Hey, everybody. It's me, Sam Stein, managing editor at the Bullock, and I'm joined by Senator

Brian Schatz, who of Hawaii, and he is coming to us from the Senate. The Senate is still

doing things. The House is not. The House has just decided to not work. We are now day eight or

nine of the government shutdown. I've lost track. There doesn't seem to be a particular end

in sight. We keep having these votes.

I want to talk to you about this, Senator, because you voted for the first continuing resolution back in the spring.

You're one of a handful of Democrats who allowed it to get to 60. You are firmly in the no camp now.

What are the fundamental differences between then and now that affected how you thought about this?

Well, for one thing, when they passed their big, beautiful bill, you know, it cuts. It gets us a bunch of horrible things.

But the most urgent thing in front of us is that premiums are going to go up by 114% on average for about 22 million Americans.

And most of the rest of us who are not on that ACA exchange are also going to see huge spikes in

health care premiums. And this is preventable. The other thing I'll say is that, you know,

I told my Republican colleagues specifically in the spring that I was going to swallow this CR, but that if they failed to engage in a bipartisan negotiation, that this was the last time that I would do so.

And they basically believed that we would cave. And I think this was,

you know, all around Washington, including the pundit class, they were sort of like, you know,

it'll be a couple of days. Democrats are the responsible party. They're going to cave. And I think,

you know, part of what changed everything was an understanding among Republicans

that we did not just like invent the health care issue as a context, but that rather this is a

quite urgent thing for their constituents.

And that it's one thing we're arguing while they're passing a thing about its impact.

It's another thing if like insurers are sending out letters saying this is the price.

That's like unspinnable.

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