Center for a Free Economy President: “COVID-era Obamacare subsidies should remain expired”

Ryan Ellis, president of the Center for a Free Economy, said enhanced Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) subsidies enacted during the "COVID-19 pandemic" should not be extended, arguing they are unnecessary and costly.

“They (the Obamacare subsidies) expired at the end of the year. They should remain expired,” Ellis said. “We don’t need them.”

Ellis said the additional subsidies were layered on top of an already heavily subsidized system and were intended as a temporary measure during the pandemic.

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“During COVID, there were additional subsidies put on top of the legacy permanent Obamacare subsidies,” he said, noting that those provisions have now lapsed.

He added that extending the subsidies would come at a significant fiscal cost. “That’s a very expensive proposition… it would be hundreds of billions of dollars in additions to the national debt,” Ellis said.

Ellis also said many of the expanded subsidies were not targeted toward those most in need. “These COVID era supplements were going to people making 6, 7, 8, 9 times the federal poverty level,” he said, adding that some individuals were enrolled without actively using the coverage.

Ellis said broader reforms to the healthcare system should avoid expanding subsidies further. “Certainly one of the things that we would not want to do is put additional subsidies onto a system that’s fundamentally broken,” he said.

Ellis serves as president of the Center for a Free Economy, a policy organization focused on federal tax, spending, and regulatory issues.