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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Screwing the Middle Class

Screwing the Middle Class

by $8 blue check mistermix|  September 24, 20215:51 pm| 32 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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Kevin Drum points out that one of the casualties of shrinking the reconciliation bill from $3.5 trillion will be the extended Obamacare subsidies. Other middle-class benefits on the chopping block include the child tax credit, universal Pre-K, two years of free community college and funding for long-term care done at home.

I wrote a while back about my adventures looking at Obamacare plans. There is nothing great about this insurance. You can easily pay $7-14K out of pocket for relatively common medical issues. But, at least with the extended subsidy, people making > 400% of the Federal Poverty Level can get a subsidy. For example, a couple making $80K per year, which is just a wee bit over 400% (which is $70K), would get a $470/month subsidy. This cuts your Bronze plan premium to about $500/month, and Silver is about $740/month. That’s still expensive when you’re making $80K. But without that subsidy, a couple making $80K is on the hook for almost $6K more in premiums. That’s huge.

When you take money away from someone who is budgeting on it, you really piss them off. In the minds of most normies, the Democrats control government. We own it when their insurance premiums go up $470/month, or when they aren’t getting a child tax credit, or when they have to pay a lot more out of pocket for the home health care grandma needs when she’s living at their house. We are the ones that they’ll be mad at. I wouldn’t blame anybody who lost a $6K government benefit for slamming the door in the face of a Democrat who came to their doorstep looking for a vote.

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Reader Interactions

32Comments

  1. 1.

    Gin & Tonic

    September 24, 2021 at 5:54 pm

    So should I kill myself now, or wait a couple of weeks?

  2. 2.

    Wvng

    September 24, 2021 at 5:56 pm

    Manchin will pay no political price for this treachery in WV, but Sinema will be a dead woman walking in AZ. I wonder if her owners will make it worth it for her.

  3. 3.

    dr. bloor

    September 24, 2021 at 5:57 pm

    When you take money away from someone who is budgeting on it, you really piss them off. In the minds of most normies,

    You’d have trouble finding someone for a man/woman-on-the-street interview with any middle class normie who was tuned into this. Fixing health care is going to be an uphill–think Everest–climb until Americans lose the employer-sponsored health care umbrella.

  4. 4.

    Baud

    September 24, 2021 at 5:57 pm

    The lesson is, don’t provide benefits.

  5. 5.

    WaterGirl

    September 24, 2021 at 6:05 pm

    @Baud: I simply can not recommend that as a campaign slogan.

  6. 6.

    Another Scott

    September 24, 2021 at 6:07 pm

    @Baud:  “My bonus last quarter wasn’t big enough to get Muffy her the private pickleball lessons she’s been bugging me about. So, I’m going to need you to put in an extra 20 hours a week this quarter for the same pay to make sure we can swing it. Since you’re a team player, I knew I didn’t run it by you first….”

    :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  7. 7.

    sab

    September 24, 2021 at 6:13 pm

    My older sister and her husband are tenured college professors. My rich dad paid for her kids college and graduate school. All of the straight ones have multiple children.

    My stepkids are working class. Probably more useful to society ( they ship stuff and fix stuff.) None of them feel secure enough to have kids, and only one of them did. I have some grandchildren who aren’t technically my grandchildren, just kids I love who came into my orbit. Education is a huge expense, and they are meanwhile somehow managing a roof over their heads.

    The two different worlds are amazing for their difference. My Republican mother never understood how hard life has become for the working class.

  8. 8.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    September 24, 2021 at 6:19 pm

    There’s just a stream of too much shit hitting the fan today. I thought Friday was supposed to be a slow news day! And this is from last week (via Popehat)!

    Federal judges agreed to speak on a panel for the fringe Federalist Society on how to litigate against the Biden administration. These are the JUDGES who are supposed to hear the cases, handing out tips to the society that arranged their nominations on how to win before them.
    https://t.co/NUjWLUlxPk

    — Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) September 17, 2021

  9. 9.

    JPL

    September 24, 2021 at 6:21 pm

    We should make health care more affordable.   I hate these people.

  10. 10.

    sab

    September 24, 2021 at 6:24 pm

    @Steeplejack (phone): JFC. I am speechless. Approaching ksmiami level of outrage. And I am actually an institutionalist.

  11. 11.

    topclimber

    September 24, 2021 at 6:26 pm

    If it is triage time for BBB, what are our priorities and/or predictions?

    Renewed child care credit, cause Joe B will insist; Medicare expansion, because Bernie Bunch will insist; climate investment because every Dem will insist on it; tax the 1 percent because it is long overdue and because I personally insist.

  12. 12.

    trollhattan

    September 24, 2021 at 6:28 pm

    If you’re having a bad day, somebody is probably having a worse one watching lava lumps drop into their swimming pool.

  13. 13.

    dr. bloor

    September 24, 2021 at 6:29 pm

    @sab: Let’s see what the ABA does to these off-the-rails, unethical renegades.

    <crickets>

  14. 14.

    WaterGirl

    September 24, 2021 at 6:37 pm

    @Steeplejack (phone): That makes me want to bang my head against a wall.

  15. 15.

    WaterGirl

    September 24, 2021 at 6:39 pm

    @WaterGirl: This has really been a shitty news week.  Make that two weeks.  Nah, make it a month.

  16. 16.

    Roger Moore

    September 24, 2021 at 6:42 pm

    @Steeplejack (phone):

    In all fairness, the advice is pretty useless, since the Federalist Society judges were going to rule against Biden no matter what.

  17. 17.

    TheflipPsyd

    September 24, 2021 at 6:45 pm

    @WaterGirl: I remember New Years Eve 2019 and all the major networks showed interviews of people saying how glad they were to say goodbye to 2019 and hoping 2020 would be better. Three months later the pandemic hit.   So, at least three years of shifty news weeks.

     

    ETA shifty = shitty. Although shifty may fit as well

  18. 18.

    Omnes Omnibus

    September 24, 2021 at 6:51 pm

    @dr. bloor: ​
      The ABA is a trade association, not a licensing board.

  19. 19.

    WaterGirl

    September 24, 2021 at 6:51 pm

    @TheflipPsyd: I know. I just didn’t expect so many hits even under Biden.  I seriously underestimated how low these people would go.

  20. 20.

    sab

    September 24, 2021 at 7:02 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus: Thank God for small favors.

  21. 21.

    dr. bloor

    September 24, 2021 at 7:02 pm

    @Omnes Omnibus:  Sure, but the jurists in question are probably members–and if not, it would be interesting to hear them articulate the reasons they aren’t–and no one wants to deal with a violation of guild ethics.

  22. 22.

    Nutmeg again

    September 24, 2021 at 7:14 pm

    @sab: Post-war Republicans have always been about judging the deserving poor, and the “undeserving”. But really, it’s Calvinism–if you have economic struggles, that just proves you’re not among the elect! (as opposed to not among the lucky…)

    Apologies if this comes off as a bad word against your mom.

    Me, I just learned a few weeks ago that I am now eligible for a Biden subsidy on my health insurance. I buy my own individual policy, since I had to retire early due to spine problems. Fun! Anyway, it’s a chunk of cash, and I would be very sorry to have it grabbed away again. The effing insurance company gets enough from me as it is.

    Yep, we really need nationalized health insurance. Really, we need a politics and society oriented towards taking care of all of us, not just taking from some of us.

  23. 23.

    Omnes Omnibus

    September 24, 2021 at 7:14 pm

    @dr. bloor: MY experience is that the only people who stay ABA members after the free year you get for passing the bar are the people at Big Law firms where the the firm picks up the tab.  Even state bar associations are not necessarily mandatory.  For example, in Ohio, membership is optional – licensing is done by the state supreme court.  OTOH, in Wisconsin, membership in the bar association is required as a part of licensing.  The ABA is a prestige organization, but it carries no real weight on its own.

  24. 24.

    sab

    September 24, 2021 at 7:15 pm

    @trollhattan: Subpar Parks by Amber Sharp has a poster ” Didn’t even get to touch lava”.

  25. 25.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    September 24, 2021 at 7:19 pm

    @trollhattan:

    I hate when that happens.

  26. 26.

    sab

    September 24, 2021 at 7:20 pm

    @Nutmeg again: My mom was born in lower middle management. She worked very hard to marry up and forget where she came from. Her dad grew up on a farm. One of her grandparent’s was the son of Irish laborers. He married a Canadian banker’s daughter who went to nursing school in Chicago. Lots of mixed class signals always in our family.

  27. 27.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    September 24, 2021 at 7:20 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    Silver lining!

  28. 28.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    September 24, 2021 at 7:20 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: 

    I really hope this is sarcasm

  29. 29.

    Spadesofgrey

    September 24, 2021 at 7:41 pm

    Incorrect.
    1. Much like the minimum wage, there is support, but not the level. The idiots that came up with the 3.5 number need fired. Even Sanders didn’t ask for that much. It made it harder to negotiate.
    2. ACA prems are a must. Drum is a idiot and idiots make stupid statements. Lesbo, fossil fuel boy and Biden all campaigned on it.
    3. Medicare expansion is nothing but a backdoor MFA attempt. It’s gone.

  30. 30.

    Ksmiami

    September 24, 2021 at 9:01 pm

    @sab:  I wasn’t always at this level… but if you’re not at this outrage level now, you haven’t been paying attention….

  31. 31.

    Ksmiami

    September 24, 2021 at 9:03 pm

    @WaterGirl: you could say you’ve been rickrolled then?

  32. 32.

    sab

    September 25, 2021 at 3:30 am

    @Ksmiami: Outrage mostly isn’t useful. It’s a distraction.

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