Why some Dems abandoned key demand after 40 days of fighting
After 40 days of the government shutdown, enough Democrats voted in favor of progressing a bill without their key demand -- no extension of those expiring Obamacare subsidies.
Sen. Angus King told ABC News he believed it just simply wasn't working.
"The Republicans made it clear they weren't going to discuss the health care issue -- the Affordable Care Act tax credits -- until the shutdown was over. We tried to keep working that for six weeks. It didn't happen," King said.
Sen. John Hickenlooper told ABC News after the vote, "there's no good choice."
"42 million people were being held hostage. ... They were threatened with hunger and starvation for the SNAP program," Hickenlooper said. "No matter what the courts said, he’s going to go back and fight it and tie it up forever. There’s no good solution," he claimed of the Trump administration.
Democrats were able to secure a vote in the coming weeks on health care. Hickenlooper says the party sees it as an opportunity to dare Republicans to vote against lowering health care costs for Americans.
-ABC News' Rachel Scott, Isabella Murray, Allison Pecorin





