Citizen Cohn / Jonathan Cohn
LightNews LightNews
banner
citizencohn.bsky.social
Citizen Cohn / Jonathan Cohn
@citizencohn.bsky.social
21K followers 1.3K following 1.1K posts
Writer at The Bulwark
Author of The Ten Year War
Fan of Red Sox, Dolphins, Wolverines & Billy Joel
Proud husband & dad

Email cohn [at] thebulwark.com
Signal CitizenCohn.41
Posts Replies Media Videos
citizencohn.bsky.social
Some Republicans senators are saying Rick Scott will come up with their new ACA subsidy alternative

Yes, that Rick Scott... www.politifact.com/factchecks/2...
Screenshot of PolitiFact article with headline "Says Rick Scott 'oversaw the largest Medicare fraud in the nation's history'" and then rates it "mostly true."
November 9, 2025 at 4:05 PM
citizencohn.bsky.social
So yeah temperature has dropped a bit
Picture of snow outside
November 9, 2025 at 2:20 PM
citizencohn.bsky.social
Republicans waged a relentless, decades-long campaign to privatize Medicare and Medicaid

They fought even mild efforts to expand public insurance

Now they are objecting to extending extra ACA subsidies, supposedly because money flows to private insurers

We are supposed to take this seriously?
Sen. Lindsey Graham — quoted here by Jake Sherman — objecting to ACA subsidy extension bc “it would enrich health insurance companies even more”
November 8, 2025 at 7:56 PM
citizencohn.bsky.social
So much to say about Nancy Pelosi, now retiring

Plausibly the most effective House leader of modern times

A telling episode, from early 2010 when Democrats were *this* close to giving up on what eventually became the ACA

us.macmillan.com/books/978125...
Excerpt from book, The Ten Year War meeting after the Massachusetts election, junior and vulnerable members lined up at the microphones, decrying reform as a “suicide mission.” Pelosi, with Hoyer at her side, heard out every one—and then made a speech of her own, declaring her determination to go forward because they had come so far. Chris Murphy, who in 2010 was finishing his second term representing a suburban House district outside Hartford, Connecticut, said later, “I just felt like the momentum was heading in the direction of surrender. Pelosi just did not allow it to happen. By sheer will, she turned that room around. People like me, I still wanted to do it but I don’t know that I had the confidence to stand up to this tidal wave. She breathed confidence into everybody in that room who wanted to stay the course.”
November 6, 2025 at 2:51 PM
citizencohn.bsky.social
I was told New Jersey would be close

Is this close?
Screenshot of NJ returns, 85% of votes in, Sherrill up by 13 points
November 5, 2025 at 3:26 AM
citizencohn.bsky.social
Administration hasn't provided info on who's gone, who's left -- not even to Congress

@reppaultonko.bsky.social @repdean.bsky.social @nteunion.bsky.social crowdsourced, found SAMHSA staff down by more than 50% (!)

Memo old.thebulwark.com/wp-content/u...

Article www.thebulwark.com/p/drug-treat...
Screenshot of memo's first page, showing cuts at SAMHSA have reduced staff by more than 50% since Trump administration came into office
November 3, 2025 at 2:41 PM
citizencohn.bsky.social
A+ sign at College GameDay
October 25, 2025 at 3:49 PM
citizencohn.bsky.social
Next up: @edwincpark.bsky.social

He also has decades of experience working on Medicaid, in and out of government

He said this www.thebulwark.com/p/democrats-... (3)
Just to make sure I wasn’t missing anything, I checked with another Medicaid expert, Georgetown professor Edwin Park. “The reimbursement rate itself for the emergency services provided by the hospital will be the same irrespective of eligibility group or matching rate,” he told me.
October 8, 2025 at 4:40 PM
citizencohn.bsky.social
Medicaid financing is sufficiently complex that I thought maybe I was missing something

I asked two of the people who know the program best

Andy Schneider, who spent half a century studying (and writing parts of) Medicaid law, told me this (2) www.thebulwark.com/p/democrats-...
Johnson appears to have been invoking a popular but highly dubious conservative argument, which is about how the federal government (which supplies the majority of Medicaid funding) pays more for people who get Medicaid through Obamacare’s expansion than through the older, previous criteria.5 But that’s an argument about how money gets from the federal government to states, not to hospitals—as Georgetown University research professor Andy Schneider confirmed to me this week. “What a state (or a managed care organization on the state’s behalf) pays a hospital for emergency care can get complicated, and there are often variations in rates from hospital to hospital, but those variations are not tied to eligibility pathways,” said Schneider, who spent literally half a century working on Medicaid as a congressional staffer, federal employee, and independent contractor
October 8, 2025 at 4:39 PM
citizencohn.bsky.social
Fortunately @thebulwark.com crack production team was able to improvise, and insert a graphic www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQC7...
Screen shot of me during the interview, with an image of the same ATPM movie poster superimposed on the bookshelves behind me (I was at a public library)
October 5, 2025 at 8:47 PM
citizencohn.bsky.social
Saw the movie when I was young and -- cliché warning -- it absolutely made me want to be a journalist

So excited to talk about it youtube.com/watch?v=oQC7...

Only problem: I wasn't in my office, where I have the film's promo poster on display
Image of me in my office, with ATPM poster behind me
October 5, 2025 at 8:47 PM
citizencohn.bsky.social
Looks like NSF has changed eligibility for its prestigious graduate fellowship, limiting now to 1st year PhD students

Previously 2nd year could apply

Not a small shift, especially with no advance warning

(Screen shots of eligibility guidelines, then and now)
September 26, 2025 at 9:57 PM
citizencohn.bsky.social
Oz, Makary and other health/science officials spent the last few days carefully walking back Trump's comments on Tylenol, that he was merely pointing out some risks and urging caution

Here's Trump today
September 26, 2025 at 8:25 PM
citizencohn.bsky.social
More on the paper here www.thetimes.com/us/american-...
Excerpt Of Baccarelli’s testimony, Cote said: “The discussion in his reports is incomplete, unbalanced and at times misleading. In general, Dr Baccarelli downplays those studies that undercut his causation thesis and emphasises those that align with his thesis.” Excerpt Cote said all five of the experts who testified in the unsuccessful lawsuit against Kenvue “have not served to enlighten but to obfuscate the weakness of the evidence on which they purport to rely and the contradictions in the research.” A source familiar with the case added that Baccarelli’s expert testimony was later “repackaged” as the study that he co-published last month. The source shared an independent academic review of Baccarelli’s original research that urged him and his co-authors to “[t]emper language” when inferring that prenatal exposure to acetaminophen causes autism. The report concluded that there was an “association” between the two rather than a causal link.
September 24, 2025 at 2:48 AM
citizencohn.bsky.social
Monarez:

"I was instructed to not speak directly with senators"

Also instructed not to speak with CDC career officials

"I was directed to only work with political appointees"
September 17, 2025 at 4:24 PM
citizencohn.bsky.social
Moody asks Houry why she coordinated with colleagues about resigning

Houry says it's because they felt they could no longer work at CDC, given RFK Jr.'s threat to science and integrity

Not sure why Rs think this line of inquiry helps www.pbs.org/newshour/hea...
September 17, 2025 at 4:11 PM
citizencohn.bsky.social
Murphy: Did RFK Jr. suggest Trump supported changes to vaccine schedule?

Monarez: That was impression he game, though I cannot verify www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIlW...
September 17, 2025 at 3:48 PM
citizencohn.bsky.social
Monarez describing meeting with RFK as tense, difficult

Says he was "animated" like he was during Senate Finance testimony
www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIlW...
September 17, 2025 at 3:44 PM
citizencohn.bsky.social
Houry:

CDC response to Texas measles was different than in the past

- No regular briefings for secretary by agency scientists
- RFK Jr. spread vaccine misinformation
- RFK Jr. pushed unproven, potentially dangerous therapies
September 17, 2025 at 3:04 PM
citizencohn.bsky.social
There’s a reason this poster hangs in my office: Seeing that movie as a kid is what first made me want to be a journalist

R.I.P. Robert Redford, one of the all-time greats
Movie promo poster for All the President’s Men
September 16, 2025 at 12:43 PM
citizencohn.bsky.social
And of course Mr. Brightside is back too
September 1, 2025 at 1:32 PM
citizencohn.bsky.social
Hate for summer to end, but it also means it’s time for this… Go Blue
September 1, 2025 at 1:25 PM
citizencohn.bsky.social
This passage from @eggerdc.bsky.social captures the situation so well -- and not just at CDC www.thebulwark.com/p/camelot-fo...
Excerpt This line of thinking is standard issue among the “heterodox” anti-institutionalists who are the brain trust for Republicanism today. Look at any institution, find five or six critiques of it—big or small, fair or not—and declare that the place is rotten beyond repair. If you don’t want to tear it down and start from scratch, you’re part of the problem. If you do want to tear it down and start from scratch, congratulations, you’re hired: That’s the only qualification you need.
August 29, 2025 at 1:21 PM
citizencohn.bsky.social
Disturbingly plausible scenario that @jvl.bsky.social sketches out here (and make sure to read the whole thing) www.thebulwark.com/p/the-cdc-th...
excerpt Trump will find people to do Kennedy’s bidding. Those people will get career jobs. Studies will be commissioned; recommendations made. The CDC will issue the guidance Kennedy and Trump want, just as the Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the data Trump wants. The U.S. government will no longer be a reliable vector for information about medical science. Real scientists will leave the country. Research will move to Europe and China. Innovation will happen elsewhere as one more American industry succumbs to the poisonous effects of corruption. Oh, and Americans will get sick. But don’t worry. People will blame it on woke, or trans kids, or the Democrats’ inability to message.
August 28, 2025 at 5:19 PM
citizencohn.bsky.social
The page has a long list of citations and summaries that, according to the people who compiled it, shows COVID vaccine harms zenodo.org/records/1578...

Material originally produced for "Toxic Shot," an independently published book with a foreword by Sen. Ron Johnson (7/x)
August 11, 2025 at 1:02 PM