Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Monday the government shutdown is on its way to being one of the longest in history unless Democrats accept the House-passed, GOP-crafted stopgap bill to reopen the government.
“We’re barreling toward one of the longest shutdowns in American history, unless Democrats dropped their partisan demands and passed a clean, no-strings-attached budget to reopen the government and pay our federal workers,” Johnson said in a press conference on the 13th day of the government shutdown.
Congressional leaders have been locked in a standoff over government funding as Democrats demand that Republicans make concessions on health care, notably Affordable Care Act tax credits that are expiring at the end of the year. Republican leaders have refused to negotiate on health care during a shutdown, arguing that that Democrats must accept the “clean” funding stopgap the House passed in September — and which has failed to advance in the Senate seven times.
Damn, if only Republicans hadn’t shut the government down when Dems proposed simple, direct, and popular extensions to Medicare funding. Why are Republicans so content letting Americans suffer?
They’re not content, they’re insistent
Pretty sure this isn’t the first shutdown caused by Republicans wanting to screw people out of Obama care.
They absolutely want people to suffer.
They hope to blame it on the Democrats.
The pain will be most-felt after midterms, when (at minimum) Democrats pick up a few seats and (at most) take control of the House of Representatives. Republicans need this, so they can blame the economy and healthcare premiums on Democrats. If they didn’t lie and pretend they wanted to help workers, no one would ever vote for them…
GOP doesn’t wanna govern with the Democrats, and they keep blaming Democrats for everything. Fuck 'em. Let the GOP pass their damn budget themselves. This isn’t a government anyways.
If the Democrats were even half as nefarious as the GOP says, Trump woulda been killed like years ago.
One thing I hate is how Democrats are always left fighting a crappy fight…
Republicans, propose horrific shit.
Democrats, can we have slightly less horrific stuff plz?
Republicans, ok i guess…! Deal!
Public: pikachu face
That’s why Democrats keep losing… Even if they win this AOC funding fight… So what? Healthcare is still as awful as ever, it’ll just be slightly less awful…No-one in the public will think of this as some massive Democratic victory that’ll make them change their vote.
Where are the Democrats fighting for actual change, actually, shoot for the fucking moon and settle for the sky…
Democrats just never feel like they are fighting.
This isn’t some both sides horseshit, the Republicans do fight. Except they fight for genuinely horrific stuff and for the billionaire class.
Who are the Democrats fighting for? Are they fighting at all?
They don’t have a leader or any vision. You can’t fight for a dramatic change without a unified vision and strong leader that is willing to do things that may seem unpopular to some. By trying to appeal to everybody, they appeal to nobody. Watch/listen to this interview with the DNC Chair that Join Stewart did, it’s pretty obvious what the problem is: https://youtu.be/SLi6gB0_hpE.
Democrats does the bare minimum that they think makes them look like they are working. Their motivation is money, just like the republicans. They are part of the game and have their role to play. They get payed by the same interest groups.
But this is just what I think is going on. I’m an internet bozo.
It’s the classic scenario of it’s hard to build things up, and it’s easy to tear things down. The GOP can obstruct and block and delay and demand concessions with any one of the 3 houses: house of representatives, senate, and presidency. For the Dems to pass anything they need, drumroll please, all 3 houses. And they have had that for, drumroll please, 6 years out the the last 44 years.
The [Johnson] Shutdown, it causes real pain for real people, veterans, the elderly people who rely upon these services
Wow you know what else causes real pain? The lifetime of crippling medical debt, collapse of coverage for the sickest among us, and skyrocketing premiums for everyone else. Y’all just seem to want it so badly.
Republicans had 15+ years to come up with the “replace” side of “repeal and replace” and have nothing to show for it. What a farce.
What a farce.
Not incorrect, but “grift” is the term accepted in academia.
I seriously think Americans just need to opt out of health insurance when the renewal period comes around.
I know it’s a fantasy and would never happen but could you imagine if half the country all of a sudden just opted out of insurance? The stocks would crash overnight.
There would only be two outcomes, either a massive change in healthc.
Or more realistically a the GOP would pass a law making private insurance mandatory to save their money laundering scheme.
Fuck I hate health insurance I can’t believe there’s a fucking single person out there that would defend this fucked up system that we have but yet there are millions
Is my life’s dream to dance on the ashes of the health insurance industry
That’s not an option for many people, and that’s what’s scary as hell. For some it’ll be impossible to ever price them out of insurance, because they need the care regardless of the debt they rack up. If insurance offsets even 10% that’s a win.
Meanwhile in the healthy population, many will balk at the premiums, decide to drop the insurance and the whole house of cards falls down. GOP already got rid of the insurance mandate and that was a very popular move with their base. Slim chance mandatory coverage could be re-instated again.
Now the party is stuck and likely to let the entire system collapse. Maybe they’ll bail out the hospitals and insurance companies along the way, at a much higher cost than getting people the care they needed, but it seems inevitable.
the GOP would pass a law making private insurance mandatory to save their money laundering scheme.
This is already an aspect of the ACA, and that’s imo the big problem with it. Of course my perfect version of a healthcare bill would be single payer Medicare for all where we’re just taxed appropriately to cover universal healthcare, but that’s not on the table for some fucking reason. The right wants everybody without money to just die and gatekeep healthcare to keep it for the wealthy only. The half measure compromise (ACA) was to keep healthcare costs low, especially if you have less income, but you pay a fine if you declined to pay for that coverage, so you may as well pay that money to a health insurance company and have health insurance instead; get something for that money. This raised the number of people with health insurance, but largely through extortion. The good outweighs the bad, but it is indirectly a subsidy to insurance companies to keep the industry afloat despite being a shitty value.
“Concepts of a plan”
The state of things as they stood was a problem to begin with, so why would anyone want to continue that in exchange for we totally pinky promise to talk about what you want later’?
Why must the democrats do anything? The GOP could negotiate or accept the changes entirely. This isn’t on the dems.
Article runs down where we stand right now:
Trump 45 - 35 days. 2018/2019.
Clinton - 21 days.
Obama - 17 days. 2013.
Carter - 17 days. 1978.
Today - 13 days and counting.
So still a ways to go. 5 more days and it’s top 3.
Barreling, swooping, tumbling, smashiiiiiinnnnggggg
No thanks to YOU, little Mikey.
Good. It’s clearly not working when it’s open.
It’s partially your fault, asshole.
Partially?
Three more years, please.