I have spent more than a decade as a designated expert witness on fiduciary duty, testifying in federal and state courts about what happens when the people managing other people’s money stop checking who is actually entitled to it. Every case follows the same pattern. Someone stopped verifying. The losses piled up quietly until an audit forced them into daylight. Congress is now running that exact experiment on a national scale, and it is doing so with your money.

The Senate has spent the better part of a year fighting over whether to extend the enhanced Obamacare premium subsidies that lapsed on Jan. 1. The House passed a three-year extension in early January, with 17 Republicans crossing the aisle to join Democrats. The Senate has not moved it. Democrats forced the longest government shutdown in American history over this exact fight last fall and came away empty-handed. Premiums have since spiked for millions of enrollees, and both parties are gearing up to relitigate the whole mess before the midterm elections.