The Covering Wisconsin webpage. The nonprofit, housed at the University of Wisconsin Extension, is a navigator agency to help people understand their options when buying health insurance through the HealthCare.gov marketplace. (Screenshot)

About 4,000 fewer people in Wisconsin signed up at the federal HealthCare.gov marketplace in November for a health plan for next year than did in November 2024 for coverage this year, recently released numbers from the federal government show.

It’s too soon to tell for sure whether that will forecast a significant drop in health coverage through the marketplace, according to William Parke-Sutherland of the Wisconsin family policy research and advocacy group Kids Forward.

Parke-Sutherland and others who pay close attention to health care access in Wisconsin are watching those numbers closely, however.

Monday, Dec. 15, marks a critical deadline — the last day that people who purchase a health plan through the marketplace can sign up for coverage that starts Jan. 1, 2026.

The Healthcare.gov marketplace was created as part of the Affordable Care Act. Enacted in 2010 to drive down the ranks of Americans without access to health care, the ACA established the marketplace to make it easier and cheaper for people without coverage from an employer or through government programs such as Medicaid to buy health insurance.

Enhanced tax credit subsidies first enacted in 2021 on health plans sold through the marketplace have helped boost enrollment to new records over the last four years nationally and in Wisconsin. More than 300,000 state residents received their health coverage for 2025 through the marketplace.

Those enhanced subsidies expire at the end of this year, however, leading to forecasts that enrollment will decline in 2026 as the cost of insurance climbs.

“Many Wisconsinites will see their premiums double, and some will see staggering increases of over $30,000 a year,” Gov. Tony Evers said Wednesday during a press call with the ACA advocacy groups Protect Our Care and Main Street Alliance. “That’s ridiculous and unattainable for many.”

The event was held both to alert people about Monday’s open enrollment deadline and to urge voters to lobby Congress to extend the subsidies.

“Each year, the Affordable Care Act and open enrollment has ensured hundreds of thousands of Wisconsinites having life-saving health care coverage,” Evers said. “These tax credits are not luxuries — they are lifelines that make the difference between kids and families and communities getting care or going without it.”

This year, 88% of Wisconsin residents who enrolled at HealthCare.gov qualified for the enhanced subsidies and saved $644 a month on average, Evers said.

Thad Schumacher, a Fitchburg pharmacist who also joined the call, said losing coverage would lead people to forgo “their primary care visits, their medications, for chronic conditions like diabetes and hypertension, and preventative care that keeps people healthy.”

Early numbers send mixed signals

The federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid reported that from Nov. 1 to 29 this year, 84,398 Wisconsinites enrolled in coverage through the marketplace. From Nov. 1 to Nov. 30, 2024, Dairy State enrollment totaled 88,189, according to CMS.

Nationally numbers are up, however — 5.76 million in November this year, compared with 5.36 million in November last year, according to CMS.

While Wisconsin’s decrease of less than 4,000 people signing up may look small, “It’s just hard to know what this means,” Parke-Sutherland told the Wisconsin Examiner.

In the years going back to 2022, the first month of open enrollment saw anywhere from 29% to 42% of that year’s total HealthCare.gov sign-ups, he said.

At Covering Wisconsin — a federally licensed navigator that helps guide people through the process of enrolling in HealthCare.gov plans — the volume of November calls and contacts through the navigator’s web-based chat portal have been about even with the same month last year, said Allison Espeseth, the Covering Wisconsin director.

In 2024, however, there was “a pretty big spike” in contacts in the first two weeks of December leading up to the Dec. 15 deadline for coverage to start Jan. 1.

“This year, we are definitely continuing to have people call us, but we haven’t seen that spike,” Espeseth said.

She offered several possible reasons for that. Some people may have seen higher premiums for their plans and decided to go without. Others may think that there won’t be any subsidies, despite the fact that smaller subsidies that were part of HealthCare.gov plans from the beginning remain in place.

And some have wondered whether they should hold off on signing up in case Congress does reach a deal and extend the subsidies, Espeseth noted.

“We’ve been encouraging people to please sign up regardless,” Espeseth said. “Don’t wait.”

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Volunteers from No Limits Outreach Ministries in Hyattsville, Maryland, and the Capital Area Food Bank prepare for distribution on Oct. 28, 2025 to furloughed federal workers affected by the government shutdown. People with government employment ID began lining up hours ahead of time. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — By Saturday, millions of Americans are expected to face a drastic spike in health care premium costs during open enrollment, though a hunger crisis may have been temporarily averted, both tied to the ongoing government shutdown.

A federal judge in Massachusetts Friday afternoon found that the U.S. Department of Agriculture acted unlawfully in deciding to withhold billions in emergency funding for 42 million people who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, amid a government shutdown.

But while the ruling does not order USDA to immediately tap into its roughly $6 billion contingency fund, a separate ruling from a federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the agency to continue the payments after a coalition of religious and advocacy groups sued.

Prior to both rulings, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins defended USDA’s decision to not use the contingency fund during a Friday press conference at the U.S. Capitol with House Speaker Mike Johnson on day 31 of the government shutdown. 

“We are here today because SNAP benefits run dry tomorrow, so the truth has finally revealed itself, hasn’t it?” Rollins said. “Democrats’ support for programs like SNAP is now reduced to cynical control over people’s lives.”

It was not yet clear midday Friday how the two court rulings would be carried out by the administration.

The move to cut off SNAP would leave millions hungry, nearly 40% of them children, and is an effort by the Trump administration to put pressure on Senate Democrats to accept the House-passed GOP stopgap spending bill to fund the government until Nov. 21. 

Senate Democrats have held out demanding action on tax credits that will expire at the end of the year for people who buy their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace, hugely driving up costs. 

They have tried to spark negotiations, but Republicans have maintained that talks on health care subsidies will only begin after the government is funded. 

Flight delays, filibuster fate 

As the government shutdown continues, millions of federal workers are furloughed, or have continued to work without pay, including air traffic controllers. 

Flight delays and cancellations are starting to mount, with 3,739 delays within, into or out of the United States and 364 cancellations within the United States by midday Friday, according to the FlightAware delays tracker.

Another shutdown complication emerged when President Donald Trump, who has spent most of the week abroad in Asia meeting with foreign leaders over trade and tariff talks, Thursday night urged Republicans to eliminate the Senate filibuster, which requires a 60-vote threshold. 

“Get rid of the Filibuster, and get rid of it, NOW!” Trump wrote on his social media platform. Senate Republicans have been lukewarm on the idea, since Democrats then could do the same if they regain control of the chamber now held by the GOP with 53 seats.

Lacking 60 votes, the Senate has failed 13 times to pass the House-passed stopgap spending measure and left Capitol Hill Thursday night. Democrat Sen. Jacky Rosen from Nevada tried to keep the Senate in session, but was overruled by Republicans. 

Another critical deadline approaching Friday was pay for active duty military members. Vice President JD Vance said the Trump administration would shuffle funds to ensure pay, but did not detail those plans. According to Axios, the Defense Department pulled billions from several accounts to ensure the troops could be paid. 

Rollins defends USDA refusal to pay benefits

Congress failed to fund SNAP and nearly every other discretionary federal program for the 2026 fiscal year that began Oct. 1.

In order to receive SNAP benefits, a household’s gross monthly income must be at or below 130% of the federal poverty guidelines. A family of four would receive a SNAP maximum monthly allotment of $994, according to USDA.

Rollins sought to justify her agency’s refusal to shuffle the contingency funds to pay for SNAP, saying that money “is only allowed to flow if the underlying program is funded,” and “by law, a contingency fund can only flow when the underlying fund is flowing.” 

The Agriculture secretary said that “even if it could flow, it doesn’t even cover half of the month of November.” 

USDA said in a memo earlier in October that it would not tap into the contingency fund to keep the program afloat in November, despite its since-deleted Sept. 30 shutdown plan saying it would tap into this reserve. 

The memo said the contingency fund “is a source of funds for contingencies, such as the Disaster SNAP program, which provides food purchasing benefits for individuals in disaster areas, including natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods, that can come on quickly and without notice.” 

Democrats have objected. Friday’s decision from a federal judge in Boston stems from a lawsuit brought by 25 states and the District of Columbia against the Trump administration to force USDA to use the contingency fund. 

USDA secretary recounts conversation with waiter

At the Capitol press conference, Rollins also recalled a recent encounter she had at a Louisiana restaurant with a “wonderful” waiter named Joe, who she said took on that job after being furloughed as a federal government employee due to the shutdown. 

“He didn’t know who I was. And I said, ‘Well, Joe, I can appreciate that. You know, I’m sort of in that world as well.’ And I said, ‘Where do you work?’ And he said, ‘Well, I work for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in their New Orleans office as part of the financial team.'”

Rollins said that encounter “just really brought home for me … to echo what Mike (Johnson) said, just thanking so many thousands of federal workers who are showing up, who are still doing their job, who aren’t getting paid, those that are now concerned about putting food on the table and making their mortgages and paying their rent.” 

Rollins, along with the rest of the president’s Cabinet, is still getting paid.

Health premiums skyrocket

As open enrollment begins Saturday, those enrollees in the Affordable Care Act marketplace who currently receive a tax credit are likely to see their monthly premium payments more than double to about 114% on average, according to an analysis by KFF. 

For the last month, Democrats have warned of this, as the tax credits that help pay for individual health insurance are set to expire at the end of the year. 

The top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, said in a statement that many families will see an increase in their premiums on Nov. 1.

“The sticker shock many families will face when they shop for health coverage is unacceptable, and it’s why Congress must act,” Pallone said.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that if Congress does not extend the tax credits, insurers expect healthy, younger people to drop their marketplace coverage plans, which will lead to increased premium costs. 

Anxiety over WIC program

Meanwhile, USDA’s Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC, a program separate from SNAP, got a $300 million infusion from the agency, using tariff revenue, to keep the program running through October. 

The program provides nearly 7 million women, infants and children with healthy foods, breastfeeding support, nutrition education and other resources. 

Advocates are calling on the administration to supply additional emergency funds for WIC. 

Led by the National WIC Association, more than three dozen national organizations signed on to an Oct. 24 letter to the White House urging the administration to provide an additional $300 million in emergency funding. 

Head Start affected

The consequences of the shutdown are also hitting Head Start — a federal program that provides early childhood education, nutritious meals, health screenings and other support services to low-income families and served more than 790,000 children in the 2023-2024 program year. 

The National Head Start Association estimates that 140 programs across 41 states and Puerto Rico serving more than 65,000 children will not receive their operational funding if the shutdown continues past Nov. 1 — a reality that appears certain.

Six of those programs serving more than 6,500 children did not receive this funding on Oct. 1 and have had to look to outside resources and local funds to keep their programs afloat. 

SNAP, WIC and Native communities 

American Indian and Alaska Native communities are also scrambling to fill the anticipated gaps in food security and assistance due to funding uncertainties for SNAP and WIC. 

Advocates and U.S. senators across the aisle say these funding uncertainties for the key federal nutrition programs are putting particular pressure on Native communities. 

At an Oct. 29 Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing on the shutdown’s impacts on tribal communities, Minnesota Democratic Sen. Tina Smith said she is hearing from tribal nations in her state about people switching from SNAP to the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations, or FDPIR, a separate USDA initiative.

FDPIR is an alternative to SNAP and, per USDA, provides foods “to income-eligible households living on Indian reservations, and to American Indian households residing in approved areas near reservations and in Oklahoma.” 

The U.S. Capitol on the evening of Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025, just hours before a federal government shutdown. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The vast majority of Americans, including Republicans and those who identify as strong supporters of President Donald Trump, want Congress to renew the enhanced tax credits for people who buy their health insurance from the Affordable Care Act Marketplace, according to a poll released Friday. 

More than 78% of people surveyed by the nonpartisan health organization KFF in late September said they want lawmakers to keep the enhanced credits. Their extension has become a major linchpin in debate about the government shutdown. 

When broken down by political party, 92% of Democrats, 82% of independents and 59% of Republicans supported renewing the credits.

Within the Republican Party, 57% of people who identified as supporting Trump’s Make America Great Again policies and 70% of GOP voters who identified as non-MAGA supporters want to see the tax credits extended, according to the poll.  

Spending bill held up over tax credit debate

The ACA tax credit expansion was created by Democrats in a coronavirus relief bill approved during the Biden administration and set to expire at the end of the year. 

Democrats have repeatedly called on Republicans to negotiate an extension of the enhanced tax credits and have held up a stopgap spending bill to force those talks to happen now, rather than later in the year. 

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Thursday the discussion should happen during the next few months and that GOP lawmakers will press for “major reform.” 

“That’s not a simple issue. That’s going to take weeks to deliberate and discuss and debate, but that’s the beauty of the process. We have three months to do that. That is not an issue for today,” Johnson said. “Today the only issue is whether they’re going to vote to keep the government operating for the people.”

Democrats strongly disagree, saying a bipartisan accord must be struck before the open enrollment period for ACA plans begins on Nov. 1, when consumers will see large cost increases for next year. 

“We can’t accept an empty promise, which is, ‘Oh, we’ll deal with this later,’” Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said on a call with reporters Thursday. “The fact is that this crisis is in front of us now. People are getting this month their premium increases if the Senate does not act.”

Murray said she finds it “ironic” that Republican leaders are saying they’ll negotiate with Democrats on health care once the government reopens after they “refused to negotiate with us during that entire time when government was open.”

The House voted mostly along party lines in mid-September to approve a seven-week stopgap spending bill that has since stalled in the Senate, leading to the shutdown.

The upper chamber, where major legislation needs at least 60 votes to advance, is set to vote again Friday to try to advance Republicans’ short-term government funding bill, though it’s unlikely to move forward amid the stalemate.  

Many of those polled knew little about shutdown debate 

The KFF poll looked at public knowledge and understanding about the enhanced tax credits for ACA Marketplace health insurance plans, finding 61% of respondents knew nothing or only a little about the issue. 

Another 32% of those surveyed said they know some about the policy debate and 7% said they know a lot. 

The poll of 1,334 adults took place Sept. 23 to Sept. 29 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points for a full survey. Each political affiliation question has a margin of error of plus or minus 6 percentage points.

The government shutdown began on Oct. 1, just after the poll wrapped. 

Concern about the ramifications of letting the enhanced tax credits expire fluctuated when KFF asked the question in different ways, though those who said they were “very concerned” never dipped below a majority. 

Fifty-six percent were very concerned and 30% were somewhat concerned when told “health insurance would be unaffordable for many people who buy their own coverage” if the enhanced tax credits weren’t extended. 

The number of people who would be very or somewhat concerned was high among Republicans, 78%, and MAGA supporters, 76%. 

Respondents who were very concerned rose to 60% when told “about 4 million people will lose their health insurance coverage” if they do not keep receiving the enhanced credits. An additional 26% said they were somewhat concerned and 10% said they were not too concerned, with the rest of those polled saying they were not concerned at all. 

When broken down by political party, the number of people very or somewhat concerned remained high, with 76% of Republicans and 73% of MAGA supporters citing worry. 

Small business staff, self-employed people

Fifty-one percent of those polled said they were very concerned when told “millions of people who work at small businesses or who are self-employed would be directly impacted as many of them rely on the ACA marketplace.”

Another 33% said they were somewhat concerned, 11% said they were not too concerned and the remainder said they were not concerned at all. 

Seventy-five percent of Republicans and 72% of MAGA supporters responded they would be very or somewhat concerned when asked that question. 

The poll showed that Congress extending the enhanced tax credits as they exist now comes with some trepidation about the price tag. 

When asked how concerned people would be if they heard “it would require significant federal spending that would be largely paid for by taxpayers,” 27% said they would be very concerned, 36% somewhat concerned, 28% not too concerned and 8% not at all concerned. 

Forty-one percent of Republicans said they would be very concerned, with another 41% responding they would be somewhat concerned. An additional 15% said they would be not too concerned with the rest saying they were not concerned at all.