Sarah Toce
Ahead of the start of open enrollment nationwide on Saturday, November 1, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA)—Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and a senior member and former chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee—released a new video message on how 22 million Americans will see massive price hikes when they begin shopping online for health insurance coverage on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchange marketplaces, whether on Washington Healthplanfinder or the national HealthCare.gov site.
Sen. Murray called out Republicans for causing a “MAGA health care hike” and highlighted how Republicans’ refusal to extend the ACA enhanced premium tax credits—the reason prices are skyrocketing—is going to hurt people in Republican states harder than anywhere else. Among other proof points, Murray pointed out that 80 percent of the funding for the ACA tax credits that Republicans refuse to save, goes to states Trump won.
Sen. Murray has been warning nonstop, every day, for weeks about how Republicans’ refusal to save the ACA enhanced premium tax credits will cause premiums to explode—and how the harm will be felt most in states that voted for Trump. She has forcefully warned that the 10 states facing the largest premium hikes are red states, and she took her case directly to Idahoans and Montanans in separate press calls in recent weeks.
Open enrollment in Washington state and nationwide begins this Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025. Last week, Washington state’s ACA marketplace, Washington Healthplanfinder, opened its “window shopping” period, allowing Washingtonians to look at plans for next year—and most are seeing dramatic increases in their premiums thanks to Republican inaction.
On average, premiums for ACA plans in Washington state are spiking by 21 percent. Nationwide, 22 million Americans who buy health care through the ACA exchanges will see their health care costs skyrocket next year without the tax credits, premiums are more than doubling on average, and these higher costs will push 4.8 million people off their health coverage over the next decade. A Washington-state specific fact sheet on the ACA tax credits is here.
This week, U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) introduced legislation to ensure SNAP funding does not run dry—the bill has Democratic support and 10 Republican cosponsors, and as Murray notes, Republican Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) chose to send the Senate home rather than hold a vote on the bill—which would have passed. In addition, Democrats introduced and tried to pass this week a separate bill to ensure continued funding for both SNAP and WIC—but Leader Thune blocked it.
Meanwhile, President Trump has outright refused to tap billions of dollars in the SNAP contingency fund to pay out November benefits—ignoring the law, bipartisan calls to tap the contingency fund to disburse benefits, and USDA’s own Sept. 30 shutdown contingency plan. The September document makes clear the SNAP contingency fund not only can be used to keep SNAP running, but that it was the Department’s plan to do just that before Trump inexplicably reversed course and decided to let 42 million Americans go hungry this month.
Yesterday, Politico reported that a federal judge appeared likely to rule in favor of a lawsuit brought by Democratic states arguing that the Trump administration must use emergency funds to fund SNAP benefits in Nov. U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani said in part: “It’s hard for me to understand how this isn’t an emergency when there’s no money and a lot of people need their SNAP benefits.”
Sen. Murray briefly relied on food stamps as a child and has always fought to fully fund SNAP benefits, and she forcefully opposed Republicans when they made the largest cut to SNAP in history this summer—kicking roughly 1 million kids off their SNAP benefits or substantially cutting them in their Big Ugly Bill.
