American families deserve real health care relief

OPINION:

As Congress prepares to debate extending Obamacare subsidies and the issue takes center stage in the upcoming midterm election campaigns, American families deserve the courage to confront what’s broken and the wisdom to demand better solutions.

The question before us is not whether citizens need help with health care costs; they absolutely do. The question is whether we will continue a failed approach that enriches corporations while families still struggle or whether we will chart a new course that puts citizens first.

What’s really happening

When most families hear about health care subsidies, they picture direct assistance — money to help them pay medical bills. The reality is starkly different. Insurance companies immediately capture these subsidies through higher premiums. Families still face crushing premiums, impossible deductibles and medical bills that push them toward bankruptcy.

Since the enhanced subsidies took effect in 2021, American families have seen premiums jump more than 20% while major insurers have reported record profits. This isn’t a coincidence; it’s how the system is designed.

The subsidies operate like a taxpayer-funded Ponzi scheme. When subsidies increase, insurance companies simply raise premiums to capture those dollars. Higher premiums require even larger subsidies. The cycle perpetuates itself, requiring ever-increasing tax revenue while the underlying problem — high-priced health care — remains.

Here’s what troubles me most: Politicians who champion extending these subsidies often receive substantial campaign contributions from the very insurance companies that benefit.

Why current subsidies fail families

I’ve talked with families across the country. A single mother told me she pays taxes to fund these subsidies while delaying her own medical care because her deductible is too high. A small-business owner explained that he can’t afford to offer his employees better coverage even though subsidy money supposedly makes insurance “affordable.” A retired teacher described choosing between medications and groceries despite having subsidized insurance.

These aren’t abstract policy failures. These are citizens trapped in a system designed to benefit insurers rather than serve families.

The emotional language used to sell subsidy extensions — “helping struggling families,” “protecting health care access” — obscures a simple truth: If the goal is helping families, we should help them directly. Instead, we’ve created a system where insurance companies cannot lose while families get the illusion of help.

A path forward

Real health care reform must address actual costs, not subsidize inflated ones. We need policies that increase competition, reduce administrative bloat and give families control over their health care dollars, such as:

• Direct family assistance that families control themselves, not money filtered through corporate middlemen who capture it through premium increases.
• Price transparency requirements so families know what procedures cost before receiving care (you can compare prices for a television but not for an MRI; that keeps prices artificially high).
• Association health plans that let small businesses and individuals band together for better rates (a family restaurant shouldn’t pay more for coverage than a Fortune 500 company).
• Expanded health savings accounts with greater contribution limits, putting health care decisions back into families’ hands.
• Interstate insurance competition that prevents the regional monopolies currently driving up costs nationwide.

These solutions empower families in a genuinely competitive market, not a rigged system where insurance companies capture subsidies through premium increases.

The choice before voters

As we approach the midterm elections, voters face a clear choice. We can continue feeding a broken system that funnels taxpayer dollars to insurers, or we can demand reform that actually serves citizens.

Some candidates will push for extending subsidies without understanding how insurance companies capture those dollars through higher premiums. True leadership requires offering solutions that address the root problem: We need policies that empower families and create genuine competition, not more money flowing to politically connected companies.

American families have struggled long enough under a system that enriches insurance companies while they pay taxes for subsidies and their own skyrocketing premiums.

When you hear politicians promising to extend Obamacare subsidies, ask them: How will you prevent insurance companies from simply capturing those dollars through premium increases? What’s your plan to actually lower health care costs instead of just subsidizing inflated ones? Their answers will tell you everything you need to know about who’s fighting for families and who’s protecting insurance company profits.

American families deserve better, and this November, American voters can demand better.

• Jimmy Lee Tillman II is president of the Martin Luther King Republicans and a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Illinois.