[pxmpxm]

It's always cost ~$2k a month, the only difference is the previous administration thought everyone else should be "temporarily" paying for her plan.

I feel like we need a perpetual PSA here that moving money from person A to person B obviously doesn't make anything cheaper.

[JumpCrisscross]

> the previous administration thought everyone should be "temporarily" paying for her plan. Moving money from person A to person B obviously doesn't make anything cheaper

No, but it means I can't pay for a first-class ticket while someone else survives. I'll take that deal.

[nradov]

I support subsidies to help low-income citizens who legitimately can't afford health insurance, but some of the temporary ACA subsidies passed in 2021 were ridiculous. They were handing out cash to early retirees as young as age 55 with incomes over 400% of the poverty line.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/17/aca-enhanced-subsidy-lapse-g...

I don't want my tax dollars wasted on subsidizing them. Give the money to someone who actually needs it.

(Of course the real problem is healthcare costs accelerating out of control. Insurance subsidies won't fix that problem. In fact they make it worse by encouraging healthcare providers and drug companies to raise prices even faster.)

[BrenBarn]

If we start to think about who "actually needs" things, we need to question whether any of the very wealthy "actually need" their wealth. I would be fine with seizing all of anyone's income (including unrealized capital gains) in excess of, say, $20 million just to give everyone else some cute stickers and lollipops. The giant flow of wealth to those at the top is a far greater misallocation than any amount towards the healthcare of anyone not at the top.

[loeg]

It's fine to hold fringe viewpoints, but it's on the <20% side of an 80-20 (or less favorable) issue electorally. It isn't happening.

[JumpCrisscross]

> some of the temporary ACA subsidies passed in 2021 were ridiculous. They were handing out cash to early retirees as young as age 55 with incomes over 400% of the poverty line

These are legitimate complaints. Trashing the system because it's overly generous in some respects is insane.

[UncleMeat]

400% FPL is $62,000 for a single person. Not exactly rolling in it.

[shuckles]

Income isn't wealth. Someone making $62,000/yr in income without working at 55 (i.e. no Social Security) is likely comfortable. That's >$1m in invested assets plus whatever is owed to them as retirement income when they reach retirement age. It's especially unclear if everyone else's payroll taxes should be spent allowing this person to retire a few years earlier.

This is all before including the other large personal expense (housing) for this person is likely imputed rents from homeownership which aren't counted as income but function that way.

[UncleMeat]

If this is your concern, why not oppose all subsidies? There are also early retirees who keep their AGI below 400% FPL.

[shuckles]

Surely you are capable of thinking there are tradeoffs here where one can set a level without dealing in absolutes. Put differently why not expand Medicaid to cover every American regardless of income? 400% is just as arbitrary as 1000000%.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

I’m one of those retirees. It’s OK. I was prepared for this, and can afford it, but a hell of a lot of others on a fixed income, are totally screwed.

> Give the money to someone who actually needs it.

Like billionaires. They are the ones that really need it, and they get it; every time. Those yachts don’t pay for themselves.

If anyone thinks poors will be getting any help, they are fooling themselves. Helping poor people is quite unpopular, in the US (where they conveniently forget that most of them are born in the US white, but politicians make it seem as if they are all dark-skinned immigrants). Many of the hardest-hit states will be ones that enthusiastically voted for this.

[harmmonica]

It doesn't add to the discussion, but an anonymous upvote wouldn't convey my appreciation for how apropos this comment is.

[dogemaster2028]

Why is buying first class tickets bad?

[jdlshore]

GP is saying that they’re okay giving up buying first-class tickets if it means someone else gets to live. (Because they pay more for health insurance, which allows someone else to pay less.)

[dogemaster2028]

It’s good that they choose to do that themselves. In fact, the US allows you to SEND THE GOVERNMENT A GIFT at https://www.pay.gov/public/search/global?formSearchCategory=...

(You can even Venmo)

If you want to do it, do it for real, instead of just being performative.

But don’t try to force everyone to follow your performative pseudo gift.

[JumpCrisscross]

> the US allows you to SEND THE GOVERNMENT A GIFT

How is this relevant? Cutting the deficit doesn’t solve the problem. And the folks who created this mess just blew out the deficit by trillions.

[dogemaster2028]

It’s relevant because while the comment says that “they’re okay giving up buying first-class tickets” what they really imply is that they want everyone to give up buying first class tickets.

If they want to constrain their own choices to help a nameless “someone,” they can literally do that themselves without involving the taxpayer at large. Just send the check to HHS or to a specific charity or individual.

[silisili]

As a supporter of single payer(or really, anything else), I support this move. When half the nation is on subsidized healthcare they aren't so likely to care about costs.

Now, you have a lot more angry people, and hopefully that leads to real reform, because what we have now is unsustainable, even to upper middle class families.

[almosthere]

when the gov foots the bill, there's no reason to have competition.

[ChicagoDave]

Before 1985, there was no for-profit healthcare. Worked pretty good.

[tirant]

Before 1985 healthcare costs were very low, and population was way younger.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Before 1985, there was no for-profit healthcare

Wait, what changed in 1985?

[ChicagoDave]

HMO laws allowed for-profit healthcare insurance. Groups of doctors banded together and carved out exclusive contracts to sets of hospitals and providers.

Before this I recall seeing $7 taken out of my paycheck and there were no deductibles or copays. Meds were $5.

[marcus_holmes]

The govt also acts as a monopsony and forces lower prices. Same effect [0] different mechanism.

[0] actually a better effect - the govt actually does force lower prices, whereas competition is subject to all sorts of other effects where it doesn't actually function to lower prices.

[fzeroracer]

No, it definitely did not always cost $2k a month.

[pxmpxm]

Bronze plans with $5-6k deductibles have always ran more than what people paid for rent. Healthcare is the one thing that's outpaced inflation in higher education.

[Retric]

Very good unsubsidized health insurance wasn’t anywhere close to 2k/month inflation adjusted the last time I used COBRA to continue my employer’s insurance after getting laid off.

The underlying issue is inflation adjusted healthcare related spending increased 6x per person since 1970. Some of that is an increase in quality, but middleman are a huge factor.

[mbrubeck]

So first you say it has always cost this much, but in the next breath you say that its cost has outpaced a high rate of inflation. Mathematically, these can't both be true.

[pxmpxm]

A) Inflation in healthcare costs is well documented and unrivaled

B) Biden papered over A) with "temporary" covid subsidies in 2021 and those are going away, revealing A) again

[antisthenes]

> Bronze plans with $5-6k deductibles have always ran more than what people paid for rent.

Unsubsidized bronze plans were in the $250-350 range in 2016/2017. That's nowhere near rent.