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As Congress faces a year-end deadline on Affordable Care Act subsidies, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., left, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., meet with reporters about health care affordability, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2025. (AP Photo\/J. Scott Applewhite)<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 Fifty-two-year-old Dinam Bigny sank into debt and had to get a roommate this year, in part because of health insurance premiums that cost him nearly $900 per month.
\nNext year, those monthly fees will rise by $200 \u2014 a significant enough increase that the program manager in Aldie, Virginia, has resigned himself to finding cheaper coverage.
\n\u201cI won\u2019t be able to pay it, because I really drained out any savings that I have right now,\u201d he said. \u201cEmergency fund is still draining out \u2014 that\u2019s the scary part.\u201d
\nBigny is among the many Americans dependent on Affordable Care Act marketplace health insurance plans who are already struggling with the high cost of health care, according to a new survey from the health care research nonprofit KFF.
\nMost of the more than 1,300 enrollees surveyed in early November say they anticipate that their health costs will be impacted next year if Congress doesn\u2019t extend expiring COVID-era tax credits that help more than 90% of enrollees pay for health insurance premiums, per KFF. The possibility of an extension looks increasingly unlikely.
\nThe enhanced premium tax credits set to expire at the end of this year have been at the center of recent tensions in Congress, with Democrats calling for a straight extension and several Republican lawmakers vehemently opposed to the idea. Their inability to agree on a path forward fueled a record 43-day government shutdown earlier this fall.
\nPresident Donald Trump and some Republicans in Congress have circulated proposals in recent weeks to offer a short-term extension or reform the Affordable Care Act, but no plan has emerged as a clear winner. Meanwhile, the window for Americans to shop for next year\u2019s plans is well underway with less than a month to go until the subsidies expire.
\nKFF\u2019s poll reveals that marketplace enrollees \u2014 most of whom say they would be directly impacted by the subsidies expiring \u2014 overwhelmingly support an extension. The survey found this group is more likely to blame Trump and Republicans in Congress than Democrats if the tax credits are left to expire.
\nEnrollees already find it challenging to afford health expenses
\nThe expiration of the tax credits \u2014 which a separate KFF analysis found will more than double monthly payments for the average subsidized enrollee \u2014 comes as Americans are already overwhelmed by high health expenses, the poll shows.
\nAbout 6 in 10 Affordable Care Act enrollees find it \u201csomewhat\u201d or \u201cvery\u201d difficult to afford out-of-pocket costs for medical care, such as deductibles and copays. That exceeds the roughly half of enrollees who find it challenging to afford health insurance premiums. Most also say they could not afford a $300 per year increase in their health insurance costs without significantly disrupting their household finances.
\nCynthia Cox, a vice president of KFF who leads the organization\u2019s ACA research, said the population of Americans on Affordable Care Act health insurance includes some high-earning entrepreneurs and small business owners, but the bulk of enrollees are lower-income and therefore vulnerable to even small increases in health costs.
\n\u201cThese are often going to be people who are living paycheck to paycheck, who have volatile or unpredictable incomes as well,\u201d she said. \u201cIncreases that many of them are facing are going to be some sort of financial hardship for them.\u201d
\nMost enrollees see cost increases on the horizon
\nSlightly more than half of Affordable Care Act marketplace enrollees believe their health insurance costs will increase \u201ca lot more than usual\u201d next year, according to the poll. About another 4 in 10 anticipate increases that will be \u201ca little more than usual\u201d or \u201cabout the same as usual.\u201d
\nLarry Griffin, a 56-year-old investment banker and financial adviser in Paso Robles, California, already pays $920 a month for his gold-level health plan through the state\u2019s insurance marketplace. He says that price will go up to about $1,400 a month next year \u2014 alongside jumps in copays and his annual out-of-pocket maximum.
\nHe\u2019s concerned the increases will affect his ability to save money for his upcoming retirement, but with the recent amputation of his left leg below the knee, as well as other health issues, he said he can\u2019t risk going off health insurance or downgrading his plan.
\nGriffin is among the roughly three-quarters of marketplace enrollees who say health insurance is \u201cvery important\u201d for their ability to access the health care they need.
\n\u201cI\u2019m not going to say that I can\u2019t manage it, I can, but it\u2019s just another one of those things,\u201d he said. \u201cHere\u2019s, you know, knock number 5,000 against me after all of the other things I\u2019ve had to deal with.\u201d
\nPatricia Roberts, 52, a full-time caregiver for her daughter in Auburn, Alabama, received a notice saying her monthly health insurance premiums would rise from around $800 a month to $1,100 a month next year \u2014 but she was later notified the monthly cost would actually be more than $1,400, prompting her to look for a downgraded plan.
\nShe said her friends across the border in Georgia are staring down doubling monthly fees next year.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t know how people are going to live, with it already being a struggle just to pay for food and all the other things,\u201d Roberts said.
\nSupport for an extension stretches across political parties
\nThe poll shows allowing the enhanced tax credits to expire would be overwhelmingly unpopular with current marketplace enrollees.
\nSupport for continuing the tax credits extends across party lines. Nearly all Democrats and about 8 in 10 independents who are enrolled in marketplace plans say the credits should be extended, as do about 7 in 10 Republicans. Support is similarly high among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who support the MAGA movement, and those who don\u2019t.
\nYvette Laugier, 56, a Republican in Chicago, said while her income is too high to qualify her for the enhanced premium tax credits, she supports extending them temporarily with additional fraud protections to give lower-income enrollees more time to consider their options.
\nAmong those who think Congress should extend the credits, about 4 in 10 say Trump would deserve \u201cmost of the blame\u201d if they were allowed to expire and roughly one-third say that about Republicans in Congress. Democrats in Congress are much less likely to receive blame: only 23% of enrollees say they would deserve the bulk of responsibility.
\nBigny, in Virginia, said the blame should be split between both Democrats and Republicans. But he has hope they can come to a compromise and potentially a temporary extension in the coming weeks.
\n\u201cThey should just sit and really look for what\u2019s best for American people overall,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Congress faces a year-end deadline on Affordable Care Act subsidies, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., left,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331427,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[167908,167904,167905,167906,167907,4,450,28,451,3,452,453,167903],"class_list":{"0":"post-331426","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"tag-according-to-a-new-poll","9":"tag-according-to-a-new-polllocal-news","10":"tag-according-to-a-new-pollnational-news","11":"tag-according-to-a-new-pollnews","12":"tag-according-to-a-new-pollwashington","13":"tag-breaking-news","14":"tag-breakingnews","15":"tag-business","16":"tag-headlines","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-top-stories","19":"tag-topstories","20":"tag-where-the-blame-will-fall-if-aca-subsidies-expire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}