Washington, D.C. — On January 1st, the GOP health care hikes will take effect, doubling, tripling, and even quadrupling the premiums of over 20 million Americans across the nation. This overnight hike is a calculated attack on working Americans’ health care — engineered with the sole purpose of funding yet another GOP tax break for billionaires and big corporations. Although a clean 3-year extension of the Affordable Care Act tax credits has majority and bipartisan support in the House and Senate, the GOP skipped town without providing relief to hardworking families.
“When the clock strikes midnight, the fallout of the GOP’s premium hikes will ripple throughout the nation,” said Protect Our Care Chair Leslie Dach. “This new year brings a health care catastrophe unlike anything this nation has ever seen. Hard-working Americans will be sent into crippling medical debt, emptying out their savings just to see a doctor. Others will be forced to live without the life-saving coverage they need. Untold tens of thousands will die from preventable causes. And hundreds of hospitals, nursing homes, and maternity wards will shutter or be at risk of disappearing out of thin air. When the American people go to the ballot box in November, they won’t forget who’s responsible for all of this chaos and carnage. They won’t forget who’s responsible for their skimpier coverage, sky-high premiums, and vanishing hospitals.”
Background
For months, coverage has depicted the toll of this health care betrayal on real people. Hard-working Americans are going uninsured and praying a medical emergency won’t wipe out their life savings. Small business owners are preparing to shut down what they spent blood, sweat, and tears building because the Trump-GOP premium hikes are pricing them out of the market entirely. Parents are being forced to make impossible choices between their medical treatments, rent, and feeding their babies because Trump and Republicans voted to bust their budgets with unaffordable premium hikes.
- Trump and Republicans in Congress ended tax credits and spiked health care costs for millions to give more tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations.
- More than 20 million Americans will see their health care premiums double or triple in the new year, and over four million will lose their coverage because Republicans made it unaffordable. 1 in 3 people buying insurance on their own will be forced to reduce their coverage and pay more out of pocket.
- In states like West Virginia, older adults are facing premium hikes as high as $3,800 a month. For more examples of premium hikes facing families and seniors across the nation, see our latest report.
- Hospitals and clinics across the country, already struggling to stay open in the wake of the largest cuts to health care in history, will face an additional $32 billion loss due to the GOP premium disaster.
- Republicans could have passed a three-year extension and put a stop to the premium hikes, but they believe affordability is a “hoax.”