Democrats are holding the government hostage in an extended government shutdown over temporary, COVID-era Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies that were meant to make health insurance cheaper — or free — for millions of Americans during the pandemic. But like most pandemic relics, the cost of these subsidies far outweighs any potential benefits.
Rather than forcing an extension of the temporary, bumped-up subsidies through the spending bill, policymakers should allow them to expire at the end of the year and focus instead on healthcare reforms that actually help patients.
According to Democrats including Joe Biden, inflated Covid-era ACA subsidies were always meant to be a temporary “economic bridge through the crisis,” not a permanent expansion of government. But now, Democrats are claiming that returning to pre-Covid Obamacare would be a catastrophe – a not-so-tacit admission that the health insurance scheme they’ve lauded the past 15 years is no good. And it isn’t.
As mothers managing healthcare for our families, we’ve lived the health care system’s failures. When Mary Katharine was seven months pregnant and her husband tragically passed away, she was informed that she’d lost her third or fourth health insurance plan since the ACA passed, leaving her with a costly, ineffective plan, despite the Obamacare promise that she could keep her insurance if she liked it.
The subsidies, along with weakened income verification, have led to skyrocketing improper enrollments. According to the Paragon Institute, more than 6.4 million people were improperly enrolled in 2025, costing taxpayers $27 billion.
Zero-claim enrollees, people who are enrolled but have never filed a claim, have also skyrocketed, signaling widespread fraud. Forty percent of those enrolled in fully subsidized plans filed zero claims, compared to the typical 15% of zero-claim enrollees in private plans.
And because ACA subsidies are based on current income with no consideration of assets, even wealthy people can claim full subsidies and get free coverage. A couple with $1.5 million in investable assets who retired at 46 to travel the world bragged on Reddit that they are getting the maximum ACA subsidy while “on a 5-month slow travel tour of the British Isles and Ireland, a dream trip.
Dream for them. Nightmare for taxpayers and the vulnerable Americans whose coverage and care is diluted by those abusing the system.
