Raskin Statement on House Passage of Republican Bill to Let Health Care Costs Soar and Give GOP Senators Million-Dollar Payouts

GOP spending bill will not extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits that more than 190,000 Marylanders rely on for health insurance; will give away millions in taxpayer dollars to eight GOP Senators investigated for roles in Trump's scheme to overturn 2020 election results

Raskin: "While Republicans take away your health care, they are also making themselves rich with your tax dollars."

WASHINGTON, DC - Representative Jamie Raskin (MD-08) released the following statement after House Republicans passed a short-term government funding bill without protections for Americans facing an impending health care crisis of the GOP's own making:

"For more than 40 days, President Donald Trump and his subordinates in Congress brought the government to a standstill to avoid working with Democrats to make sure the American people can afford health care coverage. My Republican colleagues are unmoved, apparently, by the stories of Americans who won't be able to see their doctor, pay for their prescriptions or continue their cancer treatment if Congress does not extend Affordable Care Act credits to help them pay their monthly premiums. Rather than come to the table to address the needs of the people, they chose to leave our people facing skyrocketing increases in monthly premiums and impossible choices between feeding their families, paying rent and getting the care they need.

"While Republicans take away your health care, they are also making themselves rich with your tax dollars. Trump's loyal followers in the Senate tucked one of the most blatantly corrupt provisions for political self-dealing and the plunder of public resources ever proposed in Congress into this spending bill. The provision allows 'any United States Senator'-not any citizen, mind you, and not even any Member of Congress, but 'any Senator'-to receive $500,000 from the taxpayers if the Department of Justice (DOJ) subpoenas their phone bill without giving them notice and then an extra $500,000 if DOJ seeks a lawful non-disclosure order from a federal judge. And they could double the whole payout if both their personal and campaign phone records were discovered. And the Senate made sure this provision was made retroactive to 2022, so Senators can get paid for perfectly lawful subpoenas and lawful judicial non-disclosure orders that were lawfully issued years ago. These cool million-dollar payouts were designed to soothe the feelings and feather the nests of GOP Senators who Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and their co-conspirators worked to enlist in their criminal efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Even some right-wing House Members have spoken out against this corrupt legislator get-rich-quick scheme, though they lacked the conviction to actually vote for an amendment that could have stripped out the provision.

"The MAGA shutdown accelerated Trump's bulldozing of our federal workforce. All year, the Administration has fulfilled White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought's promise to put hardworking civil servants 'in trauma.' Trump and Vought used their shutdown as a pretext to illegally fire thousands of their federal workers and threaten to withhold back pay-despite Trump having signed into a law I fought with others to pass in 2019 which guarantees back pay for all federal employees after a government shutdown. These dedicated civil servants have endured missed paychecks and profound uncertainty and anxiety over the last 43 days, and some watched in horror as Trump Administration officials sent out emails in their names with nakedly partisan messages blaming 'Senate Democrats' and the 'Radical Left' for the government shutdown, in an apparent gross violation of the Hatch Act.

"From the beginning of this national nightmare, I have worked every day to counter these attacks on the public servants who live in Maryland's Eighth Congressional District and across the country. Republicans backed down and agreed to reverse the firings that took place during the shutdown because of our efforts, but make no mistake: the fight to protect our federal workers and restore the professional civil service workforce continues every day so long as Donald Trump occupies the White House and MAGA runs the government.

"I voted no on this legislation because hundreds of thousands of Marylanders and millions of Americans are hearing from their insurance companies that their monthly premiums are about to skyrocket and yet Republicans have done nothing about it. Many Marylanders now face agonizing decisions between choosing life-sustaining care and basic necessities like rent, food and heating their homes in the winter. Trump and his sycophantic Republican Party underlings control all branches of government and they own this brutal self-inflicted shutdown and health care crisis. The fight to save our health care, our civil service and our Republic continues-and we're not backing down."

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Permalink: https://raskin.house.gov/2025/11/raskin-statement-on-house-passage-of-republican-bill-to-let-health-care-costs-soar-and-give-gop-senators-million-dollar-payouts