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Rep. Mark Alford didn’t mince words on Newsmax’s Wake Up America, calling out Senate Democrats and their leadership for deliberately keeping the government closed while playing political games with Americans’ livelihoods. He explicitly pointed to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s tactics as responsible for the shutdown and said House Republicans had passed the appropriations work needed to move forward.
Alford reminded viewers that the House had advanced all 12 appropriations bills to the floor and was asking only for a short, clean continuing resolution to finish the remaining work, a common-sense approach that would have avoided dragging out the pain. He framed the stall as pure political theater — Democrats refusing a clean extension while pointing fingers at Republicans for the very chaos they’re creating.
Most damning was Alford’s charge that Democrats are the ones who engineered the looming healthcare squeeze by letting temporary COVID-era premium tax credits lapse, then weaponizing the fallout as a scare tactic during negotiations. That’s not governing; that’s hostage-taking — and hardworking Americans are the ones who pay the price when Washington throws tantrums and punts responsibility.
Beyond subsidies, Alford has raised alarms about rural hospitals and critical local services that depend on federal investments, warning that a $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program and similar lifelines are on the chopping block as Democrats prioritize politics over people. Small-town hospitals don’t have lobbying teams or PR squads; they have patients who will suffer if Congress continues to treat funding like a bargaining chip.
Conservatives have been saying for years that the Affordable Care Act expanded entitlement spending and distorted markets, and Republicans on the airwaves have bluntly described the law as anything but affordable as costs climb and subsidies balloon. The honest debate we need is how to restore patient-centered care and competition, not how to concoct talking points that scare seniors and small-business owners into supporting more Washington control.
Americans deserve leaders who put country over caucus and solutions over stunts. It’s time for Congress to end the shutdown, protect rural hospitals, stop using healthcare as political theater, and get back to the hard work of making healthcare accessible and affordable without surrendering our principles or our taxpayers’ wallets.
