WATCH: Wisconsin woman’s emotions are high as tax credits set to expire

Christmas gifts. 🎁 In-state trips. 🚗

Retired La Crosse artist Kate Bausch gets emotional as she thinks about what she and her husband, who was a teacher for 38 years, will have to forgo if Republicans let existing tax credits expire.

The couple’s health insurance premiums under the Affordable Care Act would be hiked by several hundred dollars a month.

“Four million Americans on the Affordable Care Act will have their health care terminated,” says Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), “And 22 million will have their premiums jacked up on average by 75%.”

When the Affordable Care Act (ACA) began in 2010 and the HealthCare.gov marketplace was launched to make it easier and cheaper for people without health insurance to buy coverage, the law included tax credits to lower the cost of premiums for people with incomes up to 400% of the federal poverty guideline.

In 2021, the premium tax credits were boosted so more people would be eligible and there’d be bigger savings, but they are set to expire at the end of this year.

✏️: Salina Heller