90% of Democrats feel healthcare is extremely important. Eight Democratic Senators let them down. They voted with Republicans to end the shutdown without extending the Obamacare subsidies. It may cost the Democrats the midterms.
The eight Democratic Senators settled for a promise that the Senate will vote on a bill to extend the subsidies by the end of the second week of December. The eight Senators are either stupid or must have been corrupted by our Chief Corrupter, President Trump.
Republicans have had a 3 decades-long sinister plan , referred to as “Starve the Beast” to cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. It includes Trump’s obscene tax cuts to knowingly increase our deficits and national debt and create shortfalls so the Republicans can throw up their hands and lament that they have no option but to cut America’s safety nets.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that Trump’s tax cuts will cut federal spending on Medicaid and CHIP by $1.02 trillion. Moreover, the Obamacare subsidies are set to expire at the end of the year and are unlikely to be extended, especially given Trump’s mission to undo everything Obama accomplished.
Democratic voters expected their party to fight for their healthcare with a zero-sum approach — to win-at-all-costs and rule out compromise. But the eight Senators who caved came up with a hollow reason to betray their constituents – a provision that federal employees would get back their jobs and their pay, which would have happened anyway. So, the eight defectors got nothing for risking Americans’ healthcare and lives.
An NBC poll taken this March found that two-thirds of Democrats expected and wanted their party to “stick to their positions even if it means not getting things done in Washington.” Their surrender drew anger and outrage from many of their Democratic colleagues who said the party should have held firm. And for base Democrats, this wasn’t simply a compromise, it was a complete and total misread of the political situation. Many thought that Most Voters believed that Democrats gave up their leverage to insist on the Obamacare subsidies. Voters largely blamed the shutdown on Trump and the GOP and scoring huge wins in states like New Jersey, Virginia and Georgia in off-year elections signaled the beginning of a trend. Does the phrase “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory” come to mind?
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