A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
NPR has been speaking with people who expect to pay more for health insurance if Congress can't come to an agreement on subsidies this month.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Yeah, back in November, we spoke to Chris O'Donnell. He lives in Virginia. And at the time, he said he was expecting his family to pay an additional $1,300 a month for health care in the year ahead. Late last week, we checked back in with him and he wasn't hopeful.
CHRIS O'DONNELL: I will be pleasantly surprised if Congress does anything to help. I'm not expecting it. I'm moving forward with the assumption that my premiums next year are going to be 2,155 a month.
FADEL: So he's been looking at the money he has and...
O'DONNELL: I can pay it, barely. I basically have to redirect all this money I was planning on putting towards retirement or savings in general towards health care premiums. But according to the spreadsheet that I built with all my finances, we'll scrape by.
MARTÍNEZ: Hannah Pniewski (ph) lives in Georgia. She got married this year.
HANNAH PNIEWSKI: We had thoughts in mind for next year to, like, buy a house, start a family. And now, with the subsidies going away and our insurance practically doubling, we're just really questioning what exactly we can afford.
MARTÍNEZ: She says she can't go without insurance, so she expects to get another plan through the federal marketplace, even if subsidies go away.
PNIEWSKI: It doesn't make sense for us to not have health insurance at all. And it does feel like the only option, unfortunately.
FADEL: Eric Kraus (ph) in New Jersey tells us he might just go without coverage. He says his wife just got a new job with health care. But he doesn't know if it'll be any cheaper than an ACA plan. If they do the math and find they can't afford it?
ERIC KRAUS: Then I will forgo health insurance for the year.
MARTÍNEZ: Kraus says he has a marketplace plan now and it's already too expensive.
KRAUS: I just had a child. And maybe, having that child, if I had to pay the full $40,000 of the hospital bill, would I see maybe a couple thousand dollars in benefit from having health insurance, which is ridiculous.
MARTÍNEZ: If the subsidies go away, Kraus expects that the people who will keep their policies will be older, sicker Americans who have no choice.
KRAUS: You're going to lose all of these people who are healthy, who are young. And the system seems to depend on that. So I don't think that the Republicans are even considering that.
MARTÍNEZ: Those voices are just some of the millions of Americans who are expected to pay more for health care premiums if Congress doesn't pass a bill this month. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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