There’s an old expression, “begin as you intend to proceed,” which extols what a good idea it is getting off on the right foot in any given endeavor. And it is a good piece of advice. It goes along with another adage, “There’s only one chance to make a first impression.” All that said, the *president* is responding to the really bad polls regarding the government shutdown. And he not only got off on the wrong foot, he then put said foot in his mouth.
🚨 🚨 🚨 BREAKING: Trump has seen the polls that a large majority of Americans blame Republicans for the shutdown. pic.twitter.com/tLXx3DdEnl
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) October 6, 2025
Now what makes this comical is that the Democrats don’t control either chamber of Congress. Republicans who are thinking straight don’t want Trump’s ridiculous proposals to be enacted, and particularly at issue is the elimination of the ACA subsidies. Those subsidies are gone as of December 31 unless extended by law. ACA healthcare premiums could double or raise as much as 400%. That is the big deal, what all the shouting’s about and not transgender surgeries or giving Medicaid to illegal aliens. All of that is hyperbole and nonsense.
If you haven’t seen the polls, Americans are blaming the GOP by about 45 to 48%, and blaming the Democrats by around 30% and another 23, 24% say they don’t know who’s responsible. But that big number, in the forties, is what is worrying Trump.
And the incredible irony of all of this is IF Republicans got what they are pursuing, the elimination of the ACA subsidies and the basic destruction of Obamacare, with people being forced to cancel health insurance policies right and left, that is going to blow up in GOP faces. It’s an issue that is as emotionally charged as eliminating Roe v. Wade, except even worse. A woman may come to need an abortion but it’s a certainty that she’s going to come to need health insurance, along with men and children.
Plus, even 57% of MAGA and 59% of Republicans who don’t identify as MAGA want the subsidies to remain in effect.
More than three-quarters (78%) of the public say they want Congress to extend the enhanced tax credits available to people with low and moderate incomes to make the health coverage purchased through the Affordable Care Act’s Marketplace more affordable, a new KFF Health Tracking Poll finds. That’s more than three times the share (22%) who say they want Congress to let the tax credits expire.
Most Republicans (59%) and “Make American Great Again” supporters (57%) favor extending the enhanced tax credits, which otherwise would expire at the end of the year and require Marketplace customers to pay much more in premiums to retain coverage. Larger majorities of Democrats (92%) and independents (82%) also support extending the enhanced tax credits, as do most people who buy their own health insurance, most of whom purchase through the Marketplace (84%).
The poll also tests the public’s response to arguments made by those who support and oppose extending the enhanced tax credits.
Among the public overall, more than eight in 10 say they would be concerned about the expirations of the tax credits if they heard that health insurance would become unaffordable for many people who buy their own coverage (86%), that about 4 million people would lose their health insurance coverage (86%), or that millions of people who work at small businesses or are self-employed would be directly impacted because they rely on the ACA Marketplace (85%).
In the other direction, a smaller majority (63%) say they would be concerned about extending the enhanced tax credits if they heard that it would require significant federal spending that would largely be paid by taxpayers. This includes a large majority of Republicans (83%) and most independents (61%).
When people who want to extend the enhanced tax credits were asked who deserves the most blame if they expire, roughly equal shares say President Trump (39%) and Republicans in Congress (37%), while a smaller share (22%) say that Democrats in Congress would deserve most of the blame.
“There is a hot debate in Washington about the looming ACA premium hikes, but our poll shows that most people in the marketplaces don’t know about them yet and are in for a shock when they learn about them in November,” KFF President and CEO Drew Altman said.
These polling numbers are unbelievable. And I suppose it’s possible that many people live in a cave and don’t know this is coming, but the first revised bill that comes in the mail or inbox is getting to set fire to the insurance company switchboards. It’s going to be an incredible mess. Talk about sticker price shock, wait until your health insurance goes up 400%.
Good luck to Trump talking his way out of this one. He needs to stop screwing with Obamacare, unless and until the Republicans do come up with something better, and truthfully, I gave up on them doing that back in 2017.
In regard to the repubs not coming up any sort of replacement for the ACA, let alone an improvement, they stunningly like tRump. They seem to be averse to doing work or actually doing their jobs, as he is.
I may be wrong but I suspect most of the people who say they “don’t know” are the kind of people who assume both sides are lying and who have no ability to find out the truth for themselves. in other words, they are victims of the Soviet technique (also used by American RW media, called “epistemic nihilism,” or “the firehose of falsehood” (a term coined by reseachers at the RAND corporation). The goal is to overwhelm and bewilder the public with so much conflicting or false information that they lose the ability or will to distinguish fact from fiction, leading them to believe nothing. This technique relies has the following characteristics : High volume; Speed and repetition; Disregard for reality, facts, or logical consistency.
The goal not to inculcate a coherent narrative (not even a false one), but to create chaos and distrust. I think the relatively large number of people who claim they “don’t know” have succumbed to this propaganda technique.
But for some, another possible ezplantion is cognitive dissonance: that is, they know the truth, but it goes so strongly against to their cherished beliefs that they feel more comfortable not trying to resolve it. Some of these will tock the boxes they think they should tick, even though they don’t really believe what hey are indicating, and some of them are more comfortable pretending they don’t know, as if, by a sort of magic, what is plainly false will some day turn out to be true. After all, this is what MAGA has been telling them: “sure, they’ll be a few bumps along the road, but in two weeks, and another two weeks, or a year, or two years, and then ten years — you’ll all be richer and happier than you can possibly imagine. This is a classic con.