The Congressional Healthcare-Subsidy Charade
The first major piece of Project 2025 legislation rammed through by the MAGA Regime was the "Big Beautiful Bill" that cut taxes for the wealthiest 1%. It 'paid' for those tax cuts by slashing food and healthcare funds relied upon by the bottom 50%. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the costs paid by working families to keep their health insurance will more than double on January 1st and at least 4 million are expected to lose healthcare coverage.
Democrats have tried and failed to restore the Enhanced Obamacare subsidies that working families without employer-provided health insurance rely on -- most recently with the filibuster and government shutdown that was aborted by Senator Schumer's posse of 'moderate' Democrats. Meanwhile, the plight of the impoverished and working poor who rely on Medicaid and seniors whose Medicare premiums are soaring seems to have dropped off the political radar.
But working families are core voters for both parties, so now there's a last minute flurry of concern about health care costs. The MAGA Regime priority, of course, is protecting their billionaire and corporate tax cuts so they want the subsidies and Obamacare itself to die. 'Moderate' Republicans are suddenly terrified of what might happen to them in the coming mid-term elections so they want to be seen to be doing something (anything), while Democrats are orating and declaiming but avoiding radical proposals that might offend the donor class. To some observers this looks like a Kabuki play with actors posturing for 2026 voters.
None of the proposals being put forward seem to have any chance at all of receiving the necessary 60 votes to pass in the Senate. None of them address Medicaid or Medicare and none offer even a hint at increasing taxes on the billionaires and mega-corporations.
Democrats appear to be united around a bill to simply extend the about-to-expire subsidies. This will actually benefit working families. Since it raises no new taxes on the wealthy, its cost will be added to the deficit. It is expected to be debated and defeated in the Senate on Thursday.
Republicans are in disarray with multiple proposals being floated and abandoned. The one supported by MAGA Regime leaders Cassidy (R-LA) and Crappo (R-ID) is an out-and-out political stunt, a scam playing to voters' rage at 'blood-sucking insurance companies' while doing nothing to actually address the realities of American healthcare costs.
The Crappo-Cassidy scheme would deposit $1000-$1500 into the Health Savings Accounts (HSA) of eligible families that could only be used to pay health costs (but not insurance premiums). Recipients would be required to obtain (and pay for) a Bronze-level Obamacare plan (the worst of the four plans with the highest deductibles and 40% co-pays). While the HSA cash would help defray the soaring costs of routine healthcare, it would disappear in an instant for those who suffer a serious accident or illness (an ambulance trip costs around $1300, for example). So anyone sick or injured would first have to pay out $7000 for the deductible and then 40% of following expenses. Not a health plan -- a health scam.
Most industrialized nations provide their people with single-payer healthcare funded by the government. But such "socialized-medicine" is anathema to the Big-Pharma, Big-Insurance and for-profit hospitals who flood political campaigns with dark money, and as the old saying goes, 'He who pays the piper calls the tune.'
Health care fight hits critical juncture, The Hill, 12/7
Senate Democrats pitch plan to extend ACA subsidies.., NPR 12/7
Cassidy, Crapo unveil alternative to Obamacare subsidies, Politico 12/8
Health plan categories: Bronze, Silver, Gold & Platinum. HealthCare.Gov (official site)