Most of the roughly 20 employees who work on Justin Miller\u2019s 113-year-old family fruit farm in rural Northern California purchase coverage through the Obamacare marketplace.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s agonizing over what it could mean if health insurance through the marketplace becomes unaffordable for his employees. He fears they might consider leaving his farm for a job that comes with health coverage.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing a small-business owner, especially in a field like ours, where it is tough work and we really understand how hard everybody works, we have to look everybody in the eyes every day,\u201d Miller said. \u201cKnowing that they\u2019re going to have to pay $4,000 or $5,000 more a year to stay on their insurance is a tough pill to swallow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Miller says he already pays a minimum wage of $22.50 and provides sick leave, vacation, retirement, and employee housing benefits.<\/p>\n
Adding health insurance for his employees, he said, would be too costly to keep his farm in business.<\/p>\n
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GOP Pollsters Issue ACA Caution<\/strong><\/p>\n About half<\/a> of the 24 million people enrolled in Obamacare coverage are, or are employed by, small-business owners \u2014 a group that is more likely to vote Republican and overwhelmingly backed President Donald Trump in last year\u2019s election. Farmers, dentists, real estate agents, and chiropractors are among the professions<\/a> most represented among enrollees.<\/p>\n Even Trump\u2019s own pollsters have found deep support for the Obamacare subsidies, warning that failing to extend them could cost Republicans in next year\u2019s midterms.<\/p>\n A poll conducted last month by Republican pollster John McLaughlin found that a majority of independent voters would be less likely<\/a> to vote for politicians who voted to let the enhanced tax credits expire.<\/p>\n Given that \u201capproximately 4 million\u201d people would lose coverage and premiums would \u201cskyrocket by an average of 75%,\u201d the poll also concluded that: \u201cA candidate for congress who let the healthcare tax cuts expire would also be vulnerable to more pointed messages.\u201d<\/p>\n Red States Benefited From the Subsidies<\/strong><\/p>\n Some red states have seen Obamacare enrollment balloon since the federal government began offering extra help paying premiums in the form of more generous subsidies.<\/p>\n Texas and Florida<\/a> have added 2.8 million enrollees each since 2020, far outpacing growth in most other states. Together, the two states now account for more than a third of marketplace enrollment nationally.<\/p>\n A small chorus of Republican lawmakers \u2014 up for reelection next year, mostly in competitive races \u2014 have proposed an extension<\/a> of the subsidies, urging Democrats to vote to reopen the government while simultaneously pleading with House Speaker Mike Johnson to work out a bipartisan deal that doesn\u2019t allow them to simply lapse.<\/p>\n At Cleveland\u2019s barbershops in Austin, about a third of his 18 employees rely on Obamacare coverage. He\u2019s talked to them about their health insurance options for next year but said many hadn\u2019t started thinking about open enrollment, which began Nov. 1.<\/p>\n He\u2019s worried they\u2019ll be baffled once they see the new prices, which currently reflect what customers will pay next year without an extension of the extra subsidies.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a couple of my barbers that are going to go without, because they\u2019re healthy and young, but I thought I was too when everything happened to me,\u201d said Cleveland, now 47.<\/p>\n Republicans, meanwhile, remain wary of voting to extend the additional Obamacare subsidies, said Rodney Whitlock, a vice president at the McDermott+ consultancy who was a longtime congressional staffer and advises on health care policy.<\/p>\n No Republican voted for the extra subsidies when they were introduced in 2021 or continued in 2022. Approving them now, he said, is viewed by many as a band-aid that would temporarily help a program GOP leaders have long lambasted as problematic and too costly.<\/p>\n But, Whitlock noted, many in the party are coming to terms with how the subsidies might affect their changing constituencies. Nearly 6 in 10<\/a> Obamacare enrollees live in a Republican-held congressional district.<\/p>\n \u201cRepublicans are slowly starting to grasp that the lower third of income earners are their voters,\u201d he said. \u201cFor the first time, I think they\u2019re getting there. That battleship turns slowly.\u201d<\/p>\n Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican who has firmly backed Trump, broke with her party last month, calling on the GOP to extend the subsidies. Greene said in an interview that rising health care costs are the \u201cNo. 1 issue<\/a>\u201d she hears about from people living in her district.<\/p>\n \u201cI know a lot of small-business owners, like a family of four, and they\u2019re paying $2,000 a month,\u201d Greene said during the television interview, adding that rising deductibles make the insurance hardly functional for anything other than catastrophes.<\/p>\n She warned in another TV interview that \u201cignoring\u201d the issue could be \u201cvery bad for midterms\u201d next year.<\/p>\n Miller, the farmer who lives in a conservative district in Northern California, expects monthly health insurance premiums for himself, his wife, and two of his children to jump from $264 to $600. His deductibles and copayments are going up, too. He expects all these new expenses will still be on his mind when he goes to vote in the midterm elections next year, he said. Describing himself as an independent, Miller said he is frustrated that few American politicians talk about the type of universal health care coverage that\u2019s available in other countries.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m definitely voting for those that will protect the working American, regardless of party,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n KFF Health News<\/a> is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF\u2014an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF<\/a>.<\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/www.dangeladvertising.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Subsidies_Miller_22-resize-scaled.jpg\")
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