The Price of Care: Fixing The ACA

What A Day

Crooked Media

News, Daily News

4.6 • 12K Ratings

🗓️ 28 October 2025

⏱️ 22 minutes

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Summary

The main issue keeping the government closed is healthcare — specifically, the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that have been in place since 2021 and further lowered premium costs for Americans. Democrats want the enhanced subsidies extended, Republicans don’t. Without them, folks who rely on healthcare plans they bought on the exchange will see their premiums skyrocket. But there are other countries with private insurance options where healthcare doesn’t cost so much that people risk going without it. To find out what’s going on here and what America could do about it, we spoke to Mark Shepard. He’s an associate professor of public policy at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government. And in headlines, the U.S. extends its trade deal with Mexico for several weeks, USDA confirms food stamps will not go out November 1, and a rag-tag group of former USAID workers band together to fund some of the shuttered agency’s most critical programs.

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's Tuesday, October 28th. I'm Jane Koston, and this is what a day, the show asking,
0:07.7	why did President Donald Trump get an MRI at his last physical at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center?
0:14.0	I did. I got an MRI. It was perfect. You know, typically, one does not get an MRI at a physical. But maybe I'm just not achieving the same levels of stupendous health as our 79-year-old president.
0:33.0	On today's show, like many of us, the president gets mad at a Canadian ad he saw during the World Series.
0:39.1	Not like many of us, it's informing his statecraft.
0:42.3	And a rag-tag group of former USAID workers banned together to fund some of the shuttered agency's most critical programs.
0:49.3	But let's start with health care.
0:51.2	Because the main issue keeping the government closed is health care. Specifically,
0:56.2	the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that have been in place since 2021 and further lowered
1:01.5	premium costs. Democrats want the enhanced subsidies extended. Republicans don't. Without them,
1:08.2	folks who rely on health care plans they bought on the exchange will see their
1:11.2	premium skyrocket. For example, the Chicago Tribune reported on Monday that Illinois residents could
1:16.8	see their ACA plan costs increased by about 80% if the subsidies expire. And in New Jersey,
1:22.9	health care costs on the exchange could rise by 175%. Some Republicans are starting to worry that doing absolutely
1:30.1	nothing while millions of Americans either pay more for health care or lose it entirely may
1:35.2	make it tougher to hold on to Congress in 2026. But what to do about it? Of course, Republicans could
1:41.8	negotiate with Democrats to extend the subsidies and end the shutdown, but obviously they won't do that.
1:48.1	House Speaker Mike Johnson tried one tested tactic to handle the issue on Monday, lying.
1:53.3	What we're doing right now, what we have been doing, what we were already doing, because we knew we were coming up to the end of the year, and we know that health care is a major burden for the American people. We've been working on it since day one of this Congress.
2:05.2	We worked on it in the years prior. Apparently, cutting Medicaid by 15 percent now constitutes
2:11.6	working on health care since day one of this Congress. And let's not even get into the in the
2:17.3	years prior thing before I get
	...

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