(Radio Iowa) – First District Republican Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks says Senate Democrats are to blame for the federal government shutting down. Miller-Meeks says proposals from Democrats to continue enhanced premiums under the Affordable Care Act would be a bailout for insurance companies.  “I think it’s interesting that, on one hand, the Democrats said that we gave tax cuts to the rich in the Working Families Tax Cuts, which, most of the cuts go to lower and middle-income people, but yet here, they’re directly trying to extend a tax cut to higher income individuals,” she says.

She says Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries refused to vote for a continuing resolution because they are facing pressure from members of their party. “Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jefferies refused to support it because the radical left wing of their party, like AOC, threatened them. Schumer is more afraid of being primaried by his own left flank than he is of real consequences that his constituents and all Americans are facing,” she says.

The Kaiser Family Foundation says Marketplace premium payments could, on average, more than double after the enhanced premium tax credits expire at the end of the year.