Congress Must Extend the ACA Subsidies or Expect a Crisis in N.J.

As Washington grinds through the longest shutdown in history, New Jersey families are monitoring an upcoming crisis at home: upcoming expiration of enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies on New Jersey’s marketplace threatens to raise healthcare costs for hundreds of thousands.

These subsidies — delivered as premium tax credits (PTCs) based on income — have been a consequential health policy success.

First made available in 2014 through the Health Insurance Marketplace established by Affordable Care Act of 2010, they lower premiums and cap them based on a household’s income, expanding coverage to millions of middle-income Americans who would otherwise remain uninsured. Credits were expanded in the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) in 2021 and were further extended in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in 2022.