U.S. SENATE – U.S. Senator Steve Daines joined Fox Business to discuss the failures of Obamacare.
Watch the full interview HERE.
Daines on preventing another government shutdown:
I hope we don’t have another shutdown. It’s possible if we can’t get cooperation. January 30th is the key date, that’s what the CR extends to. But we’re working very hard right now on the Republican side and the Democrat side, to their credit, to come to together and get these last appropriation bills voted on and passed. So, I’m cautiously optimistic, Larry, we’re going to get the work done. We’ll get a lot of this finished up this week, perhaps, and then use January to finish it up. Fingers crossed, Larry, that we’re in a better spot than we were, certainly in September. That’s why just like what happened with the Schumer Shutdown, we needed eight Democrats to join us to get the government opened up again. And as I’ve always said, Larry, shutdowns begin with a bang, and they end with a whimper. They put their hand on the stove and eventually it doesn’t feel very good, you start having the flying public interfering with air traffic control. Democrats finally said, okay, enough is enough and we got the shutdown stopped. I was proud of the Republican team. We held firm. You shouldn’t be allowed to take a government shutdown hostage in an appropriation debate, and let’s hope and pray as we go through January this nonsense won’t happen again in Washington, and we’ll get this work done.
Daines on the failures of Obamacare:
I’m not sure they [Senate Democrats] want to solve this problem. What I hear quietly from folks across the aisle is they want to have this continue into the 2026 election because they think this is a winning issue for them. Sadly, frankly, because the American people are being harmed. You look at Obamacare premiums are up half again as much as private health care insurance over the same period of time of the last decade. Anytime the government steps in and it takes over something, it drives inefficiency and higher cost. It’s all about providing more choice to the patient. Think about the idea of associations. The Democrats in affordable care do not to put associations again. For example, Costco could have their own health care with 70 million Costco members. They could put together some kind of association plan. Let people have the freedom associations where they could drive lower costs. Another problem is these subsidies the Democrats are fighting to protect. They go directly to the insurance [companies] versus to the consumer. That’s what we proposed in our plan, is send that to HSA accounts. Let the consumer, let the patient have the power of deciding what to do with the way dollars are spent. It’s one of the most expensive economic transactions in your household budget. Why can’t the consumer or the patient be in charge versus insurance companies [and] the government?
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Contact: Matt Lloyd, Gabby Wiggins