What does the Senate’s failure to extend health care subsidies mean for Georgians?

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) — After a critical vote in the Senate failed on Thursday that would have renewed 2021 health care tax credits, over a million Georgians are facing the possibility of rising costs in the new year – or no health coverage at all.

Senate Republicans promised the vote to their Democratic colleagues as the final bargaining chip to end the recent government shutdown. The Affordable Care Act subsidies themselves were the catalyst for the shutdown — the longest in American history — as lawmakers debated whether or not to extend the credits used by 1.4 million Georgians.

“This is life or death, people will die,” said Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Democrat. “My constituents cannot afford this and some of them cannot survive it.”

The tax credits were implemented dur