None of the top Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill responded when asked by The Washington Stand if they or any of their staff members have met with executives or lobbyists representing any of the 10 largest Obamacare health care insurance companies in 2025.

Spokesmen for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffres (D-N.Y.), House Minority Whip Kathleen Clarke (D-Mass.), and House Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) were each asked by TWS earlier this week if they or any members of their leadership or personal staffs have “met with executives, registered lobbyists or any other representatives of any of the following firms since January 1, 2025:

• UnitedHealth Group
• Elevance
• Centene
• CVS Health
• Cigna
• HCSC
• BCBS MI
• BCBS Calif
• BCBS Independence

Those firms are the 10 largest of more than 300 offering health care coverage via the Obamacare program. They are also recipients of billions of tax dollars via the temporary tax subsidies first approved by Congress and signed into law by then-President Joe Biden in 2021 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and then extended through the end of 2025.

President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) of 2025 approved by Congress earlier this year affirmed the December 31, 2025, termination date for the Obamacare tax subsidies.

TWS asked the Democratic leaders if they or their aides have met with executives or lobbyists representing any of the 10 because these same firms also stand to share in an additional estimated $41 billion in added annual revenues from the federal treasury if the Obamacare tax subsidies are made permanent, as Democrats are demanding as a condition for ending the shutdown.

The future status of the tax subsidies has been a major issue before Congress throughout 2025, initially because of the OBBA’s termination provision and since October 1, when Senate Democrats forced the federal government to close all but essential operations because funds for the new fiscal year have not been approved.

All Democrats in the Senate and House voted against the OBBBA in large part because they want to make the tax subsidies permanent. When the September 30 end of the 2025 federal Fiscal Year arrived, that policy goal became the centerpiece of the Democrats’ shutdown strategy led by Schumer.

House Republicans approved and sent to the Senate a continuing resolution (CR) that extended current funding levels to November 21, a measure that would provide more time to complete action on nine pending major appropriations. But the upper chamber has been unable to pass the measure due to Democrats’ opposition. The Senate requires 60 votes to end debate on a spending measure, but 13 times since October 1, the measure failed to gain more than 52 votes.

With so many billions of tax dollars in added revenues at stake if the temporary tax subsidies become permanent, it’s not surprising that the 10 health care groups have spent record amounts on lobbying in Congress through the third quarter of 2025, with the total exceeding $24 million.

But hiring legions of lobbyists to work Capitol Hill is only part of the story of how the top 10 health care insurers have responded to the potential end of billions of dollars in revenue for them via the Obamacare tax subsidies. Led by UnitedHealth Group, the 10 firms have contributed millions of dollars to Democratic congressional incumbents, campaign committees, and Political Action Committees (PAC).

Schumer is viewed as the Democrats’ chief shutdown strategist, and his Impact leadership PAC received $271,284 in contributions from Minnesota-based UnitedHealth Group and the St. Louis-based Centene, two of the 10 biggest health care insurance firms that depend on Obamacare for significant portions of their annual revenue.

The Schumer PAC received an additional $78,024 from Indianapolis-based Elevance, which was formerly known as Anthem, as well as $49,024 from Rhode Island-based CVS Health. That brings the Schumer PAC’s total haul for the period from such firms from 2019 to 2024 to $398,332. Each of these four firms are among the 10 biggest health care insurance firms in the Obamacare universe, as ranked by Venteur.

UnitedHealth Group is the biggest health care insurance firm in Obamacare, and its political contributions to Democrats exceed those to Republicans. In the 2024 election cycle, $988,411, or nearly 59% of all the firm’s donations went to Democrats.

The current shutdown — now in its 29th day — is the second longest on record. Federal workers, including air traffic controllers, members of the U.S. military, and law enforcement personnel, are not being paid (but will receive backpay when the shutdown ends). On Friday, the Department of Agriculture will stop providing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits used by more than 41 million Americans to purchase food.

Democrats say they will keep the shutdown going despite the increasing pain it is causing for so many people because, in the words of Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), it provides them “leverage” to force Trump and congressional Republican leaders to make the Obamacare tax subsidies permanent.

Support for the Schumer Shutdown is beginning to crack, as evidenced by the decision of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the largest of the federal worker unions, to encourage Democrats to stop the shutdown by supporting the GOP CR.