Editor’s note: CHN’s Executive Director, Deborah Weinstein made the following statement at the Fair Budget Coalition’s End the Shutdown Virtual Town Hall hosted by the National Urban League. You can watch a recording of the livestream here.

Click on the image to watch Debbie’s remarks.

Thank you so much for the honor of joining with the heroic labor, civil rights and human needs leaders you’re hearing from today. The faith groups, service providers, and other advocates for people with low incomes who join together in the Coalition on Human Needs deeply understand the urgency of the moment. The longer the shutdown continues, the more serious the harm. Now, discontinued telehealth services for Medicare patients in rural areas, lack of help for people who need information from the Social Security Administration or the IRS; soon, not enough money on hand to fund food assistance for children and families. Furloughed or laid off workers are not available to administer education funds for children with disabilities. Federal workers are going without pay and thousands more are being fired. This is a very partial list of genuine harms. They are added to serious losses that preceded the shutdown, because the Trump regime has frozen funds and fired workers in ways that have threatened public health and shredded protections against discrimination in housing and education; with or without a shutdown, they have refused to fund needed programs approved by Congress, and Congress must stand up to that.

But these are not the only urgencies facing the nation. Millions of people are about to see their health insurance costs skyrocket, leaving many unable to afford insurance. The Affordable Care Act’s enhanced premium tax credits, which have made health insurance affordable for millions of individuals with modest incomes, will expire at the end of December. But Congress, which refused to include these tax credits in its multi-trillion dollar pile of tax breaks mostly benefiting the rich, must act much sooner than that. In almost every state, open enrollment begins November 1 – if Congress fails to act now, people will see their rates double, on average – even more in many states. In Georgia, a typical couple could see premiums rise from $699 to $2,764 per month – that’s nearly quadrupling. CBO has estimated that over a period of years, 4 million will become uninsured; about 2 million in the first year.

Republican leaders in Congress have said we can talk about the ACA tax credits later; now, we should just pass a stopgap spending bill and reopen the government. But the situation is too urgent for that – people’s health is at stake. Members of Congress should get back to work to meet three urgent needs now: extend the ACA tax credits, require that bipartisan funding enacted by Congress is spent, that autocratically frozen or cancelled funds for programs be made available now, and reopen government with funding levels adequate to prevent cuts. That is what our people need and our democracy demands.