What’s in deal that could end government shutdown

Update: The Senate on Monday night passed the deal, sending the funding bill to the House.

Senate Democrats are poised to help Republicans pass a bill that could lead to the end of the government shutdown. But the deal they’re agreeing to doesn’t directly address what was once Democrats’ key demand: an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies, which are due to expire by year’s end.

The Senate took a major step toward ending the shutdown on Sunday night, when eight Democrats in the narrowly divided chamber voted for a procedural motion that paves the way for approval of a negotiated funding bill.

Those eight Democrats, who broke with party leadership, were just enough for the measure to hit the 60-vote threshold required to overcome the filibuster. That rule has prevented Republicans, who hold a slim majority in the Senate, from reopening the government on their own.

The procedural vote’s passage broke a nearly six-week logjam in which most Senate Democrats repeatedly shot down a Republican-backed bill that would temporarily resume government funding at current levels.

Democrats had demanded that any funding bill must include significant additional spending on health care protections and other key measures.

Most notably, they fought for a permanent extension of enhanced tax credits under the ACA, which were introduced during the Biden administration and are set to expire by year’s end. If those subsidies lapse, millions of Americans could either lose their health insurance or see their premiums rise significantly.

Democrats also sought to reverse some recent cuts to Medicaid and other health programs. And they aimed to address the Trump administration’s freezing of congressionally approved federal funds, which Democrats say is illegal.

Update: The Senate on Monday night passed the deal, sending the funding bill to the House.

The text of the funding deal that helped spur Sunday’s breakthrough leaves many of those priorities unaddressed. The 31-page bill makes no mention of the expiring Obamacare tax credits.

Instead, the agreement includes a guarantee from Republican leadership that the Senate will vote on a health care bill drafted by Democrats before the second week of December.

“That is a big step, because otherwise there’s no way for the minority to get a bill onto the floor of the U.S. Senate,” Sen. Angus King of Maine, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, said Sunday night after helping to broker the deal.

Even if a bill to extend the tax credits passes the Senate, it would have…