What Americans Really Want for the Holidays This Year

Lowering the cost of health care is at the top of nearly every American’s wish list this year. In polls and at the ballot box, voters of all ideologies have singled out health care costs as the top issue for Congress and our government to address. And yet they have failed to act. Once again, Republicans in Congress have blocked the extension of critical health care tax credits that help keep coverage affordable for over 22 million people. These actions are forcing families off a financial cliff in the new year when their average premium will double, by over a thousand dollars, and in many cases by much more.

Even before the debate on health care tax credits took center stage, families were struggling to afford quality care — regardless of whether they’re uninsured or have insurance through the Affordable Care Act or their employer. Despite mitigation by the ACA that helped to slow growth, premiums over the last 20 years have spiked by a staggering 188%, leaving the average family of four paying over $35,000 annually for coverage. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Everything from prescription drugs to doctor visits to hospital stays has skyrocketed, far outpacing wages and inflation. As a result, people are delaying or forgoing care altogether, leaving them sicker and facing growing debt.

President Trump and Republicans in Congress then made specific policy choices to make affordability worse. Much worse. When extending tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations in the budget bill passed in July, they could have easily extended these critical health care tax credits for working people and families. Instead, they chose to impose the largest cuts to health care in history, raising costs for millions on Medicaid and the marketplaces.

Rather than cracking down on the corporate health systems driving up costs — or alleviating the financial burden on families — Republicans in Congress passed a budget bill that leave an estimated 15 million people uninsured, living sicker, dying younger, and one emergency from financial ruin.

The new year demands a new approach. We need to extend the tax credits, as an entry point to real reckoning with why we are paying too much for too little care, and still suffering with worse health outcomes. Congress must move beyond entrenched ideological positions and prioritize the needs of everyday families over the corporate profits of the health industry.

That means finding common ground on common sense policies that take on corporate health care systems and deliver immediate relief to families. Some specific proposals have been vetted and are actively pending in Congress with bipartisan support, including reforms to increase hospital price transparency, prohibit Medicare Advantage companies from exaggerating health risks to get paid more, and reducing unnecessary middlemen that drive up the cost of our prescription drugs. Policymakers of both parties are starting to recognize the role of industry consolidation in the rising price of care, and the need for greater oversight of big health corporations that are rigging the system.

We need to pass policies that end corporate health system abuses like overbilling and unchecked price gouging and advance an affordability agenda that takes on the drivers of increased costs whether from prescription drug companies, insurers, big hospital systems or other parts of the industry.

But today, Members of Congress can deliver the best gift of all for working families by immediately extending the health care tax credits — and then beginning a broader effort to address health care affordability overall.