The U.S. House passed a bill on Thursday to extend Affordable Care Act enhanced premium tax credits for three years, but more steps are still needed.
The move comes after the subsidies expired in December. Seventeen House Republicans joined Democrats to extend them, although a similar measure failed in the Senate last month.
Rebecca Cerese, the senior health policy advocate at the North Carolina Justice Center, says that even if the Senate passes an extension, additional steps will be needed.
“If that happens, they're going to have to do something else called a special enrollment period, which means that they're going to have to extend when people can actually apply for this, because we're going to just run out of time,” she says.
Cerese says some individuals are already seeing higher healthcare costs due to the subsidies ending.
Open enrollment is currently expected to end on Jan. 15.
