| Hello John, I want to share with you my latest op-ed, which has been published in newspapers across the country. It makes the case that it would be a huge mistake for Republicans to even consider expanding Obamacare in exchange for reopening the government. I wrote: The shutdown is a tactic employed by the Democratic congressional leadership to create a high-profile platform from which to oppose President Trump. More dangerously, it’s a political trap for the GOP, aimed at influencing next year’s elections. This makes it troubling that some Republicans are reportedly discussing a possible “compromise” with senior Democrats, in which they would agree to expand Obamacare in exchange for reopening the government. That would be a mistake. Here is what the Democrats demand in exchange for reopening the government for just a few weeks: - They want Republicans to accept a total of $1.5 trillion in additional health care spending, including $900 billion to repeal President Trump’s Medicaid reforms that tackle waste, fraud, and abuse — and provisions to prevent undocumented immigrants from getting government health care.
- Democrats also want $400 billion to extend the so-called “Biden Covid credits.” Created as a pandemic response measure in 2021, with zero Republican support, the additional credits were always supposed to be temporary. They expire at the end of the year.
The credits did two things: created zero-dollar plans (free coverage for individuals earning under $23,475 or families of four under $48,225) and extended subsidies to higher-income earners who previously didn’t qualify for assistance. These changes roughly doubled Obamacare enrollment at an added cost of $35 billion annually, every cent of which goes directly to insurers. Here’s the bottom line: The credits should expire. The pandemic has passed, and the subsidies are costly, inflationary, and fraud-prone. The extra funds have fueled enrollment fraud, higher health care prices, and insurer profits. But here’s the problem: Some Republicans argue that keeping the credits is essential to retain GOP control of Congress, but that defies common sense and would betray Trump’s 2024 mandate to end Biden-era policies. No Republican has ever backed Obamacare. Doing so now would make the party complicit in its flaws: steep out-of-pocket costs, limited access to providers, and sharply rising claim denials. The poorly designed program was faltering before Joe Biden’s lavish credits reversed declining enrollment. This created the illusion of success and invited widespread enrollment fraud, including adding an estimated 12 million phantom enrollees (people who never go to the doctor, and may not even know they’re enrolled). Letting these wasteful Covid subsidies expire would simply revert to the Obamacare subsidy levels that existed before Covid. To hear the Democrats tell it — the same people who created Obamacare — that would be a catastrophe, with soaring premiums and mass coverage losses. Fears of exploding premiums are overstated. Subsidies that mask average $27,000 premiums would shrink slightly but would still cover roughly 80% of the cost, with the lowest-income enrollees paying only a bit more — about a dollar or two per day. While some may drop coverage rather than pay a little more, many have other subsidized options like employer plans or Medicaid. Letting the extra subsidies expire is not a “catastrophe,” it’s common sense. Making them permanent, as Democratic leaders are demanding, would amount to a massive and costly bailout of a program that has failed by every measure. The bottom line is that what the Democrats are up to isn’t about improving Obamacare. It’s a trap to push Republicans into endorsing it — and then using that vote to retake Congress. 🔎 Go deeper Republicans need to stay strong and say “No” to extending Joe Biden’s Covid handouts. So please, give the op-ed a read and share it with your friends. | 
