ACA premiums will likely take their biggest jump in a while

No surprise here.

Next year, Americans who buy health insurance through the Affordable Care Act exchanges are set to pay significantly more for coverage—and experts say policies advanced by President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans are at least partially to blame.

An analysis released Friday by the health policy research organization KFF and the Peterson Center on Healthcare found that across a sample of more than 105 ACA marketplace insurers in 19 states and the District of Columbia, companies are set to increase premiums by a median of 15%.

The analysis noted that insurers have cited a number of factors to justify pushing up premiums, including Trump's tariffs—which could drive up drug, equipment, and supply costs—and the expectation that the Republican-controlled Congress will not extend ACA tax credits that are set to expire at the end of the year. - Common Dreams

Stopping IRA subsidies is incredibly foolish in many ways

This is a really good presentation of those ways.

How can you be a world leader when you are a laggard in the hottest, most important industries of the future? How can you attract the best people and businesses to the US when you have flip-flopping policies that kill incentives for these critical industries just a few years after enacting them?

If a company can cost effectively make battery-grade lithium, batteries, EVs, and solar panels in the US and make a profit selling them, they are going to do that. If their business plan is sabotaged by an anti-progress administration full of goons and corrupt cronies, are they even going to consider coming back here after shutting down shop, construction jobs, or even early-stage plans? - CleanTechnica

Congress cowers to thieving parasites on antitrust funding

This is rather appalling, though there's still time for it to be corrected.

Heading into the State of the Union address, the White House is placing a big bet on competition policy to tackle some of the biggest challenges in the economy. (On Monday), the administration announced the creation of an interagency Strike Force on Unfair and Illegal Pricing, co-chaired by Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan and Justice Department Antitrust Division head Jonathan Kanter. Together, Khan and Kanter will coordinate efforts across the government to target companies engaged in pricing activities that violate laws around fraudulent and deceptive practices, or unfair methods of competition. The goal is to reduce prices in sectors where tricks and traps are prominent, from health care to housing to financial services.

“Competition delivers real results to real people, that’s precisely what we are doing,” said Kanter on a press call on Monday. “And we’re doing it with fewer people than we had in 1979.”

That last bit was a tell, a flash of frustration at a development over the weekend, pushed by a bipartisan group of appropriators, that could lead to a dramatic cut in the Antitrust Division’s budget, precisely at the time when the Biden administration is elevating its work—relying on it, even—in advance of the election. While some members of Congress are furious about it, the White House seems to be resigned to the outcome. - The American Prospect

How Big Oil plans to stay on top

I wouldn't describe our corporate overlords as generally intelligent, in meaningful ways. But they often do display remarkable cunning.

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee recently released internal fuel company documents providing an insider’s view of what they say is a multi-year effort by four leading fossil fuel firms to greenwash their public image. The documents show employees and executives discussing climate policies and pledges they knew would do more to protect their business model than secure a meaningful reduction in pollution.

At first glance, the committee’s accompanying report on the climate disinformation is a partisan project and somewhat unsurprising given the fossil fuel industry’s history of misleading the public. However, a closer look reveals that the largest oil and gas companies are leveraging the climate crisis to further entrench their domination of energy markets across the world. The documents raise thorny questions for climate-minded Democrats, who found that industry groups will support liberal climate priorities such as methane regulation if that keeps oil and gas relevant and protects profits in the long run. Oil companies also “resist and block” environmental rules for pollution control they don’t like, as one employee of BP America observed in a 2016 email to executives obtained by the committee. - Truthout

Trump screws federal workers

You'd think this would end the possibility of any of these workers, except for a relative handful of hopeless diehards, voting for another term of this miserable, repugnant clown show. If that's not the case already.

In a move that drew outrage from labor unions and progressives, President Donald Trump this week quietly took steps to slash a scheduled pay raise for millions of federal workers from 2.5% to 1% due to supposed concerns about "keeping the nation on a fiscally sustainable course."

"I have determined that for 2021 the across-the-board base pay increase will be limited to 1.0%," Trump said in a message to Congress on Monday. "This alternative pay plan decision will not materially affect our ability to attract and retain a well‑qualified federal workforce."

The president's proposed "adjustment" to the scheduled pay raise will take effect in January 2021 unless Congress passes legislation to override the change.

Just a day after his message to Congress, Trump tweeted, "BEST USA ECONOMY IN HISTORY!" - Common Dreams