How a Health Insurance Shortfall in Georgia Could Play Out in the Midterms

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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John Czikowski (0:15)

So I'm using Georgia Access' state-based exchange website as a starting point, but you can actually do this at healthcare.gov.

Sabrina Siddiqui (0:24)

John Czikowski is at his computer, scrolling through the options for health insurance in Georgia.

John Czikowski (0:29)

I'm plugging in. I live in Fulton County, so I'm in downtown Atlanta. Here's my date of birth and then my income.

Sabrina Siddiqui (0:36)

Czikowski is an independent insurance broker, and he's giving us a closer look at what he calls a double whammy.

Premiums for insurance that complies with the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, have gone up, and federal tax credits that would have helped people pay for them expired on January 1st. Czikowski saw the effects of this on prices and on the people he helps find insurance.

John Czikowski (1:02)

Seeing the rates increase year over year, that's kind of par for the course.

Seeing the rates jump overnight from one year to the next, that significant 30 to 40 percent, that was a shock to the system. Most people were not expecting the shift to be that dramatic. And this last open enrollment, like, eyes were wide open. People in tears saying, I can't pay for this. I'm going to have to go uninsured.

Sabrina Siddiqui (1:36)

Some subsidies are still in place, but Congress allowed enhanced Obamacare subsidies doled out during the COVID-19 pandemic to lapse, a fight so bitter it led to a government shutdown over whether or not to extend them. Providing those subsidies obviously comes at a cost for the US government. A Congressional Budget Office analysis from September found that a three-year extension for them would have cost the federal government roughly $90 billion. But losing those subsidies has been tough for a lot of the people Tchaikovsky works with. He calls the latest period of health insurance signups the hardest one he's seen in his 17 years on the job. The health research nonprofit KFF estimates that on average, the expired subsidies mean that annual premium payments for ACA marketplace enrollees will more than double, from an average of $888 in 2025 to roughly $1,900 this year.

Tchaikovsky says that in a few cases, he saw families premiums triple.

John Czikowski (2:37)

A lot of people were flat out upset, devastated in some cases.

Sabrina Siddiqui (2:44)

I'm Sabrina Siddiqui, and this is What's News Sunday. Over the last few weeks, I've been reporting on how the rising cost of living could determine who controls Congress next year. In this episode, we talk to some of the Georgians navigating higher health care costs, and to the pollsters who work with the Wall Street Journal to tell us what those costs might mean ahead of statewide primary runoff elections coming up this Tuesday. This is The Cost-of-Living Election Part 3

According to the Georgia recorder, the Peach State has seen a 37 percent drop in affordable care act enrollment since the start of last year.

That represents more than half a million Georgians in a state of roughly 11.5 million. And data from the US. Census shows that, a few years ago, Georgia had one of the highest rates of residents under 65 without insurance at 13.6 percent. Joey Bernard is one of them. He would have gotten insurance through Georgia Access this year, but it was too expensive.

Joey Bernard (3:48)

The prices we were seeing on the Georgia Access website was going to be about a third to low or half of our monthly budget and everything. I couldn't justify it.

Sabrina Siddiqui (3:57)

Bernard is 40, and he lives with his wife and daughter in the city of Ball Ground. It's in Cherokee County, which isn't far from Atlanta, though far enough from that urban center so as to be solidly Republican. At the presidential level, the county hasn't voted for a Democratic president since Georgia's own Jimmy Carter.

For Bernard, the premium costs on Marketplace Insurance just weren't sustainable.

Joey Bernard (4:23)

Basically seeing $800 one night and then the following day or the next day or so and seeing $1,600 and $2,400.

I was like, are you kidding me? I shook my head and I was like, there's no way. Like this can't continue. This is outrageous.

Sabrina Siddiqui (4:39)

Last year, Bernard was laid off from the IT job he'd worked for 15 years.

He's found work again, but his new job doesn't provide health insurance like his old one did. Now he and his wife are setting money aside to pay out of pocket for any medical attention they might need.