The elites finally let the truth slip: Washington has been papering over Obamacare’s failures by funneling taxpayers’ dollars into ongoing premium subsidies instead of fixing costs. What started as a temporary patch under the American Rescue Plan has been extended by Congress through the end of 2025, and that political maneuver is exactly the kind of permanent-looking bailout the left and big government cheerleaders pretend isn’t a bailout.
Here’s how the shell game works: the government sends advance premium tax credits straight to insurers so Americans see smaller monthly bills, while the real tab gets added to federal outlays and reconciled on tax returns later. That invisible payment — disguised as “help” — masks the true price of coverage at the point of sale and rewards middlemen who have every incentive to keep prices inflated.
If you think “it’s only a subsidy,” think again: those enhanced credits are set to sunset at the end of 2025 unless Congress acts, and analysts warn that millions of Americans will face huge payment shocks and coverage losses if Washington lets the bandaid fall off. KFF and market analysts estimate that without the enhanced credits, many enrollees would see their premiums spike by more than 100 percent on average next year — the very definition of a cliff driven by political planning, not market forces.
Don’t be fooled by the talking heads who cheer that the subsidies are “working.” Working for whom? The expanded credits are a transfer paid for out of future budgets, and nonpartisan budget analysts have documented the extra federal outlays and revenue hits these temporary policies caused over the last several years. In short: politicians borrowed from tomorrow to paper over today, and now hardworking Americans will pay the bill in higher taxes, higher premiums, or both.
Meanwhile the very insurance companies that benefit from the government’s direct payments are already pricing in the political uncertainty with rate hikes and aggressive filings, leaving families and small businesses to wonder whether the next election will decide if they can afford to stay insured. Headlines about insurers asking for double-digit increases and hospital groups pleading with Congress for extensions show who wins in this setup: the middlemen and the Washington-class, not the people.
If conservatives want to be true to the people who put us in office, we must stop pretending the solution is more temporary subsidies and start fighting for real market fixes — price transparency, health savings accounts, portability across state lines, and competition that drives costs down instead of padding insurers’ bottom lines. The choice is simple: keep funding an unsustainable transfer that lines pockets in the short term, or actually restore competition and accountability so Americans can afford care without Washington’s hand in every transaction.
