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Notes -
Can anyone explain the government shutdown to me? I haven't followed the story at all. If you consider yourself to be aligned with the Democrats, I'd especially like to hear your perspective.
After not following the news at all since the beginning, I casually overheard on Fox News that "the Democrats are keeping the government shut down over Obamacare". I assumed that that couldn't be right. Surely the whole thing couldn't be happening because of any one policy issue; there had to be more to the Democrats' side of the story. But then I started reading reddit comments and the consensus from leftists seemed to be that, yes, we really are keeping the government shut down over Obamacare, and this is Good and Righteous.
My initial reaction is that this seems rather petulant and childish on the part of the Democrats, because I think the minority generally should be expected to make concessions to the majority, but that's where my factual knowledge essentially ends so I'll let other people argue the case.
AFAIK, the TDLR is that obamacare includes subsidies for people who buy their own insurance(that is, don't get employer-coverage or welfare coverage or etc). These are mostly early retirees. Trump's government funding bill slashes these subsidies, the democrats won't vote for a bill that doesn't keep them.
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