Amid a government shutdown and growing economic uncertainty, one thing is sure: Health insurance — already expensive — is going to get a lot more spendy in the coming year. Part of that is inflation, but another part of it has to do with the tax credits that have helped keep health insurance relatively affordable for millions of middle-class Americans in recent years.
While Republicans in Congress would have you believe that the current government shutdown is rooted in the false notion that Democrats want to offer free health insurance to undocumented people, the truth affects far more than the undocumented. Those individuals have not and will not be added to any prospective health care scheme in this country, and if you can get past that parroted talking point, then you might be able to understand the actuality: That many people you know will soon be faced with insurance premiums that are simply too unsustainable, due to Republicans’ insistence on keeping the enhanced premium tax credit out of the current budget.
This is not some abstract notion that is going to hit someone else, somewhere else. In Oregon, a recent report by the Oregon Journalism Project, citing an Oregon Health Authority report, estimated that some 110,000 people will need to shell out an extra $127 to $456 a month for insurance plans brokered through the Affordable Care Act marketplace. Some are already getting notices of premium increases.
OJP reported that three counties in Oregon will be the hardest-hit by the expiration of the tax credit. Among the three is, you guessed it, Deschutes County. Here, OHA estimates that some 3,750 individuals will lose the premium tax credits.
A tourism expert from Oregon State University posited to OJP that Deschutes’ high number of people working in the outdoor recreation industry is part of the reason we’ll see higher numbers of people hit by the premium increases. These are people who make more than minimum wage but still can’t afford the full meal deal when it comes to health insurance.
As anyone already on the margins knows, Deschutes County is already a tough place to make ends meet. Bend came close to a balanced housing market for the first time in a long time this summer, but housing prices are still high. High-paying jobs are hard to come by. Just last week, a report from Oregon Public Broadcasting stated that the city is bleeding its low- and moderate-income earners.
“Given the growth in high earners, a modest increase in income for middle-class earners and the drop in low-income earners, income inequality has increased at a higher rate in Bend, than the state of Oregon and nationally,” OPB’s report read.
What is most diabolical about all of this — that those in power want you to believe in the tired trope of the scary immigrant, rather than getting real about affordable health care options? Or that hundreds of thousands of federal workers are furloughed — and threatened to not receive back pay — due to the current standoff?
Here in Deschutes County, we live in a beautiful locale that has enjoyed a positive reputation as a place people want to be. Local governments have taken some action to address the housing shortages that have made homes too expensive in Bend, Redmond and elsewhere. We’re just barely starting to see the results of increased inventory — even if not enough of that is actually affordable for the average outdoor-recreation worker.
But even with those efforts afoot, Bend remains among the least-affordable cities in the state to buy a home. With wild increases in insurance premiums coming, we take yet another step back from doing away with the moniker, “Poverty with a View.”
This article appears in the Source October 16, 2025.
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“Those individuals have not and will not be added to any prospective health care scheme in this country”. This is untrue – the Oregon Health Plan, which gets %75 of its funding from Federal dollars, is offered to undocumented immigrants. It is also dishonest to describe the expiration of the enhanced ACA tax credits as a Republican cut. They were set to expire at the end of this year by the Biden administration. We can agree that healthcare in this country is a mess – but The Source should hold itself to a higher standard and tell the whole truth. Both parties have dirty hands on this issue.
“Those individuals have not and will not be added to any prospective health care scheme in this country …”
This statement is ridiculously false. There are numerous states that have numerous schemes (and that is exactly the right word) that provide healthcare (including insurance) to illegal immigrants.