The recent shutdown fight in Congress, a quarrel ostensibly about health-care subsidies, failed to stir any real debate about health-care reform, because Washington prefers not to open that can of worms.

Democrats refused to keep the government running unless so-called enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies — introduced in 2021 in response to the pandemic and scheduled to expire at the end of this year — were extended. Letting the enhanced subsidies expire would raise the cost of insurance for many Americans and impose especially steep increases on families making between 400% and 500% of the poverty line (that is, between $129,000 and $161,000).

The income-related cutoff in the original ACA was too abrupt. Restoring it now that premiums are much higher than four years ago is harsh and d

See Full Page