{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://davids.house.gov/media/press-releases/icymi-davids-fights-protect-health-care-premium-tax-credits-expiration", "ICYMI: Davids Fights to Protect Health Care Premium Tax Credits Before Expiration", "2025-10-06", "2025", "2025-10", "Democrat", "House", "KS", "Sharice Davids", "D000629", "davids.house.gov", "davids", "https://davids.house.gov/media/press-releases", "scraper", "In case you missed it, Representative Sharice Davids is working to protect and extend Affordable Care Act tax credits that keep health care affordable for Kansas families. But because Congressional Republicans have refused to extend them, premiums could rise by $700 next year, putting thousands of Kansans at risk of paying more or losing coverage.\n\nDavids has been a consistent advocate for protecting ACA tax credits and making health care more affordable. She supported legislation to extend these critical premium reductions and supports making them permanent, ensuring that Kansans \u2014 especially those with chronic conditions, small business owners, and families \u2014 can keep their coverage and avoid devastating cost increases.\n\nIn Kansas alone, more than 160,000 people relied on these tax credits last year. Davids urged Congressional leaders to include an extension in the latest funding bill, but federal Republicans refused \u2014 leaving Kansas families facing higher costs and fewer options.\n\nDavids\u2019 work to lower health care costs made headlines statewide:\n\nKansas City Star: \u201cKC-area cancer patient depends on tax credit. Will Congress let it expire?\u201d by Matt Kelly\n\n\u201cIn May 2017, Dawn Wheeler\u2019s older sister informed her that she had just been diagnosed with breast cancer. Wheeler\u2019s involuntary response to the message likely saved her own life.\n\n[\u2026]\n\nDiscovering the tumor gave her a chance. But\u2026 now, the expanded ACA tax credits she\u2019s relied on to keep up with the cost of her aggressive treatment are set to expire at the end of 2025.\n\n\u2018My premium should be in the thousands, and that tax credit just brings it down to an affordable amount,\u2019 said Wheeler, who told The Star she reliably hits her out-of-pocket spending maximum in January\u2026 Wheeler said it\u2019s unnerving to know that her future ability to keep up with chemotherapy expenses could hinge on whether lawmakers can reach an agreement to extend the enhanced premium tax credits.\n\n\u2018It\u2019s terrifying for someone like me,\u2019 she said.\n\nU.S. Rep. Sharice Davids has been a vocal proponent of extending the tax credits indefinitely. Last month, in a letter to congressional leaders, she argued that even a short-term extension would provide a lifeline for people struggling to keep up with high health care costs.\n\n\u2018If we don\u2019t act, the ripple effects of this increase will be devastating,\u2019 the Democratic congresswoman said\u2026 \u2018This is not a hypothetical. Healthy people will be forced to drop their coverage, which will leave the insurance pool with way more people that have chronic conditions or high medical costs, and that drives up premiums for everybody.\u2019\n\nDavids said more than 160,000 people in Kansas rely on the enhanced tax credits, which provide an average annual savings of $705, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis.\n\n[\u2026]\n\nDavids said a family of four in her district could see a $7,000 increase in premium costs if the enhanced credits expire. \u2018A 60-year-old couple could see a nearly $17,000 increase in their cost each year,\u2019 Davids said. \u2018The numbers are staggering and they\u2019re completely unacceptable.\u2019\u201d\n\nKansas Reflector: \u201cKansas cancer survivor fears for health care as Congress weighs premium tax credit extension,\u201d by Anna Kaminski\n\n\u201cDawn Wheeler, a small business owner in Edwardsville, receives treatment for her metastatic breast cancer almost weekly. One shot, which she gets every other week to treat cancer in her liver, costs around $10,000, she said.\n\n[\u2026]\n\nWheeler is one of more than 187,000 Kansans who rely on Affordable Care Act premium tax credits to subsidize health care costs, but those credits are set to expire at the end of the year, and advocates are warning of lost coverage and a more than 75% spike in premium costs as they wait for lawmakers to decide the credits\u2019 fate.\n\nUnless Congress extends the tax credits, health care costs for the more than 22 million Americans who have health insurance through the ACA Marketplace are expected to increase, and community hospitals could bear the burden of uncompensated care.\n\n[\u2026]\n\nCindy Samuelson, senior vice president of member and public relations for the Kansas Hospital Association, said on the call that hospitals have made it clear that premium tax credits have played a key role in reducing the number of uninsured patients in Kansas and across the country.\n\nOn average, enrollees\u2019 annual premium costs could increase by an estimated $700, or 77%, if the tax credits are not extended, Samuelson said. Projections from KFF estimate that between 48,000 and 61,000 Kansans could lose coverage because of higher premium costs over the next decade. An estimate from the Hutchinson-based United Methodist Health Ministry Fund projects 108,000 Kansans losing coverage over the same time frame.\n\n[\u2026]\n\nDavids said she supports a permanent extension to the tax credits\u2026 \u2018If we don\u2019t act, the ripple effect of this increase will be devastating,\u2019 Davids said. She said she is willing to work with either party to pass a feasible extension. \u2018We are also staring down another challenge that, unfortunately, we\u2019ve become too familiar with, which is a potential government shutdown,\u2019 Davids said.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:32:54Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://davids.house.gov/media/press-releases/icymi-davids-fights-protect-health-care-premium-tax-credits-expiration"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.2801640443503857, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}