Healthcare Heist Protest - Virginia Beach, VA

Earlier this month a small group of activists rallied on a busy street corner in Virginia Beach to express their anger with proposed cuts to healthcare access. The protest was organized by COVA Coalition and Freedom Virginia, two progressive nonprofits.

Dr. Nila Devanath, who is running for Virginia’s 2nd District told me that the cuts are “are extremely unconscionable. I see patients suffer in the every single day. People coming in, you know skipping appointments with their primary care doctors for something small, and then they end up in the emergency room and they’re septic, or they’re in the ICU, and then I have to see them.”

The COVID era subsidies for the Affordable Care Act end December 31st - something that will cause American’s health care costs to skyrocket. According to KFFs analysis, premiums will more than double for most people using the ACA Marketplace.

Becky Roberts who tells me that she could have been on disability her whole life but she wanted to work, “Because I work for small companies and because of my preexisting condition, it wasn’t until the Affordable Care Act that I was able to get insurance.”

She had surgery earlier in the year and is going to physical therapy so she doesn’t end up staying in a wheel chair, but if the subsidies don’t continue she won’t be able afford physical therapy.

Congress has been taking their time dealing with figuring out a bill to extend the subsidies. This of course happens at the same time that Trump has restarted the Republican perennial promise of their own healthcare plan to replace “Obamacare.” Beyond that Trump has thrown out the idea of just sending money to Americans directly. Politico quoted the President on December 11th as saying, “What we’re doing is we want all of the billions and billions of dollars that went to insurance companies to go directly to the people and they can buy their own health care. And people love it. I don’t know if the Democrats are going to approve it because they want the insurance companies to make money.”

The White House has made no movement on that proposal. Meanwhile, according to The Hill “Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and other GOP centrists are planning to introduce an amendment in the House Rules Committee on Tuesday [December 16th] that pairs a two-year extension of the subsidies with eligibility reforms, according to a House GOP staffer who spoke on the condition of anonymity.”

The fight is going to be between the more centrist Republicans and the hard-line ‘let them die in the gutter’ Republicans. According to Emma Wagner writing for KFF, “18.7 million (77%) of the total 24.3 million ACA Marketplace enrollees live in states President Trump won in the 2024 election.”

Republican Rep Jen Kiggans (VA-2), a veteran, who has voted consistently with Trump and stood by him as he called members of the military, “losers” and “suckers” has a bill with Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) and 16 other GOP co-sponsors that might extend the credits. According to Politico, the Kiggans/Gottheimer bill “would extend enhanced premium tax credits for one year with new income caps and guardrails to crack down on fraud.”