by tyler | Oct 25, 2023 | CNN, politics
Premiums are going up again on the federal Affordable Care Act exchange, but generous subsidies will shield most consumers seeking coverage from the increased cost.
The average monthly premium for the benchmark silver plan in 2024 will rise by 4% in the 32 states participating in the federal exchange, healthcare.gov, according to a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services report released Wednesday. That matches the increase for this year, which was preceded by four straight years of premium declines.
Consumers will be able to start comparing Affordable Care Act plans Wednesday when the federal exchange opens for window shopping. Open enrollment launches November 1 and runs through January 15, though folks must sign up by December 15 if they want coverage to begin at the start of the year.
The Biden administration has touted the growth in Obamacare enrollment since President Joe Biden took office in early 2021. A record 16.4 million people signed up for 2023 coverage during the last open enrollment period, an increase of 4.4 million people, or 36%, since open enrollment for 2021.
More Americans may be looking for Obamacare policies now that states are once again able to review their residents’ qualifications for Medicaid and terminate the coverage of those deemed no longer eligible. At least 9.3 million people have been disenrolled, according to KFF.
Those who have lost Medicaid and live in states using the federal exchange can enroll anytime through July 2024. Most state-based exchanges are also offering similar special enrollment periods. Lower-income enrollees can qualify for subsidies that eliminate their premiums next year and greatly reduce their out-of-pocket costs.
Enrollees can take advantage of enhanced subsidies that were initially enacted under the American Rescue Plan Act in 2021 and extended under the Inflation Reduction Act last year, both of which were pushed through Congress by Democrats. The beefed-up assistance – which reduces premiums to no more than 8.5% of a policyholder’s income – is in effect through 2025.
Some 96% of enrollees who selected plans for 2023 on the federal exchange during open enrollment were eligible for the expanded subsidies. If current policyholders stay within their coverage tier, roughly two-thirds of them can find plans for less than $10 a month for the coming year.
Overall, 4 in 5 consumers will be able to find plans on the federal exchange for $10 or less a month.
Virtually all shoppers will have access to at least three insurers, with the average consumer having just under seven to choose from.
For the first time, insurers will have to include mental health facilities, substance abuse disorder treatment centers and rural emergency hospitals in their provider networks. Also, the Obamacare application will include optional questions regarding sexual orientation and gender identity in order to analyze health disparities in coverage access.
Plus, consumers will now receive an estimate of their total yearly costs – including premiums and out-of-pocket costs for care – after submitting an application to help them understand how much they might pay among different plans.
The administration is providing nearly $99 million in grants to 57 navigator groups to conduct outreach and to assist consumers with enrolling in plans.
Open enrollment in states that operate their own Obamacare exchanges also launches on November 1, except in Idaho, where it began on October 15.
by tyler | Oct 25, 2023 | CNN, politics
Food insecurity among families with children rose significantly last year after falling markedly in 2021, according to a US Department of Agriculture report released Wednesday.
Children were food insecure at times in 3.3 million households with kids during 2022, an increase of 1 million families from the prior year, the report found.
Some 8.8% of households with children were unable at times to provide adequate, nutritious food for their kids last year, compared with 6.2% in 2021.
Overall, some 17 million households, or 12.8%, had difficulty providing food for all members at some time in 2022 because of a lack of resources. That is up from 13.5 million households, or 10.2%, the year before.
“There’s just a lot of precarity in the economy still,” said Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, a social policy professor at Northwestern University. “Food is one of the few places that families kind of have the ability to cut back because you can’t say, ‘Let me pay half of my mortgage this month or pay half of my rent.’”
Poverty also rose last year, particularly among children, she noted.
Some 12.4% of children were in poverty in 2022, up from a record low of 5.2% the year before and roughly comparable to where it was prior to the pandemic in 2019, based on a broader alternative measure developed by the US Census Bureau.
“We know that food insecurity and poverty were both pushed down by the extraordinary Covid response,” she said of the improvements in both measures in 2021.
Expiration of pandemic support
Though the USDA does not delve into the factors behind the changes in food insecurity, experts point to the loss of federal Covid-19 pandemic assistance as a major reason why food insecurity increased in 2022.
Among the supports that expired was the enhanced child tax credit. As part of the American Rescue Plan Act, tens of millions of families received half the credit as monthly payments of up to $300 per child from July through December 2021. They received the other half when they filed their 2021 tax returns.
The relief package increased the maximum credit to $3,600 for children under age 6 and $3,000 for those ages 6 through 17 for 2021. Also, it made the credit fully refundable so the lowest-income families could qualify.
Studies showed that families spent much of the money on necessities, while the US Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey found that parents reported less trouble paying for food and household expenses after the initial installment was received.
Also, Americans received their third and final stimulus payment, worth up to $1,400, in 2021.
by tyler | Oct 25, 2023 | CNN, politics
President Joe Biden’s attempts at deepening ties in the Pacific are again competing with other, pressing issues, this time the brewing war in the Middle East that is looming over his lavish state welcome for Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Biden’s invitation to his Australian counterpart was a consolation prize after he abruptly scrapped a planned visit down under earlier this year to return to Washington when the US government was on the verge of a calamitous debt default. At the time, the scrambled plans were viewed as a sign of dysfunctional American politics interrupting the administration’s efforts to counter China’s growing influence in the Pacific.
Five months later, Albanese will be welcomed to the White House with the highest trappings of American diplomacy, including a black-tie state dinner underneath a tent erected on the South Lawn.
This time, it’s the escalating crisis in the Middle East that has become an all-consuming focus for the president and his team, who are simultaneously working to free hostages held in Gaza, ease a humanitarian crisis, ensure Israel has the support it needs and prevent a wider war from erupting in the region.
Speaking after an elaborate welcome ceremony, Biden hailed ties between Washington and Canberra, calling the partnership “never been more important than it is today.”
He called the US and Australia “two proud Indo-Pacific nations” dedicated to a “free, open prosperous and secure” region.
And he said the two countries were standing together against Hamas and Vladimir Putin.
The war in Israel has forced the Biden administration to realign its foreign policy agenda dramatically amid a proliferation of global flashpoints. Officials insist they are more than capable of confronting the new war alongside other foreign policy priorities, and they point to Tuesday’s state visit as evidence of the multitasking. Advisers say no president has had the luxury of grappling with only one crisis at a time.
“You can’t convince me that wisdom and experience are a bad thing – and now we’re seeing that,” former Rep. Cedric Richmond, who is a co-chair of Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign, told CNN.
One former senior US official cited the lack of Cabinet-level departures as evidence the Biden team is well-suited to handle a barrage of issues at once, telling CNN: “There’s no administration that only gets to do one thing at a time when it comes to national security and foreign policy. It’s a very experienced team.”
Yet it’s clear the Israel-Hamas war has added a new and likely long-lasting dynamic to Biden’s foreign policy goals.
Just over a month ago, Biden was on a swing through Asia, meeting with G20 leaders and stopping in Vietnam to counter a rising threat from China. Three weeks ago, he hosted Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington to highlight the urgent need for more aid to Ukraine.
And a little more than two weeks ago, his national security adviser Jake Sullivan suggested in a public interview that the Middle East, amid rising threats elsewhere in the world, was “quieter today than it has been in two decades.”
Sullivan included the caveat that “all of that could change,” and it did eight days later when Hamas launched its attack on Israel, sparking intensive diplomatic American engagement and a last-minute presidential trip to Tel Aviv.
The proliferation of conflicts around the world has raised questions about the sustainability of US involvement, especially as public opinion for certain conflicts wanes. Already, the White House had struggled to secure billions of dollars in new funding for Ukraine. Now, Biden is asking Congress for $61 billion for Ukraine and another $14 billion for Israel’s security needs, drawing early criticism from Republicans.
To further complicate matters, just as when Biden was forced to cancel his trip to Australia earlier this year, he once again confronts a Congress that is in complete disarray.
When Albanese arrives at the White House Tuesday evening, the US House of Representatives will have been without a permanent House speaker – and legislatively paralyzed – for 21 days. Senior Biden administration officials believe that only weeks remain before a lack of additional funding for Ukraine starts to become a serious battlefield concern.
Biden, asked on CBS’ “60 Minutes” this month whether two wars is more than the US can take, was defiant.
“No. We’re the United States of America for God’s sake, the most powerful nation in the history – not in the world, in the history of the world,” Biden said. “We can take care of both of these and still maintain our overall international defense.”
But it’s not just the two hot wars where the administration is devoting resources and brainpower. And experts say supporting allies like Israel and Ukraine – and managing adversaries elsewhere – should not be mutually exclusive.
“This is not a kids’ soccer game – you can’t just chase the issue of the day,” former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michèle Flournoy told CNN. “You have to keep your eye on what’s important and long-term.”
To that end, aides are also planning a meeting between Biden and China’s President Xi Jinping – a “strategic competitor” in White House parlance – to occur on the sidelines of next month’s APEC summit in San Francisco.
The meeting, which neither side has confirmed, would see the leaders meet face-to-face for the first time in more than a year, as Biden seeks to bolster allies big and small in the Indo-Pacific to counter China’s influence and pursues economic policies to offset what the US sees as unfair trade advantages.
The White House has been building up toward the bilateral engagement throughout the course of this year, establishing multiple touchpoints to carefully manage the relationship between the two powers, which has broader implications for geopolitical stability.
China’s top diplomat Wang Yi will visit Washington later this week, senior administration officials said Monday, as the two sides continue to work toward arranging the leaders’ meeting next month. Wang will meet with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Sullivan during his trip to the US capital October 26-28, the officials said.
The officials would not say if Wang would meet with Biden. However, Blinken met with Xi while in Beijing and one of the officials described Wang’s trip as “a reciprocal visit after Secretary Blinken’s trip to Beijing in June.”
The outbreak of war between Israel and Gaza has also put on hold the administration’s efforts to pursue normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Publicly, US officials maintain that the administration has every intention of resuming those efforts but acknowledge that the conflict has been disruptive.
“We understand that both in Israel and, of course, in Riyadh, there’s a different focus right now,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said this week. “We get that.”
With Australia, Biden has worked over his three years in office to cement an alliance that could prove increasingly important in an era of military and economic aggression by Beijing.
Alongside Australia and the United Kingdom, Biden unveiled the AUKUS partnership in 2021 meant to align the countries’ militaries in the region. The centerpiece was a plan to provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines, part of an emerging defense partnership widely viewed as a bid to counter China’s military ambitions in the Pacific.
Biden also revived the Quad partnership – comprised of the United States, India, Japan and Australia – as he works to strengthen American alliances.
On Wednesday, Biden and Albanese plan to announce new plans to cooperate on technology, including artificially intelligence and clean energy, according to the White House. They’ll also highlight new plans to allow US companies to launch into space from Australia.
A dinner as ‘many are facing sorrow and pain’
The crisis in the Middle East is also likely to arise in the two leaders’ Oval Office meeting, according to National Security Council spokesman John Kirby. But he said balancing a host of issues – foreign and domestic – is part of the job.
“He is commander in chief. That never stops. And the duties and responsibilities are literally global,” Kirby said, adding the task would be made easier if lawmakers would agree to Biden’s request for new funding.
Still, Kirby said, “the president is managing it really, really well, because he of his long experience in government, the wisdom he brings to the job, the relationships that he has.”
The state dinner was set to feature a performance by the B-52s, of “Love Shack” fame, but that performance was cut. Instead, the President’s Own Marine Band and the Army and Air Force strolling strings will provide instrumental music for the event and the B-52s will attend the dinner as guests.
“Nurturing our partnerships and relationships with our allies is critically important, especially in these tumultuous times,” Dr. Biden told reporters as she previewed the state dinner Tuesday evening. “Food is comforting, reassuring and healing and we hope that this dinner provides a little of that as well.”
“While we had initially planned for the legendary B-52s to perform their iconic dance and party music, we are now in a time when so many are facing sorrow and pain,” she said. “So we’ve made a few adjustments to the entertainment portion of the evening.”
Dr. Biden said the decor for the event, which includes light blue and purple tablescapes and florals, was inspired by “the vibrant Australian spring and crisp American autumn as the seasons ripple across our great painted landscape.” She tapped Bryan Rafanelli, the event planner who crafted her granddaughter Naomi’s wedding at the White House last year, to help with the decor and guest experience for the dinner.
The first lady developed the menu with guests chef Katie Button, a James Beard Award nominee who owns a popular tapas restaurant Cúrate in Asheville, North Carolina; White House executive chef Cris Comerford; and White House executive pastry chef Susie Morrison.
by tyler | Oct 25, 2023 | CNN, politics
Rep. Mike Johnson, Republicans’ latest nominee to be the next speaker of the House, has been a vocal supporter of former President Donald Trump and was a key congressional figure in the failed efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
The Louisiana Republican was first elected to the House in 2016 and serves as vice chairman of the House Republican Conference, as well as GOP deputy whip, an assistant leadership role. An attorney with a focus on constitutional law, Johnson joined a group of House Republicans in voting to sustain the objection to electoral votes on January 6, 2021. During Trump’s first impeachment trial in January 2020, Johnson, along with a group of other GOP lawmakers, served a largely ceremonial role in Trump’s Senate impeachment team.
Johnson also sent an email from a personal email account in 2020 to every House Republican soliciting signatures for an amicus brief in the longshot Texas lawsuit seeking to invalidate electoral college votes from multiple states.
After the election was called in favor of Joe Biden on November 7, 2020, Johnson posted on X, then known as Twitter, “I have just called President Trump to say this: ‘Stay strong and keep fighting, sir! The nation is depending upon your resolve. We must exhaust every available legal remedy to restore Americans’ trust in the fairness of our election system.’”
Although Trump said he won’t endorse anyone in the speaker’s race Wednesday, he leant support to Johnson in a post on Truth Social.
“In 2024, we will have an even bigger, & more important, WIN! My strong SUGGESTION is to go with the leading candidate, Mike Johnson, & GET IT DONE, FAST!” Trump posted.
Johnson serves on the Judiciary Committee and the Armed Services Committee. He is also a former chair of the Republican Study Committee.
After receiving a degree in business administration from Louisiana State University and a Juris Doctorate from the Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Johnson took on roles as a college professor and conservative talk radio host. He began his political career in the Louisiana legislature, where he served from 2015 to 2017, before being elected to Congress in Louisiana’s Fourth District.
Rep. Kevin Hern, an Oklahoma Republican who chairs the influential Republican Study Committee, dropped out of the race for speaker Tuesday evening and backed Johnson.
“I want everyone to know this race has gotten to the point where it’s gotten crazy. This is more about people right now than it should be,” he said. “This should be about America and America’s greatness. For that, I stepped aside and threw all my support behind Mike Johnson. I think he’d make a great speaker.”
Johnson’s win in the secret-ballot race for the House Republican Conference’s nominee for speaker followed Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer’s decision to drop out of the race hours after Republicans chose him to be the nominee following resistance from the right flank of the conference and a rebuke from Trump. Reps. Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan have also dropped out after earlier seeking the speaker’s gavel.
Johnson joined the speakership race in a Saturday post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“I have been humbled to have so many Members from across our Conference reach out to encourage me to seek the nomination for Speaker. Until yesterday, I had never contacted one person about this, and I have never before aspired to the office,” he said in a posted letter. “However, after much prayer and deliberation, I am stepping forward now.”
by tyler | Oct 25, 2023 | CNN, politics
At least 30 US military personnel sustained minor injuries from drone and rocket attacks on coalition military bases in Iraq and Syria on October 18, defense officials told CNN on Wednesday.
One of the officials said that four personnel sustained minor injuries from an attack on al-Asad airbase in Iraq on October 18, and an additional 20 personnel suffered minor injuries from an attack that same day on the US garrison in al-Tanf, Syria. It is not clear where the other injuries occurred. CNN previously reported that were some minor injuries in the incidents but not how many.
The officials said that all of the personnel have since returned to duty, but that several continue to be monitored for any additional side effects or injuries. The number of injured has risen as more US troops have reported symptoms in the days following the attacks. The officials declined to elaborate on the nature of the injuries, but some injuries like traumatic brain injury can take several days to diagnose.
Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said on Tuesday that US and coalition forces have been attacked at least 10 separate times in Iraq, and three separate times in Syria since October 17, via a mix of one-way attack drones and rockets. US officials have attributed the attacks to Iranian proxy groups operating in the region and have warned of a potential for significant escalation by these groups in the near term.
NBC News was first to report the number of minor injuries in Syria and Iraq.
Officials told CNN earlier this week that at this point, Iran appears to be encouraging the groups rather than explicitly directing them. One official said Iran is providing guidance to the militia groups that they will not be punished – by not getting resupplied with weaponry, for example – if they continue to attack US or Israeli targets.
The attacks have ramped up amid the US’ support for Israel in its war against Hamas and intensified following a hospital blast in Gaza that Palestinian militants and Israel have blamed on each other. US intelligence officials said on Tuesday that the explosion happened when a rocket launched by a Palestinian militant group broke apart in midair and the warhead fell on the hospital.
Iran supports a number of proxy militia groups in countries across the region through the IRGC-Quds Force, and Tehran does not always exert perfect command and control over these groups. How willing those groups are to act independently is a “persistent intelligence gap,” noted one source.
But a senior defense official said the US believes that the proxies are being funded, armed, equipped and trained by Iran, and the US therefore holds Tehran responsible for their actions.
Officials across the administration have reiterated in recent days that the US is preparing for a potential escalation, preparing both defense and offensive capabilities should it become necessary to respond.
The US has around 2,500 troops in Iraq and around 900 in Syria as part of the anti-ISIS coalition, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a statement last weekend that he was deploying additional air defense systems to the region in response to the attacks, including a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile system and additional Patriot batteries.
Iran warned on Sunday that the situation could escalate. In a conference with his South African counterpart Naledi Pandor in Tehran, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said that the Middle East is like a “powder keg,” according to quotes published by state-aligned Tasnim news.
“Any miscalculation in continuing genocide and forced displacement can have serious and bitter consequences, both in the region and for the warmongers,” Abdollahian said, referring to the US and Israel.
The Iranian foreign minister also warned the US and Israel that “if crimes against humanity do not stop immediately, there is the possibility at any moment that the region will go out of control.”
This story has been updated with additional reporting.
by tyler | Oct 25, 2023 | CNN, politics
Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday defended his record standing up for Florida’s Jewish community after a Republican lawmaker in his home state flipped his endorsement to former President Donald Trump and accused the governor of failing to address antisemitism.
Rep. Randy Fine, the lone Jewish Republican elected to the Florida legislature, said when the state experienced antisemitic demonstrations over the past 18 months, DeSantis “said almost nothing. And worse, he did almost nothing.”
“The past two weeks have made me realize our choice as Jews is simple,” Fine wrote in an op-ed published by the Washington Times. “We can vote for the Governor who says all the right things or we can vote for the President who actually does them. When it comes to action, Donald Trump has never ever let us down.”
While campaigning in New Hampshire, DeSantis described Fine’s remarks as “pure politics” and suggested the Republican representative was lashing out because he wasn’t named president of Florida Atlantic University. A search committee for the university named in July three finalists for the post and Fine was not one of them.
Days later, the chancellor of the state university suspended the search. In August, Fine told a local television station he was asked to apply for the job by DeSantis, leading some to raise concerns that DeSantis or his allies had intervened to stop the search so Fine could be installed. However, the job remains vacant.
“He didn’t get it. Now, he’s running for (state) Senate. He’s trying to ingratiate himself; totally ridiculous,” DeSantis said. “What other governor has rescued people from Israel?”
Pressed on why he did not explicitly condemn neo-Nazi marches in Central Florida or antisemitic displays in Jacksonville in recent years like other Florida Republicans, DeSantis said he didn’t want to “elevate” their “nonsense.” DeSantis also suggested, as he did in the aftermath of neo-Nazi marches near Orlando, that they were trying to “smear” him.
“When they do things, where like, there’ll be four knuckleheads, and then people are like making, why would you want to elevate it? Sometimes they’ll bring my stuff, which they’re not obviously my supporters, they’re doing that to try to smear me. Why would I want to elevate that nonsense?” DeSantis told reporters.
DeSantis also claimed that some of the people participating in the neo-Nazi marches are fake and sought to distinguish those marches from recent pro-Palestinian protests – which he has publicly and fiercely condemned.
“You have these people that are just marginal in society. I think some of them are fake. I think they’re trying to just get, get media clicks. So, that’s totally different than going out and having massive demonstrations of people celebrating the explicit murder of Jews, which is what’s happened in this country now. And so that’s something you just can’t ignore,” he added.
Fine was previously listed along with nearly 100 other Florida lawmakers who had endorsed DeSantis and had previously worked closely with the Republican governor on several priorities, including the effort to strip Disney of its special taxing district.
In the op-ed, Fine wrote, “Every piece of legislation you hear him talk about regarding Jewish issues is one I wrote. I love his words. His actions have broken my heart.”
DeSantis spokesperson Bryan Griffin said in a statement to CNN: “This is nothing more than shameful political theater at a time when Ron DeSantis is leading the charge to support Israel. From working to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, to combatting antisemitism throughout Florida and its schools, to securing funding for security at Jewish schools and synagogues, there’s never been a more pro-Israel Governor.”
