And now for a Republican perspective, we turn to Congressman Mike Lawler from New York.

Congressman, welcome back to the News Hour. Thanks for joining us.

Thanks for having me.

So you have repeatedly pointed out that you repeatedly voted to keep the government funded,

to keep the government open, even under President Biden. As you just heard, Democrats are

arguing that they're fighting to protect

health care. They say they want to roll back Medicaid cuts. They want to extend the subsidies

that expire at the end of the year. Keep those costs from going up for millions of people.

What's your response to that? Well, I think obviously the Democrats' position here is hypocritical.

And so I just impressed upon my Democratic colleagues

that no matter what political differences there are or policy debates there are to have,

shutting the government down is idiotic and does not serve a real purpose in terms of actually solving the problems facing the American

people. We can all agree that health care costs in this country are out of control. And in fact,

the Affordable Care Act 15 years on has not actually borne fruit in terms of reducing health

care costs or health care premiums or increasing access.

In fact, in many respects, it has made the cost of health care substantially worse.

The subsidies that were put in place during COVID are set to expire at the end of this year.

I and a number of my Republican colleagues have signed on to legislation to extend that by a year.

House and Senate Republican leadership have already said they are open to negotiating over those subsidies and potential changes to them, including income limits.

But that is something that is to be negotiated, not used as a bludgeon in a government

shutdown, which will only hurt the very people that Democrats claim they want to help.

So just to make sure I understand, you're saying that the debate over the subsidies is one

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