General Discussion

...at the same levels, except for an increase in SNAP benefits that they negotiated?

I dunno, they waited some 40 days and basically just got the paychecks rolling to their federal worker constituents, and other money and assistance that the government provides when it's open through the holidays.

No using them as pawns while the rest of us maintain our own livelihoods throughout the confrontation.

It's not as if that was moving republicans to act, anyway. The real movement will come when their constituents who saddled us with Trump start to suffer.

Tragic that we have to as well, but we'll have to see if republicans care about that because the vote on the ACA extension is scheduled for a few weeks AFTER the rates go up for their voters as well as our own.

There's nothing prev4enting the fight from continuing in January while we pump up the politics in the interim.

It's not as if there was some certain outcome from the shutdown, other than this hat trick where the Dem leaders made health care the most salient issue being discussed.