This is like winning a game in regulation then voluntarily agreeing to overtime.
Deal Within Reach
The Wall Street Journal reports Senate Republicans Say Deal on ACA Extension Within Reach
Senate Republican negotiators say they are closing in on a deal with Democrats to extend and overhaul the federal health-insurance subsidies that expired at the end of last year, though language related to abortion coverage remains a major sticking point.
Sen. Bernie Moreno (R., Ohio), who is leading talks along with Sen. Susan Collins (R., Maine), said senators are close to finalizing a framework and could release the text of the bill by Monday. He said his goal was to craft a measure that could draw support from more than half of Senate Republicans.
“We’re in the red zone,” he said, though he cautioned that doesn’t mean it is a done deal. Collins echoed Moreno’s optimism, saying that senators “are close to coming up with a proposal that would be bipartisan.”
Republicans have for years opposed the enhanced ACA subsidies, which were first passed into law in 2021 by Democrats and expired at the end of last year. But with insurance costs rising sharply for millions of Americans ahead of the midterm elections this fall, some Republican lawmakers have pushed for a short-term deal with Democrats to buy time for more comprehensive changes.
The talks are picking up as the House is set to hold a vote on a three-year extension of enhanced ACA subsidies on Thursday, after four centrist Republicans crossed party lines last month to back the Democratic effort over the objections of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.).
Johnson also has pointed to abortion language as a hangup for Republicans. “We’re not going to authorize taxpayer funding for abortion. I mean, it’s been a consistent policy,” Johnson said Wednesday.
President Trump told House Republicans on Tuesday that they should be “a little flexible” on abortion policy. His press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, later said that Trump was saying that “Republicans, and frankly Democrats, too, need to show a little bit more flexibility” to get something done on healthcare.
The Moreno framework continues the enhanced subsidies for two years and extends the ACA’s open enrollment period. It includes some changes, including a cutoff on subsidy eligibility when an enrollee’s income is more than 700% of the federal poverty level, or about $225,000 for a family of four. The framework also includes a new requirement, meant to deter fraudulent signups, that enrollees pay at least $5 a month toward their coverage, which could take the form of a $60 annual payment.
Moreno said the framework would include a penalty on insurance companies that deliberately sign people up fraudulently, in the form of a $100,000 fine per occurrence.
Key Obamacare Points
- Two-year Obamacare extension
- The deal restores eligibility up to 700 percent of poverty
- A kinder Trump calls for Republicans to be flexible on abortion.
- Republicans put “skin in the game”. How much? $5.00 per month. Allegedly $5 will stop fraud.
- A $100,000 charge for fraud, per occurrence.
The only significant feature above is the final bullet point. This could have easily been agreed to without the longest government shutdown fight in history.
More importantly Democrats offered a one-year extension. Republicans killed that only to agree in overtime to a 2-year deal (likely to become a 10-year deal to win votes for more military spending).
Republicans Failures
There is fraud in Obamacare. But there is massively more fraud in Medicaid.
Republicans did nothing in the One Big Beautiful Act about Medicaid. Nothing.
And after agreeing to hold down costs in Obamacare, Republicans voluntarily agreed to send Obamacare into overtime.
Question of the Day
Q: Gee, who couldda possibly have predicted this?
A: Uh… Me.
Democrats Offer a One-Year Obamacare Extension Deal. Should Republicans Accept?
November 7, 2025: Democrats Offer a One-Year Obamacare Extension Deal. Should Republicans Accept?
Think this through from every angle.
How I see it: “At some point, Republicans have to make a decision about whether or not they want to hold out for 100 marbles or accept 98.”
Republicans would be crazy not to accept this offer. It’s just one year. And they can block further extensions easily.
November 27, 2025: Trump Says It ‘May Be Necessary’ to Extend Obamacare Subsidies
Trump rejected a one-year deal. Any guesses for how long now?
Well guess what. After refusing a one-year extension deal, Trump may agree to a multi-year extension.
Obamacare Q&A of the Day
Q: Is there any time to fix Obamacare to Johnson’s satisfaction by December 15?
A: NoQ: Johnson says he won’t hold a vote. What’s gonna happen?
A: If Johnson does not agree to hold a vote, all the Democrats and a handful of Republicans will force a vote by means of discharge petition. This is the same setup as the Epstein forced vote.Q: What then?
A: It’s precisely hard to say, but Republicans will be scrambling. It’s entirely possible to see a multi-year extension plus extra goodies to buy Republican votes.Q: What does Trump want?
A: Free money. UBIQ: Wouldn’t that be worse?
A: Of course, the spigot would never stop.Q: Could anyone have possibly predicted this turn of events?
A: Absolutely not. Oh … wait a second.Twisted Logic Addendum
Trump says the “unaffordable care act has been a disaster ” that it “may be necessary” to extend it.
Thanks! I made a note to add that to my book of twisted government logic if and when I get to writing it.
Republicans Own Health Care Now, What Will They Do With It?
On December 7, I asked Republicans Own Health Care Now, What Will They Do With It?
Republicans are no doubt quietly (MGT not quietly) seething over health care.
Republicans now own health care and will get the blame no matter what happens. Those who are simmering right now will be extremely angry when the actual bills have to be paid.
That starts January 1 for most and February 1 for others.
Expect the Health Care issue to blow sky high in early 2026, with a big Republican scramble on what to do.
When Congress went on recess in December, several readers asked me to admit I was wrong.
I replied “watch what happens in January”.
And Here We Are
Republicans successfully ran out the ACA extension funding clock, seemingly winning the game.
However, in overtime, Republicans agreed to a two-year extension. Open enrollment which expired last month will be extended.
The ACA extension could have been one year with more pressure on Democrats to make a good deal. And debate would have been postponed until after the midterm elections. But No!
To top it off, President Trump told House Republicans on Tuesday that they should be “a little flexible” on abortion policy.
I failed to see that special twist. Apologies offered.
Now, would someone please try to explain how Republicans won the government shutdown fight?
What Happened?
What happened is what I said would happen. Republicans do not want to take the blame for Obamacare premiums rising an average of 114 percent.
There are 24 million people on ACA, and a majority of them are in Republican states.
For discussion, please see my December 7, 2025 post How Much Will 4.5 Million Florida Residents Pay for Obamacare in 2026?
What’s Next?
Instead of Obamacare premiums going up by an average of 114 percent, they will only go up 26 percent.
So people will still be angry, just not as angry.
Trump wants more money for military. I will write about that shortly.
Q:How will he get it?
A: By offering more money to Democrat social programs.
Q: Is this what you voted for?
A: You tell me, but it’s what I said would happen.
What About Overall Health Care Costs?
Good question. I addressed that issue on December 8, 2025 in Health Care Inflation Bomb Makes the Fed’s 2 Percent Target Almost Impossible
Let’s discuss 2026 health care premiums and what they mean to the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation.
I project increases in health care will add 1.4 to 1.6 percentage points to headline PCE inflation before food, energy, shelter, or tariffs move prices at all.
And that does not include Obamacare. Click on the above post for the math details.
Happy New Year.
Did you put a wager on Polymarket? Someone put a $30k bet on Maduro being captured by the US and raked in hundreds of thousands in profit.
https://www.axios.com/2026/01/05/prediction-markets-nicolas-maduro-polymarket
Trump does not give me inside information.
Polymarket is illegal in the US. Otherwise, I would make some bets
kalshi and predic it are fun. i miss the old london bookies that amerikans could bet with out of cayman islands………….old senator jon vile kyl shut them down for amerikans. he was owned by vegas
Well, isn’t this special! So what happens to the guy who bet $30k and thought he was entitled to a $436k win on the bet that US would invade Venezuela (I’m guessing by some date in Jan 2026)? Is his bet still on?
“a military offensive intended to establish control over any portion of Venezuela”
This is easy enough to win via class action lawsuit.
1. The US offensive *intended* to establish control over VZ airspace in order to enable the helicopter to safely ingress and egress.
2. The US established air superiority over portions of Venezuela during the offensive. Meaning, they controlled the air.
3. The offensive also *intended* to establish control over Maduro ‘s residence/compound in order to apprehend Maduro and extract him
4. During the offensive, the US actually established control over the residence/compound for a short period of time, enabling SOF to apprehend and exfiltrate Maduro.
FU Polymarket.
it’s best to assume when gambling that the house might do that to you from time to time. same with wall street houses.
And bookies.
correct. our bookie was also our pal. he had a sports bar, and no one ever bought a drink. great guy. he inherited his book of business. the NYPD decades ago asked him to just leave gotham. he relocated down to jekyll island. the irony of that island. the creature created their by wall street magnates a century plus ago.
👍
You want broken legs, tough guy?
This looks the same as an insurance company’s default of claim denials. I definitely agree, when you look up the definition and then look at the event, it fits the definition. Polymarket has taken the reverse view in saying that the narrow aims of the US military event was just to capture Maduro. They’ll cover their butts by saying the invasion met their criteria on Feb 3 or so, and by now the odds have all been “fixed.”
didn’t they kill like 80 people including children too
More details here:
Today Venezuela is claiming 100 perished.
Well gee, why set the limit at 700%? How did they arrive at THIS number? Why not 10,000%?
Given the Federal Poverty level for a single person is $15,650, that means people making up to $110k enjoy subsidized health insurance, which seems to high to me. At $110k annually, you should be able to afford to pay for health insurance on your own.
Jojo, a family of 4, on the cheapest non-subsidized plan on the exchanges would pay $1740/month for a 4 person household. The deductible is 15k per year, so they would pay nearly $21k in premiums and another 15k if something really bad happened. And they’d pay that every year with premiums rising.
Is paying 20-35% of your post tax income to healthcare ‘affordable’?
NO, but that’s the point. When something become onerous enough, causing people to get really worked up and politicians to worry about getting reelected, “solutions” will start to appear.
Extending the subsidies ISN’T a solution. It’s just more can kicking down the road by having the government pick up the tab IF you aren’t on Medicare or don’t have employer provided health insurance.
Excellent points. Extension of subsidies creates a vast new entitlement. Just wait until employers realize that they do not need to provide health insurance.
correct. the sad part is we end up paying 2x to 3x more than all decent nations out there on planet. amerika is a grifter nation. from medical care to food quality to our MICC pentagon rip off artists grifting trillions on ridiculous wars that do NOT fill up our treasury. sun tzu first rule of war.
It doesn’t work quite the way you probably think it does.
It’s a sliding scale and by the time you get to the top of the income range, the actual tax credit amounts to peanuts, a few dollars maybe.
I don’t think the republicans won the shut down, but I think you are 100% wrong that a 1 year extension was some kind of win. If they can’t kill it now they aren’t killing it a year from now or 5 years from now.
1 year extension == forever.
So it was nothing then and nothing now. The republicans gave the democrats what they wanted and got nothing in return. While its a fair indictment of republicans, had they done what you wanted the outcome would have been the same.
Well you can’t read because I explained this.
The only reason they are backing down now is midterms.
They could have put midterms in the rear view mirror.
They would have then been better prepared to do more.
i’d trust Trumpcare and TrumpRX. donald knows what he’s doing and really cares and loves about all amerikans. he’s our ubermensch
The more we can delay the knowledge of fraud, that’s 2 more years of collecting legal bribes, hookers and blow
You don’t collect hookers and blow. That’s what you spend some of the bribes on. Rookie.
There have been fraud instances where unscrupulous brokers have been signing up folks for Marketplace coverage without those folks knowing it, then collecting the brokers’ fees for it. The idea with directly billing the insured a de minimis premium is to engage them in the signup process. This should reduce instances where folks have been signed up for coverage without their knowledge. If this idea is implemented then brokers won’t earn any comission unless the insured pays the $5 premium.
Do you know what state(s)?
I don’t know if this broker fraud issue applies to any particular state. I think it’s a nationwide issue.
The idea with the $5 premium is to help prevent this broker fraud issue where brokers have been signing up folks unbeknownst to them. It’s not really about “skin in the game”.
thank you for the reply
We’re these brokers former Wells Fargo bank employees?
And we wonder why the US debt continues to climb at $2+ trillion a year. Congress is incompetent. Both houses, both sides.
One of the issues I’ve had with ACA the past four years is my income is highly variable and often swings between a relatively small subsidy and none at all. Am I going to then be accused of fraud if I guess wrong? In the past I’ve just had to repay based on actual year end figures if my income was over what I stated.
The basic concept you describe won’t be changing. What is changing is that as part of the OBBBA passed last summer, you would need to pay the exact difference in between the premium and tax credit (up until 2026, the amount you had to pay due to misguesstimating your income was capped based on your income).
No you won’t be accused of fraud.
Your last sentence is what continues. End of year it all settles out
Anyone who thinks this subsidy will have a snow balls chance in hell of being eliminated two years from now has simply not been paying any attention for the last 100 years.
True. But at the same time, from what I understand the cost of this proposal is about $26 billion a year which is a rounding error in the annual Federal budget.
Compare this to King Trump who is seeking to increase the
defensewar budget by $500 billion a year!I recall hearing financial auditors using the same language… it’s a rounding error, so who cares about the fraud.
Let’s see if that excuse works in Minnesota and California.
It’s not the same. These are funds directed to individual people based on their tax return info rather than to opaque organizations.
Because then the Presidential election will be upcoming! There is always a voting critical event on the horizon in the USA’s political system.
“This is like winning a game in regulation then voluntarily agreeing to overtime.”
This had me rolling on the floor laughing…. Not only did they agree to overtime but they decided to charge up a few extra hundred billion when $35 billion was the tab for the year. And hey, why not add another 500 billion to military spend….just put it on the card.
It’s all fun and games until you run out of other people’s money, which should be happening very soon.
you cannot run out of computer cursor currency. you can only devalue the purchasing power. we all remember when a hunge, a benjamin, a hundred bucks was baller money. now the coffee shop yawns at it.
Actually, I just attended a national health policy conference, and the following sentence is not true. “Republicans did nothing in the One Big Beautiful Act about Medicaid. Nothing.” An accurate sentence was that R’s got all that they could get through the Senate and House on Medicaid, and it included work requirements, twice yearly determination of eligibility, limits on the money-laundering scheme called provider assessments. Those changes are why Medicaid costs are now projected to increase at a lower rate than without the BBB. Was it enough, of course not. Here is a summary What Made It Into Law: Health Provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill
The R’s will probably fold on the ACA subsidies though.
They won’t fold so much as they’ll cut a deal. Neither party wins by having this level of fraud exposed when it’s so bipartisan. Reps can fundraise off of it and Dems can say Reps hate poor people. Win/Win if you’re a party parasite.
amerikans are grifters. so we elect grifters. really quite simple. most cannot look in the mirror and be honest.
The insurance cartels should be very happy with this! Extending their grift, to devour more free gov money indefinitely, is really what they wanted. Doubling the peons’ premiums was not a very practical solution. Now they can go back to their happy gorging and keep finding little, new, greed games to play, to keep more and serve less when they get in the mood for a snack. oink!
Got gold and silver?
yes, both
Are you following the recommended allocation? from AI, of course.
Gold 5-10%
Silver 3-8%
Platinum 2-5%
Precious Metal Miners 5% – 15%
The more confident you are that SHTF, the greater the %, and the more you need an ‘exit’ strategy
What’s the other 60%?
stocks and bonds
50% gold and silver for the past couple of decades. gold did 4x the dow for this century year to date. not to mention that taxes are optional.
At least until the masked goons show up to take it.
That’s why your precious metals should be in three different countries. I use USA, Britain, and Australia.
smart. lots of great places on planet to store it. gold and silver has saved millions of people’s way of life in countless wars and national bankruptcies and deflation and inflation. it’s so easy and basic it almost feels stupid and genius at the same time. handed down knowledge to me by people that did survive real stuff. we all have them in our ancestors of one or 5 generaions ago.
All have goons that are afraid of the American goons.