With COVID-era Obamacare subsidies set to expire on December 31, Republicans in Congress are considering legislation that would help ease the rising costs of health care for millions of Americans. Meanwhile, experts and some lawmakers are warning that blanket subsidy expansions will only add to ballooning government debt and will not address the underlying reasons behind the continued rise in health care costs or the vast number of fraudulent Obamacare payouts.

As reported by Punchbowl News, several GOP health care proposals are currently circulating on Capitol Hill. One from Senators Bernie Moreno (Ohio) and Susan Collins (Maine) “would cap income eligibility and eliminate zero-premium plans by requiring a $25 minimum monthly payment.” Another plan from Senate HELP Committee Chair Bill Cassidy (R-La.) would “expand HSA options.” Yet another from Senator Rick Scott (R-Fla.) would divert funds away from insurance companies and “ensure support to Americans is sent to them directly” through “HSA-style Trump Health Freedom Accounts.” Punchbowl reported that Scott’s plan has gained some momentum in the House through Republican Study Committee Chair August Pfluger’s (R-Texas) backing.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) reportedly plans to move a health care bill to the floor at some point this week, but a battle among GOP factions will likely brew over whether or not to extend Obamacare subsidies in the legislation.

Meanwhile, outrage continues to grow over the revelations that enormous amounts of Obamacare application fraud have occurred over the last several years, resulting in billions of dollars in illicit payouts. As reported by The Washington Stand, incomes weren’t verified for tens of thousands of Obamacare enrollees, resulting in over $21 billion in illicit payouts in 2023 alone, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report. In addition, The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board noted that “6.4 million people this year were improperly enrolled in subsidized ObamaCare plans, costing taxpayers $27 billion.”

“Republicans would be wise to remind voters that Democrats sold ObamaCare on false pretenses — e.g., it would make healthcare “affordable,’” the editors continued. “Extending the subsidies would perpetuate that fraud.”

Lawmakers like Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.) agree.

“A clean extension of cost would be $400 billion,” he pointed out during Friday’s “Washington Watch.” “I think our viewers really need to understand that this is a ticking time bomb set forth by Obamacare. … [W]e’ve kept subsidizing during this entire time the health insurance industry, which is where the rise in premiums is primarily coming from. Health care costs have increased, there’s no doubt about that. But what we’re doing here is continuing to subsidize a very, very profitable health insurance industry. I think since Obamacare started, they’ve earned over $360 billion in profit alone. … What we need to do is a scaled-down response, one that’s going to be tapered out, along with other reforms that actually lower the cost of health care.”

Murphy, a former surgeon with over 30 years of experience, went on to argue that federal aid for health care coverage should be provided, but with significant reforms.

“I think there has to be a glide path,” he contended. “I think it’s bad for the American people to just immediately stop these subsidies. Remember, this is only about anywhere from eight to 12 million people. … And so we’re dealing with a fairly small population, but that fairly small population would be left out in the lurch. So what we’re talking about is scaling back the fraud. You’ve had up to six to 12 million individuals who’ve been on these plans that have never filed as claims, so we think that they’ve been fraudulently enrolled. … And the other thing is we’ve had individuals that have been paying nothing. We need individuals to pay something to register in with the system, be it $5 a month [or] 2% of their income to pay something … to be in this.”

Murphy further ticked off a number of GOP priorities that he hopes will be included in future health care reform legislation.

“[W]e have individuals in some places in this country earning $500 [to] $600,000 that are getting subsidies from the government. Those need to go away,” he emphasized. “… [W]e’re going to need to include things that start lowering the cost of care. Now, [with] Obamacare, the insurance companies did not want competition, so they outlawed something called associated insurance plans, where groups of individuals can get together and insure themselves. They didn’t want that competition. Democrats don’t want that, but we’re going to make sure that that gets put in the bill. … [P]harmacy benefit managers (PBM) reform, … site neutrality, CON reform, a lot of different things need to happen, whether they’ll be included this bill or not, but it will be part of a big initiative next year to actually lower the cost of health care.”