JENNY BETH MARTIN: On Obamacare, We Conservatives Were Right All Along

With this week’s Senate agreement – in which eight Senate Democrats traded their votes to reopen the government for a promise of a vote on extending Obamacare subsidies – the discussion now turns to health care, about which, let me say this: We conservatives were right all along.

The law known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) – better known as “Obamacare” – was never truly affordable, and it isn’t affordable now. Designed to expand coverage rather than to control costs, it was built with structural flaws that guaranteed it would buckle under its own weight. That was the plan all along, and what we are witnessing now is not reform so much as rescue.

From its inception, Obamacare promised that Americans could keep their doctors, and their existing plans, and that premiums and deductibles would fall. The reality: premiums soared, insurance retreated from many markets, and the federal government stepped in to prop up the system. All those subsidies, mandates, and regulatory impositions were not the prelude to a robust market, they were the scaffolding of a system designed to fail.

Now, after 15 years of shrinking coverage and rising costs, Democrats are finally coming clean – or at least overt. They want a bailout. They press for yet another extension of enhanced premium tax credits, and for 40 days they were willing to shut down the government to get it. The writing is on the wall: when the architects of a law say, “We must keep subsidizing to prevent collapse,” they’re admitting the system they erected cannot stand on its own two feet.

Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi – who did more than anyone else to push the law to passage – clearly recognizes it’s time to get out while the getting is still good. Much better to announce her retirement now than to stick around to be held accountable for the failure of the system that she built.

We owe Democrats thanks for their recent honesty about the system’s structural failures. After years of telling Americans, “You’ll save money,” “You’ll keep your plan,” “We’ll reduce premiums,” the party of government-managed health care is now saying, “Fine. We’ll keep paying. Don’t ask how.” The subtext: yes, we meant you to rely on us all along.

Consider the latest data: one analysis found that insurance premiums on the Obamacare exchanges are set to rise by 26% on average in 2026. Another found that the subsidies have created perverse incentives and inequities – “creating large incentives for employers … to stop offering coverage.” The result? A system that can only stay afloat by keeping the subsidies.

It was always designed to fail. Call it gentle cynicism if you like – after all, the pitch included “Affordable” in its name – but the reality was that the system the law built never had enough enrollees, never had enough incentive for younger, healthier people, and never had enough cost-control mechanisms to fundamentally change what had long driven healthcare inflation. When you regulate insurance more, mandate more, promise more subsidies, you drop your guardrail: competition. And once competition dies, cost control dies, too.

Today the Democrats advance not reform but rescue: “We must preserve the enhanced tax credits to avoid chaos,” they say. But the chaos is baked in. If insurers cannot price rationally, because of regulation and subsidy distortions, and if older or sicker cohorts dominate the risk pool without offsetting younger, healthier ones, then premiums will climb – and the only lever left is more government money, more bailouts. The question becomes: when do we ask “Enough”?

The answer is: now. In the coming weeks, as a result of the deal struck in the Senate Sunday, the Senate will consider various options for reforming Obamacare. Instead of throwing good money after bad, we need to come to terms with the problems Obamacare created and chart a different path. The different path puts competition back in the insurance market; it loosens regulatory burdens; it empowers the doctor-patient relationship rather than the bureaucrat-insurer axis; and it invites free-market solutions that reduce cost and raise value.

We do not need to pretend that more subsidies will fix the structural flaw. We do not need to prop up a system that was rigged for collapse. We need to welcome innovation: high-deductible plans, health-savings-account enhancements, direct-primary-care models, interstate competition for health plans, transparency in pricing, and sensible tort reform. These are market-first solutions that conservatives have long advocated.

Yes, the Democrats deserve a reluctant “thank you” for this moment of clarity. After years of insisting the law was self-sustaining and cost-saving, they are now demanding a lifeline. It’s not exactly the “we can afford this” message many expected, but it is honest.

If we let the government become the  insurer of last resort, we guarantee a system that erodes choice, escalates costs, reduces the quality of care, weakens doctors’ autonomy, and ultimately burdens taxpayers. The time has come to say: no more bailouts. Let the system evolve or dissolve. And let the next stage be built on competition, patient empowerment, and cost control – not more largesse disguised as affordability.

We conservatives were right all along. Obamacare was never affordable. It was built to fail so we would end up with government solutions. That endgame is here. Let’s choose a genuine new beginning instead.

Jenny Beth Martin is Honorary Chairman of Tea Party Patriots Action.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation. 

(Featured Image Media Credit: Screen Capture/PBS North Carolina Channel)