Column: Expiring subsidies are first step to meaningful health care reform

Democrats continue to hold basic government operations hostage in an effort to extend expiring health insurance subsidies and prove Milton Friedman’s dictum that nothing is as permanent as a temporary government program.

They are pointing to new estimates that average marketplace plan premiums will increase by 18% next year to try to support their claims that COVID-19-era subsidies for those earning more than 400% of the poverty line should continue indefinitely.

Democrats have cause and effect backward. Subsidies don’t make coverage affordable; they are a major reason health care costs have skyrocketed and now cost $5 trillion annually , nearly 20% of GDP. Hundreds of billions of dollars of annual ACA subsidies increase premiums because they shield health insurers from market discip