Democratic lawmakers are introducing legislation to extend the Biden-era program that provides extra financial assistance for health coverage purchases, aiming to prevent a potential setback to the Affordable Care Act.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and two other Democratic lawmakers are planning to introduce legislation that would keep the Biden-era program going, aides to lawmakers told HuffPost. Most likely, the lawmakers will introduce their bill formally on Thursday.Getting the proposal through Congress won’t be easy now that both houses are under the control of Republicans, who have traditionally opposed government-financed health care programs and have said cutting federal spending is a priority.
But there are reasons to think the Democratic proposal, or at least some version of it, could become law. And at the top of the list is the fact that doing nothing ― in other words, allowing the Biden-era program to lapse completely ― would mean a major setback to the Affordable Care Act. It provides extra financial assistance to people who are buying coverage on their own, whether through the federal insurance marketplace (HealthCare.gov) or one of its state-run analogues (Covered California, Minnesota’s MNsure, and so on).The extra assistance can bring down premiums by hundreds, or in some cases thousands, of dollars. That’s enough to allow people to buy better coverage or save meaningfully on premiums ― and, in some cases, to buy insurance when they would otherwise remain uninsured. Since President Joe Biden signed into law, the number of people getting coverage on the marketplaces has risen to record highs, contributing almost certainly to a record decline in the number of uninsured Americans.But the authorization and funding for the extra assistance will run out at the end of 2025 — unless Congress acts.Shaheen and her Wisconsin colleague, fellow Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin, plan to introduce legislation on Thursday that would make the extra assistance permanent. Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.) is planning to introduce a companion version in the House. The proposal itself isn’t really new, and neither is the idea
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