Democratic senators head to Florida to highlight ObamaCare price spike

A trio of Democratic senators — Chris Murphy (Conn.), Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Tina Smith (Minn.) — traveled to South Florida on Monday to address rising health care costs amid the government shutdown. 

In a video Murphy posted to social platform X, the Connecticut lawmaker said they traveled to the area to speak with “regular Floridians” about impending premium increases. 

“I’m here because I think that nobody should go bankrupt over a bad medical diagnosis,” Warren said in the video. “It’s that simple. Donald Trump and the Republicans don’t care, but Democrats are in this fight to say, ‘No, we want health care for everybody.”

The senators’ trip comes as the government shutdown hit Day 34 Monday. If the funding lapse extends into Wednesday, it will become the longest shutdown in U.S. history, surpassing the 35-day pause across December 2018 and January 2019.

The crux of the shutdown fight has been over tax credits offered under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The expanded subsidies, first offered via the 2021 American Rescue Plan and extended by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, expire at the end of this year. 

Republicans, in pushing a “clean” continuing resolution, prefer to negotiate on the subsidies once the government reopens. Democrats, meanwhile, have largely backed a permanent extension of the subsidies in any bill that restores government funding.

Last week, the health policy research group KFF reported that premiums for ACA Marketplace enrollees are rising by 26 percent, excluding the expiring tax credits. Open enrollment for ACA plans began Saturday.

In September, KFF said monthly premium payments — which include what insurers and enrollees pay — will increase by 114 percent on average if they expire. 

According to KFF, more than 4.7 million Floridians have enrolled in the ACA Marketplace this year, making it the state with the most enrollees in the country. Given that, Smith claimed in the video Murphy posted that the Sunshine State “has been harder hit than any place else in the country” by increasing health care costs.

“We want people to understand what Trump is doing to just dramatically increase health care costs,” she added.