Democrats crumble like cookies. Is this really the best they can do?
Democrats broke ranks to reopen the government without securing a deal to protect health insurance subsidies for low and middle income Americans.
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- Insurance premium rates without the government subsidies have doubled on average, according to KFF.
- About 24 million people will be hit by these healthcare premium increases.
Democrats just crumbled like soft-bake cookies.
The so-called resistance party has given up the shutdown fight, ensuring that millions of Americans will face Republican-created skyrocketing healthcare costs, and millions more will bury any hope that the minority party will find the substance and leadership to run a viable defense against President Trump.
Sunday night, eight turncoat Democrats sold out every American who pays for their own health insurance through the affordable marketplaces set up by President Obama.
As has been thoroughly reported in past weeks, Republicans are dead set on making sure that insurance is entirely out of financial reach for many Americans by refusing to help them pay for the premiums with subsidies that are part of current law, offered to both low- and middle-income families.
Republicans — for reasons hard to fathom other than they hate Obama, and apparently basics such as flu shots — have long desired to kill the Affordable Care Act and now are on the brink of doing so, in spirit if not actuality, thanks to Democrats.
States are facing uncertainty about providing full monthly benefits for a federal food program serving 42 million Americans.
Trump must be doing his old-man jig in the Oval Office.
The pain this craven cave-in will cause is already evident. Rates for 2026 without the government subsidies have been announced, and premiums have doubled on average, according to nonpartisan health policy researcher KFF. Doubled.
Insurance companies are planning on raising their rates by about 18%, already devastating and symptomatic of the need for a total overhaul of our messed-up system. That increase, coupled with the loss of the subsidies beginning at the start of next year, means a 114% jump in costs for the folks dependent on this insurance. Premiums that cost on average $888 in 2025 will jump to $1,904 in 2026, according to KFF.
But it’s the middle-income people who will really be hit.
“On average, a 60-year-old couple making $85,000 ... would see yearly premium payments rise by over $22,600 in 2026,” KFF warns, meaning that instead of paying 8.5% of their income toward health insurance, it will now jump to about 25%.
Merry Christmas, America.
Although the eight Democrats who broke from their party to allow this to happen are directly responsible (thankfully our California senators are not among them), Democratic leadership should also be held accountable.
A party that can’t keep itself together on the really big votes isn’t a party. It’s a bunch of people who occasionally have lunch together. Literally, they had one job: Stick together.
The failure of Democratic leadership to make sure its Senate votes didn’t shatter in this intense moment isn’t just shameful, it’s depressing. For all of the condemnation of the Republican members of Congress for failing to uphold their duty to be a check on the power of the presidency, here’s the opposition party rolling over belly up on the pivotal issue of healthcare.
As Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) put it on social media, “Senator Schumer is no longer effective and should be replaced. If you can’t lead the fight to stop healthcare premiums from skyrocketing for Americans, what will you fight for?”
If the recent elections had any lessons in them, it’s that Democrats — and voters in general — want courage. Love or hate Zohran Mamdani, his win as New York City mayor was due in no small part to his daring to forge his own path. Ditto on Gov. Gavin Newsom and Proposition 50.
Mamdani put that sentiment best in his victory speech, promising an age when people can “expect from their leaders a bold vision of what we will achieve, rather than a list of excuses for what we are too timid to attempt.”
Before you start angry-emailing me, yes, I do understand how much pain the shutdown in causing, especially for furloughed workers and people facing disruptions in their SNAP benefits. I feel for every person who doesn’t know how they will pay their bills.
But here are the facts that we can’t forget. Republicans have purposefully made that pain intense in order to break Democrats. Trump has found ways to pay his deportation agents, while simultaneously not paying critical workers such as airport screeners and air traffic controllers, where the chaos created by their absence is both visible and disruptive. He has also threatened to not give back pay to some of those folks when this does end.
The government shutdown has led to numerous flight cancellations and delays coming into and out of Southern California airports over the weekend.
And on the give-in-or-don’t-eat front, he’s actually been ordered by courts to pay those Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits and is fighting it. Republicans could easily band together and demand that money goes out while the rest is hashed out, but they don’t want to. They want people to go hungry so that Democrats will break, and it worked.
But at what cost?
About 24 million people will be hit by these premium increases, leaving up to 4 million unable to keep their insurance. Unable to go to the doctor for routine care. Unable to pay for cancer treatments. Unable to have that lump, that pain, the broken bone looked at. Unable to get their kid a flu shot.
In many ways, this isn’t a California problem. The majority of these folks are in Southern, Republican states that refused to expand Medicaid when they had the chance. About 6 in 10 subsidy recipients are represented by Republicans, according to KFF, led by those living in Florida, Georgia and Mississippi. But Americans have been clear that we want access to care for all of us, as a right, not an expensive privilege.
Which makes it all the more mystifying that Democrats are so eager to give up, on an issue that unites voters across parties, across demographics, across our seemingly endless divides.
But I guess that’s just how the cookie crumbles.
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Ideas expressed in the piece
Eight Senate Democrats abandoned their party’s unified stance on healthcare, breaking with the Democratic coalition to allow the government shutdown without securing an extension of enhanced ACA premium subsidies that expire at the end of 2025[1][3].
Democratic leadership, particularly Senate leadership, failed to maintain party discipline on a critical healthcare vote, demonstrating an inability to keep the caucus together when it matters most and raising questions about their capacity to effectively oppose Republican initiatives[1][3].
Republicans deliberately refused to extend enhanced ACA subsidies as a political strategy to increase healthcare costs for millions of Americans, despite these subsidies being part of current law and benefiting both low- and middle-income families[1].
The expiration of enhanced subsidies will devastate American households dependent on marketplace insurance, with premiums more than doubling on average for subsidized enrollees—increasing from an average of $888 in 2025 to $1,904 in 2026, representing a 114% increase[3].
Middle-income families will face particularly severe financial burdens, with a 60-year-old couple earning $85,000 annually seeing their yearly premium payments rise by over $22,600, forcing them to allocate approximately 25% of their entire income toward health insurance instead of the current 8.5%[3].
Approximately 4 million people could lose their health insurance coverage entirely due to the unaffordable costs, preventing them from accessing routine care, cancer treatments, and basic preventive services like vaccinations[1].
Healthcare affordability is a unifying issue across political parties and demographic groups, making Democrats’ failure to defend the subsidies particularly mystifying given voter consensus on access to care.
Democratic leaders lack the courage and bold vision that voters demonstrated they want in recent elections, choosing instead to surrender on a pivotal issue rather than fighting for Americans’ healthcare security.
Different views on the topic
Permanently extending the enhanced ACA subsidies would increase the federal deficit by $350 billion over ten years, plus approximately $60 billion in additional interest costs, representing total government spending increases exceeding $488 billion—funds comparable to the entire budgets of major federal agencies[2].
The enhanced subsidies disproportionately benefit higher-income individuals, with roughly one-third of the boosted subsidies going to people with incomes above 400% of the federal poverty level, and the temporary expansion having eliminated income caps that allowed some Americans earning nearly $600,000 to qualify for government benefits[2].
These subsidies effectively subsidize insurance companies rather than patients, as most premium tax credits are paid directly to insurers in advance rather than claimed by individuals at tax time, allowing the insurance industry to shift rising premium costs onto taxpayers while health insurer stock prices have increased over 1,000% since the ACA was enacted[2].
The enhanced subsidy program has been plagued by significant enrollment fraud, with estimates suggesting more than 6.4 million improper enrollees costing taxpayers $27 billion in 2025, and 11.7 million enrollees representing over one-third of the marketplace having filed no claims for their heavily subsidized insurance benefits[2].
The original ACA subsidy structure remains permanent for those qualifying under existing guidelines, and the temporary expansion enacted during the pandemic should be allowed to expire as originally scheduled rather than becoming a permanent entitlement[2].
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