As open enrollment comes to a close, the consequences of the GOP health care affordability crisis are sinking in. The recent snapshot of Affordable Care Act enrollment shows people are dropping coverage after Republicans ended the health care tax credits to fund tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations – and it’s only going to get worse. Families are faced with impossible choices: get worse coverage that costs way more or risk being uninsured. Mathew from Michigan had to marry his best friend to get coverage for his autoimmune disease, despite the fact that he is gay. Kelly from Wisconsin has cut her household expenses to the minimum and still doesn’t know if they will be able to afford their bills after paying for insurance. Kassidy in Louisiana will finish out her high-risk pregnancy without coverage, hoping for the best.
The following 13 accounts — along with the over 100 collected testimonies — come from hard-working Americans that the GOP has left in the dust to fund tax breaks for their billionaire friends.
Arizona
Eric Kurland, Scottsdale
- “‘You work all your life to have a comfortable retirement,’ Kurland said. ‘[We’re] two teachers, we live frugally…We actually worked two jobs for probably our first 10 years of teaching, we each waited tables and yeah, it’s kind of a kick in the groin.’” [Copper Courier]
Rebecca Bailey
- “By mid-December 2025, Bailey was notified her insurance would be going up to over $200 a month come the new year, and for her situation, she simply couldn’t afford it. ‘It can keep me awake at night, it is scary,’ Bailey said.”
- “Ultimately, Bailey received assistance from a local nonprofit, Helping Families In Need, and enrolled in ACA health coverage for just over $100 a month, which still stretches her budget, and has added costs for prescriptions, medical tests, and doctor visits. ‘I’m just praying that I don’t get terribly sick this year,’ she said. ‘I am in general healthy so we might just not be going to the doctor and getting things done this year.’” [Copper Courier]
Florida
Stacy Kanas, Plantation
- “‘It’s weighing extraordinarily heavily on me,’ Kanas, 59, told CBS News. ‘My husband had a major surgery about five years ago, and we don’t want to be uninsured.’Although in decent health, the small business owner worries about what could happen if someone in her family falls seriously ill. ‘You’re one catastrophic event away from perhaps having a financial disaster,’ she said.” [CBS]
Laura Delaney
- “Delaney has lived with Type 1 diabetes for most of her life, a condition that ultimately led to a double transplant. She received both a kidney and a pancreas and continues to manage chronic health issues. She said the Affordable Care Act made it possible for her to obtain health insurance after years of being denied coverage because of pre-existing conditions.”
- “Last year, her monthly premium was about $1,060. This year, the same plan jumped to $2,400 a month, forcing her to switch plans just to keep her premium near the $1,050 range.” [Bay News 9]
Illinois
Farihah Khandaker, Chicago
- “Chicago resident Farihah Khandaker is still searching for a health insurance plan that will allow her to visit her doctors and fill prescriptions at a reasonable rate. ‘I’m looking for a unicorn that doesn’t exist,’ said Khandaker, a self-employed consultant and information technology project manager.”
- “‘I cannot believe they are letting it (enhanced subsidies) expire right now when the cost of living and inflation have skyrocketed,’ Khandaker said. ‘It just really hurts right now. Rent has gone up. I go to the grocery store and I’m paying so much more. Now, health care (costs are increasing) as well.’” [USA Today]
Louisiana
Kassidy Hooter, 24, Shreveport
- “When Kassidy Hooter learned in December how much her health insurance costs were going to rise this year, she went into panic mode. […] Hooter is in the final trimester of a high-risk pregnancy.”
- “‘We heavily considered that it might just be cheaper to give birth at home,’ Hooter, 24, told CBS News. ‘Just because that’s an insane amount of debt to take on.’ In the end, Hooter decided to forgo insurance altogether.”
- “‘I’m just hoping for the best,’ she told CBS News.” [CBS]
Michigan
Mathew, 40
- “‘I find myself in the middle of some sort of rom-com plot,’ he says. ‘For me to be able to see my doctor to tend to my autoimmune disease, I had to marry my best friend — it’s like some weird twisted plot of Will and Grace.’”
- “He loves his job, but the company is too small to offer health coverage, and he has an auto-immune condition that requires medication transfusions. For several years, he’s relied on the Affordable Care Act for coverage.”
- “So as he was weighing what to do about his insurance, one night, she turned to him. ‘She’s like, I have great insurance — why don’t we get married?’ he says. ‘And I said, ‘Well, that’s so weird because I’m gay.’’”
- “It frustrates Mathew to find himself in this situation. He liked his Affordable Care Act plan and believes in it. He’s still hoping Congress makes a deal. Not everyone, he says, has a best friend they can marry to get affordable health insurance.” [NPR]
Oklahoma
Sheeva Azma, Norman
- “Azma’s monthly premium will almost double, upping from $434 to $812, a steep rise for her. She keeps a tight budget and determined that she will have to work 24 more hours a month to afford the increase. Azma also anticipates having to use money from her savings. ‘I have this tiny little slush fund, so now I’m just like, I guess I’ll just start taking out of that,’ Azma said. For Azma, going off her insurance isn’t an option. She has a family history of breast cancer and needs a yearly mammogram.”
- “Azma said she believes health care should be a right. Everyone deserves to be healthy. ‘I just feel like our government should actually be helping us,’ Azma said.” [The Oklahoman]
Texas
Mila Clarke, Houston
- “Months after she signed up for health insurance in mid-2025, Houston resident Mila Clarke ran the numbers and knew Affordable Care Act coverage wouldn’t be an option for 2026. The 36-year-old small business owner couldn’t find a plan as inexpensive as the $350-per-month insurance she had in 2025.”
- “The extra costs were too much for Clarke. In addition to costly monthly premiums, she spent hundreds each month on insulin, an insulin pump, a continuous glucose monitor and medical appointments to treat her Type 1 diabetes. ‘I was spending over $1,000 a month just trying to stay alive,’ said Clarke, a health coach and diabetes advocate who runs the Hangry Woman website.”
- “Instead of signing up for an ACA plan, Clarke married her partner, Greg, in a hastily planned courthouse ceremony on Dec. 1 so she could be added to his corporate health insurance plan. ‘The thing that kind of irks me is we had to rush our plans,’ Clarke said. ‘We had this thing looming over our heads, and the decision was life or death.’” [USA Today]
Tennessee
Robert and Emily Sory, Nashville
- “Robert Sory, who is trying to open a nonprofit animal sanctuary along with his wife Emily […] Both Robert and Emily will start 2026 without health insurance.”
- “When he looked up the rates for 2026, he saw a barebones “Bronze” plan would cost him at least $70 a month. He’s decided to forgo coverage altogether. ‘When you don’t have any income coming in, it doesn’t matter how cheap it is,’ he said. ‘It’s not affordable.’”
- “And if other medical problems emerge? They’re hoping for the best. ‘I’m not somebody who gets sick super often, thank god,’ Robert said. ‘And if I do, generally I go to an emergency room where they’re going to bill me later and I can get on a [re-payment] plan.’ Emily has some costly health conditions and has already taken on some substantial medical debt. ‘It’s just sitting there, and I’ve racked up money,’ she said. ‘But I’ve had to go to the doctor.’” [WPLN]
TJ, 33, and Kashayela, 30, Ankenbauer, Nashville
- “He said he is worried about providing for the couple’s twin boys, born prematurely in 2024 with serious medical illnesses. Oliver has cerebral palsy and Theodore, born with one smaller lung, still has a feeding tube.”
- “‘It does get tight,’ Ankenbauer said, of the family’s budget after the couple’s Marketplace premiums spiked from $28 a month to more than $100, even after they downgraded to a less comprehensive plan. The couple is hoping Congress extends the subsidies. ‘It would help out quite a bit and free up money for groceries, gas and other things,’ Ankenbauer said.” [The Tennessean]
Wisconsin
Kelly Berry, Altoona
- “‘To go from zero to $2,300 (per month) is financially a huge hit,’ said Berry, 58, who serves as a consultant and offers peer-review services for small businesses. They’ve cut back on streaming services and spent less on Christmas. They probably will skip vacation, and Berry won’t attend an upcoming work conference in Nova Scotia, Canada. Even after cutting household expenses, she doesn’t know if they will save enough to pay their monthly insurance bills.” [USA Today]
Marty, Sparta
- “Marty […] said the price for her basic-level plan increased by $1,000 per month.”
- “‘I know friends who said that their costs are going up $12,000, $16,000, $24,000, and they have no choice because they have health issues and they have to have medications,’ Marty noted. ‘My heart just breaks for them.’” [