In addition to many other points I cover, it’s important to remember that the third leg of the stool may have been cut off, but it was also immediately replaced by the World’s Most Expensive Shim...in the form of ~$5 billion/year in additional subsidies to cover the rate hikes.
It’s also important to note that states covering about ~15% of the individual market *reinstated* the penalty after it was zeroed out, so only ~85% of it was actually effectively eliminated. That makes it even less clear how effective or not it’s been.
In addition, as @bjdickmayhew notes, the advent of #SilverLoading also significantly mitigated some of the premium pricing damage which otherwise would have resulted in more people dropping coverage...by effectively increasing subsidies even more: balloon-juice.com/2020/09/18/no-…
As I noted in my piece, the great irony of the GOP zeroing out the federal mandate penalty is that in doing so, they actually made Obamacare MORE like the ORIGINAL Obamacare. Remember, Obama argued AGAINST a penalty during the 2008 primaries, though he later came around.
Also, as @clinkeyoung highlighted the other day, the mandate penalty served/serves another important function: It discourages people from enrolling in junk plans, since doing so DIDN’T get you off the hook for paying the penalty (with some exceptions): gao.gov/mobile/product…
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
🧵 People have asked me why I started an organized project to raise money *directly* for Democratic candidates up & down the ballot when there's already so many other organizations out there doing this. There's a couple of reasons. 1/
The first is that most of the existing organizations/PACs/etc seem to (in my view) *either* focus ONLY on the true swing districts *or* they raise money for races which are clearly unwinnable without being up front about how long the odds in those races are. 2/
I try to walk the line between these--for district-level races I cast my net wider than most "tossup only!" advocates, but not absurdly wide; for statewide races I *do* include deep red states but also make it absolutely clear that those races are *very* long shots. 3/
A little fun Die Hard trivia for those who don’t know:
The first Die Hard was based on a 1979 novel called Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorp. In the novel McClain’s character was named Joe Leland. This was a sequel to a 1966 novel by Thorp called The Detective. 1/
The Detective had been made into a film starring Frank Sinatra as Joe Leland in 1968.
This means Bruce Willis plays the same character as Frank Sinatra.
In fact, the studio was contractually required to offer the role to Sinatra if he wanted it. Sinatra was 73 at the time.
As for the novel Nothing Lasts Forever (title since changed to “Die Hard”), it follows most of the same storyline and characters, but with a few VERY important differences…
How does the @nytimes know that these are actual federal officials who actually signed it if they did so “anonymously?”
Does that mean the Times is redacting their names? Or does it just say “signed, 400 officials” at the bottom of the letter?
@nytimes I’m not being snarky here—I can’t read the original NY Times article without a subscription; do they clarify how they verified that these 400 people actually are federal officials and that they did in fact sign off on the letter in it?
1. DON'T DELAY; #GETCOVERED BY *DECEMBER 15th* IF POSSIBLE!
#ACA Open Enrollment officially runs from 11/01/23 - 1/16/24, but if you want your coverage to start in JANUARY you only have until December 15th in most states!
Here's a table of the deadlines & when coverage starts for every state +DC (some may be extended at the last minute):