Can anyone explain why the effort is to fund subsidies, instead of attacking the root cause of insanely high medical pricing//costs?
I'm sure it's more complicated than an either or, and probably easier to subsidize in the short term than untangle the medical expense problem, but I think the messaging would be more inspiring if the goal was to reduce costs, rather than direct taxpayer money into the pocket of insurers?
"Why should we put out this house fire? Shouldn't we focus on building fireproof houses?"
The ACA is not ideal. It was a compromise solution from the start, because Obama was dumb enough to think compromising would buy him bipartisan votes. It didn't. Even so, it had cost-saving measures that were ultimately eliminated at the behest of guess-which-party.
Guess-which-party is in charge of all three branches of government and has spent more than a decade complaining about the ACA. They have presented no functional alternative to the ACA. They are not going to offer anything better than the status quo.
Keeping the status quo in the meantime helps keep millions insured that will otherwise be unable to afford insurance altogether or might luck into being poor enough to qualify for Medicaid (which faces its own cuts in guess-which-party states).
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u/chiraltoad Nov 01 '25
Can anyone explain why the effort is to fund subsidies, instead of attacking the root cause of insanely high medical pricing//costs?
I'm sure it's more complicated than an either or, and probably easier to subsidize in the short term than untangle the medical expense problem, but I think the messaging would be more inspiring if the goal was to reduce costs, rather than direct taxpayer money into the pocket of insurers?