Comment by nradov
4 hours ago
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.)
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.
> 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.
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.