Democrats have launched the government’s closure as a confrontation of health care: NPR

Hours after the federal government’s closure, Julio Fuentes took steps from the American Capitol to transmit an urgent message on the Hispanic Block of Voting which helped the GOP in power last year.

These votes, he warned, are at risk if the congress does not adopt a law to preserve weak bonuses on market plans on the affordable care law for around 4.7 million people living in its state of origin of Florida who are registered in coverage.

“Hispanic voters have helped to return Donald Trump to the White House,” said Fuentes, CEO of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Florida. “Republican leaders would do the good of their voters to keep the cover affordable, and they will remember to go to the middle.”

With less than a month before many Americans choose the health insurance plan for next year, the Democrats in Congress maintain the funding of the government to put pressure on the Republicans to extend billions of dollars in federal tax credits that have spectacularly reduced bonuses and contributed to record rates of uninsured Americans.

Democrats consider that the confrontation with high issues as a chance to speak of affordable health care as millions of Americans – including those registered with coverage via the workplace or health insurance – to grabbing higher costs next year. Party leaders, in the hope of winning back the support of some of the working class supporters who have moved away from them, used the time to remind voters recent cuts that Republicans have approved to certain health care programs.

The Republicans externally give off the confidence that the approach will not find traction, reminding the public that the Democrats have forced a closure. But a new KFF analysis shows that 80% of all premium tax credits have benefited the registered in the States that Trump has won.

Open registration for 2026

The judgment coincides with the open registration season, while insurers are preparing to send opinions revealing the premium rates next year for around 24 million people registered in the coverage of the ACA. Average registration should pay more than double if the tax credits must expire. Insurers have also said that they should considerably increase the price of bonuses because healthier people will retire from the coverage because it will become more expensive, leaving a more sick pool of Americans – and less money to cover them.

“In the coming days, what you will see is that more than 20 million Americans experience a considerable increase in health premiums, copays and deductibles due to the republican reluctance to extend the tax credits on affordable care,” said the leader of the minority of the Hakeem Jeffries minority on Thursday.

Open registrations in most states begin on November 1. Some insurers and exchanges have delayed the sending of notifications detailing bonus rates for next year, because they are waiting to see what is happening in Washington. For example, covered California, the state insurance market plans to send opinions to more than a million registered later than usual this year, on October 15.

From her home to Richmond, Virginia, Natalie Tyer, 31, is looking forward to the arrival of her opinion. It checks the state market website daily to see if new prices for its insurance scheme have displayed.

Tyer has been based on market coverage for more than a year now while working part -time for a small local video production business and continues a master’s degree to become a school advisor. Tax credits help cover $ 255 from its monthly premium, which reduces it to $ 53. As it is generally healthy, if the credits expire and its premiums increase considerably, it could completely lower the coverage.

“I should go very well without health insurance and maybe you should count on hope,” said Tyer.

The thrust of the Democrats to center the closure of the affordability of health care, however, comes up against many uncomfortable realities of the closure of the federal government, which will leave millions of federal workers without pay checks, hinders certain functions of public health agencies and will threaten the payments of food aid for low -income mothers, among other effects.

This is not the first closure on health care

ACA, however, has been a political flash point since 2010, when the Republicans have fought against the adoption of historical health care legislation. A wave of congress republican victories quickly followed this fight and stimulated a government closure in 2013, when the GOP tried to empty the program. Party leaders tried again to repeal it in 2017 to follow a promise of Trump campaign.

The last confrontation – on the billions of dollars in tax credits that the Democrats issued during the Pandemic COVID -19 to stimulate the registration for ACA – has been simmering for months. The Democrats, who wrote the original legislation introducing and then extending them, set the improved tax credits to expire at the end of this year. Even some Republicans have started to warn this summer that permission of these tax credits could be harmful, republican pollsters Tony Fabrizio and Bob Ward issuing a note that warned an extension of credits could make a difference in the mid-term elections next year.

The extension of ACA tax credits, which have reduced monthly bonuses to as little as $ 0 or $ 10 for the poorest registrants and capped the amount that average income has paid only 8.5% of their income, is also a popular decision among many Americans.