Listen
As we embark on the new year, many are expecting higher costs for the health care they need to live their best lives. That’s after Congress failed to extend subsidies to the Affordable Care Act during last year’s government shutdown and ahead of the new year deadline. We’ll talk about how Austinites and Texans will be affected in 2026.
The City of Austin and a former APD officer are being sued for excessive force. Austin has struggled for years to change the culture at APD’s training academy. We’ll have more about both those stories on today’s show.
Plus, we’ve got some advice on how to best achieve those financials goals you set for 2026.
The full transcript of this episode of Austin Signal is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:09] As we embark on the new year, lots of folks are expecting higher costs for the health care that they need to live their best lives. That’s after Congress failed to extend subsidies to the Affordable Care Act during last year’s government shutdown and ahead of the new year. We’re going to talk about how Austinites in Texans will be affected in 2026 and the city of Austin and a former APD officer are being sued for excessive force. Austin has struggled for years to change the culture at APD’s training academy. We’re gonna have more about both of these stories that’s coming up on today’s show.
KUT Announcer: Laurie Gallardo [00:00:41] The Austin Signal is a production of KUT News, hosted by Jerry Quijano.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:46] Plus, we’ve got some advice on how to best achieve those financial goals you set for 2026. Thank you for investing some time with us today. Lots more Austin Signal coming up next. Howdy out there and thank you for tuning in. This is Austin Signal. We are listener powered public radio here on KUT News. It’s Tuesday, January 6th. Thank you for making us part of your day. It is another warm one here in Austin and not just warmer than normal. High temperatures this week are in record range. The forecast high in Austin today of 84 would tie the record set back in 1989 and tomorrow’s expected high of 81. Would set a new record for that date. But the week will end with a strong cold front, so we have that going for us at least. Let us get into today’s show. Government subsidies for the Affordable Care Act expired at the start of 2026. So what does this mean for folks who rely on this to get their insurance? Well, for one, it means millions of Texans and many more Americans will be facing richer healthcare premiums. For more about that, we are speaking with KUT’s healthcare reporter, Olivia Aldridge. Hi, Olivia, thanks for being here.
Olivia Aldridge [00:02:08] Hi, Jerry.
Jerry Quijano [00:02:09] So, take us back a little bit, if you would, speaking of extending those subsidies, that’s what Congress was going back and forth over during that time last year when the government was shut down, correct?
Olivia Aldridge [00:02:19] That’s right. So during that federal government shut down last fall, Democrats were trying to hold out for a deal to renew these enhanced premium tax credits, essentially subsidies that offset the cost of marketplace insurance for a lot of people. They didn’t get that. Ultimately, what they got was an agreement to bring the matter to a vote in the U.S. Senate before the end of the year. And there were plans floated to address these subsidies, but ultimately no proposal passed before December 31st. So the tax credits did expire.
Jerry Quijano [00:02:47] Okay, and you mentioned a little bit about what they are, what they do. Why are they so important to many Texans and Americans?
Olivia Aldridge [00:02:54] Well, so many folks who buy health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace get some kind of tax credit from the government that offsets their costs. But historically, people who made more than 400% of the federal poverty level got no assistance. And this changed in 2021 when the Biden administration instituted this enhanced premium tax credit and made insurance affordable for a lot of middle income earners for the first time. And it gave additional assistance to lower earners as well. And this led to more people enrolling. So in Texas, the number of people enrolled in marketplace plans more than tripled after 2021. So there’s concern that many of those folks will choose to forego insurance this year because they can’t take on these increased costs without those credits. And that could have ripple effects throughout our healthcare system.
Jerry Quijano [00:03:41] Well, our Austin Signal listeners will remember that you were with us last month to talk about Blue Cross Blue Shield and their ongoing contract dispute with Ascension. We talked about, you know, how these fights kind of happen and then maybe things get resolved a little bit later. The subsidies for the ACA have expired. Is there a chance that we might see them be saved later on by Congress, anything like that.
Olivia Aldridge [00:04:05] It is still possible. Technically, enrollment is still open through January 15th. People can still make changes to their plans through that time and Congress could extend that period or even reinstate the enhanced credits later. Now, is it likely? Analysts experienced in this area are kind of saying no at this point. Congress is back in session. There have been reports of some bipartisan groups meeting to discuss a possible deal, but. We’ve also heard Democrats kind of saying President Trump would really need to give any deal his blessing, because he has a lot of influence over the Republican majority. Many Republicans are hesitant about how extending these credits would add to the deficit, and perhaps wanna see Obamacare replaced or reformed in some more significant way.
Jerry Quijano [00:04:51] Now that the subsidies have expired, the expiration was January 1st, 2026, how will this or how is this affecting people who use the Affordable Care Act Insurance Marketplace?
Olivia Aldridge [00:05:02] I mean, the headline is people are just going to be paying more. People who enrolled ahead of the new year are already paying more, the policy organization KFF said people will see an average 114% increase in what they pay each month, but that will vary depending on your income, you know, your household size, your age. For people whose income is kind of on the bubble of that 400% limit, they’ll really have to pay attention to be sure their income doesn’t exceed that this year. Or else they may have to return money to the government during next tax season, a lot of it. And for many people, this is tough to predict because they’re self-employed or freelancers, small business owners, and their income just fluctuates.
Jerry Quijano [00:05:42] You mentioned a little bit there that Congress could be working to possibly extend, maybe not work with these subsidies. What happens next? Is there a plan to replace Obamacare, or are folks just kind of winging it when it comes to finding insurance this year?
Olivia Aldridge [00:05:57] Well, nothing concrete. President Trump has floated an idea to replace tax credits with some kind of health savings account. There have been some proposals related to that, but as of right now, it’s kind of back to that pre-2021 reality, which is Obamacare is available, but with higher costs for a lot of people, especially for those middle income earners that we talked about.
Jerry Quijano [00:06:18] Alrighty, we have been speaking with Olivia Aldridge. She is KUT’s healthcare reporter. You can find more of her reporting at KUT.org. Olivia, thanks as always. This is Austin Signal. Thank you for spending part of your Tuesday here with us. The city of Austin and a former police officer are being sued after a woman alleged the officer used excessive force against her, causing permanent brain damage. That officer was fired last month by APD after an investigation. For more about this story, we’re talking with KUT’s government accountability reporter, Andrew Weber. Andrew, thanks for being on the show.
Andrew Weber [00:07:00] Yes, sir. Thank you, Jerry.
Jerry Quijano [00:07:01] So can you please tell us first a little bit about this incident and who is the woman at the center of it?
Andrew Weber [00:07:05] Yeah, Natalie G. Lennas was visiting Austin from South Carolina. She was staying downtown at the Marriott off Cesar Chavez, and she got into an altercation with hotel staff after going out for, you know, like a lot of people do at night. Um, this was around 3 a.m. Staff called the police, police showed up and she was handcuffed and by officer Joseph Spies and after that, you dropped her ID, tried to pick it up. He thought she was trying to flee. And then he flung her down on the ground and she hit her head very hard by all accounts. That’s from her lawsuit that she filed and from APD’s investigation into this. And then she was taken into a squad car and then she was sort of shoved into the squad car. And hit her head again. And, um, she filed a lawsuit this week, uh, saying that this was excessive force.
Jerry Quijano [00:08:00] And you mentioned that APD filed an investigation into it. They found enough evidence to fire the officer, correct?
Andrew Weber [00:08:06] They did, which is super rare. A lot of these instances, the officer is given a reprimand, they’re suspended for a certain amount of time, a couple of months, a couple weeks. This was an indefinite suspension, which is APD speak for you’re fired. And the officer fired was Joseph Spies. He was an 11-year veteran. Police found that he sort of exaggerated the danger here. He rated it an eight out of 10. They said, no, that wasn’t the case, and he sort misled investigators, so they ended up firing him.
Jerry Quijano [00:08:35] OK, one thing that’s not as rare as the Austin Police Department coming under scrutiny for alleged use of excessive force. What does this suit mean for the department and how many suits or how many cases were listed in the suit filed? There were four
Andrew Weber [00:08:50] This lawsuit was filed by Jeff Edwards, a local attorney who files a lot of these cases. He listed, you know, obviously the 2020 protest cases, the lawsuits that have resulted in more than $27 million in payments, which we’ve covered a lot. And he also listed another incident involving Breanne King, who was an elementary school teacher. She was on her way to work, she was speeding, and was taken down in a similar way to G.L. Ennis. And it, you. This list of cases goes back all the way to 2011. This has been a problem for the department for at least five years. The city said we want to revamp how we do our training because it’s been a concern to citizens. And it’s also been, you know, these lawsuits aren’t cheap. They usually result in settlements and the city has to pay out millions of dollars a year.
Jerry Quijano [00:09:37] That is KUT’s government accountability reporter, Andrew Weber, as he says, has been doing a lot of reporting on those suits. You can find more of that reporting over at KUT.org. Andrew, thanks for being here, buddy. Yes, sir. Thank you. All right, since Texas is one of the world’s energy hubs, what is happening in Venezuela right now could have huge ripple effects closer to home. Texas standards David Brown spoke with Matt Smith, lead energy analyst at Kepler to talk about oil and Venezuela.
David Brown [00:10:14] What do you make of the president’s comments to rebuild the oil industry? Perhaps we should think back a little more about the history of oil in Venezuela, especially U.S. Companies.
Matt Smith [00:10:25] Yeah, absolutely. In a nutshell, Venezuela’s oil industry has been destroyed over the last few decades by corruption and the lack of investment. So production was, it peaked at like three and a half million barrels a day last century. Start of this century, you 2015 it was around two and a half million barrels a day, but then has dropped significantly in the second half of last decade So what we saw really early in the century was that Chavez essentially kicked out a lot of U.S. Oil companies there and essentially seized those assets. So we have seen the production really come off. Now it is below about a million barrels per day. So it’s just been this There’s a gradual deterioration there.
David Brown [00:11:14] Yeah, I was reading an article this weekend that pointed out that the world’s largest oil reserves should suggest that Venezuela would be a much wealthier country than it is, but there just hasn’t been an investment in oil. President Trump is talking about rebuilding the oil infrastructure there. If you’re in the oil biz in Houston or Irving right now What do you think this means for the Texas oil industry? Are we looking at the possibility that US companies could rush down into Venezuela as a result of what happened this weekend?
Matt Smith [00:11:48] Well, no, so it’s a crude quality thing, right, David? So if we just consider US production and Latin American production in Venezuela specifically, US shale is light sweet crude. It is very high quality. Venezuelan crude is low quality, heavy sour crude. And US Gulf Coast refineries have been geared towards running this Venezuelian heavy sour crude, Mexican heavy sour, crude as well. So it’s not going to impact US production per se, because it’s not going be displacing that crude. The way, if you’re cynical, you can look at this is that the US needs this Venezuelan crude. And so that’s what’s driving President Trump’s efforts here.
David Brown [00:12:35] Well, what are the markets doing? What about a price response to the ousting of Maduro? Isn’t there still a blockade in place that would stop Venezuelan oil from reaching some of its
Matt Smith [00:12:47] So in terms of all prices, the response has been fairly muted. We saw prices sell off immediately when markets opened last night, and now they’re up about 1%. So fairly limited response there, you know, because there’s a lot of uncertainty. Yes, that blockade is still in place there, but it’s not likely to last forever. President Trump wants to keep oil prices down, prices at the pump down, and so he’s going to want that crew to move at some point there. I think the bigger question is, is what happens in Venezuela over the medium term here, because there could be the expectation that production will ramp back up as we get US producers back in there, operating these all facilities again, repairing things, investing, but what it’s going to take is tens of billions of dollars. It’s going to takes many years to do that, so a lot of time and money, and so this isn’t going to be fixed in any material way in the next…
David Brown [00:13:45] Let’s talk short-term here for a moment. We’ve been enjoying some pretty low prices at the pump in recent months. With what’s happening now in Venezuela, what’s that going to mean for consumer short-terms?
Matt Smith [00:13:57] Well, as long as the oil price remains around this $60 level, which it should likely do so, then it means that prices of the pump are going to remain in check. National average is well below $3 a gallon. In Texas, it’s about $2.40. We should expect that to continue at least through the first half of this year as the oil prices remain in-check. Ultimately, that’s what President Trump wants as he heads into the midterm elections later this year.
David Brown [00:14:24] Matt Smith, Lead Energy Analyst at Kepler. Matt, thanks so much.
Matt Smith [00:14:27] Thank you, David.
Jerry Quijano [00:14:34] And thank you out there for spending part of your Tuesday right here with us on Austin Signal. This is KUT News and we are listener powered public radio. Coming up after the break, what sorts of resolutions did you set for 2026? Perhaps you want to get out and experience Austin a little more. Don’t forget that free week is coming up this weekend. We talked with KUTX morning host Taylor Wallace yesterday about the shows you don’t want to miss. You can find that. At kut.org slash signal. But perhaps you want to save up to buy a new car or a new house or a knew something. Carl Stuart from Money Talk is going to have some advice that you can take into the new year. That’s after this break. This is Austin Signal. Thanks for being here with us. This is Austin Signal. Thank you for joining us today. We are in the middle of the first full week of 2026. And for lots of us, that means working toward new goals, some physical, some personal, and for plenty of us new financial goals. Here to help us with some of that is Carl Stuart. He is the host of Money Talk, all about the world of financial investment planning. Money Talk with Carl Stuart airs Saturday afternoons at five o’clock here on KUT. And today we’ve got Carl here in the studio with us on Austin Signal, howdy Carl. Thanks for being here with us. Like I said, you have a show here on KUT as Saturday afternoons, but for our listeners who might not have caught your show yet, tell us a little bit about money talking about yourself. How long have you been doing the show?
Carl Stuart [00:16:10] So I started, I just will celebrate at the end of January my 31st year on the radio. Congratulations. Thank you. And it’s been a lot of fun. I think the reason that the show, as they say in show business, has legs is because the agenda is driven by the listeners. People either call or text and ask their financial and investment planning question. And so while the theme can never be that unique, because it’s important to the person, she wouldn’t call or text if it weren’t. We’re all interested in other people. We are curious beings. And so I think that’s the reason people continue to listen. I have several goals. The first is to treat every caller with respect. And the second is to explain hard to understand stuff in plain English, because every profession has its own jargon, whether it’s accounting, or medicine, or engineering, or architecture, or radio. And then the third is, I don’t wanna talk about myself. I want to give people the best advice I can based on my 47 year experience and not talk about me and what I do professionally. And I think those are the reasons that the show has frankly remained popular and I’m thrilled as of April of 2025 to join you and your colleagues at KUT.
Jerry Quijano [00:17:40] Yeah, we’ve been glad to have you. It’s one of my favorite shows to listen to because you you say that the the listeners drive the show But you are this driving force behind it. You do you know you host Having been a producer on your show, you know, it’s a really wild ride You have so much energy and it really comes through in the show Thank you And I think lots of folks have new energy or energy at the beginning of a new year something fresh is starting What is it about the calendar change that makes us think about important things like finances when? We probably should be doing that every single day, not just the first day of the year. Yeah.
Carl Stuart [00:18:12] Yeah, yeah. Well, there’s a fair amount of literature in behavior sciences about doing goal setting, and that’s what really resolutions are. But there’s also a lot of literature suggests that we’re terrible at success. We fail with great regularity and predictability. And that’s true whether it’s I’m going to lose five pounds, or I’m gonna quit smoking, or by golly I’m going to contribute to my 401k. They’re all great ideas, but the trick is to make it permanent behavior. And what we know is changing behavior is hard, because we’ve been doing something, or in this case, not doing something for a long time. And it’s my understanding, if I want to change my behavior, I have to go through a period of some discomfort, cognitive dissonance, if you will, until I have a new habit. So, for example, I take a walk every morning. So if I’m on a long vacation, say, out of the country, I may not be able to do that. But when I get back, the first day I get up, what do I do? I take a walk. Because it’s now permanent behavior. So financial planning and resolutions are about changing behavior, and more importantly, sustaining that new behavior.
Jerry Quijano [00:19:35] Well, speaking of sustainment, the U.S. Stock market had a bit of a volatile 2025. The year did end on an upswing. Can we take anything away from that and apply it to our investment decisions as we go forward in 2026?
Carl Stuart [00:19:48] Absolutely. If I had told you at the beginning of 2025 that the war in Ukraine would continue, that we would have the highest tariffs in American history, that artificial intelligence would likely put lots of people out of work, you would have said, Carl, I don’t think it’s a particularly good time to invest in the stock market. And of course, you’d have been mistaken. The big takeaway from 2025 is you cannot let, and you must not let, the headlines make your investment and financial planning decisions because the headlines are important. You wanna stay alert, you wanna listen to KUT, but you also wanna divorce that from your own personal goals. So if you are investing in a company-sponsored plan for your future financial independence, then that’s what you need to keep your eye on. Not what’s happening today. The other thing is most people don’t have all the money they’re ever gonna have to invest for their future. It comes in dribs and drabs. That turns out to be a good thing. Let’s take 2022. In 2022, the U.S. Stock market, measured by the Standard& Poor 500, was down 19%. The NASDAQ, which is an index, lots of high-tech companies, down 33%. And bonds a safe investment down 13%. If you had been investing regularly on your own, in your IRA, in your 401k, every pay period, as stocks declined and you got your statement, you say, oh man, I’m putting this money in, and it’s just like putting it down a hole. What happened was, you bought more and more shares at lower prices, and then in 2023, 2024, you had lower average costs, greater gains. So how important
Jerry Quijano [00:21:44] is it’s a 2-2 jump in despite that volatility.
Carl Stuart [00:21:47] It’s absolutely critical and we have to look at history and not allow the headlines to drive our investment decisions.
Jerry Quijano [00:21:55] All right, we have been speaking with Carl Stuart, the host of Money Talk. If you enjoyed what you were just hearing, you can hear the show Saturday afternoons, five o’clock, right here on KUT News. Carl, thank you for joining us today. You’re welcome.
Carl Stuart [00:22:05] You’re welcome. A lot of fun. Thank you.
Jerry Quijano [00:22:13] And that is it for today’s show. Thank you for joining us. And thank you to Olivia Aldridge, Andrew Weber, and Carl Stuart for making today’s show a reality, Kristen Cabrera is our managing producer, Rayna Sevilla is our technical director, and Jimmy Mass is our show runner. And I’m your host, Jerry Quijano. Now, I’m no financial expert, but I certainly hope you’ll invest in yourself this year. You are 100% worth it. And we will be back with you tomorrow afternoon. At one o’clock here on KUT, you can find all our episodes at kut.org slash signal. And don’t forget to subscribe to the show wherever you listen to your podcasts.
This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.
