Patty Murray: “we are just over a week into Republicans' shutdown and just over 3 weeks from open enrollment, when massive premium…”

“we are just over a week into Republicans' shutdown and just over 3 weeks from open enrollment, when massive premium hikes become a stone-cold reality for our families. Yet Republican leaders refuse to sit down and talk with us about addressing both of those challenges. President Trump and Russ Vought are just openly--gleefully--plotting how they can make this shutdown as painful as possible. House Republicans are not even here for the third week in a row, and Leader Thune has refused to do anything other than vote on the same, failed, partisan CR over and over and over. The clock is ticking. Republicans would rather sit on their hands than sit down at the table. When we ask to talk about healthcare, the only word that the Republican leader seems to know is ``later.'' Excuse me. But why couldn't we have addressed this challenge any earlier? The Republican leader bent over backward to shovel new tax cuts at billionaires earlier this year. He did not tell CEOs to wait when it came to Republican tax breaks that expire at the end of this year. Why is he telling families now to wait when rates are being set now? when price announcements will be in the mail any day now? and when open enrollment is right around the corner? Why do Republicans want to wait until higher rates are locked in and families are priced out of healthcare? We have to tackle this before those rates are locked.…”