Health insurance premiums will soon double for tens of millions of Americans on average as a result of Republicans’ marquee budget bill, a new report by Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vermont) office reports, making health care even more unaffordable as the cost of living rises in the U.S.
The roughly 24 million Americans who buy health insurance from the marketplace will soon see the impacts on their premiums for next year. This is a result of Republicans refusing to extend premium tax credits under the Affordable Care Act, Sanders’s office wrote in a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) report released Tuesday, citing the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF).
According to the KFF analysis, average Affordable Care Act premiums will go from $888 to $1904 a month annually. The rise in rates will also be caused by insurers proposing a raise in their rates by a median of 18 percent, the largest increase since 2018, when other Trump-era policy changes caused uncertainty, KFF found.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration quietly pushed through a rule earlier this year that will allow insurers to raise premiums for marketplace plans and for millions on plans purchased through their workplace.
Sanders’s office reviewed state estimates for various family units, and found staggering price increases.
For instance, it found that a couple living in northern Virginia making $85,000 a year would see their premium increase from $650 a month to $2,195 a month — an increase of over $1,500 a month. A couple in Savannah, Georgia, living with two adult children, meanwhile, would see their cost increase by $3,150 monthly, going from $940 to $4,089 a month.
These increases are one of the direct results of the Republican budget bill, which, in combination with its massive tax cuts for the wealthy, represents one of the single largest redistributions of wealth in a bill in U.S. history.
“Today, we have a health care system that is broken, dysfunctional, and horrifically cruel. Over 85 million people are uninsured or underinsured. We pay twice as much for health care per person than virtually every major country in the world,” Sanders’s report says.
“In my view, we have to do what every other major country on earth has done, and guarantee health care as a human right through a Medicare for All, single-payer system. But in the midst of all of this, Trump and his Republican colleagues are doing exactly the opposite. They are making a horrific situation even worse by pushing our health care system to the verge of collapse,” it goes on.
The rate increases are in addition to the 15 million Americans who will be kicked off of their health insurance due to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s drastic cuts to Medicaid and other key programs. As a result, researchers have estimated that 51,000 people will die per year, while hundreds of thousands of others will become sicker due to a lack of treatment.
Sanders’s office gathered accounts of people who say they will die without their coverage, including people with cancer. Others said they are already struggling to afford basic needs due to premiums and other rising costs, and will suffer even further if their premiums increase.
“My husband and I own a small business in Texas. My husband and I are on the ACA,” shared Bobbi, from Texas. “I have Lung Cancer. I will lose my coverage due to the increase as it is already [and] has high premiums. I will die without healthcare and so will many others.”
“I live in fear of whether or not I will be able to afford my life saving treatment. I have a rare kidney disease that requires immunotherapy every 9 months,” said Laura, of Wisconsin. “I’m terrified I’ll die.”
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