Senator Reverend Warnock Urges Senate Leadership To Extend Critical Federal Health Care Subsidies

This week, U.S. Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock (D-GA) joined his Senate colleagues to push Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to prioritize making permanent the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) enhanced premium tax credits in upcoming reconciliation legislation, which are set to expire at the end of this year. These enhancements have lowered costs and expanded access to health care for millions of Americans.

"Americans deserve a stable health care market that provides access to high-quality care coverage for all, and American Rescue Plan Act's (ARPA) enhanced premium tax credits must be extended to ensure that we can maintain our progress on closing the coverage gap. Failure to do so will leave millions with increased costs for vital health insurance, undoing Democrats' progress in ensuring that every American has access to affordable, meaningful coverage," wrote the lawmakers.

Senator Warnock and his colleagues underscored how critical 2022 has been for the ACA, with a record 14.5 million Americans signed up for Marketplace plans. Of those 14.5 million, 13 million Americans received subsidies that helped low- and middle-income individuals and families purchase previously unaffordable coverage. It also eliminated premiums for those making 150 percent of the federal poverty level and guaranteed comprehensive coverage costs no more than 8.5 percent of a family's income. Millions of those Marketplace enrollees are benefiting from enhanced premium tax credits passed by Congress as part of the ARPA, which have cut premiums in half for many beneficiaries. This year, four out of five enrollees have been able to find a plan for $10 or less per month, and families are saving an average of $2,400 on their annual premiums. With these subsidies set to expire at the end of 2022, the Senators urged congressional leadership to make them permanent in upcoming reconciliation legislation.

Senator Reverend Warnock was a key advocate in ensuring the extended ACA subsidies made their way into the American Rescue Plan and is fighting in Washington to close the Medicaid coverage gap in Georgia, and has been a champion in the Senate for including provisions in any reconciliation plan to provide health care coverage for the approximately more than 4 million Americans, including 646,000 Georgians, who make too much money to qualify for traditional Medicaid coverage but make too little money to afford coverage on the marketplace.

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