Kyle Cave
Staff Writer
The Government Shutdown ended last week. Eight Democrats crossed party lines to vote with Republicans on a bipartisan funding bill that would open the government. There’s one exception, however, the ACA subsidies have not been dealt with.
The main reason the government shutdown occurred was because of the ACA subsidies expiring. These subsidies kept healthcare premiums low and the ACA affordable to most Americans. In the original CR (continuing resolution), the extension of these subsidies wasn’t in it, and Republicans refused to give room for an extension without changes to the entire ACA, which is unrealistic to happen in a short time.
In the now-passed bipartisan funding bill, Democrats were only given one thing: a promise by Republicans that a vote on the subsidies would occur. A promise sounds great on paper, but the reality of the ACA subsidies being continued or even voted on in the future is grim.
In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Tapper asked House Speaker Mike Johnson directly about a commitment to bringing a vote on the ACA subsidies to the floor in the future. Johnson responded with “I’m not committing to it or not committing to it”.
In addition to the non-commitment on the ACA subsidies, even if the House and Senate pass a bill through both chambers on the subsidies, President Trump could inevitably veto it.
The bottom line is, at this very moment, the ACA in its entirety is at risk of becoming unaffordable. Millions of Americans are in an uncertain position about how they will continue to pay for health insurance that they cannot afford.
Even if at some point a one-year extension on the ACA subsidies is guaranteed, what happens when one-year passes? It will be the same situation once again.
There is no clear answer on the future of the ACA. The “Big Beautiful Bill” already has the largest cuts to Medicaid ever seen. Republicans for years have campaigned on weakening the ACA or flat-out getting rid of it. This gives them huge leverage on getting that done.
The Republican alternative to the ACA is essentially going back to the healthcare system we had before the ACA, which is more free market. The issue with that is if you completely gut the ACA without a viable alternative, millions of Americans would be without health insurance.
We are now 15 years into the ACA with many quality-of-life changes. This has been an almost 20-year investment. Every time Republicans bring up the faults of the ACA, they provide no viable alternatives to the program that could cover the 45 million Americans who are currently on it.
If the ACA subsidies expire, the mission of the ACA to bring more affordable health insurance to Americans will fail. And Americans would be paying the price for it literally and figuratively. Our ongoing healthcare crisis will go from a crisis to a full-blown calamity overnight.