If signed into law, the bill would cap energy costs for Wisconsinites at 2 percent of their household income. Reporter Whittaker Peters has more. www.wortfm.org/state-democr...

Why would the Supreme Court's conservative majority defer to the timeline of a political conflict in Congress? Hmmm.... 🤔

To add on, a smart take here by @ericblanc.bsky.social on the weaknesses on the labor side of the Dem coalition that made the caving more likely. jacobin.com/2025/11/demo...

As the ~discourse~ seems to bend interminably towards Republicans trying to figure out how they can (further) HDHP-ify ACA coverage, it's worth revisiting what is probably our best (most rigorous) study on the effect of deductibles in health insurance. academic.oup.com/qje/article-...

Anyway the eight Dem senators were too lazy to do this

CMS sent out a notice that GA's Section 1115 waiver for its Medicaid work requirements ("The Georgia Pathways to Coverage® Program") will be extended until 31 Dec 2026 (when HR-1's mandated work req's for all state Medicaid programs begins) Link to the application www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/sec...

Ah, creating a legal entitlement for $500K for some elderly millionaires because they being investigated for their role in an insurrection *in exchange for* a show vote to make health care affordable.

Key context for last night’s vote was reported by the Prospect on Saturday —>

I wrote here about Trump’s limited understanding of health insurance and how relying on direct payments to people for payment toward health care costs is a terrible idea. www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb...

"but I am le tired" ass caucus

I find Phil Rocco's theory that the coalitional nature of the Dem. party has left it unprepared to confront an anti-constitutional one persuasive. I'd be very interested to hear from people across the pond whether the same dynamics hold there.

Summing up one of the structural problems that allows this to keep happening over and over again.

The politics of the shutdown: *GOP had a strong opening position *Undercut themselves with the RIFs and unnecessary cuts to blue states/SNAP *Polls showed GOP getting most of the blame, no reason to assume that would change *Dem centrists then folded on their key issue of ACA subsidies

Thoughts on Dems throwing a game they were winning. www.offmessage.net/p/16-thought...

Summing up one of the structural problems that allows this to keep happening over and over again.

On first round of voting on cloture for the cave, Baldwin votes no—she was part of the Gang of 8 talks. Rand Paul is also a no.

This is key. The vote the Dems secured here is a fake nominal vote. Everyone knows this.

The agreement to hold a vote on ACA subsidies is not a concession. It's worth literally nothing. It should be ignored when evaluating the merits of the deal

i think this is key. taking the deal would amount to taking the blame. it would turn a clear political victory into an unambiguous defeat.

It helps not at all that the topline coverage of how all this stuff works will submerge the details of how this all works, in part because that is one important legacy of the complexity in the ACA’s credits, as well as the whole buffet of neoliberal policy instruments, including HSAs and FSAs.

apropos of nothing I wrote a book a long time ago about how the DLC and Bill Clinton redefined winning for an entire generation of Democrats as "getting something done" through bipartisanship and compromise rather than achieving (or even having!) a specific outcome in mind, and, what do I know.

Ungated: jacobin.com/2025/08/demo...

RIF Update: The proposed appropriations legislation would invalidate RIFs conducted between 10/1/25 and 1/30/26. (Section 120). It does not include any provisions invalidating RIFs pre-10/1/25 or preventing future RIFs conducted after 1/30/26. www.appropriations.senate.gov/imo/media/do...

SO WHAT HAPPENS WHEN ALL YOU HAVE IS AN HSA AND YOUR KID NEEDS SURGERY OR YOU GET CANCER????? I am going to go insane that anyone things a personal savings account is a replacement for insurance.

One thing from our piece on Saturday: Sen. Shaheen is leading the Senate cave caucus. She's on the appropriations committee and wants whatever little goodies she got in her appropriations bill passed into law. As we wrote: prospect.org/2025/11/08/w...

So, the caving, what's the "real" core concern? I'd guess: 1. The hungry? ❌ 2. The uninsured ❌ 3. Societal air travel addiction ✅ We'll see I guess.

"Hyde language" would be a ban on anything related to abortion. So, any Senate Democrat that caves is agreeing to vote to implement a nationwide abortion ban in exchange for healthcare subsidies.

You can’t use the savings accounts on premiums! So you don’t even get a banana

This. Lots of titting no tatting.

If the Dems fail to preserve ACA subsidies in the shutdown, it will be another manifestation of an organizational failure beyond this particular political fight, and one that will reflect the weaknesses of a party built around clienteles w/ no structural power. catalyst-journal.com/2025/07/why-...

8/ the wind at their backs right now I think a strong enough pre-backlash literally right now could change it. And again, even if they have the votes it’s critical that the rest of the caucus does not give them cover. People who want to throw in the towel now shld be crystal clear they want to …

I understand why a swing Dem would be under insane pressure to get SNAP re-funded — puts states in untenable situations moreso than ACA subs do. & I don't think mutual aid can replace the state. But it'd be nice to see these offices assisting with food distribution instead. A little Pollyannaish

promise that they’ll get to vote on magic beans (subject to filibuster)

Agreeing to replace ACA tax credits with HSA bullshit would be literally worse than nothing

If the Dems fail to preserve ACA subsidies in the shutdown, it will be another manifestation of an organizational failure beyond this particular political fight, and one that will reflect the weaknesses of a party built around clienteles w/ no structural power. catalyst-journal.com/2025/07/why-...

Sounds like the squishes in the senate caucus are ready to pull the plug with no ACA changes. This is real. If you want to register your opinion you shld call yr senator in the next hour. They not only want to reopen w/nothing. They want cover from their colleagues who still want to hold out.

“I want you to understand what it is like to live in Chicago during this time.” aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...

it looks like several local news stations from Great Lakes states made their own Edmund Fitzgerald documentaries 🧵

Ellis starting the day off by reading out Carl Sandburg's poem "Chicago" in its entirety.

AOC getting asked, as I'm sure so many will be in the next days, how the mayor will respond to extralegal withdrawals of federal aid from NYC, which are sure to come. It's past time to start talking about how states and cities escalate the conflict beyond litigation alone.

Elections tonight would seem to be not just a victory for Democrats but a defeat of the "play dead" political formula their party leaders advanced in early 2025 . Both are important.

I’m just a small-town political scientist, & it’s still relatively early, but it appears that The Actual Democrats did not Need To Do any of the Things or Learn any of the Obvious Lessons that Ezra Douthglesias said they Must Do & Learn.

I guess you could put it like that.

Once again - just like they don't shut the government down when they control all of its branches & refuse to swear in elected representatives of the other party - normal, mainstream, pro-democracy political parties do not make restricting suffrage the central pillar of their policy platform.

Timely (grim) new NBER working paper: Households screened out of SNAP "suffer tangible downstream economic consequences. Specifically, we find that process-related denials increase debt and delinquencies, and decrease credit scores." www.nber.org/papers/w34434

The US is the purple line bottoming out. Our economy may still roar, but we’re killing ourselves. Hoarding wealth, refusing to even ensure our kids have enough to eat. That line is an indictment. It reflects our warped values.

The Trump administration is sending election monitors to New Jersey and California, two states where voters are casting ballots in politically contentious elections. (via @politifact.bsky.social) to.pbs.org/3Wuntfz

This stuff really freaks me out. They see their future as one where the decisionmakers live in military installations, where the civil and military functions of government become merged.