The pandemic is winding down as the latest variants of Omicron cause less serious, though more widespread, disease. Many are sick, but few are hospitalized and even fewer are dying. The emergency situation declared two years ago has now evolved into an endemic situation, much like the seasonal flu. Remember back to three years ago when seasonal flu only meant the elderly and immunocompromised got shots and no one wore masks? Life should be returning to a similar situation – but it won’t. The reason is politics.

The latest example of this is Medicaid. Medicaid is suffering from long Covid symptoms – and it won’t get better until politicians end the state of emergency. The Wall Street Journal editorial board tells us Congress temporarily boosted the federal government’s Medicaid contribution in one of its 2020 Covid-aid bills. As a condition to receive the extra money, states can’t disenroll Medicaid beneficiaries who become ineligible – except if they die, opt out, or leave the state. No matter how much their financial situation improves, they remain eligible for Medicaid as long as there is an official Public Health Emergency.

This situation is sure to remain the same until at least mid-July, under the current regulations, but the Biden Administration has already declared they intend to extend the emergency and has promised to give states 60 days notice before any plans to terminate. That means it might be October at the earliest before this emergency ends. By then, according to an estimate from the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA), “states will have an estimated 98 million Medicaid enrollees, including as many as 23 million people no longer eligible.” (That’s nearly one in three Americans on Medicaid.)

Medicaid is supposed to be a healthcare system for low-income Americans who cannot afford their own private insurance. The enrollment of Medicaid has skyrocketed ever since ObamaCare was instituted in 2014 when eligibility criteria were expanded. Now, with this Covid Public Health Emergency declaration, the rolls of Medicaid continue to escalate, regardless of financial prosperity. This is clearly just another way the left wants to bring more and more Americans under the umbrella of government-controlled healthcare. It’s a back-door to socialized medicine. This is just another example of a government handout that was intended to be temporary, but now the Democrats want to make permanent. (see Making ObamaCare Temporary Subsidies Permanent)

Congress can make Medicaid eligibility rules permanent if it can find the votes, and the White House is free to argue for that. But using an emergency situation as an excuse interminably undermines our democracy and the credibility of our government.

WSJ says, “As with other makeshift pandemic assistance, such as the eviction moratorium, the media will focus on hardship cases. But the emergency has to stop sometime, and an economy with a 3.6% jobless rate is a good time to do it. The Labor Department also said this week there were 11.4 million job openings in April, with only about half that many available workers.”

What is the cost of this expanded Medicaid to the taxpayers?

By October, “ineligible enrollees will cost taxpayers nearly $16 billion per month,” the FGA predicts, “with states picking up nearly $6 billion of those costs when the public health emergency ends.” State officials would be wise to think through what to do next, and remember that every dollar spent on an ineligible Medicaid beneficiary is a dollar that’s not spent on other priorities, including those who need help the most.

Between this expanded eligibility for Medicaid, and the expanded subsidies for ObamaCare, the government is slowly but surely enticing more Americans into government-controlled healthcare. That’s been the plan by progressives for a very long time, whether Congress approves it or not.

It has been said that Democrats never met a tax increase they didn’t like. The same can be said about a temporary government subsidy they want to be permanent.

The latest example of this is the ObamaCare extra subsidies that were approved in the American Rescue Plan, the first big bill passed by the Biden Administration – without a single Republican vote. This $1.9 Trillion bill was supposed to be about Covid relief – except it wasn’t. What it really was about was enhancing government handouts to Democratic voters.

Exhibit one was the increased subsidies for ObamaCare. The original legislation called for an income cap of $400,000 for those eligible to receive subsidies for ObamaCare premiums.  But the American Rescue Plan changed all that – temporarily. It removed the cap on income and redefined eligibility. Under the current, temporary eligibility guidelines, a family of four with a 60-year-old head of household earning $265,000 could end up eligible for more than $7,800 in taxpayer subsidies.

On the lower end of the income scale, Democrats essentially started giving away insurance. Nearly five million enrollees with incomes below 150% of the poverty line pay no premiums at all for their plans in 2022, according to one analysis. Democrats like to pitch this as “free health care”, but the subsidies flow to insurers, who can then jack up premiums further, knowing that the government will cover the difference. Instead of lowering the cost of healthcare, as President Obama promised, this is raising the cost of healthcare significantly.(see Higher ObamaCare Subsidies Means Higher Healthcare Costs)

For those outside the eligibility of these subsidies, the costs keep rising. A family of four looking for a plan on the ObamaCare exchange without subsidies “can expect to pay about $25,000 for the year in premiums and deductibles” according to an analysis by eHealth. Moreover, you probably won’t be able to see the doctor of your choice since these plans tend to have narrow doctor and hospital networks. (another Obama promise broken!)

Naturally, the American taxpayer is expected to pick up the tab for these increased subsidies. The Congressional Budget Office predicted the pandemic subsidy provisions would cost about $34 billion, but that is only the beginning if these increased subsidies are made permanent. Last week CBO increased its estimate of spending on ObamaCare subsidies this year by 15%, or another $11 billion, over last year’s forecast, thanks to higher enrollment and higher premiums than anticipated. (Surprise!)

To make matters worse, companies will likely respond by sending more of their employees to the exchanges for coverage. Healthcare analyst Doug Badger notes that smaller firms that aren’t subject to the ACA’s mandate to provide insurance “will have strong incentives to discontinue job-based coverage.” This will only further increase the cost to taxpayers.

The editorial board of The Wall Street Journal says it is a time-honored political trick to pass “temporary” subsidies that people get used to and then cry hardship when the emergency program ends. That’s exactly what Democrats want to do now. More than two dozen Democrats wrote their leaders this month asking to include provisions to “permanently lower the cost of healthcare” in any reconciliation bill. These lawmakers are referring to expanded subsidies to buy ObamaCare plans, passed in 2021 and set to expire at the end of the year.

The letter warns that enrollees will soon see premium increases. WSJ says there’s no doubt Democrats are worried about the political consequences, but this is a subsidy cliff of their own design. This is just another example of Democrats trying to buy votes with government handouts.

Polling, just like statistics, can be misleading. You can manipulate statistics to make them confirm your predetermined opinion – and the same is true of polling.

As we approach the end of June – and the end of the Supreme Court session – everyone is anticipating the decision of the court on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. This case challenges the Mississippi law that outlaws abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The unprecedented leak of an early opinion of Justice Samuel Alito that would overthrow Roe v. Wade has put this issue squarely in the media spotlight.

The Supreme Court has several options. They could overthrow the law, preserving the right to an abortion after 15 weeks in the state of Mississippi. They could uphold the law, making it illegal to have an abortion after 15 weeks. Lastly, they could overturn Roe v. Wade, which would return the issue of abortion to the fifty states where they would make their own determination if abortion might be legal and when. Some states will outlaw abortion all together, while others will permit abortion with varying limits. Democratic laws in Europe have generally settled on legal abortion up to 15 or 18 weeks. Polling suggests that’s what many Americans favor.

Pollsters are busy trying to determine the mindset of the American people in advance of the Supreme Court’s decision. Democrats are eager to use the issue as a way to counter the horrendous track records of this administration going into the November mid-term elections. They are hoping to galvanize their base on the issue of abortion, although they strongly oppose overturning Roe.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board weighed in on the issue of polling recently. They say the conventional wisdom on abortion polling is that the Supreme Court is walking into a gale-force political wind if it overturns Roe v. Wade. Gallup reported recently that 55% of Americans identify as pro-choice, up six points since 2021 and near a record high. The Journal’s own poll last week says 68% of people hope the Supreme Court doesn’t completely overturn Roe. 

What does that mean, really? What do people mean when they identify as pro-choice?

In the Gallup survey, 67% of Americans say abortion should be “generally legal” in the first three months of pregnancy. But it falls precipitously to 36% in the second trimester and 20% in the final trimester. Remember, the Dobbs case is about limiting abortion to the first 15 weeks of pregnancy. Therefore, you would assume that only 36% of Americans would oppose that law – or 64% would agree with it. According to Gallup, “A majority of Americans (55%) are generally against abortion in the second three months.” This is roughly the same percentage that call themselves pro-choice.

In other words, there are many pro-choice Americans who nonetheless oppose abortion in the second and third trimesters. One study of 2019 abortions in the U.S. says that 79% were performed at nine weeks or less of pregnancy, and 93% at 13 weeks or less. Someone could be saying “yes” that abortion should be legal in “most” circumstances, yet still support the restrictions of the Mississippi law.

WSJ says, “The real contradiction in the polling is Roe, which has become a totem that doesn’t reflect the underlying policy views. Fifty-five percent of Americans tell Gallup that abortion should be generally illegal in the second trimester. Yet a majority say the Supreme Court should keep Roe. That circle can’t be squared, and it probably reflects that many Americans don’t realize what Roe really allows.”

Roe v. Wade was intended in enshrine a fundamental right to abortion until fetal viability, about 23 or 24 weeks. In reality, that’s nearly the third trimester. In practice, however, abortion is legal right up to the day before birth, and for any reason if a woman can find a doctor willing to perform it. This was never the intention of the law in 1973.

There is a disconnect between what people say they believe and why they believe it. If most Americans (55%) say they do not support abortion after the first trimester, you must assume they believe that because they think after the first trimester the fetus in the womb is a viable human being. But the truth is that fetus was a viable human being since conception.

When I was in medical school in the late 1970s, Roe v. Wade had just been decided (1973). There was no doubt in the teaching of the medical school professors that life begins at conception – and the only necessary ingredients for the next nine months were a healthy womb and time. That embryo, with all the DNA of an adult, was just as human as the fetus that would develop in time into the child that would someday be born.

Therefore, the distinctions being made by many Americans between first, second, and third trimesters are not based on medicine and science – they are based on ignorance or political ideology. The only honest intellectual opinion is you are either opposed to abortion at any time – because it is the termination of a human life – or you agree with abortion at any time – because you do not respect human life. You can’t have it both ways.