Dear AZ Senator Kelly, Ret. Navy pilot, combat veteran, and astronaut.
Your letter misrepresents the facts of this shutdown and the real crisis facing American families.
This shutdown is not about “health insurance premiums spiking.” It’s about Democrats refusing to pass a clean continuing resolution to fund the government unless Republicans agree to permanently entrench Obamacare subsidies—subsidies that were sold to the American people as temporary in 2010 and have now ballooned into a $300 billion annual taxpayer giveaway to insurance companies. Republicans offered multiple short-term extensions to keep the government open while we negotiate real health-care reform. You and your party rejected everyone.
Let’s be clear: the enhanced ACA tax credits you demand are not “help for working families.” They are corporate welfare for Big Insurance, driving up baseline premiums for everyone else. Since these subsidies began, average family premiums on the exchanges have doubled—from $9,000 in 2017 to over $18,000 today—while deductibles remain sky-high. Arizonans aren’t paying “hundreds more per month” because Republicans want to negotiate; they’re paying more because Democrats keep propping up a broken, government-run system that enriches insurers and leaves patients with worse care.
You claim 109,000 Arizonans could “lose coverage.” That’s fearmongering. The vast majority of those enrollees are on Medicaid expansion or receive subsidies far above what middle-class families qualify for.
If Democrats truly cared about affordability, you’d join Republicans in:
Repealing the ACA’s hidden taxes—the health insurance tax, the medical device tax, and the Cadillac tax—that get passed directly to consumers.
Expanding short-term, renewable plans that cost 60–80 % less than Obamacare plans.
Allowing interstate competition so Arizonans can buy policies from states with lower mandates.
Cracking down on pharmacy benefit manager kickbacks that inflate drug prices.
Instead, you hold essential government functions hostage to protect a failing 15-year-old law. House Republicans are not “in recess”—they passed a CR on September 25 that fully funded the government without your permanent subsidy cliff. The Senate Democrats’ refusal to take it up is the sole reason 800,000 federal workers are furloughed today.
President Trump and Republicans are ready to negotiate—anytime, anywhere. But we will not rubber-stamp another trillion-dollar bailout for insurance CEOs while border security, veterans’ care, and air traffic control go unfunded. Authentic leadership means fixing the root causes of unaffordability, not kicking the can down the road with more debt.
Arizonans expect better. We expect a senator who fights for patients, not insurance lobbyists. Please get back to the table, pass the clean CR, and let’s deliver market-based reforms that actually lower costs for the working families you claim to represent.
