Democrats and insurance lobbyists are fighting hard to extend former President Joe Biden’s Affordable Care Act tax credits, but there’s no reason to let them continue now that the crisis is over.
These overly generous expansions were initially sold as a temporary measure to help Americans weather the Covid crisis. But the crisis has long been over, and you’d be right to ask why these costly subsidies should continue.
Among the many reasons to let them expire, one stands out: Biden’s expansion has opened the floodgates to fraud and waste, encouraging millions of people to enroll who didn’t really need the help.
To address pandemic uncertainty, Congress and the Biden administration supercharged existing ACA subsidies.
Before 2021, the subsidies were targeted to working families who truly needed help paying their premiums. Higher-income families didn’t qualify.
The American Rescue Plan changed all of that. It removed any income caps on eligibility, turning them into an open-ended entitlement. And for the first time, it made health insurance 100% free for families making less than about $50,000 a year (150% of the federal poverty level). The so-called Inflation Reduction Act locked this expansion in through 2025.
So subsidies no longer stop at the middle class — even millionaires can technically qualify.
This new torrent of government cash flows directly to already profitable insurance companies, benefitting them more than everyday Americans. Worse still, the system now incentivizes people to game the system and underreport income.
The data tells the story.
These so-called phantom enrollees are collecting subsidies for coverage they don’t use, and in some cases don’t even know they have.
These are all indicators of fraud.
Automatic reenrollment has only made the problem worse. Before, applicants had to reenroll for coverage every year. But with the expansions, most are automatically signed up for coverage again, unless they decline.
In 2025, 11 million people, 45% of all Healthcare.gov users, were automatically reenrolled, whether they still needed or wanted coverage.
The problem is especially severe in states that rely on the federal exchange rather than establishing their own state-based exchange. Florida, for example, had 1.2 million nearly fully subsidized enrollees with zero claims.
Even more troubling is that Florida reported almost five times as many residents in the 100–150% poverty line group as actually exist.
This is no accident. Many insurers and intermediaries are incentivized to sign up as many “enrollees” as possible because they’re rewarded with commission payments.
Reports abound of brokers signing people up with nothing more than a name, birthdate, and address, often without the person’s knowledge.
This led to the Department of Justice shutting down health care fraud rings in states like Florida, where a brokerage received $133 million for fraudulently enrolled individuals.
Biden’s expansion of ACA subsidies was billed as compassionate, but it has become a magnet for fraud. It encouraged families to fudge their income, enabled brokers to profit from signing up unwitting people, and left taxpayers holding the bag.
The result? Up to 7.1 million improper enrollees and a taxpayer burden of $27 billion.
That’s not compassion, it’s corruption.
If Congress is serious about lowering insurance costs and restoring integrity to health care, it must let these pandemic-era subsidies finally expire.
But they won’t act unless they hear from you.
Let lawmakers know that you support the expiration of the expanded Covid-era Obamacare subsidies.
Click here to sign a petition demanding that lawmakers allow these subsidies to expire.
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