The Biden COVID Credits temporarily expanded Obamacare by removing the income cap and allowing larger subsidy amounts.
These expanded payments to insurance companies are scheduled to expire at the end of this year.
However, some lawmakers are now calling for another temporary extension of the Biden COVID Credits to provide a phase out of the subsidies. For example, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) was recently quoted as saying, “We need to eliminate the Covid-era subsidies. We just can’t do it immediately. It’s too late into the cycle. I hope that people coalesce around maybe a one-year extension and then year two ramp down.”
But the end of the subsidies should come as no surprise: the current phase down has been in law for years.
The Biden COVID Credits Already Had a Three-Year Phase Down
The Biden COVID Credits are already nearing the end of the three-year phase down period.
The Biden COVID Credits were created by the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA) and were originally available for 2021 and 2022. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) extended the subsidies for 2023 through the end of 2025, providing a predictable three-year phase out.
Let Biden’s COVID Credits Expire as Scheduled
These payments were always meant to be temporary. The Biden COVID Credits were created on a partisan basis in 2021 and justified as pandemic era expense.
Biden’s COVID Credits should expire as scheduled. A ten-year extension would cost $410 billion including interest. Obamacare is rife with fraud, and Biden COVID Credits promote more fraud. The Biden COVID Credits controversially expand taxpayer funding for abortion and gender transition procedures.
Furthermore, Obamacare premiums will increase, even if the expanded subsidies — which are sent to insurance companies, not patients — are extended.
