The Shutdown Is Bad. The End of the Obamacare Subsidies Is Worse.
In normal times, government shutdowns are disasters. Well, in normal times there aren’t government shutdowns at all. But these aren’t even normal abnormal times. While the shutdown that began Wednesday will ultimately impact all Americans—by endangering programs many Americans rely on, and also further eroding faith in our political system—it is actually less bad for working people than the alternative: an open government run by a fascist handmaid of the superrich and his nihilistic enablers in Congress.
There’s no better example of that than health care, which is the key issue that drove the government into a shutdown. In their spending bill passed earlier this year, Republican lawmakers did not extend the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that were enacted through President Biden’s Covid relief measures. Even though the subsidies don’t expire until the end of the year, Americans will have to enroll in their insurance plans beginning next month, which means that anyone who is already shopping for a plan has seen that their share of monthly premiums will double next year if the subsidies aren’t extended soon. Working- and middle-class Americans who can barely afford their current plans stand to lose insurance unless this is fixed.
Democrats have rightly insisted that any stopgap spending bill to reopen the government must include an extension of the enhanced subsidies. This is a good battle to pick—but also only one battle. If they win this one, and achieve an extension of the enhanced subsidies, maybe it will empower them to fight more of Trump’s agenda. Because what working people need more than anything is a party to fight for them, and neither has done a great job of that in the recent past.
I’ve covered health care as a reporter over the years, but my experience with the health care marketplace is also personal. In 2014, after working at a magazine for almost five years, I became a self-employed freelancer. One of the major factors that made this possible was the ACA marketplaces, which had become fully operational that year. I relied on those insurance plans for the next four years, even as they became more expensive—and then made a risky decision.
The ACA forced the federal government to help cover premiums for families that........© New Republic
