Episode #32 Deep Dive – The View of Health Care from the Balcony of the White House
A deep dive into this week's episode of Paging America
Shutdown politics
With Trump applying maximal pressure by stopping SNAP payments, mass firing government employees, and slowing down air travel, seven Senate Democrats and an Independent voted with the Republicans to reopen the government this week. The eight are:
Democratic Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (Nevada), Tim Kaine (Virginia), Dick Durbin (Illinois), John Fetterman (Pennsylvania), Maggie Hassan (New Hampshire), Jacky Rosen (Nevada) and Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire) voted to support the deal, as did Independent Angus King (Maine), an independent who caucuses with Democrats.
In return, here are the primary things they got in the deal:
Funds most of the government through Jan. 30.
Funds the Department of Veterans Affairs, military construction, the Department of Agriculture, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Congress itself through September 2026.
Orders that states be reimbursed for any federal expenses they paid during the shutdown. (That includes states that paid for SNAP benefits during the shutdown.)
Reverses mass layoffs of federal workers during the shutdown and blocks new mass layoffs until the end of January.
What they did not get is an extension of the enhanced ACA premium subsidies that was the primary demand of Democrats during the nearly two months the government was shut down. They did secure a commitment for a Senate vote on the ACA subsidies next month but the likelihood of any sort of deal to extend them getting through the House is not good. Republicans seem poised to demand tougher abortion restrictions as part of any deal and both Trump.
The House took a procedural committee to vote on Wednesday morning to advance the legislation. On Wednesday night, they passed the legislation and Trump signed it into law.
Trump plan to replace ACA subsidies
GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy, a physician, are both promoting the idea of replacing the ACA subsidies with health savings accounts. In one post, Trump said he is “recommending to Senate Republicans that the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars currently being sent to money sucking Insurance Companies in order to save the bad Healthcare provided by ObamaCare, BE SENT DIRECTLY TO THE PEOPLE SO THAT THEY CAN PURCHASE THEIR OWN, MUCH BETTER, HEALTHCARE, and have money left over.”
In response, Sen. Chris Murphy tweeted, “This is, unsurprisingly, nonsensical. Is he suggesting eliminating health insurance and giving people a few thousand dollars instead? And then when they get a cancer diagnosis they just go bankrupt? He is so unserious.”
Presumably, many if not most people would buy health insurance with the money so it’s unclear how Trump’s plan would stop tax dollars from going to insurance companies.
POLITICO reports that moving to an HSA program would be the death knell for the Affordable Care Act:
Economists and policy experts suspect President Donald Trump and GOP lawmakers are presenting this alternative to extending the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies because they want to undermine or even replace Obamacare — something the party has repeatedly failed to do in the past.
With direct cash payments from the federal government into special accounts, “healthy people could get much cheaper insurance that has medical underwriting and doesn’t cover preexisting conditions, but that would leave much sicker people in the ACA pool, and likely send it into a death spiral,” said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF, a nonpartisan research organization.
Anti-VaxxCon in Austin
Around one thousand anti-vaxx leaders met in Austin last week for a conference sponsored by Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaxx group founded by RFK Jr. Many of the speakers and attendees embraced the “anti-vaxx” label, once seen as an insult. “God is an anti-vaxxer, and he needs you to speak up,” declared former top Kennedy political adviser and head of the anti-vaccine group Informed Consent Action Network Del Bigtree. More from The New York Times:
“I’ve come to this anti-vax conference with a message that we need to be more boldly anti-vax,” said Mark Gorton, the president of the MAHA Institute, a group that works to advance Mr. Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda. Mr. Gorton assailed the website of Mr. Kennedy’s former nonprofit as “some pretty weak anti-vaxxery.”
From reporting by The Washington Post:
The mission has gone from the “fringe into the forefront,” Children’s Health Defense advocacy and outreach manager Stephanie Locricchio said as she kicked off the conference. She asked attendees to reduce electromagnetic radiation exposure by putting their phones on airplane mode and turning off Bluetooth.
Republican Senators Rand Paul and Ron Johnson both appeared at the convention by video and RFK Jr.’s wife, actor Cheryl Hines was there to promote her new book. Hines was interviewed onstage by another actor, Russell Brand, under a large sign reading, “HELP MAKE THIS BOOK A NYT BESTSELLER”. Florida’s surgeon general, Joseph A. Ladapo, spoke from the main stage and said that reporters from The Washington Post and the Atlantic “represent forces who are working toward the enslavement of humanity.”
For $20 you could purchase hats at the conference that said “RFK JR WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING” and baby onesies saying, “unvaxxed unafraid”.
Links for a deeper dive on Episode #32
Dr. Chris Ford’s podcast website Pulse Check WI is HERE
The Washington Post: How every House member voted on the bill to reopen the government
PBS News: What’s in the Senate shutdown deal
POLITICO: Democrats want to extend Obamacare credits. Republicans have other ideas.
NBC News: Republicans demand tougher abortion restrictions to extend Obamacare funds
Deseret News: Republicans eye health care reform as Democrats push to extend Obamacare subsidies
Dr. Rob’s twitter thread about why switching from enhanced ACA premium subsidies to HSAs is a terrible idea
AXIOS: Trump calls for ACA subsidies to be sent to consumers
Sen. Chris Murphy’s response to Trump is HERE
POLITICO: Obamacare could collapse under Trump’s new plan, policy experts say
The New York Times: Emboldened, Kennedy Allies Embrace a Label They Once Rejected: ‘Anti-Vax’
The Washington Post: ‘God is an anti-vaxxer’: Inside the conference celebrating RFK Jr.’s rise
Annie Grayer’s bio page on CNN is HERE
CNN: Inside the negotiations that produced a deal to end the shutdown