Government-Run Health Care
As the US government enters its 4th week of closure, you might wonder, where is our media? With the Democrats’ longtime dominance on healthcare, shouldn’t the fiasco of the Affordable Care Act be headline news?
Callous to even paying some federal workers, Democrats have voted at least 11 times against opening the government. The goal seems to be to exhort Republicans into extending enriched ObamaCare subsidies that were sold as temporary pandemic support. Readers of the WSJ, editors think, will understand how Democrats got this idea.
Since the GOP failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2017, Democrats and the press have shut down GOP debate about healthcare by warning that those with a pre-existing condition will be uninsured and destitute without ever-growing subsidies. Yet this Democratic doom loop isn’t having its usual effect this time, and that’s in part because the party is unintentionally reminding voters of the law’s manifest failures and bad incentives.
In a recent social-media post from Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, the senator warns that if Republicans don’t extend the turbocharged subsidies, “early retirees like Bill & Shelly will see their health insurance premiums increase nearly 300%—from $442 to $1,700.”
Short on Ammo, Long on Hope
Hang on a moment, here, Kamo Sabe. Isn’t this tactic an admission that ObamaCare is running out of silver bullets? Does ObamaCare spur workers to not work in the mines?
The Biden subsidies turbocharged that incentive by making subsidies larger and available even to those with incomes above 400% of the poverty line. The couple in Ms. Klobuchar’s example had north of $130,000 of income in 2024, mostly from pensions, according to the media article.
Are taxpayers—many of whom pay for their own coverage at work—willing to underwrite baby bloomers’ early retirements? Maybe the politics here aren’t as obvious as Democrats assume.
The Democratic Party’s howling is indicative of the system it has built. The WSJ editors offer a chart from the Paragon Institute showing not whether premiums are going up. Instead, it is only a matter of how much the taxpayer will pay.
The real drivers are the same structural flaws that have plagued ObamaCare since 2014 and rising health care costs.”
Republicans shouldn’t be faulted for not extending subsidies as the price for reopening the government. If the GOP circles the wagons, the editors think their unity will give them a lifeline to start building escape routes from ObamaCare.”
To improve the economics of offering insurance, negotiation could include codifying association health plans that let small businesses join up to form a larger risk pool. “Ditto for continuing to expand plans that can be paired with tax-preferred health-savings accounts.”
The GOP goal should be to move as many Americans as possible into better coverage.
If Republicans fail to make ObamaCare fixes in another budget reconciliation bill, it won’t be pretty:
Remember what happened the last time you said the word ObamaCare? The left hopes the GOP stays politically traumatized so it can continue its long march toward government-run care.
ObamaCare passed 15 years ago, the WSJ editors remind us. “It’s still a product few deem worth buying unless they’re protected from the cost. “
The political and media ground (has) changed in the past 10 years, and an underappreciated question of the shutdown is whether the GOP will re-enter the debate on healthcare—and go on offense on ObamaCare’s failures.
