If you had any doubts that Republicans are diabolical, read this. I am shocked by how evil this tactic is.
They are using health care subsidies as leverage to end abortions in all states.
--Kim
Republicans have a new plan to get rid of abortion - hold your healthcare hostage.
Here's the setup. The ACA subsidies that keep more than 20 million people insured disappear on December 31. If they vanish, premiums spike so hard they knock people out of the system. A 40-year-old making fifty grand pays about two thousand more per year. Families see increases closer to ten thousand. People just over the subsidy line get crushed with four-figure monthly bills. The CBO says around four million will lose coverage outright.
Republicans know all of this. They're counting on it.
John Thune said the quiet part out loud before the shutdown ended: no extension without what he calls Hyde protections. Except the ACA already complies with the Hyde Amendment. Federal funds don't pay for abortion coverage. That has been true since 2010.
What Republicans want now is a ban on abortion coverage in ACA plans even when states use their own funds. Twelve states currently give people the option to buy plans that include abortion using state or private dollars. Under the Republican plan, those states would have to kill that coverage or lose federal subsidies entirely. It's a forced choice: abandon your own policies on reproductive healthcare or strip millions of your residents of affordable insurance.
Call it what it is. It's a national abortion ban disguised as an insurance negotiation.
Anti-abortion groups are treating this like a purity test. Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America told senators that supporting a clean extension of subsidies "is a vote for abortion coverage" and promised to double-weight the threat on their scorecard. None of this is about healthcare management. It's about punishing states that refuse to let Republicans control abortion policy from Washington.
Democrats say they won't touch it. Jeanne Shaheen called the demand a non-starter. Chris Murphy said absolutely not. But Republicans control the Senate, and they're not backing down. They're framing this as a reasonable ask, even though the price tag is millions of people losing insurance or seeing their costs double overnight.
And while everyone argues, open enrollment for 2026 has already started. Insurers filed average rate hikes of twenty-six percent. Nobody can plan because nobody knows whether Congress will extend the subsidies. It's a manufactured crisis, the same playbook they use with shutdowns: refuse to act, let the clock run out, create panic, then demand something unrelated in exchange for not making the situation worse.
Republicans could pass a clean extension tomorrow. They won't. Because the point isn't healthcare. It's leverage. It's coercion. It's gambling with people's lives to win a fight on abortion restrictions that couldn't pass on their own.
If Democrats cave, they normalize the tactic. If they refuse, Republicans will blame them for the catastrophe Republicans engineered. Either way, the people who rely on subsidies are the ones who get screwed with no protection.
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