Though the government shutdown has ended, the fight over Obamacare is still raging.

Democrats want to extend and renew the Affordable Care Act’s expanded COVID-era subsidies, which are set to expire on December 31. Doing so would cost American taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade. Republicans want to let the subsidies lapse, and find a way to reform America’s healthcare system.

Ryan Long, Senior Research Fellow at the Paragon Health Institute, told The Daily Wire that the expanded subsidies have created zero-dollar insurance plans that have sparked widespread fraud and abuse.

“There’s upwards of 6 million people who aren’t actually within that income category that are claiming credits as if they were in that income category,” he explained. “In certain states, there are three to four times as many people enrolled in a 100 to 150% of poverty in these $0 plans than there are people actually in those income brackets.”

“So these COVID credits have just produced massive amounts of fraud,” he said. “The federal government’s paying, you know, upwards of $27 billion to $30 billion in fraudulent payments.”

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz echoed this concern last week. “Today, it’s over 11 million people who have Obamacare, never use their policies … which means they often don’t know that they have it,” he said. “Yet we’re stuck with the bill.”

Obamacare is also making health insurance more expensive. Obamacare plan premiums have climbed a whopping 169% since 2013. The increase is far steeper than that of employer-sponsored insurance, because when prices rise, the government is paying most of the cost, so insurers can keep raising them without people feeling the impact, Long explained.

“What we’ve seen is since the [ACA] was established or implemented in 2014, employer-sponsored premiums have gone up about 68%. ACA premiums have gone up 129%,” he said. “So that can’t be a function of just prices going up. There’s something truly wrong here.”

Healthcare costs and wait times have not improved since the implementation of Obamacare, either. So, where is all this money going?

Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) told The Daily Wire in an interview this week that a lot of this money is going to insurance companies.

“The largest carrier of exchange policies is UnitedHealthcare,” he said. “Their stock price has gone up 1,177 % since the invitation of Obamacare. Of the top seven carriers, the smallest amount of stock increases — I think, 414%. A lot of money into the insurance companies, a lot of money into the hospitals. There’s no doubt about it that we’ve got rural hospitals that are in trouble, but the big city hospitals making money hand over fists.”

“There is nothing about Obamacare that created incentives to save money,” he emphasized. “All the incentives are to increase the money spent on healthcare so everybody gets their cut, everybody gets to make their profit. Non-profit hospitals, take a look at the pay of CEOs —some of them are making over $30 million a year in total compensation.”

“Money is flowing into the medical establishment, they’re making money hand over fists; the tabs are being picked up by the American taxpayer,” the senator told The Daily Wire.

Democrats’ solution to the healthcare crisis is to continue to extend and expand subsidies.

“We had a provision that was ready to be signed, that we know would’ve decreased premiums by 10 to 15%,” Long said. “Senate Democrats objected to it — the same policy that they were saying we had to do back in 2018. And so I think that they’ve just said, ‘Hey, the horse is outta the barn, we’ll just, you know, paper over any mistakes with more subsidies.’”

Johnson said Democrats are insisting on extending the COVID-era subsidies “to paper over to hide the fact that Obamacare has just been a miserable failure.”

“It caused premiums to skyrocket, as opposed to … President Obama saying that he would reduce premiums by $2,500 a year by family — again, that’s a total lie,” he added.

Johnson also pushed back on Democrats’ claims that premiums will double for millions and millions of Americans if the subsidies aren’t extended.

“Twenty-two million of the 24 million people will still get their subsidies, the original Obamacare subsidies, which subsidize the insurance at 91 % of the premiums,” he explained. “So their premiums won’t double.”

“Now, you can argue that people that went from paying a negligible amount to zero premiums, they’re going to have to pay another negligible amount,” Johnson said. “But again, going from zero to a negligible amount is an infinite increase. You can’t put that as ‘doubling premiums.'”

“The people we’re talking about, the 1.6 million people whose subsidies completely go away — I’m willing to work with Democrats on that,” the senator added. “But again, it’s simply false to say that most people are gonna see their premiums double and triple. Now, the gross premium has more than doubled and tripled since Obamacare, but that’s because of Obamacare.”

The GOP believes that deep reforms need to be made — or Obamacare needs to be scrapped entirely.

President Donald Trump has proposed HSA-style accounts for Americans, allowing them to purchase their own healthcare plans, opening up the market, and bypassing insurance companies.

“I am calling today for insurance companies not to be paid,” Trump said last week. “But for this massive amount of money to be paid directly to the people so they can buy their own healthcare. They’re gonna buy their own healthcare, and we’re gonna forget this Obamacare madness.”

🚨 WOW! President Trump has the Democrats TOTALLY CORNERED on Obamacare

“I am calling today for insurance companies NOT to be paid. But for this massive amount of money be paid DIRECTLY to the people so they can buy their own healthcare!”

“Their stocks have gone up 1,000%!… pic.twitter.com/V8gWK8RdSo

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) November 13, 2025

Republicans seem to be on board with the proposal. In fact, Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) said last weekend that he’s drafting legislation to put this idea into action.

Long said this could be a good move for Americans. If Congress were to adequately fund Cost-Sharing Reductions (CSR) — which are supposed to help people pay for things like deductibles and copays — that could drastically lower premiums and cut tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer funding, he explained. And, as Trump proposed, sending that money straight to Americans rather than insurance companies would only empower patients.

“One thing that we’ve advocated for is if you appropriate those CSR subsidies, which is one of the twin pillars of the subsidy structure from the ACA, you’ll reduce premiums by 10 to 15%,” he explained. “Two, you’ll lower federal spending by about $30 billion. You’ll give patients more power and choice. And we think with that power and choice, you’ll also have the effect of them being better shoppers, and that will lead to more competition and choice.”

“So one thing that you could do is appropriate those CSR subsidies, and instead of giving those CSRs straight to the insurance company, you can give those to people in an HSA, where they can have more power to shop around for more valued services or better-priced services,” he elaborated. “Again, you’ll have the twin effects of lowering premiums, lowering federal spending, and empowering patients, which we think is sort of a triple winner.”

Celebrities spent years singing “love yourself” from the stage and lecturing all of us about radical body acceptance. But then, a funny thing happened: weight loss drugs hit the scene.

Now, some members of Hollywood have lost half their body weight and have been scrubbing the evidence from their feeds, rewriting the script about what “self-love” actually looks like. It’s all been very revealing for fans who fell for their lies about being happy at any weight. Because the second a quick-fix, injectable weight loss solution came along, these celebs dropped the “fat can be beautiful” act like a loaded baked potato.

One prime example is Amy Schumer. The comedian recently wiped her Instagram clean, deleting every pre-transformation post and replacing it with a single shot of her newly thinned-down physique, which included the caption, “Who’s proud? I’m feeling good and happy. Deleted my old pics for no reason.”

The Instagram sweep came on the heels of a very public weight-loss journey and candid interviews about her struggles with GLP-1 drugs. Schumer admitted having a “horrible experience” when she tried Ozempic at first, saying the shots left her bedridden and vomiting.

The comedian said while Ozempic was a no-go, she had very different results after switching to another popular drug, Mounjaro.

Fans complained, saying it was one thing to be outspoken about your health journey, but that deleting those old photos felt like trying to erase the past.

Schumer addressed the controversy by insisting she was justified in scrubbing her socials.

“I didn’t delete my old photos because they were pre me losing weight. That’s a narrative you created. I’m proud of how I’ve looked always,” she insisted.

“I have been working to be pain-free and I finally am,” the comedian explained. “My endometriosis is better. My back is healing. I no longer have Cushing syndrome so my face went back to normal. I am grateful to be strong and healthy especially for my son.”

But the social media purge itself said something different. No matter how she tried to play it, deleting those photos sent a clear message: Who I was before is not who I am now. All praise Mounjaro!

Perhaps the most egregious example of this phenomenon is pop singer Meghan Trainor, who built her whole career around worshipping her curvy body and rejecting the thin-is-best messaging. Her 2014 hit single “All About That Bass” includes the line, “Yeah, it’s pretty clear, I ain’t no size two.”

But then Trainor discovered weight loss drugs and with it, a newfound appreciation for, well, being a size two. During a performance in May 2025, Trainor swapped that lyric for “I got some new boobs” and received a ton of heat for rejecting her status as a curvy role model for the masses.

@1027kiisfm #MeghanTrainor is playing ALL the hits!!! 😍🙌✨ #WangoTango #iheartradio ♬ original sound – 102.7 KIIS FM

Like Schumer, she’s openly discussed using weight loss drugs.

“I’ve been on a journey to be the healthiest, strongest version of myself for my kids and for me,” Trainor wrote in a lengthy Instagram post. “I’ve worked with a dietician, made huge lifestyle changes, started exercising with a trainer, and yes, I used science and support (shoutout to Mounjaro!) to help me after my 2nd pregnancy. And I’m so glad I did because I feel great.”

Fans were annoyed, and as she stated recently, the pop singer could not understand why.

One popular TikTok comment under the video of Trainor singing the new version of her hit song said, “‘Big is beautiful until you’re rich enough to change it.’ — story of the entertainment industry.”

Another person agreed, writing, “She has every right to change and nobody is hating on her. But because her body was a little more relatable it hit with a specific audience. Now it doesn’t hit the same. No shade just is what it is.”

Trainor spoke about the backlash during a conversation with iHeartRadio’s Kayla Thomas on November 14.

“I’m getting a lot of hate online just posting who I am. Everyone’s just being like, ‘Why are you thin now? You were ‘All About That Bass’ girl,’” she said.

“I was 19 when I came out with that song, and I’ve been on a fitness journey since I got healthy,” Trainor added. “It started when I was pregnant. I had gestational diabetes. I was like, ‘Oh, I gotta learn about health and fitness. If I wanna tour forever, I wanna be at my strongest. If I wanna lift up my kids from their crib and not pull out my back.’”

“So now I’m strength training three times a week in the gym and I am so focused on health,” she went on. “But I got a lot of hate for being thinner. That confused me, rattled me, so I wrote the song ‘Still Don’t Care,’” she added.

The phrase “fitness journey” keeps coming up. While these celebrities admit to using Mounjaro, they credit the weight loss to good habits and better workout schedules.

Lizzo’s case is different, but also egregious. She’s the most vocal pop star version of the body positivity movement, with many songs praising her voluptuous figure. When rumors first started circulating that she’d used Ozempic following some noticeable weight loss, she pushed back publicly, but what she said wasn’t exactly a denial.

“I’ve tried everything,” Lizzo said. “It’s just the science, for me, calories in vs. calories out. Ozempic works because you eat less food.”

“It makes you feel full. So, if you can just do that on your own and get mind-over-matter, it’s the same,” she added.

Interestingly, Lizzo also credited eating meat after being vegan as helping her shed pounds. “What did it for me was — actually it was not being vegan,” Lizzo said, as The Daily Wire previously reported. “Because when I was vegan, I was consuming a lot of fake meats. I was eating a lot of bread. I was eating a lot of rice, and I had to eat a lot of it to stay full. But really I was consuming like 3,000 to 5,000 calories a day.”

“So for me, when I actually started eating whole foods and eating, like, beef and chicken and fish, I was actually full and not expanding my stomach by putting a lot of, like, fake things in there that wasn’t actually filling me up,” she continued.

Lizzo addressed some of the backlash in a May 2023 TikTok video.

“Once I started working out for mental health, to have balanced mental health or endorphins, so that I don’t look at myself in the mirror and feel ashamed of myself, and feel disgusted with myself, exercise has helped me shift my mind, not my body,” she said at the time. “My body is gonna change, everyone’s bodies change. That’s life.”

Shaming people for making healthier choices is never a good idea. But when celebrities build their brands on body positivity and then do an about-face after discovering drugs that promote weight loss, it’s fair to call out the gap between what they said and what they’re doing.

The central complaint from fans is about consistency. If “body positivity” means unconditional acceptance of fatness, then it’s not fair to start slimming down and pretending their past selves never existed.

Right or not, fans absorb messages from influencers and pop stars. These public figures oscillating between “love the body you’re in” and “I changed my body for confidence” lead to frustration for their followers, who believe whatever they say.

One solution is just being honest from the start and admitting that being overweight is not an ideal to aspire to. Then, when weight loss happens, everyone can celebrate the accomplishment instead of being mad at the blatant hypocrisy.