Our Capitol Hill sources tell us that the sinister forces behind what they call an “all-out lobbying blitz” to extend supersized “emergency” and “temporary” COVID subsidies under Biden, are the insurance companies. They are the force working alongside Chuck Schumer in his government shutdown ploy to add back into the budget as much as $1 trillion in budget savings from the Big Beautiful Bill.

Why? Obamacare subsidies and Medicaid expansions haven’t done much if anything to improve the nation’s health, but they have made the health insurers like Blue Cross and United Health rich with taxpayer dollars. The value of health insurance stocks rose by multiple times faster than the overall stock market in the 15 years since Obamacare passed in 2010 – and jumped even more since Biden’s COVID subsidies were lavished on top.

The plan is to pressure Republicans into caving to their demand for $30 billion a year in extra, additional subsidies that go directly into insurance company bank accounts.

Our friend Brian Blase of the Paragon Health Institute has shown that the alleged coverage expansion is almost entirely from people who pay exactly $0 in premiums – so virtually the entire government benefit goes to the insurers.

The irony is that the greedy insurers are in bed with the very same liberals like Bernie Sanders whose ultimate goal is to put the insurers out of business with a single payer government-run system. It’s hard to see how that could be much worse than what we have right now, which is bankrupting the country for worse health outcomes while enriching the insurers.