ICYMI: Davids Fights to Protect Health Care Premium Tax Credits Before Expiration

In case you missed it, Representative Sharice Davids is working to protect and extend Affordable Care Act tax credits that keep health care affordable for Kansas families. But because Congressional Republicans have refused to extend them, premiums could rise by $700 next year, putting thousands of Kansans at risk of paying more or losing coverage.

Davids has been a consistent advocate for protecting ACA tax credits and making health care more affordable. She supported legislation to extend these critical premium reductions and supports making them permanent, ensuring that Kansans — especially those with chronic conditions, small business owners, and families — can keep their coverage and avoid devastating cost increases.

In Kansas alone, more than 160,000 people relied on these tax credits last year. Davids urged Congressional leaders to include an extension in the latest funding bill, but federal Republicans refused — leaving Kansas families facing higher costs and fewer options.

Davids’ work to lower health care costs made headlines statewide:

Kansas City Star: “KC-area cancer patient depends on tax credit. Will Congress let it expire?” by Matt Kelly

“In May 2017, Dawn Wheeler’s older sister informed her that she had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. Wheeler’s involuntary response to the message likely saved her own life.

[…]

Discovering the tumor gave her a chance. But… now, the expanded ACA tax credits she’s relied on to keep up with the cost of her aggressive treatment are set to expire at the end of 2025.

‘My premium should be in the thousands, and that tax credit just brings it down to an affordable amount,’ said Wheeler, who told The Star she reliably hits her out-of-pocket spending maximum in January… Wheeler said it’s unnerving to know that her future ability to keep up with chemotherapy expenses could hinge on whether lawmakers can reach an agreement to extend the enhanced premium tax credits.

‘It’s terrifying for someone like me,’ she said.

U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids has been a vocal proponent of extending the tax credits indefinitely. Last month, in a letter to congressional leaders, she argued that even a short-term extension would provide a lifeline for people struggling to keep up with high health care costs.

‘If we don’t act, the ripple effects of this increase will be devastating,’ the Democratic congresswoman said… ‘This is not a hypothetical. Healthy people will be forced to drop their coverage, which will leave the insurance pool with way more people that have chronic conditions or high medical costs, and that drives up premiums for everybody.’

Davids said more than 160,000 people in Kansas rely on the enhanced tax credits, which provide an average annual savings of $705, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis.

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Davids said a family of four in her district could see a $7,000 increase in premium costs if the enhanced credits expire. ‘A 60-year-old couple could see a nearly $17,000 increase in their cost each year,’ Davids said. ‘The numbers are staggering and they’re completely unacceptable.’”

Kansas Reflector: “Kansas cancer survivor fears for health care as Congress weighs premium tax credit extension,” by Anna Kaminski

“Dawn Wheeler, a small business owner in Edwardsville, receives treatment for her metastatic breast cancer almost weekly. One shot, which she gets every other week to treat cancer in her liver, costs around $10,000, she said.

[…]

Wheeler is one of more than 187,000 Kansans who rely on Affordable Care Act premium tax credits to subsidize health care costs, but those credits are set to expire at the end of the year, and advocates are warning of lost coverage and a more than 75% spike in premium costs as they wait for lawmakers to decide the credits’ fate.

Unless Congress extends the tax credits, health care costs for the more than 22 million Americans who have health insurance through the ACA Marketplace are expected to increase, and community hospitals could bear the burden of uncompensated care. 

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Cindy Samuelson, senior vice president of member and public relations for the Kansas Hospital Association, said on the call that hospitals have made it clear that premium tax credits have played a key role in reducing the number of uninsured patients in Kansas and across the country.

On average, enrollees’ annual premium costs could increase by an estimated $700, or 77%, if the tax credits are not extended, Samuelson said. Projections from KFF estimate that between 48,000 and 61,000 Kansans could lose coverage because of higher premium costs over the next decade. An estimate from the Hutchinson-based United Methodist Health Ministry Fund projects 108,000 Kansans losing coverage over the same time frame.

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Davids said she supports a permanent extension to the tax credits… ‘If we don’t act, the ripple effect of this increase will be devastating,’ Davids said. She said she is willing to work with either party to pass a feasible extension. ‘We are also staring down another challenge that, unfortunately, we’ve become too familiar with, which is a potential government shutdown,’ Davids said.”