Trump calls for giving healthcare money ‘directly to the people’ as shutdown talks drag on

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump on Saturday urged Republican senators to redirect federal money used to subsidize health insurance costs under the Affordable Care Act toward direct payments to individuals, floating a potential compromise to an issue at the heart of the U.S. government shutdown.

“I am recommending to Senate Republicans that the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars currently being sent to money sucking Insurance Companies in order to save the bad Healthcare provided by ObamaCare, BE SENT DIRECTLY TO THE PEOPLE SO THAT THEY CAN PURCHASE THEIR OWN, MUCH BETTER, HEALTHCARE, and have money left over,” Trump wrote in a social media post.

“In other words, take from the BIG, BAD Insurance Companies, give it to the people, and terminate, per Dollar spent, the worst Healthcare anywhere in the World, ObamaCare,” he added, without offering further details.

Trump’s comments on Truth Social came just hours before the U.S. Senate was set to reconvene at noon (1700 GMT) after rejecting legislation on Friday that would have resumed paychecks for hundreds of thousands of federal workers during the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.

Lawmakers remained at odds over how to reopen the government. Democrats want a funding bill to include healthcare subsidies that are due to expire for 24 million Americans at year’s end, but Trump’s fellow Republicans say Congress must first pass a funding bill without strings attached and allow the government to reopen before tackling other issues. 

At 39 days, the record-long shutdown has left millions of federal government workers without paychecks, frozen critical food aid and snarled airline travel, among other impacts.

Representatives for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s post. Representatives for U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

At least two Republican lawmakers, U.S. Senators James Lankford of Oklahoma and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, publicly backed Trump’s idea.

ACA subsidies are “pumping money to insurance companies, not to people to be able to help,” Lankford told Fox News in an interview, adding that they aid a “select group” of people: “It’s not the general population.”

The ACA marketplaces allow people to buy policies directly from health insurers and mainly serve people who don’t have coverage through employers or the Medicare and Medicaid government programs.  

Trump previously has touted direct payments to U.S. taxpayers in other areas. 

During his first term, the U.S. government sent money to taxpayers as part of a COVID-19 relief package.

Earlier this year, as the Department of Government Efficiency sought to cut the federal government, Trump said he was considering sending some of the money saved back to taxpayers. He later floated the idea of using money from tariffs to fund a “dividend” to individuals.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey; additional reporting by Jonathan Landay; Editing by Sergio Non and Alistair Bell)