It’s official. The Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) subsidies expired on December 31.
In December, four centrist Republicans joined Democrats in support of House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ discharge petition that would extend the subsidies for three years.
Republican Speaker Mike Johnson recessed the House without a vote on the petition before the holidays. He has yet to schedule a vote in this new session.
If Johnson brings the petition to the floor for a vote, it is likely to pass. Currently, House Republicans have a one vote majority. Marjorie Taylor Greene stepped down effective January 5. One House Republican passed away during the holiday break and another is in the hospital.
A passed discharge petition would then go to the Senate where it would need 60 votes all Republicans and a few Democrats) to pass. Jeffries’ ‘clean’ discharge petition would likely be amended in the Senate.
In the meantime, the federal subsidy funding deadline is January 31. Millions of households across the country and here in Brooklyn face stiff tax bills of $10-20,000 or more. Incomes exceeding 400% of the federal poverty line will be ineligible for any premium tax credits.
The 2026 income cutoff is determined by family size: $62,000 for a single person’ $84,600 for a two-person household; and $128,600 for a family of four.
“With the lapse in the enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) premium subsidies at the end of 2025, safety-net hospitals like University Hospital at Downstate will experience an impact,” said a spokesperson for SUNY Downstate.
“As more patients lose ACA coverage or face higher out-of-pocket costs, these hospitals will see increases in uncompensated care and likely delays in evaluation and treatment, which will result in more preventable emergencies, putting access to care at risk for the communities that depend on them most..”
But, the economic devastation will become more widespread.
“We’ve got a healthcare landscape where this month people are going to be faced with keeping health insurance or losing it, and some people might find themselves bankrupt if they have a major crisis,” said Michelle Singletary, personal finance columnist for the Washington Post.
“Those who try to keep a policy have a choice: they are either going to have to pay the huge premium which means you are going to spend less in other areas, so that is going to impact our economy,” explained Singletary. “And then other people are going to say ‘I can’t afford $800 or $1000 a month so I am going to get a different policy’ which means the co-pays and deductibles before the policy kicks in is higher.”
Worse, the problem will spread throughout the entire healthcare system.
“If more people cancel that means you are going to see the system inundated with sicker folks, and more costs spread to everybody,” said Singletary.
“So if you’ve got a good policy thinking this won’t impact me, it will impact you because your premiums are going to go up because fewer people are going to be able to afford insurance and when fewer people are able to afford it, costs go up because they have to cover more people and pay more for those people who are in the system. It spirals and then we are all impacted.”
This past weekend on NBC’s Meet the Press, Leader Jeffries said, “We’ve got to make sure that a straightforward extension of the Affordable Care Act tax credits passes out of the House upon our return next week so we can protect the healthcare of tens of millions of Americans who are about to experience dramatically-increased health insurance premiums, co-pays and deductibles. In some instances, health insurance costs will increase by $1,000 or $2,000 per month.”
“That’s completely and totally unacceptable,” he added. “We need to resolve this issue within the next week or so, protect the healthcare of the American people, and then continue to fix our broken healthcare system and address the Republican healthcare crisis that’s devastating everyday Americans, including as a result of the fact that they enacted the largest cut to Medicaid in American history.”
Jeffries continued, “Republicans have a responsibility to partner with us as Democrats to stop it to protect the healthcare of everyday Americans, working-class Americans and middle-class Americans.
Now, when we successfully pass this bill out of the House of Representatives, we know that there’s a bipartisan majority in the Senate—every single Senate Democrat and at least four Senate Republicans—who support a straightforward extension of the Affordable Care Act tax credits.
The votes exist to pass it in the Senate, absent procedural hurdles that John Thune is erecting because Republicans apparently have no interest in protecting the healthcare of everyday Americans.
They’d rather protect the interests of Big Oil and their billionaire donors, which is why they enacted massive tax breaks as part of their One Big Ugly Bill.”
