ICYMI: Healthcare Affordability is Under Attack
NEW YORK — On Monday, The New York Times published reporting that detailed how millions of working families could lose access to affordable healthcare at the end of next year thanks to congressional Republicans’ unwillingness to extend key tax credits.
“It’s truly unconscionable that so many lawmakers would rather extend tax cuts for billionaires than healthcare tax credits for middle-class families,” said Maria Martinez, Executive Director of Empire State Voices. “We need to be asking the richest Americans to pay their fair share, not taking away one of the very few lifelines that working families have so that a handful of billionaires can hoard even more of their wealth. These people have more money than they know what to do with, and New York families are just trying to get by.”
Millions of Americans rely on tax credits through the Affordable Care Act to afford their health insurance premiums each month. These enhanced tax credits, put in place by the Biden-Harris administration’s American Rescue Plan and Inflation Reduction Act, have cut premium costs for middle-class families by an average of 44% and made health insurance more affordable for nearly 7 million New Yorkers.
Without these enhanced tax credits, the Congressional Budget Office predicts that 3.4 million Americans will lose their health insurance. Despite this, many Republicans in Congress have signaled that they intend to allow the credits to expire at the end of next year, opting to extend tax breaks for the richest Americans instead.
To learn more about Empire State Voices, please reach out to press@empirestatevoices.org
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About Empire State Voices
Empire State Voices is a multi-year campaign dedicated to amplifying the voices of everyday working New Yorkers. We are fighting for economic policies that make life more affordable for constituents and holding members of Congress across the state accountable when they fail to do the same.
