{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.murray.senate.gov/senator-murray-slams-republicans-for-refusing-to-get-serious-about-solving-health-care-crisis-ending-republican-shutdown/", "Senator Murray Slams Republicans for Refusing to Get Serious About Solving Health Care Crisis, Ending Republican Shutdown", "2025-10-07", "2025", "2025-10", "Democrat", "Senate", "WA", "Patty Murray", "M001111", "www.murray.senate.gov", "murray", "https://www.murray.senate.gov/category/press-releases/", "scraper", "***WATCH: Senator Murray\u2019s Remarks***\n\nWashington, D.C. \u2013 Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, delivered the following remarks on government funding at this afternoon\u2019s Senate Democratic leadership press conference.\n\nSenator Murray\u2019s remarks, as delivered, are below:\n\n\u201cWell, less than two weeks ago, Leader Thune said that Democrats\u2019 insistence on addressing the Republican health care crisis was\u2014and I quote\u2014 \u2018completely unhinged and unreasonable and unserious.\u2019 Somehow, according to Republicans, saving Americans from paying thousands of dollars more for health care is \u2018unreasonable.\u2019\n\n\u201cWell, clearly Republicans are feeling the heat from folks back home, because in just the last 24 hours we have seen the Speaker go out and say that \u2018Republicans are the ones concerned about health care,\u2019 after they just cut more than $1 trillion from health care in their Big Ugly Bill. And we saw the President, in a major break from his Congressional leadership, tell reporters he was ready to cut a deal.\n\n\u201cI know Republicans would rather not talk about health care\u2014but Democrats are forcing them to talk about health care. Because when Republicans insist they will talk about health care \u2018later,\u2019 they know perfectly well that will be too late.\n\n\u201cPremium increases are getting locked in right now, letters are going out in the mail to families this month, open enrollment actually begins in Idaho next week. Americans cannot wait, they need us to act\u2014to end this shutdown and to address this health care crisis before those higher prices are locked in.\n\n\u201cBut House Republicans are missing in action\u2014for the third week in a row.\n\n\u201cYou want to know who is serious about solving problems? You want to know who is serious about ending the shutdown? It\u2019s the people who are actually here. And House Republicans\u2014they\u2019re just not here!\n\n\u201cIf House Republicans were here, I would make sure they understood half of the people who get health care on the ACA exchanges are small business owners, workers, or self-employed people.\n\n\u201cIf House Republicans were here, I would make sure they understood a quarter of American farmers are covered on the exchanges.\n\n\u201cIf House Republicans were here, I would make sure that they understand over three quarters of the families on the exchanges actually live in Republican states!\n\n\u201cAnd I would make sure that they understand that the ten states where families will face the biggest average premium increase hikes when the ACA tax credits they rely on expire are all Republican states.\n\n\u201cBut House Republicans are not here. They couldn\u2019t be bothered to show up, or sit down, or talk to Democrats about how we prevent those premiums from doubling for millions of families.\n\n\u201cAnd here in the Senate, Leader Thune is holding the same failed vote over and over on Republicans\u2019 partisan bill and refusing to entertain or engage in discussions about health care.\n\n\u201cAnd of course, back in the White House, Trump is having the time of his life tweeting sombreros and deepfakes, and pretending his budget director is the grim reaper, and threatening to ignore the plain letter of the law to deny federal workers back pay\u2014which I\u2019ll tell you right now is not going to fly.\n\n\u201cThere is nothing Republican leaders are doing that even suggests they are serious about ending the shutdown or preventing health care price hikes.\n\n\u201cWe are at the table. Democrats are at the table\u2014where we have been actually for weeks. So, the message is simple: let\u2019s work out a deal to end this shutdown and save families those massive premium hikes.\u201d\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:32:54Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.murray.senate.gov/senator-murray-slams-republicans-for-refusing-to-get-serious-about-solving-health-care-crisis-ending-republican-shutdown/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8433302864432335, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}