The Leopards Eating Faces and Unlubed Dildo of Consequences Thread

[GenXer 2809]

42 minutes ago, gmr548 said:

Mike Johnson not at the table is flying under the radar but hysterical to me

Well… he’s accustomed to monitoring his son’s porn intake. This flight afforded him the opportunity to flex those skills. He’s monitoring the brain trust’s food intake.

[Horn Dog 9707]

Millions may not have health coverage if subsidies return to pre-Biden level

“the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted that 3.4 million more people would become uninsured — and many of them live in states that lean heavily Republican. Health policy research organization KFF said that if the subsidy expansion expires, premiums would more than double in 12 heavily Republican states — including Texas, West Virginia and Alaska — while rising less sharply in many blue states.”

Spoiler

Patients, medical providers and insurance companies fear a shake-up in the Affordable Care Act marketplace that could cause millions of people to drop their health coverage, after Republicans’ election wins made it more likely that ACA insurance plans will get more expensive. Congress in 2021 increased federal subsidies for ACA plans, but that expansion expires at the end of 2025, and some conservative lawmakers have made clear that they oppose an extension. “Instead of perpetuating a tax-and-spend agenda, we can and should work together to improve health-care choice, affordability and reliability,” Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), who is slated to lead the Senate Finance Committee, said at a September hearing where he expressed his desire not to continue the expanded subsidies. But eliminating the subsidy increase poses political risks. If subsidies fall to their pre-2021 level, experts say, many new subscribers would choose not to renew their coverage — the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted that 3.4 million more people would become uninsured — and many of them live in states that lean heavily Republican. Health policy research organization KFF said that if the subsidy expansion expires, premiums would more than double in 12 heavily Republican states — including Texas, West Virginia and Alaska — while rising less sharply in many blue states.
President-elect Donald Trump has not publicly taken a position on the subsidies specifically, and a spokesperson for him did not respond to an inquiry from The Washington Post on the issue. But Trump has disparaged the Affordable Care Act for years, and Republicans have said they will use their congressional majority to significantly change the decade-old health care law. The Republican Study Committee included ending the expanded subsidies in a document of their plans. The Biden-era enhanced subsidies have led to huge growth in the number of people who buy health-care coverage on the marketplace, booming from between 11.4 million and 12.7 million people each year from 2015 to 2021, to 21.4 million this year. The costs of health-care premiums are heavily subsidized for most people who buy plans on the marketplace, and more than 90 percent of those subscribers receive some level of subsidy currently.

“Very clearly, it has made the marketplace more affordable and attractive to people who would otherwise be uninsured, and also made the marketplace more attractive to insurers,” said Cynthia Cox, who leads KFF’s research on the ACA. Health insurance marketplace subsidies come in the form of the Premium Tax Credit that was created as part of the Affordable Care Act. Recipients get the credit up-front when they sign up for coverage, but if their income at the end of the year ends up higher or lower than expected, they must pay back a portion of what they received or claim a larger credit on their tax return.
This year, the average marketplace customer pays $888 annually in premiums and receives $6,432 in subsidies, which would drop to $5,727 after 2025 under the current law, according to an analysis by KFF. That lower subsidy would mean an increase of 44 percent in the average customer’s premiums. With President Joe Biden’s support, Congress first expanded ACA subsides in 2021 and later extended them through 2025. Making them permanent this year would add $335 billion to the federal deficit over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. “It comes at a cost to the federal government and taxpayers, and it’s not cheap,” Cox said. Greg Fann, a right-leaning health policy expert, said he would favor ending the expansion of subsidies while boosting coverage in ways he views as more cost-effective, such as making premiums less expensive for younger people. But he notes “momentum” among Republicans for keeping the subsidies at their current levels to avoid a cascade of people losing coverage in 2026.

“I have talked to people that I wouldn’t say are in favor of them, but are also not really interested in taking them away before a midterm election,” Fann said. “I think any Republican change is going to be met with suspicion — the easy thing to do is to keep things as they are.” Letting the subsidy expansion expire could affect the marketplace as a whole, not just individual consumers. If the issue remains unresolved by the middle of next year, some insurers might leave the marketplace, expecting fewer customers next year. “That has an impact not just on those people but on the entire system,” said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Keep Americans Covered, an advocacy effort backed by insurance companies, doctors and health groups such as the American Cancer Society and the American Heart Association. During a Senate hearing in September, Theo Merkel of Paragon Health Institute characterized increased subsidies as an expensive giveaway to insurers that does not control costs or improve insurance plans.
“When the government pays plans instead of people, insurers have less incentive to design plans that potential enrollees find valuable,” said Merkel, whose organization has published numerous papers criticizing various aspects of the Affordable Care Act. People below the poverty line are much more likely to be covered by Medicaid than the marketplace, which does not offer subsidies for families in poverty. For households earning one to four times the poverty limit, the ACA guarantees some level of subsidy. The ACA caps premiums at about 2 percent of income for households just above the poverty line, and the expanded subsidies of recent years made their premiums free. The ACA has no subsidies for families above four times the poverty level, while the Biden-era rules capped spending for those households at 8.5 percent of their household income — a massive discount for many. In states that have not expanded Medicaid, far more people have signed up for ACA plans in the Biden years, and their premiums stand to increase more. KFF’s analysis found that less than 6 percent of residents of Northeastern and West Coast states get their health coverage through the marketplace, while more than 10 percent of people in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida and much of Texas do. “The more modern populist Republican Party [is] probably going to be looking at — who am I helping and who am I hurting?” said Buck of Keep America Covered, a former staffer to Republicans John A. Boehner and Paul D. Ryan.

[Willfully Horn 7953]

2 hours ago, Anastasis said:

That would  require that the Democratic party stop rigging their primary. 

Predictable post. I mean, why would you discuss whether a political tactic would further the goals of the political left, when you can condemn the only political entity which includes folks that espouse those beliefs? 
 

You imply the Rs aren’t rigging their primary, through omission, Mr Both Sides. Continue throating, silently, the authoritarian tactics of the leader of the right. 
 

I
 

 

[DixonHur 11279]

I just heard a rumor that Trump is offering an olive branch to liberals by offering free Kool Aid to anyone who voted for Kamala on Friday from 3 to 3:15 ET.

Can anyone confirm?

[Anastasis 23411]

55 minutes ago, Willfully Horn said:

Predictable post. I mean, why would you discuss whether a political tactic would further the goals of the political left, when you can condemn the only political entity which includes folks that espouse those beliefs? 
 

You imply the Rs aren’t rigging their primary, through omission, Mr Both Sides. Continue throating, silently, the authoritarian tactics of the leader of the right. 
 

I
 

 

If the R's were 1/10th as good as the Democrats at rigging their primaries, they wouldn't have a bunch of Democrats running this show right now. The R's really whiffed in 2016 while the D's ran their ship tight. Fast forward to 2024. 

 

 

Y'all should have listened to Bernie. 

Edited 40 minutes ago by Anastasis