As the government shutdown winds on, Democrats continue to hold the federal government hostage because, they claim, “premiums will double” if Congress does not extend Covid-era enhanced Obamacare subsidies.
I’ve debunked that topic in detail here and elsewhere, but to quickly summarize the argument: 1) The federal government will still pay on average 75-80 percent of enrollees’ premiums if the enhanced subsidies expire. 2) Nearly half of Exchange enrollees currently pay nothing in out-of-pocket premiums for benchmark coverage, which the Congressional Budget Office and others have concluded has led to over $10 billion in fraud every year. 3) Focusing on relative (i.e., percentage) increases ignores the comparatively modest effects most Exchange enrollees will face in absolute terms — no more than $50-100 per month on average.
But it’s worth taking a closer look at one of the think tanks pumping up the message about premiums supposedly doubling: KFF, formerly the Kaiser Family Foundation. It’s fair to question whether its messaging has deliberately contributed to confusion regarding this topic in a way that not-so-subtly exaggerates the case for extending the enhanced subsidies.
Inaccurate Graphic
KFF’s September report claimed that “premium payments will more than double” if the enhanced subsidies expire as scheduled. As I previously noted in these pages, this misleading terminology conflates premiums with out-of-pocket costs, which ignores the sizable subsidy the federal government will still provide to most enrollees if the Biden-era portion expires.
If the “premium payments” terminology is misleading, the “premiums will more than double” language moves into the realm of flat-out false and directly contradicts KFF’s own research on premium increases for 2026. So I wrote to KFF staff and asked them, “Do you plan on 1) correcting the graphic, 2) noting the correction on the homepage of your site (i.e., where it is located now) and 3) notifying your press lists of said correction?”
Hellbound and Down 