EDITORIAL: Democrats are right on health care bedlam, but wrong on shutdown timing

Congress has effectively shut down the government, this time because Senate Democrats voted down a Republican stopgap spending bill as the parties quarrel over critical healthcare issues.

The Republican bill would have funded the government at its current level for seven more weeks, buying time until November. But Democrats, rightfully furious over cuts to Medicaid and health insurance subsidies stapled into Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill” this summer, decided to pull the trigger they have long denounced. They have forced a shutdown of the government.

Democrats are absolutely right about the issue they’re saying is triggering the shutdown. The cuts to Medicaid and the elimination of Affordable Care Act subsidies will be catastrophic, especially for the most vulnerable Americans.

Famil