Why did we have a long shutdown? What did Republicans gain?
A New Obamacare Proposal
Please note Trump Advisers Discuss Options for New Healthcare Proposal
President Trump’s advisers are discussing a proposal to head off sharp increases in health-insurance costs for millions of Americans next year, the explosive issue at the heart of the recent government shutdown.
White House officials are weighing a two-year extension of enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies as an enticement to get Democrats on board, according to people familiar with the strategy.
As part of the new plan, the White House has discussed imposing income caps for Affordable Care Act enrollees to qualify for the enhanced subsidies, as well as measures to crack down on healthcare fraud, some of the people said. Republicans also have discussed moving the subsidy money into newly created health savings accounts and barring taxpayer funds from going toward plans that cover abortion and transgender care, the people said.
White House officials cautioned that Trump hadn’t settled on a plan, and they said it was unclear when the plan would be formally unveiled. “Until President Trump makes an announcement himself, any reporting about the Administration’s healthcare positions is mere speculation,” said White House spokesman Kush Desai. Politico earlier reported some of the details of the emerging plan.
Republicans are coalescing around taking the money spent to extend Obamacare subsidies and putting it in a health savings account, a proposal Trump supports. “Rather than giving money to insurance companies, we want to start giving the money to patients,” said Sen. Roger Marshall (R., Kan.), who has discussed plans with the White House and senators.
Marshall said that Republicans also want to eliminate fraud in Obamacare, by eliminating “zero premium” subsidies now offered under some plans. Republicans say such subsidies lead to people being signed up for plans that they don’t know about—while insurance companies receive taxpayer funds.
A vote on extending the healthcare subsidies is expected by mid-December—part of a deal struck between Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) and a group of centrist Democrats to end the shutdown earlier this month. It is unclear if the House will take up the measure.
Oh Boy More 4D Chess
Observation of the Day
Any Bets on This?
Poverty Level Limits
700% of poverty level?!
It was 400% before and Democrats would have settled for a mere one-year extension.
Oh well, that’s just a rumor. Lots of them swirling.
This will be known as the Healthcare Price Cuts Act.
Flashback November 7, 2025 MishTalk Democrats Offer a One-Year Obamacare Extension Deal. Should Republicans Accept?
Decision Irony
“At some point, they’ve got to make a decision about whether or not they want to keep this going or they want to end it,” Thune said of Democrats.
Schumer’s offer reverses the setup.
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.
I await the final product and the final math.
Accepting a one-year extension that Democrats wanted would have cost $35 billion.
Any guesses what the outcome of this new deal will cost?
Meanwhile, the Donald opened the door to bail out AI and crypto outfits.
Because subsidizing we the people with the people’s money is socialism, but subsidizing corporations with the people’s money is the purest, most immaculate capitalism.
Anything that taco is for makes me at least initially highly apprehensive.
Who the hell is Covie?
Decent walking, hiking, running shoes.
Sensible diet.
Enough sleep, low stress.
Cost: next to nothing
Value: priceless
You’ve got the wrong country.
We have a mess because of resentment of inequality in health care provision and because we have been (mis-)led into thinking that collectively, governmentally (emphasis), results will be better. It is looking like our future will ultimately be Medicaid For All, which will fall short for just about all of us, and the only comfort will be that they will hold our hand and comfort us equally, and fail to effectively treat our ailments equally and it will all be “free”.
As originally designed, the Affordable Care Act had a “public option” where insureds could buy into Medicare or a similar government program that controls costs. Medicare has enormous buying power to negotiate procedure costs. Medicare also controls costs through low overhead of 1%, compared to for profit insurance with overhead costs of 30%, spent largely to deny care.
The first step of a coherent healthcare proposal would be to institute a public option in the Affordable Care act. Insurance companies would be unable to compete with the much more efficient public option. Eventually employers would demand access to such a program, or try to get out of the insurance as an employee benefit model completely.
Laissez-faire capitalism will never work in healthcare due the imbalance of information between suppliers and consumers and the immediacy necessary to make healthcare decisions. A public program is the only rational alternative.
Correct on the 30% insurance company increase in cost. Plus the medical providers have to fight insurance companies for permission to treat and fight for every dime which eats up another 15% of what is spent on medical care.
Insurance is the problem, not the solution.
Like it or not a single payor, outcomes based healthcare system with unified medical records is far more efficient.
The combined universal medical records system alone will result in far fewer medical errors and enhanced continuity of care.
Continuity of care is more important for efficiency than most people realize.
Well said Frosty!
We do not agree on much, so I’ll take the win…
Greetings from the Land of 10,000 Frauds (Minnesota).
I’m sure fraud is a small portion of the expenses for government mega-programs like Medicare, but I would like to see anti-fraud measures higher top-of-mind. The recent Medicare fraud stories in Minnesota have been with/through the state program. So there is good potential that the federal proposal will place anti-fraud requirements on states. As the state with Tim Walz as governor (remember, former Democrat VP candidate) who has been facing tough questions even within his own party about lack of state oversight of multiple state and state-administered federal programs, it is also a chance to force compliance. BTW, Timmy is running for a third term in 2026.
Say Night, Night Timmy…
Transactional politics. The VIX equivalent of this administration would be jaw-dropping .. Throw spaghetti at the wall and see what happens. For amusement the current 4-phase fractal crash model for the SPX/ACWI is a 27-28 Oct 2025 7/16 of 17-18/14/10 day series :: y/2-2.5y/2xy/1.5y similar to the 1929 crash of 8/19/16/12 days … If this model is correct Wed 25 Nov is day 17 of the 2nd fractal with an expected very large gapped nonlinear lower low … taking the SPX to 5950 to 6200
Do you trade on these fractal projections?
I watch what you are posting casually and have not seen a good correlation yet. Could you give us a better understanding/frame of reference for how to incorporate your posts into our thinking or trading?
Thanks!
😉
Thumbs up …
How do I learn to interpret?
VIX is below its 200 day and close to trading below its 50 day.
I’ve nibbled on a few hundred calls today, but see Friday as a good day for taking a big bite.
Gold has survived options expiry without a major hit and delivery is proceeding with only a small upward move.
He won’t answer; I’ve asked him several times how his ‘models’ work (so badly).
Today SPX closed up near 1%, closer to 6800 and FAR from 5950-6200.
His fractal trading system is fractured totally
Concur … except for the big picture … From the 2009 low … 12/29/29 quarters maximal fractal growth … Covid, unlike all of the other political/economic events …was the exception …
Anything to get the GOP through the midterms, lol.
Why should he care, He’ll be dead by then or soon after.
Modern maff – “price cuts” means the prices will be “so low” that you can keep your arm and your leg, if you like it, instead of forking it over as a premium payment.
We all knew he had squadoosh when he uttered the jibberish “concepts of a plan” while debating Harris.
She did render Trump into a babbling idiot in that debate… He melted down and started sniveling about “Eating Pets” …
And yet people voted for the orange TACO of failure and sedition…
Elections and erections have consequences!
>>>
Clear pattern: Trump disrupts something pre-existing in the system (Obamacare subsidies, free trade), then when it turns out a disaster, pulls a TACO and ‘graciously’ awards it back to the people he wrested it from in the first place. All the value built by the USA pre-Trump is being a hostage to this parlor trick. It is easy for him to pull a reversal at any moment because he has no actual principles to start with. Honest people are handicapped in comparison, by the burden of those pesky principles, that troublesome reality.
Eventually the solution will become 100% of everyone abandoning morals and opting for the rock fight
I made a fun game called Rock Fight, Apple wouldn’t publish it.
Trump acolytes are all about public stoning as a fundamental principle of bullying and intimidation.
Fox News does it figuratively all day long as the largest media company on the planet. But it sells tampons and Chevy trucks to the gullible sub-100 IQ club. So there’s that…
Damn! They have the Game “DogFight” which was (80’s) awesome in its day!!
i always figured dumpy would just hand out more dough and rebrand obamacare as trumpcare. he’s the most idiotic potus in ages. democracy works. the maga cult are morons.
Five to one, baby. One in five. No one here gets out alive. You get yours, baby. I’ll get mine. Gonna make it, baby, if we try.
We used to play for silver, now we play for life;
one’s for sport and one’s for blood at the point of a knife
And now the die is shaken, now the die must fall
There ain’t a winner in the game, he don’t go home with all
Not with all
The political discussion is always about how to pay for healthcare and never about how to cut its cost. Republicans are ideologically wedded to HSA’s which may be at best a tiny help around the edges. There has to be a fundamental change to prosecute providers who charge disparate amounts depending upon who is paying (cash patient vs insurance company). Prices for non-emergency procedures must be posted and not vary based on who’s paying. Even emergency charges need a regulatory framework. The current disparate pricing system exists to force people to buy insurance and make them tolerate outrageous premiums, lest they be exposed to bankrupting charges – charges which are magically cut by 80% when processed through an insurance company. Pharmaceutical companies should be prohibited from charging in America more than their lowest charge for the same product elsewhere in the world, with perhaps a 10% variable to account for currency fluctuations. Bottlenecks in the medical school / residency system (created by federal legislation) must be lifted so that we produce many more physicians.
Of course the entire medical industry will protest. They got a good gig now. If we can’t make these kind of changes (and we probably won’t), we might as well go to Single Payer. It’ll be shitty, but not as shitty as what we have now.
I have received incredible, timely, efficient, affordable (to me) medical care from day one, with the US federal government in the thick of it. I did get sticker shock when I saw what they charged for a weekend of care to my mom though. But there was a gatekeeper that at least lowered every bill.
I do my part also by maintaining top level health, an everyday job with no vacations or “cheats.”
Don’t forget that that gatekeeper cost money, too. Taxpayer money is spent on the apparatus of Medicare. Medicare For All would mean a bigger, more costly bureaucracy. There is a cost to the inefficiency of having insurance of working-age people tied to their employment, though, and a frustration cost for people fighting over unpaid medical bills. Collection agencies and lawyers would see a fall-off in business if Single Payer went into effect. When we hear of how other developed countries incur lower aggregate medical costs, I doubt that all of their costs are fully accounted for, but we can’t let things continue to worsen here and if the insurance companies are forced out of business, they’ll have no one but themselves to blame.
That was the goal of Obamacare. To render the medical system so “shitty” (collectivizing it in a fascistic direction), that people would cry out for total govt control.
There is a parallel to the creation of the Fed. The predecessor National Banking Act encouraged a pyramid banking structure prone to boom/bust.
Eventually they will HAVE TO do something, because no one will be buying insurance. I can afford it, I’m on the wrong side of 50, and I’m not buying I guarantee I’m not the only one.
Originally it was 400% and if you went over that by even a dollar you instantly lost the entire subsidy. Then it was changed to a gradual phaseout based on a maximum of 8.5% of your income. It is supposed to go back to the original 400%, and that is what the yelling is about. That abrupt cutoff was pain in the butt to avoid when I retired too early for Medicare.
If Trump had a problem with health insurance costs he should have told Bourla to p!ss off instead of sinking more $$$ into Pfizer jabs. And of course he has no issue with billionaires profiting off his warfare state.
Doesn’t this put the blame for the shut down squarely on the shoulders of Donald Trump and the republicans? If this idea had penetrated his thick skull back in September all of that pain could have been avoided.
A small mind that needs to win at all costs.
Yes, since it is just tweaks to the current plan. I am sure the left wind dems would have grumbled about the changes, but enough dems would have crossed over and voted for a CR.
Finally, Trump has hit on an idea of a concept that may lead to an outline of a plan on health care.
Perfectly said!
Insurance costs are a big pain point for the public and the cost increase underway only intensifies it
Trump’s team wants to move the impact out beyond the midterms–standard OP
Since people still have the votes, please the people who will vote and demonize the insurers who don’t have votes(who no-one loves anyway)
Kick the can down the road and have something to say—“see, I made these prices go down”
Those poor vote-less insurance companies. No one ever listens to them. I get what you’re saying about moving it past the midterms, but a true populist approach would aim to suppress the profits of insurers, healthcare providers and pharmaceutical companies. Will that hamper development of the most cutting edge medicines, tests and procedures? Yes, but our system is overly weighted toward those – extending horrible lives by a month or so. Diet and lifestyle choices matter so much more in the aggregate.
By “horrible” I take it to mean that the suffering is horrible, not that they are horrible people exploiting the opportunity to live longer. The focus on ‘end of life’ expenses misses the point and easily distracts from the serious problems of maintaining the illusion of “choose your own physician”. For the vast majority of those depending on subsidized health care (‘in network services”), there is no meaningful ‘choice’ whatsoever. And given the current costs of deductibles and copays, care prior to the ‘end of life’ requires devoting far too large a chunk of total resources. Reasonable minds can disagree (looking at you Mish), but I’d prefer recognition that health care is a public good, and the “gains” from maintaining or increasing ‘privatization’ are far outweighed by the costs to our society. Family practitioners, if graduates of accredited medical schools, should be interchangeable, and with AI assistance, they in fact already are.
No, I meant that we should kill the horrible. I have a list. Just kidding.
Seriously, I like your term “a public good”. I can agree with that while I can’t agree with “healthcare is a right” because I don’t believe in positive rights, even though I sympathize with the impulse to provide basic healthcare to all. If more people framed it as a public good, there’d be more buy-in by conservatives and libertarians who are intrinsically focused on proper use of terms.
Every single time the government gets involved in something it only gets worse. Lets see what happens again when they try to ‘fix’ the housing market. Worked so well in 2008.
Yes of course, the answer is unaffordable and unsustainable.
You would think that as huge as Trump’s ego is he would create some health plan he can call “Trumpcare” but I guess those two words juxtaposed next to each other are too ironical, paradoxical and contradictory.
So this is what happens when you target 10’s of millions of Americans for pain and you need their vote for the mid-terms. The federal government already has a “public option” insurance system called Medicare. Just create a set of non-profit insurance companies based on Medicare to compete directly with the private sector (the German model), and open it to corporate healthcare spending. That will lower prices by 40% for everyone. Trump is the only president who could pull this off because he cares more about himself than he does about graft to Congress, and he’s getting enough payoffs from other sources. Plus he would go down as the greatest President in 100 years. I just don’t think anyone around him will mention it to him.
– Why did we have a long shutdown? What did Republicans gain?
> You answered your own question…
1. They are seeking “imposing income caps for Affordable Care Act enrollees” to qualify for the enhanced subsidies.
2. They are looking to Create measures to crack down on healthcare fraud.
3. They are discussing, moving the subsidy money into newly created health savings accounts.
4. They are looking to bar taxpayer funds from going toward plans that cover abortion and transgender care.
5. They are looking at taking the money spent to extend Obamacare subsidies and placing it in healthcare savings account.
6. They are also looking at ways to eliminate fraud in Obamacare.
“None Of This” would have been possible doing it the other way, as Democrats would have “Blocked It” That’s Why!!!
Disclaimer: White House officials cautioned that Trump hadn’t settled on a plan.
As Covie points out in the post, Trump has had 10 years to come up with a health plan and all we’re getting is an extension of Obamacare. The stuff you list isn’t a health care plan, it’s limits on care for certain groups of people (women & LGBT and maybe poor).
– Trump has had 10 years to come up with a health plan.
> He has not even been president for 10 Months, let alone 10 Years. He is NOT trying to do so anyway. He is trying to “Tighten Up” the way it “Approves” Funding. “What Amounts” get Funded and to whom. He is looking at ways “To Improve” the existing plans, so they are usable and workable for whom they are intended, and not “Everyone With There Hand Out”
>> In other words, Trump is trying to create a “Plan That Works” and for everyone, not just a select few, like now with Insurance Companies as an ex. For the Doctors & Patients and no other “Gimme Some” Hands that are always OUT!!!
Trump was already president once or did you conveniently forget? Where was the amazing health plan during his first term?
I am 100% certain that 4 more years will pass under Trump’s second term and we’ll have nothing new either.
No,I recall it well, and extremely similar to this time, he had tremendous push back due to TDS.
Trump was president, way back then. He unfortunately had A Democrat President in between, or did you conveniently forget?
Everything was blocked, stalled, or done without Republican input for the most part. He has spent much of This Term trying to correct what they did further to cripple things since last time.
Let me know please, if you’re 100% certain, you can simply copy and paste what you have here, at “The End” of His Term.
Thanks in advance!!!
4 years plus 10 months does not equal 10 years.
DaddyPig never went away… Cried from the sidelines, the whole time he was off the field.
He’s back on the Field Now!
And as useless and impotent as his first term evidently.
Not this time… He has a whole lot of American Citizens behind Him this time!!
The “Shut Down” opened up a whole lot of eyes and they are not happy at all with the Democrats Shenanigan’s. The shutdown was overwhelmingly Great for the Republican Party!!!
I guess you missed the recent election wipeout. Don’t worry, you’ll get to see it again next year during the midterms.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5618168-republican-midterm-election-concerns/
I must have, or was it the same people getting the same votes they always get, no matter who is running against them? The latter I expected to occur, as should you have and many others.
Nothing to see here… You must Await the Mid-Terms if you want to see a “Wipe Out” then let’s discuss shall we?
Baaaaaaaahahahahahaha!
you’re killing me!
Just take slow breaths, in through the nose, and exhaled through the mouth. You’ll be OK before the Mid-Terms, and then you’ll have to do this again…
Are you feeling microagressed?
Positively assaulted by hilarious foolishness!
Your using up a lot of air with all those big words there El… Breath easier, the Mid-Terms are a way off still…
and running in circles! With the encroaching dementia, and his longing for a ‘legacy’, he will continue to take big swings (cf. peace at all costs in Ukraine, a ceasefire that allows Israel to continue bombing while Jared draws up blueprints for ‘gaza, the tourist mecca’), and every swing is a miss.
Are you related to Kamala by chance?
– encroaching dementia.
> Don’t we ALL have that?
– longing for a ‘legacy’
> He will have one!
– he will continue to take big swings (cf. peace at all costs in Ukraine.
> Trump will gather up A Workable Peace Plan, for Both Russia & Ukraine, and they will enact it before 2026 arrives for sure IMO!
Why hasn’t he stopped crying?
10 years?
7. DaddyPig wanted attention
He got it as usual…
At least you and he always will have seeking attention through ad hominem attacks in common. Not a critical thinker?
Hush, piggie.
Repeat those points a couple more times to pad it out to an even 10
He got it as usual. He got it as usual. He got it as usual. He got it as usual.
If you can’t Get The Point with 5, then it speaks for itself…
Pfthfth. I didn’t read the whole thing before flapping my yap. … At this point, no comment.
Trump gained theater for the MAGA cult members who believe all the crap he spews about forcing the Dens to cave.
I don’t think he has to bother, they’ll just suck up anything he says, no need for theater.