The Schumer Shutdown

GoldenBoy89 said:

The same illegal aliens that are being deposited at record numbers? Wouldn’t it make it easier to have them all on some government list?

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Deposited? Or deported?

Sportsballfan said:

Deposited? Or deported?

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lol thanks!

There's no such thing as free - someone has to pay for it.

Colo Millz said:

There's no such thing as free - someone has to pay for it.

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Yes we understand this part.

Servus said:

They want benefits for illegal aliens, and subsides or free healthcare and benefits for people who don't want to work or can't because they indulge in substance abuse.

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No, that's false. Yes those here on asylum protected status (legal status) pay taxes, pay into social security, pay into medicaid can access those benefits. No one here outright illegally access those benefits. So kind of like those Haitians who Trump accused of eating dogs and cats working in that city because as you note, they can because Americans don't show up because of substance abuse problems.

GoldenBoy89 said:

... Healthcare should be free of cost for everyone. ...

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Apparently not.

Servus said:

They want benefits for illegal aliens, and subsides or free healthcare and benefits for people who don't want to work or can't because they indulge in substance abuse.

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And where does the rest of that 1.5 trillion go? Keep focusing on the small percentage to the detriment of hard working Americans who still can’t afford insurance/ healthcare. Republicans have no solution so they distract with democrats wanting to continue reimbursing hospitals for emergency care of illegals as a bad thing.

This is just more of the “Some people who I don’t approve of receiving benefits are included so cancel benefits for all” mindset.

comana said:

And where does the rest of that 1.5 trillion go? Keep focusing on the small percentage to the detriment of hard working Americans who still can’t afford insurance/ healthcare. Republicans have no solution so they distract with democrats wanting to continue reimbursing hospitals for emergency care of illegals as a bad thing.

This is just more of the “Some people who I don’t approve of receiving benefits are included so cancel benefits for all” mindset.

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If it's an insignificant percentage, why haven't the Democrats eliminated it from their demands?

A BIG REASON REPUBLICANS object to extending the subsidies is the cost, which works out to about $35 billion a year. But it’s not just the amount of money involved that they find objectionable. It’s also the principle: The bigger the subsidies, the more money is taken from hard-working taxpayers. (And, some on the right would additionally complain, the more money is transferred to less productive members of society, creating potential dependency.)

It’s true that, with the extra subsidies, the federal government can end up covering the entire premium for some people at low incomes, since they qualify for the most assistance. But that’s what happens in a social insurance system: Healthy people pay more to cover the costs of the sick, rich people pay more to pay the costs of the poor. And when health care is as expensive as it is in the United States, there’s simply no way to make health care affordable to everyone without a lot of those transfers.

A little math can help illustrate why. Annual health care costs in the United States are about $13,400 per person, based on the most recent figures available, according to the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker. That’s way more than somebody at even twice the poverty line—which works out to about $30,000 in annual income—can possibly afford. They’re going to need a ton of help.

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This brings us to another principled argument critics make: that massive government expenditures warp the market pressures in the health care sector and contribute to runaway costs. That’s because, according to these critics, the subsidies inject more money into health care, which, in turn, induces providers of care to raise prices while reducing the incentives to resist.

To be clear, this is an argument conservatives have made about the Affordable Care Act from the very beginning. The twist now is that they say the problem got even worse with the extra subsidies Democrats added in 2021—the ones that are a central issue in the shutdown fight.

But the numbers tell a different story.

One of the best ways to measure health care spending is by looking at a country’s overall spending on medical care and comparing it to the country’s overall economic output—or, as the wonks put it, health care spending as a percentage of gross domestic product.

In the fifteen years before the Affordable Care Act became law, health care spending went from 13.4 percent to 17.2 percent. In the fifteen years since the law’s enactment, that figure has barely budged, moving from 17.2 to just 17.6 percent.

“If your thesis is that the Affordable Care Act has caused health care costs in the U.S. to explode, it’s pretty hard to square that claim with the facts,” Matthew Fiedler, a Brookings Institution economist who served in the Obama administration, told me.

Servus said:

If it's an insignificant percentage, why haven't the Democrats eliminated it from their demands?

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Because it’s necessary.

Servus said:

They want benefits for illegal aliens, and subsides or free healthcare and benefits for people who don't want to work or can't because they indulge in substance abuse.

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None of this is true.

Servus said:

If it's an insignificant percentage, why haven't the Democrats eliminated it from their demands?

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Eliminated what? Reimbursing hospitals for the services they provide? You feel hospitals should provide their services for free?

comana said:

Because it’s necessary.

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Why is it necessary for immigrants to immediately get better benefits than retired Americans?

Belk said:

Eliminated what? Reimbursing hospitals for the services they provide? You feel hospitals should provide their services for free?

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The small percentage @comana spoke of.

Servus said:

The small percentage @comana spoke of.

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So you don't know. That makes sense.

Servus said:

Why is it necessary for immigrants to immediately get better benefits than retired Americans?

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They don’t.

Servus said:

Why is it necessary for immigrants to immediately get better benefits than retired Americans?

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Why can’t we have better retirement and healthcare for everyone? Republicans don’t want to make that happen for anyone.

comana said:

Why can’t we have better retirement and healthcare for everyone? Republicans don’t want to make that happen for anyone.

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How would they make that happen, and why don't they want to?

comana said:

They don’t.

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Was Marco Rubio lying? If so, what are the real numbers?

Servus said:

How would they make that happen, and why don't they want to?

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It cuts insurance industry profits.