Senator Shelley Moore Capito, at this point, believes a federal government shutdown is more likely than not.
“My optimism has left me,” Capito, R-W.Va., said on MetroNews Talkline.
The federal government is on track to shut down just after midnight Wednesday.
Congress is supposed to allocate funding to 438 government agencies before Oct. 1, the start of the fiscal year. The budget process is not possible to be completed by then so the Republican majorities in Congress have been focusing on a stopgap continuing resolution to get to Nov. 21.
Capito supports the straightforward continuing resolution measure.
“Unfortunately, it appears as though it’s going to be a standoff in terms of what what I voted for and what I think makes the most sense, which is a very simple seven week extension here that doesn’t have any bells and whistles on it,” Capito said, referring to a continuing resolution vote that already failed once this past Friday.
“The Democrats have already voted it down once. We expect them to vote it down again tonight, and I think it’s an enormous disservice to so many people, veterans, troops, otherwise, people who need services here in West Virginia.”
Passing the measure in the Senate would require the Republican majority to gain Democratic support to clear the 60-vote filibuster threshold.
Democrats want to reverse recent cuts to Medicaid and other health programs. Democrats are also looking for greater restrictions on how the Trump administration can spend money, attempting to curtail the administration’s moves to freeze, shift and cancel funding Congress approves.
Most urgently, Democrats want a deal to extend enhanced Affordable Care Act insurance subsidies that will otherwise expire on Dec. 31.
The urgency is heightened by the upcoming open enrollment period that starts on Nov. 1. If Congress does not act before that date people logging on for open enrollment will be faced with significantly higher costs, affecting more than 20 million Americans enrolled in marketplace plans.
Expiration of the enhanced premium tax credits would cause average premiums to rise by about 75%, according to KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research group.
About 50,000 to 60,000 West Virginians receiving enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies could face those higher insurance rates.
“For the 60,000 West Virginians who rely on these tax credits, several more weeks or months of delay will mean economic uncertainty and, for many, losing their health coverage altogether,” said Kelly Allen, executive director of the nonprofit West Virginia Center on Budget & Priorities think tank.
“These households are receiving notices in the mail right now about their skyrocketing health coverage costs. West Virginia is one of the states that will be hurt the most, with health coverage premiums here more than doubling if Congress does not act to extend the tax credits.”
Allen continued by saying, “These subsidies should be extended right away and Congress must act to should reverse the massive Medicaid cuts they enacted earlier this year to prevent catastrophic health coverage losses for many more West Virginia families, children, and workers.”
Capito said she is sensitive to the needs of those West Virginians benefiting from the health insurance subsidy. However, she does not support tying an extension to current votes on temporary funding of the federal government.
“But what I’m saying is, 60,000 West Virginians have premium support. That’s a meaningful amount of people for me to be able to fight for,” Capito said.
“And so there’s many Republicans who believe that this premium support meant for the small business owner — people that are working, you can imagine who they are: they own a small store there, they’re a beautician or a barber, or somebody that can’t get insurance anywhere else, so prohibitively expensive.”
She said more time is necessary to examine how to further refine the expanded benefit.
“We need to focus on those folks, and so there’s time to do that,” she said. “We don’t have to do it tonight before midnight. We can do it over the next several months as and that’s what we have been doing.”