Hoosier health insurance costs on federal marketplace to nearly double without tax credit extension

Health insurance costs for Hoosiers on the federal health care marketplace are set to nearly double next year if Congress doesn't extend enhanced premium tax credits created during the Biden administration.

The enhanced tax credits were introduced in 2021 to provide extra help in bringing down premium costs for coverage on the Affordable Care Act marketplace. They're set to expire this year.

Kathy Hempstead is a senior policy officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. She said a jump in premium costs will have a huge impact nationwide.

"The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that 4.2 or so million people who are currently on the marketplace will become uninsured," Hempstead said.

Hempstead did an analysis for Indiana's costs. She used the example of a 50-year-old making about $47,000 a year on the lowest level plan on the ACA marketplace. Their premiums will go up anywhere from 83 percent to 102 percent next year without the enhanced credits. That's about $155 a month.
 

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Hempstead said that cost increase — and the likely increase in uninsured people — has an impact on the health care system as a whole.

"Because we don't have as many people to pay them as we used to, so we're going to eliminate some services or we're going to shut down this satellite emergency room, or whatever," Hempstead said.

Hempstead said the impact will particularly hit rural areas.

Brandon is our Statehouse bureau chief. Contact him at bsmith@ipbs.org or follow him on Twitter at @brandonjsmith5.