As the clock ticks down to the end of 2025, Americans are staring down the barrel of skyrocketing health care costs thanks to the bloated, fraud-riddled subsidies propping up Obamacare’s sinking ship. These so-called “enhanced” giveaways—pushed through under the cover of COVID hysteria—are set to expire, and conservatives are cheering: it’s high time to let this government boondoggle crash and burn.
No more taxpayer-funded free rides for able-bodied freeloaders or Big Insurance cronies. Instead, let’s unleash real free-market reforms that slash premiums, boost choices, and put Americans back in control.
Here’s the beefed-up truth on why ditching these subsidies isn’t just smart—it’s essential to dismantling the ACA disaster once and for all.
1. These “COVID Relief” Subsidies Were Never About the Pandemic—They Were a Sneaky Plot to Supercharge Obamacare’s Big Government Overreach
Remember when Democrats rammed through the American Rescue Plan in 2021 and the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, claiming it was all to help folks battered by lockdowns? Fast-forward to today: most COVID-era handouts—like beefed-up unemployment, food stamps, and student loan pauses—vanished ages ago, yet these Obamacare boosters linger like a bad hangover. Why? Because the Left’s real game was always expanding this unconstitutional mess into a full-blown single-payer nightmare.New data from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in 2025 hammers this home: without extension, these subsidies would save taxpayers a whopping $380 billion over the next decade alone.
But Democrats are holding the government hostage, threatening shutdowns to force permanence—because who needs fiscal sanity when you can buy votes with your neighbor’s wallet? As Heritage Foundation experts warn, extending them would balloon enrollment by another 6.9 million, with average handouts hitting $5,370 per person, all while eroding employer-sponsored plans by 3 million.
Conservatives say: Let ’em lapse. It’s the perfect chance to repeal and replace this fraud factory with state-led innovations that actually lower costs.
2. Enrollment Exploded to 26.7 Million—But It’s a Mirage of Waste, Not Coverage Wins
Pre-COVID, Obamacare’s exchanges limped along with a steady 13.7 million subsidized enrollees in 2019. Then came the zero-premium gimmick: bam, Q1 2025 hit 26.7 million, a near-doubling fueled by handouts so generous even high-earners (over 400% of poverty level) got in on the action.
Sounds like success? Hardly. Fresh 2025 KFF analysis reveals over 40% of fully subsidized plans saw zero claims last year—meaning taxpayers forked over $35 billion to insurers for “coverage” nobody used.
That’s not access; that’s abuse.Conservative watchdogs at the Paragon Health Institute call it what it is: a fraud bonanza, with brokers signing up ghosts and folks fudging incomes to game the system.
Total 2025 enrollment? A record 24 million, but 92% hooked on subsidies that mask the law’s failures.
Republicans in Congress are right to block extensions—doing nothing here starves the beast and forces a return to personal responsibility, not endless bailouts.
3. Fraud and Phantom Enrollees: $27 Billion Down the Drain in 2025 Alone—And It’s Only Getting Worse
The enhanced subsidies stripped away income caps and contribution rules, turning Obamacare into a free-for-all. Result? An estimated 6.4 million people wrongly slotted into zero-premium brackets, costing $27 billion in 2025 taxpayer dollars.
New research from conservative analysts shows thousands enrolled without consent—plans changed behind their backs, or signed up by shady brokers chasing commissions.Breitbart reports that Democrats’ push to embed this in a stopgap bill would add $1.5 trillion to the debt over ten years, wiping out GOP health savings from the Big Beautiful Bill.
VP JD Vance nailed it on Fox: Democrats are fighting to restore “health care benefits for illegal aliens,” not everyday Americans.
Conservatives demand accountability: End the subsidies, audit the rolls, and redirect funds to fraud-busting and market-driven alternatives that reward work, not welfare.
4. Subsidies Don’t Vanish—They Just Shrink Back to Obamacare’s “Generous” Baseline, Still a Rip-Off for Taxpayers
Don’t buy the hysteria: Post-expiration, low-income folks (100-133% FPL) still get 80-90% coverage, paying just $27-34 monthly—hardly “unaffordable” as the Left screams.
The CBO confirms letting them lapse saves $19 billion next year without dropping coverage numbers.
But here’s the kicker: These original subsidies already cost nearly $1 trillion over the decade, and enhancements would jack that up 40%.
National Review blasts Republicans who might cave: “All you have to do is absolutely nothing” to halt this expansion of a law they campaigned to kill.
Smart conservatives push for block grants to states, like Heritage’s Health Care Choices model—freeing up innovation to crush costs without D.C.’s meddling.
Why prop up failure when states like Maine and Indiana are already waiving rules to drop premiums?
5. Obamacare’s Real Crisis: Premiums Up 133%, Deductibles Soaring, Choices Gutted—Subsidies Hide the Rot
Obamacare promised “affordable” care; reality delivered pain. From $244 monthly in 2013 to $568 by 2022, premiums keep climbing.
2025 data? Median increases hit 7%, but 2026 filings scream 15% median hikes across 105 insurers—largest since 2018’s policy chaos.
With subsidies gone, out-of-pocket jumps average 75%, potentially doubling bills for millions.
Deductibles for bronze plans? Up 40% since 2014. Networks? 80% of silvers and 76% of bronzes now narrower, with 34 states boasting fewer insurers.
The Republican Study Committee warns: These handouts “perpetuate a never-ending cycle of rising premiums and federal bailouts—with taxpayers forced to foot the bill.”
Health spending ballooned to 18.3% of GDP last year, eyeing 20% in 2025—nearly $200 billion more, all thanks to Obamacare’s mandates.
Time for conservatives to finish the job: Repeal the regs, empower states, and watch premiums plummet through competition.
Congress can’t ignore this subsidy sunset—it’s a golden opportunity to gut Obamacare’s core flaws. Republicans must stand firm against shutdown blackmail from the likes of Hakeem Jeffries, who whines about “gutting health care” while ignoring the real victims: working families crushed by mandates and taxes.
Redirect those billions to pro-growth reforms, fraud crackdowns, and tax relief. As Fox News reports, Democrats’ demands risk shutdowns just to save perks for the ineligible—proving once again, their “compassion” is code for control.
Americans deserve better: affordable, innovative care without Washington’s strings. Let the subsidies die, and watch freedom heal the system.
This analysis draws on the latest 2025 CBO and KFF data to expose Obamacare’s ongoing failures.