As Congress is gridlocked, Idahoans are hurting more by the day | Opinion
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Congressional stalemate drives subsidy cuts, forcing 25,000 Idahoans off plans.
- Premiums jump for modest earners: example families face $160–$191 monthly.
- Idaho delegation can extend credits or target aid; Bipartisan bill awaits.
While politicians bicker in Washington, Idahoans are starting to feel the bite of their inability to reach compromise.
At the center of the ongoing federal government shutdown, which now endangers payments for both the WIC and SNAP programs, is a fight over subsidies to individuals who buy their insurance on exchanges like Your Health Idaho. Republicans chose to let enhanced subsidies expire, which were passed during the pandemic and extended both eligibility for and the level of subsidies. Democrats are fighting for them to be renewed.
In all, Your Health Idaho expects about 25,000 of the state’s 135,000 enrollees to drop coverage without extension of the enhanced credits, or around one in five.
“There are a lot of consumers with concerns around prices,” Your Health Idaho Executive Director Pat Kelly said in an interview.
These are not cost increases caused by the Affordable Care Act — costs were rising rapidly before Obamacare was implemented in 2014, and those rising costs have remained on an unchanged trajectory. Reducing the actual cost of care remains an unsolved and uniquely American problem which the national GOP seems to have entirely given up on solving.
The cause of the price spike is a mixture between America’s uniquely expensive health care system and, particularly for low-income families, the congressional Republicans’ decision to sunset the subsidies.
The Kaiser Family Foundation has a calculator that lets you see exactly what the falling subsidy level will mean for families near the poverty line.
- For a family of two parents and one child making $45,000 per year, monthly premiums have soared from $28 to $191 per month for a sliver plan.
- For a family with two parents and two children making $50,000 per year, monthly premiums will go from $9 to $186 per month.
- For a single mother with two children living off $42,000 per year, monthly premiums would go from $11 to $160 per month.
Kelly recommended that families like these work with licensed agents and brokers around Idaho to try to find plans that will work for them.
“They’re experts in your community, and there’s no cost for consumers to use them,” he said.
But the simple fact is, many won’t be able to find a plan they can afford. The economics are just too stark. Idaho’s congressional delegation should take responsibility for this problem and do something about it.
A compromise Idaho’s congressional delegation could float is to allow credits to expire for families substantially above the federal poverty level, while retaining the elevated subsidy level for those who are truly struggling.
Their constituents — many small business owners and independent contractors who don’t have access to employer health coverage — are right now realizing the staggering impact the decision not to renew those credits will have on their ability to pay rent, keep the lights on and feed their kids.
Reps. Mike Simpson and Russ Fulcher could help them by signing onto the Bipartisan Premium Tax Credit Extension Act, as 14 other House Republicans already have. Sens. Jim Risch and Mike Crapo could signal that they’ll support such extensions as well, pushing toward breaking the stalemate in the Senate.
Their failure to take such steps has already cost Idahoans on the exchange significantly. Here’s why: You’re more likely to make the decision that you can get by without expensive health insurance coverage for a year if you’re a young, healthy person than if you’re an older, sicker person. So the spike in premiums means insurers expect the pool of people remaining in their health care coverage pool to be older and sicker on average, and therefore more expensive.
Kelly said it’s hard to pin down the precise size of the effect in Idaho, but “across the nation, most states are expecting a 4 or 5 percent impact from the expiration of the tax credits.”
That expectation is already priced in, and so even if Congress extends the enhanced tax credits, that higher average price probably won’t come down — though Kelly said Your Health Idaho “stands ready to update our systems” if tax credits are extended.
And a significant amount of the damage Congress has caused to low-income Idahoans’ pocketbooks could still be fixed by renewing the credits, if Idaho’s delegation cares to break party lines and work on behalf of their constituents’ real interests.
Bryan Clark is an opinion writer for the Idaho Statesman.