There have now been fifteen votes to keep the government open. Democrats have consistently voted no. They claim they’re standing on principle, but the reality is that you can’t fix healthcare with the government shut down — and you can’t fix it with it open either, unless you go through the proper process.
The Affordable Care Act remains one of the most politically protected yet structurally flawed laws in modern history. It’s been defended by rhetoric, not results. And now, Congress is trying to use a Continuing Resolution, or CR, as a bargaining chip — pretending it’s a tool to repair healthcare. But a CR is not legislation. It’s not reform. It’s a delay.
A CR doesn’t change the law. It doesn’t restructure programs or address the Affordable Care Act’s core design failures. It simply spends money we don’t have to keep a system we refuse to fix.
Modern politics thrives on optics, not outcomes. Shutting down the government has become performance art — where both parties pretend that political brinkmanship equals courage. In truth, a CR is a temporary check to keep agencies running at last year’s spending levels. It keeps the lights on but doesn’t fix the wiring. Yet politicians tell voters it’s leverage for “reform,” when in reality, it can’t rewrite a single paragraph of the ACA.
The Affordable Care Act is permanent law, not a budget line item. To amend it, Congress must go through committee hearings, debate, and full legislative action. That means the House Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce, and Senate Finance Committees, not cable news studios. But serious policy work takes time and courage. Today’s politicians prefer microphones over mathematics and hashtags over hard choices.
The real reason healthcare is broken isn’t lack of funding — it’s lack of discipline. The ACA expanded the government’s reach far beyond its competence and then acted surprised when bureaucracy couldn’t deliver results.
The flaws are evident to anyone willing to look. It forces the young and healthy to subsidize the old and sick, calling it fairness while distorting the market. It expanded Medicaid to people it was never designed for, turning a program for people with low incomes into a system of dependency. It punished small businesses through employer mandates that discouraged hiring and growth. It offered temporary subsidies for political convenience, not fiscal honesty — and now blames others as those subsidies expire. And it squeezed hospitals, especially in minority and rural communities, under reimbursement rates that make quality care harder to sustain. These failures aren’t accidents; they are the logical consequences of central planning.
A Continuing Resolution can’t repair any of that. It simply extends the same spending for a few more weeks or months. It can’t modify Medicaid, adjust premiums, or simplify the ACA’s tangled bureaucracy. The notion that a CR can “fix healthcare” is not only false — it’s dishonest. No serious policymaker believes that a trillion-dollar health system can be repaired through a temporary funding patch.
Both parties share blame. Democrats built the ACA on political illusions and temporary money. Republicans respond with symbolic shutdowns that accomplish nothing. Neither wants to do the work of policy because real work exposes the trade-offs and truths voters might not want to hear.
If Congress is serious about fixing healthcare, it must reopen the government and send the ACA back to committee. That’s where the hard questions belong — where lawmakers can hear from economists, doctors, insurers, and state officials, not speechwriters. Reform must be phased in responsibly: stabilize the markets first, fix Medicaid next, then simplify the tax credits and restore competition. And above all, be honest about costs — because nothing in government is ‘free’. This is a task that requires bipartisan cooperation, not political posturing.
A Continuing Resolution can’t fix healthcare because no budget gimmick can correct a failure of political will. The ACA was written to expand dependency, not efficiency. Until that truth is confronted, the same cycle will repeat: shutdowns, speeches, and no solutions.
Government shutdowns make headlines. Real reform makes history. Congress needs fewer theatrics and more truth.
References
- U.S. Congress Roll Call Votes (2025 Continuing Resolution Votes)
Congressional Record — House and Senate Floor Votes, September–October 2025.
Accessible via: Congress.gov
(Confirms Democrats voted “no” on all 15 CR votes to fund the government.) - Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
“Estimated Budgetary Effects of the Affordable Care Act.”
Congressional Budget Office, Washington, D.C. (March 2011).
(Analyzes long-term fiscal impacts of the ACA and the structural rise in entitlement spending.) - Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
“National Health Expenditure Data, 2010–2023.”
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
(Documents Medicaid enrollment increases and the federal-state cost burden following ACA expansion.) - Kip Piper, MA, FACHE.
“The Affordable Care Act: A Giant Social Experiment.”
National Library of Medicine, Health Affairs (2014).
(Identifies administrative flaws and rollout failures within CMS during ACA implementation.) - The Commonwealth Fund.
“Senate Passes Health-Care Overhaul Bill, 60–39.”
December 24, 2009.
(Confirms ACA passage in the Senate with zero Republican votes.) - HealthReformVotes.org.
“House Roll Call: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, March 21, 2010.”
(Confirms ACA passed the House 219–212, without Republican support.) - Congressional Research Service (CRS).
“Continuing Resolutions: Overview of Components and Practices.”
CRS Report RL34700, updated July 2023.
(Explains the legal limits of CRs and why they cannot amend or replace existing law.) - Government Accountability Office (GAO).
“Antideficiency Act and Federal Budget Process.”
GAO Financial Management Series (2022).
(Clarifies that CRs maintain spending authority only and cannot legislate new programs or alter statutory law.) - Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF).
“Medicaid Enrollment & Spending Growth, 2010–2024.”
KFF Health Policy Analysis (2024).
(Provides data on the 90+ million Medicaid participants and the expansion’s fiscal impact.) - The Wall Street Journal.
“The Employer Mandate’s Hidden Cost.”
Editorial Board, April 2016.
(Discusses how ACA employer coverage rules disincentivized full-time hiring and small business growth.) - The Heritage Foundation.
“Why Obamacare’s Temporary Subsidies Are the Real Budget Gimmick.”
Heritage Policy Analysis Report, June 2022.
(Explains how Democrats structured short-term subsidies to minimize CBO scoring while assuming later extensions.) - The New York Times.
“Hospitals Feel the Strain as Medicaid Expands.”
April 2023.
(Documents how reimbursement cuts have led to closures and reduced access, particularly in low-income communities.) - Thomas Sowell.
“The Economics and Politics of Health Care.”
Collected Essays, Hoover Institution, Stanford University (2012).
(Provides the economic framework on incentives, distortions, and unintended consequences in government-controlled systems.)
great