Sen. Roger Marshall has a point on health care waste, just not on the fix | Opinion
I am an attorney who has represented and advised employers and individuals on employment law matters for nearly 40 years. I also ran my own law firm for more than 20 years, so I am even more familiar with the trials and tribulations that small businesses face when it comes to finding affordable health insurance. I also have been a registered Republican in Kansas as long as I can remember, and I appreciate that our U.S. senators keep us informed via newsletters.
In an Oct. 30 email newsletter to his constituents, Sen. Marshall wrote that the Affordable Care Act — aka Obamacare — was based on the argument that “it would make good health care affordable for those who didn’t have employer-based insurance or couldn’t get a health care plan,” but then lamented how it has “funneled billions a year in new money into the health care system, lining the pockets of insurance companies, hospitals, and some doctors.” As a physician and former owner of Great Bend Regional Hospital, he ought to know.
Sen. Marshall then quoted a recent National Review article in pointing out how ACA “subsidies go to insurers, who in millions of instances get to keep the entire thing because their customers never make a claim.” He then quoted a recent article from Paragon Health Institute that said, “In 2024, insurers were likely sent more than $40 billion in subsidies for people who received no health care.”
It isn’t surprising that a lot of people sign up for insurance but never make a claim. The point of insurance is to protect people from going broke if they have a significant illness or injury — but everyone would prefer not being in that situation in the first place.
Still, Sen. Marshall makes a good point that it’s a waste of our taxes to pay billions to insurance companies for people who don’t utilize that coverage, which is why allowing people who do not receive employer-subsidized health insurance to enroll in Medicare would be better than paying ACA subsidies to insurance companies.
In fact, since Medicare administrative expenses are a fraction of the administrative expenses at insurance companies (for example, the ACA caps those expenses, including profit, at 20% of the premiums they receive), common sense tells us that the public option would be better for everyone.
So, yes, Sen. Marshall is on to something: Denying affordable health care to millions of Americans would be un-American. But fiscal responsibility is not, which is why Congress should stop subsidizing insurance companies and, instead, make Medicare for all a bipartisan priority.
Larry Schumaker is an attorney practicing employment law in Kansas City. He and his wife are longtime Kansas residents. He is a graduate of Harvard University and the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law.
This story was originally published November 4, 2025 at 5:03 AM.