{"id":121713,"date":"2026-01-03T02:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/opinion\/my-turn-the-u-s-is-under-health-care-duress\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T02:30:00","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T11:30:00","slug":"my-turn-the-u-s-is-under-health-care-duress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/2026\/01\/03\/my-turn-the-u-s-is-under-health-care-duress\/","title":{"rendered":"My Turn: The U.S. is under health care duress"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For months, moms, parents, and caregivers have been demanding that Congress take action to protect our health care &mdash; but Republican leaders and President Trump have refused to take the health care crisis they&rsquo;ve created seriously. On Wednesday, Dec. 17, four House Republicans joined Democrats to force a vote on extending the ACA tax credits. There&rsquo;s now a clear path forward to protecting affordable health care for millions of Americans.<\/p>\n<p>We&rsquo;re down to the wire here in the fight to lower costs and save health care for millions of Americans. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) tax credits, which make health care coverage affordable for tens of millions of moms and families, are set to expire at the end of 2025. If they do, nearly 5 million people &mdash; including children and people with pre-existing conditions &mdash; will lose their health care coverage altogether. Over 20 million people will see their health care costs double &mdash; or even quadruple &mdash; come January 1st.<\/p>\n<p>The dire consequences don&rsquo;t stop there. When millions become uninsured, it will strain the entire health care system, driving up costs across the board and forcing hundreds of hospitals, maternity wards, and nursing homes to close. Research has found that millions of Americans will collectively pay an estimated $23 billion more next year just to maintain the same level of coverage they currently rely on. This harms the economy and families alike.<\/p>\n<p>The House is going to vote on extending the ACA tax credits in January, and they&rsquo;ve proven there&rsquo;s majority support for a clean three-year extension. Protecting affordable health care for millions is now in the hands of the Senate. Finish the job: extend the expiring ACA tax credits!<\/p>\n<p>This self-serving, self-consumed, nihilistic, misanthropic, controlling cultural attitude of pretended empathy for others is the &ldquo;evil&rdquo; all religions reference and we must re-repress such instincts if we ever wish to bring sanity back to our zeitgeist instead of affirming it with accolades Pretending to be something other than on it is, is only fabricating a reality built on lies and ultimately suicidal.<\/p>\n<p><em>John Sonin lives is a Douglas resident.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When millions become uninsured, it will strain the entire health care system. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1129,"featured_media":121714,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[545,955],"class_list":["post-121713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-federal-government","tag-healthcare-insurance"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>My Turn: The U.S. is under health care duress - Juneau Empire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/2026\/01\/03\/my-turn-the-u-s-is-under-health-care-duress\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"My Turn: The U.S. is under health care duress - Juneau Empire\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When millions become uninsured, it will strain the entire health care system.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/2026\/01\/03\/my-turn-the-u-s-is-under-health-care-duress\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Juneau Empire\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-01-03T11:30:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2026\/01\/41237561_web1_P1-A4Wire2-JUE-201111_1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2048\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1365\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Wire Service\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Wire Service\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/2026\/01\/03\/my-turn-the-u-s-is-under-health-care-duress\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/2026\/01\/03\/my-turn-the-u-s-is-under-health-care-duress\/\",\"name\":\"My Turn: The U.S. is under health care duress - Juneau Empire\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/2026\/01\/03\/my-turn-the-u-s-is-under-health-care-duress\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/2026\/01\/03\/my-turn-the-u-s-is-under-health-care-duress\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2026\/01\/41237561_web1_P1-A4Wire2-JUE-201111_1.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-01-03T11:30:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/#\/schema\/person\/a55308a565b50b2e68081f4b0ef3c2ef\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/2026\/01\/03\/my-turn-the-u-s-is-under-health-care-duress\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/2026\/01\/03\/my-turn-the-u-s-is-under-health-care-duress\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/2026\/01\/03\/my-turn-the-u-s-is-under-health-care-duress\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2026\/01\/41237561_web1_P1-A4Wire2-JUE-201111_1.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2026\/01\/41237561_web1_P1-A4Wire2-JUE-201111_1.jpg\",\"width\":2048,\"height\":1365,\"caption\":\"A demonstrator holds a sign in front of the U.S. Supreme Court as arguments are heard about the Affordable Care Act, Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2020, in Washington. 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