#Individual Mandate

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Berkeley Lovelace Jr. at NBC News:

Millions of Americans risk losing subsidies next year that help them pay for health insurance following President-elect Donald Trump’s election win and Republicans’ victory in the Senate. The subsidies — which expire at the end of 2025 — came out of the 2021 American Rescue Plan, and increased the amount of assistance available to people who want to buy health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. The American Rescue Plan also broadened the number of people eligible for subsidies, extending them to many in the middle class.  

The looming expiration date means that the incoming Congress and next president will need to decide whether to extend them — something Trump and Republicans have already signaled they don’t support, said Chris Meekins, a health policy research analyst at the investment firm Raymond James. “If Republicans end up winning the House, in addition to the Senate and White House, having a GOP sweep, I think the odds are less than 5% they get extended,” said Meekins, who was a senior HHS official in Trump’s first term. Even Democratic control of the House likely won’t save the subsidies, he added.  Several important House races have still yet to be decided. As of Thursday afternoon, House Republicans had won 209 seats, just nine short of the majority, according to an NBC News tracker.  In 2024, more than 20 million people got health insurance through the ACA, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. 

Since the 2021 subsidies went into effect, enrollment in ACA plans with reduced payments doubled, particularly in Southern red states, said Cynthia Cox, the director of the program on the ACA at KFF, a nonpartisan health care policy research group.  The Inflation Reduction Act, passed in 2022, extended the subsidies through 2025. In 32 states where data is available, 15.5 million people receive the subsidies, according to KFF. If the subsidies aren’t extended, the Congressional Budget Office — a nonpartisan agency that provides budget and economic information to Congress — estimates that nearly 4 million people will lose their coverage in 2026 because they won’t be able to afford it.  Enrollment will continue to fall each year, with coverage reaching as low as 15.4 million people in 2030.  

[...] Cox said she expects Republicans to keep dismantling the ACA, similar to Trump’s first term, when they eliminated the tax penalty linked to the law’s individual mandate, which required people to have health insurance or pay a tax. The mandate is technically still in place, but the penalty was reduced to zero. “If Republicans control the House, the Senate and the presidency, then we might see a repeat of 2017,” she said.  Gostin said eliminating the ACA entirely will be a challenge, even if Republicans control all three chambers.

Millions of Americans could face health insurance coverage loss next year, as subsidies for Obamacare are set to expire.

See Also:

The Guardian: Incoming Trump presidency threatens millions of Americans’ healthcare plans

[totalbenefits]

How income affects your Medicare drug coverage premiums

You could pay a higher monthly premium for Medicare drug coverage (Part D) depending on your income. This includes Part D coverage you get from a Medicare drug plan, a Medicare Advantage Plan with drug coverage, or a Medicare Cost Plan that includes drug coverage. This is true even if your drug coverage is through your employer. Download this bulletin to learn more about extra Medicare drug…

[g1ngerbeer]

what kind of sauce are they putting in the link click audio drama. HELLO? THE LITERAL LAST SCENE OF THE LAST EPISODE?

程小时: 说起来，我们第一次见面，也是在篮球场吧。 陆光: 是啊。 程小时: 你我本无缘，全靠一颗球。 陆光: 我就不该答应你比那场。

cheng xiaoshi: speaking of which, the first time we met was also on a basketball court, wasn't it? lu guang: it was. cheng xiaoshi: (half-jokingly) you and i weren't meant to be [lit. "originally have no fate"?]. this is all because of one basketball. lu guang: i really shouldn't have agreed to play that match.

(the important bits are from google translate because i am bad at mandarin. also i did transcribe this off just the audio + i don't have access to captions or know where to find official transcripts. so i hope i got this right 🙏)

[grand-theft-carbohydrates]

hmm liu bang being a verified member of the baby-tosser's club is not as cut and dried as i thought, apparently it's only mentioned in xiang yu's biography but is omitted in his. that's a conflict of interest if i've ever seen it. that being said, u gotta admit nothing about han gaozu make this seem at all out of character for him.

[kiwikiwikiwiii]

Erin Brockovich did not give 634 blow jobs in 5 days so that 6 corporate puppets could strike down the Chevron Doctrine.

[jamuqa]

I dont know why all the bathroom discourse goes on about how oublic bathrooms are vulnerable sacred safe spaces or some shit. public bathrooms are uncomfortable af. there's a bunch of random people there the sanitary situation is questionable at best it's super awk if you make any noises and the fact that u feel pressured to shit quietly in the first place etc etc. if you see this place as a safe space You are the insane person frankly

[brbgensokyo]

im far to poisoned to miss it but using Idol Harmonies within a song is a very bold and out of pocket (negative) choice for an original song for nier. Wait hold on, the vocalists in question are a virtual idol unit but they're inhouse to Squenix so holy shit.

[spushii]

just had to say you're an actual fucking idiot if you blame the general american populus for The Covid Issue (yes, even the crazy republican conspiracy theorists) and not the government which has proven time and time again that it cares more about greasing the infinite blood money machine than it has or ever will the lives of it's citizens

[jvzebel-x]

🦋

[wakewithgiggli]

I have a feeling the people trying to defend this kind of thing are also the people insisting that it's okay to play their media players at maximum volume in public places.

There's such a culture of, "I don't care about other people, and if you want me to think about my affect on other people, you are oppressing me! How dare you tell me I can't do whatever I want, whenever I want! That's so selfish of you."

ppl are rlly trying to defend being on your phone during a movie in the theater what is going on

[hellomegedwards]

Just a Sensible Idealist

Who is a hippy now?

I was approached by a friendly TTC worker in uniform on the subway in Toronto recently. At first he stood by a nearby pole and watched me for a bit, and then smiled. He was not young but not old, somewhere in that middle ground where they think about death a lot. I smiled back and he opened with “I wish I had been brought up in the sixties”. I would have liked to see my face expression. A wry…

[drdemonprince]

It’s true that America has one of the lowest voter turnout rates in the industrialized world, with only 62% of eligible adults turning up to the polls on a good year, and about 50% on a typical one. But if we really dive into the social science data, we can see that non-voters aren’t a bunch of nihilistic commie layabouts who’d prefer to die in a bridge collapse or of an untreated listeria infection than vote for someone who isn’t Vladimir Lenin. No, if we really study it carefully, we can see that the American electoral system has a series of unique features that easily account for why we find voting more cumbersome, confusing, and unrewarding than almost any other voters in the world.

Let’s take a look at the many reasons why Americans don’t vote:

1. We Have the Most Frequent Elections of Any Country

Most other democratic countries only hold major elections once every four or five years, with the occasional local election in between. This is in sharp contrast with the U.S., where we have some smattering of primaries, regional elections, state elections, ballot measures, midterm elections, and national elections basically every single year, often multiple times per year. We have elections more frequently than any other nation in the world — but just as swallowing mountains of vitamin C tablets doesn’t guarantee better health, voting more and harder hasn’t given us more democracy.

2. We Don’t Make Election Day a Holiday

The United States also does far less than most other democracies to facilitate its voters getting to the polls. In 22 countries, voting is legally mandated, and turnout is consequently very high; most countries instead make election day a national holiday, or hold elections on weekends. The United States, in contrast, typically holds elections on weekdays, during work hours, with minimal legal protections for employees whose only option to vote is on the clock.

3. We Make Registration as Hard as Possible

From Denmark, to Sweden, to Iceland, Belgium, and Iraq, all eligible voters in most democracies are automatically registered to vote upon reaching legal adulthood. Voting is typically regarded as a rite of passage one takes part in alongside their classmates and neighbors, made part of the natural flow of the country’s bureaucratic processes.

In the United States, in contrast, voter registration is a process that the individual must seek out — or more recently, be goaded into by their doctor. Here voting is not a communal event, it’s a personal choice, and failing to make the correct choice at the correct time can be penalized. In most other countries, there are no restrictions on when a voter can register, but in much of the United States, registering too early can mean you get stricken from the voter rolls by the time the election rolls around, and registering too late means you’re barred from voting at all.

4. We Make Voters Re-Register Far Too Often

In countries like Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands, voter registration updates automatically when a person moves. In the United State, any time a person changes addresses they must go out of their way to register to vote all over again. This policy disadvantages poorer and younger voters, who move frequently because of job and schooling changes, or landlords who have decided to farm black mold colonies in their kitchens.

Even if a voter does not change their address, in the United States it’s quite common for their registrations to be removed anyway— due to name changes, marriages, data breaches, or simply because the voter rolls from the previous election year have been purged to “prevent fraud” (read: eliminate Black, brown, poor, and left-leaning members from the electorate).

5. We Limit Access to Polling Places & Mail-in Ballots

In many countries, voters can show up to any number of polling places on election day, and showing identification is not always necessary. Here in the United States, the ability to vote is typically restricted to a single polling place. Voter ID laws have been used since before the Jim Crow era to make political participation more difficult for Black, brown, and impoverished voters, as well as for those for whom English is not their first language. Early and absentee voting options are also pretty firmly restricted. About a quarter of democracies worldwide rely on mail-in ballots to make voting more accessible for everyone; here, a mail-in ballot must be requested in advance.

All of these structural barriers help explain why just over 50% of non-voters in the United States are people of color, and a majority of non-voters have been repeatedly found to be impoverished and otherwise marginalized. But these populations don’t only feel excluded from the political process on a practical level: they also report feeling completely unrepresented by the available political options.

6. We Have the Longest, Most Expensive Campaign Seasons

Americans have some of the longest campaign seasons in the world, with Presidential elections lasting about 565 days on average. For reference, the UK’s campaign season is 139 days, Mexico’s is 147, and Canada’s is just 50. We also do not have publicly funded campaigns: our politicians rely upon donors almost entirely.

Because our elections are so frequent and our campaigns are so long and expensive, many American elected officials are in a nearly constant state of fundraising and campaigning. When you take into account the time devoted to organizing rallies, meeting with donors, courting lobbyists, knocking on doors, recording advertisements, and traveling the campaign trail, most federally elected politicians spend more time trying to win their seat than actually doing their jobs.

Imagine how much work you’d get done if you had to interview for your job every day. And now imagine that the person actually paying your wage didn’t want you to do that job at all:

7. Our Elected Officials Do Very Little

Elected officials who spend the majority of their hours campaigning and courting donors don’t have much time to get work done. Nor do they have much incentive to — in practice, their role is to represent the large corporations, weapons manufacturers, Silicon Valley start-ups, and investors who pay their bills, and serve as a stopgap when the public’s demands run afoul of those groups’ interests.

Perhaps that is why, as campaign seasons have gotten longer and more expensive and income inequality has grown more stark, our elected officials have become lean-out quiet quitters of historic proportions. The 118th Congress has so far been the least productive session on record, with only 82 laws having been passed in last two years out of the over 11,000 brought to the floor.

The Biden Administration has moved at a similarly glacial pace; aside from leaping for the phone when Israel calls requesting checking account transfers every two or three weeks, the executive-in-chief has done little but fumble at student loan relief and abortion protections, and bandied about banning TikTok.

The average age of American elected officials has been on a steady rise for some time now, with the obvious senility of figures like Biden, Mitch McConnell, and the late Diane Feinstein serving as the most obvious markers of the government’s stagnancy. Carting around a confused, ailing elderly person’s body around the halls of power like a decommissioned animatronic requires a depth of indifference to human suffering that few of us outside Washington can fathom. But more than that, it reflects a desperation for both parties to cling to what sources of influence and wealth they have. These aged figures are/were reliable simps for Blackstone, General Dynamics, Disney, and AIPAC, and their loyalty is worth far more than their cognitive capacity, or legislative productivity. Their job, in a very real sense, is to not do their job, and a beating-heart cadaver can do that just fine.

You can read the rest of the list for free (or have it narrated to you on the Substack app) at drdevonprice.substack.com!

[valalice]

જ⁀➴ FOR THE FAME. a violet modern musician au

punk rockstar!vi 𝑥 popstar!reader

summary. the music industry—known for its raw creativity, dazzling performances, and turning anyone into an overnight sensation. but what comes with newfound success is being able to maintain a steady stream of traction around your name (whether it's good or bad, because all press is good press. right?), for some artists it comes naturally, becoming chart climbers release after release, while for others they struggle falling down the charts and becoming known as just a one hit wonder. now, when two artists under the same label are both getting sly criticism from blogs commenting on their declines, their managers have no other choice but to curate a classic pr stunt to regain their public appeal again, while creating buzz around their respective upcoming projects. what could happen when the industry's rebel and sweetheart become the unexpected pair of the year?

warnings. fluff, angst, and eventual smut. modern au. fake dating. enemies to friends to lovers. slow burn. reader's stage name is angel, you guys can honestly change it if you'd so like since it's rarely used. no use of "y/n". musicians: powder, ekko, claggor, and caitlyn. choreographer!mel. producer!jayce. homophobia and talk of internalized homophobia & comphet. addiction: alcohol & substance abuse, as well as talk of rehab. inaccurate knowledge of the music industry. social media extras & extended scene cuts. please check each individual chapter for appropriate warnings!

a/n. i'm am beyond excited to finally share this series with you all! this series started as a one off idea, and, well it turned into this. i know some have expected this, i've been throwing out teasers (more will still come) for some time. and to be honest i should not even be posting this series right now, but i cannot contain it for much longer, i'm just eager to get it out for people to enjoy! and is it hypocritical for me to be posting a series with the amount of drafts and request in my inbox? perhaps! but i promise that i will try my best to dually post between the series and other works! i'm still working on a posting schedule, so be on the look out for polls!

biggest thank you to @topimpabunny for dealing with my rants constantly, and bouncing ideas back and forth off of each other. truly, everyone thank her, because without her this series wouldn't even exist! another big big thank you to @veramores my wife, my best friend, for putting up with me yapping her ear away for like over an over. but nonetheless she is also apart of this series for giving me different perspectives on things. lots of love to the both of you <3

main masterlist ⋆ vi masterlist ⋆ read it on ao3

table of contents ◞ TRACKLIST

' 🅴 ' indicates smut

prelude ♪ popularity contest.

label mandated events. everyone dreads them, but social networking is a must; an art form managers have mastered and a sport to artists in order to thrive in the competitiveness that is the music industry. and it’s here where the two of you were closer than you had even thought.

track one ♪ sold your soul for . . . this? ( releasing february 14th on all music platforms )

with albums set to release during the summertime, meetings ensue to keep the artists on track. however, unpleasant news is shared that gives wake up calls when careers are on the line. oh, and a not-so-meet-cute happens between the bubbling popstar and spunky rocker.

track two ♪ the master plan.

uh, oh! looks like the track is still being produced!

extras ◞ DELUX EDITION

social media post

coming soon!

exposed ◞ BEHIND THE SCENES

discography ⋮ series playlist. reader's. vi's.

meet the artist ⋮ reader ꒱ vi

WANT A FEATURE?

comment on this post (and this post only) to be added to the 'for the fame' taglist! (i'm no longer responding to individually to each person who asks to be on the taglist, but i do see the comments and you are added!)

[transmutationisms]

that cop therapist post is probably not wrong (i don't know the stats offhand but i would not be surprised if there's a cop to psych professional pipeline, at least for jobs that don't require grad degrees) but it's also irritating that it's missing the more fundamental point that psychiatric institutions are carceral institutions and psychiatry as a discipline serves a carceral function. serve time in court mandated 'treatment' or serve time in jail / prison. act in a way deemed too aberrant and get medicated or institutionalised against your will. etc. this applies regardless of whether your psych or therapist trained as a cop or social worker or physician and it's why people who think "defund the police" means "replace them with psychiatric intervention" are not just foolish but dangerous. psychiatry is part of the carceral apparatus, structurally; its practitioners are cops, structurally; stop redirecting this to complain about individuals or specific career paths

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Erin Reed at Erin In The Morning:

On Friday night, Jacksonville residents took to the Main Street Bridge to celebrate Pride Month. Just weeks prior, Governor Ron DeSantis’ administration and the Florida Department of Transportation issued an edict banning rainbow-colored lighting on bridges during Pride Month, mandating that all such lighting be replaced with red, white, and blue, the colors of the American flag. Residents, however, were undeterred. They carried flashlights and rainbow gels, took their positions, and proceeded to light up the bridge themselves. Weeks ago, Manatee County Commission Chairman Mike Rahn objected to Pride lighting on bridges in Florida. Many bridges in the state, such as the Skyway Bridge in Tampa and the Acosta Bridge in Jacksonville, have been lit up in rainbow colors in previous years. This year, however, Rahn attempted to stop such lights from going up on the Skyway Bridge, formally objecting to the lighting. He expressed that the decision did not lie with him, passing the blame to Governor DeSantis. Rahn stated, “I do not have the authority to override the governor of the state of Florida. However, in my opinion, the lighting of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge is an FDOT matter and should not be left to the individual counties.”

In response, Jared Perdue of the Florida Department of Transportation declared that this year, bridges would be lit up in red, white, and blue all summer. This decision bars Pride lighting, Juneteenth lighting, and many other special lighting days on bridges in Florida. Perdue stated in a tweet, “As Floridians prepare for Freedom Summer, Florida's bridges will follow suit, illuminating in red, white, and blue from Memorial Day through Labor Day! Thanks to the leadership of Governor Ron DeSantis, Florida continues to be the freest state in the nation.” The use of the word "freedom" while taking away the choice to light up bridges for Pride Month struck Matthew McCallister, who organized the bridge lighting event on Friday night, as "Orwellian." In an interview with News 4 Jax, McCallister responded to the rainbow Pride light ban, saying, “The timing of that is really strange. The idea that we are going to celebrate freedom by giving you absolutely no choices seems Orwellian, honestly.”

Really happy to hear that some Florida cities told Ron DeSantis “up yours” to his anti-LGBTQ+ ways. 🏳️‍🌈

[spicymancer]

"Sanction" kinda has equal-but-opposite meanings. I'm curious, did you name your setting sanction as in approve/allow, or sanction as in punish/penalty?

A little bit of both, unsurprisingly! Sanction is how I refer to my near-future Superhero setting (Where Quiver, The ActiRangers, and technically Rumble After Dark all take place), it's named for an in-universe federal mandate that establishes a lot of legal structures around superhumans and how and when they can use their powers.

There's an official registry of superhuman abilities and a federal department that oversees superhuman and nonhuman activity. Similar organizations exist internationally with differeing levels of restriction for things like genetic manipulation, alien technology, magic etc.

So yeah, there exist both Sanctions on the improper use of superpowers (punishment/penalty), as well as official Sanctions for certain individuals to use their powers for the betterment of society (official approval). This whole mess originated as the setting for an old Mutants and Masterminds TTRPG campaign I ran years and years ago, it eventually ended up being my mental storage zone for a bunch of my wacky OCs. The story/setting was originally inspired by The Initiative, a story arc that followed the original Marvel Comics: Civil War storyline. Though it also takes inspiration from similar societal structures in Invincible, One Punch Man, and My Hero Academia.