We don’t have to wait for the Affordable Care Act premiums to explode to see Americans lose access to health care; Republicans are already denying people health care thanks to shutting down the government and, concomitantly, programs allowing millions of Medicare recipients to access telehealth:
The federal government shutdown is forcing a reckoning for two remote health care programs because they automatically expired Oct. 1.
The telehealth and in-home hospital care programs were both temporary — but increasingly popular — options for Medicare recipients. They allowed doctors and hospitals to bill Medicare for telehealth appointments and in-home visits from nurses to provide care that is generally only available in hospitals.
The shutdown has prevented Congress from extending them.
More than 4 million Medicare beneficiaries used telehealth services in the first half of the year, according to Brown University’s Center for Advancing Health Policy through Research [Tim Henderson, “Shutdown Forces Medicare Patients Off Popular Telehealth and Hospital-at-Home Programs,” South Dakota Searchlight, 2025.10.13].
Republicans seem to want Americans to get sicker and poorer.