Governing is all about priorities.
Earlier this year, as tens of millions of Americans faced skyrocketing health insurance premiums and millions were at risk of losing coverage, Republicans in Congress refused to spend the resources needed to help them.
According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget:
With the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) enhanced subsidies set to expire, several policymakers have proposed plans to expand the improvements. You can read more about the ACA subsidies here. We estimate that extending the improvements without offsets would increase deficits by roughly $30 billion for a one-year extension and $350 billion over ten years for a permanent extension.
To partially reduce these costs, several plans have added proposed income limits to grants, included new program integrity measures, or added additional reforms. Many have also proposed a temporary rather than permanent extension.
The costs could have been reduced or offset by making the extension temporary or by adding reforms to the subsidy program.
Human lives are at stake, but Republicans said the country couldn’t afford it.
A few months later, Republicans trip over themselves and give Donald Trump $1 billion to pay for his supposedly privately funded ballroom.
