As the federal government shutdown continued on Tuesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders released a report documenting Americans’ fears about the impact of Republicans’ healthcare policies will have on them in the coming months if the changes being demanded by Democrats are not implemented.
The report begins by discussing the impact of the Republican-passed cuts to Medicaid in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act earlier this year, as well as the expiring enhanced subsidies for people who buy health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, would have on Americans’ ability to access healthcare.
“Starting this month, millions of Americans are going to get a letter from their insurance companies telling them that their premiums will double, on average,” Sanders explains in the report’s foreword. “Unless we reverse course, the Republican budget will throw 15 million Americans off of Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (ACA).”
The Sanders report goes beyond listing numbers and statistics, however, and features personal stories from hundreds of Americans across the country detailing their anxieties on how GOP healthcare policy would affect them and their families.
“I live in fear of whether or not I will be able to afford my life saving treatment,” explained a Wisconsin woman named Laura. “I have a rare kidney disease that requires immunotherapy every nine months. I’m terrified I’ll die.”
A Texas woman named Bobbi, who is currently being treated for lung cancer, told Sanders’ office that she likely won’t be able to afford to keep her insurance coverage if ACA enhanced credits aren’t renewed.
A Florida woman named Hayat said that she expects to suffer from painful migraines if she gets priced out of being able to afford insurance.
“If my health insurance costs go up, I won’t be able to have health insurance at all,” she said. “I’m a widow with 3 children and I work 48 hours per week. I suffer from migraines, and my health insurance was covering the $1040 per month cost for medication. I won’t be able to get my medication any longer and will suffer.”
Khorie, a woman from Texas, laid out just how much any further increase in insurance costs would upend her entire family.
“We struggle so much financially but yet make too much to receive any type of SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] or other government benefits,” she said. “I have medication for my ulcerative colitis that cost $8,000 without insurance and even with insurance it’s $1,500 and the only way I’m able to afford it is due to a copay assistance from the company itself. My daughter has braces, glasses, ADHD, and asthma, and my son also has asthma and I’m so worried if insurance becomes so unaffordable myself and my husband will have to suffer for the sake of my children’s well being.”
The report also detailed how the increased health insurance costs would have ripple effects that will hurt Americans’ ability to afford food and housing.
“We will not be able to eat consistently,” said an Illinois woman named Larissa, speaking of the prospect of having to pay nearly double for health insurance. “This will cut out more than 60% of our food budget for the month.”
A California woman named Aisha also said that a spike in health insurance would put her in a position where she would have to choose between having access to healthcare and paying her mortgage.
“I think that will be a no-brainer because I need a roof over my head,” she said. “That also means my child and I will be left without any healthcare and more than likely unable to survive.”
With the stalemate in Washington, DC heading into its second week, Sanders said lawmakers in Congress must come together to solve the crisis and rescue American families like the ones detailed in the report from the suffering and death that Republican policies are set to unleash.
“No, I will not vote for a budget that doubles premiums, throws 15 million people off health care, and causes 50,000 preventable deaths every year,” Sanders said in a statement. “Democrats, Republicans, and independents must come together to protect health care for every American—not just the profits of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.”
The Sanders report concludes by not only vowing to reverse the Republican healthcare cuts, but to “work to end the international embarrassment of the United States being the only major country on earth that does not guarantee health care for all.”