An Expensive Health Care Cliff Is Coming Unless Republicans Stop It
HuffPost
Enhanced premium tax credits for millions of people enrolled in Obamacare health insurance exchanges are due to expire this year.
WASHINGTON — Top Senate Republicans indicated this week they’d be open to extending one of former President Joe Biden’s signature health care policies to avoid a politically poisonous spike in insurance costs ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
The enhanced premium tax credits, which Democrats included in President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act, reduced the cost of health insurance for many middle-class people enrolled in Obamacare exchanges. The average person who buys insurance through the exchanges is expected to pay 75% more for their premium if the tax credits expire, according to an analysis from KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research group.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has also projected that letting the subsidies lapse would lead to about 5 million Americans losing their insurance over the next 10 years.
“I am part of a small group that is looking to try to find a path forward to extend those,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). “I think it is recognized that our failure to do that could result in some pretty precipitous increases in costs for Americans for their health insurance, and that’s not where we want to end up at the end of this year.”
“It’s not these people’s fault that they’re forced onto Obamacare in the first place and then to take away what the government promised them in terms of this credit, seems to me to be not exactly the most desirable outcome,” added Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.).
