Something in Washington deserves to be shut down, but it’s not the government. Here’s my new column at RealClearPolitics.
By FRANK MIELE
Shut it down. Shut it all down!
Not the government. I’m talking about the fake news that spent the past two weeks trying to scare average Americans into thinking that the Trump administration was coming after them – in particular by stripping them of their Obamacare subsidies.
At random, here’s a quote to demonstrate, this one from John Berman on CNN:
“This morning with the government shutdown, there’s a lot of finger-pointing going on. Democrats want to include an extension of Obamacare subsidies that expire at the end of the year. Republicans have refused to negotiate on subsidies unless Democrats first agree to a short-term resolution that would fund the government for seven weeks.”
In itself the quote is entirely accurate, but without supplying context (which the fake news media never does) it is also entirely misleading.
A casual listener or reader will assume that all Obamacare subsidies that they receive will be going away in 2026. But what’s the reality? First of all, most Americans do not get their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, and so they won’t be affected at all.
Only about 22 million people have health insurance through the Obamacare marketplace. That’s out of a national population of 340 million. So right away, we are talking about only 6.5% of Americans who are affected by the policy change. And only about 2 million would lose their subsidies altogether.
But those 2 million were never supposed to be eligible for subsidies as the program was originally intended. That’s because their income is more than 400% of the federal poverty level. For 2026, that’s about $63,000 for an individual, and for a family of four, that would be almost $130,000. In Kalispell, Montana, where I live, lots of people only dream about making that much. The household median income here is about $63,000, including many families of four or more.
And they aren’t looking for handouts. Probably almost everyone who makes that much money qualifies for workplace insurance in the first place (though it may not be deemed affordable). So really, we need to ask whether it is justified for the government to kick in money to benefit people who are reasonably well off already, or whether it is just part of a Democratic scheme to make as many people as possible dependent on the government.
But that is not a question the mainstream media would ever ask. They are too busy complaining about Donald Trump’s efforts to cut government waste, fraud, and abuse; decrease crime in our cities; stop the flow of fentanyl across our borders; and send illegal immigrants home.
Ultimately, what needs to be remembered, and a fact which the mainstream media rarely discusses (but was detailed at length by RealClearInvestigations), is that the enhanced Obamacare subsidies were passed during the COVID crisis. Whether those increased subsidies were justified at the time is beside the point; what matters is that we are no longer in a COVID crisis. People are no longer sitting at home because their jobs were shut down by government mandates, and so it makes sense that enhanced subsidies are going away just like the crisis did.
And despite blanket statements like the one from John Berman quoted above, and thousands more across the media landscape, tax-credit subsidies will remain in effect for most of the people using the government marketplace as their only alternative. Affordable Care Act customers whose income is less than 400% of the federal poverty level will still get subsidies, though they will be decreased back to their original levels.
Is that unreasonable? Remember, the enhanced subsidies were intended as an emergency measure during an economic crisis. Most Republicans who voted for those additional subsidies never intended for them to continue indefinitely, and earlier this year a majority in both houses of Congress voted not to continue them past 2025.
Yet just a few months later, the Democrats are already working to turn back the clock. When they say, “never let a crisis go to waste,” they mean it, and when they passed those enhanced subsidies in 2021, they never intended for them to expire on schedule. Just like with every government program, they want it to continue forever.
Give them credit. Democrats know that health care is a wedge issue that has always worked for them. So they are using the Obamacare subsidies and Medicaid expansion as weapons against the Trump administration, and it may be working.
According to an Oct. 1 Washington Post survey, 47% of adults surveyed blame Trump and the Republicans for the government shutdown, while only 30% blame the Democrats. That despite the fact that all but one Republican in the Senate voted to fund the government, and only three Democrats did.
Why the disconnect? The same poll revealed that 71% of adults want to see the health-care subsidies extended, and only 29% want to see them ended. To me, that’s proof that the mainstream media has poisoned the well by promoting the narrative that all subsidies will be ending this year. Otherwise, there is no way that average Americans would want to see the government increase the deficit to give a special benefit to just a small class of people.
The Washington Post survey, in particular, told participants that “federal subsidies that reduce the cost of Affordable Care Act health insurance plans are scheduled to end at the end of this year.” Yes, those subsidies will end for the least needy among us, those with incomes that exceed 400% of the poverty level. But they won’t end for the most needy – they will only be reduced. Provide that information correctly to poll participants, and the result could very well shift dramatically in the other direction.
Come to think of it, isn’t informing the public the whole purpose of news media in the first place? Maybe if they got back to their original mission instead of trying to shape public opinion to benefit one party, we wouldn’t need to talk about shutting them down.
A guy can dream, can’t he?
About Heartland Diary USA
Heartland Diary is solely operated by Frank Miele, the retired editor of the Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell, Montana. If you enjoy reading these daily essays, I hope you will SUBSCRIBE to www.HeartlandDiaryUSA.com by leaving your email address on the home page. Also please consider purchasing one of my books. They are available through the following Amazon links. My new book is “What Matters Most: God, Country, Family and Friends” and is a collection of personal essays that transcend politics. My earlier books include “How We Got Here: The Left’s Assault on the Constitution,” “The Media Matrix: What if everything you know is fake?” and the “Why We Needed Trump” trilogy. Part 1 is subtitled “Bush’s Global Failure: Half Right.” Part 2 is “Obama’s Fundamental Transformation: Far Left.” Part 3 is “Trump’s American Vision: Just Right.” As an Amazon Associate, I may earn referral fees for qualifying purchases through links on my website.
