The Shutdown Problem Is Actually ObamaCare

 Ticker spells it out for all y'all.

... It's rather simple really: The Democrats beclowned themselves over the last few years with the Biden subsidy expansion.  They inadvertently proved that Obamacare cannot and will never work, nor will any similar structure, to control and lower costs.

Why?

Well, before pandemic subsidy expansion the only way to obtain (poor quality and very high deductible / out-of-pocket) "coverage" at modest to moderate cost was to make less than 140% of the poverty line, including non-taxable income such as that from municipal bonds.  At that level all subsidies ceased; this was called the "subsidy cliff."...

The magic number for "free" coverage?  $40,000 of Modified Adjusted Gross Income.  Fine--unless you went $1.00 over that number, in which case you had to pay back about $10K.

For obvious reasons, lots of people went naked instead.

When the Biden/Democrat regime came along, it changed the rules for subsidies.

 ...it capped the premiums for a "benchmark plan" at 8.5% of annual income, and for those with incomes below 150% of the federal poverty level some (worst of course, but still something) plans had a premium cost of zero.  By doing this it also prevented, with certainty, the risk of making a bit too much and getting hammered at tax time with a $10,000 subsidy recapture bill...

Problem solved?

Hell NO!

... As both sides concede, and of course the official data shows, this change during the pandemic resulted in a lot of new sign-ups -- millions of them, in fact.  Those people included many who had no economic argument for buying the plan before as they were healthy, had significant income and thus had to pay full price -- and as a result they refused.  What the subsidy expansion caused is the opposite of "adverse selection" and in a functional market where you are not being robbed would have resulted in very large before-subsidy drops in the cost of said policies by greatly improving the average medical spend across the entire pool of people.

What actually happened is that over those years the before-subsidy price WENT UP.

That's proof -- by actual experience -- that what was originally sold; that having people without pre-existing problems in the pool and contributing (taxpayer money, thus circular in form and function but still going into the medical system) would lower costs for everyone on average -- was in fact false.

What happened instead was that the totality of costs through the Obamacare system on a per-person basis, after a very small dip in the first year, once again increased continually despite the enhanced subsidies and thus uptake by healthier people....

And here we are.

Never forget that CJ "Julia" Roberts invented crap to keep ObamaCare on the books.

Never forget that Paul Ryan made ObamaCare permanent by refusing to bring up the repeal legislation.  Paul Ryan was and still is one of the most perfidious jackwads ever to serve in Congress. 

And never forget that those two--with hundreds of other Cloud People "Experts" and "Smarter-Than-You" jackasses are the reason for Donald Trump.