The longest-running government shutdown hinges on the extension of Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax subsidies set to expire at the end of 2025. When the ACA Enhanced Premium Tax Credits expire, people across Colorado who get their health insurance from the ACA marketplace will see a marked increase in their monthly health insurance premiums. The next open enrollment period begins this Saturday, Nov. 1.
“People last night either got emails of their premium increases or they’re going to be getting it in the mail in the next few days,” said U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen (D-CO) during a virtual press conference with Governor Jared Polis and health care providers Thursday. “It is catastrophic for some of these families who are already struggling to make ends meet with Trump’s trade war, with rising costs, and are now getting a shocking price increase for their health care. We just heard from a woman in Lakewood today, from their family, about how they were going through the process of buying their house and now instead of paying $300 a month [for health insurance] they’re going to be paying $1,400 and that they’re not going to be able to move forward with the purchase of their home. This has real-life impacts for kids who are going to be unable to get cancer treatments, for families who are going to be kicked off the rolls.”
Governor Jared Polis (D) discussed the direct impact of the premium increase. “We estimate that if Congress does not extend the premium tax credits, it’ll lead to about 75,000 Coloradans losing their healthcare insurance, and about 150,000 more paying a lot more,” he said. “All Congress needs to do is vote to expand the enhanced premium tax credits. That will reduce the cost by more than 80%. It has bipartisan support and enough is enough. It’s time for Congress to act for the majority to schedule the bill for the floor.”
Colorado Republican Members of Congress disagree with Pettersen and Polis.
U.S. Rep Jeff Crank (R-CO) recently argued that the real problem isn’t the tax credits, but Democratic efforts to undermine President Trump’s budget bill. “They wanted to repeal the entire section and they filed a separate bill in the Senate that would have repealed all of the care provisions that were in what is known as the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill,’ to include where we prohibited in that bill money to go to pay for the health insurance for illegals,” he said during an Oct. 8 appearance on Colorado’s Morning News. “It would also repeal all of the work requirements that we put in on Medicaid. So it would literally repeal what the majority just passed a couple months ago. And you know that’s just a non-starter. We can have those discussions, we can have discussions about whether an enhanced premium tax credit or whatever is passed later, but we shouldn’t hold federal workers and our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Guardians [Space Force service members] hostage because we’ve got this political disagreement.”
U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert claims the tax credits would also be used for undocumented immigrants. “So they want to continue the COVID-era Obamacare subsidies that were passed to match state dollars with federal dollars,” she said during an Oct. 27 appearance on the Ryan Schuiling show. “It’s not just a regular match like we’ve seen in the past with Obamacare, where the state puts in $1 and the federal government matches it with $1.33. No, this extended subsidy has the state putting in $1 and the federal government matching that $1 with nine federal dollars, and this is going to illegal aliens’ health care and it was going to able-bodied adults as well. This was something that we corrected in the Big Beautiful bill and also those COVID-era Obamacare extensions, those enormous subsidies are set to expire at end of the year, and so Democrats right now are decrying health care for illegal aliens and making Americans suffer in the meantime.”
Asked for a response to Boebert’s claims, Pettersen pushed back. “Unfortunately, this is more lies, more rhetoric,” she said. “In order to qualify for the ACA tax subsidies, you have to be a citizen or a legal resident, and you have to be a taxpayer, and it is within certain income ranges that you qualify. These are the people who don’t qualify, don’t make too little to qualify for Medicaid.
These are the people who don’t make enough to qualify for health insurance, and so many small business owners and people who work for small businesses who aren’t offered health care at work, who are able to actually find affordable and accessible health insurance. It is absolutely not that this is somehow about illegal immigrants. That is fundamentally untrue.”
During Thursday’s press conference, health care providers joined Pettersen and Polis to discuss the impact of allowing the subsidies to expire. “Community health centers like Stride already serve as the healthcare safety net for 1 in 7 Coloradans,” said Allison Drayer, representing STRIDE Health in Denver. “We are the ones that are keeping people healthy enough to work, to parent, and to stay out of the emergency rooms. But we can’t keep absorbing more patients without more support. The expiration of these tax credits doesn’t just mean higher premiums, it means thousands of Coloradans losing access to care and FQHCs — federally qualified health centers, like ours — absorbing that fallout. We’ve seen a record demand for behavioral health. We’re managing more chronic conditions than ever before, and we’re struggling to recruit and retain the workforce it takes to meet those needs. Once more people lose coverage, that strain only deepens, [but] not because we won’t serve them because we will. Here’s what’s at stake. Hundreds of thousands of Coloradans will be impacted with these changes.”
