Smucker missed chance to help constituents struggling to afford health insurance [editorial] | Our Opinion

THE ISSUE

“Republican U.S. Rep. Lloyd Smucker on Thursday voted along party lines against a three-year extension of tax credits for the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, that expired in late December,” LNP | LancasterOnline’s Jade Campos reported. The measure passed in the U.S. House comfortably with the help of three Republican lawmakers from Pennsylvania. As Campos noted, “The lawmakers pushing for the extension were reacting to skyrocketing health care premiums linked to the end of the Obamacare subsidies, which were created during the pandemic.”

There are few things scarier in adult life than going without health insurance. A cold that turns out to be a lingering respiratory infection, an ankle sprain that turns out to be a complex fracture, a lump that turns out to be malignant — all of these things can mean hefty medical bills, potentially crushing debt and possibly bankruptcy if you don’t have adequate health insurance.

Life without health insurance is now the reality for thousands more Pennsylvanians, because health insurance premiums spiked in the new year after pandemic-era federal subsidies (tax credits) expired. These folks now must hope that the U.S. Senate follows the U.S. House in approving extended subsidies for enrollees in the Affordable Care Act marketplace.

As LNP | LancasterOnline has reported, the number of Lancaster County enrollees in Affordable Care Act plans has dropped by 18% in the new year. “That puts Lancaster County among the top nine of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties by percentage decrease,” this newspaper noted.

According to preliminary numbers from Pennie, the commonwealth’s Affordable Care Act marketplace, there were 15,113 county enrollees at the start of open enrollment for 2026. As of Jan. 6, there were 2,738 terminations.

It’s not difficult to understand why: Without the federal subsidies, the average monthly percentage increase in Lancaster County per policy is 64%, Pennie data shows — or $174 per member, per month. Given the high costs of groceries and housing these days, that increase clearly was insurmountable for some individuals and families. They have to eat and they have to live somewhere, so health insurance was the thing to cut.

We would have thought that this impossible choice, faced by too many of his constituents, might have drawn the concern of Lancaster County’s sole representative in the U.S. House.

But Congressman Smucker apparently has other concerns on his mind. We’re guessing that among them is his desire to chair the influential U.S. House Budget Committee after its current chair retires from the House.

In order to win that position, he needs the support of President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson.

So we suspect he wasn’t about to step outside the narrow lines his party has drawn on the health care issue.

Even if it meant that some Lancaster County residents have found health insurance to be so expensive without enhanced federal subsidies that they no longer could afford to buy it.

Even if that means that county hospitals may be forced to absorb the costs of treating uninsured patients.

The perilous stakes moved another Pennsylvania Republican, U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Bucks County, to lead a procedural effort to force the Jan. 8 House vote on extending the subsidies.

Fitzpatrick represents a purple district, so his stance on this is in his political best interests. But he seems generally inclined toward bipartisanship and co-chairs Congress’ Problem Solvers Caucus — a group Smucker exited not long after calling for the nullification of Pennsylvania votes legally cast in the 2020 presidential election.

Fitzpatrick also seems to genuinely care about the plight of people who no longer can afford health insurance without enhanced federal subsidies.

We detected little of that concern in Smucker’s statement explaining why he voted against extending the subsidies.

“We want all Americans to have access to quality health care at a price they can afford,” Smucker said in a statement after the vote. “Unfortunately, the bill considered today does nothing to move us closer to that goal. Instead, it simply extends the status quo that we know is not working.”

Note the use of the royal “we” — Smucker clearly was afraid of straying even a smidgen from the party line.

Instead, he touted a Republican health care plan that comes more than 15 years after the passage of the Affordable Care Act and after dozens of futile GOP attempts to repeal it.

Despite having so many years in which to come up with a workable alternative to the Affordable Care Act, Republicans have failed to deliver. The least they can do now is to support the subsidies that will enable millions of Americans to afford health insurance this year and in the next couple of years.

According to Politico, a bipartisan Senate group is “working on a compromise deal to revive the lapsed Affordable Care Act subsidies” but, disappointingly, the legislative text won’t be ready until the last week of January, after a Senate recess. We strongly urge U.S. Sens. John Fetterman and Dave McCormick to support this bipartisan effort.

It will be a challenge to get a clean bill through the Senate. And Congress may then have to find a way to override a veto that Trump threatened this week.

But those challenges are nothing compared to those that American families will face if Congress fails to deliver a solution.

Whatever happens, we hope Lancaster County residents remember that when Smucker had a real opportunity to help them deal with their health insurance costs, he rejected that chance.

Smucker has supported other federal subsidies in the past — for farmers, for instance, and for Lancaster Airport. But assisting constituents who struggle to afford health insurance? Sadly, those folks are now on their own.