Republicans and Democrats are pointing fingers at each other as to who is at fault for the current government shutdown. Personally, I don’t care.

What I care about is the reason for the shutdown.

The reason is that Democrats strongly oppose the Republican budget’s massive cuts to Medicaid funding and the subsidies provided to those who rely on the Affordable Care Act/ACA (Obamacare) for their health insurance.

The federal subsidies are what make ACA insurance more affordable. If you think that these rates are high now, they are projected to double if the current Republican budget passes.

Making the ACA unaffordable, as proposed by Republicans, will certainly have an adverse effect on small businesses and on people who are thinking about becoming self-employed.

Small businesses can’t begin to offer health insurance benefits to the extent that large companies can. So many of their employees rely on the ACA. Without reasonable ACA premium prices, the number of people willing to work for small businesses will drop.

Of course, if someone is thinking of self-employment, a lack of affordable ACA health insurance could very well cancel that thought.

Cuts to Medicaid will seriously affect the ability of millions of low-income people to have access to health care.

Because hospitals rely on Medicaid income, many will either have to close or raise their fees to astronomical heights to compensate for the loss of Medicaid reimbursement.

The American public seems to have been oblivious to what the Republicans seek to do to health care. So the Democrats felt that a major step was needed to get the public’s attention.

My feeling is that the Democrats are to blame for the government shutdown. But I am glad they did it. Somehow, the public needs to grasp what the Republicans intend to do.