The Democrats don’t have a choice in calling off the shutdown and surrendering to the Republican standoff. The ACA is not that old a legislation. It is timely in that it addressed a runaway healthcare industry that stranded Americans facing wellness challenges. It is vital legislation from the point of view that it deals with healthcare. Period.
Part of the ACA are the subsidies that brought FAIRNESS to the purchase of healthcare insurance. There are also issues of Medicaid which carries brevity for the underemployed.
The subsidies came into view when COVID-19 hit this country very hard. The isolation of people was important in that it slowed down the spread of a deadly virus that Americans had absolutely no natural immunity to protect them. That isolation caused unemployment and a loss of insurance because of the lack of income to a large number of Americans, including or perhaps especially children.
It would be nice to think all the subsidies are no longer necessary because the vaccines are doing the hard work of protecting American lives. However, we are facing a very different type of emergency. That emergency is the increase of unemployed due to Trump’s ravages of the federal government.
Those released from their jobs face catastrophic choices. To begin the firings are illegal, but, that does not change the reality of these workers. Additionally, the former federal workers that took a buyout are now at the end of their former payments. They were told that leaving the federal jobs would not be a big deal because there were private sector jobs waiting for them. That was a lie. There were no such jobs and the job creation rate is grossly anemic.
Former private employers have left the country. Foreign companies have gone home because of hate filled priorities of the Executive Branch and Trump’s willingness to be everyone’s worse nightmare. Instead of secure immigration laws that allowed for citizen standing every person not born in USA soil were assigned as undesirable, game for detainees, and potential jailing or deportation. Hence, foreign employers took care of their people and airlifted them home nearly overnight shuttering businesses that also employed Americans. There is a reason why there is no job creation rate, there are no employers to create them. I don’t blame any of them. If I had a business under these conditions I would abandon all hope as well.
So, here we are with emergencies in unemployment due to Republican policies and facing the sundowning of the Affordable Care Act subsidies. Under what were expected to be “normal economic conditions,” the sundowning of the subsidies made sense. But, these are not normal economic conditions, now are they? The subsidies need to be required to continue until the point when American lives are no longer in danger due to lack of healthcare insurance.
The need for the subsidies are a requirement under a failing employment picture. I don’t care if Wall Street and Crypto are surviving and even making money. They can exist without employment of Americans currently out of work. This is about the health and well being of Americans no matter what.
Trump is proud to say the tariffs will be used as a subsidy to the American farmer because China no longer purchases soybeans from this country causing a plummet in income to farmers who had faith in the next growing season AND steady trade policies. So, if Trump can commit to tariffs as leverage in the global market place and use those tariffs to subsidize farmers unable to get equitable prices for their crops, then he can do the same for Americans forced out of the job market requiring Medicaid to keep their children safe and the adults that have to fight unexpected diseases such as cancer, heart disease, and other problems.
The Affordable Care Act requires preventative measures to be part of annual exams. Those exams are not an option and paying for them should not require decisions between meal time and healthcare insurance.
Enough of this insanity. Republicans in the House and Senate must go back to honest and sincere negotiations to resolve the problems their president is creating.
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