WNEM: Congresswoman McDonald Rivet calls on peers to reverse Medicaid cuts, extend ACA premium tax credits

SAGINAW, Mich. (WNEM) – Congresswoman Kristen McDonald Rivet was in Saginaw, calling on her peers to reverse trillion-dollar cuts to Medicaid and to extend the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) enhanced premium tax credits set to expire at the end of the year.

McDonald Rivet and other state Democrats said they want to keep health care costs from skyrocketing for millions of Americans.

“Right now, what we are seeing across the country, our people are getting their premium bills for their health insurance,” said McDonald Rivet. “Those bills are set to double and triple in some cases.”

McDonald Rivet was joined in Saginaw by local health care administrators and community members, urging her fellow lawmakers to take action. She wants Congress to pass a budget that she claims will protect the health care of working people.

State Democrats held a virtual event highlighting their demands to keep those ACA enhanced premium tax credits in place.

“Nearly half a million Michiganders on the ACA marketplace will likely see their health care premiums increase, or double on average, starting in January,” said Curtis Hertel, the chair of the Michigan Democratic Party. “For Michigan families who fall out of coverage because of those premium hikes, that can mean the difference between affording their prescriptions or not, between taking their kids to a doctor or not, between financial security or financial ruin.”

McDonald Rivet said she will do everything she can to make sure lawmakers in Washington extend the ACA tax credits that so many people use.

“91 percent of the people who claim these credits make less than $63,000 a year,” said McDonald Rivet. “People need these tax credits. It’s incredibly important. And we are going to continue fighting for them.”

Michigan Congressman Tom Barrett, a Republican, responded to McDonald Rivet’s comments. In part, he said that unlike every Democrat in the Michigan delegation, he voted alongside a bipartisan majority in both the House and Senate to keep the government open for the people.

Senate Democrats have now voted four times and counting to keep it shut down over their unrelated and partisan demands, said Barrett.

While Barrett is open to discussing the ACA tax credits and the cost of health care, he said that conversation cannot happen in good faith while colleagues across the aisle hold the government hostage and refuse to pay our troops and federal employees.