Back in 2022, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act (H.R.5376). It is a hefty bit of legislation, but Subtitle C reads:
You will note the part reading “2021 THROUGH 2025.” The bill legislated for these “temporary” subsidies, enacted in 2021, to be extended, but only until 2025.
This was not some secret. KFF (formerly known as The Kaiser Family Foundation) reported at the time:
As part of the Inflation Reduction Act, the Senate recently passed a three-year extension (through 2025) of enhanced subsidies for people buying their own health coverage on the Affordable Care Act Marketplaces. These temporary subsidies were originally slated to last two years (2021 and 2022) and were passed as part of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). The enhanced subsidies increase the amount of financial help available to those already eligible and also newly expand subsidies to middle-income people, many of whom were previously priced out of coverage.
This bill passed the Senate on August 7, 2022. Every single Republican voted against it. Every single Democrat voted for it. And that, of course, includes Minnesota’s own two Senators, Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith.
Senators Klobuchar and Smith have now voted 14 times against passing a bill to fund the federal government and to keep it closed, and they are doing so because, they say, the Republicans are going to let these “temporary” subsidies expire.
