arrakeen_urbanite@arrakeen_urbanite@universeodon.com
One of the U.S. Senators representing my state is, unfortunately, Marsha Blackburn. Observe how she carefully misleads in this from her most recent email newsletter: “On the Senate floor, I delivered remarks debunking Democrats’ lies about the Biden COVID credits and laid out how Obamacare mandates and regulations have increased the cost of individual health insurance for Americans.”
The “Biden COVID Credits” are, of course, the extended ACA premium subsidies that Democrats were attempting to keep from lapsing, the fight over which is the reason we we are in the current government shutdown. The “ACA mandates and regulations” were rules put in place so that health insurance policies would be more likely to be worth the paper they’re printed on, i.e., little things like covering preexisting conditions from day 1, covering contraceptives, a certain level of deductibles, coinsurance, copayments, etc.
Now pay attention to who is harmed with higher prices: “individuals” purchasing policies for themselves. These tend to be younger, healthier folks who are now burdened with helping to fund a fairer system that they themselves will almost assuredly benefit from when they are older and less healthy. If these younger folks truly are in a poor financial situation, I have bad news: the subsidies have now been allowed to run out. Pay out or hope you don’t end up with an emergency room bill down the line.