General Discussion

to be able to say "we did EVERYTHING we could possibly do, the public did not elect us into a position where we controlled government, and we even let the government close to try to save them for you, but once people started starving and millions were working without pay, we had to give in because outright starvation is more pressing than health care". That type of thing.

The counter argument is that could have done nothing, i.e. just funded the government without a fight over the subsidies, and THEN leveraged the anger over the increased premiums, saying "hey, it wasn't us, we didn't have the power to stop the GOP from screwing you over, so vote for us instead next time"

Because I'm not sure which, in the end, would be more politically effective, I defer to the idea that the shutdown was better because at least they TRIED to stop a broad swath of the population from losing their coverage or having their premiums explode, even if there was not really a practical path to making the GQP acquiesce.