{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=D764C6AD-5F84-4C96-941F-2740673947A0", "Thune Joins Ali Vitali on MSNBC", "2025-10-16", "2025", "2025-10", "Republican", "Senate", "SD", "John Thune", "T000250", "www.thune.senate.gov", "thune", "https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases", "scraper", "Clickhereto watch the video.\n\nWASHINGTON \u2014 U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) joined Ali Vitali on MSNBC\u2019s Way Too Early.\n\nOn Democrats\u2019 health care crisis:\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t think you can do \u2026 a straight-up extension of the ACA tax credits, premium tax credits, they are enhanced subsidies, so they are over and above the base Obamacare program, which was available to people up to 400 percent of poverty.\n\n\u201cWhat the Democrats did a couple years ago was they took the income cap off, so now you\u2019ve got people [that] make five or $600,000 a year that are eligible for \u2026 subsidies under this program. You\u2019ve also got insurance companies that are benefiting enormously because \u2026 they\u2019re incentivized to sign people up, because the federal government is making direct payments to the insurance companies.\n\n\u201c[Insurance companies] go out and auto-enroll people. There are tons of people out there who have these [subsidies] who don\u2019t even know they\u2019re covered. So this is a program that's desperately in need of reform.\u201d\n\n[\u2026]\n\n\u201cDemocrats created the expiration date when they did this. They could have done this permanently and they didn\u2019t.\u201d\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t want to see anybody\u2019s premiums go up \u2026 And that\u2019s not going to be attributable exclusively to these enhanced credits. The insurance companies are raising rates everywhere every year anyway. Part of the reason for that is the basic program is flawed.\n\n\u201cPeople ought to be able to buy the insurance that they want. And you know, they are in the exchanges and every year these premiums [are] going up \u2026 That\u2019s not the way this ought to work.\u201d\n\n[\u2026]\n\n\u201cAt some point, Democrats have to take yes for an answer \u2026 [Republicans] are all about getting health insurance down, making it affordable for more people. Premiums shouldn\u2019t be going up \u2026 and one of the reasons they are is because there is waste, fraud, and abuse of this program. The incentive structure is skewed to the insurance companies, so insurance auto-enroll people, and they\u2019re making bank doing it.\u201d\n\n[\u2026]\n\n\u201cThese were covid subsidies \u2026 this was in response to covid. Covid is no longer with us \u2026 the people who were designed to take advantage of this program are people with 400 percent of poverty and under. Now you\u2019ve got people making half a million, 600,000 a year, that are benefiting from the subsidy \u2026\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s a program that needs to be reformed \u2026 get the government open again and let's have a conversation about how to fix it.\u201d\n\nOn Democrats\u2019 shutdown hypocrisy:\n\n\u201cThere is a bill sitting at the desk right now that opens up the government, and you all know that. The president would sign it today. It\u2019s simply a function of five Democrats joining the three Democrats who are already voting to open up the government. And I think that\u2019s the quickest way to end this \u2026\n\n\u201cAt some point, reasonable Democrats are going to have to come to the conclusion that this doesn\u2019t benefit anybody. I don\u2019t believe government shutdowns benefit anybody, and that used to be a position that was held by the Democrat leadership. I think right now they\u2019re very beholden to, and there\u2019s this big rally this weekend with all these left-wingers that are in town, and I think it\u2019s gonna be very hard for them to agree to something prior to that rally happening \u2026\n\n\u201cI\u2019m hoping that once that\u2019s \u2026 in the rear-view mirror, that we\u2019ll be able to sit down \u2026 I\u2019ve had this conversation with \u2026 Democrats in the Senate, that the solution isn\u2019t going to come through the [Democrat] leadership, it\u2019s going to come through the rank-and-file [senators]. I think it\u2019s going to be a number of Democrats who are willing to \u2026 figure out a way to be comfortable with what the path forward is on some of these issues, to be able to vote to open up the government.\u201d\n\nOn restoring the appropriations process:\n\n\u201cIf we get back to doing the appropriations process, which we can do once we open the government up, and in the traditional way, which is having a transparent, open process where the committees function, Democrats and Republicans weigh in, and then we put it on the floor, we have an open amendment process [and] fund the government the old-fashioned way \u2026\u201d\n\n[\u2026]\n\n\u201cI want a normal appropriations process. I\u2019ve made that very clear to my colleagues on both sides the aisle. I think they both want that, and I think we can accomplish that. And I promised it.\n\n\u201cAnd that is something, frankly, that we didn\u2019t do last year when the Democrats had the majority. We didn\u2019t put a single appropriations bill on the floor. We passed three [this year]. There\u2019s a bunch more I want to do.\u201d", 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.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=D764C6AD-5F84-4C96-941F-2740673947A0"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.1568651534616947, "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"}