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health insurance
Warfare Over Healthcare: My Premium Skyrockets to $2600 Per Month
For the first time in my adult life, I will be uninsured, joining the millions who have navigated this risky reality for years. And for what? Multi-trillion-dollar wars and endless tax breaks for the wealthy.
Nov 25, 2025
Next year, an estimated 5 million people will be priced out of health insurance in the United States. I am one of them. When I went to renew my family’s policy, I was shocked to discover my premium had gone up to $2,600 per month, a price my household of four simply cannot afford. For the first time in my adult life, I will be uninsured, joining the millions who have navigated this risky reality for years. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, especially when health insurance already makes access to healthcare costly with extremely unrealistic deductibles and high out-of-pocket costs. Yet, as a woman in my 40s with a family history of breast cancer, going without coverage is a gamble with my life.
After some number-crunching, we concluded that we could afford to carry insurance for only 2 of the 4 of us. This left us with an inhuman choice: to decide whose lives we value more. This is not just an abstract dilemma that many households are facing; it is necropolitics in action, the state-sanctioned power to decide who lives and dies. This crisis is a direct result of political choices made by those elected to serve the people and their needs. By allowing the Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies to expire, our elected officials are acting as death panels, comfortable with making a decision that will kill off tens of thousands of their own constituents. This is not hyperbole; studies show that over 40,000 people in the US die annually due to a lack of healthcare.
However, these domestic necropolitics are merely a symptom of the US’ larger death wish: a war economy that serves weapons manufacturers whose job is to create machines of death and destruction. As a nation, we manage to muster up trillions each year to fund global conflict and destruction while claiming the price of keeping our own alive is too much. Our government’s priorities could not be any clearer. For example, in the recent government shutdown, the National Priorities Project reported that the Senate managed to find bipartisan unity to approve a $32 billion increase for the Pentagon as part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), passing it with an overwhelming 77-20 vote. Yet, they refused to extend the healthcare subsidies for even a single year, a measure that would have cost roughly $35 billion, a well-worth sum that would keep millions, including myself, from losing their health insurance.
This is not a one-off, though. Congress passes an ever-growing Pentagon budget every year, now set to exceed a trillion dollars. The 2026 NDAA will be voted on in mid-December. Around the same time, there are whispers of a vote on the healthcare subsidies that could save millions of families from our nightmare. However, only one of these bills is certain to pass with little debate, and it is not the one that will save lives.
We live in a system that values war and conflict over the protection of life, and every day they decide that it is okay for more and more of us to die.
To understand the deadly consequences of these priorities, consider that the annual cost of continuing the ACA subsidies is about $30 billion, or roughly $82 million per day. The daily cost of operating a single US aircraft carrier is approximately $8 million. This means that the cost of one carrier for a single day is equivalent to about 10% of the daily cost of providing healthcare subsidies for the entire nation. In other words, the funds spent on one warship for just one day could instead ensure a day of healthcare access for hundreds of thousands of Americans.
The math makes it clear that the US government is not in the business of serving the people and their needs. Instead, our elected officials sit in high places, callously deciding who they are willing to kill off in order protect their personal vested interest, whether it be Palestinians in Gaza, children in Sudan, boaters in Venezuela, migrants seeking a better life, or hard-working families desperately trying to make ends meet in an economy that only serves a few rather than the many. We live in a system that values war and conflict over the protection of life, and every day they decide that it is okay for more and more of us to die. It is necropolitics, all the way down, and we are all on the chopping block. Unless…
To learn more about how to fund the people's needs over war manufacturers' greed, please visit our Cut The Pentagon website for more ways to take action.
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Universal Healthcare Will Save Lives... and Could Save the Democratic Party
As the only wealthy country without universal health coverage, sticking to our current system is truly not “politically feasible.” Democratic leaders need to understand and embrace Americans' desire for change.
Oct 22, 2025
The ongoing government shutdown, a standoff over health insurance premiums, is a missed opportunity to truly reform healthcare and revive the Democratic Party.
Democrats have been hyper focused on restoring Medicaid cuts and preserving Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies to blunt the harmful healthcare impact of the Republican budget. But this narrow strategy not only fails to address the core issues of the current system but ignores what most Americans want most: a system free from profit-driven conflicts of interest, prior authorizations, co-pays, deductibles, or the threat of bankruptcy.
As a practicing gynecologic oncologist, I witness the human toll of this political timidity every day. I’ve seen patients on chemotherapy skip nausea medications because of co-pays, delay a surveillance PET scan because of the deductible, or substitute ineffective online elixirs for proven treatments because they cost less. As president of Physicians for a National Health Program, I have heard from thousands of physicians who are struggling to uphold their professional commitment to high-quality care because health insurance companies routinely deny coverage for medically recommended treatments.
What I hear in my clinic is also reflected in the polls and crosses party lines: Americans want trustworthy, high-quality healthcare without conflicts of interest, co-pays, deductibles, or financial risk. A May 2025 Pew poll confirms this, with 68% of Americans, including 90% of Democrats and 45% of Republicans, believing the government should provide health insurance for all. A November 2024 Gallup poll shows 62% of Americans, including 90% of Democrats, 65% of Independents, and 32% of Republicans, think the federal government should guarantee health coverage for everyone. And a 2024 Marist Poll found 86% of Gen Z and 76% of Millennials also share the opinion that health insurance is the government's responsibility.
Championing universal healthcare gives Democrats a chance to move away from the status quo and win back frustrated voters, especially the youth.
Today, more people, regardless of insurance status, are being forced to make difficult healthcare choices based on their finances. I have patients who regularly ignore pain and nausea because they are behind on medical bills and cannot afford to seek care. Consider that in America, 66% of bankruptcies are linked to medical issues, and 80% of those who went bankrupt had health insurance when they incurred the debt. In 2023, the average household medical debt was $10,570, and in 2024, about 20% of adults aged 18-49 borrowed money to pay for healthcare costs. A 2025 KFF poll found that 70% of adults worry about medical or dental bills leading to debt.
Americans from all parties agree that our political and economic systems need change, and most believe Republicans, not Democrats, can deliver it. According to an April 2025 Navigator poll, 74% of Americans (including 71% of Democrats, 78% of Independents, and 77% of Republicans) think our system “needs major changes,” with 12% feeling “the system needs to be torn down completely.” The same poll shows that 51% of Americans see Democrats as “focused on preserving the way government works,” including 54% of Democrats, 43% of Independents, and 54% of Republicans. Meanwhile, 65% of those surveyed believe Republicans are focused on changing the government, including 65% of Democrats, 57% of Independents, and 68% of Republicans.
Republicans are giving us change, but it’s not what Americans were hoping for. Their comprehensive efforts to reduce healthcare access, dismantle public health systems, and cut funding for essential medical research will have deadly consequences. Specifically, the mortality impacts of the Republican budget reconciliation bill—which includes deep cuts to Medicaid, the elimination of ACA subsidies, rollbacks to Medicare drug access, and weakening of nursing home safety standards—are estimated to cause 51,000 preventable deaths each year. This tragic number adds to the approximately 45,000 preventable deaths already linked to lack of insurance. While we can estimate the increased death toll among the millions losing healthcare coverage, the long-term effects of defunding the public health system and losing future lifesaving research are impossible to measure.
Meanwhile, Democrats are defending the status quo instead of fighting for the comprehensive health care reform that Americans need. Despite the unpopularity of much of what the Trump administration has done, support for the Democratic Party from its core members remains slim, with historically low voter registration and approval numbers. Championing universal healthcare gives Democrats a chance to move away from the status quo and win back frustrated voters, especially the youth.
The main arguments against universal healthcare are that it is unaffordable and politically unfeasible. However, the cost issue is challenged by basic economic analysis: We could afford to cover everyone if we weren’t actively wasting 25-30% of our healthcare spending on bureaucracy, overhead, and excessive profits for the health insurance industry. There is no evidence that these corporations improve healthcare or make any meaningful contribution. To the contrary, privatized Medicare (Medicare Advantage) wastes resources, costs more, and results in worse outcomes. In fact, when states deprivatize Medicaid, they save money and improve outcomes. For example, Connecticut shifted from privatized to public Medicaid in 2011, leading to a 4.7% increase in early cancer detection, an 8% increase in cancer survival, and savings of over $4 billion over 13 years.
The US spends more per person than other developed nations but has worse health outcomes, including lower life expectancy and higher maternal and infant deaths. As the only wealthy country without universal health coverage, sticking to our current system is truly not “politically feasible.” Democratic leaders need to understand and embrace Americans' desire for change. They must fight for guaranteed universal healthcare—a system free from profit-driven conflicts, co-pays, deductibles, prior authorizations, and bankruptcy risks. Universal healthcare will save lives and may resuscitate the Democratic Party.
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As Americans Feel Sharp Rise of Healthcare Costs, Advocacy Orgs Launch Ad Campaign Calling Out GOP for Shutdown
“Doubling insurance premiums,” the ad says, “is not what Americans need.”
Oct 15, 2025
As Americans increasingly struggle with healthcare inflation, a new ad campaign is targeting Republicans in Congress over their refusal to extend tax credits that have lowered insurance premiums for tens of millions of Americans, which has dragged the government shutdown toward its third week.
The ad campaign was launched by a collection of progressive advocacy groups—including Public Citizen, Indivisible, MoveOn, Fair Share America, People for the American Way, the American Federation of Teachers, SEIU, the National Education Association, and Working Families Power—and is scheduled to appear in each issue of Axios' "Hill Leaders" newsletter this week.
The newsletter that will carry the ad campaign is geared primarily towards those who work on Capitol Hill. Sponsors of the ad campaign hope that members of Congress and their staff will see it and that they will "stand firm in defense of healthcare even as the Trump administration launches cruel and wholly unnecessary firings above and beyond traditional shutdown furloughs."
"Republicans have shut down the government because they have no interest in keeping healthcare affordable for millions of Americans," the ads say. "Doubling insurance premiums is not what Americans need. Enough is enough! We must fight to save healthcare."
The government shut down at the beginning of October after Democrats refused to vote for a GOP funding bill that did not extend Biden-era tax credits for the more than 24 million Americans who purchase health insurance on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace.
If the credits are allowed to expire at the end of 2025, KFF estimates that the average recipient's insurance premiums will more than double, from $888 to $1,906 per year, which will result in about 4 million people losing their insurance due to unaffordability, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
This is on top of the roughly 10 million projected by the CBO to lose insurance coverage due to the GOP's massive cuts to Medicaid and other ACA marketplace spending in the Republican budget law.
"Across the country, Americans are urging their representatives to push back against Trump's destructive agenda and fight for a budget that protects access to healthcare and safeguards Congress' authority over federal spending," said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen.
The campaign comes as new data shows that the rate of healthcare inflation has already more than doubled in the nine months since US President Donald Trump took office, compared to the previous two years. Between January and August 2025, the Consumer Price Index for medical care has grown by 3.8%, compared to an increase of just 1.8% between January 2023 and January 2025.
In a September Fox News poll, 52% of voters said that Trump has made the economy worse, while just 30% said he's made it better. 81% of respondents said that healthcare costs were a "problem" for their families, with 51% calling them a "major problem."
As a new report from the Groundwork Collaborative points out, these price increases are having an impact on households before most of the changes from the OBBBA are set to go into effect.
In addition to skyrocketing insurance premiums, the bill's cuts to Medicaid have put hundreds of rural hospitals and nursing homes at risk of closure. The law also repeals a portion of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act that allowed Medicare to negotiate the costs of several widely used drugs, whose prices have climbed this year. It also introduced new restrictions preventing Medicare recipients from accessing additional financial aid for their premiums and co-pays, with $535 billion worth of cuts to the program scheduled to take effect in 10 years unless Congress intervenes.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration killed a rule that would have wiped $49 billion of medical debt from the credit reports of about 15 million people, which would have opened up their ability to obtain credit. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, overseen by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr., also terminated a program that offered free Covid-19 vaccinations to uninsured Americans and is reportedly seeking to eliminate them from the recommended vaccination schedule, which could prevent insurers from covering them.
Maurice Mitchell of Working Families Power, one of the ad's sponsors, said: "It's important that voters know that Republicans would rather shut down the government than lower healthcare costs for our families."
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