While some rejoiced, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) called Sunday night “a very bad night” after GOP proposal to fund the government passed in the Senate.
Seven Democrats and one independent voted in favor of the proposal to end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, per The Hill.
Sanders went on X with the message, “Tonight was a very bad night,” along with a video criticizing those Democrats who voted in favor of continuing resolution.
Most of the Democrats opposed the legislation so they could negotiate an extension of the enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits. Those tax credits will expire at the end of the year and thereby raise premiums for millions of Americans.
“To my mind, this was a very, very bad vote,” Sanders said in the posted video. “What it does, first of all, is it raises health care premiums for over 20 million Americans by doubling, in some cases, tripling or quadrupling. People can’t afford that when we are already paying the highest prices of the world for health care.”
“No. 2, it paves the way for 15 million people to be thrown off of Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act,” Sanders added.
The senator also slammed Senate Democrats after the party was successful in last week’s election.
“As everybody knows, just on Tuesday, we had an election all over this country, and what the election showed is that the American people want us to stand up to Trumpism, to his war against working-class people, to his authoritarianism,” Sanders said.
“That is what the American people wanted,” he said. “But tonight, that is not what happened.”
Sanders vowed to keep working for America.
“So we’ve got to go forward, do the best that we can to try to protect working-class people, to make sure that the United States not only does not throw people off of health care, but ends the absurdity of being the only major country on Earth that doesn’t guarantee health care to all people,” he said.
“We have a lot of work to do, but to be honest with you, tonight was not a good night,” Sanders added.
