ICYMI
ICYMI: Your Health Care Costs More Because Republicans Wanted a Backdoor Abortion Ban Through the ACA
ICYMI: Your Health Care Costs More Because Republicans Wanted a Backdoor Abortion Ban Through the ACA
The Wall Street Journal: Negotiators Say Talks to Restore ACA Subsidies Likely Dead
POLITICO: More Americans are picking higher-deductible Obamacare plans, possibly risking their health
On Wednesday, top Senate negotiators declared that the deal to restore the expired Affordable Care Act enhanced premium tax credits had “effectively collapsed”—leaving 20 million Americans stuck with doubled premiums and no relief in sight. The breakdown came just a week after Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) circulated what he called Republicans’ “best and final offer” to extend the subsidies. That offer included new, unprecedented restrictions on abortion access.
Their constituents are paying the price. Monthly premiums doubled overnight when the credits expired on January 1, forcing families to make impossible choices between health care and rent, insulin and groceries. One small business owner’s monthly insurance cost jumped from $94 to $592.
And as POLITICO reported, more Americans are now turning to the cheapest tier of coverage—bronze plans with much higher out-of-pocket costs. In California, 73% of people who switched plans downgraded to bronze. In Rhode Island, bronze plan enrollment surged by 140%. As a result, more families face deductibles that are 40% higher. High-deductible plans create barriers to care—resulting in skipped doctor visits, screenings, and other lifesaving preventive care.
Republicans in Congress are holding affordable health care hostage in an attempt to satisfy their extremist backers. Anti-abortion groups like Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America threatened to withhold contributions from the $80 million they’ve pledged to midterm campaigns unless Republicans negotiating ACA tax credit extensions delivered an unprecedented ban on private insurance covering abortion—a backdoor abortion ban that would make care unaffordable or inaccessible for millions. As we previously shared, Republicans have consistently tried to claim this is about compliance with the Hyde Amendment, which has banned federal funding for abortion (with very narrow exceptions) since 1976. But this isn’t about Hyde: The ACA already explicitly incorporates Hyde and prohibits federal funds, including ACA tax credits, from covering most abortion care. This is about prohibiting any coverage of abortion care, no matter how it’s paid for.
Republican lawmakers have tried to hide that, because they know that 8 in 10 Americans—including Republicans, and including their constituents—support legal abortion. But anti-abortion groups have been loud and clear about their true intent. As POLITICO reported last month, abortion opponents “said they will be satisfied with nothing less than a blanket national ban on any insurance plan that covers abortion receiving any federal subsidy.”
In fact, SBA doubled down on their demands for a backdoor abortion ban—their spokesman told reporters that lawmakers who don’t comply “are going to pay the price in the midterms.” Every day Republicans continue to bow to these extremists, their constituents face higher costs, more people lose access to care, and the GOP digs itself deeper into an electoral hole. Still, Senate Republicans have abandoned their constituents to prioritize a fringe group that openly admits it’s on the wrong side of public opinion. “If you demoralize a small percentage of pro-lifers, even if it is only 2 percent of the total electorate in swing districts, that is devastation,” an SBA spokesperson told POLITICO.
In Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey this past November, every candidate Reproductive Freedom for All endorsed won, decisively defeating opponents voters viewed as extreme on abortion. Exit polls showed abortion played a critical role in voters’ decision-making in all three states. Even Trump ally Laura Loomer said Republicans’ focus on abortion meant “the GOP will blow the midterms.”
Yet Senate Republicans are keeping premiums sky high while they negotiate to deliver for anti-abortion extremists who now hold outsized power over health care policy for all Americans. The same organizations that fought to give frozen embryos the same legal status as children now decide whether your family can afford insurance.
Midterms are nine months away. Republicans are running out of time to decide who they actually govern for: will they choose their voters or their wannabe kingmakers?
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For over 55 years, Reproductive Freedom for All (formerly NARAL Pro-Choice America) has fought to protect and advance reproductive freedom at the federal and state levels—including access to abortion care, birth control, pregnancy and post-partum care, and paid family leave—for everybody. Reproductive Freedom for All is powered by its more than 4 million members from every state and congressional district in the country, representing the 8 in 10 Americans who support legal abortion.