3 ms·

So the deadlock is over ACA premium tax credits. A subsidy towards premiums, inversely proportional to income. Republicans have to budge on this right? Health

by samrus 11mo ago

So the deadlock is over ACA premium tax credits. A subsidy towards premiums, inversely proportional to income. Republicans have to budge on this right? Health insurance is already dire in this country, you cant fuck it up even more. The working class is the biggest part of the citizenry, and we are in an affordability crisis

salawat 11mo ago
Never underestimate how bad things can get. They can always get worse.
tombert 11mo ago
Somehow the Republicans have managed to convince their constituents that somehow stuff that will objectively fuck them over is actually not fucking them over. It's impressive in its own way. I have seen people who still don't seem to understand the (extremely) simple "there's no such thing as a free lunch" part of economics and genuinely still think that the tariffs are going to be paid purely by China, because apparently they don't realize that for-profit businesses bake all overhead (including taxes and tariffs) into the total cost. It really isn't that complicated, but I guess the distortion field around "owning the left" makes them turn off this logic.
gigatexal 11mo ago
[flagged]
kevin_thibedeau 11mo ago
60% of ACA recipients are in Republican controlled districts. That shows how much they care about their constituents.
- antonymoose 11mo ago
  What percentage of this recipients are Republican constituents?
  - kevin_thibedeau 11mo ago
    It doesn't matter. A Representative represents everyone in their district, not their voters.
    - dragonwriter 11mo ago
      > It doesn't matter. I think you mean it shouldn't matter. > A Representative represents everyone in their district In theory, maybe; in practice, very much not; its one of the strongest arguments for having a system that has proportional representation (whether with small multimember districts or at-large proportionality or a hybrid system like Mixed Member Proportional.)
    - mothballed 11mo ago
      The incentive to provide benefits is to buy votes. If it doesn't buy votes for them either way because they are mostly voting (D) no matter what, then there's not much carrot to provide them, and since money doesn't come from thin air a distinct possibility you will end up selling the vote of some of the people you tax it from.
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
muglug 11mo ago
They absolutely don’t have to budge. The affected population has a lot of low-propensity voters.
pstuart 11mo ago
Project 2025 (the instruction manual that the president and his staff are hewing to) wants to shred everything in ACA and privatize everything. They offer nothing other than reducing taxes on the wealthy. The poors don't matter because they they are poor and exist only to be exploited for service work.
- nostrebored 11mo ago
  This is a strange assertion given that the concession is reallocating funds to HSAs?
pessimizer 11mo ago
I think this is the last stand they can take that will (under normal circumstances) be completely forgotten before midterms. Democrats need to drag it out as long as possible and look for populist Republican allies. They need to start campaigning for midterms now, and to be generous towards those populist worker-friendly Republicans and especially those that are threats to Republican incumbents. That means campaigning on something other than illegal immigration and trans. It also means that shutdown misery will be part of what they'll be campaigning on, so everything Trump is doing now will backfire. He cut his base out from under him with H1Bs, Israel and Epstein, so as terrible as they are, Democrats have a chance to get to popularity parity or even turn the tables right now. Trump also gasses when he starts losing control of the situation. He lost at the end of his last term because everything was going wrong; he looked tired, and like he had lost interest in the job completely. A dragged-out shutdown will weigh him down and bore him like covid did. He doesn't even care about ACA tax credits.

by samrus 11mo ago

salawat 11mo ago

Never underestimate how bad things can get. They can always get worse.

tombert 11mo ago

Somehow the Republicans have managed to convince their constituents that somehow stuff that will objectively fuck them over is actually not fucking them over. It's impressive in its own way. I have seen people who still don't seem to understand the (extremely) simple "there's no such thing as a free lunch" part of economics and genuinely still think that the tariffs are going to be paid purely by China, because apparently they don't realize that for-profit businesses bake all overhead (including taxes and tariffs) into the total cost. It really isn't that complicated, but I guess the distortion field around "owning the left" makes them turn off this logic.

gigatexal 11mo ago

[flagged]

kevin_thibedeau 11mo ago

60% of ACA recipients are in Republican controlled districts. That shows how much they care about their constituents.

antonymoose 11mo ago
What percentage of this recipients are Republican constituents?
- kevin_thibedeau 11mo ago
  It doesn't matter. A Representative represents everyone in their district, not their voters.
  - dragonwriter 11mo ago
    > It doesn't matter. I think you mean it shouldn't matter. > A Representative represents everyone in their district In theory, maybe; in practice, very much not; its one of the strongest arguments for having a system that has proportional representation (whether with small multimember districts or at-large proportionality or a hybrid system like Mixed Member Proportional.)
  - mothballed 11mo ago
    The incentive to provide benefits is to buy votes. If it doesn't buy votes for them either way because they are mostly voting (D) no matter what, then there's not much carrot to provide them, and since money doesn't come from thin air a distinct possibility you will end up selling the vote of some of the people you tax it from.
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]

muglug 11mo ago

They absolutely don’t have to budge. The affected population has a lot of low-propensity voters.

pstuart 11mo ago

Project 2025 (the instruction manual that the president and his staff are hewing to) wants to shred everything in ACA and privatize everything. They offer nothing other than reducing taxes on the wealthy. The poors don't matter because they they are poor and exist only to be exploited for service work.

nostrebored 11mo ago
This is a strange assertion given that the concession is reallocating funds to HSAs?

pessimizer 11mo ago

I think this is the last stand they can take that will (under normal circumstances) be completely forgotten before midterms. Democrats need to drag it out as long as possible and look for populist Republican allies. They need to start campaigning for midterms now, and to be generous towards those populist worker-friendly Republicans and especially those that are threats to Republican incumbents. That means campaigning on something other than illegal immigration and trans. It also means that shutdown misery will be part of what they'll be campaigning on, so everything Trump is doing now will backfire. He cut his base out from under him with H1Bs, Israel and Epstein, so as terrible as they are, Democrats have a chance to get to popularity parity or even turn the tables right now. Trump also gasses when he starts losing control of the situation. He lost at the end of his last term because everything was going wrong; he looked tired, and like he had lost interest in the job completely. A dragged-out shutdown will weigh him down and bore him like covid did. He doesn't even care about ACA tax credits.