Lifelong Trump supporter Catalina Jaramillo faces reality after learning that the Republican Party she has voted for her entire life is allowing the health insurance subsidies that enable her to afford kidney disease treatment to expire.
Jaramillo, diagnosed with acute kidney disease in 2022 when she was 39, has been insured through the Affordable Care Act ever since. She told reporters she is "terrified" and feels like "a deer in the headlights" as enhanced ACA subsidies expire December 31, potentially more than doubling her monthly premium and making treatment for her vulnerable kidneys prohibitively expensive.
"I'm terrified. I'm kind of like a deer in the headlights," Jaramillo said, adding that her health-care predicament has left her support for Republicans "wavering."
Jaramillo resides in Florida, which Trump carried by 13 points in 2024 and which has more people participating in ACA exchanges than any other state. Enrollment there has more than doubled since 2020, reaching 4.7 million, with the large majority receiving subsidies.
The 42-year-old's confusion appears to stem from a decades-long oversight in which she somehow missed that dismantling the Affordable Care Act has been the Republican Party's signature healthcare platform since 2010. The party has attempted to repeal the program over 70 times, with Trump himself campaigning on eliminating it in both 2016 and 2024.
Congressional Republicans have been working diligently toward this moment, with policy makers in Congress and the White House unable to figure out how to extend the subsidies that 22 million Americans depend on. A disproportionate number of those people live in areas that voted heavily for Trump, with West Virginia, Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi experiencing some of the fastest-growing ACA enrollment over the past five years.
In a recent poll, 52 percent of ACA enrollees who are registered voters said spiking healthcare costs will have a "major impact" on which party they support in next year's midterm elections. Almost two-thirds said they would blame Trump or Republicans in Congress for any large increases.
