Rushmore State News

U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) appeared on CNBC’s Squawk Box with Joe Kernen and ABC News with Linsey Davis to discuss the ongoing government shutdown and health care issues.

Addressing Congress’ responsibility to fund the government, Thune said, “The only thing standing between the government being opened up again and us having a conversation about this is five Democrats coming forward and doing the right thing for the country.”

He criticized Democrats, saying, “This is a political game for [Democrats] … I understand they’ve got these outside groups and this left-wing constituency that is clamoring to fight with President Trump. But this isn’t about the game … These are the real life consequences that happen to the American people if their government doesn’t act in a responsible way.”

Thune also commented on what he described as Democratic leadership’s lack of interest in finding a solution. He stated, “[Democrat] leadership has no interest in a solution. When Chuck Schumer is saying ‘this is getting better for us every day,’ that’s not somebody who wants to see this get resolved. And they are pandering to the left-wing special interest groups out there who have demanded this and demanded this showdown with the president of the United States.

“We’ve got a bill … that’s passed the House, that’s sitting at the desk in the Senate, that we could pass today, put it on the president’s desk, he would sign it into law, and this shutdown, whole fiasco, ends, and people can get back to work, and we can start paying the federal employees who are starting to miss paychecks.”

Thune pointed out differences in legislative productivity: “The last year the Senate Democrats had the majority, we didn’t do a single appropriations bill. We’ve done three [this year]. We want to do more. The funding resolution is about … giving us the opportunity to finish the annual appropriations process in the way we should be doing it – transparent, open, through regular order …

“We’ve got a very straightforward proposal out there: Keep the government open, and then let's sit down and talk about these other issues.”

Discussing consequences of the shutdown for federal workers and others affected by delayed payments, Thune said: “Right now, it’s all about politics. And as Chuck Schumer pointed out in his interview yesterday, this is a big game for the Democrats. He actually said yesterday, ‘Every day, this is getting better for us.’ I mean, do you think it’s getting better for the troops that aren’t going to get paid, the air traffic controllers that aren’t going to get paid, for the Border Patrol agents that aren’t going to get paid?

“This isn’t a game. This is real. This is people’s lives we’re talking about. This is the families of the American people. And it’s important to get the government open again. We give the Democrats an opportunity, pretty much on a daily basis, to actually vote to do that.

“We have 55 senators – a majority, 55 out of 100 senators – who are voting to open the government. We need five more Democrats because… it takes 60 to do anything in the Senate.”

On health care policy under current law known as Obamacare or ACA (Affordable Care Act), Thune argued: “Obamacare at its core is inflationary. It’s been driving up costs … The fundamental problem here is the underlying program … needs to be reformed, and the president wants to do that. The president would like to overhaul Obamacare and give people health insurance that is higher quality and more affordable but you’ve got Obamacare now embedded for 15 years.

“The Democrats … enhanced these subsidies a few years ago so there’s no income cap on it … I think the president is more than open to sitting down and working on solutions that would improve quality and affordability for people in this country when it comes to health care. But part of problem you have is Obamacare… has an inflationary impact on health care costs.

“Health care costs have been going up. They’re going up irrespective of what happens on these enhanced subsidies; they were going up anyway… I think that’s a problem that needs to be addressed [and] needs to be looked at… We’re willing to do that but you can’t do it while you’re holding federal government hostage.”

Thune questioned whether taxpayers should subsidize high-income individuals’ insurance coverage: “The question you have to ask yourself is should American taxpayer be subsidizing people who are making $500k/year when it comes their insurance? … The very fact that it costs $400 billion extend it… suggests thing ought be ripe reform…”

He added concerns over automatic enrollment practices: “When you have people making half million dollars year getting subsidies from taxpayers for these federal subsidies for these insurance plans something might be little bit amiss there. There are no income caps on it. There are lot what you’d call premium-free policies – in other words nobody… pays anything for it.

“They don’t even know they have coverage. Insurance companies are incentivized enroll people. They do automatically sometimes without insurer's knowledge… Subsidies go directly from government insurance companies. As result last year… little more than half covered never filed claim because lot them don’t even know they have coverage.”