WASHINGTON — Democrats shut down the federal government to secure a key demand: extending health care subsidies for millions of Americans.
After a more than 40-day standoff, they threw in the towel — with no guarantee from Republicans that they would agree to renew the expiring Obamacare tax credits.
Progressive activists and their Democratic allies in Congress, who had wanted the party to fight on longer, decried it as a monumental “cave” to an authoritarian in Donald Trump.
But others in the party see a silver lining in the six-week standoff. The eight Senate Democrats who bucked their own leadership and negotiated an end to the longest shutdown in American history said the bipartisan deal protects federal workers who had been laid off during the shutdown — at least temporarily.
More importantly, they said, the grueling shutdown that is expected to end in the coming days has “crystallized” the battle lines in the next major political fight over health care that is sure to spill into the 2026 midterm election year. It also underscored Trump’s cruelty, Democratic leaders argued, as the White House fought to halt food stamp payments to states during the shutdown.
While emotions are raw and finger-pointing rampant in the wake of the deal, the Democratic Party was unified during most of the record 42-day shutdown, demonstrating for the first time it could take on Trump, rev up the progressive base and turn out voters at the polls, as it did in this month’s elections.
“I think the Democrats did … some of the best messaging I think we’ve ever had in terms of talking about affordability and talking about health insurance,” said Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., who voted against reopening the government. “And I think that was the reason why you saw the results coming in, in New Jersey and Virginia, and that you saw that the polling was going our way.”
Small wins
Among the eight Senate Democrats who struck a deal with the White House and Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., four were former governors — pragmatists used to working across the aisle who argue you don’t always get what you want in legislation.
The agreement includes a “minibus” of three appropriations bills, which will fund some parts of the government through next fall. The rest of the government will be funded through Jan. 30.
The deal includes funding of the food assistance program known as SNAP for the rest of the fiscal year through September 2026, meaning families will be fed and food stamps can’t be used as leverage in any funding fight in the coming months.
The group of eight also got some wins for federal workers, who have been under siege since Trump’s inauguration, facing aggressive Department of Government Efficiency cuts and the consolidation of some agencies, like the U.S. Agency for International Development.
They got the Trump administration to agree to reinstate federal workers who were laid off during the shutdown through reductions in force, or RIFs. And they secured language barring future mass firings for the duration of the resolution that keeps the government open through January.
It’s a win for “federal employees who are not going to be traumatized by RIFs going forward,” said Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, the former governor of Virginia, a state home to nearly 150,000 civilian federal workers.
“I’ve got some folks who didn’t like the vote, but I’m going to have a whole lot of federal employees who are going back to work and they’re getting their paychecks, and they can live through the holidays without worrying that they’re going to get a bad email at 5 a.m. tomorrow morning that they’re laid off.”
“They have been living under a cloud of anxiety since Jan. 20, and we’ve lifted that cloud to some degree,” Kaine added.
Crystallizing the health fight
The deal fell far short when it comes to health care. Democrats failed to win an extension of Affordable Care Act tax credits that were boosted during the Covid-19 pandemic and are set to expire on Dec. 31. Instead, they secured only a promise from Thune that the Senate will vote on a bill to extend the health subsidies by the end of the second week of December. The House has made no such promise.
“Obviously, the Democrats did not hold the line,” said a disappointed Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who voted against the funding bill.
“Look, I think it was a terrible, terrible vote at a time when we have a broken health care system,” added another progressive, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who caucuses with Democrats.
Drawing out the high-stakes shutdown through October and into the November ACA open enrollment period served two purposes for Democrats, members on both sides of the deal said. It gave them time to educate the public about an issue few in the country were talking about — the expiring subsidies — and came as millions of Americans began feeling the sticker stock firsthand as they received notices of skyrocketing monthly premiums for 2026.
“What happened over the last 40 days is we crystallized the fight about health care for the American people and made it clear who’s holding that up,” retiring Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., a key negotiator and former governor who has authored a one-year extension of the subsidies, told NBC News.
“It’s President Donald Trump, it’s Speaker Johnson and it’s the Republicans who have been unwilling to do anything to address the rising costs of health care,” Shaheen said.
The GOP’s stunning, unsuccessful attempt to repeal Obamacare during Trump’s first term helped propel House Democrats to the majority in the 2018 midterms. Democrats believe it’s a good issue for their party, and one that will again help them take back control of the House next year.
Amid this week’s circular Democratic firing squad, party leaders are desperately urging their members to keep the heat on Republicans, particularly vulnerable ones facing tough re-election bids.
“It’s critical that we continue to highlight the health care crisis that the Republicans refuse to come to the table to try and solve, and call out by name our Republican colleagues in swing seats refusing to extend health care subsidies on the insurance marketplace,” Rep. Suzan DelBene, the head of the House Democrats’ campaign arm, wrote in a memo to her colleagues.
“Please stay disciplined and focused in communicating that the House Republicans best positioned to stand up to President Trump and Republican leadership on behalf of their constituents to end this crisis, have refused,” she said.
40-day fight
Liberal activists and even mainstream Democratic voters had been clamoring for a fight with Trump as the president ran roughshod over the Democratic opposition and even the GOP-controlled Congress.
Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, a member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee that oversees government spending, said she’s not happy with how the shutdown saga ended and has even called for new Democratic leadership in the Senate.
But she doesn’t consider the past 40 days a “complete failure.”
“We didn’t get what we wanted, but it certainly elevated the consequences of the health care crisis, which is about to be made significantly worse,” Escobar, a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said in an interview. “And it has demonstrated that Republicans are unwilling to solve that and other crises confronting the American people.”
“I’m very proud of the unity of purpose we demonstrated,” she continued. “The majority of the American people understood we are fighting for them.”