Barrasso wrongfully pins blame for government shutdown on Dems

The day after Halloween, the “Obamacare” enrollment period begins, and this year, Wyomingites signing up may find that U.S. Sen. John Barrasso played a costly trick on them instead of the health care treat he promised.

Barrasso, an orthopedic surgeon before he began his political career, likes to tout his credentials as “Wyoming’s Doctor” each campaign. It’s a reminder of his days dispensing medical advice on TV.

But he’s got a big credibility problem after the Oct. 1 federal government shutdown, which he’s blamed on the Democrats’ “idiocy” for not averting the closure by compromising with Republicans.

Barrasso, the No. 2 Senate Republican as majority whip, helped push the incredibly misnamed “One Big Beautiful Bill” across the finish line without passing a single one of the Democrats’ nearly 50 amendments. So much for that bipartisan spirit the GOP always says it wants.

There are many reasons for Americans to hate the bill, which does more damage to health care access than any piece of federal legislation I can recall.

For starters, the Congressional Budget Office estimates the measure will reduce Medicaid spending by $793 billion over the next decade to pay for tax cuts that benefit the nation’s wealthiest citizens. But that’s not the “trick” I referred to above.

The bill will cause skyrocketing health insurance premiums in the federal marketplace under the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. This is due to the GOP’s insistence that the enhanced tax credits that helped make health insurance affordable for many Americans must expire at the end of the year.

The enhanced tax credits started in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, 11.4 million people were enrolled in the ACA marketplace. Today, participation has more than doubled to 24.4 million, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid.

“This government shutdown is all about whether Republicans will get away with raising healthcare premiums by 75% for 20 million Americans and throwing 15 million people off their [Medicaid insurance],” Independent U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont wrote on X.

Those numbers may be even bigger, according to KFF, a health policy research organization. The group says consumers getting subsidies through the marketplaces will see an average increase of 114% in 2026. KFF also predicts many healthier enrollees on marketplaces will simply drop their coverage because they can’t afford it, leaving them fiscally vulnerable if they need medical care.

Low-income workers will be hit hard if the enhanced tax credits expire. The Urban Institute estimated ACA premiums may jump 400% for people who make between $23,000 and $30,000 annually.

The last thing Barrasso wants is for voters to connect the dots when they find out their health insurance premiums are soaring and blame him. Personally, I’d like every Wyomingite who will have higher ACA health premiums to get a bill with a photo of Barrasso proudly standing next to President Donald Trump, so they know exactly who to “thank.”

A photo of U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyoming, is also in order because she’s playing the blame game, too.

“It’s time for Senate Democrats to stop these political games and join Republicans in doing the right thing for the American people by voting to keep our government and our national parks funded,” Lummis said in a statement.

Republicans aren’t stopping with attacks on Democrats for not agreeing to a continuing resolution to keep spending limits on contested issues at their current level while both parties negotiate an agreement. No, they’ve got a dirty trick that the GOP has perfected: If you say something loud enough and keep repeating it, people will believe it’s true. Like “clean” coal.

And it works. Last week, after the shutdown began, an acquaintance asked me if it happened “because Democrats want to give money to illegal aliens.”

In late September, Republican officials like Vice President JD Vance debuted a new rallying cry: “Democrats are about to shut down the government because they demand we fund health care for illegal aliens.”

Republicans ridiculously manage to tie every controversial issue they encounter to imaginary hordes of illegal immigrants crossing the southern border and demanding everything Americans have, pillaging cities and towns all along the way.

“We’ll probably have a shutdown because one of the things [Democrats] want to do is they want to give incredible Medicare, Cadillac, the Cadillac Medicare, to illegal immigrants,” the verbally fumbling Trump said.

It doesn’t seem to matter how often Democratic officials like U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-New York, condemn these outright lies; the charges are difficult to shake.

“Federal law prohibits the use of taxpayer dollars to provide medical coverage to undocumented individuals. That’s the law,” Jeffries told CNBC the day before the shutdown. “And there is nothing in anything that we have proposed that is trying to change that law.”

Trump counters truth with threats, because that’s how he does business. The president warned ahead of the last Senate vote before the shutdown that his administration and the Office of Management and Budget could do things “that are irreversible,” like mass firings and cutting programs favored by Democrats.

Allowing enhanced tax credits to expire will likely ignite a chain reaction of negative results. People who can’t afford marketplace premiums will obtain inadequate insurance with high deductibles or go without any at all. Because they don’t see doctors regularly for preventive care, their health risks will increase.

People with private insurance will also be affected. Companies are already planning to increase rates because they anticipate a drop in healthy enrollees and a rise in the average cost of claims. 

Hospitals will have higher uncompensated care costs because sick people tend to go to emergency rooms as a last resort. Hospitals will make up the loss by charging those who can afford private insurance more for services, or discontinue certain care, like the five maternity wards that have closed in Wyoming in the past 12 years.

Wyoming Democrats, instead of letting Barrasso and Lummis paint them as villains, should make it clear that the blame for all of the health and financial pain caused by ending the tax credits — including the high cost of the government shutdown itself — rests with Republicans.