Good morning to you. It is Saturday, October the 4th. The federal government has been shut down for three days and ten hours, and it's going to remain closed for at least a few more days.

Neither the Senate nor the House will be in session this weekend after Republicans' continuing

resolution, a temporary deal which would keep the government funded at current levels, failed to get

the 60 votes it needed to pass for the fourth time on Friday afternoon, although that was

mostly a show vote because it was expected to fail. The Senate is set to return on Monday, and even if the

Senate figures how to do this, the House is not scheduled to return at all next week. If senators

were to reach an agreement, the House would have to approve that plan in order to reopen

the government, although it's unclear if any votes in the Senate will swing one way or the other

in the meantime, because no

high-level meetings are taking place at all, with the Majority Leader John Thune telling reporters,

quote, there's nothing to negotiate. Democrats disagree. They have so far held firm on what

they need in exchange for their votes in the Senate, extensions of the Affordable Care Act subsidies that

are set to expire at the end of this year. As the Democratic Senator Gene Shaheen of New Hampshire

explained yesterday on Fox News, what's at stake immediately is the cost of health coverage

for 22 million Americans. Why not just get the government back open and then negotiate on the tax credits?

Well, the credits don't expire until December, but the reality is that insurance companies are now setting their rates this month.

People are going to start to enroll in health insurance November the 1st.

And what we know if we do nothing, that we've heard a number of studies that have pointed

at, including the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, that say the cost of premiums

are going to double for most of the people who are getting those credits,

and that that's a real problem for people because they won't be able to afford their health

insurance. Think about that. The cost of health insurance is going to double for most people.

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