Danny Mintz

Louisiana: Breakout of impact on net ACA benchmark Silver plan premiums if enhanced tax credits expire

REMINDER: Mike Johnson's district has ~40,000 #ACA market enrollees.

A single parent earning $40K/yr could see their net premiums more than TRIPLE.

acasignups.net/ira-subsidy-...

How does this work? Each state draws a random sample of its SNAP beneficiaries, and then reevaluates their eligibility documentation. The federal government then reviews 50% of those cases. In part, the error rate captures how frequently, based on these reevaluations, states had made erroneous SNAP payments—too much or too little, including payments to people who didn’t qualify for benefits. Importantly, the error rate also captures procedural errors—meaning it includes cases where the benefit was, in fact, correct, but where other mistakes were present, such as a missing signature or form. Starting in 2022, cases where beneficiaries were in fact deemed still eligible or were paid the correct benefit, were nonetheless deemed an ‘error’ if any of the paperwork was incomplete or included mistakes. Even if the state gets the outcome right, it can still be penalized for imperfect processes.

What is the SNAP poison pill? Weaponizing an obscure administrative metric: error rates.
Errors are inevitable because Congress designed a policy that’s impossible to administer perfectly. Nevertheless, states will now pay between 5-15% of their SNAP budget if their error rates go above 6%.

Today's the last day for 150K+ feds who took the "Fork" (deferred resignation program), including 800+ at the Social Security Administration.

The experience at SSA demonstrates 3 things about the DRP:

1. It's the tip of the iceberg
2. It wasn't really voluntary
3. It hurts service to the public

Exclusive | Trump Administration Cancels Annual Hunger Survey The government has been measuring food insecurity since the mid-1990s, but now says the report has become “overly politicized.”

Trump administration cancels annual hunger survey

The government has been measuring food insecurity since the mid-1990s, but now says the report has become ‘overly politicized’

SNAP crackdown looms with new rules and state shakeups cutting millions from aid MILLIONS of Americans are now at risk of losing their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits after the government announced a major revamp.  The United States Department of …

"Food banks have been operating at superhero rates. It’s not sustainable. No sort of food bank, no sort of philanthropy, can meet the need or fill in the gap that the federal government is taking away.” www.the-sun.com/money/152047...

Long-term unemployment at post-pandemic high, straining workers and economy The US economy is seeing a rise in long-term unemployment, with over 1.9 million Americans out of work for 27 weeks or more, sparking concerns about the labor market.

More than 1 in 4 workers without jobs have been unemployed for at least six months, new data shows.

That number is a post-pandemic high and a level typically only seen during periods of economic turmoil.

i have said this before but when “getting rid of race in admissions” for the administration means “you can’t even try to reach out to underrepresented communities and encourage them to apply and if you do it is illegal discrimination against white people” then the actual goal here is segregation

More on how Social Security has managed to bring disability backlogs down this year, despite *everything*:

1. The disability determination staff who process applications are state employees & were not subject to the DOGE efforts earlier this year that pushed out thousands of SSA staff.

The Pitt has plans to tackle stories next season related to federal health care cuts. I've got some ideas in a new column out in @jama.com.
jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Southern University, other HBCUs close due to ‘potential threat’ Southern University and A&M College in Baton Rouge will be closed through the weekend after officials called a lockdown Thursday morning due to a “potential threat.”

At least seven historically Black colleges and universities across the South received threats Thursday that caused lockdowns and closures. via @wwno.org

KFF Health News' 'What the Health?' News Podcast · Updated Weekly · Join Julie Rovner, chief Washington correspondent for KFF Health News, along with top health policy reporters from The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico and other media outlets to discuss …

"Since the Affordable Care Act passed...every single one of the funding mechanisms to help offset the cost of the bill has been repealed...The individual mandate is gone. Most of the industry-specific taxes are gone. The Cadillac tax...is gone." -@jrovner

Universal healthcare would be good for business.

JAMA Network article titled "Long COVID and Food Insecurity in US Adults, 2022-2023" by John C. Lin et al. Published online September 9, 2025. Includes JAMA Network Open logo.

In adults with prior #COVID19, food insecurity was associated with a 78% higher chance of having current long COVID and a 34% lower chance of recovering from it, with participation in food assistance programs and employment associated with reduced risk. ja.ma/4ph1K7N

Jewish-Studies Scholars, Beware: Trump’s Deal Will Corrupt You We must all resist being turned into court Jews.

"Jewish studies is set up to fail if it is judged not by peer-reviewed research and teaching excellence but rather by its success “combating antisemitism,” an ill-defined and politically contested goal." www.chronicle.com/article/jewi...

In 1900, 31% of all deaths were children under the age of 5. Today it’s 0.7%. Vaccines, medications, and modern science are the reason why. Trust the science, it’s been proven to work safely and efficiently time and time again.

📣 IMPORTANT: I can't stress this highly enough: 23.4% is the weighted average premium increase for *currently unsubsidized* ACA enrollees only.

For most of the > 90% who currently receive federal subsidies (~21M Americans, myself included) the NET rate hikes will be higher than 23%. MUCH higher.

In Trump’s Federal Work Force Cuts, Black Women Are Among the Hardest Hit

“If the model employer, the federal government, is unilaterally terminating high-performing Black employees, what hope is there?” President Trump’s efforts to shrink the federal work force have disproportionately affected Black women. Those losses are also rippling through the private sector.

Crisis within CDC is spilling into real world, experts say "I’ve never heard as many colleagues saying things like 'CDC is dead’ as I have today," an agency employee told STAT.

This is telling: People I spoke to are talking about CDC in the past tense.

www.statnews.com/2025/08/28/c...

DHS moves to bar aid groups from serving undocumented immigrants Disaster-aid groups said the new contracts would make it harder for nonprofits to help the most vulnerable Americans in the aftermath of a disaster.

Aside from the cruelty of denying aid to people affected by a disaster, this is absolutely ludicrous to implement.

Are food banks supposed to ask people who have lost everything to show their papers before giving them emergency food?

wapo.st/3Jy4ptv

Where will you be publishing it? I'd like to read it when it's out.

2026 Rate Changes - Louisiana: +21.9%; ~306,000 Louisianans facing MASSIVE rate hikes starting in January Overall preliminary rate changes via SERFF database, state insurance dept. website and/or the federal Rate Review database. Ambetter Health of LA: The proposed rate change of 16.4% applies to approxim...

🚨 LOUISIANA: Preliminary avg. 2026 #ACA rate changes: +21.9%; ~306,000 enrollees likely facing MASSIVE rate hikes starting in January:

acasignups.net/rate_changes...

Salaam is Running for Congress. 3 things you need to know and how you can help

A better world is possible if we fight to build it.

@salaambhattiva.bsky.social, one of the most committed, effective, and kind anti-poverty advocates I know, is running for Congress (VA-1). He would be a voice for justice and compassion.

salaambhatti.substack.com/p/salaam-is-running-for-congress

Trump admin. tells judge it can fire at least some career feds at any time for any reason The administration is seeking to upend civil service protections long in place for federal employees.

The end goal here is a completely at will workforce and they are already making those arguments www.govexec.com/management/2...

USDA and FNS will use the SNAP data in this system to ensure the integrity of Government programs, including by verifying SNAP recipient eligibility against federally maintained databases, identifying and eliminating duplicate enrollments, and performing additional eligibility and program integrity checks specified herein.

Is there a reason there are only 10 public comments on this request for input about a national SNAP fraud database? It seeks to not only collect data about recipients, but also about applicants, which would include people who never received a benefit. www.federalregister.gov/documents/20...

CATEGORIES OF RECORDS IN THE SYSTEM: The system consists of records containing personally identifying information, including but not limited to SNAP participant name, Social Security Number (SSN), date of birth (DOB), residential address, Electronic Benefit Transaction (EBT) card number, and case record identifier number or other identifiers or data elements maintained by States, vendors, or contractors to identify SNAP recipients. The system also consists of information derived from and associated with EBT transactions, including but not limited to records sufficient to calculate the total dollar value of SNAP benefits received by participants over time, such as applied amounts and benefit available dates.

Totally unnecessary exposure of PII - you could using hashing or homomorphic encryption so that PII itself isn't required for finding matches. SWIFT monitors international transactions without any direct PII - why does the Federal government need this for a state-administered program?

ACA health insurance will cost the average person 75% more next year, research shows

This is a really big deal that will impact MILLIONS of people:

"For example, if someone paid $60 a month for their health insurance this year, they might be looking at $105 a month next year. "
www.npr.org/sections/sho...

We already have Schedule F (turning career civil servants into at-will employees).
Now Trump is announcing Schedule G: Opens space at top ranks of govt for Trump loyalists as policymakers, with no limit on hires. Continues pattern of politicization.
www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/...

College affordability is undermining student mental health. We can’t address one without the other. College affordability isn’t separate from mental health; it’s at the center of it.

🥗 From Paige Swanstein for Youth Today:
College affordability is undermining student mental health. We can't address one without the other.
youthtoday.org/2025/07/coll...

Thought going through the new Medicaid work rules: if I'm covered by Medicaid, get injured and fall into a coma, I need to make sure to wake up from my coma in time to request a hardship exemption from work reporting, so that the insurance covering my coma care isn't terminated. Cool.

A very powerful essay by Holocaust scholar Omer Bartov, arguing that:
a) Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and
b) denying this threatens to "undermine everything that Holocaust scholarship and commemoration have stood for."

Do read the whole thing www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/o...