Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said, "The immediate objective is to get the government open and enable those conversations to commence." (Pete Kiehart/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
There’s also the possibility that if the guarantee for a vote on expiring Obamacare subsidies does not go how Senate Democrats want, that could significantly hamper Congress’ ability to avert yet another shutdown.
"We’ll take them one day at a time," Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said. "Obviously, it's another deadline we have to deal with. But the immediate objective is to get the government open and enable those conversations to commence."
"There are Democrats and Republicans who are both interested in trying to do something in the healthcare space," he continued. "And clearly, there is a need. I mean, there is an affordability issue on healthcare that has to be addressed, and the current trajectory we're on isn't a sustainable path."
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told Fox News Digital that Democrats needed to be united in their demand that "Republicans be held to their promise of having a vote on the healthcare subsidies in December."
Thune reiterated his guarantee on Sunday and teed up the second week of December as the deadline for getting a Democratic proposal to the floor.
SENATE ENDS 41-DAY GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN STALEMATE, SENDS BIPARTISAN DEAL TO HOUSE
Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, said that she anticipated Thune to tee up a new package of spending bills. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
But he believed that the desire to move forward with spending bills, spurred largely by the bipartisan deal struck to reopen the government, was a good start.
"It makes it a whole lot easier not to have a shutdown again," he said.
Despite the rancor and frustration from the Democratic side of the aisle over the collapse of their healthcare demand, they also want to pass bipartisan funding bills, largely in a bid to push back against cuts made by the Trump administration.
However, Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., predicted that it would be quite difficult to pass a long-term bipartisan budget.
"We cannot sign on to a long-term budget that does nothing on healthcare and has nothing to stop the destruction of our democracy," he said. "You know, there are no real protections in the short-term spending bill against Trump's illegality."
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For now, some see the January deadline as "light years away," like Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., while others aren’t ready to make a prediction about what comes next.
"Just one step at a time," Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., told Fox News Digital.
Alex Miller is a writer for Fox News Digital covering the U.S. Senate.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/senate-reaches-temporary-truce-end-record-shutdown-january-battle-looms