Americans Want COVID-19-Era Policies to Sunset, Poll Finds

A week into the federal government shutdown, Senate Democrats are demanding the extension of expiring enhanced health care premium tax credits, claiming the credits, enhanced by Democrats during President Joe Biden’s administration, are resoundingly popular among the American people.

“Even a majority of Trump supporters by nearly 60% support an extension,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Friday. “People are learning about this issue, and they’re aghast that their premiums could go up so much.”

 But a new poll conducted from Sept. 29 to Oct. 2 finds a majority of Americans support, in general, letting COVID-era policies expire and are less enthusiastic about the health care assistance when told that they are direct subsidies to insurance companies.

OnMessage Public Strategies, a political strategy firm, conducted a poll that showed that 60.5% of Americans agree “the federal government should allow programs that were designed deliberately to address the problems created by the COVID-19 pandemic to sunset, and put those funds to more pressing issues facing Americans.” 

Those enhanced tax credits were introduced during Biden’s administration under the American Rescue Plan Act to subsidize the cost of health care premiums as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic and then were further extended, but currently are set to expire at the end of 2025 by Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.

The Democrat legislation expanded the reach of the health care tax credit to higher-income earners—those earning up to 400% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL)—while also boosting the savings it provided.

Recipients of the premium tax credit can elect to have the credit advanced before filing their taxes, a process in which the subsidy actually flows directly to the insurance provider on behalf of the recipient.

House Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., previously told The Daily Signal he considers the subsidies “a COVID-era insurance company giveaway scheme.”

He added, “The insurance companies have made billions of dollars off the enhanced tax credits. It’s about time to return to the pre-COVID level of tax credits with the original [Affordable Care Act] tax credits.”

When those surveyed are told that “these subsidies go directly to insurance companies, not to Americans using the health care system,” 61.8% of respondents say they are less likely to support their extension.

Additionally, when informed that “extending the federal health insurance subsidies will cost taxpayers $400 billion over the next 10 years,” a 50.6% majority of respondents say they are “less likely to support” extending “federal subsidies for health insurance companies.”

The survey’s polling sample included 44.9% of respondents who said they voted for Donald Trump in the 2024 election, and 47.5% saying they voted for then-Vice President Kamala Harris.

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