Finally, the hard one: Do the benefits of the premium subsidy to this family outweigh the costs of trapping this family at this income level by killing the financial benefit they receive from more work, education, training, or other professional advancement? I say no, but that’s a value choice where others might differ.

Team Obama and their allies don’t want to debate it, though, and for good reason. They’d lose. Nobody wants to trap people and discourage further economic advancement, even if they do so by helping that family with generous subsidies. Unfortunately you can’t have one without the other, and so Team Obama obfuscates.

For the past month elected officials have been talking about making sure the “bottom rungs of the ladder of opportunity” are strong. If, however, you raise the safety net so high that it is above those bottom rungs, then people would be irrational to start climbing the ladder at the bottom. That’s the unavoidable downside of the generous income-targeted premium subsidies in the Affordable Care Act. Choose your poison: give these people less immediate assistance, or punish them more as they try to improve their own lot. President Obama and ObamaCare’s supporters chose the latter course.

Note also that this subsidy phaseout doesn’t only discourage additional work, it discourages anything that increases one’s income, including additional job training, education, or even a promotion to a better-paying job.