Top healthcare executive John Driscoll calls the looming expiration of enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies \u201ca tragedy in the making,\u201d warning that millions of Americans are about to be hit with higher premiums, lost coverage, and rising medical debt as Washington gridlock hardens. <\/p>\n
Driscoll, who is currently the chairman of UConn Health after a 25-year career in health care including a previous position as Walgreens Boots Alliance<\/a> president, said the policy reversal amounts to \u201ca self\u2011inflicted wound\u201d that will push costs up for both low\u2011income families and the affluent professionals who thought they were insulated.\u200b<\/p>\n Driscoll cited CBO estimates that if Congress allows the subsidies to lapse, premiums will jump for roughly 24 million marketplace enrollees<\/a>, and around 2 million people<\/a> will lose coverage entirely in the near term.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t solve higher health care costs with fewer people getting insured,\u201d he told Fortune, arguing that the system will simply reprice risk and shift costs onto everyone else. \u201cWhenever you reduce coverage at the bottom, everybody pays more in the middle.\u201d\u200b\u200b<\/p>\n Enhanced premium tax credits, introduced during the pandemic and extended through 2025, have helped double marketplace enrollment and kept average subsidized premiums under about $900 a year. When they expire, KFF News projects a roughly 114% increase<\/a> in average premium payments for subsidized enrollees in 2026. Older adults and rural residents would be especially exposed, with KFF also warning that adults ages 50 to 64 could see average premium hikes of 75% or more<\/a>.\u200b<\/p>\n The invisible tax on everyone else<\/p>\n Driscoll argued that the real story is a giant cost shift from government to households and employers, driven by simultaneous Medicaid cuts, work requirements, and subsidy rollbacks. When people lose coverage, he notes, they \u201cdon\u2019t stop getting covered by the health care system.\u201d Instead, they show up later and sicker, so hospitals and insurers respond by raising prices to anticipate uncompensated care. <\/p>\n When you consider that this is being done to \u201ceffectively subsidize a tax deduction for millionaires and billionaires, that\u2019s going to shift health care costs to all of us when people lose coverage,\u201d he added, referring to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that extended President Donald Trump\u2019s previous tax cuts and introduced new ones.<\/p>\n For Driscoll, the subsidy cliff exposes a deeper \u201ctribal dysfunction\u201d in health policy that has frozen the Affordable Care Act in place instead of improving it. He called Obamacare \u201ca very good but imperfect solution\u201d that cut the uninsured rate roughly in half and slowed healthcare inflation, but he said both parties have refused to engage in the hard work of updating it. \u201cWe really aren\u2019t prioritizing the patient,\u201d he said, \u201cwe\u2019re prioritizing the politics,\u201d leaving millions facing the choice of dropping coverage or postponing care for serious conditions.<\/p>\n The political situation<\/p>\n