ICYMI: On Fox & Friends, Shaheen Counters False Republican Talking Point on Government Shutdown, Again Calls for Bipartisan Cooperation to Prevent Millions of Americans from Losing Health Insurance

(Washington, DC) – In case you missed it, U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), lead author of bicameral legislation that would permanently extend Affordable Care Act enhanced premium tax credits that help tens of millions of Americans afford health insurance, joined Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends this morning to discuss her efforts to negotiate with colleagues in both parties to end the government shutdown and keep millions of Americans from losing their health insurance—and millions more from facing doubled premiums—by extending the soon-expiring ACA enhanced premium tax credits.

During the interview, Shaheen pushed back on the false claim from the White House and some Republicans in Congress that the government is shutdown because Democrats want to give free health care to undocumented immigrants. And Senator Shaheen highlighted the substantive and political importance of extending these tax credits for her Republican colleagues – noting that over 70% of their beneficiaries live in states carried by President Trump in 2024, and that Trump’s own pollsters have warned of a voter backlash in 2026 if Republicans don’t act. Click HERE to watch the full clip.

Key quotes from Shaheen:

• “Well, I think this is an opportunity for us to talk to each other. I think we can address both keeping the government open and the health care needs of so many of our people. There's urgency about this because we know that if we don't address the premium tax credits, the subsidies that so many people have been getting to help afford health insurance, that they're going to see their rates double by November. And health insurance companies right now, this month are setting those rates. So we need to get together. We need to address this. This is an issue that affects both Democrats and Republicans.”

• “Well, we know that Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act health insurance market all prohibit anybody who's ‘illegal’ from getting access to health care. So what you're referring to is a provision that was put in place back when Ronald Reagan was president, that said hospitals and emergency rooms had to treat people who showed up and needed care. So the idea that this is an effort to make sure that ‘illegal immigrants’ can get health care is just not true.”

• “What I am interested in seeing is that people who are going to get pushed out of their health insurance, because we're not willing to extend those tax credits are really going to be hurt, and that's going to affect the whole health care system. So I think we can agree we all want to deal with waste and fraud. [...] The ‘illegal immigrant’ is just a red herring that's designed to try and prevent people from talking about the real issue which is, ‘how do we provide health insurance for people in this country?’”

• “When I was Governor, when we had an issue that we disagreed on, I went to my Republican legislature and I said, let's sit down. Let's figure out how we can address this so that you're comfortable and so that the citizens of New Hampshire are benefiting. That's what we need to be doing now. I think there are people on both sides of the aisle that want to do that, and I would hope the president wants to do that because, as his own pollster said, if the GOP lets these health insurance subsidies expire and premiums double for people across this country, the GOP is going to pay at the voting box next November. So it's in everybody's interest to get this done.”

Shaheen is leading efforts in Congress to make health care more affordable through the preservation and extension of enhanced premium tax credits. Shaheen’s first bill introduction this Congress was her landmark Health Care Affordability Act—bicameral legislation with U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and U.S. Congresswoman Lauren Underwood (IL-14) to permanently extend the tax credits for Marketplace coverage that have lowered health care costs for millions of Americans.

Earlier this week, Shaheen hosted a spotlight forum on the need for Congress to extend the soon-expiring tax credits that have made health care more affordable for tens of millions of Americans. The spotlight forum, entitled “The Clock is Ticking: Why Congress Must Extend the Enhanced Premium Tax Credits” featured several Democratic Senators and four witnesses.

###