State insurance auditors, including Montana’s, urged Congress to renew health insurance subsidies

Micah Drew | Daily Montanan
October 1, 2025

While Republicans in Washington, D.C. are opposed to extending the healthcare subsidies for the Affordable Care Act Marketplace, state insurance commissioners, including Montana Auditor James Brown, a Republican, sent a letter to Congressional leaders last month urging them to continue the enhanced tax credits that began during the pandemic.

“Without an extension of the enhanced credits in September, insurers and marketplaces will begin to notify over 20 million consumers in all 50 states of major premium increases in a matter of weeks,” states the letter submitted by The National Association of Insurance Commissioners, which represents insurance regulators in all 50 states, D.C. and five territories.

The expiring subsidies have been a key issue in the halls of Congress this week that led to the federal government shutdown.

Although Brown was at odds with Republican U.S. Sens. Steve Daines and Tim Sheehy of Montana on the issue as recently as Sept. 16, he declined Tuesday and Wednesday to comment to the Daily Montanan.

In the nation’s capital, the debate splits along party lines. In votes on Tuesday, Republicans opposed a Democratic stopgap proposal on Tuesday to fund the government for a month that included several health care provisions, while all but three Democrats opposed a Republican measure to fund the government for seven weeks. A continuing resolution to fund the government needs 60 votes in the U.S. Senate to pass.

The Affordable Care Act Marketplace allows individuals who do not receive health insurance from employers and do not qualify for Medicaid to shop for coverage from private insurance companies.

Open enrollment for people who buy insurance through the Affordable Care Act Marketplace starts Nov. 1, and premiums could double in 2026 if enhanced tax credits in the ACA expire at the end of this year as scheduled, as States Newsroom’s D.C. Bureau reported, citing an analysis by health policy research organization KFF.

In Montana, more than 77,000 individuals selected insurance through the ACA Marketplace in 2025, according to KFF. That is up from 42,822 in 2020, before the expanded credits took effect.

All the growth in Marketplace enrollment in the last four years is among people receiving an advanced payment of the premium tax credit, according to a KFF report, nearly doubling from 2020.

In 2024, more than 58,000 Montanans received more than $63.5 million in expanded ACA subsidies from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which extended the subsidies through 2025.

In an interview with the Montana State News Bureau, Brown said he was trying to do the “job that has been tasked to me by the Legislature to protect the consumer and provide regulatory certainty to insurance companies that provide ACA plans in Montana.”

A KFF state-by-state analysis shows that Montanans’ with the tax credits pay an average monthly premium of $112, compared to $203 without the credit — an 81% difference.

In a statement issued in August, Brown warned Montanans about rate hikes from major insurance providers in the state, including Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Montana, PacificSource, Mountain Health Co-op, and UnitedHealthcare, which he attributed to several factors including drug and medical inflation, and the uncertainty over federal subsidies.

Heathcare.gov, the federal government’s website for the ACA marketplace, shows that PacificSource is requesting an 11% rate increase, while Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Montana is requesting a nearly 25% hike.

Brown has been vocal over the ACA’s flaws in interviews with other outlets.

“Until Congress repeals and replaces the failed law that has driven rates higher for years on the American people, we are calling on the federal government to restore the ACA subsidies that help keep insurance within reach for Montana families,” Brown said in a statement to the News Bureau.

Ten House Republicans earlier this year proposed legislation to extend the tax credits.

No members of Montana’s federal delegation, including Rep. Troy Downing, former state Auditor, responded to requests for comment on the debate over subsidies fueling the shutdown, or whether they would support standalone bills to extend the credits.

But speaking on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Sen. Steve Daines, a Montana Republican, said the enhanced premium tax credits were always intended as a temporary, COVID-era subsidy and would carry a $350 billion price tag over a decade.

“It is not a good idea to extend it. We don’t deny the fact there are increases coming in health care costs and insurance premiums, but it’s not because of the loss of this subsidy. That’s a very, very small percentage. The overall health care costs are going up because of inflation, because of some new expensive drugs that are being more utilized,” he said. “These subsidies are not a hill worth dying for the Democrats, and certainly we’re going to oppose it.”

“There’s no reason we should be in a shutdown. It costs taxpayers money. It disrupts government services. And at the end of the day, it doesn’t really deliver any political or policy objective. So, let’s end the shutdown and get both sides back to the negotiating table, get the appropriations through and move forward. That’s the right answer, it’s the best answer as well,” Daines added.

In press statements, Daines and Montana Sen. Tim Sheehy both blamed the “Schumer shutdown” on Democrats playing political games.

“Chuck Schumer and the Democrats put partisan games over the best interests of the American people and shut down the government. Democrats are holding critical resources for our military, veterans, and hardworking Montana families hostage to appease their radical, far-left base,” Sheehy said.

Rep. Ryan Zinke posted on social media that Democrats shut down the government because, “they want billions of dollars for illegal immigrants to receive taxpayer funded welfare benefits,” echoing a talking point put out by President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance. The New York Times dove into that claim, while Newsweek and CNN fact checked it as false.

Zinke’s office sent out a survey to Montanans on Wednesday asking whether they “support shutting down the federal government to provide illegal immigrants taxpayer-subsidized health care and eliminatev (sic) the $50 billion rural health fund?”

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