Protect affordable healthcare access, extend ACA tax credits

The Affordable Care Act provides crucial healthcare access to millions of Americans, yet it faces grave threats that must be resolutely opposed. Allowing the enhanced tax credits enacted by the American Rescue Plan Act to expire in 2025 would strip 4.2 million people of their health coverage by 2034, according to nonpartisan estimates. This unacceptable outcome undermines healthcare affordability and cannot be permitted.   Furthermore, the proposed "Marketplace Integrity and Affordability Rule" is a misnomer that would in reality reduce healthcare access by increasing out-of-pocket costs, curtailing open enrollment periods, and cruelly prohibiting DACA recipients from purchasing ACA plans - jeopardizing an additional 1.8 million people's coverage. Such callous disregard for healthcare access is unconscionable.   Budgetary proposals must extend the ACA tax credits indefinitely and reject the draconian rule changes that would inflict severe harm on vulnerable communities. Access to affordable, inclusive healthcare is a fundamental right that this body is duty-bound to safeguard.