Hawaii’s two House members voted against reopening the federal government, saying the legislation contained no guarantees to prevent insurance premiums from rising for island residents who purchase their health coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplace.
In a Facebook post before the House voted Wednesday to send a continuing resolution to President Donald Trump to fund the government after the longest shutdown in U.S. history, U.S. Rep. Ed Case wrote, “I want to get government reopened, get our federal workers back to work and paid, and get programs like SNAP back under way. But this version cruelly and unnecessarily just plain walks away from the real health care crisis facing 40 million Americans including 25,000 of our own ‘ohana and I can’t support that. This version also has some unbelievable provisions tucked away that nobody should support, like paying eight Senators $1 million-plus because a grand jury acting under the law asked for their phone records.”
U.S. Rep. Jill Tokuda told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that the 43-day shutdown didn’t need to happen because Republicans could have agreed to prevent Affordable Care Act premiums from doubling, in many cases, that will force people to choose between feeding their families or buying health care coverage, along with assurances of Medicaid and Medicare access.
She called Wednesday’s House vote “bittersweet in the sense that we will be reopening government, which we needed to do for all of our federal workers to get the back pay they deserve and 100% need. … But the last 43 days did’t have to happen. Republicans chose to go down this path.”
She called the shutdown “a false choice that we couldn’t keep government open and take care of health care. People already can’t afford basic things like food and shelter right now.”
Asked how much faith she has in Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s promise to Democrats that the Senate will hold a vote in December to extend ACA tax credits, Tokuda said, “We have to hold him to his word, but we can’t wait on that. House Democrats want to move a bill to extend the (ACA) tax credits for three years. … I’m hoping a few brave Republicans sign on.”
During the shutdown, Tokuda said she heard from constituents who argued “both sides, sometimes in the same sentence.”
She volunteered at food distribution centers and met with federal employees at Hawaii airports and called it “heart breaking seeing people in uniform and TSA workers standing in line to feed their families after their shifts. I was definitely hearing, ‘Let’s reopen government … while fighting the battle to afford health care is important, too.’ I’ve been hearing from businesses and groups that their premiums are already rising dramatically. We were fighting for the health of everyday Americans. Everyone’s going to pay the price if we do nothing to make health care affordable.”
Morale among Hawaii’s federal workforce as is “at an all-time low among federal workers who have had their jobs threatened by this administration,” Tokuda said. “… This does not encourage people to stay in a job that’s already demanding and stressful.”
Hungry people, Tokuda said, “should never be used as political pawns and that’s exactly what we’ve seen. That’s just cruel. This is a cruel administration, as we have seen.”
Source: The Garden Island