The government shutdown is set to stretch into a third week after Senate Republicans and Democrats once again failed Tuesday to pass a GOP-led short term funding bill.
Scripps News spoke with Arizona's Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly on Capitol Hill Tuesday, where Democrats have repeatedly voted against the Republican proposal.
Sen. Kelly said the sticking point remains protections for health care subsidies, which Democrats want to see preserved.
"We could, myself and others, would change our votes very quickly if we could do something on the ACA subsidies. People's health care — it's about to skyrocket," Sen. Kelly said. "That's what we're trying to address. So if we fix this, which by the way, the White House seems to have some interest in fixing it. Let's fix this and we get the government back open."
"Folks who are government workers have a right to be upset about this. We get this. We understand they've got bills. We also have potentially 2 million individuals are going to lose their health insurance because they can't afford it anymore across the country," Sen. Kelly said. "In Arizona, 109,000 people we expect to be — their health insurance to be gone because they can't pay the bills. Those families are then just one accident or illness away from bankruptcy."
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"When people lose their health insurance, they die. We, the Democrats, we're trying to solve this problem, to fix this for the American people. It is not fair to them that they're going to lose this subsidy. It's also not fair to government workers that they're not going to get a paycheck. That's why I'm here in Washington. We are ready to have the negotiation and the conversation. We can have it with the White House. We need to get the president more involved in this discussion. I think to get Mike Johnson and John Thune to really dig down and negotiate on this, they have the get the support of the president."
But "They are in charge of the federal government," Sen. Kelly emphasized. "They have the House, the Senate and the White House. If they want this fix, they have to talk to us."
Watch the full interview with Sen. Kelly in the video above.
