As Get Covered Illinois, the Illinois marketplace for Affordable Care Act health insurance plans, gears up for open enrollment in less than three weeks, worries and uncertainty abound over whether consumers ultimately will lose government subsidies and be hit with huge cost increases.

Congressional Democrats are continuing to fight for extension of the subsidies as a condition for their support of a Republican-backed continuing resolution that would reopen the federal government, which is now in the third week of a shutdown.

“People are very worried,” said U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly, a Democrat from Matteson. “They are very worried about if they have private insurance if that’s going to go up. They’re worried about losing their ACA subsidies, about Medicaid. My district is urban, suburban and

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