Tag Archive for: Obamacare

Study: Over 6 Million Obamacare Recipients Fraudulently Enrolled

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A stunning new study has revealed that over six million individuals who are currently enrolled in the government’s Affordable Care Act health care insurance subsidy program (known as Obamacare) were signed up fraudulently, amounting to over a quarter of all Obamacare enrollees.

According to the new report conducted by the Paragon Health Institute, 6.2 million people are illegitimately enrolled in Obamacare, which means that taxpayer dollars will likely fund up to $25 billion in improper payments in 2026. The fraudulent enrollments are largely due to individuals or insurance agents falsifying income to qualify for larger subsidies.

As noted by The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, enrollment in Obamacare plans has doubled in recent years due to COVID pandemic subsidies. After the subsidies expired, “The consensus in the healthcare establishment was that people would drop coverage.” But instead, 23.1 million people signed up for ACA coverage this year, just 1.2 million fewer than last year. “One reason is that subsidies for most enrollees remain very generous,” the board observed. “The government this year will pay 94% of the premium for the median enrollee — about $699 of a $741 monthly premium. … Nearly 30% of enrollees won’t have to pay premiums thanks to subsidies.”

In addition, Paragon found that “[m]any improper enrollees are likely phantom enrollees — people who are unaware of their enrollment, covered elsewhere, or entirely fictional. In 2024, 35 percent of exchange enrollees and 40 percent of fully-subsidized low-income enrollees generated no medical claims — double the percentage expected in a normal health insurance market.” The report further noted that “The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) found that an average of 1.6 million people per month were simultaneously enrolled in Medicaid and subsidized exchange coverage.”

The Trump administration has taken a series of steps to address the fraud crisis. The Paragon report pointed out that almost two million improper enrollees have been removed “through actions targeting duplicate Medicaid-exchange enrollment and individuals who failed to comply with tax-filing requirements.” In addition, additional eligibility verification rules enacted by last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill and by the administration are set to take effect over the next two years.

During a White House press briefing on Tuesday, CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz detailed what occurred during the Biden administration that enabled widespread Obamacare fraud and what the Trump administration is doing to address it.

“[In] 2020, there were nine million people on Obamacare. … Today it’s more than 20 million,” he explained. “What happened? What happened was we completely took the guardrails off. And I know this because I’m working in the agency that actually was told to take the guardrails off, and because there wasn’t an earnest desire to keep track of whether you were appropriately on it or not. … We believe that 35%, roughly, of the people [who] are using the Affordable Care Act … exchanges [have] never used the program once. They’ve never filed a claim, may not be legit. And that actual number may translate to five [to] six million people we could be paying premiums for because they don’t have to contribute anything. … These are people who have Medicaid and someone, often a broker, dishonestly enrolling them in [the ACA], or they’re … getting full insurance paid for by us in multiple states at once. So we have evaluated these numbers. They are extremely concerning.”

After highlighting that a new process for rooting out Obamacare fraud was started by the administration two weeks ago after their initial rule was enjoined by a federal court, Oz went on to illustrate what will occur when fraud is rooted out and eligibility rules are enforced.

“[I]f you care about the ACA, then you’ll want us to take the fraud out,” he underscored. “And let me just take a step back. If we want you to go back to work on Medicaid, what’s going to happen? You’re going to start making money. As you make money … you get above the poverty level. You’re going to want to buy an Affordable Care Act product or a private industry [plan]. Commercial insurers are going to start using it. That’s a good thing. We’re getting America back up. They’re getting [Medicaid recipients] into work, getting them into the stratosphere, building prosperity. So we want these programs to work together. But if you’ve got millions of people literally who are getting insurance that they don’t want, they don’t even know they have it, and we’re all paying for it, that’s tens of billions of dollars we’re throwing away. That increases premiums for everybody. It drives affordability down.”

“We’re not going to tolerate [it] anymore,” Oz added.

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2026 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

GOP Launches Rival Healthcare Plan As Obamacare Showdown Hits Senate Floor

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Senate Republican leadership announced Tuesday that they will bring their own healthcare proposal to a floor vote, running in parallel with Democrats’ push for an extension of the enhanced Obamacare subsidies.

The Senate is scheduled to vote Thursday on a Democrat proposal for a three-year extension of the boosted subsidies, which Democrats secured as part of the deal that ended the record-breaking government shutdown. Following internal debate over several Republican healthcare proposals and whether to schedule a side-by-side vote, GOP senators have coalesced around a health savings account-based approach.

“It actually does make health insurance premiums more affordable,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters at a news conference Tuesday. “It delivers the benefit directly to the patient, not to the insurance company, and it does it in a way that actually saves money to the taxpayer. That is a win-win proposal.”

The Health Care Freedom for Patients Act— sponsored by Sens. Bill Cassidy, chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, and Mike Crapo, chair of the Senate Finance Committee — is pitched as an “alternative to Democrats’ temporary COVID bonuses, which send billions of tax dollars to giant insurance companies without lowering insurance premiums.”

Under the plan, roughly $1,000 to $1,500 would be deposited into HSAs paired with bronze or catastrophic plans on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchanges.

The idea of redirecting federal subsidies from insurance companies directly to individuals has the backing of President Donald Trump, who has warned that extending the boosted Obamacare subsidies would hand insurers “another huge payday at the expense of the American people.”

Democrats, meanwhile, are pressing ahead with their three-year extension of the soon-to-expire subsidies, despite the near certainty that the measure lacks the 60 votes needed to pass.

The enhanced subsidies — enacted by Democrats in 2021 without GOP support — removed the upper-income cap and increased subsidy amounts, dropping premiums to zero for many enrollees. They are set to expire at the end of 2025.

A clean three-year extension with no eligibility changes would add $350 billion to the national debt over the next decade, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates.

Republicans argue that Democrats’ plan, which goes even further than the one-year extension Democrats demanded during the shutdown, is primarily a political maneuver.

“I am absolutely open to a pathway forward, but what we’re seeing from Democrats is completely disingenuous,” Republican Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama told the Daily Caller News Foundation Tuesday. “They know that a flat three-year extension will not pass, so they’re intentionally putting something on the floor for politics, not for the people they serve.”

Concerns about fraud are also fueling GOP resistance to the extension of the enhanced Obamacare subsidies.

Research has shown that fraud is especially widespread among zero-premium plans, which critics say create opportunities for bad actors to enroll unsuspecting individuals without their knowledge. Moreover, the Government Accountability Office recently uncovered rampant fraud and systemic failures in the ACA marketplace, including fictitious identities, invalid Social Security numbers, and even deceased individuals being frequently approved for taxpayer-funded subsidies.

“This program desperately needs to be reformed, the Democrats have decided, ‘We’re not going to do anything to reform it,’ and so we’ll see where the votes are on Thursday,” Thune said

Republicans also point to rising costs, noting that Obamacare premiums have increased twice as fast as employer-based premiums — evidence, they say, that the program is not delivering on promises of affordability.

“Money should go directly to patients so they can make their own decisions, and that will drive down costs,” said Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso of Wyoming, adding that taxpayers should not be “held hostage in the straitjacket of the one-size-fits-all that is Obamacare.”

However, Senate Democratic leadership has already dismissed the GOP plan.

“Their phony proposal is dead on arrival,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. “Their bill is junk insurance; it’s been repudiated in the past. The American people will repudiate it once again.”

Democrat Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said Tuesday that Republicans are “forcing a false choice on the American people.”

Even within the GOP, some are doubtful that the proposal has the votes to advance.

“In my opinion, trying to take the longer view — and also being as objective as I can — I think the only way that there will be a bill put together reforming the Obamacare exchanges is through the reconciliation bill,” Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana told reporters shortly before the GOP announcement.

Although Republican leadership selected Cassidy’s proposal for a vote on Thursday, others — including Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Bernie Moreno of Ohio — have introduced a two-year extension with income restrictions and minimum premium payments.

“I think we need to do everything we can to bring down the cost of premiums, so I’m happy to take a vote on any of these plans,” Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri said Tuesday, adding he is inclined to vote yes on all of them. Hawley has also introduced a bill to allow taxpayers to deduct out-of-pocket medical expenses up to $25,000 per individual or dependent.

In the House, Speaker Mike Johnson said that Republicans will vote on a healthcare proposal by the end of December and continue working on healthcare legislation into early 2026, according to Punchbowl News.

Caden Olson contributed to this report.

AUTHOR

Melissa O’Rourke

Reporter

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Dems Feel the Squeeze as Schumer’s Shutdown Approaches Historic Levels

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When Democrats flipped off the lights of the government, no one was quite sure how long the tantrum would last. Now, more than a month later, it seems almost ironic that the record-tying day of the shutdown falls on November 4, when tens of millions of voters head to the polls to make a rare, off-year statement. But this time around, that statement won’t just include how Americans feel about dozens of ballot initiatives and candidates — but Republicans’ leadership and Democrats’ defiance.

To a lot of observers, Election Day might finally be the break federal workers have been waiting for. “They’re setting everything up for next week,” Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) told Politico Friday. “If they [agree to open the government] before Tuesday, then their base may not show up because it looks like they caved. … That’s why they’re setting everything up to open next week. We’ll be open next Wednesday, or Wednesday night, or Thursday.”

RealClearPolitics’ White House Correspondent Phil Wegmann agrees. Maybe, he told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on “This Week on Capitol Hill,” “if Democrats are able to put a few points on the scoreboard” by winning a few big races in New Jersey or Virginia, “they’ll be more eager to come to the table here in D.C.” Even so, Wegmann insisted, “It’s been remarkable. We have seen Republicans, for the most part, stay in lockstep — both in the House and the Senate. And I think that’s because they’re taking their cues not just from President Trump, but also from Majority Leader [John] Thune (R-S.D.) [and] Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.). The only reason I want to point that out is because we began the year with a lot of consternation in the Republican ranks, but as of right now, they’re standing pat.”

Unfortunately for Johnson and Thune’s party, so are Democrats. The difference is, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) party is feeling the squeeze. After 14 votes to reopen the government by Republicans, America’s business and union leaders have publicly turned on Democrats. Airlines like Delta and United are calling on Congress to pass a clean continuing resolution (CR), which is what the GOP has lobbied for from the beginning. Then, adding to the Democrats’ PR nightmare, a “broad coalition of business associations” — including banking, real estate, retail, manufacturing, technology, wholesalers, and even the Chamber of Commerce — piled on. The groups, which represent corporate behemoths like Walmart and Apple, didn’t mince words when they warned that every day, “the larger and more durable the economic damage becomes — and some of it might never be recovered.”

In what may be the Democrats’ most surprising critics, five unions — including the American Federation of Government Employees and Teamsters—broke with Schumer’s party, demanding they pass a clear CR.

Even the media, Schumer’s most reliable cheerleaders, have tired of the party’s rebellion for individual gain. “Schumer has allowed the shutdown to drag on because he’s worried about fending off a primary challenger in 2028, and he’s still smarting from blowback he got from angry liberals after he agreed to fund the government this spring,” The Washington Post’s editorial board declared. As for the grand façade that Democrats are fighting to keep health care costs low, the Post argued, “Keeping the government open should be separated from policy disputes about how to spend taxpayer money. It is wrong that Democrats have held the government hostage for a month in hopes of extending costly Obamacare subsidies, just as it was for Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to shut down the government in 2013 for 16 days in a bid to defund the Affordable Care Act altogether.” The answer, they contended, “is to reopen the government with a clean funding bill.”

Speaking of the Obamacare tax credits, which is apparently the political hill Democrats are willing to die on, Wegmann reminds people that what we’re talking about here “is the extension of former President Biden’s expansion of Obamacare, which was designed to be temporary. It was a COVID-era measure, and it made a lot more individuals eligible for coverage.” As even Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) insisted, Democrats are the ones who, in 2022, wrote the legislation to end these subsidies in 2025.

And the reality is, Paragon Health Institute emphasized in damning research, health care costs wouldn’t really be rising because these tax credits end. By their calculations, sunsetting these subsidies “accounts for only 4 percent of the expected 20 percent average premium increase next year.” In other words, their experts wrote, Democrats can’t blame the “sharp jump in premiums” on the end of these subsidies. “The real drivers are the same structural flaws that have plagued Obamacare since 2014 and rising health care costs,” Paragon’s Gabrielle Kalisz explained.

The real problem, many stress, is “the premium increase to higher medical utilization, inflation, health care consolidation (which the ACA contributed to), and surging costs for expensive drugs — especially GLP-1 weight-loss and diabetes medications, specialty drugs, and biologics (including new gene therapies). Insurers also cite workforce shortages, price transparency measures, and tariffs as nominal contributors to increasing premiums.”

Under these pandemic credits, Kalisz says, “the federal government has been paying 93 percent of the premium for the typical enrollee. Even after the COVID Credits expire, the federal government will still cover more than 80 percent of the typical enrollee’s premium through the regular subsidy. Taxpayers, not consumers, will remain the overwhelming source of revenue for insurers selling ACA exchange plans.”

No wonder Republicans have never voted for these subsidies, FRC’s Perkins shook his head before raising some of the major problems with Obamacare. “First off, many of them see these subsidies as propping up a program that doesn’t work because it is anything but affordable as its name, Affordable Health Care Act, [implies].” In a slap to taxpayers, Obamacare isn’t subject to the Hyde Amendment. “So it funds abortion and now funds these transgender surgeries in particular for minors.”

If the White House wants to negotiate with Democrats on this issue as a condition of ending the shutdown, they do so at their own peril, Wegmann cautions. “They’re going to [face] a lot of heat from Republicans and the pro-life lobby. … Hyde has never applied to Obamacare. There’s nothing in the statute that prevents these dollars from going to abortion,” he reiterated. “… Just this summer, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, you had Maryland dip into a $24 million Obamacare fund to provide abortion services for women coming from outside of that state. So for conservatives and pro-life lobby, this is a bright line. This is their brick wall.”

That may be why, when Perkins asked Speaker Johnson what he’d like people to pray about, the Louisianan said, “For God’s wisdom and guidance. We do live in a great nation. We can’t take it for granted,” he emphasized. “… And we need to get past all the bitter partisanship. We need to get the government open and do the basic responsibility that we’re given by God. I think we will. I’m optimistic.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: Dems Cling to Woke Policies, Rhetoric as State and Local Elections Loom

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Dems’ Shutdown Strategy Benefits Health Insurance Firms That Give Millions in Campaign Contributions

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Congressional Democrats claim their refusal to end the government shutdown unless President Donald Trump and Capitol Hill Republicans agree to make permanent Obamacare’s temporary COVID-related tax credits is intended to protect the health care coverage of millions of low and middle-income Americans.

But an analysis by The Washington Stand of campaign contributions data compiled by OpenSecrets.org suggests such solid-wall support for the shutdown also shields a health care insurance industry that gives hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign contributions to Democratic incumbents, challengers, committees, and PACs.

The temporary COVID-related tax credits are hugely important sources of revenues for many of the largest health care insurers that are active in the Obamacare segment, according to Economic Policy Innovation Center Researcher Gudai Bulgac. And the tax credits are significant incentives for fraudulent enrollment.

“The Biden COVID Credits are paid directly to health insurance companies from the U.S. Treasury. Since the funds do not go to individuals, millions of people have been fraudulently enrolled and often do not even know that they have been signed up. About 40 percent of people who are fully subsidized by Biden’s COVID Credits did not make a single claim for a medical procedure or medication in 2024,” Bulgac reported earlier this month.

“This allows the insurance companies to collect thousands of dollars in credits from the government per enrollee while incurring little to no cost. An estimated $27 billion in these improper payments to insurance companies were made in 2025 alone as many insurance companies jumped to take advantage of these credits,” Bulgac continued.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), for example, is viewed as the Democrats’ chief shutdown strategist. The New York Democrat’s Impact leadership PAC received $271,284 in contributions from Minnesota-based UnitedHealth Group and the St. Louis-based Centene, two of the 10 biggest health care insurance firms that depend on Obamacare for significant portions of their annual revenue.

The Schumer PAC received an additional $78,024 from Indianapolis-based Elevance, which was formerly known as Anthem, as well as $49,024 from Rhode Island-based CVS Health. That brings the Schumer PAC’s total haul for the period 2019 to 2024 to $398,332. Each of these four firms are among the 10 biggest health care insurance firms in the Obamacare universe, as ranked by Venteur.

UnitedHealth Group is the biggest health care insurance firm in Obamacare, and its political contributions to Democrats far exceed those to Republicans. In the 2024 election cycle, $988,411, or nearly 59% of all the firm’s donations went to Democrats.

Centene gave $38.88 million to Democratic Senate contenders during the 2018-2024 period, compared to $19.16 million to GOP Senate candidates. Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris was the recipient of Centene’s biggest individual contribution, at $225,262 out of a total of $634,223 to six Democrats during the 2024 campaign cycle. The Centene total to the four GOP recipients in the firm’s top 10 came to $348,478, slightly more than half the Democrat total.

Bulgac explains another key factor in Centene’s significance in the behind-the-scenes shutdown influences.

“Centene is the largest Obamacare insurer by market share,” he noted. “Their Obamacare membership nearly doubled from 3.3 million enrollees in 2023 to 5.9 million in 2025. This comprises 21 percent of their total membership of 28 million, with their Medicaid membership making up an additional 12.8 million enrollees. In their 2024 10-K filing for their investors, Centene stated that ‘[r]evenues from CMS are significant to the Marketplace segment.’ In other words, Centene is heavily reliant on payments from the federal government to sustain their business.”

Molina, which ranks ninth in the top 10 of Obamacare insurers, further illustrates the importance of the temporary COVID-related subsidies, Bulgac writes. “Molina also noted in their 10-K that they ‘expect [their] Marketplace enrollment to increase by almost 50 percent in 2025, to a total of 580,000 members by the end of the year … This would represent an estimated Marketplace premium revenue increase of approximately 60 percent in 2025, while continuing to maintain [their] target margins.’”

A more balanced picture is seen with CVS Health political contributions. Republican recipients during the 2024 cycle, led by the Congressional Leadership Fund’s $575,000, received $832,805, while Democrats got $551,352. Among Senate candidates, Democrats in the 2024 cycle received $18.99 million, while Republicans got $28.53 million from CVS Health.

Curiously in the context of the intense partisan deadlock between Senate Republicans and Democrats that occasioned the present shutdown, the excessive influence of health care insurance firms on American politics is a bipartisan concern, according to the Pew Research Center.

“Of the eight groups and institutions we asked about in this survey — such as Congress, the general public and federal courts — health insurance companies are the one that a majority of Americans agree has too much sway in health policy. Just 9 percent say they have about the right amount of influence, and an equal share say they don’t have enough,” Pew reported in a July 10 survey analysis.

“Although politics and health policy are often deeply entangled, this dim opinion of health insurance companies’ influence is an area of notable partisan agreement. Roughly equal shares of Democrats (including those who lean to the Democratic Party) and Republicans (and GOP leaners) express this view. Similar shares of Democrats and Republicans also say Congress has too much influence on health policy, although this view is less widely held than it is for health insurance companies,” Pew said.

Among Republicans, 71% said health care insurers have too much influence of federal health policy, while 69% of Democrats said the same thing.

It is important to understand that the Obamacare temporary subsidies that Democrats backed in 2021 and now demand be made permanent were effective in expanding enrollment by lower and middle-income families because the government made premiums artificially cheap.

“Since enhanced subsidies began in 2021, the market enrollment has grown tremendously, rising from 11 million people in 2020 to 25 million today. Again, Democrats and Republicans interpret this growth in opposite ways. Democrats see it as a sign of success, whereas Republicans are concerned about waste and over-use,” states Mark Shepherd, Harvard Kennedy School associate professor of public policy.

In other words, more customers paying the government subsidized premiums keeps more revenue flowing into the health care insurers’ coffers, while terminating those subsidies could dramatically reduce such revenues for the companies.

AUTHOR

Mark Tapscott

Mark Tapscott is senior congressional analyst at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

White House Prepares for Extended Shutdown as Dems Refuse to Yield on Obamacare Subsidies

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As the federal government shutdown stretches into its 14th day, reports from Capitol Hill and the White House suggest that the impasse won’t end anytime soon, with the Trump administration refusing to budge on the Democrats’ demands of expanding COVID-era Obamacare subsidies and other spending by $1.5 trillion.

According to a report from Punchbowl News, the Trump administration appears to be finding new sources of federal dollars in order to fund critical functions such as paying federal law enforcement officers and continuing to serve the over six million Americans who rely on the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (known as WIC). The hundreds of millions of dollars that will be needed will reportedly come from Section 32 tariff revenue.

One Office of Management and Budget (OMB) official told Punchbowl that the agency is “making every preparation to batten down the hatches and ride out the Democrats’ intransigence. Pay the troops, pay law enforcement, continue the RIFs [reduction in force], and wait.”

During “This Week on Capitol Hill” over the weekend, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) underscored just how painful the shutdown is for civilian federal employees and military servicemembers due to the Democrats’ refusal to sign on to a short-term continuing resolution (CR) that would continue Biden-era spending levels.

“[A]s of today, they have now voted eight times to keep the government closed,” he pointed out. “Now, who’s going to be hurt? Not just vital services, not just national parks and that kind of stuff. I mean, you’re talking about two million federal employees, civilian employees of the government who will not get a paycheck. … We have 1.3 million active duty servicemembers, men and women in uniform, who will not be paid. They’re going to miss a paycheck. Real hardship for families who live paycheck to paycheck. This is not a game.”

Johnson went on to express surprise over the Democrats’ refusal to sign on to a “clean” CR — one that did not contain any added Republican spending priorities — for the first time in U.S. history.

“I just assumed that [Senate Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer [D-N.Y.] and the Democrats would do what they’ve done every year,” he acknowledged. “I mean, they voted 13 times for CRs during the Biden administration. And when we were in the minority party, we never shut the government down over something like that because we knew real Americans would be hurt, but they seem not to care. You’ve seen what Chuck Schumer said two days ago, … ‘Every day the government is closed is better for us.’ It is stunning to me that they say these things out loud. He tried to clean [it] up … but that tells you what they really think. He’s getting accolades from the far Left and that is 100% what all this was about.”

As Johnson further observed, the Democrats are attempting to extort increased funding for a government program that failed to deliver on its promises.

“[N]ever forget when the government subsidizes something, it means it’s not working,” he noted. “Obamacare did not achieve what they promised everyone that it would. It was supposed to bring down the cost of care. It’s done the opposite. Premiums [have] gone up 60% since Obamacare became law in 2010. Everybody knows it’s not working, so now they want to prop it up with these subsidies, just as they did, for example, with electric vehicle mandates. Nobody wanted to buy electric cars, so they said, ‘We’ll pay you. The government will pay you $7,500 if you do it.’ That means it’s not working.”

Not only are Obamacare subsidies failing to improve health insurance premiums, experts are also emphasizing that the subsidies are forcing taxpayers to pay for highly controversial procedures like abortion and gender transitions.

“Although the Schumer shutdown is hitting many hard-working federal employees who deserve better treatment, it’s encouraging to hear that the administration is making preparation to meet the Democrats’ unprecedented intransigence with a stubborn refusal to be bullied,” Quena González, Family Research Council’s senior director of Government Affairs, told The Washington Stand. “There is too much at stake in this debate to fold. Family Research Council is carefully tracking the Democrats’ central demand — to make the COVID-era subsidies for the ‘Affordable’ Care Act permanent — because those subsidies force taxpayers to pay for gender transitions and abortion.”

“Republicans are right to demand that the subsidies be reformed and ended; taxpayers should not be forced to pay for abortions or gender transition procedures,” González underscored. “It is critical that Americans weigh in with Congress and tell their elected officials not to spend their taxpayer dollars on gender transition procedures or abortion.”

As to the underlying reasons why Chuck Schumer is backing his party into a corner, Johnson argued that it can largely be attributed to the highly influential leftist movement within the Democratic Party. “There’s a rising Marxist movement in the Democratic Party right now. They’re about to elect a mayor of New York City. … Chuck Schumer serves from the state of New York, and he’s terrified he’s going to get a challenge in his next Senate reelect. That is all this is about.”

Johnson went on to observe that the picture of how long the shutdown will go on will likely become clearer after this weekend’s “No Kings” rally in Washington, D.C.

“We call it the ‘Hate America Rally,’ because it will be a collection of the pro-Hamas wing and the socialist[s] and the Marxist[s] and all the rest,” he described. “[T]hey’re coming to the National Mall on October 18th. Chuck Schumer is terrified of that group, and it is being whispered around here that there’s no way he could open the government before that is finished.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: Democrats block legislation to pay troops during shutdown

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permision. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Multiple Failures of Obamacare are the Unspoken Skunk for Dems in the Shutdown Showdown

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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) chose extending “temporary” Obamacare COVID pandemic tax credits as their hill to die on in the October 2025 government shutdown showdown with President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans.

But the ugly reality behind Democrats’ hyperbolic rhetoric predicting soaring monthly premiums and millions of Americans losing coverage is the fact Obamacare has been a disaster for the American health care system, according to multiple voices across the political spectrum. Thus, whether they realize it or not, Schumer and Jeffries are now stuck holding the skunk.

Least expected to be among those critical voices was an October 5 missive from the editorial board of The Washington Post — long the hometown voice of the Government Party in American politics, but more recently experiencing a Jeff Bezos-directed slow-motion re-introduction to reality.

“The real problem is that the Affordable Care Act [Obamacare] was never actually affordable. President Barack Obama’s signature achievement allowed people to buy insurance on marketplaces with subsidies based on their income. The architects of the program assumed that risk pools would be bigger than they turned out to be. As a result, policies cost more than expected,” the Post editorial board wrote.

But that fundamental failure underlying Obamacare was not all on the Post editors’ minds that day, as they continued:

“To salvage the program, Democrats expanded subsidies to entice more people to buy plans. Many poor families wound up getting insurance for free, and the rolls grew: 24 million people now have coverage through the ACA exchanges. People earning more than 400 percent of the poverty line — about $129,000 for a family of four — would see their subsidies go away.

“Democrats picked this fight because they see health care as a winning issue. A Post poll, conducted on the first day of the shutdown, found that 71 percent of Americans say federal insurance subsidies should be extended while 29 percent say they should end as scheduled. Just as significantly, the question divides Republicans: 38 percent support extending the subsidies, and 62 percent want them to end.”

And then, in a statement that was even less expected than the admission of Obamacare’s “real problem,” came this paragraph:

“This is how entitlement programs work. Once you habituate people to some generous government handout, they grow dependent on it. And it becomes politically perilous, if not impossible, to fully claw it back. Conservatives fought so hard to stop Obamacare 15 years ago because they anticipated fights like this one.”

Whether the Post editors realized it or not, with that paragraph, they endorsed the Right’s fundamental critique of the Welfare State since its advent in Bismarck’s Germany in the late 1800s. Somewhere, a stunned former President Ronald Reagan, who often declared federal programs to be “the closest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this Earth,” is declaring his amazement that “they finally get it.”

Even if Democrats succeed through the shutdown in salvaging some sort of interim preservation of the “temporary” Obamacare tax credit subsidies, think tankers on the Right point to a host of additional profoundly serious flaws in the government health care system.

“Rarely in public policy have we witnessed such a radical disparity between high-profile promises and real-world performance. Obama said that his signature bill would bend the health care cost curve downward. Instead, aggregate health care spending has soared,” Heritage Foundation Senior Fellow Robert Moffit told The Washington Stand.

Moffit spent eight years as a senior Reagan administration political appointee handling congressional relations at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), where he learned valuable insider lessons about the federal workforce and the government health care system. At Heritage, Moffit became one of the most widely respected and quoted conservative health care experts.

“Recall that Obama said that the average family would see a $2,500 reduction in their yearly health costs, but instead exchange premiums exploded and family deductible increases were crazy. While Obama claimed his bill would create robust choice and competition in the individual markets, in fact, choice and competition sharply declined, leaving many families at the mercy of a monopoly or a duopoly,” Moffit continued.

“Worse, most Obamacare plans had narrow networks, limiting patient access to preferred doctors, hospitals, and specialists. Meanwhile, taxpayers have been forced to pay for Obama’s massive failure in health care cost control through ever higher health insurance subsidies, now reaching families with six figure incomes, while simultaneously funding a massive expansion of Medicaid, a poorly performing welfare program,” he said.

Economic Policy Innovation Center Budget Policy Director Matthew Dickerson offered additional insights into the problems ravaging Obamacare, telling TWS that “the Biden COVID tax credits are an attempt to paper-over the failures of Obamacare to deliver affordable health care that people want to purchase.”

Dickerson also pointed out that “giving hundreds of billions in subsidies to big insurance companies may shift costs to the taxpayers, but it won’t solve the problems caused by Obamacare. Premiums would still increase for most families, according to the filings from the insurance companies.”

He continued, “The Biden COVID Credits were always meant to be temporary, based on the partisan law signed by President Biden. When the extra subsidies paid to insurance companies expire, the taxpayers will still pay for more than 80% of the premium costs for a typical enrollee and an even greater share for low-income families.”

Another devastating analysis of Obamacare’s multiple failures comes from The Paragon Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank headed by former White House Special Assistant for Economic Policy under Trump Brian Blase. In an analysis entitled “The Falsehoods of Obamacare,” the Paragon study pointed to multiple unfulfilled promises from the program.

One of those promises was that the program would help save many lives that would otherwise be lost due to inadequate access to health care, but, according to Paragon, “life expectancy fell three consecutive years for the first time in nearly 100 years” following Obamacare’s implementation.

Another such failed promise spotlighted by Paragon was that Obamacare would make shopping for health care insurance easy. In fact, “the [Obamacare] portal was one of the most notoriously unreliable websites ever launched.”

Yet another failed promise, according to Paragon, was the claim Obamacare would boost the individual coverage field into a competitive, robust, growing marketplace. The actual result has been “enrollment was less than half of expectations, with higher premiums and deductibles and more restrictive provider networks than expected through 2020.” Things are little improved in this respect in 2025.

Finally, in perhaps the best-known failed Obamacare promise that “if you like your plan, you can keep it and if you like your doctor, you can keep him or her as well.” The reality has proven to be that “millions of people had their plans canceled and lost access to their doctors.”

AUTHOR

Mark Tapscott

Mark Tapscott is senior congressional analyst at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Biden Gives 100K Illegals Obamacare

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Obamacare destroyed the greatest healthcare system in the world. Ask yourself, how is your healthcare plan since Obama socialized medicine.

Now Obama 3.0 (Biden) is going for the kill.

The Democrats are breaking our backs.

Biden to Let 100,000 Migrants Enroll in Obamacare

By: Newsmax, 03 May 2024:

Roughly 100,000 immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children are expected to enroll in the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance next year under a new directive the Biden administration released Friday.

The move took longer than promised to finalize and fell short of Democratic President Joe Biden’s initial proposal to allow those migrants to sign up for Medicaid, the health insurance program that provides nearly free coverage for the nation’s poorest people.

But it will allow thousands of migrants to access lucrative tax breaks when they sign up for coverage after the Affordable Care Act’s marketplace enrollment opens Nov. 1, just days ahead of the presidential election.

While it may help Biden boost his appeal at a crucial time among Latinos, a crucial voting bloc that Biden needs to turn out to win the election, the move is certain to prompt more criticism among conservatives about the president’s border and migrant policies.

The action opens up the marketplace to any participant in the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, many of whom are Latino.

Xavier Becerra, the nation’s top health official, said Thursday that many of those migrants have delayed getting care because they have not had coverage.

“They incur higher costs and debts when they do finally receive care,” Becerra told reporters on a call. “Making Dreamers eligible to enroll in coverage will improve their health and well-being and strengthen the health and well-being of our nation and our economy.”

The administration’s action changes the definition of “lawfully present” so DACA participants can legally enroll in the marketplace exchange.

Then-President Barack Obama launched the DACA initiative to shield from deportation immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents as children and to allow them to work legally in the country. However, the immigrants, also known as “Dreamers,” were still ineligible for government-subsidized health insurance programs because they did not meet the definition of having a “lawful presence” in the U.S.

The administration decided not to expand eligibility for Medicaid for those migrants after receiving more than 20,000 comments on the proposal, senior officials said Thursday. Those officials declined to explain why the rule, which was first proposed last April, took so long to finalize. The delay meant the migrants were unable to enroll in the marketplace for coverage this year.

More than 800,000 of the migrants will be eligible to enroll in marketplace coverage but the administration predicts only 100,000 will actually sign up because some may get coverage through their workplace or other ways. Some may also be unable to afford coverage through the marketplace.

Other classes of immigrants, including asylum seekers and people with temporary protected status, are already eligible to purchase insurance through the marketplaces of the ACA, Obama’s 2010 health care law, often called “Obamacare.”

Continue reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

John Mackey: ‘Capitalism Is the Greatest Thing Mankind Has Ever Done’

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The Whole Foods founder offered a clear message on capitalism at LibertyCON in Miami, where five hundred delegates from 50 countries recently gathered.

On October 14, LibertyCON kicked off with an interview between Students for Liberty CEO Wolf von Laer and John Mackey, founder of Whole Foods Market.

Mackey studied philosophy and religion for several semesters while working part-time at a vegetarian consumer cooperative. In 1978, he and his girlfriend founded a vegetarian supermarket, SaferWay, which evolved into Whole Foods Market two years later through a merger. He recounted how, after starting the company, he initially lived on $200 a month, and since he had no place to live, he and his girlfriend slept in the store. Since there was no shower, they had to wash in the sink. But he has fond memories of those days: He was in love, starting the business was a great adventure, and he didn’t actually need money privately. Later, he became very wealthy, taking the company public on the NASDAQ technology exchange and, in 2017, it was acquired by Amazon for $13.7 billion.

Today, Whole Foods operates more than 500 stores in the US, Canada, and the UK.

Whole Foods was the first grocery chain to commit to animal welfare. Mackey was influenced by animal rights activist Lauren Ornelas, who criticized Whole Foods’ animal welfare standards at a shareholder meeting in 2003. Mackey gave Ornelas his email address, and they corresponded on the issue of how the company treated ducks in particular. Mackey became concerned with the problems associated with factory farming and decided to switch to a mostly vegetarian diet that included only eggs from his own chickens. Since 2006, he has been living on an exclusively plant-based diet. He is an advocate of more humane animal treatment, a vegetarian, and an enthusiastic fan of capitalism—which I like, because I am all of those things myself.

To say Mackey is a proponent of free markets is an understatement.

“Capitalism is the greatest thing that mankind has ever done,” Mackey declared at the event.

The number of people living in extreme poverty, he reminds us, has dropped from about 90 percent to less than 10 percent since the capitalist era began 200 years ago.

Mackey’s support of capitalism inspired him to write a book on the subject titled Conscious Capitalism, but it has not been without consequences. He triggered a flurry of negative reaction when he wrote an article against Obamacare that was published by the Wall Street Journal in August 2009. He did not only offer criticism, he also made ten suggestions on how to reform America’s ailing healthcare system. But his solution was not more government – as with Obama – but more market, which prompted left-wing groups to organize boycotts of his businesses.

Wolf von Laer pays tribute to the modest, soft-spoken entrepreneur for his courage in taking political positions. But Mackey himself says he would no longer write such a political article after his experience in 2009, because the response to it was so damaging to his business. That’s how it is today, and not only in the United States: Political statements from business people are only tolerated if they are critical of capitalism or “woke.” Otherwise, there is the threat of negative reaction and boycotts, as was the case against Whole Foods.

“Cancel Culture” is the name given to this anti-culture, which is nothing less than an all-out attack on freedom of expression.

Libertarians are caught between two stools. By European standards, they combine both right-wing and left-wing policy positions. On the one hand, they are enthusiastic supporters of capitalism and stridently oppose socialism, the welfare state, and wealth redistribution. On the other hand, they passionately support LGBTQ rights and drug legalization. The drug issue marks a dividing line between conservatives and libertarians, according to a panel discussion on “It’s Time to End the Drug War.”

One participant used to oppose drug legalization and now supports it for all drugs, She said the turning point for her was realizing that what she personally liked or disliked had nothing to do with what should be legal and what should be illegal. The panelists taking part in this discussion at Students for Liberty agreed that the state has lost the war against drugs, and that legalizing drugs would lead to fewer drug deaths, less crime, and more freedom and personal responsibility.

The convention moved to another topic. Why are more and more countries in Latin America sliding into socialism? Daniel DiMartino is a Venezuelan who fled the socialist country – along with a quarter of the population. He has now lived in the United States for six years and speaks of an “epidemic of envy” in Latin America. But he also criticizes conservative governments who, when in power, have not seized the opportunity to introduce the kind of radical free-market reforms that truly change people’s lives. He cites Maurico Macri in Argentina as an example.

Martha Bueno, whose parents fled Cuba and who now lives in Miami, warns young American supporters of socialism not to be overconfident that what happened in Venezuela could not happen in their country. As she explains, Venezuela was a democracy and had one of the highest standards of living in the world. And, she reminds us, Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world. She is convinced that no one ever would have believed that the socialists could run the country into the abyss, robbing it of its freedom and prosperity, in such a short space of time. But that is exactly what happened. And, she warns, it can happen here too, in the United States.

It was worth coming to Miami, to this event with so many interesting discussions. Wolf von Laer, the CEO of Students for Liberty, has succeeded in building the organization into the world’s largest network for libertarian students. The annual convention, to which fewer students can come than one would wish, partly because of the costs involved, is not actually the most important thing Students for Liberty does: that would be the thousands of events the organization holds with students around the world every year.

AUTHOR

Dr Rainer Zitelmann

Dr. Rainer Zitelmann is a historian and sociologist. He is also a world-renowned author, successful businessman, and real estate investor. Zitelmann has written more than 20 books. His books are successful all around the world, especially in China, India, and South Korea. His most recent books are The Rich in Public Opinion which was published in May 2020, and The Power of Capitalism which was published in 2019.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

VIDEO: We Don’t Need Another Obamacare | Senator Rand Paul on Healthcare Plan

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Senator Rand Paul talks about the new Obamacare repeal and replacement bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives.

Senator Paul believes it is better than what it was before but it is still a far cry from being a free market bill and will most likely be Obamacare cut in half.

The Every Day American in an email notes:

TODAY’S BIG THING: THE AMERICAN HEALTH CARE ACT

WHAT’S THE BIG PICTURE?

The American Health Care Act (AHCA) is the Republican plan to repeal and replace Obamacare.

HAVEN’T I HEARD THIS BEFORE?

Yes. About six weeks ago, Republicans came close to voting on the AHCA. Ultimately, the bill was pulled. So, moderate and conservative Republicans spent time working together to improve the legislation.

WHAT ARE THE DETAILS?

The updated AHCA is the same bill as before, but with three important changes.

  1. Palmer/Schweikert Amendment: creates a new federal risk-sharing program, a high-risk pool that will lower costs for people with pre-existing conditions, and lower costs for everyone else.

  2. The MacArthur Amendment: allows states to apply for waivers to three of Obamacare’s costliest mandates: essential health benefits; age rating; and community rating, but only if the state has a risk-sharing program to help individuals with pre-existing conditions afford coverage.This new flexibility will allow states to design insurance frameworks that are right for their unique populations, providing superior care and lowering costs for patients.

  3. The Upton-Long Amendment: dedicates $8 billion solely to reducing premiums and other out-of-pocket costs for patients in the individual market with pre-existing conditions who do not maintain continuous coverage and who live in states that receive a waiver to redesign their insurance market.

SO… IS IT LAW?

Not quite. Next it goes to the Senate and then to the White House, where it is signed into law. Don’t worry. We’ll keep you updated every step of the way.

WAIT, IS CONGRESS EXEMPT?

No. Yesterday, Congress also voted on the McSally Bill, which ensures that Members of Congress and their staff live by the same health care rules as everyone else.

WHAT’S NEXT?

Congress has several big projects coming up this year and next, including balancing the budget, funding the military, fixing America’s infrastructure, and overhauling the tax code.

Stay tuned. It’s sure to be an exciting year.

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No, the Rest of the World Doesn’t Use ‘Single Payer’ by Eli Lehrer

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There’s plenty of reason for free marketers to be skeptical of proposals, like the ones emanating from Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and hinted at by Republican Donald Trump, that would create a single-payer healthcare coverage system in the United States.

But, if only because these proposals have resonance with the public, they’re certainly worth debating. A rational debate depends on getting the facts straight and there’s one fact that both left and right often get wrong: “single payer” healthcare of the sort Bernie Sanders proposes isn’t universal in the developed world and the US system isn’t particularly free-market by the standards of peer nations.

Although definitions vary slightly, a single payer healthcare system is one where a single entity — a government-run insurance plan — pays all bills for a variety of medical care, and private payment for these same services is more-or-less banned.

Among the G-7 countries, only one nation, Canada, actually maintains such a system. One other, Italy, has a pretty similar system but allows much more private payment, and, because of the low standards of public hospitals, nearly everyone who can afford private insurance carries it.

Japan maintains a government-run healthcare plan, but it has so many gaps that most families find a need to carry private insurance to cover things like cancer-treatment related costs the public system excludes.

Germany, like the United States, has an employer-state hybrid system with heavy regulation of insurance companies.

France has a “dominant payer” system, where one quasi-governmental entity (CNAMTS) pays many bills, but about 90 percent of the population maintains private coverage as well, and most people pay something out of pocket each year.

The United Kingdom, finally, directly administers almost all medical personnel and facilities through a single governmental entity in each of the home countries. This is a “single provider” system.

Except in the United Kingdom, furthermore, there are significant numbers of people in all of these countries who report problems paying for needed medical care. This percentage is higher in the United States and Germany, intermediate in France, and lower in Canada. The UK only achieves its apparently enviable results because of long waiting lists for many procedures and health care rationing systems that are pretty close to the fictional “death panels” some conservatives claimed were part of Obamacare.

The American system as it exists isn’t unusually free market either. The German, French, and Japanese systems — where consumers much more frequently shop around for insurance plans they like rather than having the government or an employer chose — offer more consumer choices than most Americans enjoy. Even though taxpayers pick up a very large portion of the bills, the French practice of publically providing the prices of medical procedures makes that system feel a lot more like a free market than anything most Americans see day-to-day.

There are lots of valid criticisms of the United States’ healthcare system. The difficulty the poor or uninsured sometimes have in getting needed medical care is one of them. Some problems of the US health care system stem from lifestyle and cultural factors that organization and payment mechanisms can’t impact. But the lack of a single-payer system in the United States isn’t unusual in the slightest nor is the system we have particularly free-market.

Any debate should start by acknowledging both of those facts.

Eli LehrerEli Lehrer

Eli Lehrer is president and co-founder of the R Street Institute, a free-market think tank.

VIDEO: Pastor Jack Martin Running for Congress in Florida’s 11th District

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Florida’s 11th Congressional District includes Sumter, Citrus and Hernando counties and most of Marion county. The current representative of the 11th Congressional District is Richard B. Nugent (R). Nugent is retiring at the end of his current term.

Pastor John “Jack” Martin has decided for God and country to run for Nugent’s seat. Here is a video of Jack Martin speaking at a Second Amendment rally:

Guns Across America Florida Rally Pastor Jack Martin from Jack Martin on Vimeo.

Pastor Marin’s history is that of a 33 year pastor. He is a member of the Black Robe Regiment and Preacher from The Pulpit. He has been standing up, speaking out and attending various events throughout the State of Florida to Washington D.C. He has always felt that a position as a statesman, U.S. Congressional Rep. to represent The People was his next calling in life.

Martin on his website lists six major crises Americans face:

  1. The National Debt – Over 18 Trillion Dollars
  2. Our Borders – Unprotected and being flooded daily with those entering illegally from many nations.
  3. Our Military both Veterans and Active Duty treated poorly.
  4. Obamacare – Needing to be repealed and replaced.
  5. Israeli / American Relationships – Need to be restored.
  6. Our Judeo Christian Ethics – under heavy attack.

Jack Martin speaking on the Black Robe Regiment at a Deland, Florida Rally in December 2015:

Pastor Martin has been endorsed by William Finlay, Wild Bill for America, also a Black Robe Regiment member among others.

Supporter Deb Howard states, “Pastor Jack is well known for his candor of Gods word and the application in conjunction with today’s times that we face. His deliveries are captivating. I am attaching one in particular that I believe delivers Jacks beliefs as he does walk the walk. There is no denying that people are pleasantly surprised as the preacher from the small country church is ready willing and able to face the evil in D.C. unafraid to be heard and willing to fight the mass corruption within our Halls!”

“Pastor Jack is also acquainted with Geoff Ross, Senior Chief, U.S. Navy (Ret.), Michael McCallister, Colonel, U.S. Army (Ret.), Ann Murrin, PoliticoChicks, Rodney Conover (writer and radio host), Joe The Plumber and numerous others who are supporting, covering the campaign trail and publishing information about him, ” said Howard.

Howard notes, “Our attempt to make Pastor John Martin a household name not only in District FL-11 but nationwide as he is challenging pastors to step out and off of the pulpit and guide congregations to comprehend the true nature of their work. As Black Robe Regiment Pastors joined in leading with George Washington to fight for our independence in the Revolutionary War, so stands John Martin.”

EDITORS NOTE: Readers wanting more information may visit the Jack Martin for Congress website.

New Biological Data Measures Issues that Divide American Voters

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CHICAGO. IL /PRNewswire/ — Obamacare and immigration are the two issues on which Republicans and Democrats are the most divided, according to research by research and insights agency Shapiro+Raj, the company announced. Republican and Democratic respondents differed in their reactions to different candidates’ positions on these issues.

Researchers at Shapiro+Raj, led by Associate Manager Mike Winograd, Ph.D., used traditional survey methods complemented by biometrics to better measure respondents’ in-the-moment opinions about eight issues using video statements by some of the leading candidates from both parties in the 2016 presidential race.

Of the eight issues covered—abortion, climate change, gay marriage, gun control, immigration, Obamacare, Social Security and taxes—Obamacare, gun control and abortion elicited the strongest responses from both sides in terms of support or opposition. The majority of respondents also ranked gay marriage and climate change among the least important issues in the upcoming election.

For each issue, Shapiro+Raj used five video clips of Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and undeclared candidate Joe Biden. Republican candidates included Jeb Bush, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Donald Trump. All of the clips lasted between 10 and 33 seconds. Clips for each issue were shown in serial with 15-second blank screens between each video clip.

In this study, Shapiro+Raj used a biometric measure known as galvanic skin response (GSR), to measure respondents’ perspiration levels, which are an indicator of arousal and emotional reactivity, and applied the results alongside facial coding to determine not only the strength of viewers’ responses, but also their comparative reactions.

The findings overall showed that the biometric analysis did not fully align with the survey responses.

“Biometrics have huge implications for the ad-marketing industry because they can be applied to extract more detailed and actionable consumer insights on behalf of brands,” Winograd said. “Traditional researchers have known for a long time that what people say doesn’t always align with their true beliefs or how they might behave.”

For example, aside from his image as Washington outsider, Trump has more moderate, or even liberal, views on some issues. While Democratic voters’ ratings of Trump were strongly negative, the biometric findings indicated that when the content of his messages aligned with their beliefs, Democratic voters do not necessarily dislike Trump.

A 2013 clip of Ben Carson referring to Obamacare as, “the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery,” evoked the strongest negative reaction among some Democratic respondents, according to the biometric analysis. By contrast, Republicans’ responses to the Carson clip indicated that they did not find his statement provocative.

“Using biometrics, we can get nuanced perspectives on the emotions of voters and consumers,” Winograd added.

For more information about these findings, click here.

ABOUT SHAPIRO+RAJ

Shapiro+Raj is a new strategy and research company for the Insight Economy™, connecting Shapiro’s 60-year leadership in research, insights and analytics with new world brand strategy, innovation and ideation capabilities. Shapiro+Raj delivers deep, enduring insights and inspired ideas to help its Fortune 500 clients improve the value of their brands while driving profitable growth of their business. Headquartered in Chicago, the independent firm also has an office in New York.

RELATED ARTICLE: North Carolina: Craven County considering resolution to block some refugees from the county

LAWSUIT: ‘Neither the Courts nor Government Can Determine What Is a Sin’

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The Thomas More Law Center (TMLC), a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, yesterday, filed a friend of the court brief in the case of Zubik v. Burwell, in support of seven non-profit organizations including the Little Sisters of the Poor who claim they cannot comply with the Department of Health and Human Services’ mandate (“HHS Mandate”) because even the so called “accommodations” make them actively complicit in the sin of abortion.  TMLC’s brief asserts that the Court is not the arbiter of sacred Scripture and, therefore, cannot determine whether or not an act constitutes a sin; it can only determine whether the government’s penalties for refusal to complete the sinful act are a substantial burden on religious liberty.

Thomas More Law Center Files Brief in Supreme Court Declaring Neither Court Nor Government Can Determine What Is a Sin

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of TMLC, portrays this case as a potential turning point in American legal history, stating, “The HHS Mandate is a monumental attack on religious liberty.  If this appeal is lost, the government becomes the head of every religious denomination in the country by its assumed authority to determine what is in fact a sin.”

The HHS Mandate requires religious non-profit organizations to participate in a government scheme to provide free contraceptives, including abortion causing drugs and devices (abortifacients), to their employees or face monumental fines that would result in closing the doors of most non-profit organizations that object to the HHS Mandate.

However, the HHS Mandate allows non-profit organizations like the Little Sisters to receive a so-called accommodation from directly providing free contraceptives and abortifacients to their employees.  The accommodation  requires the non-profit organizations to either (1) fill out a form as notice of their objection to contraceptives and abortifacients and provide that form to their insurers, which includes language instructing the insurers to provide free contraceptives and abortifacients to the women in the non-profits’ health plans, or (2) write and send a detailed letter to HHS with all of the information necessary to notify the non-profits’ insurers of their newfound obligation to provide free contraceptives and abortifacients to the women in the non-profits’ health plans.

These notification requirements trigger the non-profits’ insurers to provide free contraceptives and abortifacients to the women in the non-profits’ health plans. This notification requirement makes the non profits complicit in the provision of a service that they find sinful, thereby causing them to sin themselves.

TMLC’s brief argues, supported by a long line of Supreme Court precedent, that neither the government nor the Supreme Court can determine whether an act does or does not violate a person’s religious beliefs.  Rather, the Supreme Court must accept the non-profits’ assertions that the notification requirement is indeed against their religion.  To accept otherwise is to supplant the Church and the Bible with the government, allowing the Supreme Court and the government to interpret tenants of faith.  This slippery slope would subject all religious exercise to the whim of the government’s approval.

 Excerpts from TMLC’s Amicus brief:

  • “This Court has already determined that the fines for noncompliance with the HHS Mandate impose a substantial burden on employers. Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 134 S. Ct. 2751, 2776 (2014). The ultimate question, therefore, is whether compliance is actually against the Petitioners’ religion. This is something that is for Petitioners to determine, not the Court.”
  • “The Court is not the arbiter of sacred scripture and cannot determine whether the notification form and letter are attenuated enough from the provision of contraceptives that they do not substantially burden Petitioners’ religion. Delving into this inquiry requires the Court to interpret Petitioners’ religious beliefs on the morality of the different levels of complicity with sin. Thomas v. Review Bd. of Indian Employment Security Div., 450 U.S. 707, 718 (1981).  Therefore, the Court can only determine whether Petitioners are being compelled to do something that violates their faith—here, filling out the notification form or writing a notification letter to HHS, both of which trigger the dissemination of contraceptives and abortifacients to their employees in connection with their employee health plans.”
  • “While women have a right to obtain contraceptives, see Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 485-486 (1965), this does not mean they have a right to free contraceptives and abortifacients. Moreover, this right certainly does not mean that a person has the right to obtain contraceptives and abortifacients—either directly or indirectly—from their employer at the expense of pillaging the employer’s religious liberty.”

Click here to read TMLC’s entire 19-page brief  

TMLC, representing thirty-six plaintiffs including six religious non-profit organizations, has filed twelve lawsuits challenging the illegal aims of the HHS Mandate.

“Affordable Care”: Higher Premiums, Higher Deductibles, Worse Healthcare by Michael F. Cannon

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Aside from one necessary clarification (see far below), it would be difficult to improve on what the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and the enrollees they interview have to say about ObamaCare.

First, from yesterday’s New York Times article, “Many Say High Deductibles Make Their Health Law Insurance All but Useless”:

For many consumers, the sticker shock is coming not on the front end, when they purchase the plans, but on the back end when they get sick: sky-high deductibles that are leaving some newly insured feeling nearly as vulnerable as they were before they had coverage.

“The deductible, $3,000 a year, makes it impossible to actually go to the doctor,” said David R. Reines, 60, of Jefferson Township, N.J., a former hardware salesman with chronic knee pain. “We have insurance, but can’t afford to use it.” …

“We could not afford the deductible,” said Kevin Fanning, 59, who lives in North Texas, near Wichita Falls. “Basically I was paying for insurance I could not afford to use.”

He dropped his policy. …

“Our deductible is so high, we practically pay for all of our medical expenses out of pocket,” said Wendy Kaplan, 50, of Evanston, Ill. “So our policy is really there for emergencies only, and basic wellness appointments.”

Her family of four pays premiums of $1,200 a month for coverage with an annual deductible of $12,700. …

Alexis C. Phillips, 29, of Houston, is the kind of consumer federal officials would like to enroll this fall. But after reviewing the available plans, she said, she concluded: “The deductibles are ridiculously high. I will never be able to go over the deductible unless something catastrophic happened to me. I’m better off not purchasing that insurance and saving the money in case something bad happens.”

“While my premiums are affordable, the out-of-pocket expenses required to meet the deductible are not,” said [Karin] Rosner, who makes about $30,000 a year. …

“When they said affordable, I thought they really meant affordable,” [Anne Cornwell of Chattanooga, Tenn.,] said.

And from today’s Boston Globe article, “High-Deductible Health Plans Make Affordable Care Act ‘Unaffordable,’ Critics Say”:

“We can’t afford the Affordable Care Act, quite honestly,” said Cassaundra Anderson, whose family canvassed for Obama in their neighborhood, a Republican stronghold outside Cincinnati. “The intention is great, but there is so much wrong. . . . I’m mad.” …

The Andersons’ experience echoes that of hundreds of thousands of newly insured Americans facing sticker shock over out-of-pocket costs. …

“This will be an issue at least one more time in the 2016 election. It could absolutely still hurt Democrats,” said Robert Blendon, a professor of health policy and political analysis at the Harvard School of Public Health. “Polls about the Affordable Care Act have a considerable amount of middle-income people who say either the program has done nothing for them or actually hurt them.” …

“Unfortunately, what we are headed toward now is universal crappy health insurance,” said Dr. Budd Shenkin, a California pediatrician. … “It’s just not a good deal for people,” he said.

“We’re in the process of looking at going without insurance,” [Cassaundra Anderson] said, calculating that the family will be better off financially just paying the $2,000 tax penalty for not abiding by the law’s mandate. “What am I even paying these insurance people for? Why should we reenroll?” …

“I cannot get anything with this insurance. Nothing,” said [Laura] Torres, who avoids seeking treatment for her thyroid condition and high blood pressure because of cost. “I just pay my monthly payments, try to take care of myself, go to work, and hope something serious doesn’t happen to me.” …

Amete Kahsay, 53, works as a temporary warehouse packer in Columbus. The Affordable Care marketplace is her only option for health insurance. She and her husband, an airport shuttle driver, pay $275 a month for a “bronze” plan with a $13,200 deductible.

Shortly after they signed up for insurance last year, her husband rushed her to the emergency room when she experienced dizziness. The visit, which included a CT scan of her brain, cost $1,700. She paid the charge from her savings, then returned to her native Ethiopia, where care is cheaper, to consult a neurologist and seek follow-up care.

“I support Obamacare. Without it, I wouldn’t have any type of insurance. But I’m not sure it’s worth the money,” said Kahsay, a US citizen who is registered as an independent voter. “Now, unless I get very, very sick, like only if it’s life-threatening, I won’t go to the doctor. I just lay down and take a rest.”

The necessary clarification is that these people are not complaining about high-deductibles in a market system. In a market system, consumers who choose high deductibles save money on their premiums and therefore have more resources to help them pay their out-of-pocket expenses.

ObamaCare, on the other hand, manages to pair high deductibles with higher premiums, stripping many people of this benefit of high-deductible plans and leaving them unable to pay their medical bills.

Cross-posted from Cato.org.

Michael F. Cannon
Michael F. Cannon

Michael F. Cannon is the Cato Institute’s director of health policy studies.

One-Third of Obamacare Co-Ops Shut Down by Charles Hughes

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Hundreds of thousands people will lose their insurance plans as a raft of health insurance cooperatives (CO-OPs) created by the Affordable Care Act will cease operations.

Just last week, CO-OPs in Oregon, Colorado, Tennessee and Kentucky announced that they would be winding down operations due to lower than expected enrollment and solvency concerns (although the one in Colorado issuing the state over the shutdown order). They join four other CO-OPs that have announced that they would be closing their doors.

In total, only 15 out of the 23 CO-OPs created by the law remain. These closures reveal how ill-advised this aspect of the ACA was both in terms of lost money and the turmoil for the people who enrolled in them. The eight that have failed have received almost $1 billion in loans, and overall CO-OPs received loans totaling $2.4 billion that might never get paid back.

In addition, roughly 400,000 people will lose their plans.

Proponents of the CO-OPs believed that they would be able to offer lower premiums than for-profit insurers because they did not have the same profit motive, but even non-profit insurers cannot operate at a financial loss indefinitely.

When they were created, these CO-OPs had no customers, no experience in setting premiums, no networks and limited capital. The government tried to subsidize the early period of uncertainty by disbursing loans to help with startup and solvency issues, and money from other provisions like risk corridors would dampen losses in the initial years.

Lower than expected payments from the risk corridors have exacerbated the issues facing some of these CO-OPs, who were counting on substantial payments to stay afloat. But this is hardly the only factor contributing to their struggles, some of them the product of other government policies like delaying employer mandate penalties and giving states the option to allow transitional policies through 2017.

Some of these later developments could not have been anticipated, but many analysts, including Cato scholars, were skeptical about the prospects of CO-OPs from the beginning.  Even some ACA supporters recognized the flaws inherent in the CO-OP design: Paul Krugman derided them as a “sham” and in a 2009 interview Professor Timothy Jost said could not see how a CO-OP “does anything to control costs.”

There have been multiple warning signs that many CO-OPs were in trouble.  Earlier this year The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services sent letters to 11 CO-OPs placing them on “enhanced oversight” due to financial concerns, and a 2014 report from the HHS Office of Inspector General found that “most of the 23 CO-OPs we reviewed had not met their initial program enrollment and profitability projections,” and that the government “had not established guidance or criteria to assess whether a CO-OP was viable or sustainable.”

These CO-OPs were not a good idea at inception and were always going to face many obstacles to success.  Multiple changes to the law since they were established have exacerbated these problems, and already struggling CO-OPs have folded. Competition is indeed vital in health insurance markets, but the CO-OPs were a bad way to try to foster this competition.

With these closures, billions of taxpayer dollars could be lost and hundreds of thousands of people will discover that the “if you like your plan, you can keep it” promise does not apply to them.

This post first appeared at Cato.org.

Charles Hughes

Charles Hughes

Charles Hughes is a research associate at the Cato Institute.

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