President Biden called on Congress to extend the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, tax credits on Friday after a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report highlighted national healthcare disparities.
“A new report from the Congressional Budget Office underscores just how critical the legislation to bring down health care costs, enacted under my Administration, have been,” Biden said in the statement.
“Millions of Americans are benefiting from expanded premium tax credits that lower their premiums. If Congress takes that benefit away, premiums will spike and 3.8 million people will become uninsured,” he continued.
He added that healthcare should be a right and “not a privilege,” arguing that Congress must support support the tax credit program.
The healthcare subsidies are set to expire in 2025 if Congress decides not to renew the legislation first enacted in 2010.
Republicans, who are set to hold the majority in the 119th Congress, are unlikely to renew the measure before 2025. The decision would leave millions without health coverage.
The CBO report found that “not extending the credit will increase the number of people without health insurance and raise the average gross benchmark premiums for plans purchased through the marketplaces.”
The report also noted a renewal would significantly spike the cost of gross benchmark premiums in 2026 if the subsidies expire, rising by an average of 7.9 percent for the following eight years.
