January 5, 2025
While everyone is completely focused on Venezuela and what’s happening with Nicolas Maduro — and rightly so – that’s a huge story – I want to also make sure we’re not losing focus on the other huge stories that are currently impacting our own country. I’m talking about skyrocketing healthcare costs, the Epstein files and – a government shutdown coming in just a few weeks.
Tomorrow – congress will return to Washington DC for the first time in weeks – they have a lot to deal with and there’s not a lot of time to do it. So here’s what you need to know. Let’s start with the government shutdown because that connects of all of this.
The fact is – the US government is scheduled to shut down again on January 30th. You’re probably thinking – damn didn’t we just get out of a government shutdown? Yes – we did. In fact we just got out of the longest government shutdown in history in November. But what you may not fully understand is the deal that ended the shutdown didn’t stop the shutdown forever…it just kicked the can down the road and set up a new shutdown deadline. The deal made by eight senate democrats and almost all senate republicans included what’s called a continuing resolution that just temporarily kept the u-s government open at status quo funding levels– but only till January 30th. That means – unless the House and Senate both Democrats *and* Republicans pass some kind of new bipartisan government funding bill we are going to see another shutdown at the end of this month. And I know – for all of us that’s feels like a whole month of working time to figure this out. No problem right? Wrong. Congress doesn’t work on normal business hours. According to the 2026 House schedule – the House is only expected to be in session 12 working days in January – which you can see highlighted on the calendar. Of course that can change. But as of today — the reality is — there’s not much time.
Now – that you understand the time crunch we’re up against – let’s talk about the issues that are going to play into the deal to keep the government open. Let’s start with healthcare. On January first – millions of Americans saw their health insurance costs skyrocket – as I have been reporting was going to happen since last summer. That happened for several reasons – but one of the key ones that congress controls is the enhanced premium tax credit expired. Without it – we are expecting millions of people will be forced to just cancel their health insurance all together because they can’t afford it. We don’t have official numbers yet of how many people canceled their healthcare plans because open enrollment is still ongoing through January 15th – but the key watchdogs estimate between 3 and 7 million will be canceling their health insurance this year. And that impacts all of us because those uninsured people will put a significant additional strain on the already stretched thin healthcare system and could cause insurance costs to go up again for those who do have health insurance.
Because of this – it’s very possible that democrats are going to try and leverage their votes to keep the government open in exchange for some kind of concession from Republicans to bring back and extend the enhanced premium tax credits to help Americans afford their healthcare. Now – the Republicans in the house hate that idea and instead passed their own healthcare plan before they left for the holiday recess. I told you all about that plan in this video – but the fact is – that Republican healthcare plan probably won’t be able to get the necessary 60 votes in the Senate. Also– keep in mind– there is a discharge petition that must go to the House floor in the next few days. If passed – that discharge petition would reinstate and extend the enhance premium tax credit for three more years. That may actually pass the house – but again – it’s unclear what it looks like in the Senate.
And speaking of leveraging votes to keep the government open– it’s also possible that Democrats could demand some kind of check that would require the Trump administration to get some kind of congressional approval before it takes any more large scale military action like what happened with maduro over the weekend and before the US military continues to strike any more alleged drug boats in international waters. Of course over the weekend – Trump implied that he’s not stopping with Venezuela he threatened the leaders of Columbia and Cuba with the same type of military force we saw with Maduro and even floated the idea – again – of taking Greenland – which is a territory of Denmark which is a NATO ally.
Lastly – the Epstein files. Which believe it or not – are somehow getting lost in all of this. I want to remind you that the law signed by president trump says the full Epstein files shall be released on December 19th. Not only did that not happen but now it’s more than two weeks late. But there are also real concerns about selective redactions being made to the documents by Trump’s Department of Justice that are not allowed in the law and the fact that over the holidays the DOJ said oops we found millions more documents connected to the Epstein case. And now they’re saying they’re not going to release any more Epstein documents until January 20th or 21st. Which is definitely not what the law says. So – with the looming government shutdown, skyrocketing healthcare costs, this military action that trump just took and is threatening to take again, plus the Epstein files – congress has its hands full and not a lot of time to figure it out.
