Conservative Unity

Conservatives—both in and out of government—are united that the Biden COVID credits should expire after 2025. I joined three dozen leaders in the conservative movement in a letter to President Trump that criticizes Democrats’ unserious demands that led them to shut down the government and makes the case that the COVID credits need to end. The letter, led by Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), made several key points:

• The Biden COVID credits were intended to be temporary. At the time they were passed, the American people were assured that the expanded subsidies were a necessary and temporary response to the global pandemic. The pandemic ended several years ago. 
• Over the long term, the Biden COVID credits raise premiums. A Congressional Budget Office report confirmed that premiums for exchange plans are rising more quickly than anticipated. When the government subsidizes the cost of anything, sellers raise their prices. Although some Americans may be concerned about premiums rising in the short term, removing the incentive for insurers to keep increasing prices will save patients money in the long run.
• The Biden COVID credits are further bankrupting our country. The cost of the original subsidies will total $1 trillion over the next decade. Extending Biden’s COVID credits would increase that cost by 45 percent.

The letter cites Paragon’s research on widespread Obamacare fraud, which has double the number of zero-claim enrollees as you would expect in a normal health insurance market. Last week, we released Obamacare Fraud by the Numbers, which details the significant problems caused by the Biden COVID credits.
 
ATR has a webpage featuring quotes from prominent conservatives—including Ben Shapiro, Sean Hannity, Erick Erickson, Dana Loesch, and many members of Congress—who oppose extending Biden’s COVID credits.
 
Not a single Republican voted for the COVID credits. It was the Democrats who unilaterally scheduled the add-on subsidies to expire after 2025. In a Wall Street Journal letter to the editor, Texas Representative Chip Roy represented the perspective of conservatives in Congress, making the case that “this is no time to go wobbly” on Obamacare:

Democrats are choosing to shut down the government…because they want to give $450 billion to big health insurance companies and the K Street lobby. Though Republicans are rightly resisting demands to provide “free” healthcare to illegal aliens, the fight is over a more fundamental question: Should Congress extend enhanced subsidies for ObamaCare that were established temporarily during Covid?
 
It doesn’t take a seasoned pol or savvy operative to know the answer is no. The jig is up, the pandemic is over and my colleagues shouldn’t blink in any other direction. Republicans must prove that we are for healthcare freedom and against socialized medicine. If we cave on these expensive and outdated subsidies, achieving our goals will be nearly impossible.
 
Making such concessions would make us look weak, saying we’re for one thing and doing another. How will voters take us seriously in our aspirations to deregulate the market to enable competition or expand health-savings accounts to meet their full potential, among other things, if we give up this fight? Rolling over will become our modus operandi.

The COVID credits go directly to health insurers, and they are fiercely lobbying for them to continue, including taking to the pages of The Journal. My colleague Niklas Kleinworth and I rebutted insurers’ argument and made the case that Obamacare is not a healthy market in our own letter in The Journal:

The sweetened “credit” is the problem, not the solution, driving the high cost of healthcare. The zero-dollar premiums created by the Biden administration policy exacerbated structural problems in the Affordable Care Act.
 
For everyday Americans, the result is worse coverage and tens of billions in higher taxes annually. Many also have been enrolled in plans without their knowledge, leaving them surprised at tax time or without coverage that meets their needs. …
 
Meanwhile, insurers happily collected large checks from the government that covered the entire premium. Nearly half of 2025 enrollees took no action during open enrollment, as they were automatically renewed into their subsidized plan.
 
Unfortunately, Trump administration efforts to address the large-scale fraud have been held up by one Democratic-appointed judge. This makes it more important that the Covid credits expire, and with them, the fuel for the fraud.
 
ObamaCare’s underlying subsidies would persist without the sweetened deal. The government would still pick up more than 80% of the cost of the premium for the typical enrollee next year after Covid credits expire.
 
The real beneficiaries of extending the credits are insurers, who would rather receive payments from Washington than offer plans people must at least partially pay for. Hard-working families who get coverage through the workplace shouldn’t have to bail them out to prop up this already oversubsidized market.  

The ATR letter follows a letter from the National Taxpayers Union that also expressed strong opposition to extending the COVID credits.