During an appearance with Senator John Fetterman, D-Pennsylvania, on C-SPAN’s Ceasefire this past Friday, Alabama Senator Katie Britt discussed her friendship with the Democratic senator as well as the state of Congressional negotiations on healthcare.
“When it comes to the ACA conversation—the Obamacare—John and I were actually in a bipartisan group the other day talking about what is a pathway forward,” Britt told the show’s host, Dasha Burns.
The government shutdown earlier this year was largely precipitated by Democratic concerns about the expiration of enhanced premium tax credits.
Since eligibility for premium tax credits were first expanded by the American Rescue Plan and then that provision was renewed in the Inflation Reduction Act, the number of Americans enrolled in the subsidized exchange has more than doubled. Additionally, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a progressive think tank, recently estimated that premiums for a 45-year-old Alabamian making $65,000 a year would increase by over $3,000 a year.
However, the expansion is currently set to expire at the end of the year despite Democratic efforts to renew it again for a few more years.
Last week, Alabama’s delegation in the House split over votes on how to help Americans afford health insurance. Democratic members of Congress Shomari Figures and Terri Sewell voted in favor of a simple three year extension of the enhanced tax credits, while Republican members of the House from Alabama voted for a plan to fund “cost-sharing reductions.”
“You look back to Obamacare being instituted in 2010 and needing subsidies in 2014, 2020, 2021, and where we are now, from my perspective it is clear that the system has failed with regards to affordability,” Britt said during the panel.
“Because we continue to have to subsidize it to ‘make it affordable,’” she continued. “You have two conversations here: The immediate conversation of what happens with the enhanced COVID premium subsidies, and then you have a larger conversation that has to be had about, ‘how do we make sure that we can deliver affordable healthcare?’”
Britt had also struck the same note during a press call last month, when she said a federal healthcare plan would need to “drive down costs.”
When the conversation turned to immigration, Fetterman said he disagreed with targeting “otherwise hardworking migrants” and with some of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s tactics, but maintained that the agency is necessary.
Britt, though, repeatedly charged that there was a “wide-open border” during the Biden administration and initially deflected when asked by Burns if she agreed with Fetterman about ICE’s tactics.
“This was the most litigated issue in the last four years prior to this, and President Trump laid out pretty clearly what his plan was and he is working to execute on that,” Britt stated. “The American people heard it and this is where they want us to go as a nation.”
Although immigration is consistently one of the administration’s better polling issues, a recent poll by Pew Research found that a majority of Americans believe the Trump administration is doing “too much” on deporting immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.
“[The American people] want us to have secure borders and safe streets,” Senator Britt continued. “And you mentioned ICE earlier but I think what we have seen particularly from some of my Democratic colleagues vilifying ICE agents in particular kind of undermines law enforcement. It undermines their safety and ability to do their job and ultimately undermines the security of our country.”
