“Workers aren’t supposed to receive ObamaCare subsidies if they have access to ‘affordable’ coverage through their employers, but this rule is barely enforced,” the editorial complained. “Many workers could get employer coverage if the enhanced subsidies lapse at the end of the year, which would save taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars. Don’t believe the Democrats’ ObamaCare scare.”

Its evidence? The paper cited a recent Bureau of Labor Statistics report showing that take up of employer-offered plans is plunging, especially among low-wage workers. Nearly three-quarters of employers now offer health coverage, up from 71 percent in 2019, according to the BLS. Yet just 65 percent took advantage that offer in 2025, down from 73 percent in 2019.

Among workers in the bottom 25 percent of wage earners, take up was just 49 percent this year compared to 61 percent a half decade ago. And in the lowest 10% percent of income, take up was just 34 percent compared to 57 percent in 2019.

Why? “Perhaps because they can now get ObamaCare plans at no cost,” the opinion page speculated.

Let’s take a closer look at what the Wall Street Journal editorial page deems is “affordable” health care coverage that employers offer to their low-wage workers. The average cost of an annual health insurance plan in 2025 was $25,572 for family coverage and $8,951 for individual coverage, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The average employee contribution to family coverage was 25% of the total or $6,296, according to KFF. For individual coverage, workers paid 16% of the total or $1,368.

Now let’s take a look at what low-wage households earn. In 2024 (BLS data on household income lags behind publication of monthly and annual wage data) families earning at or below $41,400 a year landed in the bottom 25% of all households. Those in the bottom 10% earned at or below $19,900 a year.

That level of income doesn’t make their employer plans affordable. It makes them prohibitive.

A family at the 25th percentile would be paying for an average family plan fully 15 percent of its annual income for coverage. Better-off families that itemize their deductions (lower wage workers almost never itemize) would be able to take half of that as a tax deduction. A better way to characterize Obamacare subsidies is as one way to help to level the playing field of our inequitable tax code.

Meanwhile, a family in the bottom 10 percent of households would be paying a prohibitive 32 percent of its income for health insurance through their employers. No wonder take up of employer-offered plans among low-wage workers is so low, and was so even before arrival of the Affordable Care Act. When you’re poor, paying your rent, food and transportation bills have a higher priority than buying protection against the possibility you’ll be thrown into bankruptcy should someone in your family might get sick in the coming year.

That’s not something an editorial writer who is paid not to understand the economics of health care will ever understand.

Merrill Goozner, the former editor of Modern Healthcare, writes about health care and politics at GoozNews.substack.com, where this column first appeared. Please consider subscribing to support his work.