Sen. Murray defends her shutdown stance amid looming health care cost increases

Congress is back at work after the longest federal government shutdown ever that was triggered when Senate Democrats refused to approve a spending plan amid a standoff over expiring health care subsidies. Washington Democratic Sen. Patty Murray talked to KUOW’s Kim Malcolm about what happened and what comes next.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Kim Malcolm: A handful of Democratic senators joined with majority Republicans to vote to reopen the government. They said the nationwide flight restrictions and the suspension of food benefits were just doing too much harm. You disagreed and voted against that move. Why?

Sen. Patty Murray: We saw it coming, this time that we are now in, where people who are on the ACA (Affordable Care Act) and get tax credits were going to see their bills for health insurance, starting in January, double, triple, and even in some cases quadruple. We have been pushing since early this year to get the Republicans to extend those tax credits so this disaster wouldn't hit millions of Americans. And time and time again, Republicans said no. So, when we came to this turning point, we said, we want a vote on extending the tax credits.

This is a dire situation for millions of Americans. I've talked to many myself. I have heard the fear in their voices. I saw this coming, and we said we will vote on the CR (Continuing Resolution), but we want to make sure that we extend the tax credits. Republicans wouldn't even talk to us. They didn't invite us in the room. They didn't discuss it. They passed a partisan CR with no language in it whatsoever.

Democrats said to Republicans, we are not going to give you the Democratic votes you need to pass this without this discussion. And it is very clear to all of us now. We are in the middle of November. People have been signing up for this for the last several weeks. They are seeing their bills, and the Republicans refuse to acknowledge this health care crisis that's coming at us. So yeah, deeply disappointed, mostly in Republicans for not listening to their own constituents about what's going to hit so many families that they represent in January.

About those Affordable Care Act subsidies, there are critics of them who say too much of them go toward health insurance administration and not for care for individuals. What do you say to those critics, and are there alternatives that should be considered?

What they're trying to do is blur the lines about health insurance companies themselves and the tax credits that people pay. Well, that's no different than anybody who pays for health insurance. We can go down that road and say, let's look at health insurance, but the fact is that these tax credits for individuals help them make sure that they keep their family on health insurance.

I'll give you a great example. I talked to this woman who was paying $800 a month this year for health insurance for her and her family of four. As of January, she's going to be paying over $2,300 a month. And what she said to me is, "I can't do that. I have a daughter who's sick. I have family members who struggle. The only thing I can do is drop my health insurance. I cannot afford it. I'm going to do everything I can to get as much health care in in the next six weeks as I can, but I can't keep doing this." That is who we're trying to help.

Blurring the lines about the bigger problem of health insurance is not going to solve any problem for that woman who's facing losing her health care and her ability to take care of her family beginning in January.

On the SNAP benefits, they are restored for now, but millions more Americans are going to face losing them next year because of expanded work requirements in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. What are you doing to address that?

This is so important. In the “One Big Beautiful” bill that they passed this summer in order to provide tax breaks for billionaires, the way they paid for it was by making dramatic cuts in Medicaid and other health care programs, and in SNAP. And what we are going to see is a lot of people over the next several years, as this gets phased in, lose their benefits to SNAP.

Now, coincidentally, when the government shut down, the president decided he had the money, but he decided he was going to cut off SNAP benefits to families across this country. He refused to use the money he had to pay for that, and we saw that up front and personal for the last several weeks, the long lines at our food banks, families who were desperate.

So, you asked me what I'm going to do about it. I'm going to fight every single way I can to make sure that we restore those benefits, that we don't face this big cliff in a couple years, and see what we all saw dramatically over the last month.

The continuing resolution that Congress passed, and President Trump signed only lasts until Jan. 30 to fund the government. Then, Congress is going to be in the same boat as before. So, what are you focused on as that new deadline for compromise comes closer?

The most important thing I believe we should do is actually pass our regular appropriation bills and not be funded by a CR. That sounds nerdy, but what it means is Congress will decide where that funding is and what levels and have, in law, signed by the president, where that funding goes, rather than operating on a partisan continuing resolution that allows the president to decide where our money is going to go.

So, I am focused as hard as I can on trying to pass bills to a higher level between now and Jan. 30, funding parts of our government, what we can, saying how this president needs to spend the tax dollars all of us pay. Giving that away to any president, any president, is not what they were elected to do.

Senator, Congress voted this week to release the Jeffrey Epstein files, and the president signed off on that. This story has gripped Washington, D.C., and so many people around the country. How important a story do you think it is, and how do you see it playing out over the coming days and weeks?

People in this country don't want powerful rich people to break the law, especially in a case like this, where young girls were being abused. That is intolerable to anybody. This is a story that obviously people are angry about. They're angry about the abuse. They're angry about the cover up, and we need to make sure we have a full investigation, and justice is found for these victims. But yeah, this story's been going on for a long time, even longer for the victims, even longer, and they deserve justice.

Before I let you go, I want to ask you about your plans. You became Washington state's first female U.S. Senator in 1993, and you've advanced in leadership more than any other female senator in U.S. history. What is your political goal at this point, and how long do you plan to keep at it?

Well, you know what, I wake up every day with fire in my heart for the same issues that I ran on many years ago: to make sure that everyone in this country has the opportunity as an American to have health care, to have a good education, to be able to raise their family, and to be safe in their neighborhoods. And I will tell you, under this administration, as I have watched the abuse of law, I go back to that, and I want to make sure that this country gets back to the kind of country that was important to me when I was growing up, is important to so many families growing up now, that they have the ability to see a future that is better than what they are seeing right now. So, that fire in my heart is there just as much, if not more, today, and I'm going to keep going.

Listen to the interview by clicking the play button above.