Nevada Current: Lee warns of ‘debilitating’ health insurance premium hikes if Trump gets his way

U.S. Rep. Susie Lee on Thursday said she and her Democratic colleagues are working to extend Affordable Care Act tax credits set to expire this year, and if an impasse on the issue results in a federal government shutdown it will be the fault of Republicans.

Lee spoke alongside medical professionals from Southern Hills Hospital in Las Vegas to highlight the expiration of enhanced ACA subsidies enacted under the Biden administration. Lee’s comments come days before a Sept. 30 deadline to pass a budget bill that keeps the federal government operating.

“This is not a choice that Democrats are making,” Lee responded when asked if preserving the tax credits is worth shutting the government down. “This is a choice that Republicans are making. They control the House, the Senate, and the presidency.”

She added, “I think that Americans have made it clear that they value their health care and they value having access to health insurance, and I think it’s worth fighting for.”

An estimated 85,000 Nevadans are expected to lose their subsidy, according to Keep Americans Covered, a coalition of health care providers, insurers, and customers.

Nearly 9 out of 10 people who get insurance through Nevada HealthLink, the state’s ACA portal, receive a federal subsidy that lowers the cost of their premiums, according to the organization. Lee argued that Congress needs to act on the issue now because Oct. 1 is when most insurance companies set rates for the upcoming year. Americans will feel the impact of higher premiums and the lack of a tax credit that brings down their premium almost immediately.

Lee said Democrats are scheduled to return to Washington DC on Monday and “stand ready to negotiate.” But she acknowledged that negotiation is only possible when the other party participates.

“The Republicans aren’t going back to Washington on Monday like the Democrats,” she added.

On Thursday, Trump canceled a scheduled meeting with Democratic leaders, leading many to see a shutdown as highly likely. The White House Thursday also sent guidance to departments and agencies, telling them that if a shutdown begins Wednesday, they’re expected to institute mass firings and layoffs.

Lee said Republicans must “stand up with” Democrats and do what Congress has done since the Constitution was ratified in 1789, assert its constitutional authority.

“I have had Republicans in private say to me, ‘We need to reassert our power of the purse,’” said Lee. “I’m standing up. They need to stand up in public too. That’s really what this is going to come down to. At what point are they going to side with the American people over the corruption of this president?”

Lee said she has already introduced a bipartisan bill to address the expiring subsidies. She described it as “a stop gap.”

“What we really want is for these tax credits to be permanent,” she said. “In the big bill, tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans have been made permanent. Let’s make these tax credits permanent as well.”

She continued, “If we can’t get there, my bill just says ‘let’s extend them for one more year and we’ll negotiate in a year.’”

ACA plan premiums are already expected to rise by 17.5% in Nevada next year, something Lee ascribes to “all the other stuff” that was in the Trump-backed One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Insurers have cited the expiration of enhanced premium tax credits and the impact of tariffs as reasons for the skyrocketing premiums, according to KFF.

The end result is that some families in Nevada could pay upwards of 200% more, according to Keep Americans Covered.

A 60-year-old couple earning $80,000 a year would see their premium increase by more than $12,000 for the year, while a family of four with an income of $64,000 would see an increase of more than $2,500.

“These are debilitating increases,” Lee said.

Lee, as she has in the past, emphasized that rising premiums for Americans with health insurance secured through the ACA will affect people who secure their insurance through their employer or other means.

“You’re going to see our uninsured population increase probably back to what we were before, which was over 20% in our state,” she said. “As a result of that, they will go to access care at a hospital like Southern Hills at the emergency room. And then, as a result, we all pay. Our insurance premiums will all go up.”

Dr. Mark Glyman, the chief of surgery at Southern Hills Hospital, said the loss of the tax credits will devastate rural hospitals: “They will disappear and that will have a chain reaction on the bigger hospitals.”

Rural patients will have to travel to the bigger hospitals, putting additional pressure on those systems, which are already dealing with issues like worker shortages.

“Even a large hospital like Sunrise, which operates at a loss, will not be able to survive this,” he added.

Defending the ACA
Lee noted that 1 in 10 ACA enrollees are children, and 1 in 4 are between the ages of 50 to 64.

“They don’t qualify for Medicare,” she said of the latter group. “They tend to get higher rates because they’re a little older, a little less healthy.”

Lee recalled a pre-ACA medical crisis that could have bankrupted her own parents. Her mother, shortly before turning 65 and becoming eligible for Medicare, had a major heart attack and spent a month in the hospital.

At the time, their preexisting conditions meant they could not afford insurance. Lee said her mom’s hospital stay resulted in a medical bill “that was basically the value of her home.”

The family was lucky to get onto a payment plan and not lose their home, she said.

Glyman shared a similar personal story, recalling a loved one who, three years ago, spent six months in the hospital with covid. He said her recovery was their family’s top priority, but that in the back of his mind he knew they were at risk of losing everything financially.

The extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO, keeping the family member alive cost $75,000 per day on top of other hospital costs. She was on it for two months.

Eventually, she made a full recovery.

Real people are behind the premiums, he argued.

“The people we’re taking care of are not strangers,” he said. “They are our parents. They’re our children. They’re our neighbors.”

He added later, “Health care is more than science. It’s humanity. It’s compassion. And it is us. Nobody in Nevada should feel abandoned. Nobody. … Nobody should have to come to the hospital and worry about the fact they’re going to be bankrupt.”