Millions of Americans just opened health insurance notices that felt like a gut punch. Premiums are up. Coverage is thinner. Subsidies are gone. And congressional Republicans are acting like this was some kind of unforeseeable event instead of a policy choice with a calendar reminder.
This didn’t “happen.” It was allowed.
The spike is not subtle. As noted by HuffPost, health care costs surged after pandemic-era subsidies expired, hitting middle- and working-class families hardest. For many, monthly premiums jumped by hundreds of dollars overnight.
This wasn’t buried in fine print. Advocates warned about it for years. Republicans knew exactly when the assistance would lapse. And then they let it lapse anyway despite fierce opposition from Democrats.
Who Gets Hit First? Not the People Writing the Laws
The people absorbing these increases aren’t hedge fund managers. They’re gig workers, early retirees, and families just above Medicaid thresholds. Many are now forced to choose between downgraded coverage or going uninsured altogether.
This was not a market correction. It was a policy pushed by Donald Trump and his allies in Congress.
And it’s one Republicans prefers not to talk about, because fixing it requires going against Trump — or admitting that the current system is structurally hostile to anyone without employer-sponsored insurance.
The subsidies worked. They lowered costs. They expanded coverage. Their expiration did exactly what critics warned it would do.
Pretending this is some mysterious cost surge insults the public’s intelligence.
This Was a Choice — and It’s Still Reversible
Nothing about this is locked in. Congress can reinstate subsidies. States can expand coverage. The tools exist.
What’s missing is urgency. And urgency only appears when enough people feel pain loudly enough to disrupt the political comfort zone.
Health care remains a decisive issue for voters, and Republicans should pay a price at the ballot box in the 2026 midterms.
