10/04/2025
AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler issued the following statement after the federal government’s funding expired at midnight and a shutdown began:
The federal government is shutting down right now because President Trump and his administration chose chaos and pain over responsible governing. Now, countless jobs, the essential government services we all rely on and the economy powered by our workforce are in jeopardy—all because the administration wants to take one more swing at wrecking the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and throwing working people off our health care.
Hundreds of thousands of federal workers are being locked out and stand to lose the paychecks their families depend on. Federal contractors, including custodians and cafeteria workers, won’t have the assurance of back pay. It’s not Washington politicians who are at risk here—it’s working people just like us, more than 80% of whom live outside D.C. and 30% are veterans. These are the people who get our Social Security checks out on time, keep our food and water safe, care for our veterans, and protect us at airports and during natural disasters. Under the administration’s Project 2025/DOGE agenda, federal workers have been fired, rehired and fired again. They’ve been stripped of their collective bargaining rights and union contracts. Now, President Trump is shutting down the government, using federal workers as pawns and threatening to illegally fire them—all to avoid fixing the mounting health care cost crisis that will hurt millions of Americans.
The labor movement’s message to the administration is clear: Get to work. Fund the government. Fix the health care crisis. Put working people first.
The Trump Administration Health Care Cost Spike Will:
Raise health care costs for everyone—including those with employer-based coverage and those who purchased insurance through the ACA marketplace—as Trump and Republicans’ Medicaid cuts and failure to extend the ACA tax credits for families force hospitals and clinics to absorb billions in unpaid costs as millions lose coverage.
Spike insurance premium costs by 114% for some 22 million people.
Drive up costs for the 179 million people with employer-based insurance who could be forced to pay $485 more per person per year—a nearly $2,000 a year price hike for a family of four.
Destroy 130,000 health care jobs, which, along with those stolen by the Medicaid cuts, will total 607,000 health care jobs lost.
