GOP U.S. Senate candidate Rep. Buddy Carter is facing backlash for shutting down the government instead of fighting to extend critical ACA tax credits in a new guest column in The Augusta Press.
A recent analysis by KFF found that Georgians in Carter’s district could see their health care premiums skyrocket by 296%, for an average 60-year-old couple, if ACA premium tax credits expire at the end of the year.
The Augusta Press: Guest Column: Carter got reasons for shutdown wrong
KEY EXCERPTS:
- Rep. Buddy Carter is right about one thing: the shutdown hurts.
- Where he goes wrong is in explaining why the shutdown happened and who can end it.
- I think Rep. Carter is confused about how Medicaid works, what’s in H.R. —the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill”—and what the Senate Democrats’ continuing resolution actually proposes.
- The Senate Democrats’ continuing resolution, meanwhile, says nothing about immigrants or non-citizens.
- It’s mostly about health care. It would permanently extend the enhanced Affordable Care Act premium tax credits, which help millions of Americans—more than a million Georgians among them—afford health insurance.
- Those credits expire at the end of this year.
- Because ACA subsidies are structured as refundable tax credits, allowing them to expire would function as a substantial middle-class tax increase—raising costs for millions of families who buy their own health insurance.
- If they lapse, average marketplace premiums would roughly double, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
- The lowest-income families—self-employed workers, farmers, tradesmen, servers, and bartenders—could see premiums rise from about $1,200 per year today to $3000, because their subsidy would shrink.
- Higher income folks that see the subsidies disappear altogether could end up with $10,000 or more in additional premiums. That’s going to hurt a lot of hardworking Georgia families.
- The Senate Democrats’ Continuing Resolution proposal, specifically extending enhanced ACA premium tax credits, can prevent a lot of harm from being done to hardworking Georgia families.