Sticker shock | Shutdown scars | Amazon robots

Wednesday, October 22, 2025

LOCAL

► From the Washington State Standard — Sticker shock: WA health insurance buyers confront steep price hikes — The roughly 300,000 Washingtonians who buy health insurance through the state’s online marketplace are set for a rude awakening as they begin shopping for plans. That’s because premiums for individual insurance bought on the Washington Health Benefit Exchange through the Affordable Care Act are set to rise an average of 21% next year. The steep hikes stem from the expiration of federal tax credits that congressional Republicans refuse to extend.

► From the Seattle Times — WA residents shopping for health insurance hit with sticker shock — Maya Tussing, a small business owner based in Woodinville, looked up the monthly cost of her plan next year around noon on Tuesday. She and her husband currently pay around $1,100 a month for a bronze plan that covers the couple and their 17-year-old daughter. In 2026, the same plan will cost over $2,100 per month — a $12,000 increase over the entire year.

► From the Tri-City Herald — Health insurance could double for thousands in Tri-Cities and Eastern WA — Franklin County’s 1,844 residents who buy their own insurance through the state’s Affordable Care Act marketplace exchange will see their costs more than double because of the expiration of the Enhanced Premium Tax Credit, according to Cantwell’s report. They would increase 116%, it said.

► From My Northwest — Some federal workers can apply for unemployment. Some can’t. — Their work is considered so essential that certain federal employees are required to stay on the job during the U.S. government shutdown, even though they’re not getting paid. Oddly enough, if they were sent home without pay, they’d be able to apply for unemployment benefits through Washington state. “For the folks who are going to work, and working without pay? They won’t be eligible for unemployment insurance because they’re working,” Donna Mack, the Rapid Response Manager for the state Employment Security Department (ESD), said…It’s all a little confusing, and it’s why the ESD is holding a webinar on Thursday, October 23, to help federal workers navigate the state and local resources available to them. Those interested can register here.

► From the Seattle Times — Feds searched security systems at 18 WA police agencies, report finds — Police officials in Renton, Auburn and Lakewood said they weren’t aware the federal agency had accessed their departments’ databases until they were notified last week by researchers at the University of Washington Center for Human Rights. All three use Flock Safety’s surveillance cameras and software, which capture time- and location-stamped images and license plate numbers of any cars passing through their jurisdictions…Police officials in Auburn, Renton and Lakewood said Tuesday they did not give the Border Patrol permission to search their Flock Safety data, and they are changing their settings to prevent it from happening again. Auburn and Renton’s police departments disabled a “National Lookup” option, which allowed their data to be searched by external agencies.

AEROSPACE

► From Flight Global — Boeing ‘really delivering aircraft these days’: Norwegian chief — Norwegian chief executive Geir Karlsen is continuing to see improvements in the quality of service the Scandinavian carrier is receiving from Boeing as it adds more 737 Max 8s to its fleet. “Boeing is really delivering aircraft these days,” he said during a third-quarter earnings briefing on 22 October…“It’s really nice to see that the production line in Boeing is working well these days, and this is what we expect also for the months and the years to come,” he adds. Karlsen was speaking two days after the US Federal Aviation Adminstration approved Boeing to increase monthly 737 Max production to 42 units from 38 amid efforts to return its production system to stability.

CONTRACT FIGHTS

► From the Daily — Nurses at Husky Health Center continue their fight for parity pay, negotiations set for Oct. 21  — Nurses at Husky Health Center (HCC) continue to fight for pay parity as they enter their sixth month of contract negotiations with the UW administration. The nurses have been advocating to align their pay scales to match those of UW Harborview Medical Center, claiming it will help reduce recruitment and retention barriers among staff. Registered nurses (RN), advanced nurse practitioners (ARNPs), research nurses, and physician assistants at HHC are represented by the labor union SEIU Healthcare 1199NW. They have been in active negotiations since May, with their previous contract ending in June.

NATIONAL

► From the New York Times — Amazon Plans to Replace More Than Half a Million Jobs With Robots — Now, interviews and a cache of internal strategy documents viewed by The New York Times reveal that Amazon executives believe the company is on the cusp of its next big workplace shift: replacing more than half a million jobs with robots…“Nobody else has the same incentive as Amazon to find the way to automate,” said Daron Acemoglu, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies automation and won the Nobel Prize in economic science last year. “Once they work out how to do this profitably, it will spread to others, too.” If the plans pan out, “one of the biggest employers in the United States will become a net job destroyer, not a net job creator,” Mr. Acemoglu said.

► From the New York Times — Workers and Employers Face Higher Health Insurance Costs — The vast majority of Americans who are under 65, about 180 million people, get their insurance through their employers. The rest rely on government programs like Medicare and Medicaid, or they buy health plans through the Affordable Care Act. The cost of employer coverage, which had been going up at roughly the same pace as overall inflation, rose sharply this year and is expected to do so again in 2026…While companies may have the ability to pass some of their higher costs on to workers, employees have no such option, she said. “They are left holding the bag,” Ms. Hunter said.

► From the Washington State Standard — ICE arrests 105 people in southwest Idaho raid, US Department of Homeland Security says — Advocates who were at the scene of the raid have denounced aggressive tactics they say they saw used, including law enforcement detaining everyone at the venue, children being zip-tied, and people being struck with rubber bullets. “The government came in full force, military-style, helicopters, drones and arrested and handcuffed, everyone … including children,” ACLU of Idaho Executive Director Leo Morales told reporters at a news conference Monday. “No person, no Idahoan, no American should ever accept whenever a government does this to its own people.”

► From KREM — What to know about SNAP benefits funding in Idaho — The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare announced on Oct. 21 that Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits will be temporarily delayed for Idaho residents because of the ongoing federal government shutdown. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service told the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare (DHW) to pause issuing SNAP benefits beginning in November until federal funding resumes.

► From Politico — Appeals court judges — including a Trump appointee — voice doubt over Trump’s bid to deport Mahmoud Khalil — [Trump-appointee] Bibas, in particular, scoffed at an argument by a lawyer for the government that the lower-court judge, Michael Farbiarz, didn’t have jurisdiction over the case because Khalil’s lawyers hadn’t properly filed a petition for his release in the appropriate district. In the hours following his arrest on March 8, Khalil was moved several times over the course of a weekend, and his lawyers filed the petition in Manhattan based on inaccurate information provided by the government…“I’m asking, should we adopt a rule that allows the executive to remove someone from the country in 24 to 48 hours and say there’s no jurisdiction anywhere until the courts open on Monday, by which time he’s on a plane?”

POLITICS & POLICY

► From the New York Times — How a Long Government Shutdown Could Leave Scars on the Economy — The economic effect of past government shutdowns has been straightforward. The economy loses some activity for a few weeks, then gains it back after the government reopens. The net cost is basically zero. This time, the math may not be so benign. As Washington’s stalemate continues into its fourth week with no end in sight, it’s looking like this could become one of America’s longest funding lapses. During the previous record-holder, a 34-day closure in 2018, Congress passed enough appropriations bills to keep more of the government funded. This time, none have been passed.

► From NPR — Hakeem Jeffries says public pressure will force Congress to extend ACA subsidies — In an interview with Morning Edition, Jeffries said he believes “it will become readily apparent to people throughout America why it is so important for Congress to act to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits.”…Jeffries said that “If billionaires can be provided tax breaks on a permanent basis in ways that will explode the deficit all across the country and result in people losing their health insurance … it seems to us that Republicans should come to the table to provide a greater degree of certainty as it relates to health care that’s being provided to working class Americans,” referring to President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

► From Politico — Democrats drafting counterproposal for federal employee pay bill — Senate Democrats are drafting an alternative to a GOP bill that would pay some federal workers during the government shutdown. The discussion about offering their own measure comes as Republicans have shifted their strategy as the shutdown drags on to offer piecemeal funding bills, including legislation that would pay federal employers who are working during the funding lapse as well as active-duty military troops. Democrats have signaled they will oppose the bill, spearheaded by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), when a procedural vote related to the legislation comes to the Senate floor later this week, citing concerns it would let President Donald Trump pick and choose who gets paid and who gets furloughed.

► From OPB — Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley speaks, holding Senate floor overnight to decry authoritarianism — Oregon U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley held the Senate chamber open all night to protest President Trump’s “tightening authoritarian grip on the country” amid the government shutdown. Merkley started speaking at 6:21 p.m. Tuesday evening and has been talking for more than 15 hours, with occasional breaks for questions from other Democratic senators who’ve joined him on the floor.

► From the Washington Post — Trump’s special counsel nominee withdraws — Paul Ingrassia, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel, has withdrawn his nomination, according to a White House official, after it became clear he does not have the votes to be confirmed, following reports that he texted other Republicans racist slurs and said he had “a Nazi streak.”

► From MSNBC — 3 Senate Democrats team up with sports stars and unions to denounce House NIL bill — Sens. Maria Cantwell of Washington, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Cory Booker of New Jersey spoke Tuesday on a Zoom call co-hosted by players’ unions from the National Football League, Major League Baseball, the National Women’s Soccer League, Major League Soccer, the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League…The three senators on the call, led by Cantwell, previously introduced their own bill, the Student Athlete Fairness and Enforcement Act, to address NIL rules. Blumenthal called fair athlete compensation a matter of racial and economic equity, warning of the SCORE Act’s potential Title IX and antitrust exemptions, and suggesting that players are being “given the crumbs off a cake that grows every year.”

TODAY’S MUST-READ

► From the Nation — Trump Has Handed Coal Miners a “Death Sentence.” But They’re Not Going Without a Fight. — There were many widows in attendance, but there was at least one retired miner there representing the industry’s strong but small female minority. 77-year-old Brenda Ellis spent 24 years working underground in the mines in her native Wyoming County, West Virginia. Nine years ago, she started to realize that something was wrong. “I was out of breath, I had no energy, gained all this weight and it just keeps on piling on,” she told me, wrinkling her nose. It took her six years to get diagnosed properly and access her black lung benefits. She’ll be starting oxygen soon, and will have to wheel around a tank of her own. That day, she was in DC representing her union, UMWA Local 1713 in Pineville, West Virginia, where she is the recording secretary and a fervent voice in the fight against black lung. She steadied herself on my arm, and looked up at me with a mischievous glint in her blue eyes. “I guess I’ll take it easy the day after I die!”

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