Democratic lawmakers, who have struggled to put together a winning political message against President Trump, are feeling confident they have an upper hand ahead of a looming government shutdown because they think they have an advantage over the GOP on health care.

The confidence is reflected in the fact that Senate Democratic leaders aren’t budging from their position that they won’t vote for a clean seven-week continuing resolution to fund the government past Sept. 30 if it passes the House.

Doing so risks getting blamed for the shutdown, but Democratic leadership feels confident it will win the public debate if Democrats are successful in arguing the shutdown is about protecting the health care of millions of Americans.

Democrats say health insurance rates are going to soar because Republicans are refusing to extend the enhanced health insurance premium subsidies under the Affordable Care Act, which are due to expire at the end of this year.

And they argue that problem is compounded by the $930 billion in cuts to Medicaid made by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that Trump signed into law in July.

Health care providers, Democrats say, will have to compensate for the general decrease in federal health care spending by charging private insurers more money.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), a senior member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said people are deeply concerned about health care with premium rates coming out in the next few weeks.

“In my state, the rates’ increase average is 21 percent, they’ve already said that. People are considering dropping [their........

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