The longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history ended this week after President Donald Trump signed a bill to fund the government.
Senate Democrats initially blocked the continuing resolution to fund the government over disagreements about extending Affordable Care Act subsidies, which lower the cost of health care coverage.
The potential loss of these subsidies could affect hundreds of thousands of veterans.
A September study by the Urban Institute, a nonprofit social and economic policy think tank, found that more than 600,000 veterans receive ACA subsidies.
The organization estimated that 43% of those veterans could lose their health care coverage if the subsidies expire due to lack of affordability.
Seven Democrats and one independent voted to end the shutdown after Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., promised a vote on a bill in December that would extend the subsidies.
When asked about the impact on veterans if these subsidies were to expire, Oklahoma's Senior U.S. Senator James Lankford said that "veterans care is not changing" but that the COVID era subsidies need to change.
“We're saying, hey, COVID is over. We got to figure out what to do,” Lankford said. “The problem is the structure of how Obamacare was created. You can't just keep adding a subsidy to it every couple of years and saying we're going to bail it out, bail it out, bail it out.”
Earlier this week Lankford said that he’d be “glad” to talk about solutions to “hard, complicated issues” like health care, once the government is open.
Oklahoma’s Junior Senator Markwayne Mullin agreed that health care needs significant change.
“I think President Trump has made it very, very clear that he wants to get health care that's actually working for the American people,” Mullin said. “Not one that we continue to subsidize, a program that's not working.”
Filibuster remains
Before the shutdown ended, there were reports of ending the filibuster, a tactic of prolonged debate that Democrats used to block Republicans. President Trump pressured his party in the Senate to consider the “nuclear option."
Lankford, a longtime defender of the filibuster, wrote an op-ed in the National Review urging that this should be the last government shutdown, but he said the filibuster should remain in place.
“I'm adamantly opposed to removing the filibuster,” Lankford said at the James Mountain Inhofe VA Medical Center transfer ceremony. “The filibuster needs to remain.”
Mullin also said he opposes ending the filibuster, warning of potential long-term consequences.
He told TV station Fox 26 in Fresno, Calif. that Republicans used the rule to block Democratic efforts during former President Joe Biden’s term.
“We prevented them from packing the courts, we prevented them from making D.C. a state, and we prevented them from federalizing elections,” Mullin said.
Lankford said he is open to discussing updates to the legislative process but believes the filibuster plays a vital role in keeping the Senate functional.
“I don't mind actually talking about what we are going to do to continue to make sure that we're keeping it consistent and modern,” he said.
Lankford reiterated the collaborative benefits of the filibuster for the minority party.
“We need to be able to keep that opportunity to have one place in government where both sides have to talk to each other and be grown-ups," he said. "And to work out our differences.”
