The federal shutdown has officially ended without a deal in place to extend the expiring Affordable Care Act enhanced premium tax credits.
They were first introduced in 2021 and increased financial assistance for eligible enrollees. Now, Americans are choosing their health plans for next year with the credits set to expire on December 31st.
WFDD’s DJ Simmons recently spoke with North Carolina Justice Center’s Senior Health Policy Advocate Rebecca Cerese.
Interview highlights
"It's going to lead to more people choosing not to get health coverage, especially if they're healthy. And of course, the way insurance works is you have a big, giant risk pool, right? And the reason that prices are not even higher than they are is because you have healthy people in that risk pool, along with sick people, and the more healthy people that are in there, that actually drives costs down."
"The truth of the matter is that even with those enhanced tax credits, health insurance, I should say, is really not affordable for a lot of people. Unfortunately, a lot of insurance plans, and not just ones on the marketplace by the way, these are employer-based plans as well. These insurance companies, because unfortunately, many of them are profit-centered instead of patient-centered, have found ways, very clever ways, to move more and more of the out-of-pocket costs to the patient."