75 percent of Obamacare participants are in red states.
Running Out of Time?
The WSJ reports Congress Is Running Out of Time to Decide the Fate of Obamacare Subsidies
Enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies are set to end after this year unless Congress acts, and open enrollment for insurance next year starts next month. Democrats have demanded that Republicans negotiate on extending the subsidies as a condition for ending the government shutdown, now in its third full week. Republicans recognize that many of their voters will be hurt by a cutoff in tax credits, but say the program known as Obamacare needs major changes.
Any deal to end the shutdown is expected to involve a fix for the expiring ACA subsidies, which flow to more than 20 million people. But extending the enhanced subsidies would be difficult to swallow for Republicans in Congress, who have spent the past decade and a half railing against the 2010 law that passed—and was later expanded—with only Democratic votes.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) says Republicans are open to talks on extending the subsidies only after the government reopens. Senate Democrats have repeatedly blocked a Republican bill passed by the House that keeps the government funded until Nov. 21. The House has been on break since mid-September, in a bid to keep the pressure on Democrats.
“That’s the conversation that we will have when the time comes,” Thune said, calling the ACA “desperately in need of reform” and pointing to possible changes to the subsidies to lower costs and address alleged fraud and abuse. “We can’t do it while the government’s shut down,” he said.
Thune has publicly floated an offer to vote on extending the subsidies after Democrats end the shutdown, without a guarantee that it would pass. But Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said Thursday that Thune had never approached him with any proposal, and insisted that Republicans need to sit down with Democrats and talk.
It is a galling predicament for many Republicans, who must reckon with the fact that a growing number of their own voters have come to depend on the subsidies, which would revert to lower levels and help fewer people if not extended. The enhanced subsidies spurred the number of ACA sign-ups to more than double since 2021, largely in red states. If kept in place, the Congressional Budget Office estimates they would expand the federal deficit by about $350 billion over 10 years.
More than three-quarters of Obamacare policyholders now live in states that voted for President Trump, according to KFF, a health-research nonprofit. In Barrasso’s state of Wyoming, for example, ACA sign-ups totaled 46,643 this year, which was 90% higher than 2020, KFF says.
Trump’s endorsement will be key to corralling enough Republican votes for any compromise. Any ACA legislation risks exposing deep divisions among House lawmakers in particular.
Republicans who are open to extending the subsidies say that they won’t do so without a major overhaul, which would take time to draft and negotiate.
GOP lawmakers also argue that a big share of ACA enrollments could be fraudulent, involving people who might have been signed up for subsidized coverage without their knowledge, by brokers or others. The sprawling tax legislation that Trump signed into law in July included provisions tightening sign-up procedures for ACA plans, which will take effect for coverage that starts in 2028.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R., Ga.) said on social media recently that she is no fan of Obamacare but that her party needs to get to work to solve the crisis.
“I don’t think that is too much to ask,” Greene said.
Reform Needed
There is no doubt Obamacare needs reform. But Republicans won’t talk until Democrats end the shutdown.
But why should Democrats believe Republicans on anything?
I still suspect this will end the way it always has: more free money and no reform.
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