Wall Street Journal Editorial Board: The Politics of ObamaCare Subsidies

Wall Street Journal Editorial Board: The Politics of ObamaCare Subsidies

WASHINGTON, D.C.- The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board argues that Republicans shouldn't fear the politics of allowing the enhanced ObamaCare subsidies to expire, contending that Democrats are using the government funding fight to secure a $400 billion extension for a pandemic-era entitlement that should have ended years ago.

WORD ON THE STREET

From the Wall Street Journal:

"Democrats are demanding that Republicans extend enhanced ObamaCare subsidies that Democrats passed in 2021 for a pandemic emergency that ended two years ago. The 10-year cost of this income transfer to health insurers is roughly $450 billion.

The tacit assumption in Washington is that voters want the subsidies to continue, and that Republicans who resist bailing out Barack Obama's dysfunctional health program are setting up the GOP to take a political shellacking. The media invokes a Kaiser Family Foundation poll that says 78% of Americans support an extension, including 57% of MAGA voters.

Yet the same poll says that 61% of the public has heard little or nothing about the expiring subsidies, which suggests it isn't the defining political issue of our time. Another question is whether voters understand that only the Covid fillip is expiring-and that generous subsidies will remain.

A poll this year from the Paragon Health Institute that spelled out this distinction found that 53% of voters supported allowing the Covid bonus to expire. A survey from the Center for Excellence in Polling found that 65% of likely voters supported ending "federal health care payments for higher-income individuals while returning to the pre-COVID rates for lower-income people."

That finding testifies to the better politics once voters understand that Democrats removed the income cap on ObamaCare subsidies and allowed the money to flow to affluent households earning as much as $500,000 a year. Those households won't make for sympathetic media profiles, not that this will stop the press from trying.

Some Republicans in swing districts or states see extending the subsidies as a form of political insurance. But those who want Washington to prop up ObamaCare at any price are not voting for GOP candidates. A Foundation for Government Accountability Action survey of those enrolled in the exchanges found that 64% voted for Democrats and 29% for Republicans.

The much predicted apocalypse for the GOP never arrived. Voters understand that the pandemic was temporary and doesn't justify enormous permanent expansions of the entitlement state. The ObamaCare subsidies flow to millions of fewer voters than the child credits.

What American voters are looking for from Republicans on healthcare is an alternative. "ObamaCare is a failure," President Trump said at the White House the other day, and he's right. But he and other Republicans are already saying they'll negotiate over the subsidies once the shutdown is over. That means they're already conceding there's a problem."

THE BOTTOM LINE

The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board states that Republicans have no reason to fear allowing the Obamacare subsidies to expire:

Republicans should focus on explaining the drawbacks of the Biden expansion and advancing their own policy solutions, rather than being drawn into negotiations on Democrats' terms.

MORE FROM HOUSE BUDGET COMMITTEE

Read Chairman Arrington's op-ed setting the record straight on Obamacare's premium tax credits HERE

Read more about the Obamacare Enhanced Premium Subsides HERE.

Read more about the House Budget Committee's work highlighting phantom Obamacare enrollees and protecting taxpayers HERE

Editorial Board

Editorial Board