The Affordable Healthcare Government Shutdown Postgame

Government Shutdown Post-Game

Speaker: [00:00:00] Hey, y'all, guess what? Guess what? Guess, guess. Okay. Okay. Okay. The national nightmare is over. It's over. No, I'm not talking about that one. The other one? No, not that one. No, not that one either. Well, you know, it's, it's, it's a, it's a big one. The one that I care about the, the most.

Right now, currently on this particular date. I've got some explaining to do. Let's get into.

 Hey everyone. Hey. I finally figured out how to do something with this board, and I'm [00:01:00] so delighted

 I'm sitting here fiddling with my board and I was like, lemme see what this can do. And I discovered that I can assign my podcast intro and outro to the buttons on the board.

 Ah, I know. It's the little things. Welcome back for another episode of Ayana Explains that all the podcast bridging the gap between current events and human behavior. I am your host, Ayana R. Fakhir, the lady who has an opinion on everything.

Your black Muslim lady lawyer who is coming to you from the, um, I don't even know what to call this weather. One minute it's snowing. The next minute it's warm and it's rainy. But this is northeast Ohio. That's where I'm coming to you from. Ayana explains it all. Is the podcast bridging the gap between current events and human behavior?

Because you need to understand why people act the way that they act and how it affects you. Yes, you do. Also, Ayana explains it all is available on multiple streaming platforms, including Spotify, which is our flagship Apple podcast, [00:02:00] Amazon Music, good Pods, Pandora, a host of others, including my website. We have a website, the show's website, www.ayanaexplainsitall.com.

I've had people, uh, who I just met listen to it and say that they enjoy it. Some people who say they don't agree with me, and that's perfectly fine, that is fine. I takes all, I take some all honey. I take criticism, constructive. I take hatred. I receive some of that. I take it all in stride. I take love too.

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There are multiple ways to listen. As I said, you can listen through your favorite podcast , player, but you can also listen from the website. Yes, let's get some traffic to the website. www.ayanaexplainsatall.com. That's A-Y-A-N-A explains it all.com. You can find transcripts, show notes, references.

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My collaborative efforts right now, I'm working with the group called Our Vote Counts, and we're working over on TikTok Live, but we're also on Facebook and Instagram, [00:04:00] and we are a group of non-partisan individuals who are helping to educate. Uh, voters throughout the United States by presenting grassroots candidates through TikTok.

Live style town halls where candidates, doesn't matter what you're running for, doesn't matter what office they can present their platform. Explain a little bit about who they are and why they're running and what inspired them to run, but also they can take questions from the public. We do it several times a week.

There's no particular time. You just gotta catch us. You gotta follow the account. That's our vote counts on TikTok. Live on TikTok, rather, follow the account. And if you know someone who's running for, for office and who could use more exposure for their campaign, reach out to us on TikTok. They have to be on TikTok.

I cannot stress this enough. They have to be on the tiktoks. You can, uh, pop into one of our, um, town halls and see if this is for you, [00:05:00] for your campaign. Let us know. Again, send us a dm. Our vote counts. So we, uh, interviewed many candidates before the November four fourth election. And one of the candidates we interviewed was a young man, 22 years old, and he was running for the mayor of his small town in Georgia.

He won. I'm so proud to say that I got to ask him the tough questions. Yes. I really dug in. No, I didn't. I was nice. I was good. I, uh, the whole point of this is to educate voters. Voters love to hear from candidates. And one of the things I noticed from the last election, the November 4th election, was that people who had, uh, complained for many months about this particular, uh, seat or candidate or office, a lot of people really didn't show up to vote.

So I can't imagine that people who were complaining were complaining. Other than for superficial reasons, [00:06:00] because, the election, at least where I live at, was poorly attended, which is very disappointing because in the city of Cleveland, I mean northeast Ohio, the city of Cleveland had a mayoral race. They had city council races. There were, um, bond issues. There were bond issues. Where I live at, in the, in the suburb I, I live in, there was a school board race.

There were all these things having to deal with your money, your schools, your representation, the people who make the laws, the people who enforce the laws, and people who are registered to vote. I'm not saying everybody didn't show up. No, these are, if you look at the number of people who were registered to vote less than half of those registered voters showed up to this election.

Yeah, it's an off year election, so what off year just means it's a non-presidential year, still an important election. It's still important. All of these elections are important. All of them. All of them are, and [00:07:00] I know that my state of Ohio makes it easy for people to vote multiple ways. You can vote early in person, you can vote by mail, you can vote the day of, of the election.

Polls are open from like 6:00 AM to 7:00 PM 7:30 PM Really? So there's, I mean, the, I guess the only excuse was would be if you were sick and you were, you know, laid up or something. But I, I can't imagine that many people were laid up. I mean, I wanted to be laid up, but we were on that night with the, our vote counts and we were, um, watching the elections, but we were also interviewing candidates.

It's, it's just been an amazing, wonderful thing. And I, I love seeing people who never believed. Or never thought that they would run for office just one day going, you know what? I'm tired of the, I'm tired of this. I'm tired of this grandpa. And then, uh, getting their paperwork together, writing down their ideas, coming up with a [00:08:00] platform and running and just filing their papers and running for office.

We've talked to state representative candidates for the Senate and the House. We've talked to US representatives for the US Senate and House. We've talked to mayoral candidates, school board candidates. We've talked to, um, gosh, city council candidates. We've talked to, ah, we've talked to gubernatorial candidates.

Yes. In the state of, uh, Florida and California, we've talked to people about progressive ideas. We've talked to people about just new, new, fresh, new ideas, young candidates, older candidates, men, women, black, white, Asian, Hispanic. These are people who literally want to change the landscape.

They wanna change the landscape from doom to gloom, which I appreciate.

And you need to know the people who want to represent you in these various [00:09:00] offices. They owe it to you to tell you who they are, to tell you what their platform is, to tell you, what their ideas are and how they're gonna pay for it. That's become a big issue lately. How are we paying for things? People are so concerned about their tax dollars, right?

Listen, I've harped about this. I've, I've gone on about this before, but I pay four different income taxes. Four, I pay income taxes to the city I work in, to the city I live in, to the state I live in. And obviously to Uncle Sam. I pay a lot of taxes. And not everyone is paying the same level of taxes. Not everyone is paying, uh, as, as much in taxes.

Not everyone pays any income tax at all, but people are concerned where the money is going and they want you to show them and they wanna see it, but they don't always understand it. This is the other thing I'm finding as I'm, uh, in these as they say, TikTok streets, and I've been on a few TikTok live [00:10:00] panels, discussing politics and economics and social issues with people.

People don't understand how the government works. Oh Lord, it's exhausting. As someone who understands how government works, and I'm talking about all three of the branches, as someone who understands fully how this machine works, talking to people who do not know is okay. It's okay to not know something, but people are willfully ignorant and obtuse and insist.

There are those people who insist that they know something and they're so obviously wrong, and they will not admit that they're wrong. They won't relent. They'll insist in their wrongness, and it's, it's like trying to reason with a toddler. About whether they can have a chicken nuggie

they exhaust me.

 I don't have any notes to, uh, read from today. No outline. Today I just wanted to talk about the end of this [00:11:00] national nightmare, this government shutdown that, uh, went on for God too fricking long. You know, the last longest shutdown, government shutdown was 35 days.

People don't remember that government down because the, uh, government did something that actually helped itself this time around. They did not do that. They made sure that most of the offices received their appropriations, so. There were offices that were open and people were getting paid. They were working and getting paid, but there were also offices where people were furloughed and some that weren't getting paid, but most people were getting paid.

That's why we don't remember it, because a lot of people were still getting paid 'cause their offices had their funding. But also the USDA issued the [00:12:00] next month's snap allow SNAP funding allotment to people's, uh, SNAP cards because they anticipated that, uh, the shutdown was coming and they didn't want people to go without their benefits.

So this time they did not do that, but they did have a contingency plan. And if you go onto the Office of Management and B Budget's website, I don't even know if that this is still up there because they take things down when they don't want people to know that they're supposed to know something.

They don't want you to know that this information exists. So though the, the federal government, whoever's in charge, will just remove the information. So you won't know that this information exists. So you won't be empowered, you know, but this time around their policy was, we're going to put a certain amount of money in a contingency fund because we know the shutdown is coming and we'll just use this money to fund as much of the SNAP program as possible.

Because there's, there's no way that the shutdown is gonna go on for longer than, you know, a week. I was thinking [00:13:00] a week, I was thinking a week. Um, and then that turned into two and three and four, and five and six, seven and eight. And before you know it, it was

 43 days. Yes, 43 days. The longest in history, and I must say the stupidest. This was a stupid fucking shutdown. This was dumb. It was dumb. I'm not even gonna get into what party was responsible because frankly, they both were, in my opinion, in my grand royal opinion. And people may disagree with me, and that is fine, but this is my show.

The issue, and it's an issue that we've been dealing with in the United States since I, I wanna say the 1920s and 1930s. The issue is affordable healthcare, just the affordability of healthcare in the United States and the [00:14:00] affordability of health insurance. We had a shut down before having to deal with the passage of legislation that was supposed to bring the cost of healthcare and health insurance down.

It was supposed to decrease it, the a CA, and it did in some respects, made a lot of services free, provided free healthcare coverage for many people, but it left some people out. And this has long been, uh, uh, an issue that people have talked about in the media. It's not something that was a secret. Unless you just didn't care to know.

But there were people who were left out of the affordability of healthcare. They made too much money for expanded Medicaid and the regular premiums that the government provided. And by the way, the premiums, let me just say the premiums are a tax credit, right? You either pay for the health insurance premium upfront yourself, [00:15:00] and then you get the money back as a tax credit, or the government sends the money to your insurance company, right?

So you, you don't ever really see the money, like see it. You don't see it, but you see it, you see the savings. But um, so these premiums, some people made too much money in income to qualify for the regular premiums and the expanded Medicaid. They also did not make enough money. An income to pay for a monthly premium out of their pockets.

Some of these premiums were a couple thousand dollars a month, $900 a month, 1200 $5,000 a month, depending on the state that you live in and the size of your household. So those were the people who were caught in that gap in the middle. And it was a lot of lower [00:16:00] income people, middle income people, the a CA people who passed it, the Dems, the Republicans.

The Republicans especially. They didn't do shit to fix it. They did absolutely nothing to fix it, and it was a major problem and it caused many millions of people to have to go without health insurance. There were still millions of people who did not have. Health insurance, they chose to forego it because they were not gonna come out of their pockets.

A thousand dollars, $2,000, $3,000 a month just to pay the premiums. And then you still have a spend down and copays, uh, no, that's, that's unaffordable healthcare. But that was one of the issues with the a CA. The other issues that people will argue all day is, well, it enriched insurance companies or, um, the lie that people tell that, uh, undocumented workers can get it.

They can't, by the way, they cannot receive a health insurance policy on [00:17:00] the a CA exchange. You have to have a social security number. You don't have to be a citizen. You have to have a social security number. And by the way, permanent residents can get a social security number.

But. Undocumented workers were receiving if a state that they lived in provided it, they receive Medicaid from the state. Some states have Medicaid programs that allow for undocumented workers to receive care courtesy of the state because the state recognizes that they have a high population of undocumented workers.

Perhaps their economy depends on this high population of undocumented workers like New York and California. And so if these people are going to be here and working here and but they also, uh, can't afford health insurance, okay, we're going to give them some Medicaid, they're poor, obviously, we're gonna give them Medicaid and understand what Medicaid is, right?

Medicaid [00:18:00] does not cover everything. People think Medicaid covers everything. It doesn't. No, it does not. It doesn't cover every medication. It doesn't cover every therapy. It doesn't cover every treatment. It doesn't cover every specialist. It simply does not. However, I digress. So there are these people caught in the middle.

Now, what happened when more people needed health insurance? A little something called the COVID-19 pandemic happened and more people, millions of people were sick around the world, right? Hundreds of thousands of people in the United States. Sick. Over 1 million people died. People are now, uh, suffering with the symptoms of long COVID cognitive issues, uh, cardiovascular issues, respiratory issues, the gamut.

It runs the gamut, right? Muscle [00:19:00] diseases, joint diseases, all kinds of things. People needed health insurance to, to cover their, their treatments. They needed to see doctors, specialists, es especially, they probably needed physical therapy. They needed, uh, mental health therapy. They needed home oxygen, right?

And if you don't have health insurance and you're not working, coming out of your pocket for that, it's not gonna happen. So in 2021, the Biden administration with the leadership of the Democrats in the House and the Senate, they came up with these a CA premium subsidies. These premium subsidies, right, different from the regular subsidies, they raise the income cap so that more people could qualify for the subsidies, their premium subsidies.

Great. [00:20:00] More people were able to buy health insurance policies and pay a hundred, $160 a month, $90 a month, $200 a month, substantially lower than what the prices will be in 2026. Substantially lower, and they needed it. Right? More people were developing cardiovascular diseases. Again, respiratory diseases, especially because of COVID.

But many millions of people benefited from this. People who had no, no, people had, who didn't have COVID, people who were, who were entrepreneurs, people who, uh, worked for an employer, middle income, lower income. People were benefiting from this. They were renewed in 2023, set to expire in December of 2025, on December 31st, 2025.

 I don't know why the Democrats did not work to make these permanent. Perhaps they thought, well, the economy will recover [00:21:00] well enough and people will no longer need these premium subsidies. They'll be back to work and making, uh, enough money where they could, uh, provide insurance for themselves through an employer.

Or they would just be making more money, or maybe the insurance companies will magically lower the prices. I don't know what they were thinking and not making these permanent, but perhaps they didn't have Republican support. That's another thing. Republicans have been trying to dismantle the a CA since it was passed.

They have sued to have this provision overturned, that provision overturned. They have attempted so many times to vote in the house in the Senate to have it struck down. They've only been successful on one front, and that's the individual mandate. The mandate that you have to have insurance or pay a penalty.

That was struck down. Okay. The Supreme Court struck that down. So that's gone. All the other provisions that have been challenged have withstood their, [00:22:00] uh, legal challenges and the Republicans have never gotten enough votes in the House or the Senate, and they've never come up with a plan of their own to replace the a CA.

So you wanna leave people without the protections and the goodies that the a CA has afforded them all of these years, but you don't have anything to replace it.

Now people think that the a CA is just insurance policies. It's just medical insurance. No, it's so much more than that. And we should know this by now, we should know this by now. Many of us who get on the internet and spout about politics, we're at least in our thirties, right? 30 and above. If you're in your forties, you know damn well that the a CA provides more than insurance policies.

If you're in your fifties, sixties, seventies, you know damn well one of the biggest things that a CA [00:23:00] does, because the a CA is a law. It's not an insurance policy. It's the, it's a law, the Affordable Care Act. It's a law. One of the biggest things it did that made life easier for a lot of people was that it got rid of.

The ability of insurance companies to deny you coverage because you have a preexisting condition. So if you were pregnant, when you got insurance, you wouldn't be able to, to get insurance because you were pregnant. That's a preexisting condition. Or if you already had asthma, or if you were already morbidly obese or you already had heart disease and you, you know, you, you maybe you signed up with a new, you got a new job and you signed up for insurance with your new employer and the insurance company is like, Uhuh.

No, no, we're not covering somebody who, uh, has osteoarthritis and, and breast cancer. Uhuh, nope, nope, nope. The a CA said, no, you cannot do that. Insurance companies, you [00:24:00] cannot deny a person because of a preexisting condition. It's one of the major, major things it did. Insurance companies cannot deny a person coverage because of a preexisting condition.

Fantastic. It also provided that insurance companies must allow parents of children to keep their children on their policy until they reach age 26. That's fantastic. As a person who was once 26, but also as a person who has two children under the age of 26. I remember when I went to college, I, I didn't have medical insurance when I turned 18.

I had no medical insurance. I didn't have medical insurance from the time I was 18 until I was about 24 years old. That's a long time. It also provided for free.

Routine preventative care, mammograms, [00:25:00] wonderful prostate exams, fantastic physical exams. Well, woman, well man, well child visits, you know those visits you have to get every year to make sure everything is up to date so they can check your weight and check your, your blood sugar and check your blood pressure.

And you need refills on medications. You need to start a medication. Great. Your family doctor can do this or a doctor at an urgent care facility can do this. Great. And you don't have to pay for it. You can actually find out how you're doing year to year and it cost you nothing. Also, women got birth control for free if you have a prescription, birth control is free.

I will, I take back what I said about one of the provisions of the A CA, right? 'cause it also stated that employers had to provide. Birth control coverage for women mandated that they had to provide it. [00:26:00] Guess who objected to that? Guess who objected? Religious organizations? Religious colleges, hospitals that had a religious affiliation.

Corporations that had a religious objection like Hobby Lobby and my alma mater, the University of Notre Dame. They didn't want to provide birth control coverage for women because what's I mean, birth control? No, we don't believe in nod, danged birth control. We don't believe that women should be controlling birth.

We don't think that women should be in control of their uterus, their ute. We don't think that women should choose. You get where I'm going? Women should choose when they want to give birth. Perhaps try the rhythm method. Yeah. For some reason it's, it's seen as against Christianity for women to take birth control.

Although I, I don't, I don't believe that to be true. But, uh, ho the Hobby Lobbies and [00:27:00] Chick-fil-As and Notre Dame's and St. Christians Hospital of the World believe so, so they sued to keep from having to provide birth control coverage for their female employees. It's crazy. And they won. So, I mean, my employer provides it, so I, for my heavy menstrual bleeding, I take birth control.

I get it for free. It's the only medication I'm happy to pick up. It's the only time I go to the pharmacy and I'm relieved 'cause I ain't got to pull out my card and tap, I don't have to tap my card on the little debit the machine, the. All of those things are part of the A CA, all of those benefits and more those things.

And more so the A CA is more than just an affordable health insurance policy or an, or a policy you can buy and [00:28:00] you don't have to be employed. It's an insurance policy that's not tied to employment for once. You know how capitalists love health insurance that's tied to employment, which is so fucking ridiculous.

'cause if you don't have a job, which, if you're living in the United States lately, that's, that could be the case. If you don't have a job, you could still buy health insurance. You could still have health insurance coverage. You don't have to pay millions out of pocket. You could still buy your own health insurance policy.

Wow. Wow. Amazing. Amazing. That's amazing. Unless.

Unless you still didn't have enough money to pay out of pocket for a monthly insurance premium, then it wasn't fantastic. So, again, COVID came along. More people needing insurance. Here's this premium subsidy. What's happening now? Well, in March of this year, [00:29:00] senate leader, Chuck Schumer, tries to negotiate for an extension of these subsidies, these premium subsidies for a year.

Republicans are like, ah, we'll talk about it later. Just, you know, approve the CR so the government can, can, can stay open and, uh, we'll talk about it later. Did they talk about it later? No they didn't. No they didn't. Why? Because they're full of shit. That's the long and short of it, in my opinion. This is just my opinion.

You may disagree, but I've seen enough to know that that is the main reason. The other reason is that they were told by their Fuhrer that these premium subsidies too much money. They are too much money. And you know how, um, when you wanna buy something, you'll do whatever it takes to find the money to buy that thing.

But when you have to pay a bill that you don't want to pay, like [00:30:00] maybe a medical insurance copay, you'll find every excuse to not have to pay that honey. You'll put that off. They'll have to chase you for that money. Yeah, it's the same thing here. The government, the Trump administration, any administration really will find money for the things it wants to do.

Like they'll find the, they'll find a way to get a tax cut to a corporation. Okay? They'll find, like the Republicans in the state of Ohio, they'll find a way to get a tax abatement for a corporation or business in the state of Ohio. They will find a way, they will find a way to get, um, uh, an NFL team owner, $60 million or $600 million, however, whatever, godly amount of money to build a new stadium.

Yeah. Oh, they found that money, honey. They found that money. Mike DeWine. He, oh, he, listen, he turned over every couch in the [00:31:00] state. He reached into the pocket of every, every man, woman, and child in the state to get that money to the slums. But if you say, Hey, you think you could find more money to feed the poor and to, uh, invest in public education and to provide better, better medical coverage for, uh, low income people?

Oh, what? Oh, oh, wait a minute. No, no, no, no, no. We, we, no, I'm sorry. We don't have enough money for that. No education healthcare, huh? What do you think? This is a socialist country, but they'll find money for something that they want so they can find money to give tax cuts to corporations. They'll just rob some other program to pay for it.

They'll rob the Medicare program. They'll rob, uh, they'll rob Snap. They'll rob Social Security. They'll find a way to pay for it, but to make sure [00:32:00] more Americans. Have health insurance coverage. Oh no, we ain't got it. Yeah. Sorry. No. Mm-hmm. Denied. Denied. What do you think? This is a socialist country, and you'll hear that word thrown around a lot.

Socialism. Providing for people is socialism then. Yeah, that's socialism apparently. So when you pay taxes and then you go to your government and say, Hey, government, I'm in need of some assistance with, uh, I don't know, paying for housing, paying rent. Uh, building a farm. Sustaining a farm, um, maybe a small business loan.

Uh, food stamps. Free breakfast. Free lunch for the kids at school, public education, student loan, forgiveness assistance, going to college, something of that na nature. Um, that's called socialism. [00:33:00] It should be, well, I'm paying taxes and so I should be getting something for my tax money. I should be getting something for my tax dollars.

When I go to my government, I shouldn't have to beg and plead and call and wait years to get a, to receive notice if I'm approved or denied, I shouldn't have to be told that I'm, uh, a siphon or that I, I'm weighing, I'm weighing down the system or that I'm relying on the system. No, I pay taxes. I just told you guys, I pay four different types of income tax.

If I go to the government and say, Hey, government, I need, I wanna hear Yes, Ayana. Here you go. I don't wanna hear. Well, you are relying on the government. You shouldn't be relying on the government. This isn't a socialist

Speaker 2: country. This isn't a communist country.

Speaker: Oh, I know. It's a capitalist society and capitalism has no [00:34:00] use for civil rights or human rights or equality or equity.

Oh, I know. It's all about profits. Yeah, I know. I'm, I'm aware, but I give you money. So you give me services, I give you money, you give me services. Right. That's how this society works. I give you money, you give me services. And that's not dependence. That's not a dependence. That's not a dependence at all.

But people see it as a dependence, which I, I cannot, for the life of me figure it out. Like, what the fuck do you think you're supposed to get for your tax money? What do you think you're getting? You think you're supposed to just let them, these people take your money and you don't get anything in return.

You, you let people go in your pockets and you get nothing in return. Mike DeWine has gone into the pockets of every Ohioan, and what do we get in return? We didn't even get a say. We didn't even get a say. We we're gonna get a, a Cleveland Brown Stadium where they're never gonna win another game [00:35:00] again.

It's crazy. No, I want my tax money to go to something else. And if it has to go to help people receive food assistance and healthcare assistance and free meals, meals on wheels, Medicaid, whatever the hell, disaster relief. Yes, please. Student loan forgiveness. Yes, please, please. You see, the more people who are not in debt, the more people are able to put money into the economy and that helps the economy.

The more people are able to spend and save, the better off we are. That's not socialism. That's good Economics.

You're taking my money and then telling me that I'm not saving enough of my money and then telling me that I can't, I, I shouldn't expect anything in return for my money.

This is what people are saying. This is what people are saying about the United [00:36:00] States of America is how America should work. Anything else is socialism, Ayana.

I find that a lot of people are not able to champion what is right because they somehow benefit from what is wrong. They, and they see how they benefit.

And they're comfortable with it. They're comfortable with others receiving less. As long as they get more, they're comfortable with seeing baby starve. They're comfortable with seeing people not have health insurance. They're comfortable with seeing people begging. They're comfortable with, uh, telling people that they don't do enough, that it's their fault.

They're in the situation, they're in, they're, they're comfortable with being condescending and unhelpful because they somehow think that they're better than the people who are asking.

And so because these premium subsidies were expiring and the Republicans refused to negotiate with the Democrats about extending them because their boss, their overlord, told [00:37:00] them it was too much money and to get rid of them.

And because the Democrats have hadn't done anything about this gap, about this middle gap, people who were unable to afford insurance but made too much money to receive this expanded Medicaid in the regular uh, subsidies, suddenly we're in a crisis, we're in a crunch. And then here comes the big beautiful bill or whatever they're calling it now, the act that gets rid of the premium subsidies altogether.

So now they're gone altogether. So now we have this budget thing, this appropriations bill that's expiring at the end of September, at the end of the fiscal year. We have, uh, a continuing resolution that can be voted upon, agreed upon, and voted upon. The federal government has been operating on a continuing resolution since I think George w Bush's presidency. Honestly, it's ridiculous. [00:38:00] Uh, it's every three months, every six months, every year they, they set an expiration date. It's, it's, they can never agree upon every little thing.

And so this just says, okay, we're just gonna keep the government open. We're gonna agree to these, these items and this stuff we'll disagree about, and we'll vote on it. And, and the majority wins, right? So continuing resolution is expiring. Here we are at an impasse. The Democrats want in the continuing resolution.

They want these premium subsidies in the continuing resolution. They want a promise. They want negotiations. They want at least a year extension on these premium subsidies, and everybody will say, well, these were COVID era subsidies. Yeah, yeah, they were. But guess what? They work. They work, they work. [00:39:00] So why not give it another year?

Because the economy has not recovered well enough for people to be making the kind of money they would need to purchase a insurance and insurance plan without receiving a subsidy. The economy still has not recovered enough from COVID, and unemployment right now is high, higher than it was this time last year in 2024.

There so there would be more millions of people without health insurance coverage. 'cause I tell you what, people are going to forego insurance if the premium is several thousand dollars a month because what do you mean I have to pay $3,000 a month, plus I have to pay for housing, plus I have to pay for food, plus I have to pay for transportation.

Plus I probably have kids, plus I probably have a pet Plus I have to pay for utilities. Plus I have to pay for car insurance maybe. Or renter's insurance. Or homeowner's insurance. Plus I have to [00:40:00] pay income taxes where there is no room to, to pay thousands of dollars for an insurance. Uh uh, a health insurance policy.

 So yeah, these premium subsidies are working and they're needed.

Did the Republicans have a another plan? No, they didn't. They didn't. And all this shit you read in the media about Trump is gonna do this. He's gonna put money in the, in the hands of the people so they can buy their own insurance

Speaker 2: motherfucker. That is what the A CA does. That's what these subsidies do.

They give people money to pay for their insurance.

Speaker: It's exhausting being an American.

Speaker 2: It really is.

Speaker: So the Republicans don't have a plan, and the Democrats are not very good negotiators, and the people who are most affected by this are not [00:41:00] rallying to keep these premium subsidies. It's mostly the Democrat voters who are complaining when it's mostly Republican voters who benefit from these subsidies.

Yes. Oh, I bet you didn't know that. Ah, it's mostly Republican voters who benefit from these premium subsidies. And let me tell you, I looked, I looked, but I couldn't find Republicans who were complaining about these subsidies expiring and couldn't find it. Why weren't you all complaining? If you're the ones benefiting from it the most, and you're the ones who are gonna be hurt by this the most, why aren't you complaining?

Why aren't you on the horn to your senators and your representatives and your president crying and complaining and, and banging on the doors and storming the capitol? You're about to lose your health insurance coverage. Why aren't you mad? Why aren't you mad that the people who [00:42:00] were sent to the government to represent you aren't doing a fucking thing about it?

In fact, they're delighting that they no longer have to help you. Do you just toss your hands up and go, oh, well

Speaker 2: it was fun while it lasted. It was fun having health insurance while it lasted.

Speaker: That's madness. You could be helping yourselves and you're not. It's the same with snap. The same with Snap. You all saw your fricking president on tv.

And in the media saying, I don't care. I'm take their snap away. I

Speaker 2: don't care. Take it away. I'm not funding Snap.

Speaker: Where are you complaining? I saw a few. Saw a few, but not enough. Not enough. And I tell you what, if we had seen more, if we had seen more, if we had seen the energy from you people that we saw on January 6th, 2021, about anything fucking else, then you being [00:43:00] scared of diversity, then maybe this shutdown would not have gone on for 43 days.

Republican voters do not insist on their rights. They're upset when they think they're gonna win and they lose. But they do not insist on their rights. They do not insist on their government doing for them what it is supposed to do. They are not helping themselves. You have the house, you have the Senate, you have the presidency, and you have not a fucking dime in your wallet.

Many of you, from what I've heard and what I've read, so many of you are suffering and now millions of you are about to be without health insurance coverage and you're doing nothing about it. I bet you go to the polls next year for the midterms to the primaries and put up the same [00:44:00] fucking candidates that are in the offices right now, and then I bet you go into the general election and reelect the same old fucking do nothing for your ass candidates who are in office right now.

I bet you do. I bet you do. After all the nasty things they've said about Snap reci recipients and military members and women and, and, uh, federal workers, I bet you take your asses right to those fucking poles and bolded the same people who talk shit about you this entire year, took food outta your mouths, took food outta the mouths of your children, bankrupted your farms, bankrupted your co, your corporations made sure that there, the, that the economy tanked so that there would be fewer jobs available.

Made sure that you didn't get student loan forgiveness, made sure that your rural hospitals closed, made [00:45:00] sure that your schools closed. Make sure that there was less investment in public education. Made sure that you got fired from your federal employment. You are gonna go to the polls next year in 2026, and you're gonna vote for those same chicken head as people, because that's what you always do.

That's what you always do. You don't look at those people and go, you're not serving me. I sent you to Congress for a reason. I sent you to the presidency for a reason, and you have skirted that reason. You have not fulfilled your obligations to me, and so you're fired. That's what you should be saying to them, but you all don't do that.

You're scared. You're scared. You are scared right now, you're feeling really comfortable even though it's cold outside. Even though you might be starving, even though you're gonna be faced with high ass giraffe, pussy [00:46:00] ass medical bills in 2026. Even though you're gonna be faced with those dilemmas, even though you're gonna be faced with the loss of your farm, even though you're gonna be faced with the loss of economic opportunities, you are not going to let go of what you know.

You're not going to move into that uncomfortable space that perhaps sees you being helped by someone else. You don't even have to vote Democrat. You don't have to vote Democrat. You have to vote for better Republicans. There was a time, I know you don't remember because Americans forget a lot of things.

There was a time. When there were Republicans who actually gave a fuck about the people they represented when they got to Congress and they were like, yes, we're gonna help the working class people. Same for the Democrats. There was a time when they gave a damn about the working class Americans. Now, it just seems that when representatives and [00:47:00] senators, and presidents and appointees get into office, they care about themselves.

They care about making themselves look good. They care about propping up their careers. They care about padding their pockets. They care about representing special interests. They care about fulfilling the promises they made to this corporate interest and to this lobbyist. They care about that. But the working American, the working class American, oh, sorry.

We got your boat suckers.

Nice. Smiling in your face.

And so the government was shut down for 43 days because there are people who wanted to extend subsidies, premium subsidies that helped them dig out of the hole they created by not properly, um, what's the word? Properly extending healthcare, affordable healthcare coverage to most [00:48:00] Americans. And then there's this other group who don't give a shit if you have health insurance coverage or not get a job where you make $200,000 and have good healthcare like they do.

Those were the two groups that were fighting, and how many people were hurt in the meantime? How many hundreds of thousands of federal workers were hurt? How many hundreds of thousands and millions of Americans were hurt in the meantime because they lost their income or they lost their food assistance, how many hundreds of thousands of millions of people were affected by this.

 But there were those two groups fighting then the look in their eyes, you know what it's like to look at the, the face of somebody every single day. Who doesn't give a fuck if you, uh, make another dollar or not?

That's what it was like. Looking at some of these, uh, Democrat representatives, the ones who kept voting not to keep the government closed. No, the ones who were voting to not pay federal employees who were [00:49:00] working during the shutdown, even though they continued to get paid, even though the House of Representatives was out for, what was it, eight weeks, nine weeks, some ungodly amount of time, and they were still getting paid.

The Senate, they were still working somewhat, but they were all getting paid. They were all, you know, dancing and prancing and eating, uh, stuffed duck, succulent duck restaurants going on vacations.

Here we are watching their faces on TV every day. We do care about you. We care. We care about you, and we care about the millions of Americans who are going to lose healthcare. And then the Republicans, you guys don't care about the children on Snap and you don't care about the federal government employees, and you guys don't care.

We'll negotiate later. I promise you haven't bothered to negotiate all this [00:50:00] time. In all these years, you all could have worked with the Democrats back in 2021 and 2022 and 2023 and 2024. This year you could have worked with Democrats to make these subsidies permanent or to extend them for another two years.

Instead, what did you do? You got down on your hands and knees. You lifted your head up a little bit. You puckered up your lips and you kissed ass. You kissed some orange ass. That's what you did. That is what you did. You got right to Washington and you forgot all about the people. You serve all about 'em.

And then the more they suffered while you were kissing ass, the less you cared, the less you cared. Here are these rural farmers and these people living in these, uh, the abject poverty supporting you. [00:51:00] They're making excuses for millionaires and billionaires, and you're watching them and you're going suckers.

And this has been Ayana Explains it all brought to you by facts, figures, and enlightenment. Take care. [00:52:00]