The Democrats were furious Monday over eight senators who caved to support a deal to end the government shutdown that does not include the Affordable Care Act subsidies their party had spent weeks fighting for.
The offending lawmakers include Democratic Senators Dick Durbin, Tim Kaine, Jacky Rosen, John Fetterman, Catherine Cortez Masto, Maggie Hassan, Jeanne Shaheen, and independent Senator Angus King, who claimed that they’d ensured a Senate vote on extending the tax credits. Their capitulation comes after House Speaker Mike Johnson insisted for weeks that he wouldn’t promise them a vote on anything, and even if he does follow through with a vote, it’s unlikely such a measure will pass the House.
Democratic lawmakers slammed their colleagues for forfeiting health care coverage for an estimated 5.1 million Americans by 2034 and increasing premiums across the marketplace.
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders railed against the deal while speaking before the Senate Sunday. “If this vote succeeds, over 20 million Americans are gonna see at least a doubling in their premiums in the Affordable Care Act,” he said. “For certain groups of people, it will be a tripling and a quadrupling of their premiums. There are people who will now be paying 50 percent of their limited incomes for health care. Does anybody in the world think that makes sense?”
I don’t know that I would argue it’s extremely gerrymandered (anymore/yet) but it will be (again) once the supreme court decides the voting rights act is “racist” against white people.
I would prefer to just have equality, SCOTUS term limits, less unitary decision making for all politicians, and less executive power for presidents, instead of watching politicians on both sides keep distracting America with magic tricks to one up the other in a continuous circle jerk that exists to keep left vs right pitted against each other, rather than actually accomplishing anything for the people they’re supposed to represent. But thank you, I do appreciate your thoughts and prayers.