Congress is about to hike up Wyoming’s health insurance costs

The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” is supposed to be all about tax breaks. 

But the bill actually cancels a tax break that could skyrocket health insurance costs for tens of thousands of people in Wyoming and drive up prices for all of us.

Wyoming’s Rep. Harriet Hageman and Sens. John Barrasso and Cynthia Lummis love to talk about all the tax breaks that the Big Beautiful Bill is supposed to create. 

But they’re awfully quiet about getting rid of this one. 

As it’s written, the “Big Beautiful Bill” eliminates major tax credits that people in Wyoming use to buy private health insurance off the federal Healthcare Marketplace, via healthcare.gov.

By eliminating these tax credits, the bill would double, triple, or even quadruple the cost of insurance premiums many people in Wyoming pay. 

The result will be even tighter family budgets, more people without insurance, more medical debt, bankrupted hospitals, sicker communities, and a sicker workforce.

Currently, a single person earning $62,000 a year in Wyoming can buy a year’s worth of medical insurance for $5,270 thanks to Marketplace tax credits. If the Big Beautiful Bill eliminates those credits, that price will increase to $11,810, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. 

That’s more than double the cost. And that’s not the worst of it.

Older people in Wyoming who aren’t quite eligible for Medicare will see the biggest increases. 

Right now, a 60-year-old couple earning $80,000 a year together can buy health insurance from the Marketplace for $6,970 to cover both of them. 

Again, this is thanks to tax credits.

Under the Big Beautiful Bill, the cost will shoot up to $44,392 a year just for insurance premiums.

For most people nearing retirement, this cost will simply be impossible to pay.

Just shy of 40,000 people in Wyoming get their health insurance through the Marketplace, KFF Health News reported. 

These are mostly people who are self-employed or who work for small businesses that don’t offer job-based coverage, or they’re people who string together two or three part-time gigs. 

If you’ve never bought health insurance off the Marketplace — I did for years — what happens is that you select a plan from a private company, like Blue Cross Blue Shield, but you pay a lower price than you normally would as an individual customer. 

Your Marketplace tax credit covers the difference.

Americans have been eligible to buy health insurance with Marketplace tax credits since 2014. During the pandemic, Congress created “enhanced” tax credits that made insurance affordable for even more people.

These enhanced credits have been wildly popular in Wyoming. The number of people who got coverage with Marketplace tax credits in Wyoming increased by more than 75% since 2020, according to KFF Health News.

These “enhanced” credits are what the “Big Beautiful Bill” seeks to eliminate. 

This will mean a total loss of health coverage for 11,000 people in Wyoming. 

But that’s not all. The way it’s set up, Marketplace tax credits are basically subsidy payments to private insurance companies. 

When private companies lose a source of revenue, what do they do? 

They raise prices for the remaining customers.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Wyoming is the state’s largest insurer — covering more than 100,000 people — and the largest local vendor for coverage on the Healthcare Marketplace. They stand to lose significant business thanks to the “Big Beautiful Bill” and will react by driving up premium prices for the rest of us.

On top of the thousands of people who totally lose coverage as a result of canceling the Marketplace tax credits, roughly one in five people in the state will face a premium increase on their job-based or other private insurance.

Tax breaks are great for the people who need them. 

Right now, families in Wyoming need a break to help shoulder the cost of healthcare in our state, which is the second-highest in the nation.

Unfortunately, our elected leaders in Congress are too busy cheerleading tax cuts in the Big Beautiful Bill that will mostly benefit the richest people and corporations in America, all while driving up our national debt and increasing your health care premiums.

That doesn’t seem like much of a break to me.