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    Government shut down as Congress deadlocks

    By Robyn Oster
    October 2025

    At midnight on October 1, the government shut down after Congress failed to pass a spending bill.

    The votes: Last Tuesday, the House-passed bill failed on the Senate floor. The Senate has since voted five more times, each time failing to pass the House-passed stopgap or the alternative Democratic proposal, with no senators changing their vote.

    What’s coming: There are several scenarios of how a bill could ultimately pass, reopen the government, and maybe reopen negotiations on ACA subsidies.

    1. Five more Democrats could join Republicans in the Senate to pass the House-passed bill, which would reopen the government, with no deal on health care. Republicans have been ramping up the pressure on Democrats, who could begin to feel the heat and ultimately vote for the bill.
    2. The two parties could make a handshake deal on handling the ACA subsidies. Some Democrats are skeptical of Republican promises that Congress will tackle the issue later and want to force an extension of the subsidies into the stopgap measure. But others have hinted that gaining specifics on how the discussions on the subsidies would play out could be enough.
    3. There could be a deal between Republicans and Democrats on a Senate package that also includes a limited extension of the ACA subsidies. That currently seems unlikely because of how entrenched both sides are, and informal bipartisan talks have not involved leadership.

    But: There are currently few signs of movement on an agreement, with both sides digging in. In the meantime, the Trump administration is targeting funding for a variety of programs in states and is threatening to engage in mass layoffs of federal workers in coming days.

    • Movement could be spurred as we approach October 15, when active-duty military members would miss their first paycheck.

    The bigger picture: A KFF poll found that 78% of adults say Congress should extend the enhanced ACA tax credits, including majorities across parties.

    • Why it’s important: Seven in 10 adults who buy ACA coverage say that if the amount they paid nearly doubled, they could not pay the higher premiums without significantly disrupting their household finances. Four in 10 say they would go without health insurance if that happened.