The Republican-led House on Wednesday night gave final approval of a measure to fund the federal government through January, paving the way for immediately ending the nation’s longest shutdown after 43 days.
The 222-to-209 vote, with six Democrats joining nearly all Republicans, sent the bill to President Donald Trump, who has said he will sign it later Wednesday night. The move will reopen agencies that have been shuttered since Oct. 1, restore pay for hundreds of thousands of federal workers, and bring relief to Americans who have faced delayed food aid, disrupted travel, and suspended government services for more than six weeks.
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The bill extends funding for most of the federal government through Jan. 30 and provides full-year funding for the Agriculture Department, military construction and the legislative branch. It also reverses the layoffs that the Trump Administration initiated during the shutdown, protects federal workers against further layoffs through January, and guarantees that they will receive back pay.
But the package did not include the chief concession Senate Democrats had been demanding when the shutdown began: an extension of the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire this year, raising health insurance prices for millions of Americans. Republican leaders in the Senate have pledged to hold a Senate vote by mid-December on whether to extend the enhanced subsidies, but Trump has not promised to support it.
The House vote came two days after Monday night’s tense Senate vote, when eight moderate Democratic Senators broke ranks to provide the 60 votes needed to move the measure forward. Many in the party’s progressive wing reacted angrily, accusing colleagues of abandoning a defining fight over health care following election wins nationwide.
“House Democrats will continue to fight to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits for tens of millions of Americans,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the House Minority Leader, said on the House floor before the vote. “This fight is not over. We’re just getting started. We’ll fight today, we’ll fight tomorrow, we’ll fight this week, we’ll fight next week, we’ll fight this month, we’ll fight next month. We’ll fight until we win this battle for the American people.”
For months, Democrats had been pushing for at least a one-year extension of the COVID-era tax credits that lower premiums for people who buy their own insurance. But Republicans rejected the proposal, saying it did not belong in a short-term funding bill. On Monday, the Senate voted 47 to 53 against a one-year extension in a separate test vote.
While Democrats were unable to secure an extension in this legislation, the deal’s supporters argued that reopening the government in exchange for a promise of a future vote on the health care subsidies was the only realistic option. “This was the only deal on the table,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, one of the Democrats’ lead negotiators. “It was our best chance to reopen the government and immediately begin negotiations to extend the [Affordable Care Act] tax credits.”
The eight members of the Democratic caucus who backed the bill are mostly centrists, including Sens. Shaheen, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Tim Kaine of Virginia, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, and Jacky Rosen of Nevada, along with Angus King, a Maine independent who caucuses with the Democrats. In the House, Democratic Reps. Jared Golden of Maine, Adam Gray of California, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, Henry Cuellar of Texas, Tom Suozzi of New York, and Don Davis of North Carolina voted for the Republican bill.
Beyond the fight over health care, the legislation also allocates more than $200 million to bolster security for lawmakers and an additional $28 million for Supreme Court justices. It also includes a controversial clause allowing senators to seek damages of up to $500,000 if federal investigators access their phone records without notification—a provision widely seen as benefiting a group of Republican senators whose records were examined during the special counsel investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. After bipartisan criticism, House Speaker Mike Johnson said House Republicans would introduce a separate bill next week to repeal that clause.
The end of the shutdown will bring immediate relief to federal workers, who will soon begin receiving back pay after missing multiple paychecks. It is also expected to ease travel disruptions that had worsened amid the shortage of air-traffic controllers and Transportation Security Administration staff. Funding for programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which were beginning to run out of money, will resume.
According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the six-week shutdown is likely to leave a permanent $11 billion dent in economic output, even as the resumption of back pay and federal activity restores most short-term losses.
But the political fallout is still unfolding. Democrats from all wings of the party described the Senate’s compromise as a capitulation. America deserves better,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote on X, adding in a later post that “now is not the time to roll over.” Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont Independent, called the decision to back down “a horrific mistake.” Rep. Greg Casar of Texas, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said the deal was a “betrayal” of the millions of Americans counting on Democrats to fight to lower health care costs. “Accepting nothing but a pinky promise from Republicans isn’t a compromise—it’s capitulation,” Casar said in a statement.
While the shutdown is headed to an end, the health care fight remains unresolved. Millions of people who have benefited from the expanded subsidies could see insurance premiums climb by hundreds of dollars a month if Congress fails to act by year’s end, according to nonpartisan estimates. The Congressional Budget Office has projected that roughly two million Americans could lose coverage altogether once the extra subsidies expire.
Republicans have suggested that subsidy dollars should be redirected into accounts that individuals could use to pay medical bills directly, a concept Trump endorsed this week. He told reporters that he wants “a health care system where we pay the money to the people instead of the insurance companies,” though he did not offer details. Other Republicans, such as Senators Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Rick Scott of Florida, have floated similar ideas in recent months.
Democrats warn that such proposals would dismantle core parts of the Affordable Care Act and raise costs for millions. They argue that the subsidies are crucial to keeping premiums affordable for middle- and lower-income Americans.
Democratic leaders have said they will continue pressing for the subsidy extension in the weeks ahead, but the path remains uncertain. House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana has not committed to bringing a health care bill to the floor. Senate Republicans, who control the chamber 53 to 47, have agreed only to allow a vote—not to support the extension itself.