WASHINGTON — Michigan Democrats in Congress are using the Sept. 30 government funding deadline to press for a permanent extension of plussed-up Affordable Care Act insurance subsidies that are set to expire at year's end and cause premium costs to spike for millions of Americans.

Most of the state’s Democratic House lawmakers said this week they intend to vote against a short-term funding bill on Friday unless Republicans come to the negotiating table on the issue, among others.

"And they will ― if Democrats stay firm," said U.S. Rep. Shri Thanedar, D-Mich. "If that means shutting down the government, so be it."

Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., said Democrats can't support a measure that is going to “hurt people further.”

“A lot of people are losing their health care because of what’s already been done this year,” she said.

Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, whose vote in March was key to advancing a government funding bill for fiscal year 2025, wouldn’t say Wednesday how he will vote on the seven-week Republican stopgap funding package put forward without an extension of the tax credits.

“Right now, we’re trying to make sure that millions of people can continue to have their health insurance, and I would certainly hope that Republicans would join us in that,” Peters told The Detroit News.

GOP lawmakers contend that the expiring ACA premium tax credits are a policy issue to debate later in the year that’s unrelated to the Sept. 30 deadline to fund the government.

Using the enhanced premium tax credits to "muddy the water" and potentially block efforts to fund the government is "irresponsible," said GOP Rep. Tim Walberg, chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Walberg pointed to the Democratic backlash that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York got for cooperating with Republicans to fund the government back in March.

"Many believe he has now decided to shut the government down and is in search of a rationale," Walberg said in a statement, contending the enhanced ACA credits are "rife with fraud."

"It is important that Congress continues to address the rising cost of health insurance, review measures taken during COVID-19, and take necessary action to weed out fraud. However, that should be done separately from funding the government.”

Rep. Lisa McClain, who chairs the House Republican Caucus, is concerned about the subsidies benefiting high-income taxpayers and contributing to fraud in the exchanges that were launched by Democrats’ 2010 health care law. She didn’t, however, say the subsidies should be allowed to expire.

“I think we should take a look at it from the perspective of waste, fraud and abuse to make sure those enhancement credits are used properly and appropriately,” said McClain of Bruce Township.

“They don’t expire until the end of the year, so I think the Democrats are using that as a negotiation lever.”

Two previous government shutdowns in 2013 and 2018-19 were unsuccessful for Republicans trying to extract policy changes from Democrats, like repealing the Affordable Care Act.

The 2010 Affordable Care Act initially provided for tax credits to make health insurance premiums more affordable on the exchanges, but the enhanced credits now at risk date to the 2021 COVID-19 relief package.

That legislation made the tax credits bigger for people with lower incomes and also expanded eligibility to middle-income people with annual income equivalent to 400% of the federal poverty level or higher (for example, $60,240 a year for an individual or $124,800 for a family of four).

The enhanced credits especially benefited older Americans and those in rural areas where health care costs are higher. The credits helped to surge enrollment to a record 24 million people in 2025. That includes 530,000 enrollees in Michigan ― 90% of whom were able to get a reduced-cost plan, according to the state insurance department.

Experts project that the credits expiring would lead to a more than 75% increase in enrollee premium payments on average.

"An example that we use a lot is somebody who's at 250% of the federal poverty level, 40 years old, paying $130 a month now for a Silver Plan," said Katherine Hempstead, senior policy officer for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. "They are going to see what they pay roughly double in most markets."

Insurance companies have said they’ll need to raise premiums without the subsidies because healthier and younger people are more likely to end their health care coverage when it gets more expensive, resulting in insurers having to cover an older and sicker patient pool.

The independent Congressional Budget Office has projected that 4.2 million Americans would lose marketplace coverage without an extension of the subsidies.

In Michigan, preliminary filed rates show that insurance carriers, on average, are asking for a 17% increase in unsubsidized premiums, Hempstead said. That's in part because, across the industry, the cost of medical treatment is going up and people are using it more, she said.

"The other thing is, absolutely, that the carriers are anticipating the market getting kind of adversely affected in the event that the premium tax codes go away," Hempstead said.

Permanently extending the tax credits comes with a steep price tag: The CBO and Joint Committee on Taxation estimated last year that doing so would increase direct spending by $275 billion over 10 years, and would increase the budget deficit by $335 billion over the same period.

Last week, a group of 15 vulnerable House Republicans introduced legislation to extend the tax credits for one year.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has suggested that many in his conference would oppose an extension, though he also has not ruled it out. Johnson has emphasized that the enhanced credits don't expire until year's end.

“There’s a relatively small number of people that are affected by it, but that policy has real problems, and subsidizing that and making it a finance issue instead of health care issue is a problem," Johnson told reporters.

"We have time to have that debate.”

Democratic lawmakers disagree, saying people will be hit with sticker shock when open enrollment for the ACA marketplace starts Nov. 1.

"They're going to start to feel that pain immediately. We're hearing stories of people who are going to get a 79% increase in their bill starting January 1," Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., said in a floor speech late Wednesday.

She cited the case of a 60-year-old pair of empty-nesters living on about $85,000 a year in Michigan who would see their marketplace plan go up by about $10,000 a year after the enhanced tax credits expire.

She also held up the letter that a Sterling Heights man received from his private, employer-provided insurer, saying his coverage would go from nearly $37,000 to $43,000 starting Jan. 1.

Democratic votes will be needed to advance the GOP stopgap bill in the Senate, and Slotkin has been saying for more than a month that to get her vote, GOP lawmakers need to walk back the health care cuts imposed in their sweeping budget bill this summer.

"Because of the One Big Beautiful Bill, every Michigander is at risk of losing their health care or paying more for their private insurance. All those notices are going out now in Michigan," Slotkin told The Detroit News.

"If you want to talk to me about joining in your bill, we have to have some kind of conversation on health care."

Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet, a Democrat representing a competitive swing district, said she won't vote for the stopgap spending bill on Friday if the health care issue is not addressed.

"People in my district and across the country are having a lot of trouble affording the basics. The elimination of those tax credits is going to raise everybody’s healthcare costs ― not just the people who are claiming it," McDonald Rivet said outside the House chamber.

"Where we need to stand in this debate is alongside the American people, and another Republican bill that ignores how hard it is for people to make ends meet is not something that I can support."

Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens, who is running for Senate, said she wants to see the ACA credits extension make it into negotiations with Republicans. "I'm actually hopeful, given that there appears to be an opening for us to be able to do that," she said.

Rep. Tom Barrett, a Republican who also represents a competitive mid-Michigan district, said Democrats "shouldn’t play around with funding of the government to get this done," in reference to the expiring tax credits.

"If we were to do any kind of extension, I’d hope there would be very practical caps in there. I’ve learned a lot of concerns about the way in which it was done and the lack of accountability in the program," Barrett said.

He didn't rule out supporting an extension of the credits with some reforms.

"I’d have to look at it with greater specificity," he said. "They were intended to be temporary, and I’d have to review it and kind of scrutinize anything that we brought forward."

Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., also emphasized the intended "temporary" nature of the tax credits.

"What happens in Washington is these temporary programs become eternal," he said. "When we’re staring down $37 trillion in debt, we’ve got to start looking at some ways to put some common sense back in this."

Huizenga didn’t rule out voting for a broader piece of legislation that extends the subsidies, saying he’d look at the totality of the package.

Rep. John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican who serves on the House Appropriations panel, said the matter of extending the enhanced credits should go through the regular committee process and should not be a part of government funding talks.

"This appears to be a priority that should be negotiated separately from the appropriations process," he said. "Injecting other political issues at this point isn't helpful."

Rep. Hillary Scholten, a Democrat, noted that Democrats have been raising the issue all year, including in her proposed amendment that would have attached the tax-credit extension to the GOP's massive budget bill.

That amendment failed. The GOP-led Senate has separately blocked an extension three times this year.

Scholten hasn't decided how she will vote on the stopgap funding bill set for a Friday vote in the House.

"We cannot sign onto a budget deal that rips health care away from families, so if this does not address the critical health care needs that we need it to, then I cannot in good conscience vote for it," she said.

"Republicans have an opportunity to still come to the table on this and pass something in a deeply bipartisan manner, but we’re waiting. So far, that's not happened."

(Staff writer Grant Schwab contributed.)

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