It’s certainly true that only a modest number of enrollees directly receive the subsidies. However, all enrollees will face premium increases if the subsidies go away.
That’s because of the structure of the ACA, both as originally conceived and as it eventually got implemented. The ACA eliminates evaluation of patient health in granting coverage (ie. no more pre-existing condition exclusions). It also limits charging different premiums for different enrollees - “community rating” is limited to very few criteria (like smoker vs. non-smoker) and premiums for older enrollees are limited to a set ratio of the younger enrollee premiums.
In short, the original plan was to make everyone get into the common insurance pool, pay approximately the same premia (subject to certain age and smoking-status multipliers) and costs for the sickest patients would stay reasonable because the young healthy enrollees would be paying more in premiums than their expected claims. Like how employer group plans work.
For good or ill, though, most of the mechanisms that were intended to make sure that young healthy people joined the pools in sufficient quantity to keep premiums from rising over time were weakened or removed. That’s the problem with not having pre-existing conditions and having community rating. Young healthy people tend not to enroll - the policy premiums are much higher than their expected claims. The subsidies ended up being the main mechanism for getting young healthies to enroll. Since young healthies could join the ACA for very low cost, they were willing to enroll - and the high premiums they paid (mostly covered by subsidies) put money into the pools to allow older sicker enrollees to face smaller premium increases.
If the enhanced subsidies go away, many (most?) of the younger healthier people that were receiving them will drop out - necessitating an increase in premiums for everyone that’s left.
Too many of us have already forgotten this from a mere five years ago:
The goal has been to destroy the ACA from the outset. They never had a plan to replace it. Now their voters are going to get exactly what they voted for. Good and hard, as intercst would say.
From a bigger picture perspective, this just explains why our government is dysfuntional. Uninformed and divided citizens may want what they’re getting, that doesn’t mean it’s good government.
In what sense? We’re talking about the legislature. Congress. Not the government writ large, but the body that is intended to represent the will of the people. This isn’t about government trying, but failing, to provide a service that it has decided to provide. Or the parts of the government (like the judiciary) that are supposed to be independent of the political will of the people and do what they determine is best regardless of what the people want.
The purpose of Congress is to translate what the citizens want to happen into government policy. And if the citizens prefer the status quo to any alternative, then Congress is working properly when it doesn’t change the status quo. Even if the citizens don’t like the status quo, if they prefer it to any of the alternatives on offer, then the right outcome for a democratic body is to maintain the status quo.
Congress is supposed to be doing what is good for the people and the country. Endless gridlock focused on keeping the other side from doing anything is clearly a disaster for our system of govt.
We can ask that - but the truth is that we are divided on a lot of issues. And this isn’t an especially novel development. Politics has always had a lot of divisions, and there have always been issues on which people were more (and less) willing to compromise on than others. Over time, the issues that we have consensus on tend to disappear from politics (because there’s consensus), and what’s left are issues we’re divided on.
Is it?
I don’t ask to be difficult, but because I don’t necessarily think that this is correct. Congress is supposed to be representing what the people and the country determine is good for the people and the country. That’s the essence of democracy and representative government - that the People decide what they think is good and how the country should be. If the People fundamentally disagree over what is good and what the country should do, arguably Congress is supposed to reflect that disagreement - not ignore it.
On the other hand, if one is a fan of smaller government then a divided federal government (which can be divided several ways) means the government does less which would be a positive thing.
More likely, clever people use their resources to support candidates to keep the party divide near equal. That allows them to block any unfavorable legislation. Then special interests can use their resources to get their bills enacted.
Far different from the situation where voters prefer one party’s policies and elect leaders and Congress to support that view. Govt is then empowered to take action, make decisions and move forward. Last time that happened is FDR vs Herbert Hoover.
Our current system is impaired and much less effective dealing with issues.
Do you remember the movie Wilson’s War. His constituents in Texas didn’t care but his campaign received contributions from Israel. Their only requirement was his vote when they needed it.
We know very well this is part of modern politics. Groups w money use it to elect candidates who support their program. Deadlocking Congress is not hard to achieve.
One would thing this has been investigated by some public interest group or the like. There should be suitable patterns of campaign contributions. In addition, such contributions would have to counteract other big money flows.
Not so. You merely identify candidates with a close election and provide funds to help them win. For gridlock all you need is helping candidates in the down party.
As a counterexample, Belgium and the Netherlands can sometimes take years to form a coalition government. In addition, small parties can exert abnormal influence. In Israel the ruling coalition (of five parties at present) can be skewed by very conservative religious parties.
Ranked voting. Not a panacea, but it would nudge us away from a two-party system. There would have to be some compromising going on, or nobody would get their way ever. And neither side want to never get their way.
Ranked voting is much too complicated and subject to misuse. Better to let top two vote getters in primary run against each other in final election regardless of party. Winner will usually have a majority of votes (except for write ins).