Democrats will get a Senate vote next week on their plan to extend the expiring enhanced subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, but the larger question of reducing the rising cost of health care may have to wait.
Both parties agree that the U.S. health care system is unreasonably expensive, but they are far from agreement on how to reduce costs rather than merely subsidize prices. For now, both Republicans and Democrats appear focused on the immediate problem of keeping health insurance affordable for the 24 million people who buy it through the Affordable Care Act exchange. The Affordable Care Act is former President Barack Obama’s health care law, known as Obamacare.
