I don’t pretend to know at this early hour what caused eight Democrats, (well okay, six Dems, one Independent and one Whatever The Hell John Fetterman has turned into) to cave in on the ACA subsidies but for right now it looks like that has actually happened. There is a silver lining here, though: that is that the longest government shutdown in history has ended with healh care still up for grabs BUT when it all unravels in a mere 42 days it will be blamed on the Republicans. Of that there is no doubt. And maybe it’s fate that it goes down this way.
I personally don’t believe in performative political theater so I don’t know what the purpose was of holding out for the 42 days before caving, but regardless, the GOP owns the shutdown and they own the chaos and the misery when health care premiums go through the roof as they assuredly must. And people will be making the decision to either not get health care or to cancel their health care when it becomes a choice between health care and eating. And then what do ERs do with people? Daily Beast:
But Newsom and other prominent Democrats have spoken out against the deal, which does not provide the immediate extension of Obamacare subsidies that Democrats sought, but reportedly promises a December vote on the matter.
“Pathetic. This isn’t a deal. It’s a surrender. Don’t bend the knee!” Newsom’s press office wrote on X in response to Punchbowl News founder Jake Sherman, who had pointed out that the deal “does absolutely zero on Obamacare.”
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, another frequent adversary of President Donald Trump, similarly derided the agreement, dismissing it as an “empty promise.”
“Trump and his Republican Congress are making healthcare more expensive for the middle class and ending it for working families. Time for Democrats to stand tall for affordable healthcare,” Pritzker wrote.
Both Nevada senators went along for this ride. I can’t conceive what that’s about other than the fact that Las Vegas took quite the hit on tourism this summer and maybe they fear reduced flights in and out of the city. The tourism problem is mostly from Donald Trump making enemies with Canada and Mexico, not to mention presenting a bizarre profile to the rest of the world with ICE antics, which makes a lot of people think that maybe they would be better off vacationing elsewhere.
But if the shutdown ends now, flights will not be cancelled, TSA employees and air traffic controllers will be paid, the military will be paid and maybe they’ll decide life is good enough to come party in Vegas again. I am spitballing here. I agree with Newsom and Pritzker, this was a mistake and they should not have folded like lawnchairs.
We shall surely see what happens and what the explanation is as the days go by.
Now work on a permanent fix. Use Medicare/Medicaid as single payer. Only one system, people that don't qualify pays premiums. Worked out through government and private companies. Prescription, health insurance and for God's Sake, bring Dental into it so we can afford enough teeth…
— Tucker&Otis (@Tucker_and_Otis) November 10, 2025
Seems to me that this is the better way to go. America is dead last amongst developed nations in our primitive health care system.
I think the old saying is “Much ado about nothing” somehow applies……
Why contribute to the harm just to be able to say “I told you so”? The end result is what would have happened anyway, Republicans will be blamed for millions of Americans and their families losing coverage because they can’t afford the premiums.
i’m not thrilled and i think this will be the end of obamacare subsidies and thus the aca. but, now let’s get adelita sworn in and get the epstein files released.
I certainly hope that all the prognostications that “it will be clear even to low information voters that Republicans are the ones responsible” turn out to be correct.
If “low information voters” could see ANYTHING clearly about how GOPers operate, we would have a House with at least 300 Democrats and a Senate with at least 60 Democrats. But there’s a reason WHY they’re “low information voters.”
Repugs are attacking the middle and lower class. What do they get out of it but more $$?
Like all of us here I am very disappointed in what happened. My first reaction was the same as yours. “How could these eight senators do such a thing? After such a brilliant election victory, that’s when they decide to throw in the towel? And I also thought: there must be something really nefarious behind this.
But after having had time to think about it, I came to a different view. The Democratic strategy of holding the line, of refusing to cave until we got a meaningful concession, was absolutely the right one. To keep this fight going as long as we did was a tremendous achievement, and it played a crucial role in the election results, because the country saw that the Democrats meant business, and the Republicans couldn’t have been more despicable if that’s what they were trying to do.
But that Democratic strategy nevertheless had an Achilles’ heel, unnoticed by most of us (certainly i never saw it coming), and ultimately this is what ended it. The weak point was this: that the fight to restore Obamacare was not the only thing at stake, it wasn’t even the only valid issue of the shutdown. In other words, there was an inherent, unavoidable conflict, because the pressure to end this came not over the fight to save the ACA, it came from other directions, especially the masses of federal employees whose livelihoods had been cut off and whose offices had been closed and functions cut off. True, these people are not the poor, the aged, the disabled. But they are not particularly rich either, and they were hurting too. And so were others depending on them to varying degrees for their own livelihoods. I believe that is what brought this to an end.
In some discussions I occasionally saw people blaming Schumer for this. But Schumer did not cave, in fact he probably deserves a lot of credit for helping hold this thing together as long as it did, by not caving.
It will achieve nothing to go on from here as “Democrats in disarray.” We need to get things in proportion and if we do that we can stay united. Because there are many more fights to go, and it is the Republicans that are really falling into disarray, as their internal contradictions are far worse than ours, and they have no real leadership, just a bunch of squabbling idiots. So let’s not give up the ship, it’s still very much afloat with cannons in excellent working condition.