Gallego on CNN: “This is about affordable health care.”

WASHINGTON - Today, Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) joined CNN's Kasie Hunt to underscore what this government shutdown is about: affordable health care for millions of Americans. Senator Gallego emphasized that if Republicans refuse to negotiate, 24 million Americans will see their health care costs skyrocket or lose coverage altogether.

Gallego: "24 million Americans are going to have their premiums increased November 1st. That's what matters here. That's what I want to fix. I represent the state with the most Republicans of any Democratic senator. What I hear about is the fact that people are worried about the cost of everything. And on November 1st, hundreds of thousands of Arizonans are going to look at their open enrollment and they're going to realize they're going to pay thousands of dollars more in premiums, because the United States government did not act. That is a problem. And there's a way for us to fix this. There's a way for us to negotiate this. And there could be a lot of things that we can negotiate, even within the ACA, about who should be getting it, who should not be getting what premiums, what the lows are, all that. But the fact that we're not even talking about that, the fact that Republicans are saying we'll take care of that post-November, it tells me they're not serious. Because anybody that's ever dealt with insurance [knows] […] once open enrollment happens, the prices are set. And we're not going to let Americans have increased costs because Republicans by nature just want a knee-jerk, try to take away insurance from people."

10/1/25