#health-insurance-premiums

#health-insurance-premiums

In 2026, the US healthcare system is changing. Enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies have expired, causing premiums for marketplace plans to spike - and pricing some families out of health insurance entirely. President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act will reduce coverage for some patients with Medicaid and funding for hospitals, especially those in rural areas. Costs for Medicare and private insurance are also rising: Employer-based healthcare premiums have increased by 9%, the largest rise in more than a decade.

President Donald Trump dismissed a reporter's question about skyrocketing healthcare costs, griping, You make it sound so bad. At the end of this year, those extended Obamacare subsidies expire, said a reporter. What's your message to those 24 million Americans who will see their insurance premiums go up Well, don't make it sound so bad, Trump interrupted, because obviously, you're a sycophant for Democrats. You're obviously a provider of bad news for Republicans.

The Senate rejected a pair of partisan measures addressing the impending expiration of Obamacare subsidies, setting up a Jan. 1 spike in health insurance premiums for more than 20 million Americans. With only a few days left before lawmakers leave for their Christmas break and few signs of life in stalled bipartisan negotiations, the failure Thursday of the dueling partisan plans all but guarantees the expiration of enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits initiated during the pandemic era.

I think you've been extremely eloquent in this shutdown and talking about the issue of Obamacare subsidies. I'm a Republican too. We don't agree on everything, but we both agree we have to extend these subsidies at least for a year because you just can't pull the rug out from under people who are going to see their premiums skyrocket. You talked about your own family, how you'd be impacted, but I imagine many of the 700,000 constituents you represent.

This week, the current federal-government shutdown will become the third-longest ever, surpassing a 2013 shutdown that lasted 16 days. There are some significant echoes of the 2013 shutdown, which stemmed from a failed Republican effort to "defund" Obamacare just as that health-reform initiative was being fully implemented. Now the shoe is on the other foot: Democrats are demanding that Obamacare subsidies, which were significantly expanded in 2021, be extended. Without congressional action, upwards of 20 million Americans will see a huge Obamacare premium hike at the end of the year.