Tennessee resident Brittany Spradling is battling Stage 4 metastatic breast cancer and recently learned that her health insurance premiums will more than triple to $2,221 a month if Congress does not extend federal health care subsidies.
“Will I be able to continue on the same drug treatment that’s been working for a year?” Spradling told the Chattanooga Times Free Press by phone. “These are just the things that weigh me down and, honestly, sometimes make me feel like I’m drowning. And I’m not being hyperbolic. I truly do feel that is what it’s doing to me.”
Spradling and more than half a million Tennesseans pay lower health insurance premiums because they receive an enhanced federal health care subsidy, which will expire at the end of the month if Congress does not vote to extend it.
Having to weigh the steep price increase without the subsidy is a reality for many Tennesseans who have to purchase a plan by Monday for uninterrupted coverage in the New Year.
The U.S. Senate is expected to vote Thursday on the Democrats’ proposed three-year extension of the premium tax credits. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., agreed to a vote on the extension plan as part of the November deal with some Senate Democrats to reopen the government after the longest shutdown in U.S. history.