My assumption was that the Republicans weren’t going to shift — a lot of the money they got for tax breaks for the wealthy came from pillaging Medicaid. They can’t really back out and do their tax policy. I also didn’t think that the Democrats were going to just block the budget until Trump leaves office.

So I think that if what you were hoping for was all the healthcare coming back, that probably wasn’t going to be in the cards. I commented on roughly that earlier, that what I expected was one of the Republicans using the nuclear option (change the Senate rules to permit passing the budget without a supermajority), or the Democrats ending the shutdown without at least a full change on Medicaid.

The Democrats don’t really have much by way of levers to pull, because the Republicans hold a trifecta. This is one of the few things that they can do, and it’s a pretty weak lever.

So it really came down to a political play based on what will win more public support for the midterms. Will people shift Republican or Democratic? The Republicans will try to get people upset at the Democrats, to shift Republican. The Democrats will try to get people to shift Democratic. If the Democrats gain control of the House in the midterms, then they gain a substantial amount of leverage.