The government shutdown has focused debate on the vast sum ($136 billion in 2025, as projected by the Congressional Budget Office) that the federal government spends to annually subsize continually skyrocketing Obamacare health insurance premiums.

The Wall Street Journal reports that regardless of how that fiscal tug-of- war turns out, health insurance premiums paid by Americans are expected to rise another 8% or 9% next year.

One reason health care costs are rising at two to three times the cost of everything else is that the entire insurance market is dysfunctional. Most Americans pay high monthly premiums (or the government pays for them) for coverage they often don’t use.

We need a system much more sensible and less costly for patients and taxpayers.

We should be encouraging insurance plans with low premiums that cover major “catastrophic” medical expenses but leave smaller expenses — like checkups or minor surgery — to be paid by policyholders directly.

Such policies — known as catastrophic health insurance plans — have been available for several decades. Most of us would be better off financially if we signed up for these plans.

Even as regulated by Obamacare, this coverage charges premiums that are only about half the amount of other Obamacare plans.

The Democrats and health insurers ridicule these plans as “junk health insurance.” Wrong. Forbes notes that these plans provide comprehensive coverage for major medical expenses and have the same “10 essential health benefits” as other Obamacare plans.

So why don’t most people choose catastrophic health plans? Because an Obamacare provision makes it illegal.

Congress should immediately repeal this provision of Obamacare. This simple change in the law would allow all of us to choose the kind of health insurance that so many of us want and need.

The new tax law signed by President Donald Trump on July 4 makes these plans even more attractive. The new law allows plan members to contribute to health savings accounts. HSAs are special tax-free accounts that allow families to pay routine medical expenses, as well as roll over any unspent money in the account into tax-advantaged retirement savings. Obamacare previously had barred catastrophic health insurance plan members from contributing to HSAs.

Sometimes in life the best solution is the simplest one: Stop the hundreds of billions of dollars of wasteful subsidies, the skyrocketing premiums and the “one size fits all” plans — and instead legalize pro-growth catastrophic health insurance plans for all.

Stop fattening the checks of the health insurance conglomerates like UnitedHealth, who resist paying honest claims but force you to write monthly checks for insurance you don’t use or need.

(David M. Simon was the co-author of this column).