US Congress Democrats to include healthcare initiative in their stopgap funding counter-proposal

By Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Congress Democrats planned to unveil on Wednesday their version of legislation keeping the federal government fully operating beyond September 30, while also attaching healthcare provisions that Republicans have vowed to reject.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said in an interview on NBC's "Morning Joe" program that the proposal on the verge of being made public "would protect the needs of Americans" while also averting government shutdowns at the end of this fiscal year.

In a speech to the Senate following that interview, Schumer said the measure would be of "short duration," but did not provide the precise end date.

He added it would address "healthcare costs and cuts by preventing premiums from going up, by restoring and extending congressional funds" that have been withheld by the Trump administration.

Schumer specifically referred to National Institutes of Health money enacted into law that he said the administration was "illegally halting."

For months now, congressional Democrats have been pushing for an extension of an Affordable Care Act tax credit that is expiring. Republicans have countered that this temporary funding bill was not the place for such a fix.

"I don't think Democrats are going to get very far with this one," Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in a Senate speech, as the two sides dug in, at least for now, on their respective positions.

The budget debate raging in Congress is over more than $1.7 trillion in annual "discretionary" spending -- a small portion of the approximately $7 trillion that covers all federal activities, as well as interest payments on a rapidly growing national debt of more than $37.5 trillion.

On Tuesday, House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson put forth a stopgap funding bill that would extend through November 21 to avert government shutdowns and give Congress more time to pass the 12 annual appropriations bills that fund an array of federal agency programs, including homeland security, education, defense and food and nutrition benefits.

It also contains $88 million for additional security measures for members of Congress, as well as the judicial and executive branches.

Schumer and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries promptly rejected that plan, dismissing it as inadequate and partisan.

Meanwhile, Johnson was steering the Republican plan toward passage as early as Friday. Later on Wednesday, the House is expected to take its first procedural vote, which is unlikely to win much, if any, Democratic support.

Republicans control the House by a narrow margin of 219-213 and can afford to lose few Republican votes if all Democrats oppose the measure.

Thune, however, must win over at least seven of 47 Democrats and independents if all 53 of his Republicans back the House temporary funding bill, giving Democrats leverage for a compromise, unless either side decides to go the shutdown route.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan, Nolan McCaskill and Katharine Jackson; Editing by Daniel Wallis)