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'Important' to Use First Government Shutdown to Ensure Healthcare Issue Prominent
On Monday’s broadcast of NPR’s “Morning Edition,” Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-MD) discussed the prospect of another government shutdown and stated that there have already been two and “it was important for those, especially the first one, making sure that the healthcare issue was front and center for voters.”
Ivey said he is undecided on the stopgap spending bill and “On the one hand, shutting down the government hurts government employees very seriously and very heavily, and I’ve got a lot in my district. On the other hand, there [are] a lot of Republican priorities that are in there that I’m not supporting. But I think it’s important for us to make sure we keep the government open and move into the election. I don’t want any distractions, frankly, from the missteps and problems that the Trump agenda has generated, not only from the affordability standpoint, but from the accountability piece as well.”
He added that “there’s a chance that I might vote for it to keep the government open, and, like I say, also, to keep the focus on the election. That’s — the key issue, I think, for all of us right now on both sides of the aisle is making sure we do the right things to win in November.”
Ivey further said, “[W]e’ve had two shutdowns already. I thought that the — it was important for those, especially the first one, making sure that the healthcare issue was front and center for voters. And I think we did a good job with that and making sure the voters understood that the Republican decisions were the reason that the healthcare tax credits weren’t going to get extended and why millions of them were going to lose healthcare coverage or have it significantly reduced. And also, it gave us a chance to focus on the $1 trillion cut to Medicaid. So, there are other issues we want to make sure people focus on like that. But they see it every day as well, the dollar increase or so for gas prices, higher prices for groceries due to the tariffs. Things like that, I think, we want to make sure [are] front and center on the voters’ minds when they step into the voting booths in November.”