Community Health & Wellness

Government shutdown ends, but health care costs remain up in the air

Posted on November 17th, 2025 By: Conor Wilson

Congress reached a deal to end the government shutdown last week without addressing the future of an expiring tax subsidy that made health insurance cheaper for thousands in the West Sound.

Roughly 19,900 residents in Washington’s Sixth Congressional District – which includes Gig Harbor, part of Tacoma and the Olympic and Kitsap peninsulas – benefited from the enhanced premium tax credit. The pandemic-era subsidy lowered prices for millions of Americans buying private insurance plans through the Affordable Care Act’s online marketplace.

Beneficiaries are in the midst of the annual open enrollment period, which runs through Jan. 15. They face higher insurance premiums costs in 2026.

Congress appears unlikely to restore these benefits before they expire at the end of the year, according to national media reports. How much those prices rise will vary, but average out-of-pocket costs are expected to more than double, according to nonpartisan health research nonprofit KFF.

Shutdown and tax subsidies

Democrats in Congress forced the shutdown to make Republicans renew these tax subsidies. The credits, enacted in 2021 and extended through 2025 via the Inflation Reduction Act, both curbed premium costs for millions of Americans and expanded eligibility to higher-income earners.

Washington officials remain concerned about what their loss could mean for the state and its health system. Combined with effects from Republicans’s so-called One Big Beautiful Bill, adopted in July, the end of these tax credits could grow the state’s uninsured population, worsening individual health outcomes and adding pressure to its already fragile medical system.

U.S. Rep. Emily Randall, a Democrat from Bremerton, said that while she wanted to reopen the government, the deal ignores an avoidable health care crisis and would price thousands of local families out of the coverage they rely on. That, she argued, would lead people to delay care and go uninsured, creating ripple effects that would raise insurance costs for those with private or employer-based coverage.

“Families, doctors, and our entire community will feel the strain,” said Randall, who voted against the bill that reopened the government.

Washington’s Affordable Care Act marketplace, called the Washington Healthplanfinder, allows nearly 300,000 Washington residents to buy private insurance plans. About three-quarters of those buyers are eligible for enhanced premium tax credit benefits.

Thousands expected to drop insurance

Tara Lee, a spokesperson for the Washington Benefit Exchange (which runs the marketplace) said they anticipate up to 40,000 people in the state to go without insurance due to the price increases. The agency is seeing high traffic to the marketplace and call volume to its support center, she said. Some are reporting price increases to be lower than expected, but others are seeing rates double.

“We have been able to take some steps within our authority to make it less bad, but it is still extremely challenging, especially for people at the lower income ranges and the higher income,” she wrote in an email.

Ingrid Ulrey, CEO of the Washington Benefit Exchange, previously told Gig Harbor Now that there “has been remarkable progress and gains” in reducing the number of uninsured Americans since the adoption of the Affordable Care Act, a federal law often called Obamacare. But “much of that is now in jeopardy.”

For years, the Washington Healthplanfinder has caught people “who were falling through the cracks,” Ulrey said. It provides a place outside employment and government programs for people to buy insurance. These individuals are often self-employed, gig workers, small business employees or seasonal workers who earn too much income to qualify for Medicaid.

“We know that some customers are concerned about rising prices and that the uncertain future of enhanced premium tax credits weighs heavily on peoples’ minds,” Ulrey said in a press release prior to open enrollment. “Customers should come in and shop for health and dental insurance and see what plans are out there for them.”