What the Shutdown is REALLY About | The Ezra Klein Show

There’s a serious high-stakes policy fight at the heart of this.

The Democrats didn’t pick a fight over authoritarianism or tariffs or masked immigration agents in the streets. They picked one over health care. And the issue here is very real. Huge health insurance subsidies passed under President Joe Biden are set to expire at the end of this year, threatening to make health care premiums skyrocket and kick millions off their insurance.

Neera Tanden was one of the architects of the Affordable Care Act and has worked in Democratic policymaking for decades. She is the president of the Center for American Progress and was a director of Biden’s Domestic Policy Council. I asked her on the show to lay out the policy stakes of the shutdown and what a deal might look like.

0:00 Intro
2:27 Continuing Resolutions and Rescissions
7:48 The ACA Premium Shock
16:03 A Partisan Fight with Non-Partisan Popularity
21:09 The Cynical "Illegal Alien" Argument
24:36 The Seismic Shift in Medicaid and OBBBA
33:44 The Shutdown as a Tool for Gaining Attention
42:58 Executive Power vs. Its Own Agencies