EAU CLAIRE, Wis. (WEAU) – Both Senator Tammy Baldwin and Congressman Derrick Van Orden touch on the possibility of the Affordable Care Act tax credits expiring and a local woman reacts to this.
One La Crosse woman and her husband are retirees relying on the Affordable Care Act marketplace for their healthcare.
During a press Zoom call with Senator Tammy Baldwin’s office, she said a common misconception people have about ACA is that it’s free, but it’s not.
She and her husband pay $476 a month for their ACA health plan, but the uncertainty of its future existence and enhanced subsidies makes her very nervous.
“I can’t tell you how unbearable it’s been to not know if we’re going to have health care next year or what it’s going to cost. We started checking around because if the credits were going to expire, we needed to be covered and we like to be prepared,” said Kate Bausch who gets healthcare through the ACA.
However, they were quoted upwards of $2,400 a month through the state retirement system, but they can’t afford that.
“We both have to be on medicine. It’s not just doctor visits and that kind of thing. I have asthma. My husband does, too. Our inhalers are $500 a month. I mean, I’m just not sure what we’ll do,” said Bausch.
Kate says she and her husband are not old enough to be on Medicare, so the ACA is a must for them. They are two years shy of qualifying for it.
Senator Baldwin told us that a funding deal is contingent on republicans agreeing to extend the enhanced premium tax credit.
“If Republicans could find room in their budget for trillions of dollars of tax credits for big, profitable corporations and the ultra-rich, they can certainly find room in their budget to extend this tax credit for hardworking families,” said Baldwin.
Senator Baldwin says this tax break saves more than 230,000 Wisconsinites an average of $500 every single month.
Meanwhile, republican Congressman Derrick Van Orden says the democratic party is to blame for these tax credits expiring.
The Democrat Party under Biden put in those subsidies with an expiration date. So, they did that. The Republicans had nothing to do with that. So, you got to ask yourself, if the Democrat Party under Biden put in these subsidies with an expiration date, why would they do that to begin with if they thought they were so important? And why would they be saying that this is the reason that they’re holding up the continuing resolution? It doesn’t make any sense,” said Van Orden.
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