Opinion/Analysis
Yo, the Obamacare Subsidies do NOT go to the Insured to pay their premium. The Subsidies go straight to the Insurance Companies ... that way the REAL cost of Obamacare isn't seen by you. Now that the money pot has dried up they are saying that cost is now on YOUR back in order to Gaslite you in not seeing it. So, if the Subsidies aren't there YOU are left on the hook. If there is no money for the insurance companies you are assed out.
DON'T YOU SEE???
When COVID hit the Insurance Companies eyes got big, they jacked up the premiums claiming it was temporary, the government went along with it and call the Subsidies temporary ... and now they want the money to continue.
NO!!!
The Great Obamacare Deception: How Hidden Subsidies Masked the True Cost and Set You Up for the Fall
For years, conservatives have sounded the alarm on the fundamental dishonesty at the heart of the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare. While the law was sold to the American people on promises of lower costs and increased accessibility, its architects employed a clever—and ultimately unsustainable—accounting trick to hide its true price tag. A recent and pointed observation from a frustrated citizen cuts to the heart of the issue: “Yo, the Obamacare Subsidies do NOT go to the Insured to pay their premium. The Subsidies go straight to the Insurance Companies.”
This is not a minor technicality; it is the core mechanism of a grand political illusion. Understanding this process reveals why we are now facing a fiscal cliff and why insurance companies are demanding more money, leaving everyday Americans holding the bag.
The Illusion of Affordability: A Shell Game with Your Money
When you purchase a health insurance plan on the Obamacare exchange, you may see a discounted monthly premium. The government, you are told, is providing a “subsidy” to make it affordable. This framing is intentional and misleading. It creates the perception that you are receiving a direct benefit, a helping hand from a benevolent government.
In reality, the vast majority of these subsidies—specifically, the Advanced Premium Tax Credits (APTCs)—are wired directly from the U.S. Treasury to the insurance company’s bank account. You, the insured, never see the money. You only see the artificially lowered price.
Why does this matter? It creates a dangerous disconnect between the consumer and the true cost of their healthcare. This was a feature, not a bug. By hiding the real price, the government could claim it was making healthcare “affordable” without the average person realizing just how astronomically expensive the underlying product had become. The *real* cost of Obamacare was masked, buried in the federal budget, and financed by deficit spending and taxes on the productive sectors of the economy.
This system is the antithesis of a true free market. In a functioning market, the consumer sees a price, pays for a service, and holds the provider accountable for its value. Obamacare shattered this relationship. It made the federal government the primary payer and the insurance companies the dependent clients, all while making the citizen a passive participant in a system they were told was built for their benefit.
The COVID Cash Grab and the Inevitable Fiscal Cliff
The post accurately identifies the COVID-19 pandemic as a pivotal moment that exposed the fragility of this scheme. The system was already strained, but the pandemic provided the perfect pretext for a massive expansion. Insurance companies, facing uncertainty, did what any business in a distorted, government-managed market would do: they lobbied for more guarantees.
The government’s response was not to introduce market-based solutions or increase competition. Instead, it doubled down on the flawed model. Through the so-called “American Rescue Plan” and subsequent legislation, temporary subsidies were massively expanded. More money was funneled directly to insurance companies, and eligibility was widened to include higher-income individuals who had never before qualified for government assistance.
This was sold as necessary relief. In truth, it was a life-support system for a failing law and a windfall for the insurance industry. Premiums were artificially suppressed to an even greater degree, further obscuring the true cost. But as the post correctly notes, these subsidies were always billed as “temporary.” The pot of money was not infinite.
Now, the bill has come due. The “temporary” money is drying up, and insurance companies, having grown accustomed to this river of federal cash, are facing a reckoning. Their solution? Not to become more efficient or competitive, but to demand that the subsidies be made permanent. If Congress refuses, they will have no choice but to jack up premiums—dramatically.
And who will be blamed? Not the architects of this unstable system, and certainly not the insurance companies acting within its perverse incentives. The resulting price hikes will be presented as a market failure, a reason to demand even more government intervention, potentially including a full-throated push for a single-payer system. This is the “gaslighting” the post refers to—the attempt to make you believe that the consequences of a government-managed disaster are actually the failures of capitalism itself.
A Conservative Path Forward: Restoring Markets and Personal Responsibility
The current crisis is a painful but teachable moment. It proves that you cannot subsidize your way to affordability. You can only hide costs, distort markets, and create dependencies that eventually collapse under their own weight.
The conservative solution is not to tinker at the edges of this broken system but to fundamentally change its orientation away from government control and back toward individual autonomy. This requires:
1. Transparency in Pricing: We must demand a system where consumers see the *real* price of care and have the power to shop for value. This means promoting Price Transparency tools and encouraging the use of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), which empower patients, not bureaucrats or insurance executives.
2. Restoring True Insurance: Health insurance should return to its purpose of protecting against catastrophic, unforeseen costs, rather than being a pre-paid plan for every check-up and minor procedure. This would make core insurance policies significantly more affordable.
3. Unleashing Competition: We must break down the regulatory barriers that prevent insurance companies from selling policies across state lines. Allowing individuals and associations to pool together to purchase insurance would create larger, more powerful risk pools and drive down costs through genuine competition.
4. Rejecting the Bailout: Congress must have the courage to say “NO” to the insurance industry’s demands for permanent subsidies. Continuing this spending spree is fiscally irresponsible and only delays the inevitable collapse while adding to our nation’s crushing debt.
The Obamacare experiment has been a masterclass in the failure of big-government liberalism. It hid costs, created perverse incentives, and is now attempting to blame you for its own collapse. The path forward is not to prop up this decaying system with more of your tax dollars, but to finally embrace the principles of free markets, transparency, and individual liberty that have always been the source of true American prosperity.
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