I knew it was coming...it was time to start shopping again for the healthcare marketplace plan for my wife and kids. I had heard that rates were going up because some of the COVID era subsidies were about to expire. But I wasn't expecting that they would go up from $376/month to $825/month, more than a doubling. In some ways I suppose I am lucky, as it might be that the rates have gone up in part because my daughter is working full-time while she's going to school, and my son is working regularly part-time while in high school. That extra income likely cut my subsidy, but the Big Beautiful Bill this summer that ended the extra subsidies was probably the main reason.
It's a good thing that my second job offers health care. For me it's almost nothing, less than a hundred dollars a month, but to add the family is going to jack it up to around $800 a month. When you add me in, it's still less than what I am doing through the marketplace, but this will likely take out about half of my check. Again, I am still blessed...we've always tried to think of this extra money as just that, extra. But likely this will mean that some of the fun things we do with the extra money won't be there.
I waited at first to go ahead and sign up for the job health plan, because along the way there was an ever-so-slight chance that perhaps the subsidies would be extended. After all, the Democrats in Congress were refusing to vote YES on a continuing resolution to fund the government, and so said government was shut down for almost 6 weeks as the wanna-be heroes were fighting to return the subsidies to the plans. Things were looking up for the Dems...last week they won all the hotly contested off-year elections, Trumpy's approval ratings magically slipped below 38% in some cases, and maybe, just maybe, the Republicans would give in. Nope. This weekend it came out that 8 of the Democrats finally gave in, giving MAGA the 60 votes they needed to fund the government. Once again, the Democrats were running the touchdown into the end zone and instead fumbled it back to the Empire.
Because of the shutdown 42 million Americans who depend on food stamps no longer had access to them. And while I'm a bit skeptical that many are truly going hungry (my goodness, look at the obesity rates in this country), the gleefulness with which the GOP were ensuring that that extra money wasn't going to poor people was painful to watch. All along as the shutdown continued, the demolition of the East Wing of the White House also ramped up so that the Trump Ballroom could be built (alongside the renovations of the bathrooms in the Trump living quarters). Trump wasn't there much of course, because he was having a Great Gatsby-themed party at Mar-a-Lago for his rich cronies. I mean, the same people who think of themselves as pro-life are perfectly content to watch the living suffer, but were we expecting anything different? It's like they think of that book as aspirational rather than a cautionary tale.
I suppose if there's one good thing coming out of the re-opening of government is that an Arizona Democratic congresswoman has now been sworn in, and she becomes the last person on the petition necessary to start releasing some of the Epstein files. And sure enough, today they are starting to pour out. While what's in there is going to be hard to read except for those who like that kind of stuff, at least light is finally going to be shed on just how good Trump and Epstein have gotten along over the years, and how Trump will once again have to face the revelation that he's a horrible, evil person.
Of course for his supporters, it won't matter. The 38% will soon come back roaring to his defense and soon we will move on to ignored scandal #852 (#2611 if you include Trump 45). Yes, it's more Greatness than you can ever imagine in our fine nation.
