Battles in Santa Fe, DC being fought over ObamaCare’s failures
The law known colloquially as “ObamaCare” has been around for 15 years. Whatever you think of it, the fact is that ObamaCare expanded health care coverage through two primary mechanisms: Medicaid expansion and a raft of subsidies. The federal shutdown currently happening in Washington is primarily about the latter:
During the COVID pandemic the Biden Administration passed enhanced subsidies eliminated the income eligibility caps for those subsidies and also made them more generous for current recipients….The Congressional Budget Office estimates that it would cost $340 billion a year to continue those. Republicans oppose that.
On the flip side, letting the tax credits expire would result in about 1.6 million higher-income earners losing subsidies completely. Millions more would continue receiving a smaller subsidy and see their premiums rise as a result….
HB 2 is legislation being considered (and likely adopted due to Democrat control of New Mexico government) in New Mexico’s current special session that would put New Mexico government/taxpayers on the hook for those subsidies at a cost of $34 million annually.
The problem is that ObamaCare remains flawed. It expanded health care “coverage” without actually expanding “access.” It is based on a combination of unsustainable taxpayer subsidies for both the ACA plans and for Medicaid which is just an ineffective welfare program that hasn’t improved health outcomes (as New Mexico’s own Legislative Finance Committee recently noted).
The fix (of course) requires getting government out of the way of the doctor/patient relationship both in the office and in terms of the payment situation. But, Republicans in Washington have been unable to repeal and replace ObamaCare and New Mexico’s Democrats simply cannot and will not look outside the government for solutions. Here is one excellent article from Reason Magazine that outlines how ObamaCare’s myriad failures have led us to this.