President Donald Trump is pitching an alternative to Democrats’ health care demands, which are central to the government shutdown fight. It comes as senators are working through the weekend for the first time since the shutdown began 40 days ago, and the impacts are piling up. Flight cancellations are mounting while SNAP benefits remain delayed for millions. In a social media post on Saturday, Trump said he’s recommending that Senate Republicans move funding away from insurance companies and instead send it “DIRECTLY TO THE PEOPLE SO THAT THEY CAN PURCHASE THEIR OWN, MUCH BETTER, HEALTHCARE, and have money left over.” He called “Obamacare,” also known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA), “the worst Healthcare anywhere in the World.”Trump’s comments will likely make Republicans even less willing to support a new proposal from Senate Democrats, which aims to end the government shutdown and extend enhanced ACA tax credits for one year, giving lawmakers more time to debate broader reforms.Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, thanked Trump on Saturday for “giving us a pathway forward,” adding that he won’t vote to extend expanded tax credits for another day, never mind another year. “Republicans are not about to further burden taxpayers by blindly extending a flawed program,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-South Dakota. “The Democrats’ proposals is just more of the same, masking rising premiums and padding insurance companies’ profits with more taxpayer dollars.”Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, described Democrats’ offer as a “perfectly reasonable compromise.””I know many Republicans stormed out of the gate to dismiss this offer, but that’s a terrible mistake. Our offer is not a new policy. This is not negotiating in a shutdown. It’s simply agreeing to maintain current funding levels,” Schumer said.The expanded subsidies passed during the COVID-19 pandemic have helped hold down out-of-pocket costs for millions of Americans insured through marketplaces established by the Affordable Care Act, but they’re due to expire at the end of the year without further action from Congress.”Short-term, we cannot allow millions and millions of people to see an outrageous increase in their premiums when they simply cannot afford it. That would be a disaster,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders, an Independent from Vermont who caucuses with Democrats. GOP leaders have signaled more openness to another emerging proposal to end the shutdown that’s being negotiated by a bipartisan group. They are discussing bills that would pay for parts of the government, like food aid and veterans programs, with short-term funding extensions for other areas until December or January. As it stands, the plan would only guarantee a future vote in the Senate on health care policy, with no promised outcome.That could put Democrats in a difficult spot. Several have said a Senate vote with no concrete policy concessions doesn’t go far enough to address what they consider a health care crisis. House Speaker Mike Johnson has yet to commit to holding a vote in the lower chamber, but GOP lawmakers have long maintained that they will discuss the health care issue after the government reopens. The Republican approach to address rising premiums isn’t entirely clear yet, but Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, said that he’s envisioning flexible health savings accounts that would be pre-funded by the federal government. He urged both sides of the aisle to leave partisanship at the door. “If to open the government, we need to talk about health care, then, by golly, let’s talk about health care,” Cassidy said. More from the Washington Bureau: