Georgia residents could see as much as a 40% increase in their health insurance premiums if Congress does not act to extend the Affordable Care Act’s enhanced premium tax credits, U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff said at a press conference Thursday.
Ossoff, a Democrat, said he is urging congressional Republicans to “reverse course” on allowing the credits — which help subsidize ACA health care premiums for low-income and middle class families — to expire. Currently, families with incomes up to 400% of the federal poverty line are eligible for the credits, which comes out to $62,600 for a single-person household and $128,600 for a household of four.
Without the credits, Ossoff warned, health care costs are expected to rise dramatically, forcing families to pay more out of pocket or forgo health insurance coverage entirely.
“When folks can’t make their household finances work already with rent or the mortgage and the car payment and gas and groceries, the last thing Georgia families need right now is to be paying thousands of dollars more per year for their health insurance,” Ossoff said.
How many people in Georgia are projected to lose their health insurance access?
Roughly 310,000 people across Georgia are projected to lose access to health insurance by 2034 under the GOP’s budget reconciliation bill, often referred to by supporters as the “big, beautiful bill,” which was signed into law by President Donald Trump in July. If Congress allows enhanced tax credits for those insured through the Affordable Care Act to expire this year, that number could rise to 750,000, according to data from the nonprofit health policy research organization KFF.
