The popular way of describing what’s going on in Washington right now is to say that on October 1, the federal government shut down as a result of Congress’s inability to pass an appropriations bill to keep it funded. Chief among the sticking points was the fact that Democrats and Republicans could not come to terms on the future of Affordable Care Act subsidies . The Republican bill did not include them; Democrats balked at signing their name to a budget that would cause skyrocketing premium