of families would pay the price.”
Moderates agreed. Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.) said he would have voted to end the shutdown if it delivered relief on health care, tariffs or ending Trump’s corruption. “Democrats must stop playing by the old rules in a broken Congress,” he wrote on social media. “If it comes to the House, I’m a No.”
And we deal with the elephant in the room, which is that Chuck Schumer is not Harry Reid and never has been. I never really understood why Schumer succeeded Reid. Reid was a scrapper, a street fighter, he understood politics at a visceral level. Schumer is a number two man, a second banana. I always thought handing him the reins was a bad idea. And then the era of Trump dawned and it became glaringly apparent how Schumer was the wrong man for the job in this day and age. I belive Schumer is a good man, I merely see him as miscast in the role he plays in the madhouse era of Trump. We need somebody else in that job.
Time for Democrats to do a little housecleaning and without turning on one another and going into “disarray.” We can find a majority leader surely. We are, overall, in a good position for 2026 but this latest development with the shutdown and the ACA subsidies has been shocking.
“When we fight, we win.”
But only if we fight.
This isn’t an agreement, it’s a defeat.