As a pollster, I know numbers. And right now, our poll numbers are issuing a stark warning about the future of our party’s majorities in Washington. If Congress fails to act on a critical issue this year – to preserve key health care tax credits for millions of working, middle-class Americans in the individual health insurance marketplace – these Americans will get hit with an unexpected tax increase. After four years of Biden-Harris inflation, it’s a tax they can’t afford.
Our recent national survey reveals a clear mandate that every Republican lawmaker should be working to preserve these health care tax credits that help make health insurance more affordable for working Americans, or risk significant political consequences.
Enhanced Premium Tax Credits (PTCs) help lower plan costs for eligible Americans who buy their own health care insurance through the exchanges. These health care tax hikes are set to expire at the end of this year. This will tee up a potential tax hike on more than 24 million working-class Americans – and a potential political catastrophe for the GOP – if Congress doesn’t act. Allowing these enhanced PTCs to expire would effectively amount to a tax increase, resulting in millions of working-class Americans losing their health care, and health care costs spiking dramatically. The first effects of this tax hike will start to be felt before the tax credits expire, as rates will begin to be published in September, elevating the urgency for a solution.
According to polling research we recently conducted in partnership with Americans for a Balanced Budget, four out of five voters (83 percent) overwhelmingly support preserving these tax credits. This is a big number. These are Americans of all stripes. Support for preserving the tax credits cuts across all political and demographic groups, including the GOP base.
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The marketplace where Americans can purchase their own insurance, made more affordable by these tax credits, also carries significant support in its own right. Nearly nine in ten Americans support the individual health insurance marketplace, including Republicans (84 percent) and supporters of President Trump (82 percent).
Why does this matter so much? Not only do the numbers indicate that the vast majority of Americans support extension, they also make it clear that preserving these critical tax credits is a political winner for Republican lawmakers ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Three-quarters of voters told us that they are more likely to support candidates for U.S. Senate or Congress who voted to preserve these credits. And among Republicans and Trump voters, that figure is nearly identical at 76 percent and 73 percent, respectively.
Folks who rely on enhanced PTCs for affordable health care aren’t taking advantage of the system. They’re hardworking Americans who purchase their own health insurance because they don’t get coverage through their employer. They’re Americans juggling multiple jobs or working for a small business that doesn’t offer health benefits. From farmers working on America’s land to Americans working a skilled trade that run and operate their own business in communities across the country, these tax credits are a lifeline for these hardworking Americans, enabling them to maintain coverage and pursue their “American Dream” — without being buried under the weight of unaffordable health care, or forgoing coverage.
Having worked with President Trump for over a decade to transform the Republican Party from a party of country club losers to a winning majority party of working middle-class Americans, these are our MAGA voters who need this tax credit. Working middle-class Americans need affordable health care.
Just like we made the Trump tax cuts permanent to stop the largest tax increase in history (a tax increase every Democrat supported), we need to stop this tax increase on working Americans who pay for their own health care. Going into next year’s midterm elections, we can’t afford to lose the votes of these working MAGA voters. We need them to come back out to the polls.
The bottom line is this: preserving the health care tax credit should be a top legislative priority for Congress this fall. Congress secured a historic victory for President Trump and the American people by passing the Trump tax cuts. Allowing the enhanced premium tax credits to expire and health care prices to spike would undermine the full promise of this incredible win.
Congress should preserve the premium tax credits as soon as possible.
John McLaughlin, CEO of McLaughlin & Associates, is a nationally recognized Republican pollster who has served as an advisor to President Trump on all his presidential campaigns.
Editor's Note: President Trump is leading America into the "Golden Age" as Democrats try desperately to stop it.
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