House Republicans stand firm about health care at center of government shutdown

(20 Oct 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
 
++BEGINS AND ENDS ON SOUNDBITE++
++SHOTS SEPARATED BY BLACK FRAMES++

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Washington – 20 October 2025
1. SOUNDBITE (English) Rep. Andy Harris, (R) Maryland:
“We are willing as the House Freedom Caucus to talk about anything, but a clean extension, we are not willing to talk about a clean extension because that’s not a negotiation, that’s a demand. If you talk about a negotiation where you are going to wind down these subsidies, eliminating some of the fraud and abuse potential and you combine it with, for instance, eliminating upcoding on Medicare Advantage, which is worth about $130 billion over ten years, well maybe there’s some package you could think about, but it’s not going to come together in one week and it’s certainty not going to be subject to an extortion demand during a shutdown.”
++BLACK FRAMES++
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Rep. Chip Roy, (R) Texas:
“We have no interest in continuing to extend Covid-era subsidies to people making half a million dollars a year that are going to enrich insurance companies to the tune of $400 million. If you want to come forward with reforms to the healthcare system and then put things on the table in order to achieve that just like the Big, Beautiful Bill, just like other things, I’m always happy to sit down and work out a plan and a path forward, but it has to be with the phase out or elimination of subsidies, generally, in favor of empowerment of patients and doctors not insurance companies. That’s the bare minimum, and that’s where we are. And if they want to bring to us some sort of clean extension of subsidies, that’s a non-starter. But at the end of the day, we’re having a really good conversation across the board about what we know we need to do and Democrats are the ones who are playing politics right now.”
++BLACK FRAMES++
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Rep. Andy Harris, (R) Maryland:
“This is crazy. This is hundreds of billions of dollars of corporate welfare to very profitable insurance companies rampant with waste fraud and abuse. I mean, the average tax payer should be furious about 2.2 million being fraudulently on it because of the COVID-era enhancements and that’s a CBO estimate, the private think tank estimates are actually closer to 4 to 5 million people.”
++ENDS ON SOUNDBITE++
STORYLINE:
The US government shutdown has reached its 20th day, with seemingly no end in sight.
 
Senate Democrats rejected for the 10th time last  Thursday a stopgap spending bill that would reopen the government, insisting they won’t back away from demands that Congress take up health care benefits.
 
Members of the House Freedom Caucus stood firm Monday morning about not health care at the center of the shutdown.
 
Rep. Chip Roy, (R) Texas, says Democrats are playing politics.
 
“I’m always happy to sit down and work out a plan and a path forward, but it has to be with the phase out or elimination of subsidies, generally, in favor of empowerment of patients and doctors not insurance companies. That’s the bare minimum, and that’s where we are. And if they want to bring to us some sort of clean extension of subsidies, that’s a non-starter,” Roy said.
 
Rep. Andy Harris, (R) Maryland, echoed Roy about healthcare subsidies.
 

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