The government shutdown has continued for weeks with no end in sight. Although Affordable Care Act subsidies have been at the center of the debate, one of the most basic questions remains unanswered: Where is the money actually going?
And we cannot answer that, because the U.S. still lacks real price transparency in health care.
In 2024, the federal government spent roughly $125 billion on Affordable Care Act subsidies. According to the Congressional Budget Offic...
Opinion
Trump says he’s targeting Democrats’ programs, but the suffering is bipartisan
Throughout the government shutdown, President Trump has maintained that his administration would “clear out dead wood, waste and fraud.” Because Democrats “started this thing,” he has said, the shutdown presents “an unprecedented opportunity” to eliminate “Democrat-oriented” programs and give his opponents “a taste of their own medicine.”
Trump then posted an image of himself on Truth Social signing a document emblazoned with a statement: “Cry all you want.”
Trump d...
Democrats can’t keep the Schumer shutdown going much longer
The government shutdown will end soon. How do I know? Because whatever political advantage Democrats had a few weeks ago by “standing strong!” and “confronting Trump!” is quickly evaporating. When the polls flip, so will the party that has lost its way.
Voters have a way of sniffing out the truth. They are beginning to understand that Democrats are rudderless, and are voting to keep the government closed out of confusion, not conviction.
House Mi...
Reestablishing the dignity of work
The late Charlie Kirk warned that a dangerous disease was spreading through America — a rising generation adrift, disconnected from community, stuck in stalled mobility, and cut off from opportunity. His warning has only grown more urgent with time.
One of the central engines of this decline is ObamaCare. Passed in 2010, it allowed and even incentivized states to enroll able-bodied adults in Medicaid without work requirements. In doing so, Washington turned a focused safety ne...
Moderate Democrats should reject socialism, embrace a GI Bill for all
Moderate Democrats like Former Rep. Abigail Spanberger in Virginia and Rep. Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey are running for governor on a message that resonates: tackle affordability, fix health care and expand opportunity. If they win, they will be hailed as the future of the Democratic Party.
But there is a trap. There are few policy prescriptions that are bold enough to matter but moderate enough to win.
As it turns out, the American government al...
No Kings indeed: A partial list of Trump’s shameless power grabs
Millions of Americans opposed to President Trump’s attacks on our Constitution, democracy and the rule of law are expected to join some 2,000 peaceful No Kings Day protests around the nation tomorrow. The protests are a follow-up to the No Kings Day held on June 14 — Trump’s 79th birthday.
The protests are backed by a long list of nonprofits and will draw patriotic Republicans, Democrats, independents and third-party backers determined to...
The government shutdown is holding health care hostage
Health insurance is supposed to help families, not bully them. Yet when big insurers, or their lobby in Washington, don’t get the policy outcome they want, they reach for the same lever: higher premiums.
That isn’t care. That’s pressure — and patients feel it first.
We have seen this before. In October 2017, the administration cut off cost-sharing reduction payments. Carriers answered by “silver-loading” the next year, piling the missing dollars onto sil...
MAHA is nothing more than empty rhetoric leading health care on a dangerous course
Over my career, I have worked as a primary care physician, a professor at Harvard Medical School, and an executive at CVS Health. So by all means, yes, let’s Make America Healthy Again. But if that’s truly the goal, then the Trump administration’s approach, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is a farce.
Despite lofty slogans, there is no clear or coherent health policy coming out of this administration. Instead, we are seeing a patchwork of marginal reforms paired with sweepin...
How to reopen the government: Rebrand Obamacare as ‘TrumpCare’
As the first shutdown since 2009 rolls on, reopening the government will likely hinge on Democrats’ success convincing President Trump to learn to love a program that he has repeatedly attempted to destroy: Obamacare.
To do that, Democrats can lean on the type of strategic flattery employed by certain U.S. companies and world leaders to gain edge in their dealings with Trump. In short, Democrats’ best chance to break the impasse is by convincing President Trump tha...
Democrats can end the shutdown — just tie the Epstein files’ release to a spending bill
The government shutdown shows no signs of stopping. But eventually, Democrats are going to cave and agree to end the shutdown, because they have a much lower threshold for national pain than the Trump White House does.
Apart from the president’s willingness to target blue states and “Democrat agencies,” whatever those are, the wheels will eventually begin to come off of vital parts of the government like the FBI. Last time, that took about four weeks.
That means De...