engineered obsolescence
https://newrepublic.com/post/202948/real-reason-democrats-caved-shutdown-obamacare-midterms
It turns out,
the government shutdown ended because some senators
want to be able to keep campaigning on Obamacare.
Seven Senate Democrats and one independent caved on the government shutdown Sunday, leaving their party empty-handed after a grueling 40-day deadlock with Republicans.
Those senators included Dick Durbin, Catherine Cortez Masto, Jacky Rosen, Maggie Hassan, Jeanne Shaheen, John Fetterman, and Tim Kaine, as well as independent Angus King. All eight lawmakers are either retiring or wont face another election for several years, making the alleged behind-the-scenes rationale for the crumbling stalemate even more asinine.
More than a dozen House and
Senate Democrats expressed anxiety that actually preserving premium subsidies for the Affordable Care Acts enhanced premium tax credits through their shutdown demands
could strip them of a winning issue in the coming midterms
, reported
The New York Times
. Their secondary anxiety involved the powerful Senate filibuster,
fearing that conservatives might actually bow to Donald Trumps demands to ax the disruptive legislative tool.
The political logic of the shutdown fight was inverted:
If Democrats got the tax credits extendedif they wonthey would be solving a huge electoral problem for Republicans,
reported the
Times
. If Republicans successfully allowed the tax credits to expireif they wonthey would be handing Democrats a cudgel with which to beat them in the elections.
Without the premium tax credits, health insurance premiums for more than 20 million Americans are expected to double.
The result, according to policy experts, will be a mass exodus from Obamacare plans altogether, leaving roughly four million Americans uninsured. The spike in uninsured Americans will spur a public health problem that has historically proved to make premiums more expensive for the insured as hospitals look to recoup the lost cash.
Low-income regions of the country, such as Mississippi, Tennessee, and South Carolina, will be particularly hard hit as recipients decide whether they can afford the rising costs. That is, apparently, a potential electoral opportunity, according to congressional Democratsregardless of how many people will be at risk for physical and financial ruin in the interim.
The message is as simple as it is disastrous: Democrats will do anything to stay in power, even if it means undermining the needs of their constituents.