If the House of Representatives enacts a continuing appropriations bill that takes no action to prevent unaffordable increases in health insurance costs, it will be an immense failure to respond to their constituents’ urgent needs.  Millions of people will be forced to discontinue their health coverage.  Millions more will have to pay huge increases in premiums, threatening their ability to pay for their other basic needs.  With open enrollment in place around the country, more than 20 million people who depend on Affordable Care Act’s marketplace coverage are deciding right now, and millions are seeing that their premiums will at least double.  Failing to protect them is unacceptable.  That is why the Coalition on Human Needs strongly urges members of the House of Representatives to vote NO on the Senate’s continuing appropriations bill, or any similar bill that does not include an extension of the ACA’s enhanced premium tax credits.

The faith groups, service providers, labor, and other advocates making up the Coalition on Human Needs are well aware of the pain caused by the federal government shutdown.  We have seen the dramatic surge in need for emergency food and delayed or denied services affecting young children, older people, people with disabilities, and others.  More than 40 million people who receive SNAP food assistance have been cruelly and illegally denied food by the Trump administration, which has prolonged its denial of SNAP by appeals all the way to the Supreme Court, and has wantonly denied services to people with low incomes.  It has used the shutdown to make things harder for people with low incomes, while pushing forward its agenda of militarized actions against our own communities, firings and threatened refusal to pay federal workers, and gutting enforcement of tax laws resulting in the loss of hundreds of billions in tax revenues that are owed by the ultra-wealthy and big corporations.

The Trump administration’s eagerness to pursue its own ends, despite the law and despite the harm to people of modest means, is all the more reason why we urge House members to vote NO.  Appropriations legislation, short-term or full-year, should include language to protect Congressionally approved funds from being frozen or rescinded by the administration, along with extending expiring funding to stop efforts to “run out the clock.” CHN’s letter to members of the House, detailing these concerns, is here: https://www.chn.org/voices/chn-to-house-address-rising-health-costs-oppose-the-november-spending-package/.

So much is at stake. Congress must fulfill its responsibility to enact legislation and funding to help people.  It must respond to the emergency of the current open enrollment period for ACA marketplace insurance.  We have asked people who are enrolled in ACA health insurance to tell us what they are seeing as they look to re-enroll.  One, from Longview, Washington, said this:

“My husband is a year out from being on Medicare. He gets his healthcare through the ACA. It went from $250 a month to $550 a month last year. Now it will go up to $2,56 a month And that is before any medical bills. With the cost of everything how can people Afford that. My husband takes Eliquis to avoid blood clots. We are very worried now.”

A retired man in St. Augustine, Florida, described his wife’s struggle to get the treatment she requires for a rare form of cancer.  She is working and gets her insurance through the ACA marketplace. Her ACA coverage cost has already risen to $700 per month while the quality of her care has declined. The same plan without the current subsidy will rise to $1,500 per month. He says:

“We are on a somewhat fixed income and cannot afford such an exorbitant increase. What does a person do? Just say “oh well” and hope for the best when we’ve paid into the system for decades and while the cost of literally everything increases? This is not sustainable.”

A resident of Red Rock, Arizona shared this:

“My husband’s ACA health plan premium is increasing from $300 to $1300 per month. There is no way we can afford this, so he will have no insurance next year. We are terrified.”

There are millions more people similarly struggling.  They are making decisions now.  That is why the House must act now to reject the spending bill before them and to vote for a bill that extends the ACA enhanced premium tax credits and takes steps to strengthen Congress’ authority to fund health care and many other basic needs programs.