U.S. President Donald Trump holds scissors next to Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., and Sarah Malone, Executive Vice President of Trump International Aberdeen Golf Links, after cutting the ribbon during the grand opening of Trump International Golf Links Aberdeen in Balmedie, Aberdeen, Scotland, Britain, July 29, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

After almost a month, the partial shutdown of the United States' federal government drags on. And the issue that, more than anything else, is fueling the standoff between GOP and Democratic lawmakers is subsidies for the Affordable Care Act of 2010, a.k.a. Obamacare.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) and many other Democrats are warning that unless subsides for the ACA exchanges on healthcare.gov are funded, millions of Americans won't be able to afford health insurance in 2026.

In an article published on October 25, New York Times reporter Patricia Mazzei focuses on an area that will be hit especially hard without ACA subsidies: South Florida.

Once a volatile swing state, Florida has become increasingly Republican in the last few years. Former President Barack Obama won Florida's electoral votes in both 2008 and 2012, but in 2024, Donald Trump defeated Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris by roughly 14 percent in the Sunshine State.

"If the extra subsidies that help Americans pay for Obamacare insurance plans expire at the end of the year as expected," Mazzei reports, "the most intense reverberations will be felt in South Florida, the country's top market for the coverage. As many as a third of the 4.7 million Floridians on Affordable Care Act plans could drop them next year because of the higher costs, according to some estimates."

The Times reporter cites specific examples of Floridians who could be feeling a lot of pain in 2026.

"Françoise Cham, who is 63 and self-employed in the Miami suburbs, hopes she will be able to afford coverage until she can sign up for Medicare at 65," Mazzei notes. "Heather Slivko-Bathurst, 37, expects to have to switch her family in Key West to the skimpier coverage offered through her job at a boating company. Lorraine Avila, a 46-year-old housekeeper in Miami, thinks she is likely to give up coverage altogether, which terrifies her."

Avila told the Times, "I take care of my kids and my grandkids. If I don’t have insurance, how can I take care of myself?"

Florida, according to Mazzei, has an especially "high demand for Obamacare" because it is "full of low-wage service and gig workers who cannot get insurance through their jobs, self-employed people and early retirees who are not yet eligible for Medicare." Mazzei reports that in Rep. Frederica S. Wilson's (D-Florida) district, roughly 35 percent residents are on an ACA plan.

"In Florida," Mazzei observes, "the uncertainty has resulted in a political throwback of sorts. Suddenly, the state's politicians are talking about the Affordable Care Act again, often in urgent terms, 15 years after President Barack Obama signed it into law and several election cycles after it faded as a campaign issue."

Read Patricia Mazzei's full New York Times article at this link (subscription required).