{"id":391168,"date":"2025-11-20T01:43:21","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T01:43:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/391168\/"},"modified":"2025-11-20T01:43:21","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T01:43:21","slug":"vermont-conversation-we-dont-have-a-safety-net-a-family-confronts-a-future-without-health-insurance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/391168\/","title":{"rendered":"Vermont Conversation: ‘We don\u2019t have a safety net’: A family confronts a future without health insurance"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AArica Bronz, a pilates instructor from Winooski and Mike Fisher, Vermont\u2019s health care advocate. Courtesy photo and by Mike Dougherty\/VTDigger <\/p>\n

The health care apocalypse has arrived.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"vermont<\/a><\/p>\n

In the past month, many of the 30,000 Vermonters who get their health insurance through Vermont Health Connect \u2014 part of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare as it\u2019s popularly known \u2014 are experiencing sticker shock. Average health insurance premiums on Vermont Health Connect are projected to more than double<\/a>, the highest rate increases countrywide.<\/p>\n

This is a disaster foretold. Democrats in Congress have warned for months that unless pandemic-era health insurance subsidies were extended, the 24 million Americans who get their health insurance through ACA marketplaces would see astronomical price hikes. Yet, despite a 43 day government shutdown, Republicans in Congress and President Trump refused to extend subsidies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The price tag for inaction has just arrived.<\/p>\n

READ MORE<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"On\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tby Olivia Gieger<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 31, 2025, 5:26 pmNovember 3, 2025, 4:39 pm\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Vermonters are now faced with excruciating choices. Middle-income participants are facing additional premiums of $10,000 per year for individuals and $32,000 for a family of four<\/a>.\u00a0Others are considering going without insurance all together.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t take out a second mortgage on our house to afford one year of health insurance,\u201d said Arica Bronz, a pilates instructor from Winooski, where she lives with her husband, a primary care physician, and their two daughters.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bronz\u2019s monthly family premium will rise from $1,100 to $2,700 per month in 2026. After factoring in a $15,000 annual deductible, she said that in case of a serious medical event, her family will pay $47,000 before their insurance kicks in.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bronz feels she has no choice. She is going to cancel health care coverage for her family.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re trying to get all the scans done and just make sure we\u2019re tip-top healthy before we make the leap. I can\u2019t tell you how much sleep I\u2019ve lost considering what it\u2019s like to jump in this day and age to no health care for a family.\u201d<\/p>\n

If too many people drop health care coverage, experts warn that Vermont\u2019s struggling health care financing system could enter a death spiral<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a tremendous fear that what we are watching before us is the undoing, the dismantling of our healthcare financing system,\u201d said Michael Fisher, Vermont\u2019s chief health care advocate. \u201cThis is devastating and it\u2019s self-inflicted. And the majority in Congress think it\u2019s the right thing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fisher nevertheless said that those whose income falls within 400% of the federal poverty level \u2014 around $130,000 for a family of four \u2014 may still qualify for subsidized health care premiums.<\/p>\n

As Arica Bronz contemplates a future without health insurance, she said, \u201cWe don\u2019t have a safety net. Hopefully that will inspire us to just be really thoughtful and careful. \u2026 It\u2019s kinda terrifying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Correction: A previous version of this story misidentified the city where Arica Bronz lives. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arica Bronz, a pilates instructor from Winooski and Mike Fisher, Vermont\u2019s health care advocate. Courtesy photo and by…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":391169,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[210,1141,1142,186080,4368,67,132,68,186081],"class_list":{"0":"post-391168","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-health-care","10":"tag-healthcare","11":"tag-mike-fisher","12":"tag-podcast","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us","16":"tag-vermont-conversation-podcast"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115579494259345503","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}