On a press call Tuesday, Alabama Senator Katie Britt talked about the problems facing rural hospitals in the state, discussed legislation being considered by the Senate and attacked Democratic politicians for the recent government shutdown.
“Between now and the end of the year, we only have about three and a half weeks of being in session before the Christmas break, and so we’re trying to figure out how we get these appropriation bills passed so that we’re in a strong position come January, before the January 30th CR deadline, making sure that we do what we need to for getting that tied up and getting that finished,” the Senator stated.
When asked about the ongoing problems affecting rural hospitals in Alabama, Britt pointed to the legislation she has supported that would provide them additional funding and resources, and noted that maternal mortality has not been trending down in recent years.
She also touched on the impending expiration of the Affordable Care Act premium tax credits. Health policy nonprofit KFF has estimated that the end of these subsidies would more than double premiums for currently subsidized households.
The recent federal shutdown was largely caused by Democratic senators refusing to vote for a funding package that didn’t extend the tax credits. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-South Dakota, had to guarantee that an extension of the credits would get a vote before a sufficient number of Democratic senators would vote to authorize federal spending.
Last week though, Britt told the Montgomery Chamber of Commerce that extending the subsidies alone wouldn’t “deal with any of the issues that are in front of us,” the Alabama Reflector reported.
“If you go back on Obamacare to 2010 when it was created by 2014, we had to have premium tax credits for Obamacare,” she said during the Tuesday press call. “So that’s only four years into it, where we started to have to give people subsidies essentially to make Obamacare affordable, showing that it was never affordable to start with.”
Republican politicians, including President Trump and Senator Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, have called to replace the subsidies with direct payments to families, or deposits into “health savings accounts” which could be used to pay deductibles. Health policy experts, however, argue that these proposals would prove unable to compensate for the loss of health insurance.
When talking about SNAP, which helps around one in seven Alabamians, Britt described one journalist’s use of the word “restriction” to describe recent changes to the program as a “Democrat talking point.”
Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, significantly more people will be required to meet work requirements in order to keep receiving SNAP benefits, including veterans, homeless people, and members of households with children 14 years or older. Additionally, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins announced last week that the Trump administration will be requiring all current SNAP beneficiaries to reapply for the program.
“It is not a restriction,” Britt claimed. “We have made sure that we are taking a look at waste, fraud, and abuse, sure that these systems are sustainable moving forward, which is important because I want people who need help to be able to get it.”
Senator Britt also discussed recent attention to the documents known as the Epstein files during the call. Many Republicans had opposed legislation mandating the release of the unclassified documents, but flipped after President Trump posted to the social media site Truth Social suggesting House Republicans should support the bill.
When asked on Tuesday why the White House wouldn’t release the Epstein files without a law from Congress mandating it, Trump snapped at one reporter, telling them “quiet, quiet, piggy.”
“It’s unthinkable what many of these victims have been through, and we want to make sure that they don’t have to relive that experience in any way,” Britt said during the press call. “So I want to make sure that we keep that in front of mind, but certainly we want to make sure that there is justice for these individuals and that there is absolute accountability.”
On Tuesday, the bill that would require the Department of Justice to release files relating to the Epstein case was unanimously approved by the Senate after the House overwhelmingly approved it that morning. Congressman Clay Higgins, R-Louisiana, was the sole no vote across both chambers.
After explaining her support for the bill, Senator Britt accused Democratic politicians of being Johnny-come-latelys to the Epstein case, saying she could not “remember one of them talking about the Epstein files throughout President Biden’s four years.”
“This is a political stunt, just like the shutdown was, and eventually Americans are going to be sick of this political theater, and I think it’s just another example of the lack of seriousness from the Democratic side of the aisle,” she stated.
