Shaheen Again Calls on Congressional Republicans to Prevent Price Spikes and Coverage Loss for Millions of Americans Before Health Care Tax Credits Expire

(Washington, DC) – U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), author of the bicameral bill to permanently extend Affordable Care Act (ACA) enhanced premium tax credits, today delivered remarks alongside Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) to highlight the consequences of allowing the health care tax credits to expire at the end of the year. Senator Shaheen has led the push in Congress to act before the tax credits expire, which would cause premiums to skyrocket for more than 20 million Americans and kick roughly four million people off of their health insurance entirely. Click HERE to watch the Senator’s full remarks.

Key quotes from Senator Shaheen:

• “We have tens of millions of Americans who rely on the enhanced premium tax credits that we have championed here in the Senate for many years. They rely on them to keep their health insurance premiums affordable – and if Congress doesn’t act, this program is gonna expire at the end of the year. We had an opportunity in that Big Beautiful Betrayal Bill to extend them, and of course, this administration refused to do that.”

• “And failing to extend these credits will hurt small businesses that create jobs and power local economies all across this country. I think that’s one reason that two of President Trump’s pollsters have said that the Republicans’ failure to extend the premium tax credits is going to be very bad news for Republicans next year in the election.”

• “So as we near the deadline for government funding, I hope my Republican colleagues in Congress will join us and act to extend these tax credits and keep health insurance affordable for millions of Americans.”

Remarks as delivered:

Thank you to Leader Schumer, thank you to all of you for being here. And thank you to our storytellers, Laura Packard and Lester.

As Senator Schumer said, we have tens of millions of Americans who rely on the enhanced premium tax credits that we have championed here in the Senate for many years.

They rely on them to keep their health insurance premiums affordable – and if Congress doesn’t act, this program is gonna expire at the end of the year.

We had an opportunity in that Big Beautiful Betrayal Bill to extend them, and of course, this administration refused to do that.

And what we know is that consumers will start feeling the pain much earlier than that.

President Trump ran on bringing down prices. In office, he’s done the exact opposite.

That’s why it’s so important to extend these tax credits and give families more breathing room, because what we saw in that big bill was that we kicked millions of Americans off of Medicaid, we failed to extend those enhanced premium tax credits that so many families rely on in order to afford health insurance.

So far this year, as Leader Schumer said, we have tried to advance my bill offering a permanent extension three times. And each time my Republicans colleagues have blocked it.

If Republicans continue to block this extension, this is what it means:

It would raise the cost of insurance by over 75% on average for tens of millions of people in this country – so that’s the biggest increase in health insurance premiums in over a decade.

In New Hampshire alone, we have over 45 thousand people who could lose their health insurance if these tax credits expire.

We’ve already had four health care facilities in New Hampshire close because of what has been done to kick people off of Medicaid and to not extend the premium tax credits in New Hampshire.

So, imagine what the impact is gonna be if we don’t address this.

Last week I spoke with one of my constituents, a man named Paul from Canaan. Canaan is in a very rural, northern part of our state.

He told me that his family, including his wife who has a pre-existing autoimmune disease, rely on these tax credits to be able to pay for health insurance.

He said that, thanks to the credits, he no longer fears that one single emergency room visit could bankrupt his family.

Unfortunately, that’s something I’ve heard from many other people – not just Paul.

And according to a study that a number of us Senators commissioned from the Georgetown University Center for Health Insurance Reform, the people who are going to be most affected by our failure to extend these tax credits are:

Those who live in rural areas, like Paul.

Those from working families, like Paul.

Older Americans.

And small business owners.

Those are the people who can least afford these cost increases.

And failing to extend the credits will hurt the small businesses that create jobs and power local economies all across this country. I think that’s one reason that two of President Trump’s pollsters have said that the Republicans’ failure to extend the premium tax credits is going to be very bad news for Republicans next year in the election.

So as we near the deadline for government funding, I hope my Republican colleagues in Congress will join us and act to extend these tax credits and keep health insurance affordable for millions of Americans.

Thank you.

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