On the shutdown, for what it’s worth

Last updated on: October 4, 2013 at 4:40 pm by Jane the Actuary

On the shutdown, for what it’s worth 2013-10-04T16:40:00-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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I know, you all have been impatiently asking yourselves, “when is Jane going to share her insights on the government shutdown with us, so we can properly understand it?”

But it’s very discouraging. The Democrats are quite confident that the Republicans will cave, and that they need only wait for that to occur, and then witness the destruction of the Republican Party and ride a wave of dissatisfaction to recover the House majority in 2014.

The Republicans are trapped. If they don’t get something to show for their intransigence, they will be doomed. And as it is, the papers are constructing a narrative of internal divisions, with moderate Republicans who would be happy to join with the Democrats at a moment’s notice.

And of course, Obama is deploying the Washington Monument strategy as it’s never been done before. I find it unlikely that it’ll succeed, that voters will believe the administration’s claim that they had no choice but to barricade entrances and close down even self-sustaining sites and, especially, concessions. The Trib today featured people who were affected — one group, on the trip of a lifetime after an 18 year wait to get a Grand Canyon float permit, seeing their trip cancelled. But you all have presumably seen the links from Drudge or instapundit or any similar blogger/aggregator.

So I’m going to just dream big for a moment, and imagine that Republicans and Democrats are reasonable and that there’s a way out (and that the Democrats do, indeed, want a way out, rather than just seeking the destruction of the Republicans at any cost):

This is my Grand Bargain. Oh, sure, it’s not the big holy grail of Grand Bargains, with tax and entitlement reform all wrapped up into one. It’s a more modest Grand Bargain on ObamaCare.

Republicans concede to Democrats that all individuals with income below 400% of poverty are elgible for ObamaCare subsidies following the same formulas. In other words, a family who’s ineligible for Medicaid because their state isn’t expanding, but whose income is below 133% of the poverty line, can receive subsidies on the Exchange. For that matter, let Medicaid participants elect to participate in the Exchanges as well.

Democrats concede to Republicans that employers are not levied fines for not providing health insurance/healthcare benefits to their employees.

Republicans concede to Democrats that an employee who receives self-only coverage from their employer may cover his family on the exchange.

Democrats concede to Republicans that premiums are able to be fully age-graded rather than being limited to a 3:1 ratio.

You get the point. Democrats know this is a sucky, error-ridden law, too.

Oh, and one last Grand Bargain element? The top leadership of the GOP and the Democrats, in position and in seniority, pledge that if they don’t produce a budget by December 31, they will not stand for re-election. That’s probably not enforceable. Maybe they pledge that if they don’t succeed, they sign legally-binding contracts that oblige them to pay a painful amount of their net worth into the federal “make a donation to the federal debt” program?

Happy Friday, everyone.

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