At the time of print, the federal government is in shutdown, and one of the most immediate and devastating impacts will be on healthcare. Much of the public conversation has focused on families who rely on Medicaid or the Affordable Care Act (ACA) for coverage, but the truth is: if you have private insurance through your employer, you’re not insulated. You should care deeply about what’s happening, because the ripple effects will hit your premiums too.

Here’s why. The ACA isn’t just a program for low-income families. It’s a stabilizer for the entire healthcare market. Millions of Americans depend on tax credits provided under the ACA to afford insurance on the exchanges. Without those subsidies, many of those families simply won’t be able to keep their coverage. That means fewer people insured, fewer healthy individuals paying into the system, and higher costs spread across everyone who remains.

Think of it like a seesaw. When more people have coverage, the costs balance out. But when coverage falls, the weight shifts—and private insurers respond by raising premiums on the rest of us. If tax credits vanish because of congressional inaction, it’s not just ACA enrollees who will be left behind. Employer plans will see the shockwave too, because the entire market becomes riskier and more expensive. And while union members tend to shoulder these spikes better than our non-union siblings, we’ll all be feeling the reverberations of these subsidies. 

According to Access Health CT, more than 142,000 people in our state rely on subsidies through the ACA exchange. If those credits disappear, families will be looking at premiums that jump by triple digits overnight. A family of five making $150,000 could see their monthly bill spike from under $1,000 to over $4,000—a cost so high it forces many to drop coverage altogether. When tens of thousands of our neighbors are forced to go without insurance, the pressure doesn’t just sit on them—it gets passed along in higher costs to everyone who still has insurance.

Hospitals and providers will also feel the squeeze. More uninsured patients means more uncompensated care. Providers then increase prices on the insured population to make up the gap. Employers will face skyrocketing healthcare costs, making it harder to keep benefits strong. State budgets may be strained as uncompensated care rises. The entire system becomes more fragile.

It’s not just about politics, or “other people’s programs.” It’s about how our shared healthcare system works. If one leg of the stool gets kicked out, the whole thing tips over.

So if you think you’re safe because you get insurance through work, you’re not. A government shutdown that strips ACA tax credits will drive up costs for everyone, and make our system more unstable for years to come.