You may have heard reports hinting that President Donald Trump was open to extending subsidies for people on Affordable Care Act health insurance plans. He hasn’t announced anything yet.
The Scripps News Group in Cleveland took a deeper look into how eliminating government funds for the ACA will affect real people. Around dining room tables across Ohio, people like Anne Griffith are trying to figure out health insurance for next year.
“All right…let me get into the website,” she said while looking at her laptop screen.
FROM $240 TO NEARLY $1700
We first heard from Griffith about a month ago, when she thought her ACA premiums would go from $240/month to $1,200/month. However, after looking into it further, she said it’s closer to $1,700/month.
“Health care should never be a political issue,” said Griffith. “It should be affordable. People in this country need health care. If you don’t have it, you go bankrupt.”
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Griffith said she retired a bit early to take care of her mom. She said that if the proposed ACA government subsidies are cut, they’ll have to find the money somewhere else.
“We’ll have to go into savings. We’ll have to look at retirement accounts,” said Griffith.
REPUBLICANS SAY ACA IS NOT WORKING
Republicans have said the ACA isn’t working, it’s not affordable, and taking away the subsidies proves that. They’ve said the added government money doesn’t bring down the overall increasing costs of healthcare.
Kaiser Family Foundation reports ACA premiums were already going up 26% on average next year, but if there are no subsidies, it’s more like 114%.
DEMOCRATS FILED 'DISCHARGE PETITION'
This month, Democrats filed what’s called a “discharge petition,” which, if they get enough representatives’ signatures, would force a vote on the House floor to extend the subsidies for the ACA.
“We do need to find ways to make it more efficient and more affordable but what’s happening with the end of these tax credits does neither one,” said Representative Emilia Sykes (D-Ohio).
“Too many people are seeing their gas, groceries, goods, housing, rent, utilities are all going up and now we’re going to add healthcare on top of that?” questioned Representative Shontel Brown (D-Ohio).
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The Scripps News Group in Cleveland reached out to several Republican U.S. House representatives from Northeast Ohio, only Representative Dave Joyce replied, saying, in part, ”We need a model that actually delivers affordable, high-quality care…not one that allows insurance companies to keep driving premiums higher.”
For Griffith, she said the lower-cost ACA plan has been a lifeline for her and so many others that Congress has to figure out soon.
“They can’t just rip stuff away from people and…toss ‘em out,” she told us.
WHAT WILL THE PRESIDENT DO?
Reports claimed the president had been open to extending the ACA subsidies for two years while capping income requirements and adding policies to address fraud.
Another idea has been to create health savings accounts, and government funds would be placed into those accounts for people to pay down on their premiums.
This story was originally published by Jonathan Walsh with the Scripps News Group in Cleveland.
