President Donald Trump's second term has presented an array of opportunities for political opponents, from immigration crackdowns and lingering inflation to attacks on independent institutions and friction with overseas allies. Many Democrats, however, are staying focused on health care, an issue that was once a political liability but has become foundational for the party in recent elections. They insist their strategy will help the party regain control of Congress in the November elections and fare better than chasing headlines about the latest outrages
At the beginning of the year, it seemed like a bipartisan deal to extend the Affordable Care Act enhanced subsidies was within reach. A three-year extension passed in the House, but talks have sputtered in the Senate. Many Republicans in Congress assert the reason for those stalled talks goes all the way back to the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2010.
Fewer Americans are signing up for Affordable Care Act health insurance plans this year, new federal data shows, as expiring subsidies and other factors push health expenses too high for many to manage. Nationally, around 800,000 fewer people have selected plans compared to a similar time last year, marking a 3.5% drop in total enrollment so far. That includes a decrease in both new consumers signing up for ACA plans and existing enrollees re-upping them.
On Thursday, the House passed the Health Care Affordability Act in a 230-196 vote, which would provide a three-year extension to the Affordable Care Act, thus extending the pandemic-era subsidies that expired on December 31. And while the bill is pretty much guaranteed to be dead-on-arrival in the Senate (especially since it's already been rejected by the upper chamber and Sen. Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) vowed to ignore it), that didn't stop Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.)-who introduced it-from performing a little celebratory dance.
An in-depth discussion was needed to come up with a respectful, and meaningful response that would help to repair the harm that has been done to the Jewish community. The refusal of the majority of the City Council, including the mayor, to do so was a significant failure of leadership. They refused to see how incitement of hatred against Jews leads to violence and the destruction of a pluralistic democracy.
But earlier this week, a bipartisan group of senators worked to strike a compromise that could resurrect the enhanced ACA premium tax credits potentially blunting the blow of rising monthly payments for Obamacare enrollees. "There's a number of Republican and Democratic senators who are seeing what a disaster this will be for families that they represent," Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., said on Morning Edition Thursday.
They would rather have us focus in and debate a misunderstood and vulnerable one percent of the population instead of focusing in on the fact that they are raiding everyone's healthcare in order to pay for tax breaks for the wealthiest one percent. All Republican politicians care about is making the rich richer and attacking trans people. They are obsessed with trans people. I actually think they think more about trans people than trans people think about trans people. They are consumed with this.
"They would rather have us focus in and debate a misunderstood and vulnerable one percent of the population," she said during a press scrum outside the Capitol with out Rep. Julie Johnson (D-TX) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), "instead of focusing in on the fact that they are raiding everyone's health care in order to pay for tax breaks for the wealthiest one percent."
Like many artists, Voynovskaya, is trying to navigate a rocky economy and policy shifts that could make health care harder to attain. Voynovskaya is insured through the Affordable Care Act marketplace, also known as Covered California. The ACA subsidizes insurance premiums through tax credits, making coverage affordable to many. But some of those tax credits are set to expire at the end of the year, raising premiums for more than 74,600 people in Alameda County.
The Senate is set to vote today on two health policy plans one from Democrats and one from Republicans aimed at reducing costs for individuals purchasing health insurance on Healthcare.gov. Meanwhile, some House Republicans want to force a vote to extend subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, which are set to expire in less than three weeks. They warn that Republican leaders risk losing voters and the majority if they let the subsidies expire without a replacement.
Well, I say that if you don't have a better plan, then get on board with ours, he said. But doing nothing is not an option, right? He continued: I mean, I've heard so many people in the Republican conference rail on the Affordable Care Act, rail on Obamacare, rail on the premium tax credits. And if you want to criticize something, that's okay as long as you have a better alternative. They have never offered a better alternative.
In the final segment of the show, I will discuss the book They Thought They Were Free, by Milton Mayer, a 1955 study of a small German community where people had to come to terms with the terrible things that were done by them, by their neighbors, and by their government during the Third Reich. It's a book full of historical interest, but also with implications for any society trying to come to terms with its past to build a better and more honorable future.
