US President Donald Trump gestures as he speaks during an event to announce a deal with Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk to reduce prices for the weight loss drug GLP-1, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on November 6, 2025.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
President Donald Trump proposed a compromise on health insurance payments, calling on Republicans to send federal payments that would go to insurers under the Affordable Care Act directly to Americans to end the government shutdown.
“I recommend to Senate Republicans that the hundreds of billions of dollars currently being sent to money-sucking insurance companies to save the poor health care provided by ObamaCare BE SENT DIRECTLY TO THE PEOPLE SO THEY CAN BUY THEIR OWN, MUCH BETTER, HEALTH CARE, and have money left over,” he wrote in a Truth Social post on Saturday, without providing any details.
The publication comes a day after Senate Republicans rejected Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's deal that would have allowed the US government to reopen after a shutdown that began on October 1. The shutdown is now the longest in U.S. history.
The plan Democrats unveiled Friday proposed protecting federal ACA subsidies for at least a year in exchange for dropping their demand that a longer-term extension of Obamacare tax credits be included in a stopgap government funding bill.
Those subsidies, used by more than 20 million Americans, will expire at the end of December if Congress does not extend them.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., on Friday called the Democrats' proposal “a failure.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment or details about how Trump's proposed direct payment plan would work.
Representatives for Senators Schumer and Thune did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The D.C. offices of House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Congressional lawmakers have been deadlocked, unable to find a compromise to end the shutdown. Democrats want a funding bill to include health care subsidies that are set to expire for 24 million Americans at the end of the year. Meanwhile, Republicans say Congress must first pass an unconditional funding bill and allow the government to reopen before addressing other issues.
In multiple posts on Saturday, Trump also reiterated his calls to end the filibuster, the Senate rule that requires 60 of its 100 members to approve most legislation. The Republican Party has 53 seats in the Senate. There are 45 Democratic senators and two independents who are part of them.
Senate Republicans have opposed changing the rule, saying earlier this week that they would not support a change. Trump had asked his party to exercise what he called “the nuclear option” on the rule.
On Saturday, Trump claimed he is “making progress” with Republicans to change the rule.
“Democrats are cracking like dogs over the shutdown because they are deathly afraid that it is making progress with Republicans to END THE FILIBUSTER! Whether we make a deal or not, REPUBLICANS MUST 'BLOW UP' THE FILIBUSTER,” he wrote.
