Demorats cave again!!!!
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The Republicans "promised" to put the ACA pricing to a vote in January.
Shutdown Has Highlighted Washington’s Retreat From Big Ideas on Health Care
By Stephanie ArmourNovember 10, 2025
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries speaks during a news conference alongside other House Democrats on Oct. 15. (Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
In the run-up to the 2020 election, all 20 Democratic presidential candidates promised voters they’d pursue bold changes to health care, such as a government-run insurance plan or expanding Medicare to cover every American.
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It can be republished for free.Fast-forward to the congressional stalemate that has closed the federal government for more than a month. Democrats, entrenched on one side of the legislative battle, staked their political future on merely preserving parts of the Affordable Care Act — a far cry from the systemic health policy changes that party members once described as crucial for tackling the high price of care.
Democrats succeeded in focusing national attention on rising health insurance costs, vowing to hold up funding for the federal government until a deal could be made to extend the more generous tax subsidies that have cut premiums for Obamacare plans. Their doggedness could help them win votes in midterm elections next year.
But health care prices are rocketing, costly high-deductible plans are proliferating, and 4 in 10 adults have some form of health care debt. As health costs reach a crisis point, a yawning gulf exists between voters’ desire for more aggressive action and the political urgency in Washington for sweeping change.
“There isn’t a lot of eagerness among politicians,” said Jonathan Gruber, an economist who played a key role in drafting the ACA. “Why aren’t they being more bold? Probably scars from the ACA fights. But health care is a winning issue. The truth is we need universal coverage and price regulation.”
Voters rank lowering health care costs as a top priority, above housing, jobs, immigration, and crime, according to a September poll by Hart Research Associates for Families USA, a consumer health advocacy group.
And costs are climbing. Premiums for job-based health insurance rose 6% in 2025 to an average of $26,993 a year for family coverage, according to an annual survey of employers released Oct. 22 by KFF, a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News. For all the attention given to grocery, gas, and energy prices, health premiums and deductibles in recent years have risen faster than overall inflation and wages.
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Democratic Headwinds
The appetite for big, bold ideas to drive down such high costs has waned in part because Democrats lack political leverage, according to economists, political strategists, and health care advocates. They’ve also been burned before for backing significant changes.
After the ACA was enacted in 2010, for example, a backlash over the law — and its mandate that most everyone have insurance — helped Republicans win the House and gain seats in the Senate. In 2016, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton backed the public option, a proposed government-run plan that would compete against commercial insurance. She lost to Donald Trump.
Democrats are also outnumbered in Congress. Sweeping changes to health care, such as the creation of Medicaid and Medicare and passage of the ACA, historically have occurred when one party has controlled both Congress and the presidency. Republicans currently have all that muscle. So for now, Democrats are fighting to preserve the status quo while portraying Republicans as a threat to Americans’ insurance coverage.
If the ACA subsidies aren’t extended, many of the roughly 24 million people who buy coverage on the health law’s marketplaces will see their premiums more than double next year, according to KFF. A KFF Health Tracking Poll released Nov. 6 found that three-quarters of the public supported extending them.
“There’s no doubt people believe the current system needs reform,” said Jesse Ferguson, a Democratic strategist. “Protecting people from premium increases is part of that. You don’t win the future by losing the present.”
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Even bipartisan legislative proposals aimed at lowering health costs have fizzled in an environment defined by political threats and partisan social media attacks.
Bills that would have improved health care price transparency and reined in companies that manage prescription drug benefits gained traction in late 2024 as part of a spending package. Then Elon Musk, who was serving as a senior adviser to President-elect Trump, took to his social media platform, X, to rally opposition, deriding the budget bill for what he asserted was excessive government spending.
GOP leaders dropped the health provisions, prompting Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) to say on X that Musk “tweeted to kill” the bipartisan health policies that Congress had hammered out.
But Democrats’ focus on health care has cut both ways. Their messaging amid efforts to save the ACA from repeal and to preserve the law’s protections for those with preexisting conditions helped the party take back the House in the 2018 midterm elections. “I still have PTSD from the experience,” Republican Mike Johnson, now the House speaker, said recently.
And voters want relief. Six in 10 Americans are extremely or very worried about health care costs rising next year, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll.
Hagen Wenzek, 56, is among them. The chief executive of GI Digital, a high-tech startup, felt a pain in his calf in late summer and asked OpenAI’s ChatGPT what it might be. It suggested he could have deep-vein thrombosis, or a blood clot. He went to the emergency room and obtained an ultrasound that confirmed the diagnosis, so doctors monitored him and gave him blood thinners.
His insurance was billed $7,422, and Wenzek got a bill for $890. The average cost of an ultrasound is about $400 without insurance, according to GoodRx, a digital health platform.
“The hospital is making thousands for a procedure that costs $500. It’s kind of ridiculous,” said Wenzek, of Sleepy Hollow, New York. “I have a $40 copay just to go see a doctor for anything, and I’m on a startup budget.”
‘Defending the Status Quo’
The lack of bolder ideas to tackle spiraling costs could also work against Democrats, some critics say. Comedian and political commentator Jon Stewart, in an episode of his podcast in October, accused Democrats of committing “malpractice” by not presenting ideas to fix what people hate about the health care system. Instead, he said, they’re shutting the government down to protect a system that voters already believe is failing them.
“Once again, the Democrats are in a position of defending the status quo of policies that most people in the United States think suck,” he said. “Meanwhile, on the same day, Trump rolls out TrumpRx. Hey, I’ll just threaten Pfizer with 100% tariffs and then just open up a prescription drug outside of the middle managers and sell directly to the public at a discount.”
TrumpRx, which is intended to help patients find lower-priced drugs, and pledges by Big Pharma to lower drug prices could help the GOP with voters, though Democrats are also hammering Republicans over the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the bill the president signed into law in July that reduces Medicaid spending by about $1 trillion over a decade.
Republicans are promising fixes, using the shutdown to try to leverage voter frustration. Vice President JD Vance said on Newsmax in October that “we do have a plan, actually,” in reference to a question about health care reform. (Trump has promised repeatedly that he would produce a plan to replace the ACA but never has.)
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said on CNBC in October that Trump wants to overhaul the ACA and “give people health insurance that is higher-quality and more affordable.”
The White House did not respond to an email requesting comment from Vance.
“It’s not that Democrats are focusing on tax credits to the exclusion of bigger, bolder reforms,” said Anthony Wright, executive director of Families USA. “If you can get the conversation on health care, if we can prevent premiums from spiking, then we can focus on why health care costs so darn much to begin with.”
But some Democrats say voters are hurting and want bigger and bolder ideas now. Earlier this year, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said on the podcast “Fast Politics” that the party needs to offer more on health care in the next election.
“I’ll tell you what people are going to expect,” he said. “They’re not going to expect us to tinker around the edge with the ACA. They’re going to expect universal health care.”
For now, at least, there are more innovative ideas in states. Oregon has established a governing board to set up a single-payer health system in which the state would take on health care financing — eliminating private insurance, premiums, and all deductibles for all residents as soon as 2027. The question is whether it will work. Vermont abandoned a similar effort in 2014.
“With the political environment we’re in, there isn’t currently an appetite for big reform, but we know it needs to happen,” said Mona Shah, the senior director of policy and strategy at Community Catalyst, a health advocacy group. “Across party lines, people want government intervention in health care and people want universal coverage. The pain point that people are feeling, the public sentiment is where we were at before the ACA.”
It was worth trying, and Republicans were losing in the public "who's to blame" opinion polls. Problem is Republicans didn't give a shit and were determined to cripple the ACA by not extending subsidies even if doing so meant people were not going to receive SNAP benefits.
The saving grace of premiums going way up is millions of poor people are going to lose health insurance and others are going to have to dig deep to keep theirs and the majority of all those detrimentally affected will exact revenge on Republicans at the polls in November '26 --- hopefully.
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Supporting the Democrats is like being a Commanders fan.
I'm not a Democrat but sheesh...they sure know how to fuck up a season and not listen to the fans. This is the D's Snyder era.
I'm not a Democrat but sheesh...they sure know how to fuck up a season and not listen to the fans. This is the D's Snyder era.
Slow burn? That shit was going to burn like putting hand sanitizer in your eyeballs
I was driving in my car listening to that live.
Even though Chad Dukes is an idiot, that rant was what everyone felt.
Dems messaging still suck, this is the perfect time to bring up orange turds first term promise to get rid of ACA and replace with Republican. What you think of this though?
These sorry fuckers fell for, "We'll think about it in a couple months"?
God they fucking suck. This whole country that's run off of screwing people over since even before its inception just sucks. I'm just gonna cancel my insurance and use the shitty ass VA
Why is it that white people, and I'm being 100% with this, white people always need to fucking see. Why can't they believe shit stinks before they get hit in the face with the shit-filled snowball, because everybody told them shit fucking stinks, but no. They're so fucking hard-headed
We told them fuckers about project 2025, and they didn't fucking believe us. Now more than 50% of project 2025 has been implemented. Now they're crying. Now they're doing 'No Kings' rallies by their goddamn selves because we aren't wasting our time.
White people In real life act like white people and scary movies. That's ironic as fuck. There is a monster outside, they need to see. They need to investigate, they can't just go off of what somebody told them.
Your health insurance rates are going to quadruple. They need to see. They don't believe us. They need it to happen for real So they can be shocked and pretend they didn't know when we fucking told them
Getting the ACA passed was like moving a mountain though, and the GOP has been trying to kill it for 15 years. It was far from perfect even in its original form, but what other reform bill was gonna get passed? Health care reform was talked about for decades but the ACA getting pushed thru in that little window when the Dems had the house and Senate numbers to avoid a filibuster. Got millions of uninsured people insured, people with pre existing conditions, etc. Medicare for all was never gonna pass in 2010 and if by some chance it had, the little bit of Republican help the ACA has had to keep it alive wouldn't have been there for it
In all fairness I HAVE to investigate when I hear the monster outside too...from the rear view mirror inside my car as I drive away FROM the monster!!!
And just to be clear esp. for the "Bernie Bros", Clinton was the first to try and pass a health plan for all american citizens....People fail to forget quickly
And the Bernie Bros and BGOL MAGA will discredit the National Library of Medicine in 3, 2, 1.......
President Clinton's proposal for health care reform: key provisions and issues
T F Plaut <a title="Center for Mental Health Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Rockville, Maryland 20857." href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7989016/#full-view-affiliation-1">1</a>, B S AronsAffiliations Expand
- PMID: 7989016
- DOI: 10.1176/ps.45.9.871
Abstract
Shortly after his election in 1992, President Clinton appointed a health care reform task force to develop a proposal for providing health care benefits for all American citizens and legal residents. Between February and May 1993 the Interdepartmental Working Group, composed of more than 30 working groups addressing specific health care issues, prepared options for the task force. The Health Security Act was introduced in November 1993. Besides universal coverage and a basic benefit package, provisions included health insurance reform, regional alliances for structuring competition among health insurance plans, consumer choice of health plans, and provisions for Medicaid beneficiaries. Proposed mental health and substance abuse provisions included coverage of intensive nonresidential services, medical management, evaluation and assessment services, and case management. Initial limitations on coverage of inpatient mental health services and psychotherapy would be removed by 2001. The Clinton plan also called for integration of public mental health and substance abuse services into the full range of health services offered by local health plans. Major issues that will have to be resolved if health care legislation is to be enacted include whether regional alliances should be mandatory and whether employers should be required to contribute to insurance premiums.Not sure if this meme is accurate or not, but still relevant
Harry Truman’s Radical Health Care Plan
Special Message to the Congress on the Nation's Health Needs | Harry S. Truman
April 22, 1949 To the Congress of the United States: In a special message to the Congress on November 19, 1945, and in a number of messages since that date, I have recommended the enactment of comprehensive legislation to improve the health of our people.
Getting Ready for Health Reform 2020: What Past Presidential Campaigns Can Teach Us
Proposals related to health care have grown in scope in both parties’ presidential platforms over the past century and affect both agendas and assessments of a president’s success. Continued controversy over the Affordable Care Act, potential reversals in gains in coverage and affordability, and...www.commonwealthfund.org
I don't people even realize it...
Oh yeah, by the way no more loans are being given out by HUD to hospitals........
The creators of Horror flicks were right on point, with the ignoring of simple warnings:
"Hey, lets go deeper in the remote woods to check on that strange noise I heard near our vacation log cabin. Those posted warning signs look exaggerated, and were probably posted by a DEI Ranger intern that doesn't know what the hell their doing. Anyways, lets go check it out!!"
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One of my favorite quasi illegal things to do is to go walking in a local park between 10:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. I know I'm not supposed to be there, and it's dark and spooky like a Stephen King novel, however there's nothing in there to be scared of.
The fact that it's dark and spooky kind of gets your heart going, but there's nothing to be afraid of. I do it on occasion just because it's like breaking a rule that's like a tree falling in the woods, nobody knows I was there.
One day when I was walking through that park, I heard some glass break near one of the service houses. I didn't investigate, I very quickly walked back to my car. I don't know what the glass breaking was, and I never will. I'm not investigating it. I'm not supposed to be there.
That's the difference between black people and white people. White people would investigate even though they're not supposed to be there, me? I got the fuck out of Dodge
RIght...he got millions of people insured.
But I am from Detroit, which means I am genetically predisposed to seeing through bullshit that clouds the judgement of most Americans.
It also means I grew up within walking distance of the border with Canada. On the other side of said border, while Obama was busy getting people here the privilege to buy shitty coverage they could afford, THE WHOLE DAMN COUNTRY HAS COMPLETE MEDICAL COVERAGE FROM CRADLE TO GRAVE, REGARDLESS OF ECONOMIC OR EMPLOYMENT STATUS.
So, respectfully, your point falls a bit flat.
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