Suozzi: Premiums ‘Still Going to Be Too High’ Even with Affordable Care Act Subsidies

On Monday’s broadcast of NewsNation’s “Cuomo,” Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) stated that even if Affordable Care Act subsidies are extended, “we’re still going to have an affordability crisis in our country. Health insurance premiums are still going to be too high. And what we need is this bill to extend the premium tax credits, to give some immediate relief, to stop prices from skyrocketing, and then we have to work for the next year, together, to go after the other drivers of healthcare costs.”

Suozzi said, “[R]ight now, we want to make sure we have as many people as possible in the risk pool, in the insurance pool, because if these people get out of their health insurance plans because they’re too expensive because they lost their premium tax credit, that’s going to cause everybody’s insurance to go up, because you’ve shrunk the size of the risk pool. So, if we do HSAs — health savings accounts — or put money into those, we want to make sure that it’s tied to the fact that people have to buy the insurance anyway.”

He added, “But the bottom line is, even if we get done what we are working so hard to get done, we’re still going to have an affordability crisis in our country. Health insurance premiums are still going to be too high. And what we need is this bill to extend the premium tax credits, to give some immediate relief, to stop prices from skyrocketing, and then we have to work for the next year, together, to go after the other drivers of healthcare costs.”

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