Democrats' Obamacare Government Shutdown

Democrats continue to insist on a permanent extension of Obamacare’s enhanced premium tax credits as ransom payment for reopening the government. The added subsidies are a financial con job on the taxpayer that never should have started to begin with. No matter your opinion of programs for the needy, many of the enhanced tax credits go to rich people, not those in actual need. Want examples?

A family of five with a 60-year-old household head in Prescott, Arizona can make $500,000 per year and still qualify for an $8,423 subsidy.

A married couple in West Virginia making $580,000, and a single individual in Vermont making $180,000 could both qualify for subsidies.

Democrats love to complain about the 1%, but those incomes aren’t that far off from the $633k required to join that group in 2022.

Individual cases abound, including a real estate investor owning 20 properties who received government-subsidized health insurance due to depreciation, expenses, and deductions which reduced his reported adjusted gross income. A married businessman who had over $10 million in liquid assets upon retirement at age 50 qualified for a $1,450 per month subsidy because they kept their realized investment returns below $50,000 each year.

The program supposedly is aimed mostly at those earning less than 400 percent of the federal poverty line – presently $62,600 in earnings for an individual or $128,600 for a family of four. However, rather than setting traditional income cutoffs, the enhanced subsidies tie eligibility to a sliding scale that caps premiums at 8.5 percent of household income. This category consists of over 1.5 million enrollees/households, with over half being older adults who retired early, often voluntarily due to wealth, but who can’t yet qualify for Medicare.

Arguably, Obamacare has helped needy people get medical care they couldn’t otherwise afford or obtain. On the other hand, it has been a complete taxpayer disaster. Coverage costs have skyrocketed more than three-fold due to coverage mandates, subsidies, and America’s poor level of attention to their own health habits. America is the second fattest nation on the planet, trailing only the conglomeration of South Pacific nations.

The Congressional Budget Office report estimates that permanently extending the enhanced subsidies will increase total spending by nearly half a trillion dollars over the next decade. They also estimate that a permanent extension would attract an additional 6.9 million people, furthering economical harm and the nation’s deficit. Such an expansion would account for 89 percent of the subsidy’s additional costs over the same period.

Remember, Democrats are the ones who consistently attack the rich, complain about their tax breaks, and insult the Trump administration for his outrageous spending. Yet, they offer no compromise on health-care subsidies – not even to kick rich people off of them. If the Democrats are going to continue supporting those whom they claim to despise, while continuing to add to the country’s debt, then it’s they who hold the taxpayers hostage while government remains closed.

Source used: Cato Institute Next blog: More on the US national debt