Of all the phrases that have the power to shape our national discourse, few are as potent, as financially consequential, or as morally clarifying as a simple, declarative statement: “COVID is OVER.” For millions of Americans, this has been a lived reality for years—a return to school, to work, to worship, and to a life free from the shadow of mandates and lockdowns. Yet, in the halls of power in Washington, a parallel reality persists. Here, the emergency narrative is a political evergreen, a perpetual motion machine for the redistribution of wealth and the expansion of state power. The most glaring example of this phenomenon is the continued subsidization of the health insurance industry, a multi-billion-dollar racket that perfectly illustrates the post-pandemic swamp culture. As the sentiment rightly notes, we are now padding the pockets of insurance companies to create kickbacks for politicians, all under the hollow guise of a crisis that has, for all practical purposes, ended.
The mechanism for this great wealth transfer is largely hidden in plain sight, buried in the pages of massive spending bills and extended through “temporary” measures that have a habit of becoming permanent. During the genuine emergency of the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress passed the Families First Coronavirus Response Act. A key provision of this act was a mandate that states keep people continuously enrolled in Medicaid in exchange for enhanced federal funding. This was a sensible, temporary measure during a time of unprecedented economic disruption. But as the crisis waned, the emergency-era policy did not. It was repeatedly extended, creating a massive, artificial inflation of the Medicaid rolls. When the continuous enrollment provision finally ended in 2023, the reckoning began: states began the arduous process of “unwinding,” discovering that millions of those enrolled were no longer eligible. The system had been bloated with ineligible recipients for years, with taxpayers footing the bill.
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Simultaneously, the Affordable Care Act’s premium subsidies were supercharged by the so-called American Rescue Plan and later extended by the Inflation Reduction Act. These were not targeted relief for those in dire need during a lockdown; they were a fundamental rewriting of the healthcare subsidy landscape, making subsidies available to households earning well into the upper-middle class. The stated goal was to make coverage more affordable. The unstated effect was to create a river of taxpayer money flowing directly to insurance companies, insulating them from market pressures and making a significant portion of the industry functionally dependent on the federal treasury. This is the very definition of “padding the pockets of insurance companies.” When the government becomes your primary payer, you have not secured a market; you have secured a patron.
This leads directly to the second part of the equation: the kickback to politicians. The relationship is not one of crude bribes in smoke-filled rooms—though the recent surge in stock trading scandals among sitting politicians does give one pause—but rather a more sophisticated, systemic corruption. The health insurance industry, now deeply entangled with government policy, spends millions on lobbying and campaign contributions. This is not charity; it is an investment. They are funding the political careers of those who will ensure the spigot of taxpayer subsidies remains open. A politician who votes to extend these subsidies can reasonably expect financial support from the industry that benefits. It is a virtuous cycle for the political and corporate class, and a vicious cycle for the taxpayer. The government creates a dependency, the industry profits from it, and then funds the re-election of the politicians who perpetuate the system. The “kickback” may not arrive in a briefcase; it arrives in the form of a seven-figure Super PAC donation or a lucrative speaking fee after leaving office.
This entire edifice is built on the foundational lie that the COVID-19 emergency is ongoing. To justify the continued emergency spending, the emergency must be perpetuated. This is why, long after the public had moved on, we saw efforts to maintain a climate of fear, to fixate on new variants with minimal public health impact, and to keep emergency authorities on the books. The emergency declaration is not just a public health tool; it is a financial instrument. It is the key that unlocks the treasury and allows for the bypassing of normal budgetary scrutiny. To declare “COVID is OVER” is to break that key in the lock. It is to demand a return to normal, transparent governance where every dollar is accounted for and spending is justified on its own merits, not on the decaying corpse of a three-year-old crisis.
A conservative response to this racket is not, as opponents often caricature it, a desire to see people go without healthcare. On the contrary, it is a belief in a system that is sustainable, efficient, and free from the corrupting influence of big government and big business collusion. The conservative vision for healthcare is one of transparency, competition, and patient control. It seeks to unwind the dependency created by these subsidies and replace it with a system that empowers individuals, not bureaucrats and insurance executives.
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This means advancing policies that reintroduce market forces into healthcare. Expanding Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) allows individuals to save and spend their own money for routine care, making them conscious consumers and driving down prices. Supporting association health plans and allowing the purchase of insurance across state lines would increase competition, giving consumers more choices and putting downward pressure on premiums. Pushing for real price transparency from hospitals and providers would finally allow patients to shop for value, a fundamental principle in every other sector of our economy. These solutions are focused on the individual, not the system. They trust Americans to make their own decisions with their own money, a concept that is anathema to the central planner who believes that your health choices are best made by a partnership of a federal agency and a corporate boardroom.
The fundamental philosophical divide here is over the proper role of government and the nature of freedom. The progressive model views the citizen as a subject of state care, a beneficiary who should be grateful for the subsidies and coverage provided by their betters in Washington. This model necessitates a vast, powerful bureaucracy and a cozy relationship with corporate partners who carry out its will. It is a system that is inherently paternalistic and, as we have seen, deeply corruptible.
The conservative model views the citizen as a sovereign individual, capable of making their own life choices and responsible for their own well-being. The government’s role is not to be a dispenser of benefits, but a guarantor of a framework within which freedom and competition can flourish. It is a system that prizes liberty over security, and self-reliance over dependency. The continued COVID-era subsidies are a direct assault on this principle. They are a deliberate effort to make more people dependent on the state, and by extension, on the political party that promises to maintain that dependency.
In the final analysis, the statement “COVID is OVER” is more than a declaration of fact. It is a demand for accountability. It is a refusal to allow our nation’s fiscal and health policy to be held hostage by a perpetual crisis. The subsidies propping up insurance companies are a monument to everything that is wrong with Washington: the profligate spending, the corporate cronyism, the erosion of individual liberty, and the sheer arrogance of a political class that believes it can ignore the lived reality of the people it purports to serve.
To end these subsidies is not an act of cruelty; it is an act of restoration. It is the first step in dismantling a corrupt and unsustainable system and beginning the work of building one that is based on genuine choice, real competition, and fiscal sanity. It is to declare that the era of government by emergency must end, and that the season of American resilience and self-reliance must begin again. The pandemic is over. The reckoning for the programs it spawned is long overdue.
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