With the federal government shutdown hitting 16 days on Thursday, Congressman Tim Walberg says someone is going to have to back down, and he thinks it’ll be the Democrats.

Walberg tells us this is the first-ever government shutdown caused by the failure of a continuing budget resolution that would have just maintained current funding levels. He believes demands by Democrats to restore Medicaid and Affordable Care Act funding slashed in the Big, Beautiful Bill will amount to an untenable position once the continuing supplemental funding for ACA subsidies runs out.

“Which will affect a little better than 20 million people in this country, but some of those who make more than $500,000 a year in household income, conceivably, you could say even if there were an increase, they could pay for that increase,” Walberg said. “Others, of course, it’s going to hurt them more. But this was a provision that was put in place during COVID for the COVID Medicaid expansion states, and it was only supposed to be temporary.”

The extra Affordable Care Act subsidies were approved as an emergency during the pandemic and have kept health insurance costs down for those on the ACA. Democrats say patients who get their insurance through the federal marketplace will start to get letters about their premiums going up in the next month or so.

Walberg believes Senate Democrats have only forced the shutdown due to pressure from their left flank, but he thinks they could back down in early November.